The Islanders by Katherine Applegate Page A

molding. She placed the lock where she thought it should go, and with her other hand tried to place the little eye. The two halves of the lock didn’t match up. At least not perfectly.
    Nina stared at the door in frustration. The problem seemed to be that the molding stuck out from the door. She placed the main part of the lock against the door this time and the eye against the molding. Still no good. She would have to damage the molding.
    Too bad she’d never taken any shop classes. The use of tools wasn’t her strong point.
    She trotted downstairs to the kitchen and dug in the kitchen drawer for something useful. Then her gaze settled on a knife. It was a very sharp, serrated knife with a short blade, no more than three inches long. She stuck this carefully in her back pocket and ran back upstairs.
    She went at the molding, using the serrated knife to chopand gouge out a section long enough for the eye and deep enough to lie flush with the door. It took nearly twenty minutes before she had the lock in place, screwed down with its brass screws.
    She closed the door and tried the lock several times. It stuck a little, but with some effort she could slide the bolt into the eye and make it work.
    It wouldn’t stop someone determined to get in. But it would slow someone down and force them to make noise. She nodded in grim satisfaction. He wouldn’t want to make noise, not here in her house.
    Nina scooped up the splinters and sawdust she’d generated and dropped them in the trash. Then she picked up the knife, intending to take it downstairs.
    But with the black plastic handle in her palm, she hesitated. With unwilling eyes she stared down at its wicked blade. Would she ever use it? Would she ever really use it?
    Would she have used it before, years ago, if she’d thought of it then?
    Probably not. She wasn’t that kind of person.
    She sat down on the edge of her bed, still holding the knife. She pulled open her nightstand drawer and took out the picture of herself back then. A part of her mind told her that she wasn’t acting rationally, that this was all unnecessary. No one would bestupid enough to try to . . . to reach her here, in her own house, with her father asleep just down the hall.
    Nina laughed, a short, bitter sound as she looked at the picture of a more innocent, unafraid girl. It wasn’t about being rational anymore. Reason had been lost forever, after that first time. “You were so dumb, you didn’t even know what was going on,” she told the photograph.
    The first time had been so innocent. Just a request to sit on her uncle’s lap in the family room of his house. And then, just innocent questions. Did she like Uncle Mark? Of course, she’d replied. Did she like him a lot? Sure, she liked him. That was good, because her uncle really liked her, too.
    He thought she was a very pretty young lady. Someday the boys would go crazy for her, someday they would be all over her. No, not likely, she’d answered. Why not? She’d shrugged.
    Claire was prettier, Nina had told him.
    Yes, he’d said, but Claire wasn’t as nice as Nina. Nina was nice, wasn’t she? She wanted to be nice to people who cared about her and thought she was pretty. Didn’t she?
    That’s good, he’d said. Give your uncle a little kiss. You can do better than that. Give your uncle a real kiss. Like this. Did she like that? Did she?
    Nina realized her hands were shaking. She had dropped the knife on the floor.
    Yes, she had answered, tucking down her chin and feeling almost sick.
    Did she like that?
    Yes. She’d said yes. And from that moment of weakness all else had followed. That yes had made it her fault as much as his, her sin. That’s what he had said, all those many evenings when he’d sat across the family room, ignoring his wife who ignored him in return, and focused his blazing, relentless eyes on her. All those nights . . . All those nights