My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer

by Jennifer Gennari

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Map

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Wild Berry Pie

  Acknowledgments

  To Hewson, Maggie, Sarah, and Indira, my first readers. And Breauna, who had to face grown-up bullies.

  Copyright © 2012 by Jennifer Gennari

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Houghton Mifflin Books for Children is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  The text of this book is set in Fournier MT Std.

  The map is pen and inkwash.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gennari, Jennifer.

  My mixed-up berry blue summer / by Jennifer Gennari.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old June Farrell spends the summer at her Vermont home getting used to the woman her mother is planning to marry and practicing her pie-baking skills, as she hopes to win the blue ribbon at the fair.

  ISBN 978-0-547-57739-5

  [1. Lesbians—Fiction. 2. Prejudices—Fiction. 3. Pies—Fiction. 4. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 5. Vermont—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.G29174My 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011012240

  Manufactured in the United States

  DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  4500348247

  Chapter One

  UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE, Lake Champlain was a friend I could count on. I knew her every mood—sometimes she was flat like a cookie sheet, and other times she was whipped up like meringue on a butterscotch pie.

  That was the way I felt, too. Ever since Eva had moved in with Mom and me last month, I was as changeable as the lake.

  I looked out my bedroom window. The lights were already on at Stillwater Marina; Mom was probably boxing pies and wrapping cookies, getting ready for the customers who would tie up at the dock and come into our shop. I’d be there to help her soon. Or maybe I’d swim first. The lake, rolling steadily to shore, was as dark and inviting as rubbed blueberries.

  My mouth watered, thinking about blueberry season and tasting the sweet zing of the first berry. What I needed, though, were champion berries, the kind growing wild on the cliffs around the lake. I was going to make my best pie ever and enter it into the Champlain Valley Fair. I could see the newspaper headline already: “Wild Berry Pie by June Farrell, 12, Astonishes Judges.”

  The trick to great pies—and I should know—is fruit combinations. Everybody does strawberry-rhubarb. To stand out from the crowd, you have to do something offbeat, like apple-blackberry or strawberry-peach-pineapple or blueberry-pear. And you need the best ingredients, of course—no store-bought blueberries or hothouse strawberries.

  I shrugged out of my PJs and pulled on my bathing suit. Luke would know where to find wild blueberries. I stood on my bed and grabbed the large flashlight suspended by fishing line from my curtain rod and covered it with a green cellophane lens, pointing it west toward the island just a softball field away from our shore. I trained my binoculars on Luke’s house on the tip of the island and zoomed in on his window.

  He was up—his green light shining back at me. We had been using the color lenses left over from a school play for about four years, since we were eight: green—I can play; yellow—I can’t; red—trouble. I wish I could claim it as my idea. Luke says, when you don’t have a phone, you learn to improvise.

  I shifted my gaze to the dock and spotted Luke. His shaggy black hair was in his eyes, his hands carrying oars to the rowboat at the end of his dock. I couldn’t wait to hear his plan for the day.

  I yanked my Stillwater Marina T-shirt over my bathing suit and pulled my brown hair into a ponytail. I didn’t bother looking in the mirror: I was the same June, never mind the changes other people saw. I clambered down from my loft to the kitchen.

  “Good morning, June.” Eva moved her plate over. “I was just finishing up.”

  “That’s OK.” I grabbed a bowl and the Cheerios and sat at the other end of the table. I still couldn’t get used to her being here.

  In between us was a bowl of sliced strawberries, courtesy of Mom, I was sure. I took a handful for my Cheerios. Strawberry-blueberry-cherry? I wanted the strangest fruit mixture for my pie.

  Eva brushed a crumb from her shirt. I could have told her everything was in its place, from her cropped blond hair to her nametag neatly pinned on the right: EVA LEWIS, MD. I balanced the comics upright on the cereal box, hoping she’d get the message.

  “OJ?” she asked.

  I shook my head and remained behind the box.

  She turned to the newspaper, rustling the pages. “Look at this headline,” she said, pointing to “Grassroots Organization Backs Candidates to Repeal Civil Union Law.” “Has everyone gone crazy?”

  I was sick of hearing about civil unions and gay rights. “Mom says not to worry.”

  “That’s MJ for you.” Eva folded the paper on the table. “By the way, a package arrived that has to be unpacked—on top of wrapping all those cookies you two made last night.”

  “I know what needs to be done.” I picked up my bowl and put it down hard in the sink. As if Eva knew anything about the marina shop. She hated boats. I knew how long mooring line was, what kind of oil motorboats needed, and what size cleats were best for main sheets. Mom and I knew how much bread to make for sandwiches and batter for giant batches of peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.

  Eva put her dish in the dishwasher. “MJ asked me to remind you.”

  “I didn’t forget.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry,” she said, glancing at a little milk pooled on the table. I could tell she couldn’t wait to clean it up. I’d leave it for her; my eyes were on the lake.

  “Luke’s here.” I banged through the door and down to the dock.

  I grabbed the line he tossed my way.

  “Hey, June.” Luke was dressed like me in a faded T-shirt and ready to swim. He climbed out of his boat. “Your mom need help?”

  “As usual.” I tied a quick hitch around the pier cleat.

  “When we’re done, I’ve got a new place to show you,” he said.

  “With blueberries?”

  “Yup.”

  Luke and I turned toward the shop. His strides were longer—he was a head taller than me—but I kept up.

  “Does Joe need you to hold a piece of sculpture or anything today?”

  “He’s still sleeping—he was up late blowtorching.”

  “Eva’s still in the kitchen.”

  He looked at me sideways. “Fireworks, already?”

  I snorted. “She’s just so perfect.”

  “Like me?” He pulled at his faded shirt and made a face.

  I laughed. “Yeah, right!” That was one of the things that made Luke so likeable—he didn’t care what other people thought. Maybe living on an island was so offbeat, you just had to give up on fitting in.

  ***

  LUKE AND I found Mom slouched over a book behind the counter, her Stillwater M
arina cap pulled low. At the sound of the door, she pushed her cap back and smiled at us.

  “There you are,” Mom said, turning down a page as she closed her book. “Help me wrap plastic around these cookies—two to a package. Luke, you put the price tag on.”

  “Anything you say, MJ,” Luke said, and stuck a $1.95 sticker on his nose.

  I grinned. That’s another reason why I like Luke.

  “Did you have breakfast with Eva?” she asked me.

  “The strawberries you left were perfect,” I said. “Made me imagine the perfect pie.”

  “How about blueberry-pineapple?” Mom said.

  I paused to consider the combination, but I shook my head. “I can’t get fresh pineapple,” I said. “It’s gotta be something really good, really surprising.”

  “Well, corn’s coming up soon—why not corn- berry pie?” Luke said. “Or zucchini-apple! Is that weird enough?”

  “You’re the weird one around here,” I said. The plastic wrap stuck together as I stacked two cookies on top. I picked at it to untangle it. I was the strange one, really, living with Mom and Eva. The thought of my unknowable father came to me, again. Was he like Tina’s dad, driving a tractor and planting crops, or like Joe, Luke’s dad, welding together sculptures he dreamed up in his mind? What I wanted was a dad, not another mother. Instead, I got Eva, all fussy and difficult. I pulled the plastic clumsily around the cookies and stuck a price tag on the bundle. It looked lousy.

  Luke was clicking out price tags from the labeling gun, lining them up along the counter.

  “Slow down,” Mom said. “That’s all we need.”

  “Can we go then?” Luke asked.

  She gathered up the wrapped cookies and arranged them in the basket. “OK, but June, please come back for lunch.”

  The marina door banged shut as we raced out.

  “The new spot is up by the old camp,” Luke said.

  We crossed the road to the meadow, and I turned a cartwheel, just for the freedom of summer. Luke somersaulted.

  I turned to tell him to catch up, when a strange sign sticking out of the shop front lawn caught my eye. Something about the sign didn’t seem right. Sometimes Mom tacked up a notice outside the shop saying SPECIAL: HAM AND CHEESE, $4.99 or EXTRAORDINARY PIES INSIDE. But this sign didn’t say anything like that. In fact, it didn’t seem like something Mom would put out.

  “What’s ‘Take Back Vermont’ mean?” Luke asked, standing next to me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Right away I knew it wasn’t right; it wasn’t something Mom or Eva had posted.

  “We should ask MJ if she wants it there.”

  I shivered. Someone had been sneaking around early, hammering the sign outside our shop.

  We were still standing there when Eva pulled out of the driveway. She tooted her horn, and Mom came out to wave. But then suddenly Eva was out of the car, running, and Mom ran, too. They were running toward the sign. Eva got to it first, and in one angry motion, she pulled out the stake and ripped the sign in half. She looked around wildly, but Mom grabbed her and pulled her close. I turned away.

  “Let’s go,” I said to Luke.

  Chapter Two

  THE FOREST WAS cool, and Luke and I moved silently. After the meadow, the needles underfoot felt good, although it took a certain talent to walk barefoot in the brush. We stepped over broken branches, avoiding pine cones and brambles.

  Good thing my feet knew what to do, because my head was full of stormy thoughts. Eva was embarrassing me again. It was just a sign, wasn’t it? The way she looked—red and irrational—was just like that day at the softball game. Except then everybody had been watching. And everybody had heard Eva yell at Lauren’s mother. And Tina—my best friend—had stood next to Lauren, staring at me.

  I breathed in the smell of cedar and forced my thoughts back to berries. I concentrated on the small flowers around me, spotting not blueberry but blackberry blooms that would ripen in a month. Bleeding hearts and fiddlehead ferns pushed up around the rotting logs and moss-covered rocks.

  “Come on,” Luke said. “This is a really cool place.”

  The main trail was wide and clear behind the old camp, but as we climbed higher, the trail dwindled. New shoots sprouted where no one had stepped in a long time. Wherever the sun pierced through, a tangle of birch seedlings, briars, and cornflowers reached for the light. Blueberries needed sun, too; the rocky soil was a good sign.

  “This way,” Luke said, and pushed aside a low branch.

  It was a faded trail—perhaps just a fox path—but you could see it if you knew what to look for: snapped branches, scuffed-aside leaves, bent seedlings.

  The trail curved along the cliff’s edge. We were maybe twenty or thirty feet above the lake, and I was careful where I put my feet.

  Luke stopped and waved his hands like a magician. “Ta-da!”

  All around us were low bushes with tiny leaves and light green fruit. I studied them for any hint of blue.

  “Not yet,” I said. “But soon.” Holding on to a branch, I smiled into the sun. My toes warmed on the rocky cliff’s edge.

  “That’s not all, though,” Luke said. He stripped off his shirt and walked to the edge.

  I took a small step closer. It was easily thirty feet down. My hands got damp just thinking about how high up we were. A pine leaned over, its roots like octopus tentacles clinging to the dirt. I looked again—I didn’t want Luke to think I was a wimp. Six feet below was a worn-down ledge, like a diving platform. And beyond that, a narrow, jagged way to climb back up from the water.

  “I checked it out from the boat,” Luke said. “The water is forty feet deep, and there are no rocks.”

  “You going to jump?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You, too.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Jumping off the low rocks around Luke’s island was one thing, but this was different. The water would hurt, like hitting pavement.

  “Come on,” Luke said. He started down to the ledge. “Sometimes you just have to go for it.”

  As Luke reached the jumping spot, the sound of voices broke beyond the trees. Sam Costa, Tina’s older brother, and a couple of his friends came down the trail, yelling and shoving each other. I backed away from the edge.

  “Hey, look who’s here,” said Sam. “Luke and June.”

  “Where’s Tina?” I asked.

  “Home watching Tim and the farm stand,” he said, kicking off his sneakers. “Aren’t you kids too little to go cliff jumping?”

  “No way,” Luke said. I didn’t say anything.

  “Go on, then,” Sam said. “Jump!”

  Luke looked back up at me and grinned. He would have jumped anyway, but now he would go down in style.

  Luke gave a war whoop and jumped, waving his arms and legs. The boys hollered, too. I watched Luke’s splash, holding my breath. Then he surfaced, shook hair out of his eyes, and yelled, “Awesome!”

  Sam climbed down to the ledge for his turn and waited for Luke to climb back up. I leaned back against a tree. Why did these guys have to come along? If Tina had come too, she would have known how to handle her brother’s teasing. Except maybe I couldn’t count on her to stand up for me anymore. I scratched a mosquito bite on my leg.

  Luke pulled himself up to the top. “Don’t you want to try it?” He shook his wet hair.

  “Not this time.” I moved farther back.

  “Aw, come on,” Sam said. “You chicken?”

  “I just don’t feel like it.”

  “What a lezzie,” one of the other boys said.

  I stiffened.

  “That would be her moms,” snorted Sam.

  Their loud laughter landed like a punch. I only have one mom, I wanted to say.

  “Hey, knock it off,” Luke said.

  “Don’t worry, man,” Sam said. “We’re going to take back Vermont.”

  Take back Vermont? I was shaking and red-faced. What did it mean?

  “Better think again.” Luk
e snapped up his shirt.

  “Vermont doesn’t belong to anyone!” I stepped toward Sam, as close to the cliff’s edge as I dared.

  He didn’t flinch. “No freaks allowed.”

  “Let’s go,” Luke said. He grabbed my clenched fist and held on.

  With my arm stretched like a lifeline to his, we moved fast, shoving branches, crashing over logs. I was glad for the dark woods. Sweat ran down my face, and I wished I had jumped, jumped into the cool lake, away from Sam.

  It was like the end of sixth grade again and the softball game that had turned me into an outcast. Lauren had called someone “gay,” and Mom told her not to use that word, and Lauren’s mother said, “Don’t tell my child what to do,” and then Eva yelled, “We won’t keep quiet about homophobia” and Lauren’s mother yelled, “Stay out of our lives, stay out of our bedroom!” And then Eva just had to say, “As if what happens in our bedroom affects yours”—and I wanted to die.

  That was when a line had been drawn. You were either for gay people or against them. Mom and Eva and I had looked like the players nobody wanted on their team. Lauren and Tina were on the popular side, that’s for sure. I remembered, too, that Mom and Eva had been stunned by the silence. Nobody said anything, not even Tina’s mother. I had thought she was Mom’s friend—they were always talking about teachers, going together to PTA meetings. It didn’t make sense.

  Everything had been easier before Eva moved in. When Mom needed a break, it was Joe who came over and played Chutes and Ladders with me, and Monopoly, too. Sometimes he’d bring over sheets of butcher-block paper and we’d draw. I’d add eyes to his interlocking swirls and lines. And then he’d give them funny names like Impatience and Confused, and make up stories about our drawings. I was usually asleep by the time Mom got home; it never mattered who she was with. But then Luke’s mom had moved out, and Joe was around less. And then Mom met Eva.

  I dropped Luke’s hand to slap mosquitoes away. What did “Take Back Vermont” mean? Someone had been angry enough to plant a sign in front of our shop. Luke didn’t think that way, though. I suddenly missed his hand in mine.

  Luke fell in step next to me. “Don’t let those guys bug you. That’s just talk.”