Tasha being her dramatic self made me reluctant to show any nerves at all: If I was the level-headed one, I wasn’t going to admit to any doubts about leaving town. And it’s true I love Austin. My hometown is the best city in the world — you can walk or bike pretty much everywhere; it’s beautiful; and there are terrific restaurants, funky coffee houses, great hiking trails, and cool music. And I wasn’t leaving forever — I’d be back in just three months.
But sitting on the lawn looking at my best friend’s sad face, I knew she wasn’t going to be able to even pretend to get excited for me. I also knew that admitting even the smallest case of nerves would totally set Tasha off on another rant, which would only make me more anxious. I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich and reached out to squeeze her arm confidently. “Tasha, I’ll be back before Christmas.”
Tasha sighed and looked at me sadly. “I’m going to miss you.”
Of course, I knew that was what she’d really been saying all along. Still, it was nice to hear it. I hugged her. “I’ll miss you, too, Tash,” I said. “But we’ll both be fine. We’ll talk and text and e-mail. Just think of it as if I’m on a really long vacation.”
I went to sleep that night with my bags packed, gazing up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling and trying to think of it just that way: like a vacation. But Tasha’s words had affected me more than I thought they had. As I lay in bed listening to the footsteps and laughter of passersby outside my building, I felt a cold shiver of anxiety. I’d pretended I was one hundred percent excited about going to Montana in front of Tasha, but I was a little nervous. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Sure, stepping into the unknown might be an awesome adventure, but it was also scary. I drifted off to sleep uneasily, an anxious knot in my stomach.
A minute later, I was outdoors. The air was crisp and clear. I was walking along a wooded mountain path, brushing easily past the branches of wind-twisted trees. Dry leaves crunched under my feet. Above me, the sky darkened, but I wasn’t worried about getting lost. I knew, in the way you always know things in dreams, that I was in Montana, exploring, and my heart was beating fast with excitement, not fear.
I reached a clearing in the woods and gazed upwards. Cygnus, Aquila, and Ursa Major — familiar constellations — shone overhead, seeming so near I almost believed I could reach up and touch them. Just above the top of the trees a huge yellow full moon drifted in the sky.
Behind me, leaves rustled. I turned in time to see something disappearing into the undergrowth. Was it a cat?
I took a few steps forward. Yellow eyes gleamed at me from the bushes. A coyote? I crouched to peek beneath the bush. Whatever was in there whined — a thin, lost sound.
The breeze was rising, turning into a wind. On the wind, I heard, faint but clear, Tasha’s voice again, much more ominous than her joking tone earlier: “You’re going to die.”
Suddenly, I was afraid.
I started to run, and, as I ran, I could hear something coming behind me. I didn’t want to look back.
The path ended abruptly at the edge of a cliff. I wobbled at the brink, catching a dizzying glimpse of rocks and water far below, before turning and looking back. I had to see what had been chasing me.
There was nothing there. And then I fell.
POISON APPLE BOOKS
The Dead End by Mimi McCoy
This Totally Bites! by Ruth Ames
Miss Fortune by Brandi Dougherty
Now You See Me … by Jane B. Mason &
Sarah Hines Stephens
Midnight Howl by Clare Hutton
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jane B. Mason and Sarah Hines Stephens both live in Oakland, California, where they spend their time writing books, including the Candy Apple titles The Sister Switch and Snowfall Surprise, and keeping up with their respective children. This is their first Poison Apple book.
Copyright
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Copyright © 2010 by Jane B. Mason and Sarah Hines Stephens
Cover art by Katie Wood
Cover design by Yaffa Jaskoll
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, POISON APPLE, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
First printing, November 2010
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
eISBN: 978-0-545-41491-3
Now You See Me ... Page 10