Wishing Day Read Online Free PDF Page B

spring, even when winter shows no sign of ending?” Aunt Elena would reply.
    â€œUm, if people want to dream about spring, they should dream about spring. It’s not that complicated.”
    â€œI’m sure you’re right,” Aunt Elena would soothe. “Just . . . for some people, it helps to have something to hold on to.”
    Back to Molly’s question. Natasha could feel Molly’s warm breath on her neck.
    â€œNo maze,” Natasha hazarded.
    Molly uncovered Natasha’s eyes.
    â€œHey!” Natasha protested. “It doesn’t mention the snow maze, period!”
    â€œYeah, just like you weren’t checking out Benton.” She grinned smugly.
    Natasha hmmph ed. She reached over and held down a key on Molly’s keyboard, filling the screen with j s until Molly laughed and knocked her hand away.

CHAPTER FIVE
    A t home, Natasha stuck to her regular routine. She roused Darya each day by yanking open Darya’s blinds and playing a kids’ song called “Happy Bees” repeatedly and loudly, propping her iPod just out of reach on Darya’s nightstand. By the time those happy bees buzzed past the irate bull for the fourth time, Darya was awake, out of bed, and groggily threatening to burn Natasha’s iPod with fire.
    In the evenings, Natasha helped Ava with her homework while Aunt Vera or Aunt Elena made dinner. Ava was eleven, but she was a “young eleven,” according to her aunts. Natasha agreed, although every once in awhile a subtle shift in Ava’s expression made Natasha wonder if she was actually an old soul, a term she’d come across in a book about a boy battling a dark and powerful wizard.
    Regardless, Ava was allergic to sitting down and settling in to her schoolwork. She loved math, but hated filling out her Math Mate worksheets. She didn’t mind English, and she liked her teacher, who “told good stories.” Only instead of reading the day’s assignment, she far preferred to jump up from the table and act out her teacher’s good stories.
    Natasha marveled at Ava’s lack of inhibitions. She was quirky on purpose, wearing outfits so mismatched that Darya would pull at her hair and say, “Oh my God, a romper? Really? That romper is giving me cancer, Ava. I am so not kidding.”
    If Natasha had to pick one word to describe Ava, she would say that Ava was a dreamer.
    For Darya, picking a one-word description was easy: pretty .
    For herself?
    Ugh.
    Aunt Vera would say Natasha “stayed on task,” and she’d say it with an approving nod.
    Aunt Elena would say that Natasha was dependable,although she’d probably say it a bit wistfully. She’d stroke Natasha’s long hair and tell her that being dependable was great, but that she didn’t always have to be the one who held the family together.
    â€œYou’re allowed to do things just for you, just for the joy of it,” she might say. She never specified what sorts of things. Maybe she struggled to come up with joyful pursuits Natasha might enjoy?
    Papa, if asked to describe his oldest daughter, might look up absentmindedly in his lutemaker’s workshop and blink. He’d rest the lute he was crafting on the bench, brush the wood shavings off his shirt, and say, “Sorry, what?”
    If he ever did give an answer, it would be along the lines of, “Natasha? She’s . . . Natasha .”
    Which was true, and which was perhaps the best answer, if the vaguest. Or rather, it was the best because it was the vaguest. Natasha certainly didn’t know what word would best describe her. Boring?
    Natasha thought about this on the way to school one chilly morning. She walked the half mile on her own, because Darya was always running late and because she enjoyed the time to herself.
    But today she was so busy being boring , and berating herself for being boring , that she ran smack into atiny old lady standing in front of the