Free All-Season Edie by Annabel Lyon

though, only my parents are waiting. Mom starts to say something about Grandma not wanting Grandpa to drive and Grandpa refusing to come. Dad’s on the phone in the den, where I can’t overhear.
    â€œWhat happened?” I ask.
    â€œGrandpa wasn’t feeling well,” Mom says. “They decided to stay home this year. I’ll take a picture of you and we can e-mail it to them, how’s that?”
    When she’s gone into the den to download the picture from the camera to the computer—in other words, to talk to Dad without me hearing—I sneak out to the garbage can by the back deck and retrieve my old sock. It’s now slightly spaghetti-stained from our plate scrapings. I’ll wipe the stickiness off and put the figurine back the next time we go to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Something tells me Grandpa won’t have noticed it was ever gone.
    The day after Halloween, I find out I got an A+ on my school project. Exceptional work, Edie! Mr. Chen wrote on it in red. He even asks me to read it aloud to the class. When I get home from school, I find out Dexter is grounded because when Mom went to pick her up from the party the night before, she got there early and found Dex wearing makeup borrowed from Mean Megan. Not Halloween makeup, but the other kind, which Dexter isn’t allowed until she’s fifteen. Mom says Dexter knew she was breaking the rules, so now she has to Suffer the Consequences. Mean Megan is in the doghouse too and isn’t allowed to come over for the entire month of November. And then, when I’m tidying up my closet (throwing out the leaves and bones, restoring the pins to Mom’s sewing box, stacking the library books it’s time to return, and wondering what to do with the spices), I find the lucky nickel Grandpa gave me weeks ago. That means I still have a wish saved, to use any way I want the next time I see a fountain.
    Or I could put it in my savings jar. I think that’s what I’d rather do. It’s not much, but even the tiniest little bit is something to hold onto. Like Grandpa remembering what kind of pizza I like or where he went on his honeymoon. That’s not nothing, is it?

Stupid Christmas
    â€œStupid Christmas,” I say.
    â€œEdith Jasmine Snow.” Mom makes her raisin face. “You are coming with Dexter and me to the mall for Christmas shopping and I am not going to hear one more word about it.”
    â€œBut,” I say.
    â€œNot one word!”
    â€œ Oh ,” I say, feeling incredibly frustrated; then I start coughing again.
    â€œCough away from me,” Dexter says, flapping her hands. We’re sitting in the kitchen having an unreasonably early Saturday morning breakfast because of Mom’s big plans for the day. “You’re infectious.”
    I lean over and cough on her.
    â€œEdith,” Mom says sternly, and I know if I weren’t sick and Mom didn’t want to get moving, I would be shot into my room like a cannonball. Here’s what’s wrong with me: coughing, sneezing, runny nose, achy head and a throat like I’ve swallowed sand. The only neat part is my voice, which has gone deep. I keep trying to sing, but that only makes my cough worse. I give up on breakfast, pushing my toast away. It’s too painful.
    â€œOh, Edie.” Mom isn’t angry, though. She smoothes my hair back and holds her palm to my forehead for a minute. Then she goes to the cupboard and gets the cough syrup and the aspirin.
    â€œ Oh ,” I wail again. I hate swallowing pills. “Can’t I stay home?”
    â€œYeah,” Dexter says.
    â€œNo, because Daddy is away all day today and I don’t want you spending the day alone.” Dad is working on a Major Presentation for an Important Client and is Putting In Some Serious Overtime because his firm is Down To The Wire. He left the house before any of us was up, leaving as evidence only a coffee mug in the