Bird Lake Moon by Kevin Henkes Read Free Book Online Page A

funny.” Spencer was still holding a grudge about her running off to the lake before him, so he couldn’t help but add, “Can’t you just be a normal person and talk in a normal voice? I know that normal for you is slightly ab normal to most people, but you understand what I mean.”
    Lolly licked her lips and tightened them into a line. They were standing several feet apart, waist-deep in the lake. Lolly raised her hands and dabbled with her fingers in the water between her and Spencer. A few sparkling droplets clung to her eyelashes, and fleetingly, Spencer saw them as tears and wondered if she were crying.
    â€œI’ll stop talking like this if you’ll race me,” Lolly said.
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œPromise. I, Birdy Lake, solemnly promise to stop talking like myself—”
    He cut her off. “Okay, okay. I’ll race you, but first I need to get my goggles. I’ll be right back.”
    Spencer never raced Lolly without his goggles. They were the closest thing to a good-luck charm he’d ever had. He’d not lost to Lolly yet and didn’t want to start now.
    He dried off quickly and headed for the house.
    â€œWhere are you going ?” asked his mother.
    He stopped and turned. “To get my goggles.”
    â€œI saw them in the grass this morning,” she told him, “when I took Jasper out. They were by the car. I put them on the front porch before we went to town. Near the edge by the top step.”
    Spencer cocked his head. “Huh, that’s funny,” he said, feeling strange again, uncertain, because he knew there was nothing on the porch. “I could swear I put them in the side pouch of my blue bag at home when I packed.”
    â€œThey must have fallen out when we carried our things in last night.”
    He ran. He saw that the porch was clear; nonetheless, he stepped onto it tentatively. He searched carefully through the patchy, untrodden grass growing beside the steps, parting it over and over with his hands, reasoning that Jasper could have knocked the goggles off the porch with his tail. Nothing.
    In the house, he examined his duffel bag and backpack, checked under the bed and through the drawers of the dresser that had been designated his. Again, nothing. He even rifled through Lolly’s things with no success.
    What’s going on? he wondered.
    On his way back down to the lake, Spencer’s eyes scanned all about: high, low, forward, backward. He crisscrossed the yard. The stiff grass and weeds were sharp under his bare feet. “Ouch,” he said to himself. “Ouch, ouch, ouch.”
    He came upon the birdbath and froze. He thought he recognized his goggles lying in the shallow pool of water, but they’d been twisted somehow, made compact. After a quick intake of air, his breathing became short and shallow. He picked up the small bundle as if it were poison. Then he shook off the water and untangled his goggles. At the center was a stone.
    He felt dizzy. The goggles were surely his, and they seemed fine, except that one of the eyepieces had a few new spidery scratches on it. Handling the stone was not something he wanted to do, but he was inclined to keep track of it, so he plopped it back into the birdbath. There was nothing special about it—it was just an ordinary gray stone.
    Passing clouds slipped in front of the sun and one big shadow engulfed him suddenly, like a net dropping over him from above. Seconds later, the shadow lifted.
    â€œSpencer! Hurry up!” Lolly’s voice rang out.
    â€œComing, coming,” he muttered, confused by all of it. He longed to be near his family. With his goggles firmly on his head, eyepieces pulled up onto his bangs, he joined them.
    â€œI see you found the goggles,” his mother said, smiling.
    â€œYeah,” he replied, edging toward the lake, straight to Lolly, so that he wouldn’t have to lie to his mother. “Thank