Cry of the Sea Read Free

never put a fraction
of processed food in their mouths, nor meat, nor sugar unless it
came from fruit.
    I grabbed my phone and called Haley.
    “Hey, turn your TV a little to the right,” I
said. I sat on my bed and looked out my window. Now I could see the
screen across the fifteen feet that divided our houses and through
her bedroom window to the far wall where the TV rested on her
dresser. Some kind of reality show like Dumbest Criminals was on. The picture was tiny, but it was better than nothing.
“What’s happening?”
    Even though we could both see each other and
could talk from the windows without phones like we did when we were
kids, we preferred to sit on our beds not looking at each other and
use the phones as if we were miles apart. It was way more
comfortable.
    Haley groaned. “It’s pretty boring tonight.”
Then she laughed really hard. “Well, that was funny!”
    “What happened? I couldn’t see it.”
    “I can’t explain it, really,” she said. “Your
parents should let you get a TV for your room.”
    “Haley, you know they won’t.”
    “I know,” she grunted. “Do you know that they
haven’t even spoken to my mom since they found out she leaves the
TV on all the time so our dog won’t get afraid when everyone’s gone
or asleep?”
    “It wastes electricity.”
    “Yeah? Well, they should see our clawed up
kitchen door after the last time the dog freaked out when he was
left by himself.”
    “Your dog is weird.”
    “Your parents are weird,” she said. Then she
added a quick “no offense” as if that made it okay.
    I bit my lip. It’s kind of one thing to
insult my own parents; it always got on my nerves to hear someone
else do it. I tried to play it off like it was no big deal.
“They’re just hippies at heart. They’re harmless, really.” I popped
half the Ding Dong in my mouth.
    “I saw you guys at the Washington U booth
tonight. You change your mind?”
    “No,” I said, choking on the cake. “I just
took the brochure to make him happy, but he’s pissed now because I
told him I don’t want to go there and be a clone of my mom. He
doesn’t get that being a lawyer doesn’t interest me.”
    “You can’t help that.”
    “They make me feel so guilty, though,” I told
her.
    “Don’t,” she said back. I watched her pick up
the remote and turn the TV off. “It’s your life, not theirs. And
it’s not like you want to do something crazy like drop out of
school or spend the rest of your life working at the mall. You
still want to do great work.”
    “I do. I want to do something that’s my own,
you know? Find my own cause to get behind, not just ride their
coattails.”
    “That’s why we’re starting the Recycling Club
at school,” she said.
    I laughed. “Well, that’s hardly a new cause,
but okay.”
    Haley came to the window and sat on the sill.
I noticed that she had changed out of her school clothes and was
wearing her pajamas. Her hair, usually up in a ponytail, was long
and wet from a shower. It seemed more brown than blond that way,
and I liked it better. Well, except for the frown she had going on
under it.
    “So I have to tell you this,” she said. I
leaned against my wall and thought how it might be easier to open
our windows and talk directly at each other. She was kind of
whispering, though, like she was telling a secret, and I guess I
wouldn’t be able to hear her without the phone. “I read what Regina
posted on her wall. She said if anyone else in school wants
to come up with a Recycling Club, she’d make sure it passed through
the Student Council review, but she was not going to pass yours
because you’d probably be running through the school snatching soda
cans out of people’s hands and tearing the pep rally posters off
the walls while screaming about how much paper was being
wasted.”
    It took me a second to process what she was
saying. “Wait! You’re ‘friends’ with Regina?”
    Haley waved her hand like that wasn’t
important.