Moby Clique by Cara Lockwood Page A

practically on Ryan’s lap. Figures. I look over to Parker’s clone posse, thinking I’d see Lindsay there, too, but she’s nowhere to be found.
    Weird. I wonder if this has to do with Ryan telling her he wasn’t interested, or worse, Parker sending her off on some crazy errand that will get her into trouble. I have a nagging feeling that something might be wrong. Lindsay would never miss a chance to brown-nose the teachers, which is what she does after every morning assembly.
    The teachers file into the chapel, taking their places at the front with Headmaster B. Ms. P brings up the rear, and I notice something different about her. It takes me a minute to realize she’s smiling. Ms. P never smiles, not about anything, ever. Makes me wonder if she’s managed to get a student expelled. That might be the kind of thing she’d be happy about.
    “You think it’s more fictional characters on the loose?” Samir asks, dragging my attention back to the conversation at hand. He looks a bit worried.
    “I wouldn’t rule it out,” I say. “Who are the famous pirates in literature?”
    “There’s Long John Silver,” Hana says.
    “The fried seafood guy?” Blade asks as the music starts, signaling the start of morning assembly.
    “No, from Treasure Island, ” Hana corrects, lowering her voice to a whisper as we all stand for the Bard school song. “Robert Louis Stevenson?”
    “Sure, whatever,” Blade says, pretending to sing but talking instead. “Next you’re going to say it’s Captain Hook.”
    “Well, it could be,” Hana says. “He’s also a fictional character.”
    “None of the men I saw had a hook for a hand,” I say.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I see Heathcliff walk in through the side doors, with his dark curly hair a ruffled mess and dark smudges on his Bard uniform. It looks like he hasn’t changed from last night’s skirmish and he hasn’t slept, either. When his eyes find mine across the room he sneaks into our row, just as the music dies down and the students all sit.
    I mouth to him “what’s up?” silently, since Headmaster B has started her morning announcements.
    “It’s your sister,” he tells me in a forced whisper. “She never came back to her room last night. And when I went out to look for her, I found this in the woods.”
    He drops a half-torn spiral notebook in my lap. It’s Lindsay’s. I’d recognize it and her Ryan Kent love declarations anywhere.
    I flip open the cover and she’s made a few diary entries. They’re mostly about how she loves Bard Academy and how it’s so much cooler than her old school.
    Heathcliff motions for me to skip to the end.
    I flip through her chicken-scratch writing and settle on the last page. At the top, it has yesterday’s date. She’s also drawn a map of the island, and what appears to be a trail to Whale Cove.
    She’s underlined the last lines on the page three times:
She says if I find Whale Cove, I can have Ryan all to myself. She thinks I can’t do it, but I can. I’ll find it.
    Find what? And who’s she talking about? I flip the page, but there’s no more after that. I skip backward a page, but her last entry doesn’t shed any light on it, either. It’s just her talking about how cool Parker’s hair is. There’s not even a mention of Ryan breaking the news. I wonder if he even got a chance to talk to her.
    I glance up and happen to meet Parker’s eye. She gives me a smug little smile, and I get the strong feeling she’s involved in this somehow. What if Ryan never had any intention of telling Lindsay he wasn’t interested? What if Parker, knowing this and being jealous, sent my sister on a wild-goose chase, to make sure she’d be far away from Ryan?
    The notebook does say “she thinks I can’t do it.” Lindsay must be talking about Parker. A dare from Parker would send Lindsay anywhere, even the forest. And by the look of this map, she was planning on heading all the way to the other side of the island.
    The