Last Summer Read Online Free PDF Page B

one more paragraph to write for English class and then I’m done with homework for the night.
    Your friend, Rosie

4
    T he long metal chains that held the swing to the support rods squeaked as Meg kicked off halfheartedly. She knew she shouldn’t be wasting time. There was still a lot to do before her mother came home from work, like vacuum the rugs in the living room and front hall and do a load of laundry and change the sheets on her bed and on Petey’s. But she just couldn’t make herself get up off that swing and do anything productive.
    She wished the housework would magically do itself. Meg wished a lot of things would take care of themselves or go away or change. Like, she wished she were taller, not five feet three inches, where she had been stuck for over a year. She wished she were naturally thin, not grossly thin like runway models with their bones sticking out all over the place, just thin. She wished her hair were a richer shade of brown, or maybe even auburn. She fully intended to color her hair as soon as she was old enough to do it without getting in trouble with her mother. Mrs. Giroux didn’t seem to believe in hair color; her own brown hair was pretty streaked with gray. It drove Meg a bit crazy that her mother didn’t take more interest in her appearance. Lots of things had been driving Meg crazy for a long time now. Her mother said it was just hormones. Meg wasn’t so sure.
    Meg sighed, and for a moment was glad she was alone. It was hot, and swinging had made her sweat enough so that her glasses kept sliding down her nose. There just wasn’t a cool way to push glasses back up your nose. Meg had tried in front of a mirror and every way just made you look stupid or like a definitely not cool kind of nerd. (She wouldn’t mind being a cool nerd. Cool nerds grew up to make lots of money.)
    Anyway, she wished she didn’t have to wear glasses. The frames were okay, even though she’d had them now for three years and was dying for a newer, more stylish pair, maybe something in purple or blue. Worse, though, was that on really bright days she had to use clip-on sunglasses, as her family couldn’t afford to buy a separate pair of prescription sunglasses. Most days Meg preferred to squint rather than to use the clip-ons, which, she was convinced, only old people used. She would love to be able to wear cool sunglasses, which you could get almost anywhere and which didn’t have to cost a lot, either. She had seen some fantastic frames in Goodwill for three dollars! But she could only wear cool sunglasses if she could wear contacts, and that was another issue. Meg’s mother only allowed her to wear contacts on special occasions, and there hadn’t been one of those since Easter. According to her mother, regular old Sunday Mass didn’t count as special enough for “wasting” the money on a pair of disposable contacts. And the only reason her mother had let her get contacts in the first place was she had promised to make a one-month supply last for a year. It was unfair and very frustrating.
    Meg stopped swinging and kicked at the dirt with her foot. Her whole life was unfair and frustrating. Once, in a fit of anger or maybe it was annoyance, her mother had told her to stop being so discontented with everything in her life. “Life is tough,” she had snapped. “Get used to it.” Meg remembered shouting back something like, “Why should I have to get used to it? Just because you have?” That exchange had not ended well. She had lost Internet privileges for a week and had to clean the bathroom floor for a month.
    A slight squeak of a door hinge caused Meg to look up and across to the Patterson yard. Rosie was coming out of the door to the small screened-in room at the back of her house.
    Meg lifted her hand in a wave. The gesture was automatic, though the shout of greeting she was about to call out died in her throat.
    Rosie ignored her wave (or maybe, Meg thought, she hadn’t seen it) and walked