Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel

Rhythm and Clues

Copyright © 2016 Rachel Shane

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electrical or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Go On Write

Interior design and layout by Rachel Shane

Graphical elements from Freepik.com and Flaticon.com

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I
hurry down the long hallway of Milford Brook High School, searching for the one person who will change the way everyone at school perceives me. Normally on the first day of school, I make it a point to stand out with clothes I’d doctored myself, a scowl instead of smile, and by staying quiet instead of gushing about my summer experiences. If people think I don’t care, I might believe it myself. But today I feel connected, part of something. Because finally someone knows about my home life, knows about my mother, and still wants to stand by me as a friend.

Or maybe more.

My heart squeezes at the possibility of more but I don’t know where Gavin Tully stands. I haven’t spoken to him since Friday night, when I kissed him for the first time and hopefully not the last time.

Glittery combination locks in pastel colors hang from a few of the lockers in my row. Showy, eye catching, but when everyone copies the latest trend, they all blend into one another. My own rusty combination lock, clipped from the lost and found two years ago, stands out like a busted bulb in a string of Christmas lights. Well worth the two hours it took me to crack the combination.

Thankfully my locker’s in a good location this year. Far away from Isla Gibson’s.

When I open my locker, a small slip of paper flutters out. I sigh. Great, leftovers from last year’s locker occupant. The maintenance department at this school knows how to slack off more than the students.

But I spot my name, Moxie Crane, written in scratchy handwriting on the outside of the folded sheet. My heart does a flip flop. Gavin’s handwriting.

I rip open the paper, my fingers trembling. My chest stills as I drink in the words inside.

Meet at my locker ASAP. 712. 13-42-23
.
Something for you inside.

I hug the paper to my chest. So he doesn’t regret what happened on Friday.

A small smile crests my lips as I shove my extra notebooks into my locker and slam it shut. My backpack swings behind me in my race to his locker. I can’t wait one more second to hear how things went with his parents. How they coped with dropping his sister off at boarding school. How Gavin feels about the newfound freedom of attending public school. And if his parents still hate me for barging into his life, corrupting him, and then busting him out of his homeschool prison.

That worry is strong enough to rip the smile right off my face.

I turn the corner and my stomach instantly sinks in my approach to his locker. He’s not there. Someone as tall as Gavin would rise above the crowd. Instead, someone else strides toward me, her bleached blonde shoulder-length hair making her tan seem even darker. And faker. Isla Gibson’s bandaid of a skirt hugs her legs in a way that would get her kicked out if administration actually paid attention. She crinkles her nose, and freckles dot the surface, which I suspect she paints on to make her look innocent and cutesy rather than the bitch she really is.

True to form, she delivers me a smile that’s part victorious and part condescending. She’s a master at screwing you over twice in one look.

My throat starts to close the way it always does in her presence. I dodge around her, keeping my head down, but elbow a guy in the stomach in the process.

I mumble a quiet apology but it’s too late. He recognizes me and steps in front of my path, blocking me with a palm on my shoulder. “Saw your mom last night.” A few of his friends nearby laugh. “Sorry, no dollar bills left for you.” His eyes trace my body, taking in the safety-pinned outfit I’d reconstructed myself, repairing the old, making it new and improved.

I shove him hard in the chest, and he stumbles backward. My pulse pounds as I amp my pace away, praying no teachers saw that. The last thing I need is detention before the homeroom bell rings.

When I stop in front of Gavin’s locker to catch my breath, Isla squeezes next to me, her shadow darkening my already sour mood. Her lips twitch as if she’s fighting a smile or some juicy gossip. My chest cinches tight as I put her victorious smile together with the fact that she’s trying to gloat about a secret. Gavin must have visited her locker, too.

“Did you get a note, too?” I ask, scanning her fingers for a scrap of paper similar to the cryptic one in my palm.

She fans herself with a packet of regular sized paper. “Note? From who?”

I stand on tiptoes and glimpse at her papers. Guitar tabs. Of course. Not a note to meet Gavin. A breath whooshes out of my lungs.

“Do you know where Gavin is? I told him I’d bring him these”—She smacks the papers in her hand—”when we hung out Friday night.”

My skin prickles. Friday night? Before or after our kiss?

“On our date,” Isla adds, going in for the kill.

My stomach drops. I kissed Gavin on Friday and then he went on a date with another girl? For months Isla had been actively pursuing him while I waited quietly in the wings, playing the role of his best friend. I grip the locker for support. Isla watches me with a triumphant expression. Taking a deep breath, I gather my composure. She’s lying. Gavin isn’t like that. He wasn’t brought up like other teenage boys.

Before I can call her on her bluff, Isla looks past me and waves at someone. “Oh my God!”

I spin around, expecting to see Gavin, but instead I see a hallucination. A girl tall enough and pretty enough to grace a runway—with a natural sheen to her wavy hair and striking brown eyes—strides toward us. Sabrina Tully, Gavin’s fifteen-year old sister. She should be four-hours away attending her first day at expensive Lockhart Academy boarding school. What is she doing here? And why isn’t Gavin with her? And stranger still, how did she get away with wearing jeans and a spaghetti string tank top instead of her usual wrinkle-free and perfectly conservative collared shirt?

“What are you doing here?” Isla asks, her tone both skeptical and excited. While Sabrina is the cause of all my current problems, my past ones originate from Isla. And now they’re BFFs. If they pooled their powers they could make Satan look like a Disney princess.

Sabrina laughs and waves her hand dismissively. “Long story.”

Isla shakes her head and makes an incorrect buzzer sound. “Not an acceptable answer.”

But who cares about that question. “Where’s Gavin?” I ask instead.

“Yeah, I’ve been looking for him too.” Isla pouts.

“Wait, he’s not with you?” Sabrina eyes me suspiciously.

With you
. Probably not. Not if he’s going on dates with other girls. My chest aches.

“I haven’t seen him.”

Sabrina’s eyes dart to the note I’m folding and unfolding in my palm. “He stayed at your house this weekend though, didn’t he?”

Isla gasps. Sabrina cranks her neck to look at the guitar tabs in Isla’s hand.

“My house? Are you insane?” His parents would never let him stay over at someone else’s house. Especially not
mine
. In fact, they once tried to bribe me to stay away from him.