The Fires Beneath the Sea ebook Read Online Free Page A

holding a newspaper open, “we may have to rush when we’re finished eating. Playing at the right time: a cartoon, an historical epic that involves cutlasses and ships, and a thriller that’s probably too scary for Jax.”
    “I want to see the thriller that’s probably too scary for Jax,” said Jax.
    “R rating,” said their dad.
    “The cutlashes,” said Max, still chewing.
    “The ships,” agreed Cara.
    “The cutlasses used in films,” intoned Jax, “are often historically inaccurate, nineteenth-century weapons.”
    “That is correct, Jackson,” said their dad.
    Just then rain started beating down on the roof. Cara loved that pattering sound.
    “Everyone’s bedroom windows closed?” asked their dad.
    But the next moment Jax was staring into the front hall. Cara followed his gaze and saw only the closed screen door and the dimness of the unlit porch beyond.
    “Jax?” asked Max.
    Jax didn’t break his stare. Rufus, lying on the floor beside him with his chin on his paws, stood up and looked in the same direction, his tail held low.
    “Jax,” urged Cara. “What is it?”
    Slowly, still not blinking or looking at them, Jax raised one hand and pointed at the front door.
    Their dad scraped his own chair back and walked to the door; Cara watched as he pushed it open.
    “Hello?” he called, into the dark. “Anyone there?”
    They waited silently. Cara’s stomach flipped. What if—what if … could it be her?
    Jax’s finger still hovered in the air, pointing.
    Their dad flicked on the outside light. The rain picked up.
    “No one,” he said breezily, closing the outside door behind him. He sat down at his place again.
    “What was that, Jax?” asked Cara. “Huh? Did you see something?”
    Jax finally dropped his finger. After a moment he shrugged and shook his head, smiling at Lolly, who’d come in to cut the pie.
    “He was playing with us,” said Max under his breath. “He’s just looking for attention.”
    That made Cara feel bad for Jax. He was never nasty on purpose.
    Still, she felt a hole in the pit of her stomach. He’d gotten her hopes up, even if he didn’t mean to.
    In some ways he was still a baby, boy telepath or not. Before their mother left, he still slept in their parents’ bed when he got scared at night. Now he crept into her own room sometimes, because he had nowhere else to go. Their dad had taken to working late most nights since their mother had left and usually fell asleep on the couch in his study, his desk light still on, a thin blanket hastily pulled over his legs. So Jax couldn’t curl up with him.
    “OK, moviegoers,” said her dad, and laid down his napkin. “We have six minutes for pie-eating. Then on to swashbuckling. No disrespect to your baking skills, Lolly, but eat fast, kids.”
    “Underappreciated,” said Lolly. “That’s my lot in life.”
    By the time they drove home from the movie, it was raining hard, and trees were whipping around in the wind. They’d all raced to the car from the shelter of the theater lobby but got drenched anyway, and now Cara and Jax sat shivering in the back with a fleece blanket pulled over them. The wipers made a rapid thwock, thwock across the cracked windshield of their beat-up wagon as Max and their dad, in the front, argued about the star of the movie.
    “You’ve gotta be kidding,” said Max. “He was supposed to be what—a French naval officer? He sounded like he was from New Jersey.”
    “I didn’t think the accent was so New Jersey,” said her dad. “Maybe Normandy coast. The peasantry, of course.”
    “Get out,” said Max, and cuffed him on the shoulder.
    Then he put his iPod buds in his ears, sank down in the passenger seat, and turned to gaze out the window, beating the rhythm of his music on the seat cushion with one hand.
    “Gimme that,” said Cara to Jax. “Hey! You stole, like, the whole blanket.”
    Jax said nothing, only shivered, so she let it go. Water coursed down the glass, and for the