Bounce by Natasha Friend Read Free Book Online Page A

to yank out every hair on my head, one by one.
    Now, Al is standing in the middle of the living room, holding something orange and folded.
    â€œI have in my hands,” he says, “a symbol of the collective journey we are about to undertake.”
    He looks around at us, squashed together on two couches, and his eyes stop on Eleni. “Would you come up here, please? My bride-to-be?”
    Bride-to-be. Blech.
    I try to catch Mackey’s eye so I can make a face, but he is three Gartoses away, looking straight ahead.
    â€œAl.” Eleni is smiling. “What are you up to?”
    It takes her exactly a nanosecond to be by his side—a midget, gazing up at a giant.
    I don’t know how either of them can stand it. I guarantee they’re in for a lifetime of neck pain.
    â€œHoney,” I hear my father saying. “Kids…”
    I’m not sure what’s coming next, but I know I’m not going to like it.
    â€œI’d like to introduce to you…”
    If Linus was here, at least I could focus all my attention on him. But he has class tonight. Economics. Econ, he calls it. Which is so cute. Linus is always coming up with—
    â€œThe Gartos-Linney Utopian Experiment!”
    The Gartos-Linney Utopian Experiment.
    â€œOh, Al! It’s wonderful!”
    Oh, God, it’s a T-shirt. A construction-cone-orange T-shirt with ten sets of puffy white handprints encircling the planet Earth and puffy white lettering.
    â€œUm, Al? Did you, like, make those?”
    Ten construction-cone-orange, white-puffy-paint T-shirts.
    â€œYay! Can I bring it for show-and-tell?”
    And we’re supposed to put them on.
    â€œWe don’t have to wear those outside, do we?” one of the twins asks.
    But Birdie just laughs. He turns to Eleni and says, “Hon? Get the camera. We’re making memories here.”
    I am in the back “yard”—the only place I could find that’s Gartos-free. Clam is out here, too, banished by Eleni. Apparently, Thalia is violently allergic to pet dander. Whatever.
    I go over to the doghouse Birdie built for him. In the olddays, Clam got to sleep with one of us, snuggled at the foot of our beds.
    Now he gets carpet on top of cement.
    â€œHey, boy,” I say, scratching his ears the way he likes it.
    Usually, he wags his tail like crazy. This time, he just looks at me with weepy eyes.
    Clam is so ugly. He is a pug-bulldog mix with a smashed-in face, and his life’s ambition is to slobber and fart. As a rule I don’t like to get too close to him, but tonight I hug his neck. I breathe in his disgusting wet-fur smell, tinged with dog doo, but it’s also the smell of Maine—the ocean, and my old backyard, and Jules and Mackey and Birdie, and everything and everyone the way they used to be and never will be again.
    I squeeze him harder, and he lets out a big whimper.
    â€œI know the feeling,” I say.
    I never really liked Clam before. Tonight, I love him.
    I’m going to talk to Mackey. He is only one step up from a dog, I realize, because he won’t talk back. But at least he’s human. And at least he knows Birdie as well as I do—maybe even better, since he is two years older. He has to be freaking out a little bit, too.
    When I get to Mackey’s room, I don’t bother knocking. I can hear computer game sounds so I know exactly what he’s doing. He’s hunched over his keyboard, grinding his teeth, muttering curse words. Maybe I will play with him tonight, the golf game. That one’s not bad.
    But when I open the door, someone has taken my spot.
    It’s Cleanser Boy, sitting right there next to my brother, wiggling a joystick and pressing buttons like mad.
    Mackey yells out, “Die, vile scum beast of Zelkor! Die!” and Ajax doesn’t even blink, so I can tell he is into it, too.
    This is sibling bonding at its finest, only I’m the one who should be playing. Even if it’s