Second Star (7 page)

Across the room, the boys are shrugging as they get up from the couch to welcome me. I look at Pete, smiling.

“Whatever, man,” says a boy whose name I’ll later learn is Matt. “As long as she doesn’t take my room.”

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I say quickly.

Pete shakes his head. “No need,” he says, smiling. “Like I said, we’ve got plenty of room.”

12

I wake up covered in sweat and shivering. In my dream, it was John and Michael who didn’t want me staying in this house, John and Michael surrounded by surfboards as they ordered me to leave. John and Michael insisting that I didn’t belong here. Nothing Pete said would convince them to let me stay.

I stand up and look out the window. Pete put me in a small bedroom with a view of the ocean. The bed is just a mattress on the floor, the pillow is a bunch of beach towels stuffed into a case. The ocean is covered in fog, waiting for the sun to burn it off. I pick up my phone to check the time, but my battery is dead. Stupidly, I take my power cord from my bag and plug it into a socket in the wall, but nothing happens. What did I think, that someone around here pays bills to the electric company?

If I were home, Nana would be sleeping on the edge of my bed. She would have heard me wake up and would have curled up next to me, the same way she’s done every time I’ve had a bad dream since I was ten years old.

But here, there is no one to comfort me. In fact, the house seems strangely still, not as though I’m the only one awake at this hour, but as though I’m the only one here at all. The only sound is the roar of the ocean in the distance. I count the waves, wishing that I could tell time by their steady beat. I pull out my notebook to write down every detail of what’s happened since I got here to Kensington. The name of every boy in Pete’s crew, the look in Belle’s eyes when they agreed I could stay, even the number of surfboards I saw in that guy’s house on the other side of the cliffs. (Well, the approximate number. I didn’t exactly have time to count.) I want to get it all down before I forget. You never know when a useless detail might turn out to be meaningful.

I fill up page after page until my hand starts to hurt. The milky morning light is making me restless, so I stuff my notebook back into my bag, turn the doorknob, and step into the hall. I don’t know why I’m bothering to tiptoe. The white tile floors are cold beneath my feet and gleam in the darkness as though they’ve been freshly polished, but I think the chances of that are about as slim as someone paying the electric bill.

All the bedroom doors are open; I glance into the rooms and see more mattresses piled on floors, more towels used as pillows and blankets, but no sign of Pete or anyone else. I can’t help noticing that every other room has multiple mattresses in it—mine was the only room with only one bed. I wonder where Belle sleeps.

I walk down the stairs, my footsteps sounding like slaps against the porcelain. At once, my footsteps are replaced by the sound of a girl’s laughter, bright but hoarse, as though she’s coming down with a cold.

Or swallowed too much salt water
, I correct myself as Belle slides open the glass door leading out to the back porch and steps inside the house. Pete is only a few steps behind her, balancing two surfboards on top of his head. Both of them are dripping wet.

“Hi,” I say. “Morning.”

Belle turns, fixing her intense eyes on me. I imagine she looks at a wave the same way, once she decides
that’s
the one she’s going to ride, and begins her paddle out to conquer it. I drop my gaze.

“Morning, Wendy,” Pete says cheerfully, either oblivious to or just ignoring his ex-girlfriend’s stare. “Sleep well?”

“Sure,” I say noncommittally, not wanting to think about my dream. “Actually, I’m pretty hungry,” I add mostly to change to subject.”

Belle rolls her eyes, finally breaking her gaze. “You’re out of luck there, Newport. There’s nothing in the house.”

Pete shrugs. “Not to worry,” he says, “We’re going out to snag supplies.”

“The house on Brentway?” Belle says eagerly as a couple more boys come through the sliding door.

Pete ignores her and turns back to me. “We’ll be back with food later. Think you can make it till then?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I can make it till we go over there.”

“You’re not coming,” Belle says. “Wouldn’t want to risk messing up your perfect record, would we?”

Understanding crashes over me like a wave; they’re going to rob a house.

“I have cash,” I say weakly, thinking of the bills in my duffel bag. “I could buy us some food.”

Pete shakes his head. “Save your cash. This house is huge. Believe me, these people can afford to lose whatever we take.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Not with the right crew,” Pete says, gesturing at the boy—Hughie—brushing sand off of his legs behind him. He adds, “And Belle can pick locks like a cat burglar.”

Of course she can
, I think. “I’m going,” I say suddenly.

Pete shakes his head. “You don’t have to come with us, Wendy. Really. We won’t be gone long, and you’ll be better off staying here at the house.”

I shake my head. “I’m going,” I repeat, louder this time.

“It’s really not your scene,” Pete protests.

“I’m here to find a new scene, remember?” I say firmly.

Pete opens his mouth to try to argue, but I shake my head. I’ve decided that I’m going no matter what he says, so there’s no reason for him to waste his breath.

At sunset, I’m riding on the handlebars of Hughie’s bike; Belle and Pete share a bike beside us, and Matt rides a third on his own. They’re smiling; no one seems to find any of this out of the ordinary.

I’m grateful for the roar of the surf, loud enough to drown out the sound of my heartbeat, pounding so hard and so fast that you’d think I was the one pushing the pedals of the bike, past houses with manicured lawns and bright white fences.

At the edge of Brentway, we dismount our bikes. Pete leads the way behind the houses. We creep through backyards with pools and diving boards and swing sets, hiding behind trees and bushes. I wonder what my parents would do if they looked out the windows of the glass house and saw a group of kids tiptoeing past.

When we finally reach the house, Belle’s hands work deftly on its lock, and I pretend not to notice just how proud Pete looks when the back door swings open as though the house itself were inviting us in. Belle makes a beeline for the stairs while Pete and Matt head for the kitchen.

“Where’s she going?” I ask Pete. “I thought we were just taking food and supplies, that kind of thing.”

Pete shrugs. “Belle likes to check out the bedrooms.”

I don’t ask why. Maybe she likes to go through closets and try on clothes. Maybe she likes to slip between clean sheets on beds with plush mattresses and soft pillows. Maybe she likes to take hot showers, since the water in Pete’s house, I discovered earlier, is icy cold.

Pete and Matt move through the house like cats who can see in the dark; I linger in the doorway with Hughie, who’s fussing with the panel for the alarm. I recognize it immediately; my parents have the same kind. You have sixty seconds to disarm before it automatically calls the police.

“Hurry!” I whisper urgently.

He shakes his head. “I know this model,” he says. “We have plenty of time.”

“No,” I hiss. “Sixty seconds from the time we get inside.”

“Sixty?” Hughie says. “Are you sure?”

I nod.

“I thought it was one-eighty.” He turns from the alarm to Pete and Matt in the kitchen. “Shut it down, guys,” he says frantically, struggling to keep his voice low.

I shove him aside. My mother used to forget the alarm code all the time. Some days, she’d forget that we had an alarm at all, and when the police showed up twenty minutes after we walked into the house she was always genuinely surprised. After the fifth time, one of them finally showed her how to disarm the alarm altogether, a secret that the manufacturer only shared with cops, he said. The next time my mother forgot the alarm code, I realized that I was pretty good at disarming the thing with my fingernail.

Now I yank the panel off and stick my hand inside. I figure I have twenty seconds left.

“What are you doing, Wendy?” Pete hisses at me from the kitchen. “Guys, come on, let’s go!”

“Just wait,” I answer. “Hughie, shine the flashlight right here for me?”

“I’m going to get Belle,” Matt whispers, and I hear his footsteps running up the stairs two at a time. But I don’t take my eyes off the panel.

“Hughie, the flashlight, now,” I say angrily. My fingernail breaks; I try another finger instead. “Almost got it.”

Matt is dragging Belle down the stairs.

“We’re getting out of here,” Pete says, but I shake my head. Just one more twist and I’ll have done it.

“Got it!” I shout triumphantly, forgetting to keep my voice low.

“Got what?” Belle says as Pete shushes me.

“The alarm. It’s off,” I say, grinning. Only now do I notice that my heart is pounding, my skin covered in a slick of sweat. I explain to them about the kill switch.

“Way to go, Wendy,” Hughie says, clapping me on the back. “You sure saved my ass.”

I grin. “No problem.”

“Big deal,” Belle scoffs. “The poor little rich girl probably only knows how because her parents have the same one.”

“Well, then thank goodness we’ve got the rich chick with us tonight,” Matt says, laughing.

“All right, guys, keep it down,” Pete says. “Let’s get this thing done already.” He heads back to the kitchen, and Belle heads back up the stairs. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see rings glittering on her fingers that weren’t there when we walked in the door.

Now my heartbeat is steady and strong, my breath deep and smooth. I feel like I’m balancing on a surfboard, having just conquered a monster wave. I follow Hughie up the stairs.

I’ve never been inside such a big house. On the walls are paintings I’d expect to see in a museum. An enormous crystal chandelier hangs down over the center of the stairs, twinkling in the moonlight. I bet it would be beautiful with the lights on, but we don’t exactly want to draw the neighbors’ attention.

“How much time do we have?” I whisper to Hughie.

He shrugs. “All the time in the world, thanks to you.” He begins skipping up the stairs, his feet bouncing up and down on the thick cream-colored carpet. “Come on!”

At the top of the stairs is a long hallway. I hear Belle laughing in one of the bedrooms. “Jackpot!” she shouts, and I wonder what she’s found.

Hughie opens a closed door, revealing a king-size four-poster bed, covered in a plush comforter and the fluffiest pillows I’ve ever seen. It’s the kind of bed you see in a movie about princes and princesses hundreds of years ago. The kind of bed that belongs in a castle.

And suddenly, I want nothing so much as to jump on that gorgeous, perfect bed. I rush past Hughie and leap onto the bed and begin bouncing up and down. I kick off my sandals; the comforter is satin underneath my feet, and after a few jumps I slip, tumbling down onto the pillows.

“You okay?” Hughie asks from the doorway.

I pop right back up. The bed smells like expensive perfume. “You gotta try this,” I say, and Hughie joins me, bouncing on the bed. I feel about eight years old. I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun.

Belle comes in, layers of gorgeous clothing draped over the T-shirt and shorts she wore to ride over here. She looks like a little kid playing dress-up. “What are you guys doing?”

Pete pokes his head in the door in time to see me answer Belle’s question. “Working on our balance,” I say, spinning in a circle on my next jump. “It’ll come in really handy on the waves tomorrow.”

For some reason, this sends Hughie into a fit of laughter, and he collapses into a giggling lump on the bed.

“We’re getting ready to leave,” Belle says finally. She’s trying to look like she’s above all this silliness, but it’s obvious from the way she wears her new clothes that she’s enjoying this just as much as we are. I attempt a pirouette off the bed, but I trip and land sloppily at her feet, laughing. I can see that Belle’s struggling not to laugh, too.

I glance back at the bed before we leave the room behind; it’s a mess. The beautiful comforter is covered in sand; the pillows are tossed haphazardly on the floor. Ever since I was a little girl, I made my bed every single morning. My parents had to beg and bribe my brothers to make their beds before school, but they never had to remind me to make mine. It feels strange to leave such a mess behind.

I follow Pete, Belle, and Hughie down the stairs and out the front door, where Matt is waiting with our bikes in the darkness. He stuffs our lost into backpacks the boys slip on. To my surprise, Belle climbs onto Matt’s handlebars, her new clothes billowing in the wind, and Pete pulls me onto his own.

We speed away silently, riding more slowly than we rode coming here, weighed down by all of our booty. Before we turn the corner off of Brentway, I glance back at the enormous house we just raided. It’s so full of beautiful things that I wonder if the owners will even notice what’s missing.

As the bicycle moves forward in the cool night air, I forget it all: how awful it feels to miss my brothers, to watch my parents’ clothes turn gray, to lie to Fiona; how much it hurt when Belle told me she and Pete were a couple, how my stomach twisted when he carried her board in from the beach for her this morning, when she leaned against him as he rode his bicycle here tonight.

Instead I just close my eyes and let the wind rustle through my hair.

13

Tonight, the wind off the ocean licks the flames of the beach bonfire until I think the blaze will rise all the way up the cliffs and set fire to the houses at the top, starting with Pete’s house directly above, then traveling along the reeds to the garage. I almost laugh, thinking about the bonfire we had after graduation, the one for which we had to get special permission from the local parks department.

Hughie and Matt show up with cases of beer; there must have been some cash lying around the house on Brentway, or maybe they swiped a forgotten credit card.