Free Leave Tomorrow Behind (Stella Crown Series) by Judy Clemens Page B

gaze just long enough for a chill to sneak up my spine. But then he was gone. I shuddered.
“Stella!”
I searched for the source of the voice, and Nick pointed up. Zach was on the double Ferris wheel, peering over the edge, tipping the car forward. Taylor peeked over the front, too, and the car tipped even further, swaying as she waved.
“Whoa.” I held my hands up, like I could keep them from falling, should they tumble out.
The wheel kept turning, and the next car in line held Randy and Bobby, with Claire squished between them. She wasn’t having as much fun as Taylor, that was easy to see. And then they were gone, spun up toward the sky, and I was left feeling a little dizzy and carsick.
“Guess Taylor’s not ready to go yet, huh?” Nick said. “Her mom’s going to be wondering.”
“I’m ready, though,” I said. “I’ve got to be up in six hours.”
“Is it really that late?”
“So who’s that little vixen up there with Zach?” Carla’s eyes sparkled, maybe because she was interested in Zach’s love life, maybe because Bryan had just won her a gigantic purple puppy. Or something that sort of looked like a puppy. With horns.
“She’s a competitor in the Lovely Miss Pennsylvania pageant,” I said.
Carla blanched. “Not that horrible girl I saw hanging around the food tent earlier.”
Nick barked a laugh. “No way.”
“This girl is actually nice,” I said. “She’s Bobby and Claire’s cousin from Doylestown. She seems genuine.”
“In every way?”
“From what I could tell, although I wasn’t really looking.”
She angled her eyes toward Nick, and he held his hands up. “Not even going there.”
“But her mother,” I said, “is perfect, according to Nick.”
“Stella…”
“Just kidding. She seems pretty perfect to me, too.”
Carla wrinkled her nose. “She’s not one of those crazy moms who puts her three-year-old in beauty pageants, dresses her up in skanky clothes, and makes her dance to ‘Maneater’?”
“No.” I laughed. “Taylor, the daughter, doesn’t look like that. And her mom seemed like a normal person. She said the whole pageant idea was Taylor’s, and the only reason she let her do it was because of the community service element, and the pageant’s focus on talent.”
Carla harumpfed. “Twirling a baton in a skimpy outfit?”
“I didn’t know batons wore outfits,” Nick said.
I elbowed him. “Actually, Taylor’s talent is sign language.”
Carla nodded. “Okay. I can deal with that.”
Zach yelled again, coming around on another spin, and we waved up at him.
“Remember?” Nick said in my ear. “We were going home?”
Right.
“Carla—” I turned to tell her we were leaving, but she was busy being kissed by Bryan. Or by the gigantic horned puppy he’d won for her. It was hard to tell. I cleared my throat, and Carla pushed the stuffed animal to the side to see me. “We’re going.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow!” She grinned and hid behind the puppy again.
Nick laughed. “Guess the fair makes her frisky, too.” He swung my hand as we walked away. “See, Bryan’s not so bad, right? You just spent over an hour in his presence, and no one died.”
“Whatever.” Actually it really hadn’t been that bad. He didn’t talk to me much, and he made Carla as giddy as…well, as Taylor was around Zach. Interesting.
We made our way down the fairway and had just passed the calf barn when screaming split the air. We stopped like dogs on point, and listened. More screaming. Close by. We ran toward the sound, and found a teenage girl up on the manure trailer, shrieking, her hands on her face. An overturned wheelbarrow lay on the ground, obviously tipped off the trailer, its contents spilled into the path. I leapt over the dropped manure and ran up the ramp. The girl grabbed me, crying and saying things I didn’t understand, her face pushed into my shoulder.
Nick ran up the trailer behind me. “There.”
I followed his finger toward the pile of manure. I