Free The Summer Before Boys by Nora Raleigh Baskin

and Eliza was whining about how she didn’t want to drive a whole two hours just to turn around and drive back again.
    â€œI stay alone all the time,” I added, knowing that four hours would be just what I needed.
    â€œMom, we’ll be fine. You’ve left me alone before. And besides,” Eliza added. “We’re not alone. We have each other.”
    Inside, my heart was pounding with the anticipation that Eliza would be able to convince her mom to go without us, even though I knew we had completely different reasons. And even though I knew I wasn’t being fair by keeping mine a secret.
    â€œWell, okay,” Aunt Louisa gave in.
    I swear, if there was an orchestra playing somewhere, it would be getting louder and louder, building up to that moment just before the girl meets the boy—
    â€”And then they kiss.

twenty
    E ven while Eliza was explaining why never in a million years would she agree to sneak out and walk up to the hotel, I was imagining how I would first see Michael. What it would be like. What I would say. What he would say.
    Uncle Bruce and Aunt Louisa pulled out of the driveway, but not before telling us they would be back in a few hours. Don’t let anyone in. Don’t answer the phone unless you hear someone you know talking into the machine.
    And don’t go anywhere .
    â€œIt’s not somewhere,” I was telling Eliza. “It’s practically still staying home.”
    â€œBut it’s not, Julia.”
    â€œBut no one will know.”
    â€œC’mon. It will be fun,” I told Eliza. “Like we are runaway slaves.”
    â€œFollowing the North Star,” Eliza added.
    â€œOr we were captured by Indians and now we have to walk for miles back to their camp so they can adopt us into their tribe.”
    â€œThey live in a longhouse.”
    â€œAnd the clan mother hands us each a cornhusk doll to represent our new family.”
    We headed up to the hotel, promising our Olden-Day selves that we’d be back before the “high moon rises,” or something like that.
    The peepers were so loud, almost desperate. The sun was resting along the tops of the trees and spreading a golden light across the road. It was already late enough in the summer that the days were noticeably shorter and there was a coolness at night that hinted at the start of autumn. The movie would start as it was just beginning to be dark so the little kids could stay up and watch. There would be a later movie too for the grown-ups only, but I knew we’d have to get back before then.
    I could hear the right words coming out of my mouth: moccasins, wampum beads, canoe. I could hear the story we were telling, but the whole walk up to the hotel I was only hoping beyond hope that Michael would be there early too.

twenty-one
    I t was seven thirty and still light, a gray light, but the movie had started. A couple of Mohawk employees in their green polo shirts were making popcorn in a giant hot-air popcorn machine, scooping it into paper bags, and handing them out to anyone who wanted one. For free.
    Chairs had been set up in rows all along the great lawn and the movie was projected onto a giant screen that rose up against the stone guest-room side of the hotel. There were big black speakers on either side, and a papery rug rolled out between aisles. But no Michael.
    â€œI wonder if they had popcorn in the olden days.” Eliza was talking. “They had the corn. I wonder if they just popped it one day, like by accident or something, and then someone ate it andsaid, umm yummy. But I guess the Iroquois wouldn’t have butter, right? I wonder if they had salt.”
    My eyes were scanning the people in the seats, soaking in all the remaining light, trying to make out the figures, the groups of kids and teenagers, parents. He wasn’t next to that old man in the front row with the jacket, was he?
    â€œJulia, are you listening? Do you want to sit here or