Seaglass Summer Read Free

supplies?
    We climb back into the truck. I try to send 911 text messages to Mom, but I still can’t get a signal. The deeper Uncle Sanjay drives into the shadowy woods, the slower the world moves, as if time skips Nisqually Island and races on through to Seattle.
    But then we burst out into the sunshine, next to the shoreline. A wooden sign appears, half covered by twisty madrone branches: WELCOME TO WITLESS COVE .
    “Where did that name come from?” I ask Uncle Sanjay.
    “In the early 1800s, when the Wilkes Expedition sailed through these islands, Captain Wilkes found this cove shallow and exposed to storms, useless for boats wanting to come ashore or drop anchor here. Scared sailors ‘witless.’ Wilkes coined the name Witless Cove.”
    He points to the right, to a curved, sandy ribbon of shore littered with rocks and driftwood. The black oceanthrows up huge white-capped waves, and the smells of kelp and sea salt waft into my nose. Stu whines as we pass the beach.
    “You can find many treasures there,” Uncle Sanjay goes on. “Quartz, shells, seaglass. Stu likes to go exploring.”
    I want to stop at the beach right away, but Uncle Sanjay turns left, away from the water and into town. No mall, no painted lines in the road. No fast-food restaurants. I bet nobody here has heard of a traffic light. People are biking and strolling along brick sidewalks. What’s with all the smiling and waving? Uncle Sanjay must be famous in this village of old-fashioned lampposts, shops, and hanging flowerpots. A rusty fire truck sits in the overgrown driveway of an old white church. I have to admit, Witless Cove is pretty, but nothing can fix my broken suitcase or my first aid kit, and I’m still in desperate need of a telephone.
    In one blink, we pass the main street and pull up at a square building made of giant logs. A wooden sign reads, THE WITLESS COVE TRADING POST . I have to buy clothes in
there
? When Uncle Sanjay and I get out, Stu moves into the driver’s seat. He looks like a proud human disguised as a dog.
    Inside the store, families in jeans and T-shirts mix with people in fancy clothes. They browse the soaps, lotions, and displays of cockleshells and colorful chunks ofseaglass. Up front, a few women chat about a clambake and a Girl Scout Cookie sale.
    I choose a few island postcards for Emma and Anna. I wonder what they’re doing at summer camp. They’re into fashion. They would never let me shop for clothes
here
, in this world of polyester pants and shirts with sequined bunnies on the front.
    Uncle Sanjay brings me a pair of denim overalls and two T-shirts with “Island Lover” written across the front. And a lime green sweater. And a set of pajamas with pictures of whales on them. And thick, striped socks, and underwear and one pair of rubbery shoes. My uncle doesn’t have a clue about clothes, but I don’t want to hurt his feelings. After all, he’s trying.

Chapter Four
MORNING MAKEOVER
    “R ise and shine, my dear niece!” Uncle Sanjay stands in my bedroom doorway in yellow pajamas. His hair sticks out like the many spikes of a cactus plant.
    “What? Where am I? What time is it?” I open my eyes. Oh, yes. I’m in the closet that Uncle Sanjay calls his guest bedroom, in his cabin in the woods, nine blocks from Witless Cove, population 812.
    “Here we wake with the sun and sleep with the moon.”
    Stu is lying on top of me, letting out farts and pedaling his feet in his sleep.
    I look up at the ceiling to see a giant spider hanging from a cobweb. I tumble out of bed, screaming. “
Spider! Right there!
Big as a Volkswagen!”
    Uncle Sanjay reaches out and grabs the spider in the palm of his hand. “Oh, that little thing. She needs to be in the forest.” He carries the spider outside. Through the window, I watch him walk across the grass in his slippers and drop the spider at the edge of the woods.
    Back inside, he says, “When we see those spiders, we don’t panic. We take them outside. They perform