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It wasn’t supposed to be this hot and huuidebook; everything was supposed to be perfect here, like Cauidebook added absently, for the poison ivy, and ticks, and green flies, and toxic shellfish, and undercurrents in seely peaceful water

The book had also warned against hiking out on narrow peninsulas because high tide could co and strand you But just at thisto be stranded on so as Portia Bain-bridge was on the other side

Cassie had never been so miserable in her life

" and my other brother, the one on the MIT debate team, the one ent to the World Debate Tourna Cassie felt her eyes glaze over again and slipped back into her wretched trance Both of Portia’s brothers went to MIT and were frighteningly accomplished, not only at intellectual pursuits but also at athletics Portia was frighteningly acco to be a junior in high school this year, like Cassie And since Portia’s favorite subject was Portia, she’d spentCassie all about it

" and then after I placed fifth in exteue Championship last year, o All-American"

Just one o ho so sharp that tears came to her eyes Home, where her friends were Where she didn’t feel like a stranger, and unacco, and stupid just because she didn’t knohat a quahog was Where she could laugh about all this: her wonderful vacation on the eastern seaboard

" so my father said, ’Why don’t I just buy it for you?’ But I said, ’No - well, maybe’ "

Cassie stared out at the sea

It wasn’t that the Cape wasn’t beautiful The little cedar-shingled cottages, hite picket fences covered with roses and wicker rocking chairs on the porch and geraniu from the rafters, were pretty as picture postcards And the village greens and tall-steepled churches and old-fashioned schoolhouses made Cassie feel as if she’d stepped into a different time

But every day there was Portia to deal with And even though every night Cassie thought of soly witty reot around to actuallyPortia could do was the plain raw feeling of not belonging Of being a stranger here, stranded on the wrong coast, completely out of her own element The tiny duplex back in California had started to seeht You’ve just got to stand it for one more week

And then there was Moh Cassie, and she quickly pushed it away Mom is fine, she told herself fiercely She’s probably just h this is her native state She’s probably counting the days until we can go home, just like you are

Of course that was it, and that hy herho Cassie here, forwould be all right when they got back ho to ," Cassie said quickly

"What did I just say?"

Cassie floundered Boyfriends, she thought desperately, the debate teaue People had sometimes called her a dreamer, but never asthey shouldn’t let people like that on the beach," Portia said "Especially not with dogs I mean, I know this isn’t Oyster Harbors, but at least it’s clean And now look" Cassie looked, following the direction of Portia’s gaze All she could see was so down the beach She looked back at Portia uncertainly

"He works on a fishing boat," Portia said, her nostrils flared as if she s on the fish pier, unload-ing I don’t think he’s even changed his clothes How unutterably scuzzy and vomitous"

He didn’t look all that scuzzy to Cassie He had dark red hair, and he was tall, and even at this distance she could see that he was s at his heels

"We never talk to guys fro boats We don’t even look at them," Portia said And Cassie could see it was true There were roups of two or three, a feith guys, irls would look away, turning their heads to stare in the opposite direction It wasn’t a flirtatious sort of looking-away-and-then-back-and-giggling It was disdainful rejection As the guy got closer to her, Cassie could see that his sirls closest to Cassie and Portia were looking away now, alhtly, as if it were noso disgusting about hied cutoff shorts and a T-shirt that had seen better days, but lots of guys looked like that And his dog trotted right behind hi anybody Cassie glanced up at the boy’s face, curious to see his eyes

"Look down," Portia whispered The guy was passing right in front of theh she felt a surge of rebellion in her heart It seemed cheap and nasty and unnecessary and cruel She was asha what Portia said

She stared at her fingers trailing into the sand She could see every granule in the bright sunlight From far away the sand looked white, but up close it was shireen arnets Unfair, she thought to the boy, who of course couldn’t hear her I’, but I can’t

A wet nose thrust under her hand

The suddenness of itpushed at her hand again, not asking; de at the short, silky-bristly hairs on its nose It was a Ger with liquid, intelligent brown eyes and a laughing mouth Cassie felt the stiff, ehed back at it

Then she glanced up at the dog’s owner, quickly, unable to help herself She met his eyes directly

Later, Cassie would think of that moment, the moment when she looked up at hiray, like the sea at its most mysterious His face was odd; not conventionally handsoh cheekbones and a determined mouth Proud and independent and humorous and sensitive all at once As he looked down at her his griray eyes, like sun glinting off the waves

Noruys she didn’t know, but this was only so boats, and she felt sorry for him, and she wanted to be nice, and besides she couldn’t help it And so when she felt herself start to sparkle back at hi up in response to his smile, she let it happen In that instant it was as if they were sharing a secret, sogled ecstatically, as if he were in on it too