Water Balloon Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Brightly Colored Happiness

  I'm in Danger, People

  Shouldn't I Be Licensed for This Kind of Work?

  Just Outside the World of Real Rabbits

  When Am I Ever Mad?

  Slightly Painful Beginnings

  What Summer Should Be

  Fireworks in Miniature

  Nasty Princesses That Knock Down Stuff

  Comfortable and Familiar and Right

  My Normal Abnormal Way

  This Limbo

  Ace of the Earth

  Just Trying to Move On

  Dandelion Wishes

  In a House Atop the Trees

  Even the Silences

  Forever Changes

  Something Good Will Grow in Its Place

  Giant Marley on the Screen

  Just Another Loser Kid

  Not Easy to Be Brave

  Brave as I'll Ever Be

  Acknowledgments

  Clarion Books

  215 Park Avenue South

  New York, New York 10003

  Copyright © 2011 by Audrey Vernick

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections

  from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing

  Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The text was set in Horely OS MT.

  Book design by Christine Kettner

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Vernick, Audrey.

  Water balloon / by Audrey Vernick.

  p. cm.

  Summary: With her best friends pulling away from her, her newly separated parents

  deciding she should spend the summer at her father's new home, and a babysitting

  job she does not want, Marley's life is already as precarious as an

  overfull water balloon when a cute boy enters the picture.

  ISBN 978-0-547-59554-2

  [1. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Babysitting—Fiction. 3. Best friends—Fiction.

  4. Friendship—Fiction. 5. Dogs—Fiction. 6. Divorce—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.V5973Wat 2011

  [Fic]—dc22 2011009847

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  4500309056

  For my best friends,

  Ellen Gidaro and Beth Arnold,

  who happen, by the best good fortune,

  to also be my sisters

  Brightly Colored Happiness

  The blitzing began five years ago, in second grade, on one of those amazing spring days that remind you how hot summer can be. I was sitting outside, waiting for my best friends to come over. I knew we'd spend the day outside—the weather was the kind of gorgeous that makes you feel stupid if you spend a minute indoors.

  I have no idea why I had a bag of balloons in the garage, but I did. Before Leah and Jane arrived, I blew up a ton with the hose and filled this big planter behind my dad's grill with water balloons.

  Whenever we hung out, we played Monopoly. We were inventing our own rules, our own way to play. Whoever bought Park Place had to get drinks for all players. If you landed on Marvin Gardens, the other players had to quickly come up with a new hairstyle for you. That kind of thing. These days, there's an action associated with every space. (Except Baltic. If you land on Baltic, you can just relax.) But on that day, we were still making it up.

  So there we were, playing our evolving version of Monopoly on the wooden picnic table in the backyard. Leah was leaning back to get some sun on her face. Jane was focused on the game, like me. She had a pad next to her, keeping track of the random action we applied to each space.

  I landed on B&O Railroad, which, according to our rules, meant I had to go get pretzels for them. Instead, I went to the planter.

  Was there a minute, a pause, before I started throwing the balloons? A second when I realized that something way beyond awesome was about to take place? I wish I could remember.

  What I do remember is the identical look on their faces. I managed to hit Jane and Leah within seconds of each other, and it was as if they had no idea what had happened. Did the sky just fall? Did a bird crap on them? Did their heads explode? How could they suddenly be wet, sitting outside on a hot spring day? Almost before it was humanly possible, they were right there beside me, pulling balloons out and attacking me right back. There was water everywhere, wet everything, balloons flying, breaking apart, arms throwing and trying to deflect, voices squealing, screaming, laughing. We were running, trying to get away, running back, getting more balloons from the planter. It was wet and brightly colored happiness of the splatted, splattered water balloon variety.

  Rig raced out barking, running circles around us. My parents ran out of the house too; all the noise must have set off their Parent Alerts. Mom and Dad took it all in: how wet we were, how hard we were laughing, the red and yellow and blue and purple balloon splats everywhere. Instead of yelling at us to clean it all up, or did we realize we had nearly drenched a perfectly good Monopoly game, or even What the hell is going on out here?, my mom found one balloon that had landed unbroken and smashed it directly on my dad's head.

  She looked so happy! Almost proud, in a goofy way. Dad had that look of wonder he always got—as if he couldn't believe how great she was. Or how lucky he was. A look I haven't seen in so long.

  First Water Balloon Blitz. Quite possibly the best water balloon fight in the history of mankind.

  ***

  The next year, Jane ambushed Leah and me at the park. She had her brother and father help her hide a stash in this big bin behind the playground, and she just totally blindsided us with a water balloon attack of pure excellence.

  What impressed me most was not the total shock factor, or the way Jane made an annual tradition out of what we all had thought of as the greatest ever onetime event. I just loved the Jane way she went about it. It was so well planned. I mean, she brought the full water balloons to the park in a bucket half filled with water so they wouldn't break. Seriously—that was taking it to a whole other level.

  Over the years, rules evolved. We came up with a points system.

  The Water Balloon Blitz can only be after school ends, and there can be only one blitz per year. Points are given in the following categories:

  Number of witnesses to water balloon blitzing.

  Number of days since last day of school—in other words, the longer you wait, the more points you get. Of course, there's also a greater the chance of someone else bombing you first.

  Bonus points for courage—it's a lot easier to launch a surprise balloon attack on your best friends when it's just the three of you in a backyard than it is in a public place or when your friend's parents might kill you.

  Which is why Leah is reigning champion. Her attack at Jane's sister's birthday party two years ago was a thing of great beauty. And utter surprise. Leah wasn't exactly a follower, but she sure wasn't a leader. She mostly went along with what Jane and I did. So for her to come up with this blitz, this most incredibly courageous blitz, well, Jane and I were nearly speechless for days. And Leah was never the same herself.

  All these older neighbors were there, not to mention Jane's mega-uptight mother and grandmother, but Leah went all out, bombing Jane and me. Most of the other guests, too. Jane and I kneeled down before her at the end of that party. Literally.

  The weird thing is that last summer, there was no blitz
. All through August, I was sure I'd score with a ton of points by waiting so long, but the days slipped by, and Jane and Leah were so busy all the time. I never blitzed them. They never blitzed me. Then seventh grade started. And life went on.

  Well, life didn't exactly go on. My life got a little stopped for a while. Or it felt like it did, when Dad moved out.

  I'm in Danger, People

  As we take the last turn to my dad's new place, the car's headlights swoop up a sloping lawn. Caught for an instant, shining in that light, is a patch of ghostly dandelions, puffy silver heads aglow, like phantom flowers.

  "Hunh!" Mom says. I know what she means. My dad is some kind of weed freak. When we all lived together back home, the minute a weed even thought about starting to grow, Dad would be there in his grungy gardening clothes with a shovel and this complicated tool he built to make sure he gets all the roots when he digs it out. I'm thinking that maybe we're at the wrong place, but Mom pulls right into the driveway and gets out of the car. "Come on, Marley," she says. I check my pocket for my phone—the only way I could feel more stranded this summer would be if my mother drove off with my phone. Okay. Got it. We each take a bag from the trunk.

  "Let's go, Rig," I say into the back seat, and he scrambles up to all fours. God, I love my dog. If a movie director said, "Quick! Get me a black shaggy mutt!," a dog that looked just like Rig would come trotting into the studio.

  He looks out the window, then looks at me, wondering.

  I'm wondering too.

  ***

  Inside, Mom and Dad stand half a room apart, being all polite to each other. I can't help it. I still hope that Mom will laugh until she makes that high-pitched noise that sounds like a held-in sneeze and then put up her hand, begging him to stop whatever he's saying. Or that Dad will look at her with half a smile while almost shaking his head, the look that means he loves her.

  But Dad's just pointing his index finger toward another room. "Can I get you a drink?" he asks.

  "Oh, no, no," Mom says, like she's talking to someone she hardly knows.

  They've been living apart for four months now. I've seen my dad almost every Sunday and at least one school night every week. But not since he got settled in this new place last week. Everything keeps changing—my family, where my dad lives, where I sleep. I want to squeeze the brakes tight and screech to a stop.

  "Really, I should get going," Mom says. "I want to hit the road early." Not long after Dad moved out, Mom discovered Facebook. Every day she was talking about reconnecting with some long-lost friend from elementary school or high school or camp. (Who knew she went to camp?) And now she's taking her very own Facebook road trip, visiting with all these people she hasn't seen in decades. Then she's going to help my grandmother while she recovers from some kind of surgery on her hip.

  She goes over some lists and phone numbers with him and all of a sudden I'm thinking, Oh, no. No. I don't think so! Mom! You can't leave me here. Dad is funny and smart and he loves me a lot. But he's more like some kind of Marley spectator than any kind of parenting parent. He's like a devoted fan. Mom knows how my life works. As she starts to gather her stuff together, I feel like screaming. I can't live here with him!

  This has been planned for so long now that it seems to have a forward-moving motion all its own. I'm to stay with Dad for all of July and most of August too. I'll have a couple of weeks with Mom before I go back to school.

  She hugs me tight and I squeeze my eyes shut to keep the tears from spilling out. I've never been great at goodbyes. I was the one, Mom always says, hugging her leg tight each morning, keeping her from walking out the heavy wooden door of Little Ones Nursery School. She's the director of a preschool herself and she says there's always one kid who clings. That was me. I still remember how much it hurt to be apart from my mother back then—like a big raw hole inside me. I guess not that much has changed; I want to wrap myself around her leg right now.

  Mom pats Rig's head and says she'll talk to me in a couple of days. Right. The phone. Okay. We'll talk.

  ***

  Rig hasn't seen Dad in a while, but they're right back to it—the total boy way they play together, all physical and slappy. Dad pretends to hit the side of Rig's mouth; Rig makes his chimpanzee noise. Before long, they're rolling around on the floor together, and it's all just so very, very boyish.

  With me, Rig's a cuddler. He's big, but he still sits in my lap when I sit on the floor. He backs into me, then slowly lowers his rear until he's sitting. He usually looks over his shoulder, as though making sure I see and appreciate his efforts.

  Rig's real name is Gehrig, which was Dad's idea. I think Dad wanted a son, and I think he wanted to name him Gehrig.

  I'm not any kind of baseball genius, but you can't be my dad's daughter without knowing that Lou Gehrig was a Yankee. A great Yankee—kind, talented, and humble. Even though he died before my dad was born, and even though he wasn't the team's biggest star, he's still Dad's favorite. He says that Lou Gehrig was one of the most gifted players ever but other great players, like Babe Ruth, always overshadowed him. With friends like Leah and Jane, I think I have a pretty good idea how Lou must have felt.

  I start to think about how Rig and Dad and I are going to be spending all this time together, this big mess of time, when Dad's not out doing the gardening jobs he took on for the summer. It's the first time he's ever worked in the summer. When I picture Dad working, I see him in his teacher clothes, erasing equations and then with a sponge cleaning the entire blackboard, including every bit of chalk dust on the metal chalk rail. (I'm pretty sure he's the only teacher in his school to still use a blackboard.)

  It always requires a mental adjustment when I see him in sunshine, or even in short sleeves. But if ever there was a man meant to take care of lawns, it's my dad.

  He waves his hand in front of my face. "Are you listening?" he asks.

  I give my head a quick shake, a little like a dog myself, and look at him.

  "I said," he starts, all put out, "you'll be babysitting during the week, from the morning until sometime after lunch."

  "What? When? For who?"

  "When? The summer."

  "You mean more than one day?"

  "I mean more than one day. Yes. For the summer. While you're here. I worked it out so you'll have a place to be while I'm working," he says.

  "I thought I'd just be hanging out."

  He makes his cough sound of annoyance. It's all air, no throat. "We talked about this. I asked if you'd be interested in babysitting and you said you would."

  "What?! I meant like once or twice. Not—You mean every day?"

  "Yes. I mean every day. Well, not weekends, of course."

  "Can't I just hang out? Or help you at your jobs?"

  "I've already promised Lynne Kroll that you'll do this."

  "I can't believe this. I don't even know a Lynne Kroll!" I'm getting louder. I take a deep breath and stop. It's almost like anger doesn't exist in our family. If I yell or stomp, Dad throws up his hands like a disgusted old man with no patience for the young. I lift the hair up off my neck. When did I start sweating?

  He's just sitting on his couch, watching me, waiting for me to catch up, to get past this bit of disbelief, to accept. Usually I do, but this is crazy. Am I some kind of servant, some no-vote-permitted, do-as-you're-told little-kid servant? Think! "I thought this summer was all about living with you. Why can't I just help you out on your jobs? We could spend more time together that way."

  He straightens newspapers on the coffee table, no longer even looking at me. "I have to give the appearance of being professional; these people don't want teenage girls lounging on their lawns, Marley. It's not a good place for you—I use saws and dangerous tools. It wouldn't work out."

  I would like to point out that if I'm old enough to be in charge of someone's stupid kid, I can probably handle being near a lawn mower.

  He looks at my face and something in his own softens. "Marley, I promised Lynne you'd hel
p her. She's counting on you. It will be fine. You'll make money—I'm sure you could use some money—and you'll probably love what you're doing. It'll be great."

  For you, I think. Great for you.

  ***

  I stomp into the bedroom to call Jane.

  "When do you start?" Jane asks. "That's so lame. I can't believe your dad would do that. I thought your parents were cool."

  "I'm supposed to start on Monday. I can't believe this. It's so not right."

  "I wish you could come with Leah and me to Curtain Call."

  "Because that's so me?"

  "It would be better than babysitting."

  "Being with you guys, yeah, definitely. But you know I can't act. I don't want to act. I'd rather..."

  "What?"

  "I don't know ... anything? I mean, I think what you do is amazing," I say. "Your version of Cinderella in sixth grade was the funniest thing I ever saw in my life."

  "CinderELLA! CinderELLA! Go get my dress! CinderELLA! CinderELLA! Fix my hair."

  "You know, maybe I should just see if my dad would pay for me to—"

  "Actually, I don't think there are any spots left in our division. I'm pretty sure Leah said she got the last one. I'm sorry. Did you really want to—"

  "I'm just desperate, no. I don't think I would. Ugh."

  "Ugh is right."

  "So are you and Leah coming over tomorrow?"

  "Yeah, after orientation, okay?"

  "You have orientation on a Sunday?"

  "Just a quick thing in the morning. We'll be there sometime in the afternoon."

  "Cool. Then whose house for the Fourth this year?"

  "We'll figure it out tomorrow. I'll see ya, Marley."

  ***

  When I wake up in the morning, I have that freaky pat-the-blankets, look-at-the-walls moment. Where am I? My room does not have light blue walls. The sun does not filter in beneath my window shade and shine directly on my head. Rig arches his belly up toward the ceiling, his paws stretching straight out. Rig, with his steady eyes. Rig with me here. Where? Right. Dad's.

  I walk into the kitchen. Actually, a little morning-groggy, I walk into both bathrooms before I find the kitchen. Dad is standing at the counter, holding a container of the wrong kind of orange juice. I hate pulp. Odd little plates are on the counter next to weird little juice cups. The odd clear-glass plates are piled high with scrambled eggs. At least he got the egg part right.