Girl Across the Water
Page 19
He was staring at me, and I realized I hadn’t spoken
more than one word.
“Um,” I said.
I wondered if Dad had phoned Mom today, and what
she’d said. I suddenly missed her, and wanted to see her.
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The Girl Across the Water
“Maybe Mom could come.”
This time it was Dad’s turn to look surprised.
He and Mom got along fine, it wasn’t like there’d be
any weirdness between them. I just figured she hadn’t had
a vacation in so long. Although, when Dad and I spent time
alone together, would she be bored? Would she need
company?
“And maybe Vanessa too,” I said. She and Mom got
along well. Although I was now beginning to wonder if I
was creating a really weird scenario.
“And, you know. Um. Jasper.”
Dad looked really surprised this time, before his face
broke into a huge grin. “Really? Do you mean it?”
This made me scowl. I didn’t want him to be quite so
happy that Jasper might be there. Oh great, what had I
done now, taken the offer of a vacation alone with Dad and
thrown the whole family into the mix? My brain must have
had an attack of the stupids from the pizza-carb rush. I
wondered if I could backpedal out of this.
“If he wants, I suppose,” I said grudgingly. “Club
Med has kids’ camps, right? He could go off and do that
stuff.” Face painting and three-legged races. We might
have been only a year apart, but Jasper was a kid. I wasn’t.
“Sure!” Dad said brightly. “He might really enjoy
that! Meet some more kids his age.”
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The Girl Across the Water
This mollified me slightly: Dad saw him as a kid, too.
And realized Jasper needed friends his age, not just Dad all
the time.
“But he’d have to room with Vanessa,” I added
quickly. “Not you with Vanessa and me with Jasper. No
way. You and I would be rooming together, okay?”
That would sort things out ― Jasper could room with
Vanessa and Mom (sorry Mom) and that way get all the
smothering he wanted. And Dad and I could go off and do
guy-stuff. We’d see them for meals, that would be okay.
“Sure!” Dad said. “And you and I can go off and hit
the bars at night.”
“Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. I knew he was trying
to make me smile… and it was almost working. “I’m too
young to drink,” I reminded him, managing to look serious
again.
“Club Med is French. France has no drinking age.”
I reached my foot out under the table and kicked
him, trying not to laugh. “Dad.”
He smiled, then looked serious again and stared
straight into my eyes. “Thanks, Paul.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
I knew what he meant.
“Well, I guess I’ll go tell Jasper, then?”
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The Girl Across the Water
I shifted my attention back to my remaining uneaten
bit of pizza, and nodded.
“He’ll be… really glad, Paul.”
I nodded again, cramming the piece into my mouth
and picking crumbs off the plate with my other hand.
“Maybe we can start packing up tonight, and finish in
the morning,” Dad said. “You look really tired, even though
you slept so much. I guess this has taken a lot out of us.”
I gave a shrug and finished chewing my pizza. Yeah,
that and the near-drowning you don’t know about.
“My cell phone’s getting reception again, so if you
want to call your mom, you can.”
Dad headed on up the stairs to tell Jasper. I
wondered again if I’d done something completely insane.
But Dad no doubt knew he’d need to keep the Jasper-focus
to a minimum, and let Vanessa step in instead.
Imagining her shriek of delight when she heard the
plans, I picked up the phone to call Mom.
212
Paul VanDerMere is looking forward
to a summer of canoeing, swimming,
and hanging out with his dad at their
lakeside cabin in the woods. At first,
the only thing getting in the way of
his enjoyment is his stepbrother
Jasper. But when Paul and Jasper
are canoeing back from a small,
uninhabited island on the lake, Paul
glances back and sees a young girl
staring back at him. He’s not even
sure if he saw her – was she real, or
an apparition?
He’s soon drawn in to the
unsettling mystery of a
strange girl who randomly
appears and disappears
from the island. When he
hears a local ghost story
about a young girl just
like her, he begins to
wonder if he’s dealing
with a real person… or
something entirely
different.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18