A Summer of Sundays by Lindsay Eland

straight and clapping his hands.
    And … cue sugar craziness.
    Jude got his legs moving, and Henry bounced up and down on his knee.
    “Now he’s never gonna leave you alone,” I said, taking a bite of my donut. The chocolate was melting between my fingers and I licked away the sweet stickiness.
    “I don’t mind.”
    I shrugged. “Is your mom at work already?”
    “Yeah.”
Bounce, bounce, bounce
. “She goes into the bank early on Mondays. Wally dropped me off a little bit ago.”
    “And how was that?”
    Jude shrugged and continued to bounce my giggling brother. “Same as always. Trying to be my best friend.”
    “You could give him a chance, you know.”
    He stopped and glared at me. “Yeah, maybe when you start liking your family.”
    “Sunday likes us,” Henry said, and nudged Jude to continue. “Keep bouncing.”
    Jude started back up again. I decided to drop the subject. It wasn’t worth it. Being completely forgotten by your family was way different. “Hey, do you know where there’s a computer I can use? I want to look up something on the Internet.”
    Jude’s leg stopped bouncing, and he set Henry on the ground. “You don’t have one here?”
    “We do, but it’s my mom’s and she’s using it right now. At the library we might get stuck stacking books or sweeping and I want to do more investigating.”
    Jude got up and brushed off his shorts. “We can go to my house then.”
    “Can I come? Can I come? Can I come?” Henry jumped up and down in front of us.
    “Not right now, Henry,” I said. “We have to do something by ourselves. But we’ll be back later, okay?’
    He plopped himself down on the stairs and stuck out his lower lip. Butters sat herself conveniently next to his cheek, licking at his face and hands.
    Jude bent down. “Hey, Henry? Why don’t we go inside and get another donut? How does that sound?”
    Henry looked up, brown eyes sparkling. “Okay.” He stood and grabbed for Jude’s hand.
    “Hurry up,” I called after him.
    Mom came to the door with Bo trailing behind her, a circle of chocolate around his mouth. “Emma, where are you going?”
    “That’s Sunday, Mommy,” Bo said, and laughed.
    “Sorry, Sunday. Where are you going, sweetie?”
    “Just over to Jude’s house for a bit. Is that all right?”
    Bo pushed through the door. “I’ll come, too.”
    “No,” I said a little too loudly. It was nice having Bo as my shadow some of the time, but not right now, not when I was trying to learn more about Ben Folger.
    He frowned and his eyes filled with tears. “Please, Sunday? Please? I won’t get in the way.”
    “Maybe next time, okay?”
    Mom picked him up and gave him one of her squeezer hugs, the sort that takes the breath right out of you. He laughed. “Besides,” she said, “I need you here to help me today.” She winked at me. “Just be home for dinner.”
    Jude came back out on the porch with another donut in his hand. This one had the entire top eaten off of it, but he didn’t seem to mind. He smiled and followed me down the stairs. “I guess Emma isn’t up yet.”
    I walked faster, jealousy nipping at my heels. “Nope. She sleeps most of the day. She’s almost like a zombie and looks like one when she wakes up. It’s pretty gross.”

JUDE’S house was on the other side of Main Street. It was painted bright white, and a small fence circled a yard that was cleaner than any of our rooms. The inside was even neater. There were no magazines, paper airplanes, toys, tools, peanut butter smears, or bits of dried browned apple left on the end table. I kept my hands to my sides like I was on a field trip to a museum.
    “My mom likes it clean, and when Wally’s around he picks up around the house, too.”
    “That’s nice of him.”
    “Yeah, but now it’s
too
clean.”
    I followed him down a hallway. Jude’s room was slightly better. His bed was crisply made, like a hotel bed, and there wasn’t anything on his floor. The books on the