Free Going, Going, Gone! With the Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume Page A

she said the next morning while I was eating my Cream of Wheat.
    “Try what?” I asked, like I didn’t know.
    “Your Boogie board!”
    “I’m waiting,” I told her.
    “Waiting for what?” she asked.
    “The perfect wave.”
    “Ha!” she said, laughing.
    That afternoon I decided to build a sand fort. Grandma helped me. “I have a lot of experience,” she said. “I used to help your mom build sand castles when she was your age.”
    “With moats around them?” I asked.
    “Oh, sure,” Grandma said. “They all had moats.”
    Grandma was good at making turrets and drizzling wet sand on top of them. But after awhile she fanned her face with her hat and said, “Whew—it’s hot out today. Time for a swim. Want to come in with me, Jake?”
    “Not now,” I told her. “I have to stay here and guard my fort.” I watched as Grandma dove under a wave.
    Sometimes I go into the ocean up to my knees. But no higher—not even when I’m with Dad. Because higher means the waves could crash over your head. No way will I ever dive under a wave. Not if I live to be a hundred million years old!
    When Mom called us for snacks, the Great One said, “You’re the only kid on the beach who won’t go into the ocean.”
    “Am not!” I told her.
    “Are too!” the Great One said. She was peeling a tangerine. “Do you want everyone to think you’re afraid? Do you want everyone to think you’re a baby?” She shoved a piece of tangerine into her mouth.
    “I’m not a baby!” I shouted, grabbing a juice box. “I know how to swim in a pool.”
    “You call the doggie paddle swimming?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then why don’t you pretend the ocean is a big pool?”
    “I don’t like salt water in my eyes,” I told her. “And I don’t want it up my nose, either!”
    “Wear a mask,” the Great One called as she ran back toward the ocean with her lizard Boogie board.
    That night on the boardwalk I saw a store window filled with masks. I asked Grandma if we could go inside. She took my hand and we went into the store together.
    I checked out all the masks. I tried on Spider-Man first. Next I tried on Batman. Then I tried on a mask that looked like the President. After that, one that looked like a gorilla.
    When Grandma walked away to look at something else, I saw it. The perfect mask—the
Wolfman
! I pulled it on and crept up behind Grandma. Then I poked her in the ribsand growled. Grandma jumped a foot off the floor and shrieked so loud she scared me. Everyone in the store turned to look at us. At least, I think they did. It wasn’t that easy to see what was going on from inside the Wolfman mask.

    When Grandma calmed down, she laughed. “You surprised me, Jake!”
    “I could tell,” I said.
    “Would you like that mask?”
    I wasn’t going to ask for it, but if Grandma wanted to buy it for me, it wouldn’t be nice to say no. So I said, “Sure. Thanks a lot, Grandma!”
    “You’re welcome,
precious
.”
    Precious
is what Grandma calls me when no one else is around. It’s our secret word.
    I pulled off the Wolfman mask and plunked it on the counter.
    “Getting an early start on Halloween?” the cashier said.
    “No,” I told him. But I don’t think he believed me.
    The next day at the beach, after the Great One raced into the ocean, I pulled on my Wolfman mask. Dad said, “That’s a scary mask, Jake. I hope you don’t scare your sister.”
    I was hoping I would.
    I grabbed my yellow Boogie board with the wolf face on it and carried it down to the ocean’s edge. Then I stood on the board, like I was a surfer.
    “Look, Mommy,” I heard a little kid say. “That boy thinks it’s Halloween.”
    Was he talking about me?
    It was hot inside my Wolfman mask. Hot and sweaty. Soon I felt like pulling it off and dumping a bucket of water over my head. Water from the sink, not ocean water.
    When the Great One came out of the ocean, she said, “Why are you wearing that thing? You look like a dork!”
    “I look like the