The Islanders by Katherine Applegate

been lots of other flirtations with lots of other girls. And he was probably prepared to lie about them, too.
    Or maybe it was nothing. Maybe he knew the girl from somewhere and was just saying hi. Maybe he forgot he was at the mall.
    That’s right, Aisha , she thought, you can come up with some kind of bogus explanation if you try hard enough.
    â€œSo, what did you do today?” Christopher asked her. “I hope it was something as exciting as buying socks.”
    â€œNo,” Aisha muttered. “I guess you had more fun than I did.”
    On the field Jake caught the ball and ran for a touchdown. The Weymouth High fans went nuts. Aisha was the only one left sitting. She sat through the next two quarters, but at the half, with Weymouth High well in the lead, they all headed for the rest rooms and the munchie stands.
    Zoey and Lucas peeled off, still sniping at each other about homecoming royalty. Christopher took Aisha’s hand and drew her under the darkened seats. Overhead there was the clatter offootsteps on the boards.
    â€œI haven’t had a chance to kiss you all day,” he said, taking her in his arms.
    She forced a smile. “And you were thinking about me all day?”
    â€œEvery minute,” he said. “Every second.”
    â€œI’m sure there were a few minutes here and there when you might have thought about something else.”
    He held up his hand as if taking an oath. “On my Boy Scout honor.”
    â€œWere you a Boy Scout?”
    â€œNope.” He grinned and lowered his mouth toward hers. She gave him a grudging kiss.
    It would have been easy to make him admit the truth. She and Zoey had both seen him. And the fact that he lied about being in the mall just proved that he was hiding something. The girl with the long blond ponytail? Some other girl he had met later? She could drag the truth out of him right now. Was he seeing other girls? Was he going to go on seeing other girls?
    â€œWe can do better than that,” he said in a lower voice. He tilted back her head with his hand, and she let him. He pressed his lips to hers, and she let him. And when he opened his mouth, so did she.
    She could force the truth from him. But what if she didn’tlike the answer? What if for him she was just one among many? How could she stand hearing that, when for her he had so quickly become the only one?
    The front of the Geiger home had a balcony. The door to the balcony was halfway between Nina’s room and the room her uncle would soon be staying in. Nina seldom went out on the balcony. Even just two stories up, it excited her fear of heights. But she went out on it now, keeping a nervous eye on the white-painted crosshatched railing. By looking west, she could see the water through the trees in the front yard, and beyond the water, the lights of Weymouth. A brilliant white point, like a star fallen to earth, marked the school’s stadium where Zoey and Claire and Aisha would be.
    She walked to the end of the balcony nearest her own bedroom and pressed up against the railing there to check if she could see inside her bedroom.
    The view was clear. She could see most of her bed, the far closet door, her dresser. She went back into the house and lowered the blinds in her room. Then she went back out onto the balcony and checked. This time nothing was visible but the tiniest sliver of escaping light. At least that worked. With her blinds drawn, she would be able to hide.
    She got off the balcony and closed the door behind her.Then she went to her bed and spilled out the contents of an Ace Hardware bag. She had a brass sliding lock with screws in a shrink-wrapped plastic card and a Phillips screwdriver. She carefully read the directions on the back of the lock, then tore it open. The screws spilled out and she had to hunt for them through the folds of her quilt.
    Once they were gathered up, she went to her door again and knelt to get a close look at the painted wood