Read Online Sea Glass Summer by Dorothy Cannell - Free Book Online

ever before, apart from very occasionally sending a letter? Hah! He’d overheard Twyla saying to Grandpa when one came last year that it sounded so much like those mass mailings she was surprised it didn’t start out: ‘Dear Distant Friends.’ Twyla had lived with them for nearly two years now. She was Grandpa’s nurse. Why couldn’t he stay with her? He loved Twyla. Not as much as Grandpa, of course, but a lot. Those other two were only taking him to their place because Grandpa had to go into a nursing home. It was called Pleasant Meadows, which sounded to Oliver a silly name, because how could there be anything pleasant about it? People went to nursing homes to wait to die. He was glad he’d given God a piece of his mind last night.
    There was only one small, good thing about the future. Those two strangers wouldn’t be taking him miles and miles away to New York immediately; that wouldn’t happen until the fall. For now he would only be dragged as far as Sea Glass, which as Twyla kept saying was only down the road. He would be able to go and see Grandpa often before the big move. That’s if Gerard and Elizabeth would drive him to Pleasant Meadows, Oliver thought darkly. He would never even think of them as Aunt and Uncle, unless they asked him not to call them that and he could have his secret revenge. After Grandpa wrote to them last week to explain the situation, Gerard had telephoned to say that he and Elizabeth had decided to spend the summer in Sea Glass at an old house that had been in the Cully family for a long time. Something about a break-in and feeling they should be there to prevent others from getting the same idea.
    Stupid, when they’d be leaving again at the end of summer; that’s what Oliver’s best friend Brian Armitage had said. And stupid for Gerard and Elizabeth to come for him before summer vacation started, which wouldn’t be for almost four more weeks. Even though Grandpa needed to go into the nursing home before then, Oliver could have stayed on at home with Twyla until school was out. Why were they so keen to take him right now? Brian said he had overheard his parents, Mandy and Reggie Armitage, talking and they thought the only reason could be that Gerard and Elizabeth wanted to immediately get their hands on the social security benefit checks Oliver received once a month because he was an orphan. That would make them very greedy because they were already very rich. Oliver thought Mr and Mrs Armitage were pretty darn smart.
    He wasn’t sure how he knew Gerard and Elizabeth had lots of money; it was just one of those things he’d grown up knowing. His parents had only had the money Dad earned working at the Ferry Landing Bank. Brian said rich people always wanted to grab at every last penny even if they risked breaking their necks to get at it. That piece of wisdom hadn’t come from his parents but from his Aunt Nellie. She was actually his great-great-aunt and ninety years old. Brian was sure she would one day get into the Guinness Book of World Records for living longer than anyone had ever done. He was very proud of her because she still had her whole mind, even if none of her teeth. He also liked her because she said a lot of interesting things. ‘Actually’ was currently Oliver’s most frequently tossed-in word; the previous one had been ‘positively.’
    Grandpa said words were something to hold in your hands like rainbow-colored drops of rain. One he and Oliver used to like to say together was ‘ventriloquism.’ Just on its own, because it tried so hard to catch on your tongue. Twyla liked words too. That was one of the things that made it seem like she’d always been meant to be with them. ‘They’re like people,’ was her take on words. ‘Choose carefully what ones you want to make your friends.’
    Oliver trudged to the bathroom in the manner of a French aristocrat