The Summer of Everything by Catherine Clark

Author:Catherine Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

The cows are the real stars of the Wisconsin State Fair!

Hey—

I know we only saw each other like 10 minutes ago, but I wanted you to have something to read when you got to camp.

Me: preparing myself for life on the road with Mom and Zena.

You: getting ready for awesome summer on a ranch.

This is Not Fair.

Neither is it a state fair.

Miss you already.

Hurry back,

Ariel

Chapter Two

I go home and Grandma Flack isn’t there yet, so I review my mother’s list of what I should pack, like the kind they give you when you go away to summer camp, which is where I should be going, with Dylan.

Camp Far-a-Way. Is he serious?

Shirts: 4

Pants: 3

Shorts: 4

I revised her list. Slightly. She doesn’t seem to realize this road trip is two weeks long, and then we’re going to Grandma and Grandpa Timmons’s house, and even though I can do laundry there, do I really want to wear the same four shirts all summer?

Shirts: 23 (roughly)

Jeans: 7

Shorts: 10

Running shorts: 8

Running shirts: 8

Socks: Lots

Shoes: 16 (That’s eight pairs, so it’s really not as bad as it sounds. I have this sort of obsession with vintage running shoes, so in addition to my new favorites for running, of which I have two pairs, I also have five pairs for not running, and one pair of flip-flops.)

Books: 7

Notebooks: 3

Large bags of Skittles: 5

My suitcase won’t close without major amounts of sitting on it and smashing it.

Mom catches me jumping up and down on my suitcase and wants to know what’s inside that’s making it so hard to fasten and why I have an extra duffel on the side, like an order of French fries.

“It’s all my running stuff,” I say. “I have to bring clothes for every climate.”

“Okay, whatever, Ariel,” she says, looking frazzled. Her graying dirty blond hair is flying out in several directions, as if she’s been caught in a hurricane—that’s what happens to it when she doesn’t use her blow-dryer and product. She and Zena have the same curly, wavy, unruly hair. Me, I have Dad’s hair: dark brown, straight, ruly.

“But you definitely won’t be able to buy anything new on our trip. We simply don’t have room,” she says.

“We don’t? But it’s only the three of us, and we always had room before,” I argue.

“This isn’t before,” she says. “This is after.” She pauses as if she wants to remember those lines for a chapter title for one of her new books. She forces a small smile. “Anyway, the road trip is only two weeks. How much could you possibly need to wear?”

“Maybe I like to change my clothes more often than you do.” I check out her shirt, which looks as rumpled as her hair. “Didn’t you work today?”

“Yes, but only in the morning,” she says. “So, remember: no CDs, no DVDs, no cell phone—”

“Why is that exactly, again?” I ask.

“We’re focusing on us. We’re keeping it realsimple,” my mother says. This is one of her buzzwords. “Realsimple.” As if it’s one word.

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