13 Gifts Read Online Free PDF Page B

safer place — but I do it anyway.
    Which is why it’s so surprising when, an hour later, the train pulls into River Bend station and I disembark (after a groggy but warm good-bye from my sleepy seatmate), to find that my backpack is empty except for a soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwich, my aunt’s phone numbers, and a strip of bright yellow rubber that makes me feel more like an Unaccompanied Minor than ever.

Chapter Four
     
    To say that I’m panicking at this moment might be an understatement.
    I have no money, no iPod, no phone, and the River Bend train station is not much more than a patch of land in the middle of a cornfield. The other two people who got off with me are gone. Any minute I expect hail to start falling from the sky because that would just be my luck.
    The clock on the brick wall of the station says 5:15. The train arrived only fifteen minutes late. Has Aunt Bethany come and gone? Unable to think of anything else to do, I open my suitcase. I know it’s impossible for the stuff from my backpack to have migrated here, but I rummage through it anyway. I have a pair of pajama bottoms in one hand and a sock in the other when I hear a wooshing sound above me, followed by
kreeee.
I crouch even lower before looking up, expecting the worst. Bats maybe, or another beady-eyed hawk.
    Not a hawk.
T WO
hawks. Two hawks playfully circling each other above my head. I instinctively cover my head with my hands (and the pajama bottoms and sock). Fortunately, the birds seem a lot more interested in each other than in me. A minutelater, the larger one extends one clawed foot (talon? paw?) to the smaller one, who grabs on and they fly away together.
    If Mom were here, she’d whip out her camera and follow them. She’s fascinated when animals (or people) act differently than research dictates they should. Two birds holding hands (feet? paws?) isn’t something you see every day. I actually go so far as to reach into my pocket for my cell phone to tell her about it when I realize that I no longer own such a thing. The panic returns and I turn back to the rummaging.
    The next noise I hear is the clomping of heavy shoes on the pavement behind me. I shove everything back inside and look up to find a man hurrying down the platform toward me, the laces of his hiking boots flying around his ankles.
    It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Uncle Roger, but this tall, blond guy in green cargo shorts, sunglasses, and a T-shirt encouraging people to SAVE THE KOALAS definitely isn’t him. This guy can’t be more than twenty-two years old. As he gets closer, he holds up a cardboard sign with
TARA
printed on it in big purple letters. Purple letters outlined with glitter.
    “Might you be Tara?” he asks, tilting his head and grinning.
    I nod and zip up my suitcase.
    “Ace!” he exclaims, folding the sign and tucking it in his back pocket.
    Even though he’s smiling really wide and doesn’t appear to have any concealed weapons and is tall in a comforting reminds-me-of-Dad kind of way, it still feels weird being alone with a strange guy in the middle of nowhere. Not being judgmental, but any guy who uses glitter qualifies as strange.
    If pushed, I’d have to admit that, strange or not, he’s downright good-looking. In a doesn’t-remind-me-of-Dad kind of way. His tan skin really makes his straight white teeth stand out. The only person I’ve ever seen with whiter teeth is Jake Harrison and, of course, I’ve never really
seen
him.
    “I expected you to be a wee ankle biter, but you’re almost full grown! Here, let me get your port.” It’s hard to figure out where one word ends and another begins. I’ve never heard someone with his accent before. If everyone in town talks this way, I’m going to be in big trouble. He grabs my suitcase, grins at me again, and takes off toward the parking lot at the end of the platform. I have no choice but to follow since he has my last remaining belongings.
    “Your aunt will get all