The Summer of Bad Ideas Read online

  Dedication

  With love for Ron Bucknam, who has flown planes,

  sailed ships, swum with sharks, slept among scorpions,

  and raised a couple of kids, including me

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family

  Chapter 2: Stuffed

  Chapter 3: Good Ideas

  Chapter 4: Endangered

  Chapter 5: Oh, Boy

  Chapter 6: Wild Things

  Chapter 7: Scoop

  Chapter 8: This Old House

  Chapter 9: Natural Disasters

  Chapter 10: Storm Warning

  Chapter 11: Likes

  Chapter 12: Dirty Laundry

  Chapter 13: Slingshot

  Chapter 14: Carp-y Diem

  Chapter 15: Sky High

  Chapter 16: Fall

  Chapter 17: Wish in One Hand

  Chapter 18: Wake Up

  Chapter 19: Apple Tree

  Chapter 20: Corked

  Chapter 21: Knock Knock

  Chapter 22: Swamped

  Chapter 23: Lumps of Sugar, Grains of Salt

  Chapter 24: Good Ideas for Summertime, Revised

  Chapter 25: So Charmed

  Chapter 26: Ten

  Chapter 27: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, (Extended) Family

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family

  Twigs snap under the sure step of my boots. The sun strains through the clustered branches above, beaming rays of light into the eerie coolness of the forest air. Beneath me, unseen creatures rustle and slither and scatter; around us, they chirp and coo and call out.

  I am hiking through the woods with Taylor, and I am not afraid.

  No, wait. I’m not just hiking. I am leading Taylor on a summer adventure through the wild, and we’re making our way toward a lake. A murky lake. In which I will swim, even though you can’t see the bottom. A murky lake into which I will dive. Swan dive! Yes, that’s even better. Taylor will cheer me on as I prepare for the big leap, and I won’t feel scared at all. Not even a tiny bit—

  The minivan screeches to a stop. There is a collective thwack of five seat belts suddenly snapping into action. I am physically yanked back into the unwelcome reality that I am in the sweltering state of Florida, and for the last few days, I have been confined to a vehicle with my parents and eight-year-old twin siblings. I am no adventurer; there is nothing exciting or fun or fearless about me. I’m a crumb-covered kid with only a dream, and very little free will to do anything about it.

  “Sorry about that, fam,” my dad says. “But what the dangle?” He is staring at something in the road.

  “Well, this means we’re almost there,” my mom says with a flustered sigh. I’ve noticed that the closer we get to her childhood home, the stranger she’s acting.

  “Is that a dog?” Beatrice squints excitedly from the seat behind me. She lost her glasses in one of the Carolinas, so now she and Henry are sharing his.

  But it’s not a dog. It’s a dinosaur. A huge, bright-green monster sort of thing with a row of thorns along its neck. The twins ooh and ah behind me, passing Henry’s glasses back and forth.

  “Oh. That’s Barbara,” my mom says. “She’s an iguana.”

  “Okay, who wants to classify it?” my dad, the biologist, asks.

  “Common green iguana!” Henry shouts, his words stabbing into my ear. “Phylum—Chordata. Class—Reptilia. Order—”

  “Kingdom—animalia! You forgot kingdom,” Beatrice corrects him.

  “I left it out. Everyone already knows that.”

  Henry reaches for his video camera with one hand; with the other, he grabs for the side-door handle. But, having forgotten to unbuckle his seat belt, he falls awkwardly between his seat and the door, camera rolling.

  Snap. My mom has activated the child lock on the side door. “Edith, can you—”

  “I’m helping, I’m helping,” I say as I pull Henry back into his seat. IQ-wise, the twins are technically geniuses, but common-sense-wise, it’s a different story. It’s not unusual for me to have to help them out of ridiculous situations. Once, while pretending to be an armadillo, Beatrice got her head wedged in the back of her chair. And there was the time that Henry got stuck in the washer over an argument about centripetal versus centrifugal force.

  My mom reaches over my dad in the driver’s seat and starts honking the horn. “Move, Barbara! Move!” The iguana slowly slinks into the tall grass at the side of the road, and we start moving again. “Petunia did always let her wander.”

  “Um, Mom?” I ask.

  “It’s the next left,” she says to my dad, sitting back in her seat as if there’s nothing weird about any of this.

  “Mom!”

  “Yes, honey. What?” my mom asks, a little impatiently.

  “Uh, what the heck? Is going on?” I ask as we turn into a driveway, which is just a looong path of gravel.

  “I know, it’s a little surprising. Barbara has to be more than twenty years old. She always liked roaming. Petunia didn’t want to keep her in a cage—she thought it would ‘ruin the iguana’s spirit,’” she says, making air quotes. “Now, that alligator of hers was a different story.”

  “Alligator?” Henry, Beatrice, and I ask in unison, but with completely different tones. Disbelieving, intrigued, and absolutely terrified. Respectively.

  “His name was Louis,” my mom says. “He hardly had any teeth. She fed him cat food. And he had to be kept in a caged area—for his own protection.”

  My dad smiles and shakes his head. “Petunia and her reptiles.”

  “Mom?” My skin starts to itch. I’m beginning to feel cold even though it’s about a hundred degrees outside. “You didn’t exactly say Petunia had reptiles. You said animals. That Petunia was really into her animals.”

  “She was. She loved animals. Particularly reptiles. But, obviously, it’s been a while since I’ve been here, so I’m not really sure what to expect.”

  “What about”—I brace myself for the answer—“snakes?”

  “Edith’s afraid of snakes,” Beatrice says.

  I cringe. “I’m not afraid,” I try to argue. “I just don’t like them. I also don’t like worms, but that doesn’t mean I’m afraid of them.”

  “If you don’t like worms, why did you want to go camping, then?” Henry asks. “You were going to sleep in a tent on the ground. Worms live in the ground.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Mom wasn’t going to let me go anyway,” I say pointedly.

  He’s talking about Sophi Angelo’s summer kickoff party—THE summer kickoff party. A weekend camping trip to Wompatuck State Park. My best friend, Taylor, was the one officially invited, but she talked Sophi into inviting me. Going on that trip could have meant that I’d still have a best friend in the fall, when we start middle school. Or at least I’d have a shot.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Edith, but Sophi’s parents were going to be in an RV on the other side of the campground,” my mom says. “I just wasn’t comfortable with it. A group of twelve-year-olds—”

  “Almost thirteen!” I say.

  “But still, twelve-year-olds should be supervised a lot more closely. They should not be wandering around a campground on their own all weekend. It’s too risky. The chance of something happening is pretty high.”

  “Yeah, something fun,” I grumble. Okay, so maybe my mom’s shoulds and shouldn’ts saved me from some possible snake encounters. And Sophi was talking about swimming in the lake at night. And having a campfire! And sneaking off to spy
on some ninth-grade boys. The sad truth is that all of it scares me. I’d probably have spent the weekend curled up in the corner of a tent.

  “And anyway, honey, I told you you could have your own sleepover.”

  Right. Well. It’s no surprise that Taylor chose the popular Sophi Angelo and her big weekend camping party over spending another boring night at my house. But what is a surprise, at least to me, is that I’ve barely heard from her since.

  Sleepovers—and stories—are something that Taylor and I have had a lot of, at least until recently. Taylor has a serious food allergy, and when we first met in fourth grade, her mother knew she’d be safe at our house with my mom in charge. And my mom knew that we’d be well supervised at Taylor’s house. And it turned out we had a lot in common, mainly books. Reading good ones and writing bad ones. As wannabe authors, we’ve attempted five together, mysteries that all remain, sadly, unfinished and unsolved. But lately, Taylor’s mom has been letting her do more things that used to be off-limits—parties, social events, weekend camping trips! Now that Taylor seems to have more choice about who she hangs out with, she seems to be choosing less of me.

  Thankfully, Beatrice changes the subject. “So are there snakes here, Mom?” she asks, in an annoyingly hopeful tone.

  “Well . . . ,” my mom says, in this high-pitched singsongy way that comes across a little apologetic. Her eyes catch mine in the rearview mirror.

  Oh, no.

  “She used to have some. If there are any snakes still around—”

  If. Which, in this case, you don’t have to be a genius to figure out means YES THERE ARE MANY SNAKES AROUND, CAN’T YOU SEE ALL THE GREAT HIDING PLACES IN THE OVERGROWN GRASS AND HANGING TREE LIMBS, YOU FOOL YOU.

  “—we should all remember, the vast majority of snakes aren’t harmful to humans. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you,” my mom says, as if it’s just a matter of knowledge and/or memory.

  “Yeah,” Henry says. “More people die each year from bee stings than snakebites.”

  “Errrrrr.” Beatrice makes a loud buzzing sound and frantically presses an imaginary button in front of her. “Misleading statistic! More people are actually allergic to bee stings than snakebites. They die of allergies.”

  My dad clears his throat. “Edith, Petunia kept her snakes in an enclosure, but I’ll take a good look around once we get settled in and make sure everything is nice and secure.”

  I know my dad thinks it’s his fault that I really don’t like snakes. I think he’s been feeling guilty about it for almost six years now, since he took me to the snake habitat at the zoo.

  “You shouldn’t be afraid, Edith,” Beatrice says again.

  “I’m not!” I say, despite the prickle of goose bumps down my arms and the heat of shame across my face.

  The gravel road curves, and my grandmother’s house comes into view. It’s like one of those plantation homes you’d see in an old black-and-white movie—a huge two-story with double balconies, rounded at the front and surrounded by a large porch and imposing columns. It’s the kind of house that makes you want to sit up a little straighter. Even though it looks a little dusty and dingy, and mind-blowingly old, my mouth falls open a little.

  “Wow,” I say. Compared to our split-level in the Boston suburbs, it’s practically a mansion. “You grew up here?” I ask my mom.

  “Yeah.” Her voice is soft as she studies the house through the car window. She turns to my dad. “I just always thought that someday she’d meet the children.” She shakes her head. “I mean, all the crazy risks she took—swimming with sharks and scuba diving and those self-guided trips to the Everglades—who would have thought?”

  My dad reaches over and squeezes her shoulder. “No one expected it.”

  It is a little ironic. My grandmother did a lot of dangerous things in her life—and survived. But ten days ago, she died from a sudden heart attack, just sleeping peacefully in her bed.

  After what feels like an unofficial moment of silence, my dad clears his throat. “Now, kids,” he says, looking up at the house. “This is what they call Greek revival. It was a popular building style before the Civil War. That porch is called a portico, and the window above the door is a transom.” Another teaching moment, as almost everything is in our family. Thankfully, this is slightly more pleasant than the anatomy lesson we had over some skunk roadkill in South Carolina.

  The house looks still and quiet, even a little abandoned.

  “What time did A.J. say they’d be here, Hannah?” my dad asks.

  My uncle, A.J.—my mom’s younger brother—and my cousin Rae will be spending these next two weeks cleaning out the house with us. I’ve never met them—nor have I met Petunia, nor my grandfather, who died before I was born. Apparently I have a family full of strangers. Still, I’m pretty sure I know what to expect. I’ve seen a couple of Rae’s school portraits over the years—the trademark glasses, the much-needed braces, the strained smile. Her mother is Korean American, so even though Rae’s skin tone is different than mine, there’s apparently no escaping the very dominant dork gene that runs in our family like an Olympic track star.

  “He just said early.” My mom looks at her watch. “It’s after four now, though. Maybe their plane was late.”

  I’m glad to hear it. After being cooped up in the car with my parents and the twins for three full days, the last thing I need now is even more family around me. The child lock unsnaps, and I slide open the side door and step out. The second I stand up, I am reminded of the giant iced tea I guzzled about a hundred miles back.

  “Mom, where’s the bathroom?” I ask.

  “Oh, let’s get these suitcases out of the car and then I’ll show you, honey.” She pulls on a suitcase that seems stuck. My dad tries to wrestle it free.

  “I can go on my own, Mom.”

  “Well, of course you can, Edith, but I don’t know the condition of the house. My mother wasn’t much of a housekeeper. I’d rather—”

  “Mom? Please. I think I can handle it.”

  She exhales. “Okay, Edith, listen. The key’s probably right under the doormat. The bathroom’s in the back of the house. You’ll have to go down the front hall and through the kitchen.” She reaches for another suitcase. “But be careful.”

  The wooden porch steps groan under my feet. I peel up the doormat, but there’s no key. I try the knob. It turns, unlocked. I push open the heavy door and step inside.

  And stop.

  Going into my grandmother’s house is like entering someone’s bad dream. So far, I’m not a fan of Florida—being anywhere in this state is like getting trapped in your P.E. teacher’s armpit after an aggressive game of dodgeball—but at least outside, there’s sun, and bright colors, and a breeze. And, let’s be honest, probably poisonous snakes. With fangs. But inside this house, the dark air feels thick and heavy, like it’s closing in on me. Dust swirls through the air like plankton in water.

  I blink and my eyes adjust. A wide, sweeping staircase spirals into the foyer. It looks grand but also reminiscent of things like ghosts. Which I don’t believe in, I remind myself. I look down the long hall, toward the daylight coming through the kitchen window. It seems a long way away.

  I feel that too-familiar tingle of fear and begin to turn around to wait outside for my mom after all. But I stop myself.

  Maybe it’s time for a new Edith. A braver Edith. A gutsier one. An Edith who wouldn’t be hiding in a tent while other people are swimming at night. Having campfires. Meeting up with boys.

  An Edith who definitely wouldn’t be waiting for her mother to take her to the bathroom.

  So I ignore the goose bumps, and the bad smells, and the reasons why not, and dare myself to take another step into the dark house.

  Chapter 2

  Stuffed

  I am almost into the main hall when I hear something move.

  I look to the left and freeze. At the entry to a cluttered room with soaring ceilings, a large gray-and-black dog stands at a
ttention, staring at me. Gutsy Edith, I remind myself. My heart races. “Nice boy?” I ask slowly.

  But his big blue eyes don’t even blink. The dog seems unnaturally still. I notice he’s standing on a small wooden platform.

  “His name’s Albert,” I hear, and I startle, jump, and gasp at the same time, so it’s sort of like performing a dancing snort.

  “He’s stuffed. You know—taxidermy. Petunia liked that kind of thing.”

  My eyes scan over rows and rows of books, a desk, a wooden lamp carved into the shape of a coiled snake. Then I see her—a girl, curled up on a faded floral-print couch in the corner of the large room. She pushes herself up to a seated position, tucks her long black hair behind her ear, and smiles a little. I’m not sure if she’s being friendly or just trying not to laugh at me.

  “Sorry to scare you,” she says. “Guess it’s a good thing that stuffed alligator isn’t around.”

  Yes, good thing indeed. I smile sheepishly back and try to explain myself. “Oh, no, I wasn’t—uh, scared. I just didn’t know anyone was in the house.”

  “My dad went into town to get some groceries, but I was hoping to FaceTime my friends. No luck. The signal really sucks.” She stretches her arms up. “I guess I fell asleep.”

  I squint through my glasses. She looks familiar. And then it hits me. I’ve seen this girl before. I’ve watched her steal a Rocket Pocket Pastry Puff from her “older brother.” I’ve seen her dance around with a cartoon Pollo Mio chicken. I am standing about fifteen feet in front of a celebrity.

  “Uh . . . ,” I sort of stammer. “You’re the girl in those commercials.”

  “Oh.” She laughs. “Those are so embarrassing. My dad didn’t write about those in the Christmas letter, did he?”

  Dad? Christmas letter? Could this be—?

  I stare at her, noticing everything from her shiny hair to her hot-pink flip-flops. There’s no sign of braces, but I guess those can come off. And could she be wearing contacts? Yes. Yes, she could.

  This girl is . . . “You’re Rae?” I hear myself ask.

  We may be close to the same age and share about twelve and half percent of our genes, but at the moment, I’m having trouble figuring out which genes those are. We’re both wearing shorts and T-shirts, but compared to her, I look like a poorly wrapped UPS package. Her hair is glossy and flowing, while mine is like a scribble with a tan crayon. Her eyes are golden brown, mine are tombstone gray. Maybe there’s some similarity in our left pinkie toes.