Free A Summer of Sundays by Lindsay Eland Page A

accented.
    Mr. Ryans licked his lips and smiled before bustling back onto the sidewalk.
    The woman behind the counter was a little older than my parents. There were streaks of gray mixed in with her wiry red curls, which she had pulled off her freckled face in a loose, low ponytail. She wore a red T-shirt with the phrase I LOVE FOOD written across the chest in bright white letters, and she wore five or six silver bangles that jingled around her wrist like bells.
    Jude walked up to the counter. “Hi, Ms. Bodnar. This is Sunday. Her family is fixing up the old library.”
    Ms. Bodnar grinned. “Oh, yes, I think I met your sisters already. May and Emma, right?”
    I nodded and inwardly groaned. Now it would be a miracle if she ever remembered my name.
    “Nice to meet you, Sunday.” She poured some batter onto a black pan, then lifted the handle and swirled the batter until it thinly covered the bottom. “I’m so glad you and your family have come. My late husband worked at the library for a few years. He would’ve been very sad to see what’s become of it.”
    “Really? He worked there?” I stole a look at Jude, but he was watching Ms. Bodnar flip the lightly browned crepe. Was the story I’d found her husband’s?
    “Yes. When we moved here from Paris, he did not pack any of his clothes. Not even socks or underwear. ‘I can replace those,’ he told me, ‘but not my books.’ ”
    I liked her already. “Did your husband ever try towrite, Ms. Bodnar? You know, a story or a novel or something like that?”
    She laughed, slid the crepe onto a plate, and swiped a knife covered in chocolate across it. “No, he didn’t like to write. Just read, read, read.” She dropped thinly sliced strawberries across the chocolate, then rolled it up like a burrito, adding a dollop of whipped cream on top. “I am the one who likes to write.”
    “Really?” I knocked Jude with my elbow, though he didn’t seem to notice.
    She smiled and waved the comment away. “Oh, it’s nothing, really, I just write little stories here and there, and I’m not sure if they are even good.”
    Ms. Bodnar handed the plate and two forks to Jude. “Here’s a crepe for you two to split. A gift to welcome you to town.”
    I grinned, my mouth watering at the sight of the drippy whipped cream. “Thank you.”
    Jude and I sat down at one of the tables and dug in. After taking just one bite, it wasn’t hard to understand how the man in front of us got his tubby belly. It was like eating a piece of the clouds.
    We were almost finished when Jude stopped eating and took a quick breath in.
    “What?” I asked.
    “Shh!” He hunkered down and glanced quickly at anold man with a cane who walked past the café. When he was out of sight, Jude sat up, dug his fork into the last bite of crepe, and popped it into his mouth.
    “What was that about?” I asked. “It wasn’t Wally.”
    “It’s hard to imagine, but that old man is even more awful than Wally.” Jude leaned in closer but craned his neck to watch the man continue down the street. “That there is the meanest man in the entire world.”
    “Him?”
    Jude nodded and stood up, swiping up the last bit of whipped cream with his finger.
    I followed. “How’s he so mean?”
    “Just a second,” Jude whispered, and set the plate on the counter. “Thanks, Ms. Bodnar.”
    “Yes, thank you. That was delicious.”
    She waved. “Anytime.”
    Jude and I started down the sidewalk. The old man was one block in front of us, and I could hear his feet and the cane creating a
shuffle-shuffle-tap
rhythm on the cement.
    Jude whispered, even though there was no way on earth the old man could hear us, if he could even hear at all. “His name is Ben Folger. He’s the lunatic that lives across the field from you. He’s lived here almost all his life. You see his cane?”
    I nodded.
    “Well, Terrance Von, a senior at the high school, sayshe’s seen him pull a knife out of it and stab a stray cat before.