I'll Give You the Sun Read Online Free Page B

me as hard as I was looking at them. She’d said not to feel like we had to copy exactly. I didn’t copy at all. I shook up the originals in my head and let them out all covered in me.
    â€œI’ll go first,” I say, shoving my book into Mom’s hands. Jude’s eye-roll is a 7.2 on the Richter this time, causing the whole building to sway. I don’t care, I can’t wait. Something happened when I was drawing today. I think my eyes got swapped for better ones. I want Mom to notice.
    I watch her page through slowly, then put on the granny glasses that hang around her neck and go through the drawings again,
and then again
. At one point she looks up at me like I’ve turned into a star-nosed mole and then goes back to it.
    All the café sounds: The voices, the whirring of the espresso machine, the clink and clatter of glasses and dishes go silent as I watch her index finger hover over each part of the page. I’m seeing through her eyes and what I’m seeing is this: They’re good. I start to get a rocket launch feeling. I’m totally going to get into CSA! And I still have a whole year to make sure of it. I already asked Mr. Grady, the art teacher, to teach me to mix oils after school and he said yes. When I think Mom’s finally done, she goes back to the beginning and starts again. She can’t stop! Her face is being swarmed by happiness. Oh, I’m reeling around in here.
    Until I’m under siege. A psychic air raid discharging from Jude. (P ORTRAIT:
Green with Envy
) Skin: lime. Hair: chartreuse. Eyes: forest. All of her: green, green, green. I watch her open a packet of sugar, spill some on the table, then press a fingerprint of the crystals into the cover of her sketchbook. Hogwash from Grandma’s bible for good luck. I feel a coiling in my stomach. I should grab my sketchbook out of Mom’s hands already, but I don’t. I can’t.
    Every time Grandma S. read Jude’s and my palms, she’d tell us that we have enough jealousy in our lines to ruin our lives ten times over. I know she’s right about this. When I draw Jude and me with see-through skin, there are always rattlesnakes in our bellies. I only have a few. Jude had seventeen at last count.
    Finally, Mom closes my book and hands it back to me. She says to us, “Contests are silly. Let’s spend our Saturdays for the next year appreciating art and learning craft. Sound good, guys?”
    Before even opening Jude’s sketchbook, she says this.
    Mom picks up her hot chocolate but doesn’t drink. “Unbelievable,” she says, shaking her head slowly. Has she forgotten Jude’s book altogether? “I see a Chagall sensibility with a Gauguin palette, but the point of view seems wholly your own at the same time. And you’re so young. It’s extraordinary, Noah. Just extraordinary.”
    (S ELF-PORTRAIT :
Boy Dives into a Lake of Light
)
    â€œReally?” I whisper.
    â€œReally,” she says seriously. “I’m stunned.” Something in her face is different—it’s like a curtain’s been parted in the middle of it. I sneak a glance at Jude. I can tell she’s crumpled up in a corner of herself, just like I do in emergencies. There’s a crawlspace in me that no one can get to, no matter what. I had no idea she had one too.
    Mom doesn’t notice. Usually she notices everything. But she’s sitting there not noticing anything, like she’s dreaming right in front of us.
    Finally she snaps out of it, but it’s too late. “Jude, honey, let’s see that book, can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with.”
    â€œThat’s okay,” Jude says in the tinsely voice, her book already buried deep in her bag.
    Jude and I play a lot of games. Her favorites are How Would You Rather Die? (Jude: freeze, me: burn) and The Drowning Game. The Drowning Game goes like this: If Mom and Dad were drowning, who would