A Summer of Sundays by Lindsay Eland Read Free Book Online Page A

buttonholes. He was like a marshmallow on the end of a stick sitting over hot, gray coals. But he looked content, with a thick slice of pumpkin bread in his hands and butter dripping down his right wrist. His eyes were large and wide as he looked from one of my siblings to the next. I noticed his gaze fell on Emma more than once. Emma was the beauty. Always had been, probably always would be. She had the same features as the rest of us, but for some reason she wore them better. I felt myself bristle. It wasn’t as if I liked this boy or even wanted him to like me. He’d been completely annoying and had threatened to tell on me. But still. It was hard to sit by and watch Emma get admired while I didn’t get so much as a second glance. Or even a first glance.
    Eventually everyone got up from the table, and it was clear that Mom had forgotten that she’d invited a strange boy with too many names into our house for dessert. But Jude was wrapped up in watching the chaos and I could tell he didn’t know which way was up.
    I grabbed his arm and walked him to the door. “Thanks for coming,” I said, opening it.
    He craned his neck to take a look at CJ, who had tied a basket from the top of the stairs and was trying to coax Henry into getting inside so he could hoist him up to the second floor. I closed the door on Jude a little more and he snapped out of his trance. “Wow, that was … was so much fun. Is it always like this at your house?”
    “Complete craziness and so noisy you can hardly hear yourself think? Yes.”
    “What’s the name of your sister, the one playing with her phone?”
    I lifted my chin. “Emma. She’s practically engaged, though.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Tommy Anderson had proposed to her on the bus in sixth grade and she’d said yes. Emma was a freshman in high school now and Tommy Anderson had moved away, but still.
    Jude’s smile deflated. “Oh.”
    “Your mom is probably wondering where you are, don’t you think?”
    He looked down at his watch, the huge white face glinting a little from the light escaping through the door. He almost bolted down the stairs. “Yeah, I should go,” he called back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    I called back, “All right,” though it was only when Iclosed the door that I realized I’d be seeing him again. And he knew I had hidden something underneath my shirt from the library.
    Just my luck.
    I tromped up the stairs, Butters at my heels.
    Once inside my room with the door closed, I kicked the thought of the boy out of my head along with my shoes, which landed by the trunk of old clothes. After slipping into my pajamas and flicking on the fan, I grabbed
The Secret Garden
and flopped onto my bed. I’d been reading it every night since we arrived and only had three chapters left.
    After I read the last words, I closed the cover with a satisfied sigh. The book had been just as brilliant the second time as it had been the first.
    The whirring fan rustled the pages I had snuck from the library. Rolling over onto my stomach, I reached under the bed where I had hidden them and pulled the stack onto my lap.
    After flipping through the musty pages, I smoothed my hand across the top and pressed my nose to them. I’d always loved reading a new book. Opening up one to the first page was like starting a new life. And the story I held in my hands now was even more exciting. Whose was it? Was I the very first person to read it?
    I found where I had stopped and continued:
    But the universe thrust Lilly and Mark together at almost every turn, it seemed. Lilly thought that perhaps it was punishment for the time she had pretended to read her Bible when really she had been reading Moby-Dick . Or maybe Fate had some unknown plan for her that she had no interest in being a part of. But because she couldn’t seem to get rid of Mark, she took to beating him up. Even that, however, didn’t keep him away. It seemed only to make him like her more. Lilly couldn’t take