It's Only Temporary by Sally Warner Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t tell anyone else about the party, you guys,” she added as Ms. O’Hare came gliding toward their table. It’s just gonna be us art jerks, that’s all. But it’ll be fun!”
    Dear Scott, Things are okay at school, but the 8th grade kids I told you about have gotten worse. They keep picking on us art jerks for no reason. (Well, not on me, exactly, but mostly Aaron picks on Pip, who he calls gay and queer.)
    I never know what to do when someone is mean to someone else. I mean, if I say something, will the mean person be mean to me next? And if I don’t say anything, doesn’t that make me mean, too? (You used to be kind of mean to me. Remember the sleepover party you wrecked? And that time at the restaurant?? And, and, and???)
    Here is a mystery: a secret drawing got slipped into my locker! Oh, and Gran had another date. How totally embarrassing! Love, Skye

    HI SKYE. I DONT REMBER BEING MEAN 2 YOU, JUST MOM + DAD. WELL A COUPLE TIMES 2 YOU MABE. SORRY. I DONTKNOW WHY I ACT THE WAY I DID, I CANT REMBER. BUT I REMBER BENG NORMAL 4 SOME RESON I WISH I DIDNT. ON HALLWEEN ME AND MOM GO 2 THE MOVIES 4 A TRET. NOW THAT IS PATHTIC. DAD STAY HOME ANSER THE DOOR SO I DONT SCARE ANY KIDS HAHA. IF I WAS IN CALFORNA THEY LEAVE PIP ALONE 4 GOOD. THIS ONE GUY AT MY SCHOL 2 YRS AGO KEEPS CALLING GUYS GAY AND IT TURNS OUT HE WAS THE ONE!!! HE CAME OUT LATER HE WAS NICE AFTR THAT, EVEN COOL. SAY HI 2 GRAN, MABE SHE TAKES YOU ON HER DATE!!!! NOW THATS SCARY. LOVE, SCOTT

12
Remembering
    â€œD o you remember that Thanksgiving, the time I visited you in Albuquerque?” Gran asked the next Saturday afternoon, steam from her tea misting her glasses as she and Skye watched an old movie on TV. “You were what, eight years old? Nine?”
    Skye didn’t really remember much about the visit–except for some weird dinners when Gran tried to
“help out”
in the kitchen, almost driving Skye’s mom nuts in the process. “Mmm-hmm,” she said, listening to the rain. “That was the year Scott threw the bowl of cranberry sauce on the floor because it wasn’t from a can.”
    Gran winced a little, newly remembering. “Scotty always was a handful, wasn’t he?” she acknowledged reluctantly. “I still have pictures of that trip somewhere,” she added, looking around, as if they might be tucked awayunder a nearby sofa cushion. And then she sighed – probably thinking about Scott now, Skye thought. “I remember when you were born, Skye,” Gran said softly. “I was teasing Scotty over the phone, asking if you were a boy or a girl, and he said, ‘It’s just a baby, Gran. And I’m gonna help take care of it.’ Fierce as could be. And from that moment on, he was always looking out for you.”
    Skye nodded politely and sipped her hot chocolate.
“Just a baby.”
She’d seen the pictures, and it was true: she had looked like a red-faced, bleary-eyed blob when she was first born, all wrapped up tight like a burrito, with a little cotton cap jammed down on her wobbly head.
    But Scott
had
taken care of her when they were little, Skye remembered suddenly. He’d pulled her around in his Radio Flyer wagon for so many years that someone on another block once asked if there was something wrong with her. “Nope,” Scott said angrily. “But she doesn’t have to walk as long as I’m here.” That was one famous family story, among many others.

    Scott was her hero, and she had adored him.
    But then, as if he was following instructions from an invisible manual called “How to Make Everyone Miserable,” came the impossible years.
    Yet their parents had somehow figured Scott would be a good driver?
    Why, Skye wondered angrily, had they even allowed Scott to get his license? Was it simply to make their own lives easier? “He’ll be able to take you to school,” Skye remembered her mom –