Last Summer by Holly Chamberlin Read Free Book Online

come up with was the almost as lame answer, “I wanted them to like me.” It was all pretty pathetic, mostly the part she hadn’t had the courage to tell Sister Pauline. That she had been mad at Rosie for not fighting back; that she had in some small way wanted to punish her friend for being ... For being what? For being frightened. Yes, it was all pretty pathetic.
    Well, whatever she had hoped to achieve, what she got in the end was no best friend and no nice and generous best friend’s mother, and even Mr. Patterson didn’t stop by anymore with his toolbox to see if anything needed fixing. Which meant that when something had gone wrong with the kitchen sink the week before, Meg’s mother had had to call a plumber and spend who knew how much money she claimed not to have on a quick fix Mike Patterson could have done in five minutes and for free. Certainly Mrs. Giroux hadn’t had the option of calling her ex-husband. Meg had known for years and years that her father was, in her mother’s words, “pretty much useless around the house.” Meg’s opinion was that he was pretty much useless everywhere.
    Abruptly, Meg got up from the swing and pushed it hard, jumping away as she did so. It flew wildly, the metal chains clanging against the structure’s supports. Meg winced. She shouldn’t be wasting time on a stupid swing set anyway. She would be fifteen in August, but sometimes she felt that she was still too much of a child. Judy Smith had a boyfriend. So did a few of the other girls who would be tenth graders in September. That was one of the things that had begun to frustrate Meg about Rosie back before all the bad stuff had started. Meg had wanted to talk about boys and maybe start dating, though she was pretty sure her mother wouldn’t let her, not the way she ranted on about most men being bums. But Rosie hadn’t been much interested in talking about guys or dating. She said that her parents wouldn’t let her date until she was sixteen, maybe even seventeen, so there was no point in wasting a lot of time debating about who was the cutest guy in their grade or who was the hottest senior. They’d had a stupid fight, nothing major, but Rosie’s lack of interest in guys and dating had pointed out to Meg that maybe their friendship wasn’t as perfect as it had been when they were younger. Maybe they were growing apart a bit. The notion had not sat well with Meg. Although she had been annoyed with Rosie, the thought of life without her was too weird to contemplate. It was like trying to imagine your life without your right hand or something.
    The swing had come to a stop and Meg headed back inside the house. She really had better get started on the housework. A lot of times her mother was in a bad mood when she got home from work. Finding the house a mess definitely wouldn’t help. Not that she was afraid of her mother. Frannie Giroux’s bark was way worse than her bite. It was just that Meg didn’t like to be around anyone when they were in a bad mood. She had enough of her own bad moods to deal with, thank you very much.
    Right before stepping inside the side door, Meg looked over her shoulder at Rosie’s house. No one was in sight. Meg closed the door behind her. So what if Rosie wasn’t really into boys or dating yet. So what if she preferred to watch an old black-and-white movie when Meg suggested they go shopping for makeup. Those things didn’t really matter. What did matter was getting Rosie back into her life.

5
    I t had been one of those days. And in Frannie’s opinion, there had been too many of “those days” lately. A traffic jam had come up out of nowhere, half of the office staff had mysteriously called in sick, and her intestines had been playing a game of Hacky Sack since noon. She had forgotten to bring in milk, and then had forgotten to ask Meg to pick up a carton, so at dinner Petey had had to drink orange juice. For some reason, this had struck him as a fate worse than death, which