The Forget-Me-Not Summer by Leila Howland

not,” Lily said. “I’m afraid of the ocean.”
    â€œThis whole time I thought you were terrified of going underwater,” Aunt Sunny said.
    â€œNot in a bathtub,” Marigold said as she lathered up Lily’s hair with shampoo.
    â€œI know what you need,” Aunt Sunny said as Marigold used a measuring cup to rinse Lily’s hair. “Swimming lessons. In a pool. We’ll head over to the YMCA tomorrow!”
    â€œI’m ready to get out now,” Lily said. “You can go warm up my towels in the dryer, Marigold.”
    â€œOh, my,” Aunt Sunny said.
    â€œJust kidding?” Lily said.
    â€œYes,” Marigold said, snapping open a room-temperature towel. “Definitely just kidding.”

23. The Town Beach
    F or the next several days Marigold and Zinnie didn’t venture back to the Pruet Yacht Club. Marigold’s phone had been completely ruined by her unexpected dip in the harbor, so the temptation of cell phone reception was gone. And Zinnie didn’t want to risk running into the sailing coach again. He had been firm in his warning that the girls couldn’t be there unsupervised, and Zinnie didn’t know what kind of trouble they would get into if he saw them again. But the biggest reason not to go back to the PYC, Marigold had whispered in the dark one night in the barracks, was Peter Pasque.
    Marigold had confessed that although she had been the first in her Girl Scout troop to earn her knot-tying badge, it had been a few years ago, and she didn’t think she remembered any of the other knots. She saidthat she would die of embarrassment if Peter asked her to try something more advanced before she had a chance to practice.
    â€œAnd,” Zinnie whispered, “what if he asked his father, the managah, about the Snoopy family? He’d know we were lying, and we’d have to admit that he had been right all along!”
    â€œOMG, we can never see him again!” Marigold said.
    â€œYeah, no way!” Zinnie said, putting the sheet up to her chin and smiling into the darkness.
    So Zinnie thought it was a little odd that while they hadn’t been back to the PYC, they hadn’t exactly avoided walking past it. For the past three days, while Lily accompanied Aunt Sunny on errands or helped in the garden, Marigold and Zinnie had been going to the town beach. There was an alternate way to get there that, although it included a shortcut through someone’s yard, would have allowed them to avoid passing the entrance to the yacht club. But they just took their usual route back and forth to town. This meant they had passed the yacht club a total of six times. Zinnie suspected that although Marigold claimed she didn’t want to see Peter again, she secretly did. But when she confronted Marigold about this as they walked past the yacht club for the fourth day in a row, Marigold flipped her hair and said, “There are more bugs that way!”
    The town beach was tiny compared with thebeaches in California. If they weren’t going to Santa Monica, with its amusement park, arcade, volleyball nets, and wide concrete pathway with people whooshing by on bicycles and in-line skates, the Silver family went to Malibu for a beach day. There the ocean roared. Often the waves were big enough for tough-looking grown-ups in wet suits to go surfing, and the undertows were so dangerous and powerful that sometimes even their parents wouldn’t go in past their ankles. And although it was almost always sunny in Southern California, the water was often too cold for swimming, at least for the sisters. Of course there were plenty of days in the summer when the water was calm and warm enough for a swim, but the Silver family caught only a few of those days a year. The beaches were at least an hour’s drive from the Silvers’ home, depending on the traffic.
    But Zinnie and Marigold could walk to the Pruet Town Beach in ten minutes or less.