Ann Brashares_Sisterhood_01 by Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Author:Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Social Issues, Girls & Women, Juvenile Fiction, Fiction, Clothing & Dress, Best Friends, Jeans (Clothing), Friendship
ISBN: 9780786239665
Publisher: Ember
Published: 2001-01-02T06:00:00+00:00

Though breakfast with Bapi had become a routine, it hadn’t lost its awkwardness. Especially after what had happened.

This morning her Rice Krispies violently snapped, crackled, and popped while Bapi ate quiet Cheerios.

She studied him, searching for her moment. She tried to catch his gray-green eyes, similar in color to hers. She wanted to look sincere and repentant, but her noisy cereal was messing up the effect. The sight of the clumpy little stitches in his wrinkled skin gave her a pang of shame at the bottom of her stomach.

“Bapi, I . . .”

He looked up. His face was concerned.

“Well, I just . . .” Her voice was practically shaking. What was she thinking? Bapi didn’t even speak English.

Bapi nodded and put his hand over hers. It was a sweet gesture. It meant love and protection, but it also meant, We don’t have to talk about it.

She wished Effie weren’t such a snoozer in the morning. Lena had been too tired and confused to come clean to Effie last night, and her grandparents hadn’t discussed it at all. Effie had asked about the bandage on his cheek, but Bapi had shrugged it off, muttering in Greek. Now Lena wanted to tell her sister the whole story and at least get the patented Effie reality check, even if it was punishing. After that she’d tell Grandma, and then Grandma could explain it to Bapi. That would work better. But Effie was still asleep.

Upstairs after breakfast, Lena packed up her painting supplies. Routine always helped an unsettled mind. She peered out her window at the time Kostos usually passed by to stop at the café up the street, before turning back downhill to the forge, but this morning he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

Leaving the house, she decided to walk downhill today. Sunlight pulsing off the white walls beat into her eyes, casting clear light into her brain and illuminating its dusty, disregarded corners.

She walked toward Kostos’s house. Because of the curve of the sidewalk, his house was positioned in such a way that if you happened to trip and roll, and the door to his house happened to be open, you could end up in his living room.

She walked by slowly. No sign of activity. Heading farther down the cliffside, she sent herself in the direction she believed the forge to be. Maybe she would pass him. Maybe she could talk to him or at least communicate by her facial expression that she knew things had gotten powerfully out of hand.

She didn’t see him. She kept walking. Halfheartedly, she set up her easel just under her favorite church. She got out her charcoal, ready to scratch out the bones of the bell tower. Her hand hesitated as her mind raced around.

She put the charcoal away. Today, for a change, she didn’t feel like spending quality time with Lena. She packed up the rest of her things and headed back uphill. Maybe she would pass by Kostos this time. Maybe she would go

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