Contents ( 66)
- Cover
- Books by Valerie Fraser Luesse
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Map of Florida
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- thirty-eight
- thirty-nine
- forty
- forty-one
- forty-two
- forty-three
- forty-four
- forty-five
- forty-six
- forty-seven
- forty-eight
- forty-nine
- fifty
- fifty-one
- Epilogue
- Keep Reading for a Preview of Valerie Luesse’s Next Book!
- Prologue
- one
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Back Ads
- Back Cover
“I’m Will Fournier!” the man shouted. “Now look out that window and tell me who’s out there an’ back yonder.”
Peyton braced for the next turn and checked out the track. “You’ve got a Chevy comin’ up on this side, but the engine’s on fire—’37 Ford on your bumper!”
“Attaboy!” Will eased up as he entered the banked turn, then swept down it and accelerated for the inside lane, leaving the ’37 and the now flaming Chevy in the dust.
Peyton soon got the hang of spotting and helped Will move ahead of most cars in the pack. By the time they crossed the finish line, they were in third place, and Daytona Beach was littered with wrecked or otherwise disabled cars. A couple of tow trucks set to work removing them.
Peyton watched as Will accepted his third-place trophy and a hundred dollars. Then he waved to the driver and started walking back to his bike.
“Hey, Peyton! Wait up!”
He turned to see the racer coming toward him.
“You forgot your take.” Will took out his wallet and handed Peyton twenty dollars.
“You don’t have to do that—I had fun,” Peyton said.
“Naw, now, them’s the rules. Spotter gets twenty percent. That’s fair.”
“Most fun I ever had on a summer job,” Peyton said with a smile.
“You want to go one more time?”
“Really?”
“There’s another race soon as they get the track squared away, an’ I sure could use you. Same pay—twenty percent o’ whatever I win.”
Peyton thought it over. “Just one more?”
“Yep. One more race o’ twenty laps, and we’re through.”
“Okay.”
Will slapped him on the back. “We might come outta this one with the whole shebang, me an’ you! Meet me at the car in half an hour.”
Peyton had skipped breakfast and was starving now that there was no excitement to take his mind off his stomach. He grabbed a cheeseburger and a Coke at a beachside stand and then went to find Will’s number 10 car in the line that was forming, two vehicles deep, right on the sand.
He got in just a few minutes before the starting gun fired, and the cars went flying up Daytona Beach and into the first turn. Peyton was especially vigilant in the turns because he quickly figured out that’s where a truly heinous crash was most likely. But the thrill of the speed in the straights more than made up for any apprehension he might’ve felt in the turns. It was the closest you could get to flying on land.
They got bumped and scraped and cut off now and again but somehow made it to the final five laps without major incident. As Will accelerated on the beach straightaway, Peyton noticed that the tide was coming in. Ocean water was now licking at the right-lane cars closest to the sea. But nobody was slowing down. Around and around they kept going, and the water came higher and higher onto shore with every lap until Peyton could actually hear the tires splashing through surf and see ocean spray coming off the car in front of them.