Free My First Love and Other Disasters by Francine Pascal Page B

but that’s because it’s especially hot tonight. But I’m too tired for it to matter, and next thing I know it’s morning and DeeDee is crawling in my bed.

Eight
    â€œC’mon, Victoria, let’s go to the beach.” DeeDee is pulling on my arm, but for a minute I don’t even know where I am. Then I remember.
    â€œWhat time is it?” I mumble.
    â€œThe big hand is on the four and the little hand is right next to the seven, but not on it yet.”
    I work it out and groan. “Oh, God, it’s twenty past six. DeeDee, it’s too early, go back to bed.”
    â€œI don’t want to. I’m hungry. Mommy says you’re supposed to fix me breakfast and I’m hungry.”
    â€œBut it’s not even seven.” I’m trying to be reasonable and nice at the same time. Very hard so early in the morning.
    â€œBut I’m hungry.” DeeDee is being neither.
    â€œOkay, five minutes more.”
    â€œNow!”
    Monster. I sit up, bumping my head on the ceiling. I guess it’s a little lower on the sides than I thought. It takes me a while to get up and get it all together. With my eyes half shut I creep downstairs and into the kitchen.
    â€œWhat do you eat for breakfast?”
    â€œPancakes.”
    â€œForget it! What else?”
    â€œOr eggs and bacon or sometimes Mommy even makes waffles. . . .”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œI dunno . . . cereal, I guess.”
    â€œThat’s it.” And I go to the pantry and pull out three different kinds of dry cereal.
    â€œI want Sugar Pops!”
    Naturally we don’t have any Sugar Pops. I try to sell her on one of the others, but she only wants the dumb Sugar Pops, so I fix her scrambled eggs, which she pushes around on her plate until they finally slip into her lap. That’s the end of breakfast. I guess she wasn’t so hungry after all.
    â€œWhy don’t you watch some TV for a while and then we’ll get dressed and go to the beach.”
    â€œI can’t.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œThere’s no room to sit,” she says, pointing to all the laundry still piled up all over. I guessCynthia got home too late to bother with it. I clear a little spot for DeeDee and put on the TV and sneak upstairs to get back to bed, but David hears me, and now he wants his breakfast, and we go back down and go through the whole breakfast thing, only he insists on a peanut butter sandwich and swears he has one every morning.
    No point in going back to bed, so I get into my bathing suit and straighten up my room. I tell the kids that if they want to go to the beach they have to make their beds. They both say they don’t have to make their beds. Then we have this little thing about how their mommy never makes them make their beds so why should I. I guess they’re right, so I make their beds while they get into their bathing suits, and we all head down to the beach.
    The beach is fabulous, with white clean sand and roaring white water, and absolutely empty except that way down you can see someone who looks like maybe he’s fishing. David takes off as if he was shot out of a cannon and races across the sand right into the water. Brrr!
    â€œWow!” I say to DeeDee. “Does he always do that?”
    â€œUh-uh, my mommy never lets him go in the water like that unless a grown-up is with him.”
    â€œOh, God!” I shoot down after him. I race into the water even though it’s unbelievably freezing.He’s already over his head. I can see he’s a pretty good swimmer for a little kid, but still he’s way too far out, so I call him and wave my arms, and I know he sees me, but he doesn’t pay any attention. So I have to swim after him. When I get close enough, and I’m really angry now, I call him and tell him to get right back inshore. Now! He says something that sounds like, “Aw, damn,” and heads