All-Season Edie by Annabel Lyon Page B

address and a stamp, meaning it’s real mail. I don’t get much real mail, except for postcards when Grandma and Grandpa go on holiday.
    â€œWho’s it from?” Dexter asks.
    I look at the return address. “Robert!” I say.
    Dex and Mom look blank.
    â€œYou remember,” I tell Mom. “In the summer, at the lake. We caught the fish.” Then Mom remembers too, but Dex, of course, doesn’t know who we’re talking about and makes fun of me for getting a card from a boy. As if Robert was what Dex would think of as a boy. Ridiculous.
    The card shows a reindeer trying to change the burnt-out red light bulb in his nose while the other reindeer stand around the sleigh, frowning impatiently and tapping their hooves on their hips.
    Dear Edie , the card says. Well, it is Christmas I guess so here is a card. I hope you remember me. If you saw me you might not recognize me anymore. My mom makes me go to Weight Watchers now and I lost twenty pounds. I’m not allowed to eat Christmas treats, only turkey and salad. If you could eat a sugar cookie and think of me, I guess I would like that. Maybe some time you could go to the planetarium and come to my house after. If you can’t remember who I am, remember the fish? Well, this is certainly the worst Christmas ever. I hope yours is better. Maybe I’ll see you again next summer. Your friend, Robert.
    â€œI want a cookie,” I say and add loyally, “Stupid Christmas.”
    I fall asleep on the couch then and have a half-dream, half-memory of the time Grandpa took me to the planetarium, just him and me. It was only last year, when he could still drive the car and remember the names of things and teach me about the stars. We sat in the chairs that tipped way back and held hands while the lights went out, and then Grandpa said, “Open your eyes, Albert, this is the best part.” I opened my eyes and saw the stars come on one by one, until thousands of tiny lights prickled against the black velvet of the night sky. A man’s deep voice came on over the loudspeaker to explain how the ancients believed that stars were the souls of people who had died and gone to the next world. Grandpa held my hand through the whole show, even after I stopped being afraid.

Dancing with Mean Megan
    The phone rings in the middle of the night, and after a few minutes it rings again. Dad, who is dreaming of sitting in a deck chair with a newspaper while Dexter and I shriek and laugh together down by the lake, hears it and wakes. Mom, who is dreaming of the house she grew up in, in St. John’s, and the smell of pumpkin pie, hears it and thinks, It’s a wrong number, let the answering machine get it. Dexter, who is dreaming a complicated whirling dream with colors and flavors and smells, all pink and purple and fruity, with sparkly clothes and music and dancing, hears it and moans and rolls over and tries to burrow back into her dream. I, who have been dreaming comfortable Edie dreams of dark rainy afternoons at home with books and cats and cheese sandwiches, hear it faintest of all and am asleep again before I even know I’ve woken.
    Only Dad gets out of bed.
    At the breakfast table, Dexter sits alone. She’s set two places. When I sit at my chair, she coaxes a crumpet from the toaster with a fork and puts it on my plate.
    â€œOH MY GOD,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “You’re making my breakfast.”
    â€œI’m in charge,” Dexter says.
    Normally I would dispute this kind of claim loudly and lengthily, appealing to Mom, and Dad too if he hadn’t already left for work. But there’s an eerie quiet to the house this morning, and Dexter has not automatically told me to shut up, which is bizarre. She also looks tired, more tired than her normal just-rolled-outof-bed tired, and her mouth is a bit raisiny, like Mom’s gets when she’s worried or annoyed.
    â€œWhere’s Mom?” I ask.
    â€œThey