Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d keep close to her heart for a long time to
come.
    That
afternoon, Julia’s song filled the rooms of the cozy house in
Eichet for the first time. In her mind, she had always called
this Michael’s
Song , but no longer. She’d made up her
mind: it was time to push away all the dreams she’d had of him and
her, and make room for new things.

    “Come on
Jules, it’s going to be awesome ,” Gaby’s tinny voice
piped up on speakerphone.
    The weekend
was over. Julia was busy trawling job ads
in the local newspaper. She reckoned that having a summer job might
be a good idea after all – she’d be able to save up some money to
go on vacation with Gaby. So far, she was feeling sort of blah about
the classifieds page, though. All the jobs advertized in the Salzburger Fenster were lame – the highlight of today’s sorry
selection being a modeling agency looking for size-zero girls with
blonde hair. With a frustrated grunt, Julia crossed out the ad with
her red marker.
    “So, how much are the tickets?” she asked, trying to
sound more eager than she felt. Gaby was suddenly convinced they
all needed to go see a Siouxsie and the Banshees cover
band playing at the Shamrock pub that night.
    “Nothing, you
silly,” Gaby blared through the phone. “It’s a cover
band. And they’re doing a Monday night show. Need I say more? Who in his right mind would pay for
that?”
    Julia snickered. “Okay. Stupid question, I guess. But I thought
you wanted to go out for dinner with the gang tonight?”
    “Still do. We can do
both. The band won’t start until ten. So
you can’t say no.”
    “I’m
beginning to get that, yes. Are Axel and Florian coming
too?”
    “Oh, I’ll
convince them to join us when I see them this afternoon.” They’d
agreed to meet at Florian’s place. He lived in a mansion along the
river Salzach, and his roof terrace was almost as big as his
spacious second-floor bedroom. In summer, their circle of friends
often sat outside on the terrace, playing old records, drinking
beer and sneaking in a joint every now and then. Florian always put
a ladder against the façade of the house so people could climb up
without going through the house and bothering his parents. This
morning, Julia had bought cans of beer and bottles of herbal soda
so Florian could make Radler drinks for all of
them.
    “All
right, Gab, count me in. See you
later!”
    As she was
putting her phone in her handbag, her eye fell on a small ad for the bookstore in the city center. Höllrigl
was looking for sales assistants. That sounded like something she
might enjoy. Who knows – she might even be entitled to an employee
discount on books if she worked there. She was a total bookworm,
just like Axel. He’d probably dance with joy if she took up a job
there and sold him books at a lower price.
    When Julia stepped out of her bedroom, Anne was lying
on the couch in the hallway reading the all-too-familiar storybook.
Obviously, her sister was turning into family bookworm number
three.
    “Don’t you
want to be outside?” she asked Anne, who
started and sat up. “You can read that out in the yard too,
right?”
    “Oh, I’ll go
outside in a minute. I’m meeting Sabine so we can go to the woods.
We want to build a tree house.”
    Julia raised
a doubtful eyebrow. “ Hmm. Sabine has a
handy brother or something?” Anne’s new neighborhood friend was
only nine. Surely the two little girls couldn’t build a tree house
without any help?
    Anne giggled. “No, he’s sort of ham-handed, actually.
But he’s cute! Shall I introduce him to you?”
    “No, never
mind, you little matchmaker.” Julia whipped around and hurtled down
the stairs. Cute or not, she really didn’t need boys in her life at
the moment, even though Gaby insisted she needed the
distraction.
    Ten minutes
later, she was on the bus with her iPod on, Loreena McKennitt
playing a soothing harp song during the ride to town. Loreena was
her antidote for the abundance of loud