A Week at Surfside Beach by Pierce Koslosky Jr

Author:Pierce Koslosky Jr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nextone Inc
Published: 2019-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

The next day, Jonathan was sleepy, cranky, and picking at his food. His baby sister was fussy, so it was easier for his parents to give their eldest plenty of leeway. That afforded Jonathan a type of privacy but nothing helpful. His mind was elsewhere, and his score at Gilligan’s Island minigolf proved it. When it somehow came out that his new phone was gone, he covered up in the only way he could think of: by dragging everyone back to everywhere they’d been to search for the thing. The whole family ended up hunting for his now nonexistent phone. Jonathan hated this lying; he only hoped the fake search would put an end to the matter. Ultimately, he wore them all out and they called off the snipe hunt. Dad lost his temper.

“You promised you were going to take care of it! You haven’t even had it for a month!”

He didn’t know why, but Jonathan was mad at his dad for saying that. Oh, yeah? he wanted to yell back. Well, you only got it for me because of that dumb baby!

Jonathan spent the afternoon sitting at the end of their boardwalk by himself, picking again and again at a couple of large splinters.

Later, when the baby was napping and the grandparents were ensconced with their own daughter—and when he had calmed down—Dad went looking for Jonathan. He could see that his son was anxious, and that made him more direct than usual.

“What’s wrong, buddy?”

“Nothing,” the boy said, almost with a sneer.

His dad let that go by. “Is this about the phone?”

Jonathan thought about telling him the truth, about getting it over with, but then he realized that he’d be answering questions about slipping out, and he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“Um, yeah. Yeah, Dad. I’m sorry I lost it.” This partial admission seemed to satisfy his father, but it did little for him. His chance to come clean had disappeared.

“That’s okay, buddy.” Dad sighed. “Maybe losing it will be a good lesson. It’ll be a while before you get another one.”

“I know.”

His dad rubbed the top of his head and got up and left Jonathan sitting there alone.

When night came, Jonathan went into a panic.

But then eleven o’clock arrived, and he took the broomstick out of the door channel and slipped out to meet the boys, plodding slowly down the walkway to put himself back into their hands. He was sure of Joey’s threat: If you don’t come, it will be worse.

At the end of the boardwalk, he looked down the stairs—and there they all were. They were laughing quietly among themselves. Joey said, “Hi” with a camaraderie that threw Jonathan off guard. They walked as a group down the beach toward the pier, the four other boys making small talk, and in no hurry. Jonathan didn’t exactly relax around them, but he did calm down. When they got to the beach below the pier, Joey said, “Let’s go up to the Strip.”

The Strip was a

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