Umbrella Summer by Lisa Graff Read Free Book Online

while I did some distracting.
    Rebecca stuck a braid in her mouth and started chewing. I didn’t say anything, just let her think, and after a minute or two she spit her braid out. You could tell the part she’d sucked on because it was darker thanthe rest of her hair. “That’s a really good plan,” she told me.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œDefinitely.”
    The one bad part of my idea was that I had to wear my Junior Sunbird outfit, and I hated that thing more than black licorice jelly beans. One time Jared said it made me look like a blob of chewed-up purple bubble gum, and he was right. Plus there were only three badges on my sash, and one was what they gave you for showing up on the first day. Rebecca had twelve, and she’d been in the troop the same amount of time as me, only obviously she was lots better at sewing and hiking and stuff. So my Junior Sunbird outfit wasn’t exactly my favorite thing. But Rebecca said it wouldn’t look real if I didn’t wear it, and if it didn’t look real, Rebecca wouldn’t be able to sneak inside the house. So I put it on.
    We walked across the street together, me dressed up ugly and purple, and Rebecca with my dad’s bird-watching binoculars hanging around her neck. Sheprobably could’ve seen fine without them, but Rebecca really liked my dad’s bird-watching binoculars. Just as we reached the corner of Mrs. Finch’s yard, where the big oak tree was, Rebecca grabbed my arm and I stopped walking.
    â€œAre you sure you’re going to be okay?” she asked me.
    â€œI think so,” I said, but all of a sudden that got me worrying. “Why? You think something bad’s going to happen?” What if Mrs. Finch had laryngitis and she coughed on me? What if I dislocated my kneecap going up the stairs? How was I supposed to fix any of that myself if Mom had taken my book away?
    Rebecca chewed on her hair. “Well,” she said after thinking awhile, “I guess you’ll be fine. I mean, if any ghosts start flying out when the door opens, you can just duck and they probably won’t get you.”
    I was pretty sure I rolled my eyes at that one, but Rebecca didn’t notice. “Okay,” I said. I started for the door, hanging on tight to a box of Coconut Babies with my left hand and crossing my fingers with the right one.
    I was almost to the door when from behind me Rebecca called out, “Annie?” I turned. Rebecca was already hidden behind the tree, with only her head poking out to talk to me. “If you get in trouble,” she said, “just whistle.” And she gave me her best Sunbird salute.
    I nodded, even though I didn’t know how to whistle.
    Before I even climbed up the last step of the porch, Mrs. Finch opened up her door to greet me. “Why, hello there!” she said, all smiles. I took a good look at her. She didn’t look like she had any bad diseases, although you could never know for sure. But she looked mostly like a regular old lady, plain as a box of toothpicks, except for her short white hair that came to pointed curls like the tops of the lemon meringue pie Rebecca’s mom sometimes made.
    â€œOh, dear,” she said to me, before I even had a chance to say anything myself. “Did you hurt yourself?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYour arms,” she said.
    â€œOh.” I looked down at my Band-Aids. “I’m okay,” I told her. “None of them are deadly.”
    â€œWell, that’s good to hear.” Mrs. Finch straightened up her back and smiled. “Can I help you with something?”
    I shook my head side to side. “Nope,” I said. “No, thank you.”
    â€œReally? I thought maybe you were selling cookies.”
    â€œOh yeah,” I said, remembering. “Yeah, I’m selling cookies.” I gave her the Sunbird salute.
    Her eyes seemed lit up a little bit, and I couldn’t tell if she was