Read the Beach House by Beth Reekles Online Free

  There was merely nothing for me in Pineford. By the end of my sophomore twelvemonth I'd pretty much stopped trying in class, and it wasn't like I had a 1000000 friends and a busy social life I was leaving behind.

So when Mom tentatively asked me, "Madison, honey, do y'all remember you'll really, really be all right if we move to Florida?" my reply was instantaneous:

"Can I start packing at present?" Because moving to Florida meant I could accept a whole new life.

My sister Jenna was the daughter everyone knew back at my schoolhouse in Pineford. She was on the homecoming commission, she was class president, the blonde cheerleader who got the dazzler and the brains. The All-American Information technology Daughter.

And then there was me.

And I just … I wasn't Jenna.

I tried, though. And I was happy enough to go on to myself—though it wasn't out of option that I'd never actually gone to parties, been part of loftier-school gossip, had a boyfriend … I didn't make myself the lonely loser; it was a spot in high school designated for me past other people.

Simply moving to Midsommer, in Collier County, Florida, was my big chance for a completely new life. Nobody was going to judge me past the standards my sister had fix. Nobody had to know what I'd been like in the last couple of years.

I could exist me.

Merely, yous know, a better version of me.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the production of the author'due south imagination or are used fictitiously. Whatever resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2013 by Beth Reeks

Cover art copyright © Getty Images

All rights reserved. Published in the U.s.a. by Delacorte Printing, an imprint of Random House Children'due south Books, a sectionalization of Random Firm LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York. Simultaneously published in paperback by Random House Publishers UK and equally an ebook by RHCP Digital, imprints of Random Firm Group Company, London, 2013.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a diverseness of pedagogy tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

978-0-385-37872-7 (eBook ISBN)

A Delacorte Press eBook Edition

Random Business firm Children'southward Books supports the First Subpoena and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

For the Fishbowl, whose endless antics volition

fuel my imagination for a long time to come

Contents

Cover

Title Folio

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Affiliate 6

Chapter 7

Chapter viii

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Affiliate xiv

Affiliate 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Affiliate 18

Chapter nineteen

Affiliate xx

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Affiliate thirty

Chapter 31

Affiliate 32

Affiliate 33

Affiliate 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Affiliate 37

Chapter 38

Epilogue

Excerpt from The Kissing Berth

About the Author

Chapter 1

"Uh, a latte, please," I say, non even looking up at the waiter. I don't know why I ordered that. I don't even similar coffee. I'm an iced or herbal tea kind of daughter.

But sitting hither in this smart café with its posh name—Langlois—makes me experience so … I don't know—cosmopolitan? Upper-class? Absurd?

"Coming right up."

The waiter walks off, and I focus all my attending back on the jail cell phone in my hands. It'southward some swanky new model—it has a slide-out keypad, 3G Internet, unlimited texts, stores tons of music … It sounds similar a good phone. Information technology looks like a expert telephone. The adult female in the shop said information technology was a good telephone.

Shame I have no thought how to work it.

The manual is on the tabular array beside me, but the spine is stiff, the book unwilling to stay open at the page telling me how to set the Cyberspace.

I hateful, information technology's not similar I know what I'm doing. Not only am I kind of useless when it comes to technology—unless information technology involves downloading and converting music files—I've never had a prison cell phone before. I've never really needed one. It'southward not like I got out much dorsum in Pineford.

I don't remember of it as "back dwelling house." Why should I? I don't miss information technology.

We've been here in Florida for ten days and counting. And I love it already. It isn't just a gamble for me to turn over a new leafage; information technology's a gamble for me to have a whole new life.

A throat clears, distracting me but as I think I've worked this Internet thing out.

I realize why the guy doesn't just put the steaming white mug down on my tabular array: my purse, the empty cell-phone box, wires, and the tiny manual are covering every inch of infinite.

"Oh, sorry!" I repent automatically. I sweep my handbag off and parcel the wires haphazardly into the box.

He sets the latte down, and for the first time I really expect at him. He isn't anything special. You wouldn't look at him and recollect Omigod! considering he'southward so hot. But he is, I accept to admit, kind of beautiful.

The black uniform and dark green apron probably make him look a little paler than he actually is. He has a long bony nose and really bright dark-green eyes with thick, dark eyelashes. His dark pilus is short, in tight one-half-curls. If he ever allow information technology grow longer, I bet he'd have a mass of springy ringlets nigh girls would green-eyed. His long limbs make him expect kind of gangly, though.

"Thank you," I say.

"Anything else I tin become you lot?"

"No, thank you, that'southward fine."

I look back at my new prison cell, then at the manual again—I'm holding it open with my elbow. It sounds like a agglomeration of mumbo jumbo, to be honest. But in that location is no way I'd always effigy out this darn affair past myself.

"Do y'all, uh, need a hand?"

I blink, looking up at him. I hadn't fifty-fifty realized he was nevertheless in that location.

"Don't you lot have people to serve?" I probably sound similar a stuck-up snob, but I don't mean to; I'm just getting frustrated with the phone. I've been here for at least ten minutes already trying to work out one tiny thing.

"We're not that decorated—I think I can spare a few minutes."

He sweeps a paw around and I meet he's correct: a group of three gossiping girls, a couple tucked away in the corner, and a man typing away on his laptop.

"Everybody'southward at the beach," he carries on by manner of explanation. "Enjoying the last few days of summer before school kicks in. Usually this place is heaving."

I nod.

"So—you want some assistance or not?" He gives me an easy, friendly smile. It'southward kind of lopsided, going up higher on the left, but it looks quirky and beautiful on him.

I don't know if information technology'southward the smile or but that I really exercise need the help, but I give in.

"Please?" I say, laughing sheepishly.

He scrapes out the chair opposite me, dropping into it. "What're you trying to practise?"

"I'k non a hundred pct certain. It said something about having to set upwardly the Net earlier you can use it, and th

ere's some kind of code on the box, but I don't know what I'g supposed to do."

He holds out a hand and I pass the jail cell telephone over. I hover over the manual, wondering if he needs it, or if I'thou just an idiot.

He doesn't need the manual, as it turns out.

"What's the lawmaking?"

I read it out off the box, and after a few taps on the cell phone he hands information technology dorsum. "There you go. All washed."

I grinning. "Thanks! I swear, technology has a vendetta confronting me. I nigh broke the microwave terminal week."

It was a chip of an exaggeration, sure. I'd put it on the wrong setting and my pasta had exploded, and so the microwave shut itself off automatically.

The guy laughs.

That's squeamish besides—somewhere between a large, hearty express joy and a chuckle. Merely it makes me want to smile.

Now he's closer to me, I meet at that place are freckles scattered all over his face, clumped around his nose and thinning out every bit they spread over his cheeks.

"You're new around here, then? I'd take seen you before, otherwise."

"We simply moved here. From Maine."

"Nice. My cousins live up there. I've been a few times for Thanksgiving."

"Information technology's okay."

"You prefer Florida?"

I nod, perhaps a bit likewise enthusiastically, since he gives a chuckle. "Improve weather, for 1 thing."

"You haven't seen the storms yet."

"Can't wait," I say, semi-sarcastic, and he smiles again.

I'd been so worried that it would be difficult to make friends here; that things would be just the same as they had been in Pineford; that people simply wouldn't desire to get to know me. Especially being the new daughter: that could go i of two ways, equally I encounter it. They'd either be fascinated by the shiny new toy, or they'd shun me automatically.

It'southward not that I can't talk to people, or that I'm not friendly. I'd just never had people interested in talking to me. Years of that makes a person a little shy, to say the least.

But making friends is easier than I'd anticipated.

"What schoolhouse do you go to?" I enquire, feeling brave. He looks around my age, but maybe he'due south a senior.

"Midsommer. I guess you're enrolled in that location too, right?"

I nod—yet over again. "I'grand a junior. Well, I will be, in a couple of days, anyway."

He laughs again. "Same." He holds out a hand. "I'g Dwight."

Dwight?

Now, that is a weird name, I think. I have never in my entire life heard of everyone called Dwight. Simply somehow, it fits this guy.

"Madison," I introduce myself, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you lot."

"Likewise. How come you're not at the beach, and then? Communicable some last-minute sunday, checking out the guys?"

"I didn't really experience like going on my own. Plus, I needed a new cell."

I say "new" on purpose. It'd seem weird if I told him I'd never endemic a cell before now.

"Ah."

"What near you?" I counter.

"The waves are no good today," he says, "simply I had to cover a shift anyway."

"Waves?"

"For surfing."

"Oh. Cool." I scrutinize him a little. He doesn't wait similar a surfer. I'd always pictured surfers every bit broad-shouldered, muscled guys with shaggy blond hair. And I'd accept thought surfers would be tanned from being out in the lord's day so much. He looks likewise pale and gangly.

I sip the latte to fill the silence a trivial, and can't stop myself from making a face.

Yup. I will definitely never gild a latte again.

"Too hot?" he assumes.

"Uh, yeah … Thanks for the assist," I say apace.

"Requite me a shout if you need anything else, okay? I've got to go back to work before the boss tells me to terminate mingling with the customers." He smiles at me over again. "I'll see you around?"

It sounds like a question rather than a argument, so I answer, "Aye, sure."

"Nice meeting you, Madison."

"Nice meeting you too, Dwight," I say to his retreating dorsum.

Looks like you just made a friend.

And I feel all light and bubbly inside. Maybe plumbing fixtures in here won't be so hard later on all.

Chapter ii

Great-Aunt Gina's death is probably the all-time thing that ever happened to me.

Now, don't get me incorrect—I loved her, and I miss her now. But she had her "favorites" in the family. I mean, okay, and then my dad's brother and his family live over in Nevada, so they were too far away for an old lady to visit. Merely it was us who Great-Aunt Gina came to for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She'd transport my cousins a bank check in the postal service instead.

When I was little, I'll admit I was totally scared of her. She was eighty-nine when she croaked. A tall, bony lady with sparse gray hair and false teeth that always cruel out and clacked together noisily when she spoke. But when I saw the photos, I realized why she'd been some big-shot model in her younger years. Despite her scary-old-lady appearance, though, Great-Aunt Gina had been a genuinely dainty person.

She'd lived in Florida, in a large house by the sea. And when she died, she left us everything.

And I do mean everything. A massive inheritance, her house, and all the vintage dress and jewelry.

At get-go we weren't sure what to exercise nearly it. Sell the property and maybe upgrade to a nicer house in Maine? Proceed it equally a vacation habitation?

I still don't remember who suggested moving to Florida. But whoever information technology was, I owe them large time.

Dad looked into it. He found a private clinic nigh the embankment where Swell-Aunt Gina's house was, and they were looking for a new dr.. Mom found a nice three-bedroom firm with a big garden, and fifty-fifty a pocket-sized puddle, in the suburbs, most a loftier school. Beingness a teacher in simple school, my mom didn't take also hard a time getting a new chore in Florida.

Jenna, my older sister, was already out of Maine by then; she currently attends NYU, and she didn't care if we moved from Pineford, Maine, or not. She was out of in that location, and she planned to stay out.

"It's so ho-hum. Nothing happens hither," she'd told Mom and Dad when they asked why she didn't apply to higher closer to home. "As well, the class looks better in New York. Plus, I want to get out, see the world. That's not happening if I stay in Pineford."

The simply thing that might've stopped them from going ahead was me. And I could non expect to move.

In that location was just zip for me in Pineford. By the end of my sophomore yr I'd pretty much stopped trying in form, and it wasn't like I had a one thousand thousand friends and a busy social life I was leaving behind.

Then when Mom tentatively asked me, "Madison, love, do you think yous'll really, actually be all right if nosotros move to Florida?" my respond was instantaneous:

"Can I start packing now?" Considering moving to Florida meant I could take a whole new life.

My sis, Jenna, was the girl everyone knew back at my school in Pineford. She was on the homecoming committee, she was class president, the blond cheerleader who got the beauty and the brains. The All-American It Girl.

So at that place was me.

And I just … I wasn't Jenna.

I tried, though. And I was happy enough to keep to myself—though information technology wasn't out of choice that I'd never really gone to parties, been part of loftier-school gossip, had a boyfriend … I didn't make myself the lonely loser; it was a spot in high schoolhouse designated for me by other people.

Just moving to Midsommer, in Collier Canton, Florida, was my big chance for a completely new life. Nobody was going to estimate me by the standards my sis had prepare. Nobody had to know what I'd been similar in the terminal couple of years.

I could be me.

Merely, you know, a ameliorate version of me.

I option up the little spoon that rests on my coffee saucer and plow it over in my easily, fishing it so I can see my distorted reflection in the back of information technology. I'm still getting used to see

ing a stranger when I look in the mirror.

When I realized I could build a whole new life for myself by moving hither, I also realized that this was really the perfect time for a makeover. Because that'due south what people do, right? They move someplace new and re-create themselves to be a whole new, better person, don't they? And so that's what I wanted to exercise.

Okay, I didn't have to do anything too drastic. Fatty Maddie had disappeared over a year ago—it was just that nobody had cared plenty nigh me to observe. I lost the braces terminal Christmas. I'd had contacts since February too, and lost those hideous glasses.

But when people have this opinion of you, it's very hard to alter information technology. They've judged you, and they like to characterization you, and they similar yous to stay with that label forever. Yous've been allocated a place in their lodge, and that's where they desire you to stay.

So even when I lost weight, even when I had my braces taken off, fifty-fifty when I started wearing contacts simply because they were more user-friendly than spectacles, nobody cared. People can exist shallow and superficial, but sometimes they're too selfish to care about you.

It got to the bespeak where I stopped caring. Once y'all build up walls, it'south hard to tear them back down.

Now, though, I exercise intendance, for one time, what people are going to think of me.

The new Madison is absurd, spontaneous, daring.

Looking at my stretched-out reflection in the spoon, I can kind of believe I'm on my way to the new Madison.

I touch on a mitt to my hair—not out of vanity, but because I'm even so getting used to having, like, no hair. It's a pretty drastic change, actually: I had long hair my whole life. On anyone else—like Jenna—people might've envied information technology. Simply considering my pilus was a bland shade of dishwater blond, and I didn't even take layers or bangs to liven it up a piddling, you can see why I cut it all off.

Well, non all. But close enough.

Mom flipped when she saw what I'd had done at the little salon in our boondocks. She went all bug-eyed and gawped at me. "I thought you said you were just going a lilliputian bit shorter!"

Only now I smile at myself in the tiny silver spoon, because I dear my new hair. I opted for a short bob, the hair longer at the forepart and then that it frames my face. I got some lowlights likewise as highlights to try and make it look a chip less dull. Oh, and the sweeping side bangs that most obscure my left eye give me a kind of "rock-chic edge," according to Bobby, my hairdresser. I took his word on that 1.

velezthicileares.blogspot.com

Source: https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/beth-reekles/68259-rolling_dice.html

Share this post