Lucy’s “Perfect” Summer Read Free

seat.
    “One-on-One!” she called out. “Bet you can’t score on me, J.J.!”
    “Bet you can’t stop me!”
    They used the penalty mark as one goal and the real goal area as the other and turned and faked themselves dizzy. Neither of them scored — until Lucy did a perfect shimmy to one side and kicked the ball in the other direction, right past J.J. and over the line.
    She threw her head back to cheer into the sky and froze with her mouth open. Somewhere between the turning and the faking, clouds blacker than Lollipop the kitty had formed, and even as Lucy stared, one of them spit out a mouthful of lightning that crackled through the power line above the refreshment building. The thunder smacked into Lucy’s ears and rooted her to the ground.
    ”Come on!” J.J. yelled, and he grabbed her sleeve and hauled her out of the goal area. Before they could get to their bikes, the sky flashed again and then again, and the thunder was so loud Lucy couldn’t hear what else J.J. was yelling. She dove for her handlebars, but he pushed her under the bleachers, just as a torrent of rain beat down on them with drops sharp as needles.
    “Holy frijoles!” Lucy said.
    J.J. turned his backward cap around, but even under the bleacher seats, water slid down the bill and plastered his shorts to his legs. Lucy shook her head to get the rain out of her eyes and smacked J.J. in the cheek with her ponytail. He didn’t even flinch.
    “I didn’t see that coming!” Lucy said. “Guess we oughta just wait it out, huh?”
    J.J. hunched his shoulders and peered out at the rain that now came down in sheets. “Guess so,” he said.
    But ten minutes later, as a lake formed between them and the fence and the storm battered on, J.J. shook his head. “Better make a run for it,” he said.
    Lucy tried, but the wind and the slapping rain pushed her back a step for every two she took forward.
    “Leave the bikes — we’ll get ’em later!” J.J. shouted.
    He hooked his arm through Lucy’s and pulled her around the giant puddle that was by now taking up most of the area behind the bleachers. They sloshed through another one that had formed outside the fence, and Lucy had to tuck her chin to keep the rain from shooting its bullets into her eyes. When J.J. stopped, she peeked over his shoulder and nearly bit into it.
    The dirt road was a river, charging past them as if it had someplace important to go. Even as they stood there, the water raced over Lucy’s toes and pulled at her feet.
    “Hold on!” J.J. yelled.
    Lucy wrapped her arms around J.J.’s, one hand clinging like a monkey to his T-shirt, as he picked his way along the mini-river that widened by the minute. Plastic bottles and crushed-up cans tumbled past, and Lucy tried not to imagine herself and J.J. falling in and hurtling with them to who-knew-where. She placed her feet exactly where J.J. had put his, but even at that, she slid in the mud and went down on her knees. The water tried to drag her with it.
    J.J. stopped and stooped over. “Get on my back!”
    “You can’t carry me!” Lucy shouted — though she was sure the next crash of thunder stole her words.
    “Get on!” J.J. said.
    Lucy did and braced her arms around his neck as he half-ran, half-slid to the bridge. The trickle of water from the irrigation ditch had now swollen over the banks and ripped at the underside of the bridge as J.J. careened across with Lucy hanging on. The ground was higher on that side, and the water only covered their ankles. Lucy slid off of J.J.’s back just as the air cracked again. Only this time, it wasn’t thunder.
    She gazed in horror as the bridge collapsed behind them.

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    The bridge caved into a V , and Lucy felt her knees cave too.
    “Come on!” J.J. cried out.
    She could barely hear him over the crashing of planks and the angry protests of the water below. Somehow she was able to run after him, sloshing through the rising water to the highway. Ahead of them, Sheriff