Free Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures by Elaine Orr Page A

Christmas.
     
    BY FOUR O’CLOCK when my parents and Renée left I was almost glad I was spending the year in Ocean Alley. If Scoobie hadn’t kind of nudged my elbow a couple of times at dinner I wouldn’t have been able to take one more of my mother’s descriptions of neat things she and my dad had done together since September. He seemed to nudge me when he thought she was especially talkative, like when she wondered if she should have tried to feed a dolphin at Sea World a fish. She had not done so because the fish were stinky, according to her.
    I wished that Renée had not ridden down with them . If she had brought her car she could have stayed at least overnight.
    Scoobie had been very quiet all through dinner, and he kind of hinted that he wanted to leave as soon as we had the pie . I gave him what the guys in homeroom call the evil eye. Except there was no consequence if he ignored me. Luckily, Scoobie got the point, and stayed.
    “Why doesn’t your mother like camouflage pants?” he asked, but quietly, when she was in the bathroom and Renée had taken my dad into the backyard to show him Petey’s dog house.
    “Not feminine enough,” I said.
    “You don’t exactly dress like a guy,” he said.
    “Nope, but you’ve seen my sister twice. Can you imagine her in camouflage pants?  My mother likes everything Renée does.”
    He nodded, seemingly thinking . “Maybe you could learn to make pies.”
     
    IT WAS TOO COLD to spend a lot of time on the boardwalk, but in late January there were a couple of days when the temperature got to be fifty degrees and there wasn’t a lot of wind. Scoobie and I had walked past the many closed businesses and looked into the arcade twice.
    “The owner should open it so we can stay warm,” Scoobie said.
    “He barely has air-conditioning in the summer. Maybe he doesn’t even have heat,” I said.
    “Cheapskate,” he muttered.
    “What’s with you?” I asked. “You’ve been in a bad mood for days.”
    “It’s a free country,” he said.
    I stopped walking. “Okay, I’m your friend. If you want to talk to me that’s fine. But I’m not in the mood for snide comments.”
    He looked at me . “Okay, see you later.” He turned and walked away quickly, almost running down the steps from the boardwalk to the street below.

CHAPTER TEN
     
    IT WAS PROBABLY five seconds before I realized that my mouth was hanging open. For a few seconds I felt bad, and then I was really mad. Who does he think he is? “See if he gets my bananas.”
    I went more slowly down the steps and then walked toward the Cozy Corner . If it had been summer the narrow sidewalks on the side streets would have been so crowded I’d have had to step into the street sometimes. Today there was no one.
    It was late afternoon . We’d walked to the boardwalk directly from school. I should have known Scoobie’s mood was really bad when he didn’t want to go to the B&B first, to get Petey. He loves to walk Petey.
    I was passing a one-story house on G Street when a girl’s voice called to me. “Jolie. Come up here.”
    Margo was standing on the stoop, arms folded against the cold, wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved pullover sweater. I wanted to mutter my way back to the Cozy Corner, but no one from school had invited me into their house before, so I figured why not?
    “Hey Margo .” I started toward her, taking in the neatly landscaped small front yard and red shutters. The blue bungalow looked as if it should have a sign in front of it, “Comfy beach cottage to rent—full season or by the week.”
    “I hardly ever see you without Scoobie,” she said and gestured that I should walk in in front of her.
    It was a small living room with a hallway to the left that looked as if it went to a couple of bedrooms. There was a wider, open doorway on the right that led to a kitchen with a dining table to the right of the kitchen. “I didn’t know this was your house. It looks friendly.” Lame.
    “And