Break Point by Kate Jaimet

Author:Kate Jaimet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV032050, JUV028000, JUV039140
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2013-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

chapter ten

I tossed and turned all night. Mom came down from the Tree and sat at the kitchen table until way past midnight, going over papers for her next day’s meeting at city hall. It wasn’t so much the light from the kitchen that kept me awake. It was thinking about Quinte and those scumbags in his gang, the kids who had wrecked the fundraising auction. What if they did the same thing to the concert? Sure, the security guard would be passing by every hour, but was that enough? I wished I had volunteered to sleep over at the club. That way I could have kept an eye on things personally.

I felt off kilter and anxious on my jog to the club the next morning. But when I arrived, everything looked fine. The street stirred with the regular activity of people driving to work and parents walking their kids to school. I did some stretching on the grass in front of the clubhouse and waited until Maddy and her mom pulled up. Mrs. Sharma waved and smiled a big, nervous smile as she came up the walkway. She was trying to act like nothing could possibly go wrong. But I noticed she was grasping her daughter’s hand tightly as she fit the key into the lock and opened the door.

The club was quiet. Nothing looked amiss. Without saying a word, we headed up the stairs to the common room. It wasn’t until I stepped into the room that my stomach unclenched. The place looked just as the girls had left it. The tables were set with white tablecloths, candles and bouquets of flowers. The patio lanterns dangled cheerily from the eaves of the verandah.

Mrs. Sharma let out a half-laugh, half-sigh and flopped into the nearest chair.

“Thank goodness,” she said. She shook her head. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“I do,” said Maddy. She squeezed her mom’s shoulder.

Mrs. Sharma took a few seconds to collect herself.

“Well, good,” she said finally. “Let’s get this day started. We’ll open up the courts, but we’ll keep the pool and the common room off limits until this evening. Connor, you’d better run down to the pool and make sure everything’s okay there.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Maddy.

We didn’t exactly run to the pool. We ambled along instead, basking in the morning sun. Halfway down the white-pebble path, she slipped her hand into mine. She didn’t say anything, just let her fingers rest in my palm. Blood rushed to my head so fast and strong, I didn’t dare look at her in case I grabbed her and started kissing her.

From this distance, our view of the pool was blocked by a row of bushes and a chain-link fence. But as we got closer, I could make out the shapes of the stage and the sound system we’d set up the night before. A cold feeling stole over me.

I dropped Maddy’s hand.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Something’s wrong.”

I picked up my pace and started to run. As

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