Julian's Glorious Summer Read online

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  Text copyright © 1987 by Ann Cameron

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-80018-3

  Reprinted by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers

  v3.1

  To Karen Herman,

  who told me work is nice—

  especially when it’s done

  A.C.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Why I Tell Stories

  2. I Get Out of Trouble

  3. My Father Talks to Heaven

  4. I Get Lucky

  5. To Each His Own

  6. The Beginning of Happiness

  7. I Get My Just Reward

  8. I Take Off

  About the Author

  Why I Tell Stories

  I am a nice person. I practically almost always tell the truth. I really don’t like making up stories. I only do it when absolutely necessary. That’s the way it was at the beginning of the summer.

  It was the first morning after school got out. I was sitting in our swing, making circles in the sand with my tennis shoe and watching some ants go by. Every last one was in a hurry.

  “Take your time!” I said to them. “This is vacation!”

  But they went on running as fast as they could. They acted like they were all late.

  “Where are you going so fast?” I asked.

  I wasn’t in a hurry. I was happy. My little brother, Huey, was with my dad at his car repair shop. My mother was at her job. I was waiting for my best friend, Gloria. I was thinking how much fun Gloria and I (and Huey, when I let him play with us) would have all summer.

  I was thinking so much, I hardly looked at the street. I almost didn’t see a girl on a blue bicycle going by fast—and when I did, I thought, “That can’t be Gloria!” because Gloria doesn’t have a bicycle.

  The girl on the blue bicycle didn’t stop. She didn’t even look at me.

  That was a relief. It couldn’t be Gloria.

  And then the girl came by once more, a little slower. She had braids just like Gloria’s, flying flat out behind her in the breeze.

  Still she didn’t look at me or stop. So I thought to myself, “It can’t be Gloria.”

  But I was worried. I said to myself, “What if it is Gloria? What if it’s Gloria’s bike?”

  I decided to go into action.

  I got out of the swing. I stood with my feet as close together as possible, my hands rolled into fists, and my eyes shut tight.

  I kept my eyes shut for a long time, concentrating.

  On the blackness inside my eyelids, I pictured the blue bicycle.

  Then I made my wish, very slowly, out loud, three times.

  “Let it not be Gloria’s.

  “Let it NOT be Gloria’s.

  “Let it not be GLORIA’S,” I said.

  The air, the trees, and the sky were all stamped with my wish.

  I opened my eyes.

  A face was one inch from my face.

  It was Gloria’s.

  She said, “Did anybody call my name?”

  The world came into focus. Behind Gloria, on the grass, I saw a blue bicycle.

  I unrolled my fists.

  I moved my feet apart.

  “Your name?” I said to Gloria.

  “Yes, Julian,” Gloria said. “My name. Also, I think I should tell you, about thirty thousand ants are crawling up the back of your pants.”

  I looked behind me. Sure enough, Gloria was right. I moved away from the ant trail and brushed the ants off my pants.

  “I thought I heard my name,” Gloria said again. “I thought I heard you say something really strange. I thought I heard you say ‘Let it not be Gloria’s.’ ”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “I was making a wish.”

  “But weren’t you saying my name?” Gloria persisted.

  I was embarrassed. “Of course not,” I said. “Of course I wasn’t saying your name.”

  “What were you saying, then, Julian?” Gloria asked.

  It was one of those times when I didn’t want to tell the truth. And just like magic, it came to me—what I could make up.

  I Get Out of Trouble

  “It didn’t have anything to do with you,” I said. “I was wishing for a glorious summer. I said, ‘Let it not be glorious.’ It was a reverse boomerang wish. You wish backwards. You say the opposite of what you want. Then what you really want will come sneaking up from behind you.”

  “ ‘Let it not be glorious’?” Gloria said.

  “That’s right,” I said. “That was my reverse wish.”

  “Well, I hope it works,” Gloria said. “I mean, I hope it comes out backwards, the way you want it to.

  “Anyhow,” she said, “it’s too bad you had your eyes closed when I came up. I wish you’d seen me! I just rode that bicycle right up here on the grass!”

  “Oh,” I said, “you borrowed a bicycle?”

  I was hoping there was still some power in my wish.

  Gloria smiled a huge smile. “It’s not borrowed!” she said. “It’s mine!”

  My wish was dead. Maybe it had stamped the sky, the trees, and the air. But it hadn’t touched the blue bicycle.

  “Just like that, you got a bicycle?” I said.

  “Yes! My mom and dad got it for me yesterday!” Gloria hopped and did a little zigzag dance, the way she does when she’s happy.

  “So,” I said, “in a couple years, when you know how to really ride it, you’re going to ride it a lot?”

  “Julian!” Gloria said. She knocked her braids back behind her head, the way she does when she gets serious. “I can ride it right now! You should have seen me! I rode up to your house three times.
The first time, I was going to wave. But I was scared that if I waved, I would fall over. The second time, I was going to turn into your driveway. But I couldn’t make the turn. The third time, it was easy!”

  “Great,” I said, as if it wasn’t really so great.

  “Yes! I can ride a bike!” Gloria said. “My mom and dad taught me last night. Aren’t you going to congratulate me, Julian?”

  “Oh, sure, congratulations,” I said.

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic, Julian,” Gloria said.

  “But wait till you see mine!” Gloria said. She ran over to the bicycle on the grass and stood it up. It had fat tires and a bell, a silver arrow on the front, and red plastic streamers coming out of the handlebars. It was nice—if you like bicycles.

  “See, Julian!” Gloria said. She rang the bell.

  “I can teach you to ride,” she said.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” I said.

  “You don’t want to learn?”

  I wished Gloria could talk about something else besides stupid bicycles for a change.

  “So,” Gloria said. “Answer me! Don’t you want to learn?”

  “No, I don’t want to learn,” I said.

  “Well, okay, then. See you sometime. Goodbye,” Gloria said.

  The way she said good-bye didn’t sound usual. It sounded permanent.

  She turned her bicycle around and started pushing it out to the street.

  I got the opinion I might be losing my best friend.

  “Gloria! Wait a minute! Stop!” I shouted.

  Gloria stopped, but she didn’t turn around.

  I ran in front of her.

  She looked as if she was crying. But I must have been wrong, because Gloria never cries.

  “So?” Gloria said.

  “Gloria,” I said, “listen! It’s just—” I thought of telling the truth: my opinion about bicycles. But if I did that, Gloria might think I was afraid of bicycles, which is not the truth at all. I am not afraid of lions. I am not afraid of tigers or dinosaurs. So how could I be afraid of a little thing like a bicycle?

  Just so Gloria wouldn’t get the wrong idea, I made something up.

  “It’s just that there’s a lot to do around the house,” I said. “My dad has decided to make me work very hard all summer. So I won’t have time to learn to ride a bicycle. That’s all.”

  “Oh!” Gloria said. Her smile came out all sudden and shining, like a rainbow after a storm. “I didn’t know that!”

  I could see that we were friends again. I could see that Gloria felt sorry for me.

  “You won’t have any time off?” Gloria asked.

  I wondered what to say, yes or no. If I said I would have time off, then there would be time to learn to ride a bicycle. The best answer was no.

  “I’ll be working practically night and day,” I said. I tried to sound brave, as if I could take all the jobs Dad could give me and not complain.

  “I was working all morning,” I added. “I have to work again pretty soon.”

  Gloria looked at my house. Her eyes got big—as if she was looking at a prison.

  “Well, anytime you don’t have to work, you know you are always welcome to visit me,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said. I tried to sound braver than ever, like a spaceboy who had to be left behind on an asteroid.

  Gloria sighed. She put her hand on my shoulder.

  “See you later,” she said. “Try to be happy.”

  My Father Talks to Heaven

  After Gloria left I decided to actually do some work.

  I went upstairs to check on my rock collection. Before breakfast I found out Huey had been stealing my sharp rocks and storing them under my mattress. I decided to see that they were in the right place—under Huey’s mattress. They were—and their points were still as sharp as the peaks of the Rocky Mountains.

  I made my bed. Then I made Huey’s bed and fluffed up the pillows. If my mother thanked me for making Huey’s bed, I would say, “Oh, I’m sure he’d do the same for me!”

  With that work done, I went and sat on the porch. I thought it was still a very good summer—even though it would be a much better summer if Gloria had never gotten a bicycle. And I was glad that Gloria felt sorry for me. If I went over to her house, she would probably even stop riding her bicycle to play with me. If she wanted me to learn to ride, I could always say I had a job to do at home and leave. I was glad I was smart and had gotten myself out of trouble with Gloria in a quick, simple way.

  I smiled and stretched my legs out and looked up through the leaves of the trees in the front yard.

  I was pretending I was a fish swimming in the sky when I heard my dad’s truck turn into the driveway.

  I stood up and shook off my fish scales.

  Huey and Dad got out of the truck.

  “Hi, Julian,” Huey said. He sounded very sweet—as if he was not the person who had moved my collection of sharp rocks from my shelf and put them under my mattress. But I knew he was.

  “Hi, Huey!” I said. I gave him a fish-fanged smile.

  “HEL-lo, Julian!” my dad said in a super-friendly voice.

  Usually that voice means trouble. I checked my dad’s eyes. Sure enough, little red and blue flames were leaping in them, like in a furnace that would melt steel.

  But I stayed cool. “Hi, Dad,” I said. Whatever he had that look in his eyes for, it couldn’t be because of me.

  “Guess who we just met in the road, Julian!” Huey said. “Gloria! Does she ever have a great bicycle!”

  My life was getting worse all the time. Now Huey liked bicycles.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “If you like bicycles.”

  “We saw it up close,” my father said. “Very close.”

  He gave me an extra-big steel-bending smile.

  “Gloria waved to us—I thought her bike was going to fall over—and then I stopped the truck on the side of the road. It looked like Gloria was going to ride her bike straight in my window. But she didn’t.”

  “She didn’t,” I repeated.

  “She didn’t. But I thought to myself, ‘Gloria must be in a mighty big hurry to tell me something.’ And I was right.”

  “You were right,” I repeated.

  I felt the way I feel during a horror movie when I don’t like how the story is going and I want to leave.

  Only this wasn’t a movie.

  I couldn’t leave.

  “And you know what GLORIA told me?” my father said, spreading his hands wide in the air as he said her name—as if it was a pretty rug he was shaking over the whole sky.

  “What Gloria told you?” I said.

  “Yes. What Gloooooooria tooooooold me,” my father repeated. He threw his hands high in the air again and raised his eyes to the sky, as if he wanted to make sure heaven was listening.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I tried to make my voice come out big, or at least normal size. But it came out very little.

  “Gloooooooooria tooooooooold me,” my father began, “she tooooooooold me that it is a shame that I am making you work practically night and day, all summer long. She said that it is terrible that I am giving you so many jobs that you won’t even have time to learn to ride a bicycle. She said that she was very surprised. She said that she didn’t think I was that kind of man.”

  “That kind of man,” I said. My words came out all white and thin, like a little skinny piece of spaghetti.

  “I am pretty, pretty sure,” my father said, “that Gloria thinks I am mean, mean, MEAN!”

  He raised his eyes to heaven again, as if he was saying: “Now, Lord, don’t just listen to that one. Mark it down!”

  I was standing practically under my dad’s chin. It seemed way too close, but still as far away as the moon.

  “Now, since I don’t remember saying anything to you about working day and night, all summer long, I was very tempted to ask Gloooooooooria what she was talking about. But I didn’t. I decided to ask you first, Julian.
”

  Suddenly my dad bent his knees and slid down as fast as if he was sliding down an invisible firehouse pole, until he was sitting on his heels and looking up into my face. Tell-the-truth sparks were shooting out of his eyes.

  “So now I’m asking, Julian. What was Gloria talking about?”

  I was afraid I was going to swallow my spaghetti-string voice. I was afraid I’d never talk again.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “I can explain.” And I told my brain to come up with something—fast.

  I Get Lucky

  “Gloria didn’t understand,” I said to my dad. “I did tell her you had a lot of jobs around the house. But what I meant was, I want to work a lot this summer. I want to save money for when I am grown up,” I added.

  My father got into one of his thinking positions. He spread his feet out. He curled his right hand up in a fist and stuck it between his knees and his chin, like a brace.

  “Now, let me try to understand this,” he said. “You are seven years old. You want to work practically night and day, all summer long, to save money for when you are grown up?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I want to save money for a race car.”

  “Do you know how much a race car costs?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “But you want to work practically night and day, all summer long, to buy one?”

  “Definitely,” I said.

  I guessed what my father would say next. I guessed he would say he didn’t have that many jobs for me. In my mind I practiced saying “That’s okay, Dad. I don’t mind.”

  My dad said, “Well, Julian, you’re in luck! I think I can keep you busy practically all day, all summer long. We’ll skip the nights,” he said. “Well, what do you say, Julian?”

  “Terrible!” I said. “I mean, terribly nice of you! I mean, work—wonderful! What luck!”

  I raised my hands to heaven the way Dad does.

  Then I collapsed on the grass.

  I didn’t get up for a long time.