My Top Secret Dares & Don'ts Read online

  “Already broken into the fruit basket, I see,” I tease.

  “Mom said it was okay,” he says, his mouth full.

  Our mother’s bedroom door is closed. She’s probably taking a nap. I grab a red apple from the basket. “I’m going for a walk,” I say to Wyatt. “Tell Mom I’ll be back before we have to go meet Grandma.”

  He grunts.

  Once I leave our suite, I can either head down the curved staircase to the second floor or go down the hall to the south wing. Part of the hall is a catwalk. It stretches across the open ceiling between the two wings and looks out over the lobby. It’s a little high for me. Instead, I slip into a nook in the corner next to the elevator. I keep away from the railing. From here, I can see everything going on in the lobby below, but I’m not close to the edge. I’m in the shadows, so it’s not easy for anyone glancing up to see me. This is how I am most comfortable: watching a world that can’t watch back.

  A young couple strolls in the main entrance. She is holding his arm as if he is the last life preserver on the Titanic. Newlyweds, I bet. They stop to talk to Jess. A side door near the fireplace opens. Breck appears, a garment bag over one arm. He goes beneath the stairs and I lose sight of him. One floor below me, a housekeeper rolls a cart across the catwalk. I slowly eat my apple. Is this what it’s going to be like all summer? Yawn-o-rama. I check my phone for messages. Nothing from Annabeth or Langley. I wonder what they are doing right now. I bet it’s a lot more exciting than what I’m doing. I take another bite of apple.

  Ding!

  Behind me, the elevator door slides open. It’s too late to scurry back to the room or slip down the stairs, so I pretend to be oh-so-interested in my apple.

  Breck steps off the elevator. He’s still got the garment bag. “Fly on the wall, eh?”

  I’ve been caught. I feel my face broil. He’s going to think I have a skin condition. Maybe I do. Lobsteritis, caused by extreme embarrassment. Incurable.

  “It’s a great spot for people-watching,” he says. “Do you like to read?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “There’s a library on the first floor. I can show you, if you want.”

  “Thanks.” Why not? I’m not doing much else.

  “One sec.” Breck holds up the garment bag. “Got to make a delivery first.” He motions for me to come along. I toss my apple core in the recycle bin and start to follow him. Uh-oh. He’s going across the catwalk to the south wing.

  Halfway across, he turns. “You coming?”

  “Uhhhh . . .” I lift my chin to peek over the railing, and the lobby sways to the right. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Folding the garment bag over the rail, he comes back. “Scared of heights, eh?”

  “No. Not at all. Of course not. I’m perfectly fine.” I sound as goofy and guilty as my mother did at the border. And he isn’t buying it.

  “You might as well face it,” he says softly. “It won’t go away until you do.”

  He’s right, but I am not ready to admit it. I hardly know the guy.

  “Take hold,” says Breck. He put his hands out, palms down.

  I give him a suspicious glare.

  “I won’t scare you.” Breck leans in. “I promise. Come on.”

  I don’t want to do it, but it’s either that or race off in the other direction and look like an idiot. I take his fingertips in mine. I hold on loosely. Very loosely.

  “Now look at my hands and tell me what you see.”

  I snicker. “You’re kidding.”

  “I am not. Look at my hands and describe what you see,” he says as if dealing with a squirrelly toddler.

  “O-kay. I see . . . surprise! I see ten fingers and ten fingernails. They’re clean and neat, which is good because most boys do not clean under their fingernails, and that is so gross. I swear, Wyatt’s growing potatoes under his nails. Let’s see . . . The middle nail on your right hand is cut a little crooked.”

  “Good. Look closer. Keep talking.”

  I bend slightly. “Um . . . you’ve got a small cut on your left pinkie. You should put a bandage on that, you know. It’s kind of red already and you don’t want it to get infected.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that. The bandage thing, I mean. Now do the left hand.”

  “Really? Breck, I don’t see—”

  “Trust me.”

  “Okay. I see . . . uh . . . two, no, three freckles on the top of your left hand. If I connected them it would make the letter J. The knuckle on your index finger is a little pinker than your other knuckles.”

  “Is that everything?”

  I scan both hands one more time. “Uh-huh, that’s pretty much it.”

  Breaking our hold, Breck throws his arms wide. “Then we’re done here.”

  I straighten and look around. Whoa! I am on the other side of the catwalk! “How did you . . . ?”

  “Not me. You. You’re the one that did it.” Breck hurries back to snatch the garment bag off the rail. “See, it’s all about power. If you focus on your fear, you give it power. It’s like you let it have all of your energy. You let fear have control over you. But if you put your mind somewhere else—on something far away from what you’re afraid of—you keep the power. You stay in control.”

  “So while my brain was busy studying your hands, my feet naturally followed you and—”

  He stretches out an arm. “Ta-da!”

  I lightly applaud. “Impressive.”

  “It’s a rock-climbing trick. You know, I’ve seen rock climbing help a lot of people get over their fear of heights. I could take you sometime if you want.”

  “Climbing?” My stomach knots as I remember the sheer cliffs we passed on the way up. “We’ll see.”

  We are at the end of the south hall at the Summit Suite. I hear voices inside. I stand slightly behind Breck. He knocks twice on the door.

  “That’s the door,” barks a girl.

  “So get it.” It’s another girl with a similar voice—probably sisters.

  “You’re closer!”

  “It’s your turn!”

  They’re sisters, all right.

  “Puh-lease. You don’t want to pay the pizza guy.”

  “It’s your turn.”

  Breck and I exchange uncomfortable looks.

  “So you . . . uh . . . like working here?” I ask to drown out the arguing.

  “Uh-huh. The people are great. George and Kyle—the other bellhops—are good guys. They’re in high school. Plus, it’s decent money. I could only work part-time until school let out, but now I’m full-time through the summer.” He turns toward the door and mutters, “If we make it that long.”

  Make it that long? I am about to ask him what he means, but the dead bolt clicks and the door opens. A girl with wide blue eyes and streaky blond collarbone-length hair scowls at us. She is wearing a neon pink skirt and several layered tank tops—one light pink, one white, and one dark pink. The second she sees Breck, her big eyes get even bigger and that sour look of her turns into the biggest, fakest smile I’ve ever seen. “Hiiiiii, Breck,” she says.

  “Hello, Miss Tolliver,” Breck says evenly.

  She flashes him a big smile. “I told you to call me Veranda.”

  “Check for olives,” yells her sister. “I ordered olives last time and they forgot.”

  Veranda leans back. “It’s not the pizza guy!”

  Breck holds out the garment bag. “Dry cleaning for your mom.”

  Veranda takes the bag and tosses it over her shoulder. We watch it crumple into a pile on the floor.

  “Hold on.” Veranda leans out of sight then returns to hand Breck a folded Canadian dollar bill. It’s a bright shamrock green, much prettier than the faded green of American money.

  “Thank you,” he says, backing up to leave.

  “Wanna come in?” asks Veranda. “We ordered pizza, as you probably figured out thanks to big mouth back there, and it should be here soon.”

  “Sorry. Can’t. Working.”

&
nbsp; “Quit flirting with the pizza guy, will you?” shouts Veranda’s sister. “The pizza’s getting cold.”

  “It’s not the pizza, Rose!” screams Veranda, shattering our eardrums. She squints to read my HAPPINESS IS A CHOICE shirt then looks at me like I sneezed on her salad. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously,” I say. “I think no matter what situation you’re in you can either make the best of it or the worst of it. It’s up to you.”

  Ha! How’s that for being truthful?

  She pretends to yawn. “How annoyingly optimistic.”

  “It’s more than that,” I say. “ ‘Life is what our thoughts make it.’ I didn’t say that. It’s a quote from Marcus Aurelius the emperor. It’s like when you take a test or have to talk in front of the class—”

  “Or cross a high bridge,” adds Breck.

  “Or cross a high bridge,” I say, feeling my lobsteritis flare up again. “Don’t you usually do better when you think you can?”

  “I guess,” she says dismissively.

  “Don’t guess,” I say. “Know. Guessing won’t get you far in life.”

  “Excuse me?” The sour face is back. “Are you lecturing me?”

  “Um . . . no. I’m sorry. I only meant—”

  “Who lectures people they don’t even know? How rude. Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m . . .”

  I’m stuck is what I am.

  “I could report you to the owner, you know. I could get you fired like that.” Veranda snaps her fingers and I believe her. She searches my shirt for a name tag. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m starving here. . . .” A head pops out from behind the door. “Oh hiiiiii, Breck.”

  I jump back. Veranda and Rose aren’t only sisters. They’re twins!

  “Hi, Rose,” says Breck. He spins me around and points me toward the way we came. “Must be going. Have a nice day, ladies.”

  Veranda slams the door. Hard. The violent bang, and its vibration, rattle me to the core. Breck is pulling me so fast across the catwalk, I don’t have time to be scared. “Are you always so blunt?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “Apathy is one of my pet peeves.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  “I am sorry. Will you get in trouble?”

  “Nah.” He slows down once we are across the bridge. “Veranda and Rose are usually stomping their feet about something.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend her.”

  “The Tollivers are one of the richest families in the province, which is probably why you got under Veranda’s skin. In her world, happiness comes from a shopping bag. I can’t say I agree with her, but . . .” He pulls his hand out of his pocket and unfolds the bright green dollar bill. I see a picture Queen Elizabeth and the numeral 20 in the lower right corner. “. . . she does tip well.”

  “Twenty dollars? For delivering dry cleaning?”

  “Not bad, eh? I’ll take you to the library now.” His lips slip sideways. “It’s a no-talking zone, so you should be able to stay out of trouble there.” Breck reaches to punch the button for the elevator.

  “Wait, Breck. I want to know what you meant when you said you’d be full-time through the summer, if we make it that long.”

  “Uh . . . you heard that, huh?”

  “Is something wrong? Does it have to do with my grandmother?”

  “No,” he says, but his head bobs. It’s a total giveaway.

  “Something is wrong. What is it?”

  Breck shoves his hands in his pockets. He looks down. He shuffles his feet on the shiny oak floor. He is debating whether to tell me, and the longer he waits the more frightened I get. It must be bad.

  “Please, tell me,” I say. “It could take me all summer to figure it out, and by then it could be too late.”

  Breck lifts his head. Worried brown eyes gaze into mine. “Kestrel, it might already be too late.”

  4

  Don’t Get Involved in Adults’ Problems

  What do you mean it might already be too late ?”

  Breck holds up his finger to signal to wait until we are in the elevator. Once the door closes, he starts to explain. “Last fall, guests who’d booked for the ski season started calling to cancel. At first, it didn’t seem like any big deal. You always get cancellations with flu and bad weather and all, but the cancellations kept coming and coming.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s the crazy part. Guests told Dinah and Jess that they’d been called and told all kinds of things—that the roof had collapsed or we’d had a bedbug infestation, even that our dining room had been closed by the health department. That one wasn’t true because I’d know about it, for sure. My mom is the executive chef here. They were all lies.”

  “Who was doing the calling?”

  “Nobody knew. We never did find out. The worst part was . . .”

  The elevator door slides open. An elderly man is standing there, waiting to get on. Breck gestures for me to go ahead of him. “The library is this way.”

  We hurry through the lobby, past the fireplace, bearing right. At the end of a short hallway, Breck turns left and we are, suddenly, surrounded by books. While Breck checks the stacks to make sure we are alone, I get my first good look around. The library is a little larger than your average classroom, with enough space for three rows of four-tiered, freestanding shelves. Next to the window, a pair of red-and-green plaid chairs face one another, an antique floor lamp with a stained-glass shade between them. Cute little green frogs are playing leapfrog around the rim of the shade.

  Breck is back. “Anyway, so even though Jess, Dinah, and your grandmother did their best to try to clear things up, nobody believed them. I mean, if a hotel does have a bedbug infestation, it’s not something they are going to admit, right? Most of the guests ended up canceling their reservations and booking somewhere else.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “We all agreed somebody must have hacked into the computer system to get the guest list,” says Breck. “Jess beefed up our online and in-house security, and we thought that was the end of it.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “Nope.” Breck took out his phone. “Over the past few months, someone’s been posting fake negative reviews about the lodge on all the major travel sites on the Web. Check it out.” He hands the phone to me. “Here’s just one site.”

  “A one-star review? For this lodge? Are they nuts?”

  “Scroll down.”

  They were all one-star reviews, and there must have been at least thirty of them.

  “Read the comments,” says Breck.

  “ ‘The rude bellhop put our luggage in the wrong taxi and we never saw it again.’ ” I slide to the next review. “ ‘We could have played Twister with all the stains on the carpet. There were mice living in the closet!’ ” I let out a shriek. “Mice?”

  “Shhh-shhh-shhh!” says Breck. “Lies, all lies. And for the record, George, Kyle, and I are not rude, and we have never lost a guest’s suitcase.”

  “Look at this,” I say, pointing to a picture of a run-down cabin with the caption, Blackcomb Creek Lodge. “It’s not even this lodge.”

  “Welcome to our world.”

  “This is terrible.”

  “This could put us out of business.”

  I am in shock. Could Grandma actually lose this place?

  “I’ve gotta get back to work,” says Breck. “I don’t know if I should have told you all this or not—”

  “I’m glad you did. Thanks.”

  He gives me an uncertain nod, before leaving.

  I am not sure what to do. Should I tell my mom? Should I say something to Grandma Lark? Maybe she doesn’t want us to know. Is it even any of our business?

  I am still wondering of what to do when we meet my grandmother for dinner. The dining room of the lodge is a lot like her: elegant but relaxed. The fifteen or so rectangular tables are made from sturdy, weathered cedar. Each is circled by a clust
er of high-backed chairs upholstered in a nubby cream linen. The fabric matches the napkins we find folded into delicate swans on our pale blue plates. In the center of each table is a small blue glass vase that holds white wildflowers. Glass lights that remind me of half-moons drip from the ceiling, suspended by swirling bronze arms. They cast a dusty, golden glow over the room.

  The newlyweds sit at a small table in the middle of the room near the see-through fireplace. A couple of older kids that look like they are in college are camped in the corner, their laptops open in front of them. Then there’s the four of us—Wyatt and Mom on one side of the table, and Grandma Lark and me on the other. We are near a wall of windows that looks west, out over a view of steep hills blanketed with fir trees and a deep blue lake shaped like a bunny’s profile. The sun still hangs well above the slopes, but is beginning to paint streaks of rose and tangerine onto the long, flat clouds scattered across the sky.

  Although the halibut and rosemary mashed potatoes are delicious, I spend most of dinner pushing them around my plate. I can’t stop thinking about what Breck told me. It feels strange to be sitting here, pretending everything is all right, when my grandmother could be weeks away from closing the lodge. Isn’t she going to tell us what’s going on? And how long should I wait before I tell anybody what I know?

  “Kestrel, answer your grandmother, please.” Mom is staring at me.

  “I’m . . . I’m sorry, what?”

  “I was wondering if you didn’t care for your food,” says Grandma Lark. “You’ve hardly touched it. Talia can make something else for you, if you like.”