Labracadabra by Jessie Nelson

Author:Jessie Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-03-21T04:00:00+00:00

My dog started barking. He thought he had seen a ghost, but it was just Cousin Seymour getting out of the car, ghost white from the gobs of sunblock his mom made him wear. I wondered why he had put the sunblock on now, but Cousin Seymour said, “You’re supposed to. You can read the directions.”

Cousin Seymour played everything by the book. He always read all the directions, and they did say to put it on at least fifteen minutes prior to being in the sun. So technically he was right. But I didn’t like the way he always said, “You’re supposed to,” about everything.

Cousin Seymour looked at my dog. He didn’t say, “What a great dog,” or, “He looks so smart,” or even, “What tricks does he do?” He just looked at him. That made me want to throw something at him. But I didn’t. My mom said, “Before anything else happens, let’s just get in the car.”

I was glad my dog sat between me and Cousin Seymour, so that none of his sunblock would rub off on my leg. Miraculously, Cousin Seymour wasn’t allergic to dogs.

I wished I’d been able to bring someone else, like my friend Brandon, especially when Cousin Seymour started listing all the different dog breeds my dog might be a mix of. About the time he named the 111th breed, including the Chinese crested and the Norwegian lundehund, Mom called out from the front seat, “See, didn’t I tell you? Isn’t he fascinating?”

Not to me.

Cousin Seymour began to eat his rice cakes that tasted like kettle corn. The car went around a really windy bend, and with no warning he threw up his rice cake.

I rolled down the window to get some air, because the smell of the sunblock and the throw up was getting too much for me.

Suddenly a bee flew in my window and went for Cousin Seymour. Cousin Seymour began to scream, “Oh no! I’m allergic to bees! I’m allergic to bees!” He looked really scared. I tried to swat the bee off him, but I was a little scared too. It kept flying near his nose, maybe because that was where a lot of the sunblock was. But now Cousin Seymour wasn’t white anymore, he was red as a tomato and shaking like a bobble-head doll.

My mom was waving a rolled-up news-paper behind her head, but it kept hitting Cousin Seymour in the face and missing the bee, who seemed to be getting madder and madder—buzzing really loud and flying in crazy circles around Cousin Seymour’s head.

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