Girl Overboard

"A riveting, melodramatic mystery for true-crime fans."--Kirkus Reviews

"Girl Overboard kept me turning the pages. I finished it one sitting, rooting for Izzy the whole time.  I felt like I was on board the cruise ship with her, taking part in the fun and trying to escape the very real danger."--April Henry, New York Times bestselling author of Two Truths and a Lie

Auteur
Sandra Block graduated from college at Harvard, then returned to her native land of Buffalo, New York for medical training and never left. She is a practicing neurologist and proud Sabres fan, and lives at home with her husband, two children, and impetuous yellow lab. She is the author of acclaimed thrillers Little Black Lies, The Girl Without a Name, The Secret Room, and What Happened That Night. Girl Overboard is her first novel for teens.

Texte du rabat

"When Izzy meets Jade on a cruise to Bermuda, her new daredevil friend turns Izzy's boring family vacation into the trip of a lifetime. Until she goes missing. The investigators claim Jade fell overboard, but Izzy knows better. Her friend had secrets--secrets that might have gotten her killed. As Izzy digs deeper into Jade's disappearance, she realizes that someone doesn't want her to find the truth. And if she's not careful, Izzy might not get off this ship alive"--Page 4 of cover.

Résumé
This fast-paced thriller about a girl who investigates her friend's disappearance during their cruise ship vacation is Ruth Ware’s The Woman in Cabin 10 for teens—and it’s a paperback original!

When Izzy meets Jade on a cruise to Bermuda, her new daredevil friend turns Izzy’s boring family vacation into the trip of a lifetime. Until Jade goes missing.
 
The investigators claim Jade fell overboard, but Izzy knows better. Her friend had secrets—secrets that might have gotten her killed. As Izzy digs deeper into Jade’s disappearance, she realizes that someone doesn’t want her to find the truth. And if she’s not careful, Izzy might not get off this ship alive.

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Échantillon de lecture

CHAPTER One

DAY 1

Departure

 

“Listen,” my mom says.

I’ve learned that when she says this word, you should, in fact, do the exact opposite. Listen means a lecture is coming whether you like it or not, and steadfast ignoring is usually the best course of action.

“Your father and I work very hard to be able to afford nice trips like this,” Mom continues. “And the very least you could do is . . .”

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yes, I know they work hard. My mom’s a lawyer. My dad’s an actuarial accountant (which means people pay him a lot of money to tell them when they’re going to die). And yes, I do appreciate how hard they work. But I’m not the one who wanted to take a stupid cruise to Bermuda in the first place. I would have been happy to stay home and hang out with Luke for spring break, which would have been . . . hm, I don’t know . . . free. Then I wouldn’t be stuck waiting in the arrival lounge, which smells of body odor and perfume, watching my annoying (though admittedly cute) toddler-brother while passengers scavenge the cheese-and-cracker tables like they’ve never seen food before.

“Okay?” my mom asks, sounding irked.

Which means the lecture must be over.

“Okay,” I answer, even though I’m not entirely sure what she just said. But it seems to appease her, because she huffs out a thank-you and then stomps off to the reception desk to join my father, who’s having an intense discussion about his lactose intolerance with the chef.

My brother, Trey, tries to escape the minute she turns her back, as usual, and I snatch him by the shirt that’s stained with ketchup from the plane. Midway through the trip, he somehow found a handful of ketchup pouches. Our seat looked like a crime scene, and the stewardess smiled and said “no worries,” but swore not-that-softly under her breath on her way to get more napkins.

“Go!” Trey complains, straining against my clutch like a puppy on a leash. He doesn’t say that much, but when he does, it’s with spirit. “Go!”

“I know, Trey-Trey,” I say, springing up from my sitting position and knocking over my lacrosse stick, which had been leaning on the wall. I brought it with me on the cruise to practice, but it’ll probably collect dust in the closet like usual. I suck at lacrosse but whatever. It’s better than PE. “I don’t want to be here either.” I tousle his caramel-colored, curly, soft hair, and he gives me a look and puffs out his cheeks. The cheek-puff is a definite precursor to a full-blown meltdown, which we do not want. I glance over at my parents, who are gesticulating madly to a man in an apron. (Though I wouldn’t think lactose intolerance would be that difficult to describe.) Trey’s breathing elevates and his cheeks flush, which means we are approaching throw-yourself-on-the-floor tantrum stage. I bend down, stretching the bruise from where I tripped over Ursula, this Amazon of a ninth grader who swears she was just defending the crease but knocked out my breath nonetheless. “You want a lollipop?” I ask.

His crestfallen expression perks right up, and he gives me an excited nod.

“Is that a yes?” I ask, since the speech therapist told us to push him to use his words. He nods again, probably thinking I must be an idiot. What did you not understand about my nodding? His cheeks start to puff again.

“Right. I guess that’s good enough,” I say, digging through my purse for a cherry-red sucker, which should pair nicely with the ketchup stain. My mom will be all over me for giving him too much sugar, but he’ll be her problem by then.

Trey plops down on the floor and starts noisily sucking, quenching his sugar fix. I join him on the scratchy carpet, a hideous royal purple with yellow pineapples, which carries a soft mildewy scent. As I pull up my legs, my shorts gap against my skinny thigh. I hate how bony-thin I am. My best friend, Miranda, says I have thin privilege and shouldn’t “cater to the male gaze” anyway, so I should just shut up about it already. She’s probably right. But I’m not, like, pretty skinny. I’m toothpick, mosquito-bite-breasts kind of skinny. And she’s kind of chunky but, like, sexy chunky. And even if she doesn’t care about the male gaze, she has awesome breasts with actual cleavage, so maybe she should shut up too.

I examine my bruise, the gross blob of yellow and purple crawling over my thigh like an octopus. Earlier this week, Luke’s fingers were there, swirling above my knee but not daring to go any higher. The memory gives me a weird fluttering in my stomach, and I push on the bruise to make the quivery feeling go away.

Trey cocks his head, and with a sticky finger, pushes on the bruise too.

“Hey,” I say, “don’t.” I swat his hand away when he reaches again, and I can see him considering a tantrum over this injustice but letting it go. He’s got a sucker after all.

When my mom saw the bruise, she frowned, asking where I got it. I told her the truth, but she took a step toward me, her face all earnest and said, “If someone ever hurts you, you can tell me. You know that, right?” Annoyed, I assured her it was seriously the Amazonian Ursula, but she still side-eyed me.

…