My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer by Jennifer Gennari Read Free Book Online Page B

counteract her move.
    â€œBe careful!”
    Eva gripped either side of the boat. “I wish you would talk to me, June, about boats, about your friends.”
    I wished she’d turn around again and start paddling. “You don’t get it. You don’t have kids.”
    Eva didn’t move. “I’d like . . . Soon you’ll be my stepdaughter.”
    â€œGreat. Like I’ll go around telling everyone I have two moms!” I grabbed the paddle and started for shore.
    â€œJune, I love—”
    â€œYou know what? You are the whole problem,” I shouted. “Before you moved in, everything was fine. Queers aren’t supposed to have kids anyway!”
    Eva turned white. “How dare you—how dare you say—”
    â€œThat’s what everybody says! What am I supposed to think?” I splashed my oar in again and again, breaking the surface with each violent stroke, recklessly spraying water everywhere. First Mom, now Eva. I wanted to get out, to get back to land. And then I knew what to do.
    I jumped overboard.
    â€œJune!”
    â€œI’m swimming back,” I said. “You’ll have to paddle back yourself.” I launched into my strongest freestyle stroke, kicking up a fountain of water.
Who cares if she can’t J stroke,
I thought.
I hope it takes her hours.

Chapter Nine
    IT TOOK HER thirty minutes to get back. She didn’t say anything to Mom, so I didn’t, either. Every now and then I’d catch Eva staring at me hard. I stayed out of the way, not talking to anybody. The problem with not talking, though, is that after a while you get so full of words, they could tumble out at any minute.
    As soon as the sun rose the next morning, I whacked on my weather radio until the familiar announcer’s voice rumbled: “Cloudy, clearing in the afternoon. South wind, ten to twelve knots. Lake temperature, sixty-eight degrees.”
    A good sailing day. I placed the red lens over my flashlight and faced it toward Luke’s island. I needed help.
    Mom and I had made cookies last night. It had been soothing to beat the batter and fill the cookie sheets. Baking together was her way of making peace, but I still couldn’t talk to her. Unspoken worries weighed me down, like too much salt in the dough.
    I wanted to tell Luke everything—about my fight with Mom, with Eva, and the library crowd—but I didn’t know where to begin. I could at least show him the flyer. The marina could be in a lot of trouble with these posted around. And I had to tell him about Mom refusing to let me enter the pie contest.
    It wasn’t fair. Secretly, I had found the baked goods competition for children ages eight to twelve in the fair exhibitor handbook that Ms. Flynn had given me. The form was straightforward enough, but right at the top it said MOTHER’S NAME , FATHER’S NAME and, at the last line, SIGNATURE REQUIRED . I needed Luke to help me find a way around that.
    â€œJune!” Eva called up the loft stairs. “Luke is here!”
    Perfect. Our light system worked. I pulled on my bathing suit and shorts. I tucked the fair form in my back pocket along with the flyer.
    â€œHey, June.” Luke was in his bathing suit, ready for anything.
    I gave him a “please wait” look, hoping he wouldn’t ask what the trouble was in front of Eva.
    But she didn’t look up. She kept reading the newspaper.
    â€œWe’re going sailing,” I said.
    â€œOK,” she said without a glance.
    I hesitated. “Do you think Mom needs help?”
    â€œMJ is fine.”
    She probably can handle everything because there’s no business,
I thought as I glanced at the cove. One boat was gassing up, and I saw that Mom had put up a sign: FRESH COOKIES TODAY. I hoped someone—anyone—would come in.
    Luke raced to the dock, and I followed. We quickly raised the mast and put in the rudder. “Where to, Captain?”