Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (best motivational books .txt) 📕

Mrs. Cone took the box from Sheba and pulled out a cookie for herself.

“Maybe Izzy knows this one,” Jimmy said. “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning, I’d hammer in the evening. . . .”

Jimmy sang and everyone joined in. Izzy made hand motions as she sang, her fist bumping up and down for a hammer, her handsover her head and her head tocking back and forth for a bell. By the time we were on the last chorus, everyone was doing thehand motions.

We sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” and then “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in a round. Next Dr. Cone sang us a song he had learned at camp as a boy. It was about a cannibal king playing the bongosunder a bamboo tree and kissing his girlfriend. Izzy loved the song, especially the part where you made big kissing sounds.It went Boom boom (kiss kiss) Boom boom (kiss kiss). It only took a couple of minutes for Dr. Cone to teach the song to everyone, and soon we all sang it with as much exuberance as Izzy.

“Again! Let’s sing it again!” Izzy said.

We did as Izzy requested, only this time everyone turned to someone beside them and kissed. Jimmy even kissed Dr. Cone’s cheek.I’d never seen a man kiss another man like that, and it seemed so funny that I was still laughing as I kissed Sheba’s cheek.

 

We all sat in the car and stared at the low, long white clapboard house. The shingles and shutters were old-looking, fadedpea green. The house seemed lonely against the beach. The neighboring houses were so far away, they reminded me of the littlegreen homes in Monopoly.

“It looks like a Hopper painting,” Mrs. Cone said.

Jimmy sang, “Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and grey —”

“Isn’t that song about Van Gogh?” Dr. Cone asked.

“I’m about to pee my shorts,” Sheba said.

“Really you will? Sheba, will you pee your shorts?” Izzy asked.

“Where did I put that key?” Dr. Cone was searching his pockets. He leaned past Jimmy and opened the glove box.

“I have to go NOW!” Sheba burst out of the car and ran to the sand dunes. The rest of us got out of the car, Dr. Cone stillpatting down his pockets. Sheba turned around to face us, then pulled down her shorts, squatted, and peed. I looked around.No one seemed to be paying attention, except Izzy.

Izzy ran to Sheba. “I want to pee in the sand!”

“Got it!” Dr. Cone pulled the key from his breast pocket. He unlocked the house and propped the front door open. Jimmy andMrs. Cone started unloading the car.

I looked over at Izzy squatted at the base of the dune. “Mary Jane!” she shouted. “Come pee in the sand!”

Suddenly I did want to pee in the sand. Just for fun. Just because the nudest I’d ever been in public was two weeks ago whenI put on my bra in the dark beside my own house. I looked toward the car. Dr. and Mrs. Cone were pulling out suitcases andplacing them on the driveway. Jimmy was carrying a brown-and-mustard-patterned suitcase toward the house. He looked back atme and said, “Go for it, Mary Jane!”

Before I could think it through, I ran to Sheba and Izzy. They were both standing now, with their pants pulled up.

“Do you have to pee?” Sheba asked.

“Yeah.”

“It’s like being a cat. You just kick sand over it when you’re done.” Sheba kicked sand over the big, wet oval near her feet.Even though I had gotten used to being with Sheba, my brain dinged a little alarm that said, You’re looking at Sheba’s pee.

Izzy tried to kick sand over her wet circle. She was barefoot and her toes kept hitting the pee spot.

“Can you barricade me from their view?” I asked.

“Yes!” Izzy shouted. “What does that mean?”

“Stand in front of her so no one can see.” Sheba moved so she stood between me and the house. Izzy positioned herself besideSheba.

I backed up a bit so I wouldn’t pee on their feet, and then pulled down my shorts. The hot sun on my bare butt was a totally new feeling. When I was done, I quickly pulled up my shorts and then kicked sand over my spot.

“Can we poop?” Izzy asked.

“No!” Sheba and I said together.

 

The house was mostly on one floor, with a small second floor that had only a bedroom with a sitting room. The five remainingbedrooms were on the first floor, lining a long hallway. Some of the bedrooms shared a bathroom and some had their own bathroom.Mrs. Cone told Sheba and Jimmy they had to take the second-floor room, and they did. She and Dr. Cone took the front-mostbedroom, facing the beach. This left four bedrooms for me and Izzy.

Izzy took my hand. “Will you share a room with me?”

“Sure.” I had been wondering what I was supposed to do after Izzy went to sleep. Was I to join the adults, or stay in my room?Even if Izzy and I shared a room, I could go in another bedroom to read.

Izzy pulled me into the room next to Dr. and Mrs. Cone’s. “Do you think there’s a witch here?” She dropped my hand and turnedin a circle. The room had two single beds with anchor-print bedspreads that matched the wallpaper.

I turned in a circle too. Then I dropped to my knees and flipped up the bed skirt on the first one, and then the other bed.“No. There’s definitely no witch here.”

In the next room we looked again for the witch. This room had rowboat-and-fish wallpaper that matched the rowboat-and-fishbedspreads. The bedside lamps each had a copper rowboat for a base.

The next room had a double bed with daisy-print wallpaper and a solid white bedspread with lacy scalloped edges.

“Witch?” Izzy asked.

“Hmm, I dunno. But I don’t like this room. Don’t you think we should be in a beachier room since we are, actually, at thebeach?”

The last room had beach-ball-and-beach-umbrella-print wallpaper with matching bedspreads. Izzy and I agreed that althoughit was beachy, it was