Jack Adrift Read Free Page A

our hometown, where Betsy had a million great friends. I knew how she felt. I was leaving my friends behind, too. But since she was three years older than me she knew hers longer, and because of that I figured she’d miss them more.
    But the little house wasn’t so bad. The Navy had filled it with new furniture and carpets. As Mom said, “It’s not fancy, but its good family furniture.” There were clean pillows and linens folded on the fresh mattresses, and the bathroom was spotless. The kitchen was small, but everything in it was spick-and-span. There was a new couch with a matching coffee table and lamps.
    Pete threw himself on the couch like a dead dog lying on its back, with its legs straight up in the air.

    â€œIf you have to be sick, do it in the bathroom,” Mom insisted.
    â€œThere’s no TV,” he whined. “I’ll never get better.”
    â€œYou don’t need one,” Dad said. “TV is only for people who are stuck out in the sticks. We are in Cape Hatteras! There are millions of things to do here.”
    I looked out the front window to see if I could find some of the millions of things to do. Across the street was a Gulf gas station. The sun had almost faded and the round orange Gulf sign shined orangely onto my face. “It looks like a giant orange lollipop,” I said to Betsy, who had finally given up and come into the house to haunt us.
    â€œNo,” she said sharply, “it’s a giant sucker they put up just in your honor.”
    â€œYou know,” I said, trying to sound like Mom and keep my spirits up, “this moving is hard enough without you being nasty on top of it all.”
    Betsy stepped back and put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been thinking about what Dad said, and you should worry about making friends,” she said directly. “You are a boy. And boys don’t make friends, just enemies. Girls make friends like this,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Boys just size each other up like hungry wolves fighting over a hunk of red meat. And believe me,” she said, poking me in my soft belly, “you’ll make a nice meal for someone.”

    Just then Mom walked up to us. “That Gulf sign makes us look like we have jaundice,” she said, holding me by the chin and looking into my eyes. “Even your eyeballs are orange.” She pulled down the shade, then looked at Betsy and put her arm around her shoulders. “Come on,” she said warmly, “help me make up the beds and get this place organized.”
    â€œOkay,” Betsy said. She sounded tired of being miserable.
    â€œJack! Pete!” Dad called from the front door. “Come help me unload the trunk.”
    â€œYes, sir!” I hollered back, and saluted in his direction.
    â€œYes, sir!” Pete said, and crawled off the couch. He was tired of being miserable, too.
    After Mom got the kitchen boxes unpacked, we ate dinner from the cooler full of leftover food we had packed for the trip. As I looked around the table, it seemed that everyone was doing much better. Betsy was happy because she had gotten her own little room. As usual, I had to share with Pete. Mom was happy because the house was clean and easy to keep that way. And Dad looked ready to hit the sack and get charged up for his new ambitious life.
    After I took a shower in something like a tin phone booth, I said good night to everyone and crawled between my sheets, which smelled like Cream of Wheat. I
was exhausted, but before I fell asleep I still wondered what the kids at school might want to hear about me. I knew Mom was right, that I should just tell the simple truth: I was from a small farm town full of nice people with enough oddballs thrown in to make the place interesting. But I was more attracted to Dad’s advice. It just seemed much more fun to make up who I was, to invent myself so everyone would think I was interesting. And suddenly it