H2O Read Free

get the giggles—although in my case I had nothing to laugh about, now there wasn’t even any water to cover me. I did my best with dish towels. All our stuff, everyone’s stuff, was in the barn.
    â€œMom, what’s going on?” said Zak.
    â€œWe’re not really sure,” said Sarah. “Someone Barnaby knows called him and—”
    Thump, thump, thump—bang!—thump, thump, thump , went Barnaby upstairs.
    â€œMom?” said Zak.
    Bang! Thump, thump, thump . Barnaby came back down the stairs.
    â€œYou’d better ask your dad,” said Sarah.
    See now, that was kind of weird, wasn’t it? Zak didn’t normally call his mom “Mom”; Sarah didn’t normally call Barnaby “your dad.” If I didn’t know Zak was practically immune to a whole lot of stuff that really bothered other people—like being embarrassed by your parents—I would have thought he was freaking out too. But his parents did crazy stuff all the time, and everyone knew they did, and usually no one laughed about it much because everyone understood what Zak had to deal with…and also because Sarah and Barnaby were so kind to us.
    This latest crazy thing, whatever it was, it was just bad timing, party-wise.
    â€œTurn the radio on,” Barnaby told Zak.
    â€œ Dad? ” said Zak, but he turned it on anyway.
    They didn’t have a TV. Zak’s parents didn’t even have a digital radio; they had the old-fashioned crackly kind. Guess what was on?
    Gardeners’ Question Time .
    They were discussing the best methods of tackling blight on roses.
    Someone lost it and giggled. The giggling, it spread.
    â€œThis isn’t right,” said Barnaby quietly. “It should be the news.”
    I laughed too; it was impossible not to crack up with Mrs. Fotheringay-Flytrap describing the spots on her Rambling Rector rose…but you want to know something weird? While I certainly wouldn’t in a million years have thought, Oh no! This must mean the world as we know it is about to end , I kind of knew it wasn’t right too. I didn’t know what was supposed to be on, but I knew Gardeners’ Question Time shouldn’t have been. My mom LOVED that program and listened to it every Sunday—every Sunday. Not on a Saturday night. Never on a Saturday night. Not exactly scary, though, was it?
    â€œGo and put your clothes on!” Sarah snapped at us.
    I shivered. Caspar hugged me close. Leonie grabbed my hand.
    Sarah never snapped at us.
    â€œThey’re in the barn,” said Saskia—in a really horrible way, like Sarah was stupid.
    â€œTake ours, then,” said Sarah. “Take whatever you want. Just get dressed.”
    Someone muttered something and headed for the kitchen door.
    â€œDon’t go outside,” said Barnaby. Loudly, angrily. “You do NOT go outside.”
    We shuffled out of the room, the whole herd of us. On the stairs, someone cracked up, and we all had to make a mad dash for Zak’s parents’ bedroom so we could laugh our heads off in private, without hurting their feelings.
    â€œWhat theis up with your parents, man?” said Caspar.
    â€œGot me, dude,” said Zak. But he didn’t sound OK; he still didn’t sound OK. “C’mon,” he said to Ronnie—my techie-est friend—and they went off to Zak’s room.
    The rest of us, we played dress-up with Zak’s parents’ clothes. It was so funny we forgot all the weirdness. Caspar pulled on a kaftan.
    â€œOhhm!” he said, doing this prayer thing with his hands.
    I laughed so hard I almost—
    â€œI need to pee,” I remembered.
    Lee followed me to the bathroom. I went first. I had to—I was bursting. Then Lee went while I surveyed myself in the mirror:. So much for the model look. The big, baggy hippie dress was the least of it. My lips, which felt puffy-bruised and tingling from the kissing, looked kind of