The Chocolate Pirate Plot Read Online Free PDF

Maybe. At least they weren’t having sex.)
    Plus, Brenda said, she had made plans to go on to Midwestern University in Wichita Falls for her junior and senior years. She wanted a degree in some sort of computer design.
    I felt a great gush of relief at realizing that Brenda’s ambitions were broader than getting married at nineteen and pregnant at twenty.
    Brenda and I talked for quite a while. Then we went downstairs. She gave Joe a hug, and he gave her one back. “You don’t have to whip Will,” she said.
    â€œI’m not sure I could.”
    â€œThanks for wanting to. That’s just what my daddy would do.”
    Joe gave me a quick look to make sure that remark was okay. He knows that I had trouble learning to share my daddy with another girl, even one much younger than I am. I couldn’t do it until I figured out that Brenda’s birth father had never been part of her life. My dad was all the daddy she had ever had.
    Joe and I promised not to talk about Brenda and Will’s fight to anybody. After we were in bed that night, we shared a giggle over the topic of the fight—talk about ridiculous—but we both understood that the fight hadn’t really been about Marco Spear’s acting ability. It had been about Brenda and Will learning to be honest with each other and to respect each other’s opinions. Remembering that made it easier for me to take it seriously.
    After that dramatic beginning, I was afraid Brenda’s summer would be a disaster. She might even decide to go home. But she didn’t feel she could leave Tracy. In a few days, she and Will began to see each other again. Usually they went out with Tracy and her boyfriend, Carl, and they seemed to treat each other with caution, as if saying the wrong thing could cause an explosion.
    The argument over Marco Spear’s acting ability still erupted now and then, but mainly Brenda and Will ignored the subject. However, I suspected that part of Brenda’s excitement over the possibility of Marco Spear’s coming to Warner Pier was the fact that she could tease Will over it.
    Whatever I thought, the rumor that he was coming spread through town. Marco! Marco! Marco!
    The news was whispered down the aisles at the Superette and spoken out loud at Warner Pier Beach. Everybody was sure he was coming, although there was no official confirmation.
    Warner Pier is the home of Oxford Boats, one of the last companies that build luxury yachts. Their products were not the boats you might see at a boat show or use for a fishing trip. Each yacht produced by Oxford Boats was individually designed by the nation’s top maritime architect. The yachts took a year or more to build. Most of them carried from six to a dozen crew members when they left port. Their sleek hulls and luxurious cabins inspired as much drooling as TenHuis chocolates.
    Oxford Boats’ prices were in the multimillions. Someone once said that if you wonder how much it costs to own a yacht, you can’t afford it anyway. Apparently Marco Spear had made enough money from Young Blackbeard that he didn’t have to ask.
    Every teenager who had access to a sailboat, motorboat, or dinghy was out on the water, peering into the big boat shed at Oxford Boats, trying to get a look at the yacht under construction.
    Marco! Marco! Marco! He must be coming soon.
    I got extremely tired of the whole thing. In fact, I tried to put it out of my mind completely. I wasn’t worried about movie stars. I had plenty to think about in my own life.
    Joe and I live in a semirural neighborhood on the inland side of Lake Shore Drive, and at about eight o’clock in the morning on the second Saturday in August I put on a pair of denim shorts, a sweatshirt, and some sandals and walked down to the road to get the Grand Rapids Press out of our delivery box. It was a bright, crisp morning. The sunlight was filtering through the trees, and the birds were singing like mad. I