The Summer of Bad Ideas Read online

  I glance over at him.

  “You know.” The side of his cheek reveals his glorious cheek dent. “Sea stars.”

  “Oh, right!” I say.

  Rae looks over at us.

  “So it’s supposed to stay really clear out tonight. You guys want to go see some stars up on Stone Hill?” Even though he’s addressing both Rae and me, his voice is still soft and quiet, and very close to my ear.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Wait. What?” Rae says.

  I give her a tight-smiling, wide-eyed look that translates into “I’ll tell you about it as soon as I can.”

  “Okay,” Mitchell whispers. “See you guys up there—about nine?”

  “Sounds great,” I say, even though I’m suddenly terrified. Wait, no, exhilarated. No, terrified. Well, I don’t know exactly how I feel, but I do know that my heart is fluttering as fast as a hummingbird’s. One thousand two hundred and sixty beats a minute sounds about right.

  Chapter 15

  Sky High

  “Okay, I don’t get it,” Rae says. We’re sitting on one of Petunia’s old blankets, staring up at the planetarium-bright sky. “The Big Dipper just looks like a box.” She swats at a mosquito.

  “Yeah, sort of,” I say. “Can you see the Summer Triangle?” I try to point out three bright stars, but she shakes her head.

  “They all look the same. Ouch!” She slaps her ankle. “These bugs are killing me.”

  I sigh. She doesn’t seem to appreciate all that went into us getting here. I knew my dad felt bad about us having the lamest Fourth of July celebration ever. So, with my mom having headed straight to bed after the diner, I convinced my dad that after three busy days of working, Rae and I deserved a glimpse of nature’s own fireworks display. A study of the stars and constellations.

  So he gave us permission. He even told me he was proud of my gumption.

  “I know, the bugs are bad,” I say. “But just look up again. See those three stars?”

  She squints up at the stars. “Edie, I don’t see anything other than the Big Dipper. That’s the only one I know.”

  I try to be encouraging. “See? You know something.”

  She waves her hands around her head, trying to clear the mosquitoes away. “Everyone knows the Big Dipper. Big deal.”

  “You can probably see Ursa Minor too. The Little Dipper. The North Star is at the end of its handle. Right there.”

  She sighs. “I don’t see it. Where’s Mitchell, anyway? He’s late.”

  “Only about five minutes,” I say.

  “Okay, but I’m getting about a hundred bites a minute, so he’s about five hundred mosquito bites too late.” She scratches her arm. “I think we should go.”

  “Not yet,” I say. “Please?”

  “Edie, it’s not like I got a say in this.”

  “I thought you’d be excited. It’s all about seizing the day, right? Or, okay, the night?” I say. Truthfully, I was always a little worried about her enthusiasm about item five on the list. “Wish upon a shooting star” is one of those things that sounds good in theory but happens to involve a lot of sitting and waiting and staring and waiting some more.

  “All you told me was that you failed flirting with him. You didn’t say you asked him out!”

  I suck in a breath. “I didn’t ask him out. I just asked him if he liked stars, since it’s on the list.”

  “What’s the big deal with the list anyway? I know it was kind of fun in the beginning, but now, it’s like—well, why? I can think of a million more postable things.”

  We can’t give up now! But if I tell her why the list means so much to me, she’ll know how boring and no fun I really am. So I just blurt out, “It’s for Petunia.”

  She turns to me.

  I continue. “I, uh, never got to meet her, like you did. So it’s—well, kind of like getting to know her. Just doing the things she did.” And when I say it, it actually doesn’t feel that untrue.

  “Oh,” she says, like she understands. “Okay, I get it. But, Edie, the stars actually come out every night, so—”

  “Well, sure, but . . . just look up. It’s superclear out tonight, and we’re here now, and it’s pretty amazing.” And it is. The sky is vast. The stars are brilliant.

  “I know, but now is making me feel like an all-you-can-eat buffet for these mosquitoes.”

  “Just a little longer, please.” Maybe Mitchell will show up. “Maybe we’ll see a shooting star.”

  “Or we actually could catch malaria. Wonder which is more likely.”

  “The shooting star,” I joke. I recite a statistic that I just made up but I’m sure is factual. “More people see shooting stars than catch malaria.” At some point, I seem to have turned into Henry.

  She sighs. “Okay, five more minutes, but if nothing happens, I’m going.”

  We wait, staring up at the sky, swatting the air, smacking our necks, our exposed arms, our feet.

  The sky is sparkly, but it remains still.

  “Edie, this kind of bites. Literally.”

  “Well, you can’t leave without making a wish,” I say, trying to buy time. Where is he? “Just pick out one star to wish on—even an ordinary one.”

  She looks up at the sky again and takes a big breath. And starts coughing, gagging. “I think I swallowed a bug!” She starts to retch.

  I hand her my water. She gargles, forcefully spits it all out, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “I can’t deal with these bugs. I’m leaving.”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  “What about your wish?”

  “I wish that I could leave. And I’m going to make that come true.” She stands up. “You coming?”

  I don’t know what scares me most. Being alone up here in the dark, or being around a boy who may actually like me. I decide to take my chances.

  “I’ll be home soon,” I say, but she just turns and walks away.

  I sit and stare out into the darkness. I try not to think about what lurks around me. I try not to think about the fact that I’m alone in a strange place at night. And I try not to think about how weird it is to sit here making kissing noises. To scare off the snakes. I mean, just in case.

  I’ve made three wishes on three separate stars. To be daring and adventurous, like Rae—like Petunia. To have my best friend back. And on the third one, I wish—

  I see a flashlight bouncing around in the darkness, as if floating clumsily along by itself. I wonder if it’s Rae coming back for me, but I don’t hear the pink flip-floppiness of her feet. This is more of a trudge.

  “Mitchell?” I call out.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he says, close enough now where I can see him.

  That last one must have been a lucky star.

  He sits next to me and flips down the hood of his sweatshirt. We look in each other’s directions but, thankfully, it’s too dark for eye contact.

  He holds out a small clay pot. Inside is a lemony-smelling candle. “Citronella. It’s supposed to keep the mosquitoes away.”

  “How’d you know they were going to be so bad?”

  “I’ve sort of lived in Florida all my life,” he says. “You get to know a lot about bugs.”

  Then he pulls out a book of matches. I realize I wouldn’t know how to light a match—I’ve been taught to stay away from them. I watch him take a quick strike. A flame appears, and he sets it to the wick.

  “That’s so amazing,” I say, and I mean it.

  He laughs like I’ve made a joke. At least I’ve made him laugh without making fun of his shoelaces.

  I take a big whiff of the lemony air and smile. Despite the fact that Rae’s already left, despite the fact that there are probably snakes around, despite the fact that it’s late and I’m still out—despite all the should-nots going on right now, I’m feeling pretty good. Until he asks, “Where’s Rae?”

  Of course.

  “Oh,” I say. “She went home. The bugs were d
riving her crazy and—well, she wasn’t having fun.”

  I wonder if he’s going to politely excuse himself and leave, but he doesn’t. He just asks if I like Slim Jims.

  “Slim Jims?” I ask. A forbidden food. Seen but never consumed.

  “You never had one?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Want to try it?”

  “I don’t know. What’s it taste like?” I always imagined them a little like turkey jerky, which is something I tried on a group dare at recess. Actually, it would have been more daring not to—to be the one who didn’t buckle to the pressure, but I buckled. It tasted more like fish than turkey, and the flavor was so unpleasant and strong that I still remember it. A lasting scar of peer pressure, I guess.

  “It’s kinda like pepperoni,” he says.

  He unwraps the little stick and hands it to me. I take the first bite—a little nibble. It’s chewy and a bit spicy. It qualifies as junk food. It’s probably horrible for me. But it doesn’t taste as bad as I would have thought.

  “It does taste like pepperoni,” I say, smiling a little. I give it back to him and he bites right into it, like I have no germs at all. Oddly, I feel flattered. It’s like the opposite of having cooties.

  I glance at him from the corner of my eye. He’s staring up at the sky.

  “You know the constellations?” he asks.

  “Some of them.”

  “When I look up there, I just see a billion questions.”

  “Like what?” I ask. Because I feel like I want to answer them all.

  “Like, what’s going on out there? Is it really just rocks and fire and gas and stuff?”

  “Or is there something out there like us? Looking back at us?”

  “Exactly,” he says. “And, like, how many stars are we looking at?”

  “Oh. Actually, I know the answer. It’s about two thousand.”

  “Where did you learn that?” he asks.

  “From the twins.” As soon as I say it, I realize I kind of miss them. Just a little. I’m sure a few extra seconds alone with them would cure me of that, but still. “They can be annoying, but.”

  “Yeah, I know how that is,” he says. “You met my little brother. The one who wouldn’t shut up.”

  “Yeah, he is a talker,” I say. “I guess the twins are too—they just have more words to choose from. Maybe we all were like that when we were younger.”

  “Not me,” he says.

  I give him a yeah-right look. “You probably just don’t remember.”

  He hesitates. “I remember. I actually went three years without talking.”

  I wonder if he’s joking, but in the glow of the candle, I see only the hint of a smile on his face.

  “You mean, really?” I ask.

  “Yep. Not a word. From when I was about five till I was about eight.”

  “How—” I’m not sure if it’s a rude question or not, but I ask it anyway. “How come?”

  He tilts his head and smiles a little. “I don’t know. Maybe because I could only count to five and my favorite word was poo. Wasn’t that impressive.”

  I laugh. Okay, it starts as a laugh, but then it threatens to mutate into one of those awful, uncontrollable, weird nervous laugh-snort-chortle fits, so I hold my breath and bury my face in my knees, trying to smother it out.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, as soon as I’m sure I can talk. I feel like I owe him some sort of explanation. But what am I going to say? “So, I have this nervous condition. Especially around boys I might secretly like.” I think not!

  Thankfully, he seems to be pretty interested in staring into the night sky, and not too weirded out by me. I wait until the urge to laugh passes, then ask, “So do you recognize any constellations?”

  “Nah, I just kind of look at everything.”

  I gaze up and try to see what he sees. Not Orion the Hunter, or Cassiopeia the Queen, but just the overall brilliance of the sky.

  A breeze blows past us, and I breathe it in to calm myself. It gives me a shiver, and I rub my arms briskly.

  Mitchell pulls off his sweatshirt and hands it over to me. “Here,” he says. “Put this on.”

  I hesitate. “You don’t want it?”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” he says.

  “Thanks,” I say, and slip the sweatshirt on. It feels warm underneath, like a good hug, and I try to hide the secret thrill I feel. I pull the sleeves over my hands and tuck my head into the hood, and I lie back on the blanket to get a better look at the stars. He does too.

  “You ever been on the Gravitron?” he asks me.

  “What’s a Gravitron?”

  “You know, that thing at carnivals and stuff—it’s a ride. It’s this thing you get in and it spins around so fast, you just stick to the wall.”

  It sounds like science. The true effect of centrifugal force. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s kind of like this,” he says. “It’s like the Earth is giant Gravitron.”

  I close my eyes and try to feel it, and after a few minutes, I do—the strong force of gravity pressing me into the spinning Earth. Like I couldn’t move if even I wanted to. And I really, truly don’t want to.

  I hear him breathing. I wonder if he can hear my heart beating.

  “See what I mean?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. Maybe I can convince my father to take me next time the carnival comes to town. And maybe I’ll actually be brave enough to get on the ride. “It sounds like a fun ride.”

  “Yeah. It is. As long as you don’t step in a puked-up corn dog afterward. There’s always someone who loses it when the ride stops.”

  Snort. It starts, but I don’t dare allow myself to laugh again. Not a chance.

  Then he asks, “How many miles do you think we’re actually looking at?”

  “Oh,” I say. “I know that too. Nineteen quadrillion.”

  “Nineteen quadrillion? That’s a lot.”

  “Yeah,” I say, and try not to think about the fact that with all those quadrillions of miles around, there’s only a mere eighteen inches between the two of us.

  And then we both just smile up at the stars in silence. I’m battling to keep my eyes open, because I’m far from ready for this ride to stop.

  Chapter 16

  Fall

  I am falling off the bottom of the Earth. Falling in this slow-motion way—a little floaty fall. I am nearing a star, somewhere outside Earth’s atmosphere—the star doesn’t look like it’s twinkling anymore, it’s just burning, burning away. I’m feeling hot. Then hotter. Then I am speeding toward the fiery star, the float having disappeared from the fall. I’m being pulled now, faster, and faster, and—

  I try to scream. It feels funny in my throat, as though it’s being pulled out of my lungs. I gag, cough, I can’t breathe—

  “Hey, Edie.”

  I sit up. Open my eyes. I am on the blanket. Sitting next to Mitchell. Wearing a gray sweatshirt. His sweatshirt. In the already bright and broiling morning sun.

  “You okay?” He has this look on his face, like he’s amused but isn’t sure he should be.

  “I was having a bad dream. I couldn’t breathe.” My throat feels like someone just cleaned it out with a metal brush. Which means I’ve been snoring. I’ve probably snored and snorted all night, and I am mortified. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I kept you out all night.”

  Oh, no. Snoring and maybe even drooling are suddenly the least of my concerns. I jump up, like I’ve just been given a shot of adrenaline. I’m going to be in trouble all over again.

  “I better go,” I say, sort of frantically.

  “Okay,” he says, very unfrantically. “Let’s go, then.”

  I want to tell him I had a good time. No, a great time. No, even better—a stellar time, hardy har har—but I feel suddenly shy on the fast walk back to our houses. I think about the possible creatures in the grass, but there’s no way I’m making kissing sounds. No way. I’ll just hav
e to take my chances.

  Right where the paths between our houses split, we stop and look at each other. Or we try to, but our eyes dart around.

  “Well, it was . . . fun.”

  “Yeah.” He smiles. I notice his wild hair looks even wilder in the morning, but it doesn’t look so strange to me anymore. “Hey, how far did you say we could see? You know, when you’re looking at stars?”

  “Oh. About nineteen quadrillion miles,” I say.

  “Wow. That’s pretty awesome.”

  “I mean, not every night, but on a good night.”

  “Yeah, so . . .” That dimple of his makes a welcome reappearance. “It was kind of a good night.”

  I feel my face catch on fire. I feel a laugh bubbling up inside my snore-torn throat. It was a good night. But I can’t say it back. Not that I don’t want to—it’s just that I physically can’t. I’m laughing too hard. Snortling and snickering and chortling and making all those awful kinds of laugh noises that I fought so hard to silence last night.

  After a few eternities, I manage some sort of apology. “Sorry, I, uh . . .”

  “Yeah, okay,” he says. “Guess I’ll catch you later.”

  “Yeah,” I say, trying very hard to match his casual tone, despite the feeling that I’ve messed up this good-bye pretty epically. And I’m not sure he will catch me later, because it’s very possible that I could be grounded, not just for the summer, but for the rest of my life.

  I picture the calamity that awaits me at the house. Have the police been called? Is my mom a sobbing mess? Has my dad summoned a search party? And what about Rae? What’s she told them?

  As I near the house, I hear the raised voices of my mom and Uncle A.J. I can only catch a few words—“horrible,” “can’t believe,” “your fault.” Things are pretty intense. But maybe this time, I should go in there, standing tall and unashamed. I’ll tell them all to calm down—everything’s okay. I didn’t mean to stay out all night, but I’m safe.

  My mom will pull me into a massive hug, just grateful to have me home. She’ll say, “I’m just glad to have you home, Edie!” She’ll call me Edie.

  My dad will kiss me on the forehead and tell me he was lost without me, his smart girl. His unsung genius.