Page 85 of Serenity Falls

‘Yeah.’

‘Then that works even better. You have an alibi. You were at the Pumpkin Patch Party all night. You just do your thing and slip away.’

It could work. After I’d done my bit, Mom would lose interest. There would be other people to talk to and schmooze, so I should be able to sneak off.

‘What about your mom?’ I asked. ‘She won’t be at the party.’

‘No, but she’ll either be too hyper to notice I’m gone or whacked out on pills.’

Milo’s mum was his Achilles heel. A large woman who wore shapeless cotton dresses and a large crucifix around her jowly neck. The only time I’d met her properly (when I called round early for Milo one day) she’d invited me in and sat me in a bare living room with religious texts and more crucifixes on the walls.

‘So,’ she had asked with scary brightness. ‘Serena. You’re the whore of Babylon sent by Satan to ruin my only son?’

Thankfully, Milo had rescued me before she tried to baptise me in the bathtub.

‘She got religion after Dad died,’ Milo told me later. ‘Although you’d have thought watching your husband rot away with cancer might make you doubt the existence of a fucking God.’

That was also when her behaviour started to become more erratic. Milo said she’d been diagnosed as bipolar but she didn’t always take her meds.

‘One day she can be fine. Another she won’t get out of bed, or she’ll be like hyper and crazy, quoting Bible shit and stuff. I try to stay out of her way then. It’s kind of scary.’

I felt sorry for Milo. My mom was a pain sometimes, but I was never scared of her. Irritated, annoyed, but never scared.

‘Can you even drive a boat?’ I asked Milo now.

‘How hard can it be?’

‘So, that’s a no?’

‘Okay. We take something easy like a kayak. Then we just have to paddle.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Or we don’t have to do this at all. Your call.’

Maybe it was my imagination, but ‘your call’ sounded an awful lot like ‘chicken?’ and I was not chicken. I wanted to do this. First, it would be cool to see Harold’s cabin. I mean, who doesn’t want to explore an abandoned creepy old cabin? Second, it would be our secret. Something only me and Milo know about. And third, of course, would be the satisfaction of getting one over on all the mean, popular kids.

‘Okay.’

‘Great. So—’ Milo flipped his notebook open. ‘We need to make a list of stuff to take.’

‘What d’you think we need?’

‘Snacks, drink. Flashlights, obviously. Sleeping bags.’

I stared at him. ‘Why? We need to get back before ten thirty.’

‘Yeah, but y’know, just in case anything goes wrong and we need to sleep there.’

I looked at him doubtfully.

‘But nothing will go wrong,’ he added quickly.

I nodded. ‘Of course not. We’re just going to steal a boat and paddle out through alligator-infested waters to a creepy old cabin in the middle of nowhere. It’ll be fine.’

Milo grinned. ‘Trust me.’

I stared at him … and it struck me again that Milo didn’t look like a geeky kid any more. He looked almost handsome, in an unconventional way. Then I quickly pushed that thought away. This was Milo. My friend.

But still, a strange feeling ran through me. Like this was the start of something. Like what we were deciding to do right now was going to change everything. And I guess it did.

The problem is – endings can often feel very much like beginnings.