All-Season Edie Read Online Free Page B

then I know we’ll have a good day.
    We drive for about half an hour, take two wrong turns and finally arrive at a large, muddy, breezy field where the sky is sagging darkly with rain. There are tables set up with local people standing around in windbreakers, chatting and drinking coffee from thermal cups. Mom buys a green cardboard box of blueberries. The blond lady at the table wants to give me a taste, but I can tell Mom doesn’t want me to eat them until they’ve been washed. “Is okay,” the lady keeps saying, “zese ah oh-ganically grown, yah?”
    â€œZese ah oh-ganic, yah?” I repeat under my breath, just for the flavor of it, but maybe not quietly enough because then Mom gives me a handful of blueberries to eat. Some are fat and too sweet and some have a sour bite, the way I like them, and afterward the palms of my hands are purple even though I lick them. Mom starts talking to the lady at the pottery table about glazing techniques, so I wander over to where some tarpaulins are spread on the ground and pretty girls in funny clothes are selling jewelry.
    They say hello, and suddenly I feel shy because no one else seems to be standing over here. They have long hair and long colored skirts and sandals, and one dark-haired girl wears a silver chain with blue stones around her smooth white ankle. The blond girl who’s laughing and talking has a small diamond in her nose, which is distracting. They sell complicated silver jewelry and beads and leather necklaces with crystal pendants, many of which would make good lures. I observe all this from a cautious distance. When Mom calls me away, the strange pretty girls smile and wave. I’m vaguely aware that Mom has bought a bowl or a milk jug or something for Dexter. I keep looking back, trying to keep the diamond girl in sight. Mom tugs my hand and says, “Look, Edie, look.” I turn and see something truly magnificent.
    A small boy has two peacocks on leashes, like dogs. They’re strutting and pecking and dragging their tail feathers on the muddy ground. They have feathers like crowns, and their throats are the world’s most beautiful blue. Several of the long, rich tail feathers stand propped in an umbrella stand.
    â€œTwenty-five cents,” the boy says shyly.
    When we get home, I collar Robert and bring him into the cottage to admire my find. We’ve been avoiding each other since the worms.
    â€œWow,” Robert says, fingering the wispy threads of one of the feathers. “Nice.”
    â€œYou want one?” I say suddenly. Robert looks at me, not sure if I’m being serious. I’m not sure if I’m being serious either, but I’ve said it now, and, after all, I do have three. “Go on,” I say. He chooses the smallest one and picks it up gingerly between his finger and thumb, supporting its huge unwinking sapphire eye with the palm of his other hand. He looks like someone who isn’t much used to holding babies. He just stands there holding the stupid thing until it gets embarrassing.
    â€œCome on,” I say. “Let’s go dump it at your cottage and go fishing or something.” So we do.
    A couple of days later, Edie the Human Killer Whale is terrorizing the jetty when someone starts shouting.
    â€œDUSTY!” It’s Robert. He’s running and puffing and shouting. I stop floating and stand up, wondering what’s happened. At the jetty, he bends over and puts his hands on his knees to breathe. He’s winded, and it takes a couple of seconds before he can talk. “My mom says you can come over to our cottage after supper tonight and watch a movie if your mom says it’s okay.”
    â€œYay,” says Edie the Human Killer Whale, scrambling up onto the sand and jiggling furiously and squeezing her hair and shaking little sparks of water in all directions, like a dog. “I’ll go ask.”
    Mom insists on going and talking to Robert’s