What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

Author:Judy Blundell [Blundell, Judy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: YA, prose_history, Detective
ISBN: 9780439903462
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: 2010-06-01T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Someone had left a raft floating in the pool. It kept bumping up against the rail near the steps. I thought maybe I could sleep on it. I took off my sandals and bunched up my skirt in one hand and went in and grabbed it, hoisted myself up. Water sloshed over the side and got my skirt wet. I pushed off from the side.

I wanted to stain this place, leave my mark after this night. I hoped my blood would fill up the pool, but it drifted away, a skinny ribbon of pink.

I floated for a long time. I found out that without sun, you don't get sleepy on a raft. You just get wet.

Then over my head I saw Mrs. Grayson looking down at me. She was dressed in a skirt and flat shoes, a handbag over her arm.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked.

"I couldn't sleep."

"So what are you doing in the pool, counting sheep?"

I raised myself up and started to paddle toward her. "Tom's packing the car."

"I thought you were staying until morning." I climbed out, dripping.

"The bed's not as comfortable as I thought." She stubbed out her cigarette and regarded it for a minute. Then she flicked it into the pool.

We were quiet for a minute, just watching the cigarette stub float. She had a sweater around her shoulders and she hugged herself and shivered, even though it was warm. I'd never seen her without lipstick on before. Ladies' mouths look so pale and small without lipstick.

"There's a storm coming. We heard it on the radio." Mrs. Grayson said this absently, looking off toward the ocean we couldn't see, a block away. "A hurricane. Supposed to hit south of us, near Miami."

"We didn't know the hotel was restricted," I said.

"Every Jew knows about Palm Beach. It's on the deeds to the houses, you know. No Negroes, no Jews."

"I don't understand. Why did you come?"

"Well, I guess the best way to say it is, Tom wanted to get away from everything he was, and this is as far as you can get."

I was suddenly so tired. I wanted to sit down, but I didn't want her to think that I didn't want to talk to her. "I thought you might be spies," I said.

She grunted a laugh. "Maybe we were."

"Why does he want to get away?" I asked.

She didn't say anything for a minute. She noticed the cut on my forehead. "What happened to you?"

"I ran into something tonight," I said.

"Do you know what Yom Kippur is?" she asked, and after I shook my head, she said, "It's a holy day for us, the Day of Atonement. Tom was 4-F, but the war left its mark on him, too. On Yom Kippur last year, he just... went to the movies. He wouldn't stay with us. He said it standing in his mother's living room. Atone?' he said. Tor what he did, God should atone to me! You should have seen his mother's face. Poor Elsa.

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