Watch the Sky by Kirsten Hubbard

Author:Kirsten Hubbard [Hubbard, Kirsten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781484708804
Publisher: Disney Book Group

THE SLOPES CHANGED EVERYTHING.

Well, maybe not everything. But for the first time, Jory found himself looking forward to school—not just the classroom parts, but also the parts before and after and in between. The parts he usually dreaded.

Like lunchtime. Alice sat across from Jory halfway through lunch, as usual, but now Erik stopped by to chat. One time Sam Kapur and Randall Loomis joined in, too. They weren’t that bad, when Randall wasn’t talking about making out with supermodels.

On Wednesday, Jory walked home with Alice.

On Thursday, he stood on Erik’s porch and talked about comic books for not quite twenty minutes, but definitely more than fifteen. Erik couldn’t believe Jory hadn’t read any. “Not even X-Men?” he asked. “What about, like, Superman—everybody’s read some of those. No? Seriously?”

On Friday, Jory chatted with both of them so long he had to run the rest of the way home. The black-and-white dog barked as he sprinted over the bridge.

“Sorry!” he shouted. “No time!”

Every evening, when Jory kicked off his combat boots and crawled into bed, he was certain he’d fall asleep instantly. One, two, three, lights-out.

But every evening, he lay awake, eyes scanning the dark ceiling. Body exhausted, but brain turned on—thinking of Alice, and Erik, and the slopes, and everything they’d talked about. There was always something new to go over. Something to fill the too-short hours before Mom woke him to dig again.

“You seem distracted,” Mom said in the canyon that night. “Is everything okay?”

Jory realized he’d been leaning on his shovel, lost in thought. “Everything’s fine,” he replied. “I’m just a little tired.” Not the whole truth, but not a lie.

“Me too. Good thing tomorrow’s our Day of Rest, right?” She smiled, wiping her brow with her forearm. Then she headed toward the tunnel, one hand on the small of her back.

Jory watched her go, recalling the painful backaches she had suffered at the coffee shop. Then, she hadn’t been digging—she’d only been carrying trays filled with coffees. The occasional sandwich. He used to feel so protective of her. Now, he didn’t need to—Caleb had taken over that role.

Which was good, of course. The best thing that had ever happened to them.

But sometimes—if Jory was entirely honest with himself—he found himself missing those early days. Not the tiny apartment, filled with the ache of Dad’s absence. Or the crummy coffee shop, with Mom’s shiny-bald boss. But he missed their closeness, when the family was just him and Mom. The two of them versus the world.

As he snipped roots with a pair of shears, he wondered what would happen if he told her about Alice and Erik. About the slopes. About Alice’s parents and the way they joked at dinner.

The idea made him feel uneasy.

He wasn’t doing anything wrong, he reasoned. Tuesdays were his off days. What did it matter if he was reenergizing at home, or at Alice’s house? What did it matter who he talked to at school, or after? He still came home every day. He still dug nightly.

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