Touch Blue Read Free

smile.
    But when Dad looks away, Aaron rolls his eyes.
    I reach into my pocket to touch that blue sea glass. Maybe I should’ve been more specific with my wish?

A s we walk home, the narrow island road crackles under our feet, speckled purple and blue from the mussel shells the seagulls have dropped on the tar to break them open. Libby skips ahead of us, pointing out things to Aaron — except she’s showing him things no one needs to be told about. “These are white birch trees, and here are some telephone poles. This is the golf course. And we have swings up at the playground!”
    “And there’s a basketball court and tennis courts outside the Community Center,” I say over Libby’s voice. It’s the only way I can get a word in. “They have equipment you can borrow. Not you specifically ,” I say quickly, in case that sounds like I was offering him charity. Mom had said to be careful not to make Aaron feel embarrassed if he didn’t have something. “Anyone can borrow racquets and nets from there. You just have to sign them out.”
    Aaron doesn’t say a word.
    I sigh. I’m trying to look on the bright side here. Even though Aaron isn’t the kid I would’ve picked, Anne of Green Gables wasn’t what her new family expected either, and that worked out fine.
    “And that’s the MacCreadys’ dog!” Libby continues. “Her name is Roxie.”
    Lots of people are outside today, raking leftover leaves off their gardens or working on their fishing gear — painting buoys or repairing traps.
    “Hello, Jacob!” old Mrs. Ellis calls to us, watering the window boxes on her front porch. “Is that your foster boy?”
    I cringe. “Foster boy” sounds rude, even if it’s right.
    Dad squeezes Aaron’s shoulder, then murmurs from the corner of his mouth, “Don’t mind her.”
    “This is Aaron!” I yell.
    As we walk, Aaron twists just enough to lose Dad’s hand off his shoulder. At the next house, Karen Moody pulls her cell phone from her ear and waves. “Welcome to Bethsaida, Aaron!”
    And at Phipps’s Gas and Groceries, Ben Phipps leans out the window by the cash register. “Hey, I see your boy’s here, Jacob!”
    With each new person who calls to us, Aaron’s nod looks more forced and his chest droops a little lower. “How come all these people already know about me?” he asks, wary.
    “Islands are like this,” Dad says. “You’ll get used to it.”
    Living on an island does have its share of good-luck/bad-luck parts. One good/bad thing is how everyone knows everyone else. That’s good luck if you need a stick of butter or help launching your boat. The bad luck is that it’s near impossible to keep a secret on Bethsaida, because everyone knows everyone else’s business.
    “You really can only leave here by boat?” Aaron asks. “There’s no other way to get off the island?”
    I follow his worried gaze past the familiar mailboxes and dirt driveways of a few summer cottages to the waves glimmering with late-afternoon sunlight.
    “You can’t drive to the mainland!” Libby giggles, skipping along. “You’d fall off the island! Right, Dad? Kerplunk! Smack in the ocean!”
    Willie Buston’s pickup truck speeds toward us along the road. Going that fast, he must be trying to make the ferry. Willie waves as he passes, but Aaronjumps — right into the blueberry bushes on the roadside.
    I bite my lip to keep from grinning. Just then, Eben Calder swerves around us on his bicycle — showing off by cutting it close, even though he’s got plenty of room.
    I suppose that’s another good-luck/bad-luck thing about Bethsaida: There are only a few roads (and no speed limits or sidewalks). On the good-luck side, you can’t get lost. But on the bad-luck side, living on a scrap of land only a handful of miles wide by another handful long means it’s harder to get away from the people who annoy you. Not only do I have to see Eben Calder at school, on the ferry, at the store, in church, and swerving his