Junebug, page 8
“Come on,” he says, and I reach out. “You’ll be okay. This wind is nothing.”
We join hands, and all of a sudden I’m standing in the little boat, scared to death. It’s maybe ten or twelve feet long. I don’t know which, but either way, it’s not long enough for weather like this. Gray waves are popping up all around us, slapping the dock and the sides of the boat. I shiver. The water’s cold. I can feel how cold it is in the spray. What if we tip over? Oh, man. What am I doing here?
Trying not to look too scared, I buckle on my bulky life jacket the way Ron showed me the first day. When I turn my body, I feel like a stuffed penguin. No neck, no waist. No wonder penguins don’t bend over.
“This boat’s not very big,” I tell Ron.
He smiles. “Yep, you’re right. But you have to start small, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. You got a bigger one we could borrow?”
He pulls the sail out of the bag and clips it on the mast rope, grinning at me. I sit down on the seat and don’t move an inch, hoping to keep the boat steady. Ron is busy with the sail.
“Here,” he says. “Pull this rope.”
I pull. A second later, the sail rises up the mast, a huge gray-white triangle, flapping, snapping, and tugging in the wind like a live animal full of captured energy. Ron leans way forward and unties the bow rope, then hands me the tiller. Uh-oh, I’m thinking. Does he really believe I can do this? Is he crazy?
“Now, remember, you want to keep the wind coming at the boat from your side, so point the tiller this way,” he says, guiding my hand.
I push the tiller away from me a little bit.
Now that we’re free of the dock, I can feel the familiar thrill of the water shivering up through the wood and into my hand. When the wind hits the sail full-on, the boat gets a secret life. Half fish, half bird, it’s waiting for me to guide it. I ease the rope out a little and hold fast to the tiller. I brace my feet against the opposite seat. My heart is pounding.
We’re moving!
When I look back, I see the dock growing smaller and smaller. We’re leaving behind everything I know. The boat tilts upward, and we go flying across the water. I’m sailing again! This is my dream come true. All the worries from my new life—about that big kid, Greg, who sits behind me in school, and living with elderly people—these thoughts blow right out of my mind. I’m free!
Ron leans back and stretches out his legs as best he can. He smiles at me, calm as anything.
“There you go,” he says. “You’re doing real good.”
I manage to grin back at him. Captain McClain is at the helm, sailing bravely on course in a full gale. Seagulls circle above the mast. Waves slap the bow and spray the crew with saltwater. Storm’s coming up, but don’t worry. Nothing scares Captain McClain.
“Hey, Ron,” I say, “think I can come tomorrow? Think I can come down here Sunday?”
He looks at me for a moment, then smiles. “Sure,” he says. “If you’ve got a ride.”
That’s how I know Ron and I are going to be buddies.
JUNEBUG. Copyright © 1995 by Alice Mead. All rights reserved. Printed in July 2010 in the United States of America by R. R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Harrisonburg, Virginia. For information, address Square Fish, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Square Fish and the Square Fish logo are trademarks of Macmillan and are used by Farrar, Straus and Giroux under license from Macmillan.
An Imprint of Macmillan
Originally published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
www.squarefishbooks.com
Square Fish logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
Book design by Lilian Rosenstreich
eISBN 9781429952439
First eBook Edition : July 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mead, Alice.
Junebug / Alice Mead.
p. cm.
Summary: An inquisitive young boy who lives with his mother and younger sister in a rough housing project in New Haven, Connecticut, approaches his tenth birthday with a mixture of anticipation and worry.
ISBN: 978-0-312-56126-0
[1. Single-parent family—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.
3. Inner citites—Fiction. 4. Afro-Americans—Fiction.] I. Title. PZ7.M4788Ju 1995
[Fic]—dc20
95-5421
First Square Fish Edition: 2009
Alice Mead, Junebug
