The Great Good Summer by Liz Garton Scanlon Read Free Book Online Page A

at Mama, too.

Chapter Seven
    S ome days are plain unlucky. Like today. I get a flat tire on my way to the Murrays’ and have to push my bike the rest of the way. Then it turns out Lucy has a summer cold with a runny nose, and she fusses the whole way to the park, and I get green snot on my pretty yellow shirt when I bend down to love her up. And Devon somehow loses a shoe between there and here.
    Plus the day started with Mama’s postcard sitting out on the kitchen counter again. It keeps popping up and reminding me that Daddy’s been worrying, which makes me double worry—about Mama and about him, too.
    And now here we are to watch the flying machines—which is what I’d promised Lucy and Devon the whole snotty, shoe-losing nine blocks to the park—and it’s closed. Empty. Shut down, with a sign on the gate saying, NO MOTORIZED AIRCRAFT UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE BY ORDER OF THE CITY OF LOOMER.
    â€œWell, huh, guys,” I say. “There’s nobody flying today.”
    Devon starts to cry. Lucy sneezes. I wipe sweat andsunscreen away from my eyes, drop the backpack onto the ground next to the stroller, and flop down beside it. If I were a tire, I’d be flat.
    â€œI thought you guys might be here.” Paul Dobbs kind of jogs toward us from Picnic Hill, looking over his shoulder a couple of times. His voice sounds funny, as if he’s got a cold too, like Lucy. And he’s wearing a hoodie over his T-shirt, even though it’s ninety-something degrees outside.
    â€œWell, yeah. We’re here, but what happened? Why is the airspace closed down? Mr. Devon Murray is none too pleased,” I say, “so neither am I.”
    Devon hushes his crying a little bit ’cause Paul’s here, and Devon just plain likes Paul. Lucy likes him too, and I can see why. Paul’s funny with them. He makes goofy voices, and he rolls down Picnic Hill like a barrel, and he knows how to make model airplanes fly like magic. What’s not to like, really?
    â€œHa. Welcome to my world,” says Paul, not sounding nice or funny or goofy at all. “It’s like my own mini version of the space shuttle program shutting down. Some jerk complained about the noise coming from the airspace, and then they decide that maybe it’s too dangerous anyway—noisy and dangerous. And that’s it. No more flying.Just like that.”
    Paul plops down onto the grass next to us and pulls Devon onto his lap. “I’m never gonna get the chance to be a real astronaut, and now I don’t even get to pretend anymore. Plus a freaking dog chased me half the way here, but I guess the City of Loomer doesn’t care about that kind of noisy and dangerous, does it?” And he looks around, like the dog might still be coming.
    â€œMy summer’s just junk,” he says. “The Space-Junk Summer of Doom,” he says, kind of kicking the ground in front of him as he talks.
    Which makes me hop up and kind of kick my feet at him!
    â€œ Your summer is junk? Your summer? Seriously, Paul Dobbs, you should think of somebody other than yourself for one hot minute. I don’t think your bike tire’s flat, you don’t have green snot all down your shirt, and I’m 100 percent certain that your mama’s not gone missing!” I am half-shouting by the time I finish, and also half-hoarse ’cause I’ve got a lump in my throat again. (I don’t even mention that it hurts my feelings when he says his summer’s been junk, when he’s spent a whole lot of it with me.)
    â€œIvy sad?” Lucy stands up and puts one hand on each of my hips.
    â€œWait, what? Your mom is really missing?” Paul asks, and he stands up too. “I thought she was at church camp or something. I didn’t know she was missing, Ivy. Honest.”
    And now I start to cry, for real. For the first time since Mama left forty-six days ago, I cry and cry and cry. There is something