wouldn’t have met a cute boy today. Now I’ve met the cute boy, but I can’t tell my grandma about him. See? Either/or. I guess that’s just how life works.
I scratched out my exhausted thoughts until the pen almost fell out of my hand. Then I stumbled to my room and flopped into bed in my checkered shirt. I hadn’t unpacked yet and couldn’t find any of my pajamas.
In the middle of the night, I was awakened by the muffled (but still unbearable) sound of my mother crying from Granly’s room on the other side of the wall.
It didn’t wake Abbie up, because nothing ever woke Abbie up.
But just to test the theory, I grabbed the little flashlight that was always in the nightstand drawer. I flicked it on and aimed it at Abbie’s face—her utterly placid, sleeping face. I wiggled the light back and forth over her eyes, but they remained stubbornly closed. Then she made a cooing noise and flipped over so she faced the wall.
It didn’t seem fair that Abbie was not only sound asleep but was having a good dream.
Now in the next room I heard the low grumble of my dad’s voice. He must have said the exact right thing, because my mom gave a sniffly laugh, then quieted down. Gratefully I smushed my head deeper into my pillow and resolved to laugh at my dad’s next joke, no matter how corny it was.
I aimed the flashlight at the wall. It was papered instead of painted because Granly thought wallpaper was warm and cozy. The paper was barely pink and dotted with tiny impressionistic butterflies—each one just a few swipes of ink and a couple blobs of watercolor. They were the pale greens, blues, pinks, and tans of birds’ eggs.
This wallpaper was in one of my earliest memories. I don’t know how old I was—young enough that I was put to bed before the sun had fully set. I was also young enough that I couldn’t yet read myself to sleep. So instead I tried to follow the pattern in the wallpaper. I found the gray-blue butterfly that seemed to be dancing with the coral one, then I searched for the spot where the pair repeated. I pointed at the blue and coral butterflies over and over, working my way around the room, until my eyes became the butterfly wings and fluttered shut.
Now, at three a.m., searching out my favorite butterflies with a flashlight felt more like a hunting expedition than a relaxing way to drift off to sleep. So I groped for the nightstand and grabbed the first thing I found there.
I squinted at the book through half-closed eyes. Oh. Coconut Dreams.
Stella wanted to know what I thought of it. So did Josh. At least it had seemed that way.
So, even though I was already pretty sure what I would think of Coconut Dreams, I smiled as I cracked it open and started reading.
The best thing I could say about the story of Nicole’s exile on the Island of Bad Similes was that it put me to sleep within three pages. The last thing I thought as my flashlight slipped out of my fingers and I fell back asleep was, This is better than a sleeping pill. I wonder if I could stretch Coconut Dreams out to last two and a half months.
With all the what ifs I had to think about—not to mention the what nows—I had a feeling I was going to need it.
Maybe it was because my dad was taking some time off work. Maybe it was because my mom was a fourth-grade teacher who thought every moment of every day should be educational.
Whatever the reason, our first weeks in Bluepointe became all about family outings.
Normally my sisters and I would have protested. Our time in Bluepointe was supposed to be lazy, so lazy that moving from the couch to the kitchen required serious consideration. So lazy that you could spend two hours in the lake, just bobbing around and counting clouds. So lazy that you’d subsist on chips and salsa for lunch and dinner if it would get you out of having to think about or help prepare a real meal.
But this summer, of course, was different. None of us wanted to be in the cottage much, especially me. Being home made me ache for Granly. It also gave me time to talk myself in circles about Josh. One moment, I felt certain that he liked me, and I would