The Summer of Moonlight Secrets

Author:Danette Haworth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-01-28T16:00:00+00:00

33

Allie Jo

“You mind if I sit on the veranda?” I ask Mom and Dad after supper.

Mom looks at me oddly. “This is getting to be a regular habit with you. What’s so interesting out there?”

My heart quickens. “Nothing! It’s just relaxing, you know, moon, stars, that sort of thing.” I lick my lips real quick. “So can I go?”

Mom scrapes a plate; Dad clears the milk. “Yes, go ahead,” Mom says.

I give them both quick pecks and dash away before they can change their minds.

I hope I see Tara tonight. I can’t stop thinking about her. Neither can Chase.

Throughout the day, we’d pieced together what we knew about her: she was from Ireland or Scotland but grew up in America; she has friends at wherever she’s from; something bad happened; no one was hurt, but whatever happened, she ran away and now she can’t go back home.

“And what about how she talks,” Chase pointed out.

I love her accent and the lilt of her voice.

But Chase went on to say it wasn’t just her accent. “It’s the way she talks, like all sophisticated.”

True, but I like that too. I think it makes her sound wise and knowing. She doesn’t speak like a normal teenager, but I guess that’s because she isn’t from around here.

I told him my stepmother theory on why Tara was running away and how that could explain why she has only one outfit.

He shook his head slowly, then snapped to. “It means she ran away suddenly, like not planning it.”

I inhaled sharply. “Yes! Whatever happened, she had to get away right then.” But for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything so bad that someone would have to run away with just the clothes on her back.

I’m still wondering as I close the suite door behind me, leaving Mom and Dad behind. I steal into the service tower, slip outside, and sit by the springs. Crickets and frogs murmur into the night air.

Taking a deep breath, I lean back and let it out slowly.

I wonder what it’s like to be a runaway.

The springhead bubbles and I kick the water. Images of Tara coming out of the springs flit through my mind: Tara slicing through the water that first afternoon I saw her, and later, Tara emerging from the moonlit springs.

Clouds pass over the moon.

I rise slowly. My toes curl over the edge of the dock. Then I jump.

I plunge into the ice-cold water, bubbles and movement swirling around me. My whole system is in shock. When my toes feel the pebbly bottom, I push off underwater, toward the depths of the springhead. I expect to glide like Tara, but my clothes billow and catch water, weighing me down. Strands of algae curl around my foot. I shriek underwater, losing important oxygen.

Something coarse and bristly touches me. I jerk away and bump into another creature. It squeals as we touch. My heart explodes in panic. Currents rush past me in thunderous roars. I can’t tell which way is up or down.

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