1 I sidestep a patch of creeping beach grass as I walk down Mile Stretch Road Green crabs catch my eye scurrying over nearby rocks Beyond them gulls stop shredding a piece of seaweed long enough to squawk at me and my friends for interrupting their meal We all have to share this place The crabs The gulls Me Quinnette Boyd Ben Denby scientist jock Ella Philpotts New York transplant and exotic painted bird Dominic Moldarto cap-wearing sci-fi expert and all-around nice guy And Maiden Rock’s summer tourists back in town for June Ninth grade in Rook River is over as of yesterday yesterday I survived After all those years of being tutored in Maiden Rock way out here on the rocky coast of Maine I was more than a little nervous going to a big school outside of town every day Having Ella Ben 1
and Dominic around made it easier And now my best friend from birth Zoe is coming home But Dominic is leaving I take a deep breath of salty air and let the late morning sun warm my face I feel the gravelly sand beneath my flip-flops Why can’t I pick and choose what happens And how it happens Why why why I ask you Ben jogs ahead of us then doubles back burning off energy I really need to run today he says Ella throws her arm around my neck and touches heads with me Q you need to try my newest nail color Blissful Blue Azure I laugh This girl She’s turned me into a sparkly toenail-polish wearer just like her And woo hoo when Zoe comes home tonight my two best friends will finally meet I’ve been telling them about each other for more than a year and soon they’ll be in the same place Sure they’re about as different as chocolate chocolate pudding and lemon pie Ella is a questioner like me A digger-into-problems And yes this gets us into some tricky situations Zoe on the other hand is super cautious When we were eight she wouldn’t even help me crawl across the beam in Ms Stillford’s carriage house so I could dangle from a rope like a trapeze artist I mean seriously 2
Still the thought of them meeting gives me goose bumps of excitement And Dominic is leaving in thirty days which has me tossing and turning at night wondering if I will ever see him again He is and I don’t say this out loud very often my boyfriend We’re copacetic one of Dominic’s favorite words So a tiny voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that if he’s leaving I need to start protecting my heart But I’m not going to think about that today And oh there’s this my dearest darling teacher Ms Stillford who tutored me for my first eight years of school has been bored out of her gourd since retiring retiring last year Now she’s taking her husband crusty lobsterman Owen Loney on a big see-America trip And since you can’t run a lobster pound while you’re seeing America he sold his lobster pound and put his trawler up for sale But following the sale he’s been a mopey coffee-drinking fixture at the end of Gusty’s café counter which I can see upsets Ms Stillford It’s piling on I’m like enough stress already Hey look Ella points to the café where Dad and Owen Loney are wrestling a ladder through the back door Ben takes off running toward them Chuppta He’s always ready to get involved in a project 3
