Goodbye, Rebel Blue Hardcover Read Online Free PDF Page B

glass teardrop into my cargo pants pocket, the one that does not contain Kennedy Green’s dreams and desires.
    Unbuttoning the other pocket, I take out the paper. Time to ditch Kennedy’s bucket list, and not in a malodorous, cockroach-infested garbage can with Macey giving me the stink eye. I shall give Kennedy’s list wings. Literally.
    I fold the paper in half and make a few diagonal creases in an attempt to approximate one of Cousin Pen’s paper cranes. If I squint, I see a three-legged dog. Close enough.
    With my arm raised toward the heavens, I fling the mutant canine. The wind catches the paper and whisks it higher. The girl who believed in a golden heaven would love this.
    “Bye-bye, bucket list,” I say with a jaunty wave. Good. Mission Get-the-Do-Gooder-Dead-Girl-out-of-My-Head accomplished.
    My pocket and heart exponentially lighter, I jog three steps when something smacks me in the forehead and falls to the sand.
    The bucket-list-mutant-crane-dog.
    I jump back as if it might bite. Then I slap my palm on my forehead. Look who’s wearing the I’m-a-Moron T-shirt now. I snatch the piece of paper, squeeze, and hurl it into the churning waters of the Pacific.
    A kid wearing a beach towel like a Superman cape hops in front of me. “Hey, lady, that’s littering.” His face puckers in a scowl.
    “It’s paper. It’ll dissolve.”
    “You littered. That’s against the law. I’m going to tell my mom, and she’s going to tell the lifeguard, and you’re going to be in trouble.”
    I point to the sand toys a few yards up the beach. “Don’t you have a sand castle to build?”
    “You’ll get a five-hundred-dollar fine and spend a hundred years in jail.” He sticks out his tongue.
    “Or maybe you should go stick your head in the sand.”
    His chubby fingers dig into the sides of his Superman cape, and his bottom lip juts out. “You’re meeeeean.”
    I squat so we’re eye level. “And you’re eeeeevil.”
    His scowl morphs into a wicked grin. “And you’re still a litterbug. Mooooom! I found another one. Can I tell the lifeguard? You got to do it last time. Please, can I, pleeeeease?” He runs to a granola-type woman farther up the beach, who starts walking to the lifeguard tower.
    I wade into the water, scoop up the stupid paper, waggle it at Superbrat, and jam the sodden mess into my pocket.
    The next morning I walk into the kitchen and listen to grumbling at the far end of the street followed by melodious beeping. This is the happy sound of a Tierra del Rey garbage truck. When I got back from my run-in with Superbrat, I tossed Kennedy’s bucket list into the recycling bin.
    Reaching into the refrigerator, I pull out a piece of cheesecake with blueberry sauce left over from last night’s dinner and smile. A sweet start to a sweet day.
    Aunt Evelyn, who stands at the sink, makes a sputtering sound, as if she’s choking. “We don’t eat that for breakfast,” she says. “We’ve been over this countless times, Rebecca. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. You must follow the food pyramid and be properly fueled.”
    Until I moved in with Uncle Bob’s family, I’d never heard of the food pyramid and didn’t know about breakfast rules . Breakfast with Mom could be white rice and black beans in Costa Rica or juicy plums plucked from a tree growing in the wilds of Chile.
    Aunt Evelyn clucks her tongue and grabs the cheesecake from my hand. “Your breakfast is on the table.” She points to a staged breakfast on a rooster place mat: yogurt parfait, whole-grain toast with kumquat marmalade, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
    Today is too good of a day to argue about the food pyramid. I grab the toast and slather on marmalade. The bucket list is gone, and my world has been set right.
    The grumbling grows louder as the recycling truck rolls in front of our house. I raise my fingers, ready to wiggle a fond farewell, but the beeping, the sound that indicates the truck is lifting a recycling