First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd

A CBS COMPANY

Originally published in the USA 2010 by Simon & Schuster Books For Young

Readers an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. 1230

Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.

www.simonandschuster.co.uk

Text copyright © Kieran Viola 2010

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

No reproduction without permission.

All rights reserved.

The right of Kieran Viola to be identified as the author of this work

has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the

Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988.

Simon & Schuster UK Ltd

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either

the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-0-85707-044-9

eBook ISBN: 978-0-85707-045-6

Printed and bound in the UK.

For Matt and Brady

august

Oh. My. God. You are never going to believe who I just saw driving through town in a Subaru.

Who?

Ally. Ryan.

You’re not serious.

Do I look like I’m laughing?

I heard she’s been sunning herself on the French Riviera for the past two years, living off all our college funds.

No way. Her dad lost all that money.

My mom says they’ve been living in a trailer in West Virginia somewhere, like, under a bridge or something.

Oh my God. Did she look malnourished?

Her hair was kind of frizzy. . . .

I can’t believe she’s back. Does Chloe know?

Are you kidding? She sent a 911 text to the girls and they’re already convening at Jump.

Unbelievable. Ally Ryan back in Orchard Hill.

I cannot wait for the first day of school.

ally

“So? What do you think?”

Hmm. What did I think? I had to take a moment to sort out an answer to that one. Here’s what I came up with.

I thought that my ass hurt from sitting for four straight hours on the car ride from Maryland to New Jersey. I thought that the dingy gray condo in front of which I was now standing—discernible as my new home solely by the fact that the movers had propped the storm door open with a cinder block—was butthole hideous. Although, on the bright side, it was exactly the same butthole hideous as every other condominium on this particular block of the Orchard View condo complex, so at least it wasn’t alone in its butthole hideousness. I thought that the last time I had been in Orchard Hill, about eighteen months ago, there had been a gorgeous apple orchard right where I was standing—an orchard that actually made sense of the name Orchard Hill—and that now it was gone. So not only was there no orchard anywhere near the Orchard View condominiums, but there was also no view, because we were at the bottom of the hill from which one would have viewed said orchard, back when said orchard existed.

Sigh.

I also thought—no, knew—that the way I answered this question would determine my mother’s mood for the rest of the day. The rest of the week. Maybe the rest of the year.

So I smiled and said, “It’s great, Mom.”

Her tired, sad eyes brightened, and the tension disappeared from her smile. “Don’t you think? And, honey, it’s not forever. I’m going to put half my paycheck away every week, and Danielle says that before we know it we’ll be able to afford one of those cute little houses over by the library and . . .”

Danielle was Danielle Moore, mother of my old friend Shannen Moore and the only one of my mom’s friends from Orchard Hill who still talked to her. Probably because she understood that wives and daughters should not be held responsible for the actions of husbands and fathers. Mrs. Moore was also the realtor who’d found us this lovely little condo in the first place. I reminded myself not to thank her when I saw her again.

I missed the rest of my mother’s rambled promises because one of the movers—a round dude with too much facial hair—was walking by with my bike on his shoulder.

“Um . . . excuse me? Could I get that, please?” I asked, swallowing my aversion to strange men with pit stains.

He grunted and dropped my bike to the ground so hard that I swear I heard the suspension whimper. But at least it was my bike. If home is where the heart is, home had just arrived.

“Thanks.”

He grunted again. I straddled my bike. Closed my hands around the well-worn rubber grips. There was plenty of dirt stuck up in the thick treads, and I was ready to add some more. Instantly, I felt about nine hundred percent better. Nine hundred percent more free.

“Ally, where’re you going?” The light was already gone from Mom’s eyes. “Don’t you want to see your room?”

“I’ll see it later. I’m going for a ride,” I said.

“Where? I hope you’re not thinking of—”

The movers slammed the truck door shut, muffling her last words, but I knew what she had said. And we both knew that I was thinking of doing what she thought I was thinking of doing. There was no reason to confirm or deny. Without a backward glance, I rode through the gates at the front of the complex, hooked a left, and headed for town. It felt good to move. To breathe. To get the hell away from my mother and all her positive thinking. I love you, Mom, but things were not going to be the same now that we were “home.” Things were never going to be the same.