Lucy’s “Perfect” Summer Read Online Free PDF Page A

happened to it,”
    “Only there.”
    Lucy felt herself sag. “Maybe we’ll also go – “
    “Maybe you will also come home after.”
    Inez looked up, and her eyes got soft. “Senor Ted will come home,” she said.
    How Inez knew she was planning to go out to the radio station if she found her bike, Lucy didn’t know. But somehow Inez did, and that was the end of it. With a glower at the top of Inez’s head as she went back to the bread, Lucy sighed her way out the back door. By the gate, J.J. was doing some glowering of his own, at his little sister Januarie who had joined him. But then, he was always glowering at her.
    “I’m going with you,” Januarie announced. She had the kind of voice a Chihuahua would have if it could talk.
    “No, you’re not,” J.J. said.
    Januarie’s eyes narrowed in her round face, fringed in dark hair that wouldn’t stay in its ponytails. “Who’s going to stop me?”
    J,J. looked at Lucy, who shrugged. Now that Januarie was nine, she was more annoying than she’d been at eight, but they couldn’t ditch her. With her and J.J.’s dad not allowed to see them because he was so mean to J.J., and their mom “not handling it well,” as Dad put it, everybody in town had to watch over Januarie. If either she or J.J. got into any trouble at all — like if J.J. got into a fight the way his dad always did — that would mean their mom couldn’t control them, and then Winnie the State Lady would come and put them in foster care. Lucy was pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen, because J.J. would rather put up with Januarie than be like his father.
    “You have to keep up on your own then,” J.J. said to Januarie as he strode off down Granada Street. “We’re not waitin’ for ya.”
    Januarie’s chubby legs went into gear beside Lucy, and she was quiet until they got to Pasco’s Café.
    “I’m hungry,” she said.
    “Didn’t you have any breakfast?” Lucy said.
    “Like that ever made a difference.” J.J. clamped his jaw down. He was done talking, Lucy knew.
    They stopped at Highway 54, and Januarie pulled the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead. “It’s hot. I wish we could ride our bikes.”
    “I hope I even have a bike now,” Lucy said. If she did, she would be walking it home anyway. All the streets were layered in mud, and the broken branches had turned them into an obstacle course. They couldn’t have gone all the way out to Dad’s station even if Inez had let her. How was he supposed to get home?
    And for that matter . . . Lucy stopped when they got to the other side of the highway. “How are we gonna get across the ditch?” she said. “The bridge is out, remember?”
    “Jump,” J.J. said.
    “What if I fall in?” Januarie said.
    Lucy put her hand up. “Don’t answer that, J.J.”
    As it turned out, the irrigation ditch had already shrunk to a trickle and a half, and it dug confused new paths around the hunks of fallen wood. They used them for stepping stones, though Januarie couldn’t seem to keep her feet out of the mud. She was trailing heavily behind them, wailing out complaints, as they rounded the bend to the soccer field. Once J.J. and Lucy were there, though, Januarie had no trouble catching up with them, because they could only stand and stare.
    Their sign, so bright and proud the day before, was on its face in the mud, poles snapped in half. The bleachers were in splinters, scattered across their beloved field . . . or what was left of it. The center was crisscrossed in eroded rivulets. The sides had completely washed against the fence on one side and into the slivered bleachers on the other. Neither Lucy’s soccer ball nor her bike or J.J.’s was anywhere to be seen.
    But the worst was the refreshment stand, which teetered at a slant like a dizzy old man. The roof was scattered in shards on the field and along the fence. Lucy imagined a giant school-yard bully, stomping through and tearing it all apart, just for spite.
    “Oh —