Island Read Online Free Page B

sounded pretty tempting.
    “Okay,” I said.
    Mary Elizabeth grinned and put her arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry. You’ll love it here.”
    I walked between her and Wes, away from the water. I kept looking over my shoulder, hoping that Colin would appear.
    At the edge of the sand, we reached a rutted dirt road. I heard the clopping of hooves — and a horse and carriage emerged from around a bend.
    “This is the cab?” I asked.
    “Rustic living,” Mary Elizabeth said as she helped me into the carriage.
    It was pretty crude. Slapped together with rough wooden planks, rusty nails, and twine. The ride was bouncy enough to remind me of all my sore muscles.
    We rode past rolling moors dotted with tiny wooden houses and small farms. Along a distant ridge, a woman rode a packhorse laden with baskets. Three children in the middle of a field stopped playing a game of catch to stare at us. An old man waved from a porch. No one seemed in a hurry. I didn’t see one car.
    Before long we reached a meadow surrounded by woods. Across a well-worn field were two large summer-camp-style wooden cabins.
    “Home sweet home,” Mary Elizabeth said.
    “It’s kind of a mess,” Wes added.
    Mary Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “Speak for yourself. She’s not going to the boys’ cabin.”
    “So this is a camp!” I exclaimed.
    “You could say that,” Mary Elizabeth replied.
    The girls’ cabin was crammed with bunk beds. The girls didn’t seem to have much stuff — mainly books and magazines, most of which looked as if they’d been dropped into the water and then dried out.
    A door led to a small bathroom. A pitcher of drinking water stood on a shelf in a corner. A candle sat in a crude fixture nailed to the wall.
    Two other girls were lugging in buckets of water that had been heated over an outdoor fire.
    “No plumbing, either?” I asked.
    Mary Elizabeth shrugged sheepishly. “You get used to it.”
    The bathtub was tiny. Pipes jutted from it, attached to nothing, as if it had been brought here from a junkyard.
    But the water was clean. And hot. And soothing.
    It felt totally luxurious.
    I leaned back, listening to the sounds of laughter and gossip outside the windows.
    My eyelids began to close.
    A dream.
    That’s what this is.
    An island where none is supposed to be.
    A camp. No adult supervision.
    It’s too good to be true.
    I’ll wake up …to Nesconset … to my … dreary … life …
    I must have fallen asleep. Because I awoke to the sound of a bell.
    Mary Elizabeth was standing in the bathroom doorway with an old rusty handbell — and a huge grin. “Wake up, Rachel. Can’t have a dinner party without the guest of honor!”
    I sat forward. “What guest?”
    Colin?
    “You,” Mary Elizabeth replied.
    “What about my friend?” I asked. “Any sign?”
    “Not yet. They’re thinking he must have made it back. Here’s your outfit.”
    She laid out a skirt, shirt, and cotton sweater on a small barrel in the bathroom.
    I got out of the tub and dried myself. The clothes were vintage, kind of threadbare but cool in a funky, retro way.
    As I lifted the skirt, I knocked over a book that had been lying on the barrel. I stooped to pick it up. It was a photo album, warped and mildew stained.
    On the cover, in faded print, were the letters NJHS.
    Nesconset Junior High School.
    So I wasn’t alone. There was another Nesconseter here.
    I set the book down and began to open it.
    “What are you doing?”
    Mary Elizabeth ran in and slammed the book shut, nearly trapping my fingers.
    “I was just looking at — ” I began.
    “We don’t have time!” Mary Elizabeth said.
    “Who’s from Nesconset?”
    “Get ready before your carriage turns into a pumpkin!” Mary Elizabeth ran out, leaving me to get dressed.
    She took the book with her.

She doesn’t know.
    Why didn’t you tell her?
She wouldn’t have gone.
    But she’ll find out on her own.
    And by then it’ll be too late.
Exactly.

8
    “Y OUR COACH, C