Graveyard Slot, Michelle Schusterman [top novels to read txt] 📗

doing my best to leave the Thing behind for real this time. But after six months of pretty much not speaking to my mom at all, spending last week letting her force me into dress after dress had been kind of intense.

“Guess I’ll have to wait for the wedding photos,” Oscar said. “When is it, anyway?”

“April.” But I probably won’t be in the photos. I crammed the last few M&Ms in my mouth and crumpled the bag. Telling my mom I didn’t want to go to her wedding would be a lot easier over the phone. It’d probably be best to get it over with as soon as we got to Salvador, if I was going to do it at all.

I leaned back as the plane accelerated, still staring out the window. I was sitting further back than I had on the last flight, but I could see the tip of the wing. When I squinted, it was easy to imagine a gremlin dancing on the other side of my reflection.

CHAPTER TWO THE OTHER DAUGHTER

From: trishhhhbequiet@mymail.net

To: acciopancakes@mymail.net

Subject: snow day!!

woke up to a blizzard and NO SCHOOL!!!! jealous? oh wait no, you’re on a beach. in BRAZIL. :P mark’s coming over later. want to video chat??

<3 trish

“SCHOOL is so much more bearable in a hammock,” Oscar said. I nodded in agreement, stretching my legs and wiggling my bare feet. Mi Jin squeezed more sunscreen on her arms and legs, then tossed the bottle next to her flip-flops.

“All right, I think I see another guy selling ice pops heading this way,” she said, pointing down the beach before rubbing the lotion into her arms. “Two more questions on this history worksheet. Get them both right and dessert’s on me.”

The three of us were crammed side by side onto one hammock like it was a porch swing, our bags and sandals discarded on the white sand underneath us. The bluest water I’d ever seen in my life stretched out endlessly in front of me, making it kind of hard to focus on the Industrial Revolution. Not that I was complaining. This was pretty much the best classroom ever.

Clearing her throat, Mi Jin peered down at the worksheet on her lap. “In what year was the first telegraph cable laid across the Atlantic?”

“1858,” I said immediately.

“Yup. Last one . . .” Mi Jin flipped the worksheet over. “Tell me three ways the Factory Acts affected child labor practices in the UK.”

“Made it illegal for kids to work in factories,” said Oscar quickly.

“But only if they were under nine years old,” I added. “And they couldn’t force them to work at night anymore. And . . . um . . .”

“One more.” Mi Jin pulled a few coins out of her pocket, looking pointedly over at the ice pops cart.

“And being a kid in the eighteen hundreds really sucked,” Oscar announced. “Bye!” He lunged off the hammock, but Mi Jin grabbed the back of his T-shirt. I giggled as Oscar half-heartedly tried to escape her grip, rocking our hammock back and forth.

“No working at night and . . .,” I repeated. “Oh! All working children had to have two hours of school a day!”

Mi Jin let go of Oscar’s shirt and slapped the coins into my hand. “Coconut for me, please.”

“Got it!” I sprinted after Oscar, who was already halfway across the beach. He beat me to the ice pops cart by half a second. The vendor laughed when I pushed Oscar out of the way so I could get a better look at the options.

“Qual sabores?” Oscar asked, and the vendor pointed to each row of brightly colored ice pops as he recited the flavors:

“Morango, coco, maracujá, manga, tamarindo, e acaí.”

“Acaí,” I said immediately. I didn’t know exactly what acaí was—some sort of berry, according to Oscar—but I’d had an acaí ice pop when we got to the beach this morning and it was delicious. Like a mix of raspberry and really dark chocolate.

“Un coco e un maracujá, por favor,” Oscar added.

Oscar had told me his Portuguese wasn’t great, but I’d heard him use it several times since we arrived last night and it sounded pretty good to me. We watched as the guy pulled three ice pops from the cart: one white, one dark purple, and one bright yellow-orange with specks of black. I took the purple one eagerly, and he handed Oscar the other two.

“Obrigado,” Oscar said as I dropped the coins into the vendor’s palm.

“De nada.”

“Obrigado,” I repeated, doing my best to say it the way Oscar had. But for some reason, the ice pop guy laughed.

“De nada, amiga.”

We headed back to Mi Jin, ice pops already dripping on our fingers under the midday sun. I waited until the vendor was out of earshot before turning to Oscar. “All right, what was he laughing at? Did I say thanks wrong?”

Oscar snickered. “Sort of. You’re supposed to say obriga-da.”

“That’s not how you said it.”

“Boys say obrigado, girls say obrigada.”

I stared at him. “Are you messing with me?”

“No.” He laughed when I elbowed him. “Seriously, I’m not!”

“That’s not how it is in Spanish,” I said. “Everyone just says gracias.”

Oscar shrugged. “Yeah, well. Portuguese isn’t Spanish. Hey, come this way.”

I followed him as he veered off toward the water, cutting a wide circle around our hammock, where Mi Jin was reading a book. She didn’t notice when we crept up behind her. But she definitely noticed when Oscar touched her ice pop to the back of her neck. Her scream was so loud, even the vendor way down the beach looked over at us.

“Evil children!” Mi Jin snatched her ice pop from Oscar, laughing. She never seemed to mind his pranks. I kicked off my sandals and flopped down next to her, and Oscar did the same on her other side. The hammock swung lazily back and forth.

“So let’s talk about this cemetery trip tonight,” Mi Jin said. “Any ideas on what you guys actually want to do?”

“What do you mean?” Oscar asked.

“Well, this is supposed to be