Lone Star Read Free Page A

thinking. We’re coming, baby!”
    Mason looked shocked. “We’re going to Europe? You’re bullshitting me.”
    â€œMason, do I come up with the best ideas or what?”
    Mason was at a loss for words. “We got no money, bro.” He mumbled that too. Everyone was mumbling except for Blake.
    Finally Hannah became actively engaged in the conversation. “Blakie, come on, what do you know about writing a story? The contest is open to all Maine residents. That’s a lot of competition. Just from our school, there’ll probably be at least a hundred entries. Everyone on our literary magazine is submitting something.”
    â€œHannah, have you read the literary magazine?” said Blake, swinging his arms, bouncing down the road. “It’s called Insanity’s Horse, for heaven’s sake. Just for that title alone, those fools should be disqualified from participating. Do you remember the magazine’s April thought of the month? The pastiche of the pyramids implementing primal passion is a prolix representation of all phallic prose. I got your phallic prose right here.” He laughed. “Yeah,” he added, merry and intense. “I’m not worried.”
    How did this happen? One minute ticked by, and before it was up, Blake and Mason had climbed aboard the girls’ slow-chugging teenage dream.
    Hannah pulled on Chloe to slow down. “Now I really have to talk to you,” she said. “Come by before dinner?”
    â€œIs it about Barcelona?” Chloe looked up into Hannah’s anxious expression.
    Hannah blinked. “No and yes. Do you have your passport yet?”
    Chloe didn’t reply.
    â€œChloe! I told you—it takes two months to get a passport. Come on. What are you waiting for?”
    â€œEasy for you to say—you’re eighteen. I have to ask my parents to sign for my passport.”
    â€œSo?”
    â€œWell, first I’ll have to tell them we’re going, won’t I?”
    â€œYou haven’t told them yet? Chloe!”
    Blake was in front of them, panting, his body heaving. “So how do we get a passport?”
    â€œDon’t ask her,” Hannah said. “She doesn’t know how to get one either. Go to the post office.” She batted her lashes, her eyes moistening. “Are you guys really going to come with us? Don’t tease us. Don’t get our hopes up and then not come. That’d be mean.”
    â€œI never disappoint you, pumpkin, do I?” Grabbing Hannah around her slender waist, Blake pretended to dance with her and stepped on her feet. She yelped.
    â€œBlake, you do know where Barcelona is, right?” Hannah threaded her arms around his neck. “In Spain. And you know where Spain is, right? In Europe. As in—on another continent.As in, you need not just a passport, which costs upward of a hundred bucks, but also a plane ticket, and train tickets, and maybe, oh, I don’t know—some lodging and food money.”
    With gleeful indifference, Blake shrugged off a vigorously nodding Mason. “You know what they say, babycakes.” He squeezed her. “You gotta spend money to make money. It’s like the ten grand I’m going to get for my story. We can’t start our own business till we write and then win this thing. And we can’t write and win this thing till we do this other thing.”
    â€œThis other thing,” said Chloe, “meaning horn in on my lifelong dream?”
    â€œExactly. Mase, let’s jet. To horn in on Chloe’s dream, we gotta go get us some passports. No time to lose.” As they sped up, their boots kicked up dust in a bee cloud. “Where’s this post office anyway?”
    â€œAre you joking? You’ve never been to the Fryeburg Post Office?”
    Hannah poked Chloe. “Listen to you. You’ve never been there either.”
    Chloe poked Hannah back. “Yes, I have, stop