“Oh, Belle.” Mom reached out for a hug, but Annabelle ducked away and stood.

“I’m . . . I’m meeting Jeremy and Mia. I have to go.”

Mom’s worry line was etched in so deep that Annabelle thought it might get stuck there, the way kids used to say your eyes could get stuck if you crossed them for too long.

“You did your best, honey,” Mom said. “That’s what matters.”

Right.

Annabelle hurried to the front hall to grab her things. “I’ll be back by three,” she called.

“Be safe! Love you!” Mom called back.

Annabelle bolted for the door so Mom wouldn’t have to come up with any more lies to make her feel better.

Or to make herself feel better. About having a daughter who could only get Cs, no matter how hard she tried.

Outside, the sky was bright and cloudless—the same blue as the hyacinths in bloom all around the island. Annabelle fastened her helmet, dropped her bag in the basket of her bike, and started to ride.

She was meeting Jeremy and Mia at Bluff Point, their favorite summer place. It was right off the bike path, so they were allowed to go by themselves, and far enough away from the fancy neighborhoods full of vacation homes that it was never crowded, even once summer people took over most of the island.

Annabelle usually loved riding her bike. She loved that she made her own breeze, even when the air was hot and still like today. She loved the soft buzz of her tires against the worn pavement and the way she knew just how hard to pedal to get through the patches of sand that sometimes covered the ground. Biking was almost as good as swimming for clearing her head and making her feel completely in control.

But today, she couldn’t stop thinking of those Cs on her report card and that look on her mom’s face. The shock that Annabelle couldn’t do any better. There was something else behind that shock, too. Shame? That Annabelle was her daughter, and she was this bad at school?

And how many more Cs would it take before the school decided that she wasn’t a “qualified day student” who deserved special financial aid after all? And what would Mom do then?

Bike tires spun on the ground behind Annabelle, and then there was Jeremy, pulling up beside her. Jeremy would know the right word for that look on Mom’s face, if Annabelle told him about it. He knew the right word for everything.

“I saw you from way back by Brambleberry Street, but I didn’t think I’d catch you,” he said.

“I guess I’m slow today.” She forced herself to smile.

Jeremy grinned back. “You? Never.”

He’d gotten a haircut since school had ended, so the longish light brown pieces that usually hung out the front and sides of his bike helmet were gone. He wore one of his dad’s GREEN CONSTRUCTION T-shirts, and the baggy sleeves hung to his elbows.