Read The Girls Take Over for Free Online

CAROLINE RESCUED! readers would see the almost lifeless form of a young girl, one limp arm draped over a branch, her beautiful hair spread out over the surface of the water, her face pale, eyes closed. Her white skin would make readers cry, her blue lips would bring a sob to their throats ….
    Her eyelids fluttered a moment. Were newspaper photos in color? Oh, they had to be! It would be so much more dramatic if she was in color!
    Her teeth chattered, but as long as she had a limb to hang on to, she wasn't about to take off her jacket and swim. And she certainly wasn't going to ruin the drama by simply standing up and walking out of the river. No, she would at least let it carry her around to the other side of Island Avenue and hope that a crowd would be waiting. She could see her sisters and the Hatford boys back on the bank, trying to get beyond the tangle of brush and bushes blocking their path.
    She looked around in dismay. Where was the photographer? Why weren't there people standing on the road bridge, calling down to her to have courage? Where were the sirens? The police? The fire department? Could it possibly be that for this, her best performance yet, there was to be no audience at all? No applauding when she was rescued? No encore?
    Caroline waved her free hand weakly in the air
    “Help! Help!” she cried as tragically as she could. “Pleeeease, won't someone save me?”
    Another car went by on the bridge up ahead but didn't stop.
    This is ridiculous! thought Caroline. There was no point being in rushing water if no one was around to appreciate it. What would an actress do if she was in a play and nobody came?
    Well, if she was ever in a movie and the script callede hit a rock. “Help!” she cried pitifully. “Oh, somebody save me! Pleeeease … !”
    Blub, blub. A swell of water filled her mouth and flooded her face as she was carried around the bend in the river. Maybe she should just try to stand up and wade out. She passed through the shadow of the road bridge and moved along the opposite side of Island Avenue. If she wasn't rescued soon, this whole scene would have been for nothing.
    She was facing upstream now, the current turning her first one way, then another. And in that moment, looking back toward the bridge, she saw a car stop. She saw a woman get out and run to the bridge railing. The woman was holding a cell phone to her ear, and Caroline felt sure she was calling 911.
    Yes! An audience at last! And just in time, too, because her wet clothes felt like cement around her body, and her teeth were chattering.
    Another swell of water caught her in the mouth and the current spun her around again. And there, up ahead, she saw a wall. A wall of people in purple parkas and blue ski jackets.
    Five children and two men were standing waist deepin the water, their hands locked together, as Caroline came bumping and bobbing along.
    “Here she comes!” she heard Eddie yell. “Caroline, can't you stand up?”
    And a man called, “Don't let her slip between you.”
    “Goodbye, cruel world!” Caroline cried, tipping back again and closing her eyes to the sky.
    The next thing she knew, she was turning facedown as she bumped against Jake Hatford's legs, and then she opened her eyes and saw a big burly man charging through the river toward her, water spraying out around him as he grabbed her jacket, then her arm, and hauled her through the water toward the bank. The other man herded the rest of the kids after them.
    They all collapsed on the bank, their chests heaving. Caroline opened one eye just enough to see a rescue vehicle, its lights flashing, up on Island Avenue.
    “You kids are darned lucky we were coming by just now,” the second man said, wringing water out of his pant legs. “Why didn't one of you go call 911?”
    “There wasn't time! We hoped someone would see us and call the fire department,” Beth said. Caroline realized why Beth was going along with the act: to divert the boys' attention