But—Maia’s not gonna lie—it’s spooky, even during the daytime, and she wishes someone else were here. They all agreed they would meet at two thirty on Saturday; earlier today, Bright had basketball practice, Colton guitar lessons, and Shane an orthodontist appointment over on St. Thomas. Joanie is getting a ride from her mom, who’s happy Joanie and her friends are “finally taking an interest in hiking.”
Maia tries to text Joanie to ask if she’s OTW, but she has no signal. In her backpack, she has three bottles of water, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a banana, so she won’t die, but the idea of hanging out here alone much longer doesn’t appeal. Maia’s mother, Rosie, had brought her to Par Force only the year before. I can’t believe I’ve never shown you this place, she said. Then, once they were inside: I probably avoided it because it’s haunted.
Now that Rosie is dead, ghosts aren’t as scary as they used to be. Maia would welcome a visit from Rosie right now, in any form. Because where is everyone? She worries that this is some kind of prank, that while she was grounded, the rest of the group decided to trick her into going alone. Or maybe at the first meeting, they picked a different clubhouse location—Annaberg or Catherineberg, somewhere easier to get to—and forgot to tell Maia. Maia scrolls back through her texts with Joanie. Meet you at the place. Leaving for the place now.
Snap, Maia thinks. What if the place Joanie is talking about isn’t this place?
But then Maia hears voices. She pokes her head through one of the crumbling stone window openings to see Joanie, Colton, and some girl Maia doesn’t recognize all climbing up the hill together.
“Hey,” Maia says. She’s relieved to see her friends but she wishes it were Shane. Shane is a year older than Maia and he goes to the Antilles School; he’s her crush, and recently he’s become more than just a crush. They have held hands on three separate occasions. Joanie has a crush on Colton, but Colton likes Joanie only as a friend. For now. Both Maia and Joanie are hoping the clubhouse—where they’re going to hang out without any adults watching them—will change this.
“Maia!” Joanie cries out. She runs up the stairs and gives Maia a hug, which seems a little strange since they just saw each other at school the day before, then gives Maia’s hand an extra-hard squeeze. It’s a message of some sort about this unknown girl. Friend or foe?
Colton and the girl follow.
Maia says, “Hey, I’m Maia.” The girl has milky-white skin, long red hair, and a pointy nose. She’s wearing white shorts and a regular pair of beach flip-flops that show off her green-polished toenails and silver toe rings. How did she hike all the way here in flip-flops?
“I’m Lillibet,” she says, shrugging. She peers around the dank inside of Par Force. “I’m in seventh; I go to Antilles. Is Shane here?”
“Not yet,” Maia says. “He had the ortho—”
“Yeah, I know, but he said he’d be here waiting.”
“You know who Lillibet’s sister is, right, Maia?” Colton says. “Dusty. Dusty Beck.”
Maia tries to hide her surprise. Dusty Beck is a bona fide St. Thomas celebrity. Maia—along with twelve million other people—follows Dusty on Instagram. Dusty was on the cover of last year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, and Shane has a copy that she signed; he’d said he got it from “a kid in my class.” Which must have been the sister, Lillibet. What is she doing here?
“Cool,” Maia says. Joanie, behind Lillibet, has her arms locked across her chest and is rolling her eyes. Not cool with Joanie. Okay, then, not cool with Maia either. “Shane invited you?” Maia asks.
“Hey!”
They all turn to see Shane and Bright Whittaker racing up the hill. Maia tries to harden her facial expression, form it into some kind of shell. They created this club the night they met on the beach in Frank Bay because Colton was upset about his parents’ divorce. Colton is staying on St. John with his mom, but his dad is moving back to the States—to North Carolina, the Outer Banks—and Colton will see him only half the summer and at Christmas. As they were talking to Colton that night, trying to make him feel better, it came out that they all had stuff to deal with at home and no one to talk to about it. (That was really true for Maia—her mother had died and a new family had appeared out of nowhere!) So they’d decided to form a club and have meetings in person, not online, which felt old-fashioned in a cool way. They weren’t allowed to discuss club business on their phones. They weren’t allowed to take any pictures or post about the club. It would be a secret society, like the kind they had at Harvard and Yale.
Maia didn’t realize they were allowed to invite outsiders to join. She’d thought it was supposed to be just them—Maia, Shane, Joanie, Colton, and Bright. But five is an odd number, so Maia supposes adding another girl makes sense. She had sort of figured they would discuss it first and vote. But this isn’t Congress or Parliament; it’s a bunch of middle-school kids in the Virgin Islands.
Maia decides to give Lillibet the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Shane invited her for a reason—maybe her sister the model is addicted to drugs, or maybe Lillibet is being bullied at school, or maybe Lillibet’s parents ignore her because Dusty is so pretty and famous.
“Shane!” Lillibet screams. She goes flying down the steps in her stupid flip-flops, and forget the benefit of the doubt—Maia wishes for her to fall flat on her face. But she doesn’t.
