My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

Author:Polly Horvath
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780375892318
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-09-09T10:00:00+00:00

Mabel’s Cousin the Channeler

My Eighth Adventure

The Blueberries Are Ripe

“Jane,” says my mother as I start out the door. I am on my way to care for the little Gourds as I have for the last two weeks except on the weekend, when I see Ginny and deliver Bibles. Ginny’s mother has put her in soccer camp right until school starts. Ginny feels bad that she can’t help me and is very upset with her mother, who doesn’t seem to care that camp is making Ginny miserable. That Ginny counted on her summer to work on her dress designs. Now at the end of her day she is too tired to be creative. She says she feels like a steam kettle with a plugged hole. Any moment she will pop.

I want to tell my mother all this but of course I cannot. She must wonder that I am never, ever at home this summer but I can tell her nothing. I never told her that Mr. Fordyce said hello. How could I explain my afternoon there? And as the days slip by and I have not told her where I go, I have become more deeply mired in a kind of secrecy that sets me apart from her and Hershel and Maya and Max. I am not here when Max sees whales.

My mother does not look at me. She says, “Jane, could you stay home and watch Maya and Max and Hershel for me today? Henry has asked me to go antiquing with him.”

I don’t know how much she sees H. K. Thomson when I am not around. I never would have thought my mother would have an interest in someone like him. I feel that just as I have a secret life, my mother is not someone that I knew as well as I thought. It is as if we are losing each other, and a deep sadness fills me. Nothing gold can stay. This is the first time she has asked me to watch Max and Maya and Hershel since I started my adventures, but of course I can’t.

When I say no with no explanation she looks concerned. “I know you’re busy these days…,” she says, and lets it hang there. I can’t explain and am aware how surly it makes me appear. She is making jam with the blueberries she and Max and Hershel and Maya picked together yesterday. I love blueberry picking. I love the bogs and the discovery of always more berries clustered together. I hate the bees. I am frequently stung picking blueberries but it is worth it. I look at the big pots of blueberries on the kitchen table and our pantry filling with another row of jam jars and I am sad. It is as if I am missing summer. It is as if I am missing my life. It is happening here without me.

“That’s okay,” says my mother, seeing my face. “Run along.”

I run out and the dark green screen door bangs behind me.

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