Read Online Second Chances by Brenda Chapman - Free Book Online Page A

gone.”
    â€œAre you sure you’ll be back in time?”
    â€œYes. I won’t be more than two hours.”
    I tried to meet her eyes but she had her head down and was digging around in her purse. “Okay,” I said.
    â€œGood. Maybe Elizabeth will help if you ask her.” Mom gave me a quick smile before passing me on the steps.
    Elizabeth would help me when we’d solved world hunger. I kept the thought from finding my mouth. No point making Mom crazy. I watched her back out of the driveway and then went inside. My first babysitting job and all I wanted to do was go over to visit Candy and find out more about her exciting past. Being stuck in the store was a frustration piled on top of a lot of others.
    I walked toward the kitchen to get something to eat. Elizabeth was sitting at the table lifting a spoonful of Cheerios to her mouth while reading the paper. She was wearing a square of cherry red scarf knotted loosely at the nape of her neck and a choker of blue and silver beads, the same colours in her tie-dyed tank top. She looked up at me. “Well, if it isn’t the missing in action Darlene Findley. I hear you got a babysitting job today.”
    â€œDo you want to go, to make some money?” I asked.
    â€œWell, I would, but I meant to tell you yesterday that your friend came by.”
    â€œWhich friend?”
    â€œThe Chinese girl … Michelle.”
    â€œI thought Michelle wasn’t coming to the lake until later today.”
    â€œNo, she had yesterday off and wanted you to go with her to Kingston this morning to pick up her boyfriend Danny. He lent her his car. Anyhow, she invited me and I said I’d love to go along for the ride and some shopping.” Elizabeth bit her bottom lip. She looked uncertain. “If you’d rather go with Michelle, I can stay behind and babysit.”
    I looked at Elizabeth’s bowed head. I weighed what would happen if I went and she didn’t. “No, you go,” I said. “Besides, I have to look after the store this morning while Mom goes into town.”
    Elizabeth’s smile was a light turned on. “Thanks, Cuz. I’ll take the next babysitting job, I promise.”
    â€œNo problem.” I took a bowl out of the cupboard and a spoon from the drawer and sat across from Elizabeth. I reached for the box of Cheerios. “Anything exciting in the news?” I asked.
    â€œThe Vietnam War is still going on. Big yawn. Looks like they’re another step closer to giving eighteen-year-old Americans the vote. Carole King’s record Tapestry got a good review.”
    â€œDid you follow that big anti-war demonstration in Washington in April?”
    Elizabeth shook her head.
    â€œThe Americans should just get out of Vietnam. Especially after the My Lai massacre. I can’t understand how those American soldiers could live with themselves after slaughtering an entire village.” I was starting to sound like Gideon.
    â€œCall back all those good-looking soldiers,” said Elizabeth. “Maybe they should only send over soldiers older than thirty. I wonder if they’ve thought the draft through. You know, if the politicians who decided to go to war actually had to go there to fight, they might decide differently.”
    Her last sentence made some kind of weird sense. Maybe she wasn’t so clueless. “What do you think of Richard Nixon?”
    â€œHe looks like a gnome, not somebody who should be president of the United States. He has a funny nose. I miss John F. Kennedy.”
    â€œYeah, although I don’t remember much about Kennedy except when he was assassinated. It was sort of the first time I started thinking about politics. I was in grade three when he was shot and I remember going home and crying because my mom was so sad. I hadn’t even known there was a president before that or that the United States wasn’t part of our country.”
    â€œI find politics