Dear Blue Sky Read Online Free

purse banged against her side, and her long sweater flew out behind her. She cried when she saw us. She fell into the sand on her knees and took Jack and rocked him back and forth for a long time.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mom,” I said, and then I took off running down the beach until I collapsed in the sand. Until I could breathe again. After a while, Sef came for me. His clothes were still wet. He handed me a smooth gray-blue skipping stone that fit in the palm of my hand. I never threw it. I kept it in my pocket.
    â€œCome on, Cass,” he said. “It’s okay. Jack’s okay. He found a horseshoe crab. Come on. I’ll race you.” And we ran as fast as we could through the sand. It felt so good to breathe hard, to suck air in and to sweat out the fear. I knew what would have happened if Sef hadn’t been there. Every morning since then, Sef and I had gone running.
    When we got home, Jack held the horseshoe crab up by the tail for Dad. “I died,” he said. A tiny trickle of sand fell to the ground.
    â€œYeah?” Dad popped a napoleon into his mouth. “And then you rose again?”
    â€œAnd walked across the water,” Mom said triumphantly.
    Dad poured them drinks. We never talked about it again.
    That’s how we were—we didn’t talk about things.

CHAPTER 4
    BRING ’EM ON
    I WAS MAD at Sonia for not coming to Sef’s party, but the weekend before hadn’t gone so well. Her parents had come over to watch the Patriots game. Even though they lived only two blocks away, they drove because of the freak storm that blew snowflakes the size of my hands. Mom watched out the window as the LeClaires backed their Volvo down our driveway. “They’re here!” she sang.
    Sonia came in first, carrying a tray of beads and shaking the snow from her long blond hair. She looked so pretty and so together.
    â€œHey,” she said to me.
    â€œHey.”
    â€œIt’s crazy out there.”
    â€œI know,” I said. “Jack’s been howling because Mom wouldn’t let him outside.”
    â€œOnly Jack.” She laughed and started to spread her beads out on the table. I’d told her I’d help her string some necklaces for her new jewelry business.
    Sonia’s father, Eric, draped his arm over Sef’s shoulders. A lawyer, he was slim and had clean-cut boyish looks and sandy slicked-back hair. “One more week, Sef. Are you ready?”
    â€œAs ready as I’ll ever be.”
    â€œYou’re going to kick some ass over there.”
    â€œThat’s the plan.”
    â€œBring ’em on!”
    Susan shook her head at her husband as she set a platter of nachos on the coffee table. Like Sonia, Susan was Barbie-doll pretty. “You’ve got to think of something new to say,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s he saying now?” Mom asked.
    â€œNothing,” Dad said. “You don’t want to know.”
    Sonia rolled her eyes at me.
    â€œNice!” Eric shouted. “Killer catch.”
    Everyone turned to the TV. Dad stayed in his leather chair. Mom sat on the couch between Eric and Susan on one half of the L couch, and on the other was Jack in his Tom Brady shirt and Sef.
    â€œKick some ass! Bring ’em on!” Jack shouted.
    â€œJack,” Mom asked, “where’d you hear that?”
    Jack chanted louder and louder, “Kick some ass! Bring ’em on!” Then he jumped up and pulled down his underwear and sweatpants.
    â€œFor God’s sake, Jack,” Mom said.
    Mom pulled Jack’s pants up while Eric roared laughing. “Well, that gets the afternoon off with a bang! It’s going to be hard for Tom Brady to top this.”
    â€œLet’s go to your room,” Sonia said. She looked disgusted.
    Upstairs, Sonia held out the oblong glass beads strung in a two-brown, one-pink pattern. “That was really gross,” she said.
    â€œJack?” I asked.