Instructions for the End of the World by Jamie Kain Page A

friends.”
    â€œOh god. She’s an idiot.”
    â€œShe’s lucky.”
    â€œWhere did they take her?”
    â€œInto town to a burger joint. They all ate together and then they dropped her back off here on their way home.”
    â€œOh. She didn’t mention. She’s kind of a brat.”
    I open the garage door and blink while my eyes adjust to the change from bright to dark. On the nearest wall Dad has installed a series of hooks on which every shovel and garden implement imaginable hangs. I select a spade-shaped shovel, better for digging into hard earth, and hand it to Wolf. Then I grab a second one for myself.
    â€œI don’t know if your sister mentioned it, but we’re having a party tonight at our place. You both are welcome to come.”
    â€œWhat kind of party?”
    â€œKind of a weird one, actually. My mom’s throwing it to welcome herself back from rehab.”
    â€œOh.” I don’t know what else to say, so I look at him to see how he feels about it.
    â€œI have to warn you, my mother is nuts.”
    We are walking back toward the well, and I get the urge to tell him exactly how nuts my parents have been lately, too, but I don’t.
    â€œMy friends said they already invited your little sister, so I wanted to make sure you got an invite too.”
    After my argument with Isabel last night, she vanished into her room and hasn’t spoken to me since. I don’t know what kind of response I was expecting to my acting like Dad, but I am sort of relieved not to have her making demands and complaining about every little thing.
    I want to complain, too. I really do.
    But who’s going to listen or care?
    â€œThanks,” I say, trying to imagine going off tonight to a party with a bunch of kids like Wolf.
    I know without a doubt that I would not be allowed to go if our parents were here, and Izzy at fourteen would not in a million years be allowed to go. But a party … it’s the sort of thing I sometimes fantasize about, wonder about, maybe even pine for, when I’m thinking about what it would be like to live in a normal family, to have normal rules, to be a normal teenager.
    I have heard kids talk at school. I am not interested in getting drunk or using drugs or making out with guys in front of other people. But laughing and having fun? Acting stupid? Falling into swimming pools with my clothes on?
    I am ashamed to admit it even to myself, but it sounds kind of great.
    I want so badly to feel carefree, it takes my breath away when I allow myself to think about it.
    â€œSo does that mean you’ll come?” Wolf says, a half smile on his lips.
    We are back at the well, and I put my weight into trying to penetrate the ground with the tip of my shovel. I barely make a dent.
    â€œI’m not sure.”
    All the true answers I can give sound completely lame. Like, that I’m not allowed to go to parties, that my sister is way too young, that my dad hates hippies and will kill us if he comes home and finds us off partying with a bunch of them.
    â€œIf it’s lame, we’ll just go do our own thing,” he says. “I can’t guarantee you’ll have a good time, but I can guarantee it’ll be more fun than trying to dig up ruptured water pipes.”
    He grins, and I can’t help but laugh. These past few days have been so completely ridiculous, I don’t know what else to do.
    â€œGood, it’s settled then. You know how to get to the village?”
    â€œNo, I don’t hang out in the woods watching people the way you do.”
    â€œYou should. It can be illuminating.”
    â€œI bet.”
    â€œYou just go down the hill and make a right on the next gravel road before you get to the main road. It’s only about a half mile walk or bike ride, but if you want we could come get you in a friend’s car.”
    â€œThat’s okay,” I say. “We can walk. If we decide to go, I