Julian's Glorious Summer (2 page)

“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.”