Kristen Read online

  Copyright © 2008 by Alloy Entertainment

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  “Bad Boys” by Ian Lewis (Rock Pop Music, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.). All rights reserved.

  Poppy

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group USA

  237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  For more of your favorite series, go to www.pickapoppy.com

  First eBook Edition: July 2008

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-03275-9

  Contents

  THE BAXTERS’ SUMMER RENTAL

  LONG ISLAND SOUND

  THE BAXTERS’ CHEVY

  THE PINEWOOD

  THE PINEWOOD

  THE BAXTER HOUSE

  ROXY/QUIKSILVER

  THE PINEWOOD

  GAS PARK

  PINE STREET

  THE PINEWOOD

  THE COUNTRY CLUB

  THE PINEWOOD

  THE COUNTRY CLUB

  THE PINEWOOD

  THE PINEWOOD

  THE PINEWOOD

  18 GATOR ROAD

  CLIQUE novels by Lisi Harrison:

  THE CLIQUE

  BEST FRIENDS FOR NEVER

  REVENGE OF THE WANNABES

  INVASION OF THE BOY SNATCHERS

  THE PRETTY COMMITTEE STRIKES BACK

  DIAL L FOR LOSER

  IT’S NOT EASY BEING MEAN

  SEALED WITH A DISS

  BRATFEST AT TIFFANY’S

  THE CLIQUE SUMMER COLLECTION:

  MASSIE

  DYLAN

  ALICIA

  KRISTEN

  CLAIRE (Coming August 5)

  For you

  THE BAXTERS’ SUMMER RENTAL

  WESTCHESTER, NY

  Friday, July 17

  11:43 A.M.

  “Rate me.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Ms. Gregory. Rate meeee.”

  “No.”

  “Kristen! Come on, pleeeease. You always rate Massie.”

  “That’s different!”

  “Just say a number.”

  “Fine. Nine.”

  “Ehmagawd! I’m a nine!” Ripple Baxter hugged the shell-framed mirror on the living room wall of her father’s sea-inspired Westchester summer rental. “I knew this pink snakeskin headband was a must.” She petted her deep-fried blond hair.

  “Correction.” Kristen Gregory sat on the wood-plank floor, then placed her over-sweetened lemonade on the nicked surfboard coffee table. “It’s not your score. It’s your age. You’re nine. You have to be twelve or older to qualify for a rating.” Kristen leered at Ripple from across the musty furnished-by-garage-sale cottage. “Speaking of nine, did you know it’s the square root of eighty-one?”

  Ignoring her, Ripple turned sideways and examined her new outfit. A long, pale pink hoodie, meant to cover the hips, practically swallowed the top two thirds of her short, muscular frame. Her knees could have easily been mistaken for extremely saggy boobs, had her purple rhinestone–covered flip-flops not been so close.

  “Ripple, your dad is paying me to teach you math and if you don’t—”

  “Ms. Gregory, he does not, not, not care about math.” Ripple fluffed the dark lashes around her light brown eyes. “All he cares about are waves. He just wants someone to look after me so he can drive out to Long Island and surf. You’re more like a tutor-sitter. Heavy on the ‘sitter.’”

  Funny. Lately Kristen felt heavy on everything. How could she not? While she was sweating in a six-week summer school program, Massie was in Southampton, Alicia was in Spain, and Dylan was in Hawaii. Even Claire had left town. True, she’d gone back to Orland-ew, but it was better than tutor-sitting a bratty nine-year-old for eighth-grade wardrobe money. When would it be her turn to make memories? And when would Ripple stop calling her—

  “Ms. Gregory!” Ripple flipped up her pink hood and checked her reflection in the mirror again. “The only thing you can teach me is how to be Massie Block.”

  “You could start by lowering that hood,” Kristen blurted, then immediately hate-pinched her own leg for encouraging the little wannabe.

  Ripple did as she was told, then reached into her Coach Heritage Stripe Swingpack knockoff and pulled out ten plastic purple bangles. Glued around them was a white price tag that said 5 FOR $2. “Left or right?” She lifted her wrists. “WWMD?”

  Kristen stood and shuffled across the uneven wood floor in Steve Madden cork wedges, her pleated Diesel denim mini swaying below her tight yellow Lacoste halter. “Massie wouldn’t do either!” She grabbed Ripple’s soon-to-be-bangled wrists and pulled her back to the coffee table. “They’re H&M!”

  “Well, then, what would she do?” Ripple widened her light brown eyes in anticipation and propped her elbows on the surfboard table.

  Kristen squeezed the gold Coach locket Massie had sent her for her birthday—complete with a group photo of the Pretty Committee inside—and thought, What would Massie do? But not being an alpha, Kristen wasn’t completely sure.

  “She would do her homework, okay?” Kristen lied, flipping open Ripple’s crisp, unused math textbook. “Now, if a carton of eggs was one-fifty yesterday and is fifty percent off today, how much are the eggs? A, a dollar; B, two twenty-five; or C, seventy-five cents?”

  Ripple plopped down on the green and blue Hawaiian print–covered futon, annoyed. “Why won’t you help me?”

  “Because it’s illegal to help a stalker.” Kristen ran her hand along her stubbly calf, thinking that the best part of her pathetic day might be the leg-shave bath she had scheduled before bed.

  “I am not, not, not a stalker!” Ripple whipped the purple bangles across the room. They bounced twice before settling into a cheap plastic heap.

  “Then focus and answer the question!” Kristen shouted, grateful that they were the only ones home.

  “Wait, I have a better question.” Ripple sniffled. “If your three-week crush told you surf chicks were ‘cute ’n’ all’”—she air-quoted—“but that some sophisticated older girl named Massie Block was super hot, what would you do?” She stood and paced. “Would you A, want to figure out the price of eggs; B, stay true to your surfer roots; or C, ask your dad to hire you the summer math tutor who just happens to be Massie’s BFF?”

  Kristen’s stomach lurched. “You’re using me for Massie info?”

  Ripple smeared glittery pink drugstore gloss on her droopy bottom lip. “It’s not using if you’re paying.”

  Kristen felt dizzy. In that very instant, her entire world had just been turned upside down and dumped like a giant handbag. Yes, she was getting paid, but that was supposed to be for her alpha mind, nawt her alpha friend. So what made her special now? Once again, being Massie’s BFF was her only claim to fame. Her intelligence was meaningless. Gawd! If the game Rock, Paper, Scissors were real life, it would be called Brains, Beauty, Brawn. And Beauty would beat Brains and Brawn every time.

  Someone kicked the front door open. “Hello? Anyone home?” A thick beam of sunlight seeped inside the dark cabin. There stood a shirtless boy. It was as if he’d been summoned by God and delivered by angels.

  “Dune?” Ripple ran to greet her brother. “What’re ya doin’ home?”

  The thirteen-year-old surf star dropped his salty backpack and took off his white straw fedora. Blond hair the color of Baked Lays swung above his shoulders as he lovingly hugged his sister back.

&nbs
p; Awwww.

  “Coach kicked me off the team.” He shrugged like someone who cared but didn’t want anyone to know.

  “Why?”

  “Last night, the Atlantic was all lit up with phosphorescence. It was past curfew, but I had to paddle out and—”

  “In the dark?” Ripple gasped, finally sounding like a nine-year-old.

  “It was totally worth it.” He rubbed his bare chest. “I caught a six-foot left and the water was glowing all green and everyone came out to watch and—” He stepped down the single step that led to the sunken living room and plucked a plastic McIntosh from a bowl of fake fruit on the rickety end table. “Who’s this?” He tossed the red apple in the air and caught it.

  Kristen’s skin stung the way it had when Principal Burns announced, to the entire school, that she had been named captain of the soccer team. He looked right at her, and she blushed as though there were a hundred of him.

  “Hey, I’m—”

  “Oh, this is Ms. Gregory, my tutor.” Ripple flirt-knocked the apple out of Dune’s hand and giggled when it rolled across the floor.

  “Stop calling me that!” Kristen reddened again, this time from rage. She was nawt going to be used and humiliated by a nine-year-old. As soon as their father came home, she was going to quit. Westchester was packed with mathtards. She’d find someone new to tutor by sundown—someone with air-conditioning and decent snacks.

  “Hey.” He snicker-waved, unsure what to call her. “I’m Dune.”

  Kristen remembered seeing him at Briarwood’s wave pool dedication ceremony last spring, but she’d been so distracted by her then-crush Griffin Hastings, she hadn’t noticed what a perfect hang-ten Dune was.

  Ehmagawd! Kristen swallowed hard. Did she actually just think that? Whenever she had super-cheesy thoughts like “a perfect hang-ten,” she was entering crush mode. “You can call me—”

  “Ripple!” Dune suddenly noticed his sister’s pink headband, matching sweatshirt, and purple rhinestone flip-flops. “What are you getting tutored in? Looking like an OCDiva?”

  Kristen gasped silently. Was that what the surf guys called the girls from Octavian Country Day School.

  “Trying,” Ripple admitted shamelessly. “And please, from now on, call me Rassie. Like Massie, but with an R.”

  Dune hiked up his slouching gold and brown board shorts. “It makes more sense if you lose the R.”

  Ripple whipped a stuffed starfish at his defined shoulders. For the first time in her life, Kristen envied a beige pillow.

  “New York sucks.” Dune tugged at the shark tooth necklace hanging around his neck, his mood shifting faster than the tides. “I can’t believe I’m gonna be landlocked in Westchester all summer.”

  Just then a large, fit older man padded through the open door, his bare, callused feet slapping against the dark floors like tap shoes. He clapped Dune on the shoulder. “Whose fault is that, son?”

  “Dad!” Their shirtless chests slapped as they came together for a hug.

  Brice Baxter smiled and ruffled his son’s long straight hair. He wore camouflage trunks and a faded yellow DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY baseball cap. “Now go grab your boards. We’re going barge surfing.”

  “But I just styled my hair!” Ripple whined, petting her scalp.

  Her father chuckled, never suspecting that his tomboy daughter could have been serious.

  “So you’re not mad I’m back?” Dune said to the fallen apple on the floor. “Because I sure am.”

  “Nah.” Brice pulled his cap lower. “Your mother will be mad. But that’s why we got divorced. That woman cannot go with the flow. I would have been mad if you passed up phosphorescent surf. Besides, the Tavarua trip is coming up. Enjoy the break while you can.”

  “I guess.” Dune’s sad brown eyes beamed respect and love for his father.

  “You surf, Kristen?” Brice asked, the crispy corners of his hazel eyes scrunching with genuine hospitality. “Because I’ve been teaching for eighteen years, and I can have you standing by—”

  “Um, no. I’m more of a soccer person,” she blurted, making it perfectly clear that she was far from an OCDiva.

  “Then tell your parents you won’t be home for dinner.” He rested his arm on her sunburned shoulder. “The Baxters are gonna teach you how to surf.”

  Without hesitation, Kristen texted her parents, then followed the Baxters out to their blue Chevy Avalanche. Maybe she could give her job one more chance … for poor Ripple, of course.

  LONG ISLAND SOUND

  WATERWAY MARINA

  Friday, July 17

  1:28 P.M.

  “Okay, kiddos, see that barge over there?” Brice called from the helm of Old Man, his buddy’s twelve-foot floater. He pointed to the east, the top of his tanned shoulder creasing like a worn leather flat.

  Kristen lifted the brim on her moss green and white Chanel bucket hat and searched the middle of the Long Island Sound. Could the floating garbage truck three hundred meters away possibly be the barge he was referring to? Even its slow-churning wake looked stinky.

  She quickly added a third coat of Clarins SPF 30. The first two were to protect her fair skin from the sun’s harmful rays. The last one was to keep the poll-ew-tion out.

  “Once that baby’s close enough, you kids can ride her waves all the way back to Westchester.”

  “Aiyyyyyyyyyeeeeeee!” Dune yelled, tying his blond hair back with a putty-colored rubber band.

  “I told you, I am not, not, not going in there!” Ripple cried, dumping three bottles of O.P.I. nail polish out of her peach Wet Seal tote and onto her blue striped towel. “Massie would never touch the same water as a gah-ross rat-raft … would she?” Her wide eyes filled with hope as they met Kristen’s, as if praying for Massie to have a secret love of barge surfing or a fondness for wading in estuaries.

  Puh-lease!

  Kristen delighted in shaking her head no.

  Ripple gazed out at the navy blue water and sighed. “Didn’t think so.”

  “Suit yourself,” Dune said, waxing his pomegranate red Channel Islands surfboard. “Catch!” He threw a faded black wet suit to Kristen. “I hope it’s to your liking,” he added with a smirk, nodding at the CC logo on her hat and the alligator on her yellow halter, as if mocking and daring her at the same time.

  Ehmagawd! Kristen wanted to shout. I ne-ver buy Chanel. I can’t afford it. Massie gave me this hat because she said my straw Club Monaco was more like a Club Monac-oh-no-you-dizn’t. And I have to wear something on my head or I’ll get fried. And this halter isn’t even real! I bought a pudding-stained Lacoste polo at the Salvation Army, unstitched the alligator, and sewed it on this J. Crew tank. I do that all the time!!! I’m really poor and down-to-earth, like you.

  But instead she caught the stiff black jumper and tried not to gag on the salty rubber smell.

  “Thanks.” She smiled proudly, hoping he’d noticed her stellar hand-eye coordination.

  His wink showed that he had.

  All Kristen could do to hide her blushing cheeks and silence her pounding heart was hurry behind the flapping sails and squeeze into the tight neoprene casing.

  “You guys are so un,” Ripple sighed from her towel. She slid a pair of blush pink knockoff Diors over her heavily shadowed eyes and leaned back on her elbows.

  “Un-what?” Dune stood over his sister, intentionally casting a buff shadow over her ivory linen–covered body.

  “Un–everything that’s cool.” Ripple sat up and jammed a blue foam toe separator between her jagged toenails, then shook a bottle of coral polish.

  Dune gave his father a mischievous smile. Brice nodded once, then quickly dropped the anchor into the water with a plop. He raced toward his daughter and, without a single word, grabbed Ripple’s legs while Dune gripped her underarms.

  “What are you doooooo—”

  They carried her toward the edge of the boat while she kicked and flailed like a hooked fish.

  “Noooooooo,” she pleaded. “
I just got this beach cover-up!”

  Kristen covered her open mouth—hiding her amusement from Ripple and her shock from Dune.

  They swung her once and her glasses fell overboard. Twice and her hair band was gone. The third time they let her go.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” Ripple sailed over the rope railings, her blue foam toe separators still intact.

  Brice high-fived his son while Kristen finished zipping up her wet suit and hurried to the boat’s edge, careful not to get too close to them, just in case she was next.

  “Ehmagawd! It’s subarctical.” Ripple chattered, wiping her soggy hair away from her shadow-smudged eyes, her linen dress ballooning around her like a white chocolate Hershey’s Kiss. “You toe-dally ruined my makeover!”

  “That was the point, Rassie.” Dune got down on his knees and offered her his hand. Ripple grabbed on. But then he immediately let go. “No OCDivas allowed.”

  Kristen’s cheeks burned with shame as Ripple fell back into the muddy water.

  “Dune!” Brice snicker-scolded.

  “What about her?” Ripple grunted as she lifted herself back onto the bobbing boat. “She’s a total OCDi—”

  Uh-oh.

  “Last one in pees in their wet suit!” Kristen whipped off her hat and made a running dive off the boat, plunging headfirst into the chilly sound. The instant brain freeze sobered her senses, numbing her crush symptoms and returning her to her usual state of controlled fabulousness.

  “Whoooooooo-hoooooooo!” Dune ran straight off the boat with his board tucked under his arm. His wet suit remained behind, lying flat on the deck like the chalk outline of a dead body.

  “Aren’t you freezing?” Kristen asked when he surfaced. She could already feel the sun nibbling at her unprotected cheeks but refused to get out now. Instead, she sliced her legs beneath her, treading water and doing her best not to swallow the murky water.

  “Nah.” He sat on his surfboard and whipped his head back, slapping his long wet hair against his glistening shoulders.