Prologue Josie, Age 9
Beach—Whalehead, New Jersey
The Minotaur Coaster was a new addition to my favorite place on earth: Murphy’s Pier in Whalehead, New Jersey.
Every summer I found this place exactly the way it was when I left: the ocean, the boardwalk, and my and Stella’s special secret hiding place under the boardwalk.
But what I liked most of all was being with my sister, Stella. Well, she’s technically my half sister, and she’s my best friend. Since we live so far apart, and I can only see her during the summers, we spend every waking minute of the summer together.
We sat on the sandbar, our legs floating in the salt water. From out there, I could either face the New Jersey coastline, the boardwalk, and all of its wild excitement, or I could look out at the vast ocean and imagine that this water touched the coastline of my home, Australia.
A speedboat zoomed by, towing tandem parasailers in flight, a flock of white seabirds behind them. The parasailers waved down to me and Stella while we stacked fistfuls of wet sand on each other’s shoulders.
“Ready for the fun house?” I asked her.
Stella yelled to Dad, who sat at the water’s edge under a beach umbrella. “Dad, can we go to the fun house?”
He hollered back, “As long as you get yourselves water ice, too.”
We trudged our way back to the beach.
Dad pulled out money, then turned his chair to face the boardwalk. “I’ll watch you from here.”
“Want one?”
“Nah.” He patted his round belly. “I’ll just have some of yours.” He gave us each a hug and kissed the tops of our heads.
Stella broke away first and dashed toward the boardwalk. When she was a safe distance, she turned, giggled, and said in her New York accent, “What are you tawkin’ about? I’m not sharing!”
Dad chased her. “Oh yes you are.” When he caught her, they both toppled into the sand, laughing.
I pounced onto his back. “Let my sista go!” My accent was so different from Stella’s, but we understood each other perfectly.
“You win. You win,” Dad said. “But, for the record two against one isn’t fair.”
We hopped on the hot sand until we got to the boardwalk. We waved to our shore friend, Dario, who bobbed up and down on a big horse on the merry-go-round. After waiting for the oncoming traffic of surf bikes to pass, we finally got into the fun house line.
“Do you have it?” I asked Stella.
She held up the plastic tail from our kite. It had broken off last night, and I wanted to save it to remember what a great night it was. We had a special secret place where we stashed these kinds of treasures.
We entered Kevin’s Fun House, zipped to the bright, shiny hall of mirrors, and paused to laugh at our ultrashort, ultratall, or ultraround selves. Then we giggled our way through foam pillars—a tight fit—and scaled the rope bridge, finally racing to the barrel that marked the loose floorboards. We waited for a crowd of toddlers to pass, and I quickly slid the barrel aside; Stella stomped on the end of the loose boards, popping them up to create enough room for us to jump to the sand below. I pulled the rope we’d tied to the underside of the boards, and the trapdoor slammed shut above us.
This was our hiding place under the boardwalk. I walked to our rock that marked the spot where we’d buried a box—not just any box. It held our special treasures. I dug it up, opened it, and added the kite tail to the gum wrapper, shell, Matchbox car, marble, Barbie, midway game tickets, and other items that represented our many summer adventures—mine and Stella’s.
A few minutes later we were plopped on the edge of the boardwalk, Water Ice World paper cones in our hands, watching the bustle of vacationers who smelled like coconut sunscreen and sweat. Our feet swung over the sand below, and even though we licked, dripped water ice went onto our chins and arms.
I asked, “Stella?”
“Yeah? What?” Stella wiped red water-ice juice off her face with her sleeve.
“I love it here,” I said.
“Me too.”
“Can we do this forever? Exactly this same exact thing every single summer? Just like this. It’s perfect, and I don’t want it to ever change.”
“Sure, Josie. Nothing’s gonna change.”
* * *
But, like all perfect things, it did.
Part One Four Years Later
One Stella
603 Whalehead Street
June 18
The music on the car radio broke:
“Murielle duPluie here with the Whalehead news from the Jersey Shore. Welcome to the summer. It’s gonna be a hot one today. Stay tuned to WLEO all season for the latest happenings.”
My mom stopped in front of 603 Whalehead Street. “Listen, Stell,” she said. “Stay out of trouble, okay? If you get a third strike… Well, you know.”
“I got it, Mom.”
She leaned over and kissed me. “Have a great summer. Say hi to Josie for me, and cawl me.” Mom sounds like me—a total New Yorker. “And text me every single solitary day. And send lots of pictures.” She sighed and put her hand on her heart. “Ugh, I miss you already.” She kissed me again and drove away without saying hello to her first husband, my dad, Gary Higley.
I barely got up the gravel driveway before my sister, Josie, ran out of the house.
“Stellaaaa! You’re finally here!”
As soon as I saw Josie, I knew things were going to be different this summer.
Well, Josie herself wasn’t different. She seemed exactly the same as last summer, and the one before, and the one before that, right down to the Whalehead T-shirt and gray gym shorts.
That was the problem.
I’d expected the ready-to-enter-high-school version of Josie. After all, I’d become the ready-to-enter-high-school version of me, partly thanks to some new friends who turned out to not really be friends and caused me to get in trouble. Twice.
Well, I guess it wasn’t all their fault. Anyway, I couldn’t get in trouble this summer, which wouldn’t be any problem, because I’d be with Josie, and she never did anything bad.
“G’day, Stella!” Josie hugged me and bounced up and down. “Put your stuff away so we can hit the boardwalk. I’m dying for water ice.” With her accent, “ice” sounds like “oyce.” When we were kids, and Josie wasn’t around, I’d imitate her and tell people I was Australian. “I can’t get it at home, you know?”
I hugged her back. “Get outta here. I’m sure they have water ice somewhere—it’s a big country.”
“Oh, it’s not the same,” Josie said, and trailed behind me as she wheeled my suitcase into the house. “Whose shorts are those?”
I looked down at my cutoffs. “They’re mine. You like them?”
She poked at the skin that was just at the frayed hemline of my shorts. “They are definitely… cheeky!”
“It’s supposed to be that way.” I’d worn these shorts a hundred times and never felt self-conscious before, but now I wondered if my butt really did show too much.
Dad met us in the living room. “Stella! Where have you been? We’ve been waiting and waiting.” He smooshed my face into his chest. I saw Dad pretty much every other weekend, except when I had activities in the city that I didn’t want to miss, but he always acted like it’d been forever.