The Secret Cookie Club Read Free Page A

outfits practically matched : Khakis, polos, and loafers all around, except my father’s polo was baby blue and my mother’s was pink.
    Then my parents wanted to put my trunk in the car and leave. Once they had seen that my friends were clean with no visible tattoos, that was all they neededto know. My parents don’t really believe in small talk.
    But Hannah—who could earn a gold medal in small talk with grown-ups if there were such a thing—explained that parents’ staying for lunch is traditional, and after that mine settled down because tradition is something they understand.
    My dad, Joe Xi, was born and raised in Singapore, where his family still lives. My mom’s name is Anna Burrows, and she grew up all over the world because her dad was in the U.S. government. They met in college in Massachusetts, and now they are both very brainy scientists, the kind who expect their only daughter to be brainy too.
    Olivia’s parents arrived next. They are tall and glamorous and African-American, and they look just like their picture on the bottles of Baron Barbecue Sauce you see in every supermarket. Also, they were dressed exactly right for picking up their daughter at summer camp in Arizona—jeans and a polo for him, jeans skirt, a T-shirt, and a turquoise necklace for her. Like movie stars, they smiled a lot. Unlike movie stars—my idea of them anyway—theyalso gave everybody big warm hugs.
    Emma’s parents turned out to be huggers, too, and the second they saw her they glued themselves to Emma like they’d never again let her out of their sight. Emma’s dad is a doctor, I remembered, and her mom is a lawyer. For parents they are kind of old—almost grandparent-age. I liked them, though, and anyway you would never call them embarrassing. Here is something cute: They were holding hands.
    After that it was time for lunch, and Lucy’s mom still wasn’t there.
    All of us could see Lucy was unhappy, and I thought she was worried something might have happened to her mom. But it turned out she was mad.
    â€œYou never get mad,” Emma said. We were in the dining hall by then, filling water glasses to carry back to our table for the grown-ups.
    Lucy said, “At my mom I do.”
    Emma looked over her shoulder at me, and I shrugged. We knew Lucy lived with her mom and her grandma in Beverly Hills. We knew Lucy’s family didn’thave a lot of money. We knew Lucy’s aunt Freda had been a camper at Moonlight Ranch when she was a kid.
    We didn’t know anything else.
    â€œI’ll carry your mom’s water,” Lucy told me, “so I have something—” She stopped in her tracks. “Oh, no.”
    All of us stopped too, and looked where she was looking. A woman had appeared by the door. She had a lot of blond hair and a big smile, but the most remarkable thing was what she was wearing—a sleeveless green blouse, the shortest shorts I ever saw on a grown-up, and green cowboy boots.
    Olivia started to say something, and from her face I knew it would be snarky. But Emma kicked her and then said, “That’s not your mom, Lucy. Say it’s not.”
    Lucy sighed, looked into each of our faces like she was going to her own execution, then turned and started walking toward the blond woman, waving. “I’m over here, Mother!”
    Am I mean if I felt better after Lucy’s mom turned out to be even more embarrassing than my parents?
    Her name was Karen Kathleen, but she went by KK,and even though she was wearing those terrible shorts, she was nice—friendly—and she made everybody laugh, even my own mom.
    Lunch was the regular camp food—hamburgers and salad. There were veggie burgers for vegetarians like Lucy and her mom. While we ate, Hannah told stories about the summer—like how Flowerpot Cabin should’ve won first prize on Talent Night, only there was that Ryan kid in Lasso Cabin who had an