Jacob Wonderbar and the Cosmic Space Kapow Read Free Page A

again, which will most likely be around the time you have forgotten what having fun even feels like. Do you understand me?”
    Jacob thought about protesting further, but he accepted his punishment with a nod.

CHAPTER 4
    J acob and his mom lived in a subdivision where all of the houses were constructed from one of three designs that everyone chose from a brochure when the subdivision was still a scrubby field, but when the houses were built they all ended up looking pretty much the same. Jacob’s house had a garage facing the street, a brown door set back a little bit from that, and a second story with shutters around the windows and a flat roof. The only way you could tell Jacob’s house from Sarah’s and Dexter’s houses down the street was that Dexter’s shutters were red and Sarah’s shutters were dark green. Jacob’s were also dark green, but his house had a faded wreath with fake flowers on the door. Sometimes when Jacob was at Dexter’s house he would try to put his trash under the sink without remembering that Dexter’s parents kept the trash in a bin next to the counter. Other than that, the inside of their houses were basically the same too.
    He took the garbage out to the curb and saw the first firefly of the year. He watched it flicker off and on and he sat down on the grass for a moment to see where it would fly. Summer was coming, the night had just a hint of mugginess to it, and the moon was a brilliant orange, which Jacob knew was probably because of pollution in the atmosphere, but at that moment he didn’t mind because it looked amazing. He thought about his dad and wondered what he was doing that night, and if he might be outside looking at the moon as well, maybe even thinking about Jacob.
    He stared at his hands, a soft brown color that was lighter than his mom’s dark skin and darker than his dad’s light skin. It was proof that he was half of his mom and half of his dad, but since he didn’t look like either of them, it also made him something else entirely. Ever since his dad had left he felt like he only knew half of himself. The only tangible reminder that he’d once had a dad was his lighter skin.
    He saw some kids approaching down the street and recognized the forms of Dexter and Sarah. When Jacob saw Sarah outside he remembered that it was the second Tuesday of the month, since Mondays she had ballet rehearsal and Wednesdays she had piano practice and Thursdays she had study hall, where her parents assigned extra non-school essays on things like the Gadsden Purchase and the Brandenburg Concertos and other things Jacob knew nothing about. Friday night was family movie night with her parents and her little sister, weekends were reserved for soccer, and during summer vacation her parents took her all around the country to visit colleges and museums. She had Mandarin lessons every other Tuesday, and since it was an odd-numbered month that meant she had the evenings of the second and fourth Tuesdays set aside as friend time, assuming she had finished her homework and any possible extra credit, only this month she had a big piano recital on the fourth Tuesday, which meant it was definitely the second Tuesday, and the only day Jacob, Dexter, and Sarah would be able to spend time together after school all month.
    Their tradition of hanging out whenever Sarah had a free night had begun after Jacob’s dad had left a few years back. After a week cooped up in his house alone Jacob had asked them to go into the forest down the street to make a pact. When they reached their favorite clearing, Jacob had raised the stick he was carrying and proposed that they be blood friends. Dexter had looked at his hand and said, “No offense, but I’m not cutting myself. I’d probably get gangrene or something.”
    Jacob traced a circle in the dirt with his stick and agreed he wasn’t very interested in cutting himself either, and in the end