We Were LiarsGenuine FraudAgain AgainFly on the WallDramaramaThe Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-BanksWhistle: A New Gotham City HeroThe Boyfriend ListThe Boy BookThe Treasure Map of BoysReal Live BoyfriendsOceanofPDF.com This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are theproduct of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance toactual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.Text copyright © 2022 by Lockhart InkCover art used under license from Getty Images and Shutterstock.comAll rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, animprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin RandomHouse LLC, New York.Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark ofPenguin Random House LLC.Visit us on the Web! GetUnderlined.comEducators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us atRHTeachersLibrarians.comLibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.ISBN 978-0-593-48585-9 (hc) — ISBN 978-0-593-48586-6 (lib. bdg.) — ISBN978-0-593-48587-3 (ebook) — ISBN 978-0-593-56853-8 (int’l ed.)Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebratesthe right to read.Penguin Random House LLC supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity,encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture.Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying withcopyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part in anyform without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing PenguinRandom House to publish books for every reader.ep_prh_6.0_139875643_c0_r0OceanofPDF.com ContentsCoverAlso by E. LockhartTitle PageCopyrightDedicationGenealogyMapDear ReadersPart One: A Story for JohnnyChapter 1Part Two: Four SistersChapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Part Three: The Black PearlsChapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12 Chapter 13Chapter 14Part Four: The BoysChapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28Chapter 29Chapter 30Chapter 31Chapter 32Chapter 33Chapter 34Chapter 35Chapter 36Chapter 37Chapter 38 Chapter 39Chapter 40Chapter 41Chapter 42Chapter 43Part Five: Mr. FoxChapter 44Chapter 45Chapter 46Chapter 47Chapter 48Chapter 49Chapter 50Chapter 51Chapter 52Chapter 53Part Six: A Long Boat RideChapter 54Chapter 55Chapter 56Chapter 57Chapter 58Chapter 59Chapter 60Chapter 61Chapter 62 Chapter 63Chapter 64Chapter 65Chapter 66Chapter 67Chapter 68Chapter 69Chapter 70Chapter 71Part Seven: The BonfireChapter 72Chapter 73Chapter 74Chapter 75Chapter 76Chapter 77Chapter 78Chapter 79Chapter 80Part Eight: AfterChapter 81Chapter 82Chapter 83AcknowledgmentsAbout the Author Dear Readers,This book contains spoilers for the novelWeWere Liars.I love you, and I wrote this for you—withambition and black coffee.xoEOceanofPDF.com is dead.Jonathan Sinclair Dennis, that was his name. He died atage fifteen.There was a fire and I love him and I wronged him and Imiss him. He will never grow taller, never find a partner,never train for another race, never go to Italy like hewanted, never ride the kind of roller coaster that flips youupside down. Never, never, never. Never anything.Still, he visits my kitchen on Beechwood Island quiteoften.I see him late at night when I can’t sleep and comedown for a glass of whiskey. He looks just like he always didat fifteen. His blond hair sticks up, tufty. He has a sunburnacross his nose. His nails are bitten down and he’s usuallyin board shorts and a hoodie. Sometimes he wears his blue-checked windbreaker, since the house runs cold.I let him drink whiskey because he’s dead anyway.How’s it going to hurt him? But often he wants hot cocoainstead. The ghost of Johnny likes to sit on the counter,banging his bare feet against the lower cabinets. He takesout the old Scrabble tiles and idly makes phrases on thecountertop while we talk.Never eat anything bigger thanyour ass. Don’t take no for an answer. Be a little kinderthan you have to be. Stuff like that.He often asks me for stories about our family. “Tellabout when you were teenagers,” he says tonight. “You andAunt Penny and Aunt Bess.” I don’t like talking about that time. “What do you wantto know?”“Whatever. Stuff you got up to. Hijinks. Here on theisland.”“It was the same as now. We took the boats out. Weswam. Tennis and ice cream and suppers cooked on thegrill.”“Did you all get along back then?” He means me and mysisters, Penny and Bess.“To a point.”“Did you ever get in trouble?”“No,” I say. Then, “Yes.”“What for?”I shake my head.“Tell me,” he pushes. “What’s the worst thing you did?Come on, spill it.”“No!” I laugh.“Yes! Pretty please? The absolute worst thing you everdid, back then. Tell your poor dead son all the gory details.”“Johnny.”“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” he says. “You have no idea thethings I’ve seen on television. Way worse than anything youcould have done in the 1980s.”Johnny haunts me, I think, because he can’t rest withoutanswers. He keeps asking about our family, the Sinclairfamily, because he’s trying to understand this island, thepeople on it, and why we act the way we do. Our history.He wants to know why he died.I owe him this story.“Fine,” I say. “I’ll tell you.”— is Caroline Lennox Taft Sinclair, but people callme Carrie. I was born in 1970. This is the story of myseventeenth summer.That was the year the boys all came to stay onBeechwood Island. And the year I first saw a ghost.I have never told this particular story to anyone, but Ithink it is the one that Johnny needs to hear.Did you ever get in trouble? he asks.Tell me. What’s theworst thing you did? Come on, spill it…The absolute worstthing you ever did, back then.Telling this story will be painful. In fact, I do not know ifI can tell it truthfully, though I’ll try.I have been a liar all my life, you see.It’s not uncommon in our family.OceanofPDF.com a blur of wintry Boston mornings, my sistersand I bundled in boots and itchy wool hats. School days inuniforms with thick navy cardigans and pleated skirts.Afternoons in our tall brick town house, doing homework infront of the fireplace. If I close my eyes, I can taste sweetvanilla pound cake and feel my own sticky fingers. Life wasfairy tales before bed, flannel pajamas, golden retrievers.There were four of us girls. In the summers, we went toBeechwood Island. I remember swimming in the fierceocean waves with Penny and Bess while our mother andbaby Rosemary sat on the shore. We caught jellyfish andcrabs and kept them in a blue bucket. Wind and sunlight,small quarrels, mermaid games and rock collections.Tipper, our mother, threw wonderful parties. She did itbecause she was lonely. On Beechwood, anyway. We didhave guests, and for some years my father’s brother Deanand his children were there with us, but my mother thrivedat charity suppers and long lunches with dear friends. Sheloved people and was good at loving them. Without manyaround on the island, she made her own fun, having partieseven when we hadn’t anybody visiting.When the four of us were little, my parents would takeus to Edgartown each Fourth of July. Edgartown is aseafaring village on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, allwhite picket fences. We’d get deep-fried clams with tartarsauce in paper containers and then buy lemonade from astand in front of the Old Whaling Church. We’d set up lawn chairs, then eat as we waited for the parade. Localbusinesses had decorated floats. Vintage car collectorsproudly tooted their horns. The island fire stations paradedtheir oldest engines. A veterans’ band played Sousamarches and my mother would always sing: “Be kind toyour fine-feathered friends / For a duck could besomebody’s mother.”We never stayed for the fireworks. Instead, we motoredback to Beechwood and ran up from the family boat dock tothe real party.Clairmont house’s porch would be decked out in fairylights and the large picnic table on the lawn dressed in blueand white. We’d eat corn on the cob, hamburgers,watermelon. There would be a cake like an American flag,with blueberries and raspberries on top. My mother wouldhave decorated it herself. Same cake, every year.After supper she’d give us all sparklers. We’d paradealong the wooden walkways of the island—the ones that ledfrom house to house—and sing at the top of our lungs.“America the Beautiful,” “This Land Is Your Land,” “Be Kindto Your Fine-Feathered Friends.”In the dark, we’d head to the Big Beach. Thegroundskeeper, Demetrios in those days, would set offfireworks. The family sat on cotton blankets, the adultsholding glasses of clinking ice.Anyway. It’s hard to believe I was ever quite so blindlypatriotic, and that my highly educated parents were. Still,the memories stick.—to me that anything was wrong with how Ifit into our family until one afternoon when I was fourteen.
