Second Star by Alyssa B. Sheinmel Page B

them asks, “Why do you want to learn to surf?”
    I smile. “Because I took a wave the other day, and now it’s all I can think about. I even dreamed about it.”
    The boy breaks out in a grin. “I’m Hughie,” he says.
    “Nice to meet you, Hughie,” I answer.
    Beside me, Pete speaks up. “Listen, guys, I think we should let her stay.”
    “Of course you do,” Belle mutters.
    “It’s not like that,” Pete says, and much to my surprise, Belle stays quiet. “We all came to Kensie because we needed to get away from something. Or find something.”
    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