Fifteenth Summer - By Michelle Dalton Page 0,21

which rendered her instantly adorable.

The she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me and Hannah.

“Hurry up!” she said.

“What?” I squawked. “I’m not going with you!”

I glanced over my shoulder to look at myself in the Dis and Dat window. My outfit was okay—I was wearing a gauzy vintage swim cover-up that looked better the more it wrinkled, which was a good thing, because it was very wrinkled. But from the neck up my look was . . . problematic. Even in the dim reflection of the window, I could see that a bunch of new freckles had popped out on my face in the morning sun. My hair was so lake-tangled that a neat braid like Abbie’s was out of the question. Even my usual ponytail could barely contain it. Spiral curls sproinged out along my hairline, pointing in all different directions.

“A, yes you are going with me. Both of you,” Abbie said to me and Hannah. “And B, it doesn’t matter how you look.”

Hannah looked at me and bit her lip.

“It matters a little bit,” she said before reaching over and snatching the rubber band out of my hair. I felt my wild ringlets bounce off my shoulders.

“Hey!” I said.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for the past hour,” my mom said with a grin. Turning in her seat next to mine, she scrunched my hair a little bit and then smiled. “I love it. It’s just like Granly’s.”

Then her eyes went glassy.

And I really didn’t want to go down that road—not after the perfect morning we’d just had. So I grabbed my beach bag and jumped up to follow Abbie, who was already halfway down the block. Hannah huffed into place behind me a moment later.

The Silver sisters began to stalk their prey.

Jim or John or James was sauntering slowly about a block ahead of us. He was totally Abbie’s type. Super-tan, super-muscly, and happily aware of both. It turned out he was moving at that turtlelike pace so he could check himself out in every store window he passed. He also had to shake his long, blond-tipped bangs out of his eyes every few steps.

Hannah and I rolled our eyes at each other.

“Perfect summer fling material,” she whispered to me.

“Ugh,” I said. “I know where I’d fling him.”

Abbie was so fixated on sneaking up on him, she didn’t hear us. When she turned to whisper to us, her face was alight.

“I think he’s heading to the Pop Guy,” she whispered. “Score! I can get the boy and dessert!”

“If I hadn’t just seen her in a bikini,” I said to Hannah, “I’d swear she was a boy.”

“ ‘It’s just a body,’ ” Hannah mimicked. She put her hands on her hips and swished them back and forth. “ ‘What’s the big deal?’ ”

I laughed so loud that Abbie turned around and glared at me. I tried, not very hard, to quiet down. Not that it mattered. Jim (or John or whoever) was completely oblivious to us.

He also didn’t seem to be in the mood for a pop. Just before he reached the rainbow umbrella, he jaywalked across the street, heading for the corner.

And on the corner was—

“Oh, no,” I breathed, skidding to a halt.

“What! What is it?” Abbie asked as she and Hannah hopped off the curb in pursuit.

When I didn’t answer, Abbie huffed with impatience and grabbed my hand. She dragged me across the street, almost getting us hit by a pickup truck while she was at it.

Before I knew it, we were pushing through the jangly front door of Dog Ear. Immediately after feeling a rush of best-bookstore-ever happiness, I was seized with panic.

Josh couldn’t see me like this! I was supposed to be wearing my favorite yellow sundress with the bell-shaped skirt. I should have on mascara and lip gloss. My nose should not be bright red after a morning in the sun, and my hair . . . Well, there was nothing that could be done about my hair, but a big hat would have been nice.

I froze in my tracks. Abbie, still clutching my hand, tried to get me to follow her to the lounge, where her boy was headed (probably just to snap up some free snacks without even making the pretense of reading something). But I wouldn’t budge. My eyes darted around the bookstore. Behind the half-dozen stacks of books on the corner of the L-shaped counter, there was a girl with cherry-red streaks in her hair. She