The First Last Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

build a sand castle?”
    Kevin smiled at him. “Sure. In a little while.”
    Mateo, who was nine years old, had been our shadow all summer. “Hey, listen to this one,” he said. “Why should you take your clock to the bank?”
    I groaned before answering. “You just told us that one yesterday: to save time.”
    Mateo scrunched his face into a pout. “I never told you that one. I just got it this morning—from a Popsicle stick I found on the boardwalk.”
    â€œFirst of all, ew , that you picked up a strange Popsicle stick. And second, bringing your clock to the bank would actually take up valuable time for no reason, not save time.”
    Mateo looked at Kevin for support.
    â€œDude, she’s got a point. But I don’t remember you telling it yesterday.” He turned to me. “You must have heard it somewhere else.”
    I was sure I hadn’t, but I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I pulled my T-shirt off and shimmied out of my shorts, determined to have fun. “Race you to the water!” I shouted.
    Kevin chased me, yelling, “Cheater!” He dashed by me and dove into a huge wave.
    I swam out and flipped onto my back. My mind wandered as the ocean rocked me from side to side. I thought about how great it was that I still had this whole day with Kevin. But as much as I tried to forget, the memory of him and his parents standing on our doorstep kept pushing its way into my thoughts.
    When I lifted my head, Kevin was several yards away, waving in my direction. The surf had taken me farther out than we usually went. I waved and raced back to shore. By the time I got there, Kevin and Mateo were molding a pile of wet sand. “Hey, I’m the artist around here,” I said. “You couldn’t wait before you started making the stegosaurus?”
    Kevin squinted up at me. “How did you know we were making a stegosaurus?”
    The swell of sand by my feet was just a blob. I collapsed onto my knees and began scooping large handfuls of sand onto the mound. “Lucky guess,” I lied.
    â€œC’mon,” Mateo said. “Let’s make it huge .”
    We worked for nearly a half hour, molding the stegosaurus’s head, body, and tail. When we were done with that, I grabbed a plastic bucket and headed toward the ocean. As I filled the container, voices behind me grew louder. I turned to find a couple of girls I’d seen before on the beach. One of them pointed to Kevin and Mateo and giggled. “I can’t believe we used to do that.” She threw her long, dark hair back over her shoulder. I looked down at my bucket. She was just like those girls at school who couldn’t think of anything else but clothes and makeup. I gritted my teeth, remembering I’d felt that same way the day before—or was it in the dream?
    I hauled the pail back to the stegosaurus, and Kevin smiled up at me. I instantly forgot about those girls and dumped the water onto the beach. “Watch,” I said, squeezing a fistful of sand into my palm. My nails duginto my skin for a second before I released my fingers to reveal a tiny disk. “See. A spike.” I placed it on the spine of the dinosaur.
    Mateo’s eyes widened. “Cool! I want to make some.”
    I handed him a glob of sand. “Go ahead. We need a whole bunch of them.” As we worked together, I tried to get the vision of the two girls out of my head. What was so childish about what I was doing? Why couldn’t I still have fun sculpting a dinosaur on the beach?
    Once Kevin set the last spike in place, he announced, “Done!”
    â€œIt’s just like the one in my painting,” I said without thinking.
    Kevin looked up. “What painting?”
    â€œOh,” I mumbled. “Last night I painted a picture of a sand stegosaurus.” But as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wondered: Had I painted the stegosaurus or just dreamt