Summerlost by Ally Condie Page B

say.”
    I’d had stuff like this happen to me before. Iron Creek was a small town and even in our bigger town I’d had things said tome, usually not meant to be mean, usually just because people are stupid.
    And sometimes people asked me if I was adopted, which I extra hated. I had straight dark hair like my dad’s and my eyes were the same color as his. It felt like I didn’t belong to my mom because I didn’t look like her to people who weren’t looking closely enough. Because if you do, you see that my mom and I actually look a lot alike even though she has blond hair and blue eyes.
    I hated that Leo had said what he did.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Leo said. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
    I could tell he
was
really sorry because, for the first time since I’d known him—even when the Hellfarts were bugging him—he looked pale. And for the first time since I’d known him he didn’t know what to say.
    But I was still mad.
    Right then Cory walked past and knocked off Leo’s hat. “Better let your
girlfriend
get back to work,” he said. I hated his stupid light eyebrows and his sunburny skin.
    Leo bent down and picked up his hat. A lady came by and asked him for a program. He sold it to her without any accent at all.
    I watched Leo and I realized that he also knew how it felt to be different. To want big things in a very small town. To get made fun of. He wasn’t as different as I was. But he alsowasn’t one of those lucky people who fit in all the time. And I thought of the first time I worked with him, what I’d seen. He did like the world—that was the thing about him that I liked the best—but the world didn’t
always
like him back.
    â€œDo people think we’re going out?” I asked Leo.
    He looked (mostly) relieved at the change in subject. “Most people don’t,” he said. “I’ve been telling people that we’re cousins so that they won’t think it’s so weird that we’re always together.”
    I groaned. “Leo, that’s a terrible idea,” I said. “People will think we’re
cousins
who are
dating.
”
    â€œThat’s disgusting,” Leo said.
    â€œI know,” I told him. “Plus, we don’t even look alike. Why would you say that?”
    â€œWe
do
look alike,” he insisted. “A lot alike. We’re both short. We both have dark hair and freckles. And our eyebrows are the same.”
    â€œThey are?” Did mine look devilish too?

5.
    On the ride home we stopped by the new theater construction site.
    They were pouring the foundations.
    â€œJust big craters filled with cement,” Leo said. “No tunnels there. No mysteries.”
    â€œWhat is it with you and those tunnels?”
    â€œThey’re the only place we know Lisette went that we haven’t been,” Leo reminded me. “Maybe we’ll see her ghost.”
    â€œYou can’t really believe that,” I said.
    â€œOther people say they did,” Leo said. “And even if we don’t, this is our last chance to know for sure. At the end of the summer, the old theater and the tunnels are going to be destroyed.
We’ll never know
.”
    When the policeman came to follow up with my mother about the accident, I hid out in the hallway by the living room and eavesdropped on their conversation. She asked him so many questions. Some she’d asked before.
How could this happen? Did they suffer? Why was that driver on the road?
    He said he thought it happened fast, both for my dad andBen and for the drunk driver who hit them, but for the rest of the questions he said,
We just don’t know.
    We just don’t know.
    Some things are gone for good. You can’t get them back. You can’t know what happened. Ever.
    â€œMeg wondered if I wanted to volunteer,” I said. “Maybe if I worked in the costume shop I