Just Wreck It All by N. Griffin

Author:N. Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

22

Autumn, Tuesday, Home After That Hell Practice at Last

BETT STOOD AT THE TOP of the slope, not ready to go in the house yet and face her mother, who’d be beaming around because Bett had exercised. But look: Bett was safe because there was her mother, far down along the road Bett had just left, rollerblading like a mad thing. Her mother had a helmet on, but her still-feathered eighties hair peeked out from below the helmet, the pyramid structure of its top hidden beneath the helmet, at least. No matter how often Bett begged her mother to let her do over her makeup or go with her to get her hair cut, her mother refused to update her look. “Worked for me then, works for me now,” she always said. And even though Bett begged to differ—not even a cat eye? Just that awful blue eyeliner all the way around her mother’s eyes, shrinking them into her head?—her mother had support from Aunt Jeanette, who was just a slightly smaller version of Bett’s mom. Both of them were eighties girls, and not in a cool, retro way, either. Pathetic and even more awful in their boldness.

“Besides”—Aunt Jeanette always took up for her sister—“you never wear makeup anymore yourself, Bett. And you looked damn good in it, too.”

“Not really,” Bett mumbled, and always managed to get away before a conversation could start about her and makeup and looking good.

Anyway, with her mother clearly gone for a while, rollerblading like a superhero from thirty years ago, Bett turned the other way on the ridge and looked down at the river. The clouds were thickening and the wind was turning the leaves up and over so their silver undersides were exposed.

Bett stood and looked down at the river’s edge for a while, knowing it was filled with stones and caddis houses. Then she bent over (cross-legged toe touches!) and picked up a tube-shaped stone that, even though it was way up here, looked like a little patchwork caddis house itself, but Bett wasn’t sure it really was one. She slipped it into her pocket anyway and as she did, she knew she was being looked at by someone, someone to the left. It was an odd feeling to know that she was being watched. She turned and there, long down the river, was the man in waders from the other day. She wondered if he had seen her bend over to take the caddis house, but then she figured he was far enough away not to see her rear. Or to care, even. This thought was heartening, and Bett waved at him, hearing her mother’s voice railing in her head about stranger danger and safety. The man waved back.

Oh!

Now Bett got it. She knew who the man was. He wasn’t that saw-lending neighbor. Like Eddie, he also worked in the Vet Services Center with her dad. She didn’t remember his name, but she remembered him. He was some kind of therapist for

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.