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118 pages

English

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A moving summer road-trip story for fans of Crenshaw and The Someday Birds Claire used to love her dad's fantastical stories, especially tales about her absent mom-who could be off with the circus or stolen by the troll king, depending on the day. But now that she's 12, Claire thinks she's old enough to know the truth. When her dad sells the house and moves her and her brother into a converted van, she's tired of the tall tales and refuses to pretend it's all some grand adventure, despite how enthusiastically her little brother embraces this newest fantasy. Claire is faced with a choice: Will she play along with the stories her dad is spinning for her little brother, or will she force her family to face reality once and for all? Equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking, Wrong Way Summer is a road-trip journey and coming-of-age story about one girl's struggle to understand when a lie is really a lie and when it's something more: hope.

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Publié par	ABRAMS BOOKS
Date de parution	21 avril 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781683356400
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0918€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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PUBLISHER S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4197-3693-3 eISBN 978-1-68335-640-0
Text copyright 2020 Heidi Lang
Book design by Siobh n Gallagher
Published in 2020 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007 abramsbooks.com
For my cousin Christy Buncic, the original Claire-bear and one of the best people I know
Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
-Old Irish Proverb
CHAPTER 1
Claire no longer believed her dad. Oh, she used to. No matter how wildly inventive his story, there was a time when she always fell for it. Like when she was six, and he d convinced her there was a spaceship buried in their backyard. She d dug for hours in the hot sun, dug until her fingers were more blister than skin. And when her shovel had scraped against metal buried deep beneath the soil, she d been so sure she was about to discover a real UFO. Until she d dug a little further and realized it was only their sewer. She d thrown down her shovel in disgust, while her dad laughed and said, Nice job, Claire-bear. I needed to check on that.
The next year, he d told her that their downstairs was haunted, and she d avoided it for months, terrified of the banging and scraping noises that came echoing through the floor. Until the day she d decided that seven was too old to be scared of ghosts, and she d forced herself to creep silently down, one careful step at a time. Instead of a poltergeist, she d caught her dad converting a section of the basement into a new bedroom for her. So you won t have to share a room with your brother much longer, he d explained, followed by a grand, arms-out-wide gesture, his fingers wiggling. Surprise!
After that, Claire should have known better, but at eight, she still believed in the troll kingdom that lurked beneath their world, and the cunning and vicious king who ruled over the other trolls with a moss-covered fist. You hear that? her dad would say whenever the pipes in the house gurgled. That s one of King Mossofras s snipes traveling back to its master. He loved telling stories like that, stories about the snipes who spied, and the trolls who prowled, and the magic hidden just below the surface. But his favorite troll story to tell was the one about Claire s mother, and how he had rescued her from King Mossofras and his Kingdom Below long before Claire was born.
That crafty old king was a master of riddles, but we tricked him, her dad would say. Or . . . we thought we did. Turns out you can t trick the troll king forever. He claimed that after Claire s brother, Patrick, was born, when Claire was four years old, the king had stolen their mother back. And when Claire was six, and seven, and even eight, that story had made perfect sense. But she d always assumed her mother would come back someday, reappearing in their lives like a fairy-tale princess. So by nine-even though she still hopped out of the tub first before pulling the drain so the snipes couldn t grab her with their rubbery arms-she wasn t as satisfied with her dad s explanation about her mom anymore.
She began asking her dad where her mom really was, until finally he admitted her mom had once again escaped the troll kingdom, this time without his help. She s a pilot now on the world s fastest jet, he d said, adding that it was so fast it could travel from one side of the world to the next in a heartbeat. Claire barely remembered her mother, but in her imagination, she pictured the woman from the wedding photo her dad kept framed in the living room, only instead of a white dress and tiara, she wore goggles and a leather jacket, and she saw the whole world beneath her as one giant bluish-white blur. But eventually Claire got tired of that story, too, and began asking again and again, until her dad s story changed.
Now her mother was a curse breaker, working deep beneath the catacombs of Paris. Or a scientist at a crayon factory, trying to invent a new color. Or, finally, a secret agent, deep undercover in the wilds of the African Sahara. She s just infiltrated a pride of lions, he had said, dropping his voice and leaning in close, like he was sharing classified information. And Claire had realized that it didn t matter where her mother actually was; her dad was never going to tell her. Maybe he didn t know, either. So, at ten, she tried another question: Why doesn t she ever call?
Instead of launching immediately into an answer like he usually did, her dad had hesitated. For one second, Claire felt like she was six years old again, her shovel scraping at the dirt, about to uncover some truth hidden beneath. But then her dad had smiled and said it was because her mom had been trapped in an invisible box by a troupe of mimes. Can t talk, you see, he d explained, shaking his head. It was then Claire knew that if she wanted the truth, she d need to find it herself.
So the next year, when she was eleven, that s exactly what she did.
And after that, she never trusted another one of her dad s stories.
The problem was that sometimes, when he sounded like he must be lying, he wasn t.
Like right now.
You re not serious, Claire said.
I m never serious, her dad said. Except right now. And he gave her the smile .
People claimed that smiles were contagious, but her dad s smile didn t so much spread as steamroll everyone around it until they either joined in on the fun or got out of the way. Claire had learned there was no reasoning with a smile like that. Still, she tried.
Dad, we can t move into a van.
And why not?
Because it s . . . it s just . . . it s . . . Claire floundered. This was the problem with her dad s ideas. His stories. His everything . He acted like it would be perfectly reasonable to, say, climb a tree in order to touch the moon. Then, the next thing you knew, you were reaching for the stars. Which was all well and good until those branches broke beneath you.
And Claire was tired of falling. No, she said. Just, no.
Ooh, cool van, Dad! Her brother, Patrick, skidded to a halt next to them, skinny arms pinwheeling. Like their dad, Patrick always seemed to have too much energy for his small body to contain. With his curly white-blond hair and those huge blue eyes, he looked like a little cherub. Claire had darker blond hair that hung limp and straight to her shoulders, and when she smiled, which wasn t often, she didn t have the dimples her brother and father had, and no one felt the need to join in or move out of the way.
Dad thinks we re going to live in that, she told Patrick.
What, in the van? Patrick turned his wide eyes on her. All three of us?
Hashtag vanlife, eh? her dad said.
Dad, for the last time, you don t say hashtag, Claire said. And you know those videos and pictures are highly staged, right? No one is really that comfortable in a van.
What? Staged? On the internet? Her dad widened his own blue eyes, his glasses magnifying them until they were painful to look at. If you can t trust the internet, what can you trust?
Ha ha, so funny. So very funny.
I thought so. He grinned.
Claire shook her head, focusing again on the huge white monstrosity lurking in their driveway. Practically dwarfing their small house. What was her dad thinking, getting a van like that, threatening to pack them into it? And . . . wait a second. She frowned at the van, studying the fancy emblem on the back. It looked expensive. Oh, it wasn t new; she could see a little bit of rust around the wheel wells and along the dent in the side panel. And there were a few other dents near the top where someone had obviously backed it into a spot too low for it. But still. Her dad couldn t afford something like this.
He patted the side of the van affectionately. She s a beaut, isn t she?
Where did you get it? Claire asked.
Her.
That s not a person, Dad. It s an object.
She is much more than an object, my dear child. My poor, confused offspring. She is a vehicle of adventure.
Claire s stomach dropped. Whenever her dad used the a-word, she knew they were in trouble. It meant he was invested. It meant he had plans .
Where did you get her, Dad? Patrick asked. Eagerness practically radiated off of him in waves. He d picked up on the a-word, too, only he didn t seem to realize that any adventure of their father s would be no good for either of them. Claire fought the urge to either pat her innocent little brother on his curly head or throttle him, because really? He should know better by now.
Ah, that s an interesting story. Her dad leaned back against the van and crossed his arms. Would you believe me if I said-
No, Claire said shortly.
He raised his eyebrows. I haven t even started yet.
Doesn t matter. Any time you say, That s an interesting story, I know it s just that. A story.
So young and so cynical, he sighed.
And whose fault is that?
I d believe you, Dad, Patrick chimed in. He hopped from foot to foot. You can tell me.
Their dad grinned. Well, you know our old family legend?
Which one? Claire asked. The one about y