“Are you okay?” I ask.
Ari sinks into her seat. “I think so. Just scared the heck out of me.”
“Me too.” I reach over and squeeze her hand.
Her expression is pained when she looks at me. “This is terrible, but when it happened—like, that first split second after they crashed, my first thought was…” She trails off.
“Serves them right,” I finish for her.
Her face pinches guiltily.
“Ari, they were being jerks. And driving really erratically. I hate to say it, but … it does serve them right.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Rather than respond—because I’m pretty sure I do mean that—I withdraw my hand from hers. “I’m glad no one is seriously hurt,” I say. “Including us.” Reaching up, I rub the back of my head, where the lump seems to be going down. “I don’t think my head could handle another collision tonight.”
SEVEN
My headache is mostly gone the next morning, but there’s a lingering grogginess that clouds the inside of my skull as I print out the anglerfish paper, along with Jude’s piece on the basking shark, and get dressed.
“Last day,” I whisper to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. The words are a bit like a mantra, motivating me as I brush my teeth and untangle the same knots from my hair that I work to untangle every morning. Last day. Last day. Last day.
I’ve slept in almost an hour past the time I normally like to get up, and I can hear my family’s chaos already in full swing downstairs. Dad has a Kinks record playing and it’s one of their lively, upbeat tunes, “Come Dancing.” Dad has this theory that starting out the morning with music that makes you feel good will automatically turn the day into an awesome day. I mean, I think there’s something to that, and I believe in starting out on the right foot as often as possible, but sometimes his chipper morning tunes are more grating than inspiring. Everyone in the family has tried to tell him this on different occasions, but he brushes off the criticism. I think he might have the morning playlist for the entire summer already picked out.
Over the music, Ellie—four years old and full of Big Emotions—is screaming about who-knows-what. There are days when I feel like Ellie’s life is just one big tantrum. No, I won’t take a bath. No, I don’t want to put on socks. No, I hate Goldfish crackers. Hey, Lucy is eating my Goldfish crackers, it’s not faaaaaiiiir.
I hear a loud thump and something crashes downstairs, immediately followed by my mom’s shrill scream. “Lucy! I said, not in the house!”
“Sorry!” comes Lucy’s not-really-that-sorry-sounding apology. A second later, I hear the back screen door squeal on its hinges.
Lucy, thirteen years old and embittered to be going into freshman year after the summer, where she’ll officially be back on the bottom of the social pecking order, was probably switched at birth with our actual sibling. At least, that’s what Jude and I have theorized. Lucy is popular, for starters. Like, weirdly popular. And not that cliché teen-movie type of popular. She doesn’t wear high heels to school, she doesn’t spend all her free time at the mall, and she is neither ditzy nor mean. People just like her. All sorts of people. From what I can tell, in my limited knowledge of Fortuna Beach Middle School’s current social circles, she has a connection to pretty much all of them. She plays nearly every sport. She has a functional knowledge of pep rallies and fundraisers and other school events that Jude and I have habitually avoided. It can be unsettling to watch.
The only group she doesn’t seem to have much connection to is us. She has no interest whatsoever in music—she hardly listens to it on the radio and often puts in her headphones so she can listen to the latest true crime podcasts rather than Dad’s record of the day. She’s the only one in our family who’s never even tried to learn an instrument. (Whereas I took piano for two years, and Jude gave the guitar a real shot. Neither of us ever got any good and we both gave up by the end of middle school. The poor keyboard my parents picked up for me at the local pawnshop has been collecting dust in a corner of our living room ever since.)
And then there’s nine-year-old Penny, who loves music, but not the kind my parents have done their best to brainwash us into loving. Instead, she likes pop and R & B and some alternative, the kind of Top 40 hits that don’t usually show up in a record store. She’s the only reason I have any knowledge of contemporary music at all, and to be honest, my familiarity is still pretty sparse. In fact, if my parents hadn’t dragged us to see Yesterday, a movie inspired by the Beatles, I probably still wouldn’t know who Ed Sheeran is.
Ironically, Penny is also the only one of the Barnett kids who plays an instrument. Sort of. She’s three years into learning the violin. One would think that, even being a kid, she would have made some progress in three years, but the sounds she squeaks out of those strings are just as ear-bleeding now as they were the day she started. I can hear her practicing in the bedroom she shares with Lucy as I put on the most vivid red lipstick I have. I need the energy today. I’m not sure if she’s trying to play along to the Kinks or cramming for a lesson. Either way, it’s bringing back my headache. I huff in irritation and start to close the bathroom door.
A foot appears from the hallway, stopping the door in its path. It bounces back at me.
“Hey,” says Jude, leaning against the door frame. “Can you taste the freedom in the air?”
I smack my lips thoughtfully. “Funny. It tastes just like Crest extra whitening.” I cap my lipstick and drop it into my makeup bag. Squeezing past him, I duck into my bedroom. “Did you make all your plans to lay siege to Goblin Cavern or whatever?”
“The Isle of Gwendahayr, if you really must know. I’m designing it to include a series of ancient ruins that all hold clues for a really powerful spell, but if you try to chant the spell in the wrong order, or you haven’t gotten to them all yet, then something really awful is going to happen. Not sure what yet.” He hesitates before adding, “Maybe it will open up a cavern full of goblins.” He’s followed me, but lingers in my doorway. It’s an unspoken rule in our house—never enter a bedroom without a verbal invitation. In general, our family tends to be lacking in firm boundaries, so this is one Jude and I protect at all costs. The house we live in isn’t equipped for all seven of us. There are only three official bedrooms—the master for my parents, Lucy and Penny in bunk beds, and me in the third bedroom, with Jude down in the converted basement. But with “baby” Ellie still sleeping on a toddler bed in my parents’ room, and outgrowing it quick, there’s been talk lately of having to do some rearranging. I’m terrified that means I’m going to be losing my private sanctuary. Luckily, my parents have been too busy with the record store to bother with rearranging and redecorating, so the status quo continues. For now.
“So how was the rest of karaoke?”
I frown at him. “Kind of you to ask, as someone put my name up to sing ‘Instant Karma!’ and didn’t bother to tell me.”
His brow creases. “Really?”
I raspberry my lips. “Please. It’s fine. I’m not mad. It was actually”—I bob my head to the sides—“kind of fun. But still. Next time, give me some warning, okay?”
“What? I didn’t put your name in.”
I pause from braiding my hair and look at him. Really look.
He seems legitimately baffled.
But then, so did Ari.
“You didn’t?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that. Not without your okay.”
I wrap a band around the end of the braid, securing it in place. “But if you didn’t, and Ari didn’t…”
We’re quiet for a moment, before Jude says hesitantly, “Quint?”
“No.” I’d been thinking the same thing, but I have to dismiss it. Quint couldn’t have heard us talking about that song. And Carlos wasn’t around, either. “Maybe the woman who was running the karaoke? Think she heard us and thought I needed the extra push?”
“Wouldn’t be very professional.”
“No. It wouldn’t.” I grab my backpack from where I hung it on my chair last night. “Anyway, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I sang. I danced. I was halfway decent, if I do say so myself.”
“I’m sorry I missed it.”
“I bet you are. I printed out your paper for you, by the way.” I hand him the one-page report.
“Thanks. So, hey.” He raps his knuckles against the door frame. “I was thinking of going to the end-of-year bonfire tonight.”
“What? You?” The annual Fortuna Beach High’s bonfire party is as much Jude’s scene as it is mine. We didn’t go last year, even though lots of freshmen did. I even remember some of our peers going when we were still in middle school. “Why?”
“Just thought I should see what it’s all about. Don’t knock it till you try it sort of thing. Think you and Ari want to go?”
My gut reaction is No way, we’re good, thanks. But I’m still trying to figure out Jude’s motives. I squint at him. He seems casual. Too casual.
“Ooooh,” I say, sitting on the edge of my bed as I pull on my socks. “It’s because Maya will be there, isn’t it?”
He shoots me an unimpressed look. “Believe it or not, I don’t live my life by Maya Livingstone’s schedule.”
My eyebrows rise. I’m unconvinced.
“Whatever,” he grumbles. “I’ve got nothing better to do tonight, and without any homework to keep you busy, I know you don’t, either. Come on. Let’s go check it out.”
I picture it. Me, Jude, and Ari, swigging sodas by a huge bonfire, sand in our shoes, sun in our eyes, watching as the seniors get drunk on cheap beer and wrestle one another in the waves.
My utter disinterest must show on my face, because Jude starts to laugh. “I’m going to bring a book,” he says. “Just in case it’s awful. Worst-case scenario, we stake out a place near the food and read all evening. And I’ll tell Ari to bring her guitar.”