Read Online Savvy by Ingrid Law - Free Book Online Page A

swing that had no porch attached.
    “Just use your imagination, Mibs,” Poppa would say when I complained that a swing couldn’t be a porch swing without a porch. “Close your eyes and imagine what kind of a grand house might have a porch swing this size.” I’d do as he said, but the only place I ever pictured was our own home.
    “Every good country home needs a place to sit and think and watch the clouds roll by,” Poppa had said to me. Poppa wanted to build us our very own swing, it was always near the top on his list of important things to do. I knew I had to get to Poppa soon. I couldn’t let anything happen to him, not with that list left unfinished—he wouldn’t want to abandon our dreams. He’d want to build that swing so that we could all sit there together.

    The porch creaked and groaned. I turned around to find Will Junior standing on the porch behind me. He didn’t come close, like he’d done before. Now he had his hands in his pockets and was looking at me as though he’d never seen a girl before.
    “What’s going on, Mibs?”
    “What do you mean?” I said, not looking at him straight on.
    “I mean, maybe you should start telling me what happened back there on the bus with Fish and that storm of wind,” Will Junior said, still studying me.
    I ran my hand across the porch rail, absently brushing at the peeling paint that covered the old gray wood like lacy splinters, still not able to stare Will Junior in the eye.
    “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” I said, feeling false and fickle, knowing exactly what he wanted to hear and knowing that I could never tell him. When I braved a glance at his face, I could see that Will’s eyes were bright and eager with curiosity, like a small child waiting for a parade to come around a corner.
    “I’ve always known there was something different about you, Mibs Beaumont, and your brothers too,” Will Junior said. I shrugged my shoulders, not agreeing, but not saying anything either.
    “Don’t get me wrong—I like that about you,” Will added awkwardly, stepping a bit closer.
    Surprised and embarrassed, I stood speechless on that porch until the silence grew itchy and uncomfortable. Searching desperately for some way to change the subject, I rounded fully on Will Junior and demanded in a fluster, “So, just why are you called Will
Junior,
anyway? I know your daddy’s not Will
Senior
. His name’s not even
William,
for heaven’s sake.”
    He smiled back at me with a devilish grin. “Maybe you’re not the only one with a secret, Mibs.”
    I looked up and down at that boy, and for some reason I couldn’t help but smile back at him, even if it did make my cheeks burn red.
    “I suppose I can live with that,” I said finally, like he and I had come to some kind of arrangement. Our secrets would stay secrets.
    Will Junior pulled one hand out of his pocket. He was holding the wrapped-up happy birthday pen set. He’d retrieved it from the floor of the bus, and now he held it out to me. The bright wrapping was ripped on one side and a bit worse for the wear.
    “It’s still your birthday, you know.”
    I took the present from Will and smiled even wider. He was right. It was still my birthday and I hadn’t yet opened a single present. I stuck one finger into the tear on the side and ripped the paper away from a thin hinged box. A gust of wind I hoped did not belong to Fish swept the wrapping paper out of my hands and sent it up and across the road and away from us. Opening the box, I found two fine and fancy ballpoint pens with shiny silver finger grips and rounded caps. I set the box down on top of the porch rail and pulled out one of the pens.
    “I could have tried writing something if that paper hadn’t blown away,” I said. Will Junior swept his arm out in front of him with a gallant gesture before kneeling down on the cracked and flaking boards at my feet, like he was a grown-up man proposing. He held one hand out to me, palm up,