My Almost Epic Summer by Adele Griffin Page B
Authors: Adele Griffin
Tags: Fiction, General, Family & Relationships, Juvenile Fiction, Social Issues, Interpersonal relations, Self-Help, Love & Romance, Friendship, Conduct of life, Business; Careers; Occupations, Self-Perception, Babysitters
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Preoccupations, New and Old
THE DEAFENING ORCHESTRAL Soundtrack of My Life makes sleep impossible. After more than an hour of flipping around and kicking at my sheet, I get out of bed and log on to Starla’s journal.
STARLAMALLOY ’S JOURNAL
Today I Learned that my Witness is a Traiter. My Witness has been Holding Secret Meetings with D, where they Talk Secretly and Make Plans.
Witness, if you are Reading this, I Spit on You.
Once Betrayed
This Heart You Frayed
Betrayed Twice
This Heart You Slice
If a bad poem makes you feel rotten, does that mean that on some level, it’s good?
For the hundredth time, I reach for Drew’s copy of On the Road, which I’d placed on my bedside table. I flip through its soft pages, then bring it to my nose and sniff. I spread my fingers over the pulpy paper, imagining Drew’s sun-browned hands on my shoulder again. The book makes me jittery, as if Drew himself is standing in my bedroom.
Sister’s e-mail is dull. Little scrips and scraps of her day. She goes on too much about the weather and politics. I can read between the lines that she is sad about Sister Maria Martinez. She doesn’t even ask how I am enjoying Tender Is the Night . Not that I have been able to concentrate on a single word of the story since Drew left.
I move on to Whitney.
From: [email protected]
Attention Delinquent!
This means you Irene Morse! Guess what ? Five sentences do not make a letter. Can I remind you that you pulled this same silent treatment trick on me last summer when my parents took me to England for three weeks? Let me refresh your memory. First you made a big dumb point of reading like nine thousand books by British authors so that you knew thirty thousand things about the U.K.—just to show that the less-deserving person was the one who got the plane ticket. Then from the day I left it was nothing but radio silence from the USA. In the beginning I figured Dad’s international cell was just one of his dud “I-got-a-deal-on-a” deals. Next I decided my e-mails must be collapsing on a giant technical glitch midway across the ocean. Finally I decided (hoped!) you were going back to ye olde days of paper and doodles like those notes we passed in Phonics and I got all repsyched thinking about the four or five via airmailed letters I’d be getting all at once.
Instead I got—nada. And to refresh your memory when I came home your lame excuse was that you had a cold. So if you don’t write me with one real thing really happening in your life we’re going to have some serious friendship issues when I get back and yes you can take that as a threat.
While I’m on the subject of England I better tell you about this Guy here (a guy named Guy I’m so un-kidding it’s a completely real name in England where he’s from) who’s been giving us all the best slang. Like winge means to whine and a posh toff is a rich snob and someone who is scaly is a creep and hectic means out-of-control. Guy whispers me naughty bits of U.K. vocab in private and in that saucy 007 accent I am putty in his hands.
Just goes to show—you don’t have to go to England to find yourself a scrumptious crumpet, luv!
So stop giving me the silent winge just cuz you think I’m having a toff summer. I mean it Irene. No fair to act so scaly to the same person who made you homemade protein sorbet when you had laryngitis or who stood in line for three hours to snag you those words beyond boring Poetry Speaks tickets so you could have a posh birthday. I want life details.
xo anyway,
Whittle
This time, I don’t even have to think before I start typing.
Dear Whit—
You are right. I don’t have a cold. I don’t have any excuse. Except—have you ever liked a guy so much that just thinking about him is like somebody pouring ice water down your spine? Have you ever stood next to a guy whose simple fact of existence was enough to make your insides do backflips?
The guy
Preoccupations, New and Old
THE DEAFENING ORCHESTRAL Soundtrack of My Life makes sleep impossible. After more than an hour of flipping around and kicking at my sheet, I get out of bed and log on to Starla’s journal.
STARLAMALLOY ’S JOURNAL
Today I Learned that my Witness is a Traiter. My Witness has been Holding Secret Meetings with D, where they Talk Secretly and Make Plans.
Witness, if you are Reading this, I Spit on You.
Once Betrayed
This Heart You Frayed
Betrayed Twice
This Heart You Slice
If a bad poem makes you feel rotten, does that mean that on some level, it’s good?
For the hundredth time, I reach for Drew’s copy of On the Road, which I’d placed on my bedside table. I flip through its soft pages, then bring it to my nose and sniff. I spread my fingers over the pulpy paper, imagining Drew’s sun-browned hands on my shoulder again. The book makes me jittery, as if Drew himself is standing in my bedroom.
Sister’s e-mail is dull. Little scrips and scraps of her day. She goes on too much about the weather and politics. I can read between the lines that she is sad about Sister Maria Martinez. She doesn’t even ask how I am enjoying Tender Is the Night . Not that I have been able to concentrate on a single word of the story since Drew left.
I move on to Whitney.
From: [email protected]
Attention Delinquent!
This means you Irene Morse! Guess what ? Five sentences do not make a letter. Can I remind you that you pulled this same silent treatment trick on me last summer when my parents took me to England for three weeks? Let me refresh your memory. First you made a big dumb point of reading like nine thousand books by British authors so that you knew thirty thousand things about the U.K.—just to show that the less-deserving person was the one who got the plane ticket. Then from the day I left it was nothing but radio silence from the USA. In the beginning I figured Dad’s international cell was just one of his dud “I-got-a-deal-on-a” deals. Next I decided my e-mails must be collapsing on a giant technical glitch midway across the ocean. Finally I decided (hoped!) you were going back to ye olde days of paper and doodles like those notes we passed in Phonics and I got all repsyched thinking about the four or five via airmailed letters I’d be getting all at once.
Instead I got—nada. And to refresh your memory when I came home your lame excuse was that you had a cold. So if you don’t write me with one real thing really happening in your life we’re going to have some serious friendship issues when I get back and yes you can take that as a threat.
While I’m on the subject of England I better tell you about this Guy here (a guy named Guy I’m so un-kidding it’s a completely real name in England where he’s from) who’s been giving us all the best slang. Like winge means to whine and a posh toff is a rich snob and someone who is scaly is a creep and hectic means out-of-control. Guy whispers me naughty bits of U.K. vocab in private and in that saucy 007 accent I am putty in his hands.
Just goes to show—you don’t have to go to England to find yourself a scrumptious crumpet, luv!
So stop giving me the silent winge just cuz you think I’m having a toff summer. I mean it Irene. No fair to act so scaly to the same person who made you homemade protein sorbet when you had laryngitis or who stood in line for three hours to snag you those words beyond boring Poetry Speaks tickets so you could have a posh birthday. I want life details.
xo anyway,
Whittle
This time, I don’t even have to think before I start typing.
Dear Whit—
You are right. I don’t have a cold. I don’t have any excuse. Except—have you ever liked a guy so much that just thinking about him is like somebody pouring ice water down your spine? Have you ever stood next to a guy whose simple fact of existence was enough to make your insides do backflips?
The guy
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