Midnight Howl Read Free Page A

vegetables and the steaks to his dad to put on the grill and finishedmixing up the corn bread and stuck it in the oven. Salad was in the bowl and baked beans were heating on the stove top. Molly and my mom were talking at the kitchen table.
    I was sitting at a tall stool at the kitchen counter, and Jack pulled up a stool next to me.
    “Um,” he said, jiggling his knee. “So, if not cooking, what kind of stuff are you into? There’s, like” — he waved his hand vaguely — “a lot of different things at school. Sports and art club and stuff. The girls’ soccer team is pretty good.”
    “Maybe not soccer,” I said. “I mean, I’m not that into team sports. I like lots of stuff, though. Hiking and biking, and animals, and being outdoors. And I’m interested in science, especially astronomy.”
    I felt like a dork saying that, but Jack perked right up. “Astronomy!” he said. “Awesome! There’s an astronomy club at school. They have camping trips to look at the stars. Their fall trip is actually a big deal even for people who aren’t in the club. Like, practically everybody goes.”
    “Really?!”
I exclaimed. There was a science club at my school back home, and sometimes we talked about astronomy. We’d gone on a trip to theplanetarium, but not enough kids were so interested in space that they’d want to join a club just for that.
    “Sure,” Jack said. “There’s great stargazing around here. You can go out into Glacier National Park and take a telescope, or see a lot even just outside the house.”
    “This is going to be amazing,” I told him.
    “How’d you get into astronomy?” he asked curiously. “Like, is it a science thing, or an outdoorsy thing, or both?”
    “Um, both, I guess,” I said. “My dad bought a telescope for us to share when I was six, and we used to go out with it a lot. He’d show me all the different constellations.”
    “Neat,” Jack said.
    “Yeah,” I said, smiling as I remembered stargazing with my dad. “Every year there’s a big meteor shower in the summer called the Perseid shower, and he’d wake me up in the middle of the night to see it. We’d take a thermos of hot chocolate and go sit on the roof to watch the shooting stars. We still do it now that he lives in Miami; we try to make sure I’m out there at the right time.”
    “Sounds really nice,” Jack said.
    “Yeah, it is,” I said again. I missed my dad nowthat he lived in Miami. It was great to spend time with him on school breaks, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him every day.
    Our conversation hit a little pause, and Jack started looking around and jiggling his leg again. “Can you ride a horse?” he asked suddenly.
    I shook off the thoughts about my dad. “Not really,” I said apologetically. “The closest I got was a couple of rides on my friend’s pony when I was eight. But I’ve always wanted to learn.”
    “You’d have a great time,” he said. “I love it. I take people riding the trails around here all the time when we have guests, so if you want, we could go riding sometime. If you like animals and hiking, you’ll be a natural. Our horses are really gentle.”
    “I don’t think it’s a great idea for Marisol to go out on a horse without an adult when she doesn’t know how to ride,” my mom broke in. I hadn’t even realized she and Molly were listening to our conversation. “Maybe we could all go together sometime.”
    “Oh, Jack’s a great teacher,” Molly said dismissively. “She’ll be fine.”
    My mom’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. She gave me a look that meant
We’ll discussthis later,
but I pretended not to see it. If Jack really took tourists out on horseback all the time, I didn’t think my mother had anything to worry about.
    The buzzer rang to let us know the corn bread was done just as Mike came in from outside carrying a platter. “Steaks and veggies are ready,” he said. “Marisol, would you ask Hailey to come to the