Chase Thompson was dreaming he was on the porch at Summerledge, looking out over the rocks toward the ocean. He saw something floating out there, bigger than a buoy but too small to be a boat. An overwhelming urge to see what it was took hold of him. He took a few steps and, as happens in dreams, launched himself off the porch and into the air. Below him, the pitched roof of Summerledge and humps of granite dropped away. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the arc of Secret Beach, the Dellemere cottage, and a ways beyond, the cluster of houses that indicated the village of Fells harbor. He caught an air current and swooped out over the sea, soaring happily across the green-blue carpet of water until a flash of orange caught his eye. He dove down to get a closer look. It was a life jacket, bubbling around someone floating facedown in the water. He hovered over it. Swells rose and fell, rhythmically; the body floated up to meet him, and then slowly ... slowly ... began to roll over.

He bolted awake, heart thumping, and got his bearings. No ocean. No body. He was safe in the backseat of his family's car in the driveway at 320 Elm Ridge Road. School had finally been let out and it was time for his family's annual drive up the coast to Summerledge. His mother, Grace, was fastening the last duffel bag to the collection of luggage and sports equipment already strapped to the roof. A jumble of bikes protruded from the rear, and the inside of the car was packed with bags of groceries.

He ran a hand through his brown, rangey bangs and pulled up his hoodie in an effort to ignore the disgusted look of two ladies who were standing at the bay window of the house across the street. Teddy, Chase's six-year-old brother, came rocketing out the front door looking like a cross between a crazed hobo and the son of Aquaman. He wore a swimsuit, a scruffy baseball shirt stained down the front with what might be hot chocolate, swim goggles, and orange-and-blue flippers on his feet. A sticky, red goo was smeared across his face, which he rubbed into his mother's pant leg. She swooped down and strapped him — blond, kicking, and wildly smacking his flippers — into his booster seat. Chase sighed. He knew what the neighbors were saying — everyone in his family knew. Their car, their yard, his brothers, heck, their whole life, was an eyesore on the tidy cul-de-sac.

"Chathe!" Teddy sang out, whacking his flippers against the back of the driver's seat. Despite a year of speech therapy, Teddy's S's were still coming out of his mouth sounding like "th's."

"Chasssse — with an Ssssss," Chase said back at him, hissing. "Like Sssssnake."

"Thhhnake," Teddy repeated, unfazed, lifting one smudged eye piece of his swim goggles. "TTTTTTTTHNAKE!" he yelled louder, flippers whacking. "CHATHE! THHNAKE!"

"Okay, Tedders, whatever — it's a free country." Chase took a peek at the snotty neighbors in the window and smirked. They were wearing matching tracksuits and ponytails. "At least for some people."

"We're going to Thummerledge today," said Teddy happily.

Chase reached over and bumped his knuckles to his brother's sticky little fist, then reached in the front pocket of his sweatshirt for his cell phone — one of the crummy free ones you get when you sign a contract, but it stored music and he could text. Problem was, Chase didn't have anyone to text except for Knox, his other little brother.

His mother bent down and eyed him through the half-open window. She was thin and tired-looking, with brownish hair scrunched into a knot at her neck.

"Do you have your inhaler?" she asked.

Chase yanked the green nylon cord out from under his sweatshirt and wiggled his asthma inhaler at her, then pulled his hood farther up over his eyes and shoved the seat. It rewarded him by groaning pathetically. The neighbors were right: This car was a bucket of bolts. He'd been driving around in it since he was a baby thirteen years ago, and it was scrap metal then.

"Can we go already, Mom?"

"As soon as Dad and Knox are ready," she said with a tight little smile, settling herself in the driver's seat.

Chase worked his thumbs on the phone's keyboard, typing: GET OUT HERE, then he popped his earbuds in his ears and scrolled through the list of songs he'd downloaded earlier. He'd discovered just how useful earbuds could be at his new school. Nobody tried to talk to you, but everybody felt free to talk about you when they thought you couldn't hear them. Every rotten word, like freak, loser, and in for it.

His mom had told him things would get better — were getting better — because of their dad's new job, but Chase knew that if school hadn't finally ended and if they weren't driving up to Summerledge today, things would definitely, positively, be getting worse. But Chase couldn't tell his mom that. His parents had their own problems. They fought all the time. About the new job. About money. About Knox's grades. For all he knew, they fought about him when he wasn't around. The only thing they didn't fight about was Teddy, and that was because Teddy was still pretty much a baby.

Chase glanced out the car window at the scrubby shrubs leashed down by collars and wires that were staked into the center of the paved cul-de-sac. he figured he could probably uproot all of them with one well-aimed kick.

"Hey, Mom, you ever wonder why they call this place Sherwood Forest? There's nothing that even comes close to a tree around here."

Grace made an unintelligible sound.

"Did you e-mail the Neighborhood Association and explain that humans are actually mammals?"

"Chase, stop," she sighed. It was an old argument. Roger, their dog, had to be left behind in Indiana when they moved to Massachusetts because Sherwood Forest had a "No Mammals" pet policy.

"Idiots," Chase coughed into his hand and turned his music up. In his opinion, the only good thing about the move was Sherwood Forest's freshly paved, skateboard-ready road, and that was only because skateboarding was the closest he had...