Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

My footsteps crunched on a mix of sand, rocks, and shells as I shivered and wrapped my arms tighter around myself. An intelligent person would have taken five seconds to grab her coat before storming out of the house to make a point to her deadbeat dad.

Lake should have been the one out here walking in the cold wind. Why was it that whenever Lake didn’t want something, I got the lousy end of the deal? Lake didn’t want a family—I got to grow up not knowing my dad. Lake still didn’t want me around—I ended up freezing.

Anger fueled my feet and my head remained bent toward the ground, so I didn’t notice the small group waiting outside of Moody’s Variety Store until I stood a few feet from them.

“Look at that,” Elizabeth Connors said, her voice breaking into my thoughts. “The new girl is out all alone. Where’s your little bodyguard?”

I stopped, looking across the short distance toward Elizabeth and Jackie and two other girls from our classes. They all sneered back at me as they sipped from straws in the Styrofoam cups they held.

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” I said. “Want to find out first hand how well I can handle things on my own?”

Elizabeth’s lip curled into a snarl over her drink. “I don’t want you touching me. Who knows what kind of scummy diseases you carry.”

The other girls burst out with shrill laughter as they stood in a line facing off against me. A car drove by, but the man behind the wheel only glanced our way briefly and then kept going without stopping. It was me alone against the people of this island, whether they happened to be arrogant high school girls or a secretive father.

“I’m not playing these stupid games with you,” I said, turning around and starting to walk in the other direction. “Go find someone else to occupy your time.”

I had taken only three steps when something hard hit the back of my head, which then exploded into a cold, wet river trickling down my hair and into the collar of my shirt. A Styrofoam cup landed at my feet, rolling across the crumbling sidewalk as brown soda puddled around me.

The girls doubled over with laughter when I whirled around. Elizabeth’s empty hands made it easy to figure out who had thrown the drink.

“Oh, I am so clumsy,” Elizabeth said in a sweet voice. “But lucky for you, it’s impossible to make you look any worse than you already do. I’d say Diet Coke to the back of the head is an improvement. Wouldn’t you, girls?”

Their laughter grew louder, flooding my ears as I sucked in deep breaths. My mom used to tell me when I got mad to count to ten and let myself calm down. But at this moment, I couldn’t even remember how to count to ten. All I wanted to do was smash Elizabeth’s face into the Diet Coke puddle at my feet.

“That’s enough, girls,” said a voice above us.

Miss Gale leaned over the railing outside the variety store. She glared down at Elizabeth and her friends, her hands tight on the cracked wood.

Elizabeth shrank back slightly, though she tried to sound just as tough as she had toward me. “This doesn’t concern you, old hag,” she snapped.

Jackie and the other two girls took a step back, avoiding Miss Gale’s glare.

“I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with difficult Little Miss Prisses like you,” Miss Gale said, pointing a finger at Elizabeth. “And I’m not afraid to bend you over my knee right here on this street. You’d best be getting on home unless you want to get acquainted with the palm of my hand.”