Read Bittersweet Summer Online
Authors: Anne Warren Smith
Bittersweet Summer
Anne Warren Smith
For Jerry
Chapter 1: The Last Day of Fourth Grade
Chapter 2: Good-bye, Best Friend
Chapter 3: Claire’s Summer Project
Chapter 6: Claire’s Project: The First Step
Chapter 7: What Happened at the Library
Chapter 8: A Surprising Invitation
Chapter 9: Claire’s Project: The Next Step
Chapter 10: Too Much to Think About
Chapter 13: Disaster on the Trail
Chapter 14: Claire’s Project: Moving Right Along
Chapter 17: The Other Side of Giving Things Away
Chapter 19: Claire’s Terrible News
Chapter 21: The Biggest Question
Chapter 26: Ms. Morgan’s Barbecue
Chapter 28: Little Brothers Grow Up?
The Last Day of Fourth Grade
T
HE FOURTH GRADE ROOM
was unusually quiet as the line of sad kids shuffled forward. We were saying good-bye to Ms. Morgan.
I swallowed back my tears and tasted end-of-school fruit punch and end-of-school lemon cupcakes. My throat hurt and my stomach gurgled as I got into the good-bye line.
Claire Plummer stepped in next to me. “She’s the most beautiful teacher I ever had,” she said in a dreary, woeful voice as she tugged at her blond curls. Claire hoped that tugging would make her hair longer, but she would never have a long, beautiful ponytail like Ms. Morgan’s. Besides, Ms. Morgan’s hair was brown.
“Fifth grade will be fun,” Ms. Morgan said to Tiffany who was four people ahead of us. “You’ll see.”
“I already hate fifth grade,” I said to my best friend, Sierra, who stood on the other side of me. She and Claire nodded. We all sighed.
Ms. Morgan hugged Doug Backer and then Ethan Murphy and then Alex Ramirez.
“How can she stand hugging Alex in that old, ratty shirt?” Claire whispered.
“It doesn’t smell,” Sierra said. All at once, her face turned red. “He sat in front of me,” she added. “I sniffed it once.”
We giggled.
Maybe, I thought, Alex loved that flannel shirt the way I loved my orange hooded sweatshirt. Of course, my sweatshirt didn’t hang down to my knees. And I didn’t wear it to school every day.
“Hi, Claire,” Ms. Morgan said as Claire stepped forward. “You and your dad made this a special year for me.”
“It was our pleasure,” Claire’s dad called from the back of the room. He had been the room father all year. Now, he was doing his last chores: gathering up paper napkins and paper cups from the party. He had made the lemon cupcakes. I swallowed again as Ms. Morgan hugged Claire.
Claire had been the perfect student. I had not. Three times, I had over-watered the sunflower. Three times, muddy water had flooded the windowsills.
Sierra got the next hug. “I loved seeing your rock collection,” Ms. Morgan said to her. “You might grow up to be a scientist.”
“Thanks for being my teacher,” Sierra said.
As I stepped forward, I wondered if Ms. Morgan was secretly glad I was going on to fifth grade. I had done so many terrible things. When I added extra lines to my part in the class play, everybody forgot what they were supposed to do next. When I bumped into the big shamrock poster on St. Patrick’s Day, it knocked everything off Ms. Morgan’s desk. Her purse, three jars of pencils, a box of filing cards, her big dictionary.
“Good-bye,” I said and started to leave. But she took both my hands and pulled me close.
“Katie,” she said. “You were my most …” She stopped to think. “… my most enthusiastic student.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“You get excited about things. That’s a wonderful way to be.” She smiled her beautiful smile, and her green eyes sparkled. “I bet you will have adventures this summer.”
“I might,” I answered, happy that she was acting like she really liked me. I breathed deep to keep her vanilla-pudding smell with me as long as possible.
Sierra tugged on my arm. “My mom is probably waiting,” she said. I ran to gather up my artwork. We couldn’t put it off any longer. Fourth grade was over, and my summer adventures were about to begin.
Good-bye, Best Friend
W
E BURST OUT THE
school door into June sunshine and stood blinking. Sierra looked at the row of cars in front of school. “She’s not even here.” She plopped herself down on the top step. “She told me to be ready to go the minute school ended. So where is she?”
“I wish you weren’t leaving today,” I said. I squinched my eyes to hold back the tears. This sad day was getting worse and worse.
“Where are you going?” Claire asked Sierra.
“Seattle,” Sierra answered. “To see my grandma.”
“For two weeks,” I added. Sierra and I exchanged a sad look.
Sierra patted the step beside her, and I sat down, too. We leaned against each other. We had been best friends forever. Since day care. I bent over to tie my shoe. “You’ll probably have lots of fun in Seattle.”
She nodded. “My dad says my grandma is sometimes too full of fun. We never know what she’ll think up next.”
“My grandma is old,” Claire said, tugging on her hair again. “She’s always going off to play bridge with her old friends. Her house smells like dust.”
“My grandma’s house smells like artist’s paints,” Sierra said. “I might help her get her paintings ready for the galleries.” She grabbed my arm and tucked it under hers. “But I would rather be here.”
Claire looked at her silver-and-blue wristwatch. “We should start walking, Katie.”
“Not until Sierra’s mom comes.” I squinted up at Claire, who was standing between us and the blinding sun. “How come your dad can’t drive us home today? He’s right here.”
“He has an appointment,” she said. “He told me we should walk.”
Since Claire’s house was across the street from my house, our dads made us walk together. They said pairs were safer. They also expected us to be friends since we both didn’t have mothers at home.
Sometimes, Claire and I were friends. Sometimes, we were not.
Sierra patted the step on the other side of her. “Sit down, Claire. My mom will be here in a minute.”
Claire wrinkled her nose. “Those steps are filthy. How can you stand it?”
Sierra and I rolled our eyes at each other as Claire paced up and down the sidewalk, shading her eyes and looking for Sierra’s mom.
“I’m going to be stuck with Claire,” I told Sierra, “for two weeks.”
“Let’s plan something fun for when I get back,” Sierra said. “Like, let’s go to the pool.”
“Starting tomorrow, I’ll be very busy,” Claire said as she stood in front of us again. “There’s ballet and piano. And—.” She stopped and looked sideways at Sierra and me. “—an important project.”
“What important project?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you,” she said. She set her blue book bag down and looked inside it. “I hope my sunglasses are in here.”
Suddenly a wonderful idea flew into my mind. I grabbed Sierra’s arm. “I know a great thing to do. This summer, once you’re back, let’s ride our bikes to each other’s houses.” I jiggled up and down on the step, imagining the joy of it. Whooshing down Benson Street. Zooming into Sierra’s driveway.
Sierra’s eyes shone at me. “That will be so cool. We’ll see each other every day.”
“Your parents will never let you bike so far,” Claire said. She pulled out a pair of large sunglasses, blue of course, and looked through them at the sky. “Dusty,” she said, and began fishing into her bag again
“It’s only eight blocks from my house to yours,” Sierra said. “Only one busy street to cross.” She turned to me. “You work on your dad, and I’ll work on my mom. We’ll get them to say yes.”
A horn honked just then, and Sierra’s mom leaned out of their car. “Sorry I’m late,” she called. “We have to get on the road.”
Sierra gathered her papers together and stood up. “See you, Katie,” she said. “You, too, Claire.”
I hugged her good-bye. Once again, I swallowed my tears.
She climbed into her car and waved at us again before Mrs. Dymond drove away.
“At last we can go.” Claire put on her blue sunglasses and checked how they looked in a little mirror.
As we started across the playground, I turned to look back at the school. No more Ms. Morgan. No best friend for two weeks. The sour taste of lemon cupcakes came back into my mouth. This summer vacation was starting out awful.
Claire’s Summer Project
C
LAIRE AND I CROSSED
the playground and turned toward home.
“I can’t believe Ms. Morgan won’t be my teacher anymore,” Claire said. “I already miss her so much.”
I kicked a stone off the sidewalk and watched it clatter into the street. “I wonder what she does all summer when there’s no school.”
“She’s lonely,” Claire said, stopping to pull up her blue socks. Claire had more blue clothes than anyone else in school. “Her mom and dad and aunts and uncles live in Minnesota.”
“She might not know what to do when it’s vacation.” I kicked at another stone and stubbed my toe.
“She’s going to miss writing on the board,” Claire said.
“She told the class she might see us at the library,” I said. “She wants to read a lot this summer.”
“I forgot! I was going to find out where she lives!” Claire’s face suddenly got a secret look.
“Why?”
“So I can start my summer project.” Claire looked away from me. “I thought I could visit her. I’ll take her one of my beautiful beaded bracelets.”
A sweaty jogger huffed past us as we crossed onto our street. If I took Ms. Morgan a present, what would I take? She liked the pictures I drew. Lately, I was drawing birds. “Your summer project is making a bracelet?”
Claire shook her head and walked faster. “It’s lots bigger than that.”
“I’ve got projects, too,” I said, even though I couldn’t think of any. We walked along in silence. We were almost home.
“All right,” she said, slowing down. “My project is about Ms. Morgan.”
I walked backward so I could see Claire’s face. “What about her?”
“I told my dad that he should marry her,” she said. “He says she’s pretty, but they’re not in love. I have to make them fall in love.”
I screeched to a halt, and Claire almost bumped into me. Mr. Plummer marry Ms. Morgan? If anybody married Ms. Morgan, it should be my dad.
Not Claire’s.
“She loves me already.” Claire flung her arms out and began to walk like a model. “She smiles at me all the time.”
“She smiles at everybody,” I answered. “She even smiles at Alex Ramirez.” She even smiles at me, I thought.
“Alex Ramirez doesn’t count,” Claire said. “In that old shirt.”
“He loves that shirt,” I said. “He’s okay.”
“I bet his mother never lets him into her store looking like that,” Claire said.
“What store?”
“The wonderful bride store! On Ninth Street!” Claire clasped her hands together and whirled around. “I can just see Ms. Morgan getting married to my father and me. I will wear something long and shiny from that store.”
“She would like my dad better,” I said. I wondered if she would.
“She can’t like your dad,” Claire said. “Your mother wouldn’t let her.”
“My mother wouldn’t care.” Or would she? I didn’t know that, either.
“My father is very handsome,” Claire continued. “And look at my house. It’s the nicest one on the block.”
Claire’s house sparkled white in the sunshine. Her big porch was lined with pots of yellow pansies. Across the street, at my house, my five-year-old brother’s toys spilled off the porch and down the walk.
