Welcome to Dog Beach

It takes me a few days to come up with my best new idea, but I’m glad it didn’t take all summer. I’m sitting on the bench outside Sundae Best eating espresso cookie ice cream in a sugar cone, and that’s when I realize that you can feel so happy about something (espresso cookie ice cream) and so sad about something (Danish) at the exact same time. But you can also wipe away a sad thing with a happy thing. Temporarily, at least.

So I decide to make a pact with myself that whenever I start to get sad missing Danish, I immediately give myself something happy to think about. It’s not hard to find happy things on Seagate, so my pact is pretty easy to keep.

Walking to Micayla’s yesterday, I got sad because I saw a teenager walking an apricot poodle pretty much exactly Danish’s size. My throat started to get a sunburny feeling, and I immediately wanted to turn around and go home. But then I passed a pretty white house with a million beach pails lined up on the ledge of the front porch.

I stopped for a second and wondered why I’d never noticed it before. Maybe because Micayla usually picks me up and we walk the other way to the beach? Or maybe because I’ve been looking down as I walk this summer since I’m feeling so sad?

But it didn’t matter why I’d never seen it before—I was seeing it now. And it was the picture of happiness. You can never have too many beach pails, and these were all different colors—turquoise, hot pink, yellow, Kelly green. Some handles were up; some were down. It didn’t look arranged in any artful way, but that made it even more beautiful.

So basically, whenever I get sad about Danish, I will think about those beach pails. I’ll try to remember all the different colors and the order they were in, and then sometimes I’ll stop just to visit them and see if they’ve changed.

It’s such a simple thing, but seeing it made me so happy.

I even snapped a picture with my phone before anyone inside caught me doing it. If they did catch me, I figured I’d just tell them how much I loved it.

I pick Micayla up and show her the house, and then we walk together to meet Bennett. After we pick him up by the Ping-Pong stadium, the three of us are going to the free concert by the gazebo in the middle of the island. They have concerts every Wednesday, and we try to be the first ones there. It doesn’t really matter if we like the band or not, we just like sitting right up front and then dancing like maniacs.

We started doing this the summer we were eight, and we’ve been doing it ever since. Only, back then, our moms would have to take us, and they’d tell us to calm down, asking us if we could just sit and relax and enjoy the music. We were enjoying it, though—just in our own way.

Micayla’s been doing this thing lately: No matter where we’re going, she takes me past Dog Beach. It started that she just wanted to take me there to help me stop feeling so sad about Danish. But now it seems like something else is going on.

Mason Redmond, who we’ve known forever, is helping out at Dog Beach this summer. He doesn’t really do much except encourage people to pick up after the dogs and occasionally throw a ball around, but he says it’s helpful for him because he wants to be a veterinarian one day. He’s only eleven, like us, but my mom says he’s a forward thinker. I guess she means that he plans ahead.

I’m pretty sure Micayla has a crush on Mason, but she hasn’t admitted it yet. Micayla started having crushes last summer, when we were only going into fifth grade. I didn’t have any crushes, but it was kind of fun to talk to Micayla about hers. Micayla’s older sister, Ivy, always has crushes, so maybe that’s why Micayla got them earlier than me.

The crushes only lasted like three days, anyway. I feel like when I get a crush, it will last a long time.

This summer, though, she’s been acting all funny when she sees Mason. She doesn’t want to get too close, but he has to be within sight. She wants to wait a few minutes, and then when she thinks that Mason sees us, she wants to leave.

I don’t really get it.

Plus, we’ve known Mason as long as we’ve known each other—since the summer before second grade. That’s when Micayla’s family bought the house here, and that’s when Mason started spending summers on Seagate with his aunt and uncle.

He’s just an average kid, except for his whole “forward thinking” thing.

“Okay, let’s go,” Micayla says five minutes after we’ve gotten to Dog Beach. I timed it, because I was wondering if we were actually staying for such a short amount of time or if I was just imagining it. You know how they say time flies when you’re having fun? I thought it could have been that kind of thing. But it isn’t—it’s just Micayla’s secret crush.

“Already?” I ask. “I wanted to play with the pair of Malteses again.”

“Sorry, Rem, we’ll be late for the concert,” Micayla tells me, grabbing my hand and gently pulling me away. At the same time, I notice Mason hopping off the lifeguard’s chair and walking closer to us. “And you spent all morning hanging out with Marilyn Monroe, so you’re not too dog-deprived.”

Sooner or later Mason’s going to start thinking that we really hate him, but I don’t want to tell Micayla that. Since she hasn’t yet told me about her crush, we haven’t been mentioning Mason at all.

When we get to the concert, Bennett’s in front, in our usual spot, and he’s saving us seats. But as we get closer, I notice that he’s with those twins again. They’re everywhere.

They’re sitting on the grass, texting or playing games on their phones, and they barely say hi to us. I want to ask Bennett why they’re here, but I know that would be rude.

Finally the music starts. It’s one of the local Seagate bands. I don’t think the band members play together during the year, but once summer comes, they play all over the island—at the free concerts, at the coffee shops, at baby music classes in the mornings, even at some of the beach bonfires.

The band is called Saturday We Tennis, which doesn’t really make any sense, and none of us know what it means. When you first hear it, you probably think it means that they play tennis on Saturdays, but Micayla guessed that Saturday is actually the name of a person they play tennis with. We don’t even know if they play tennis.

Anyway, the band is three guys named Everett, Aiden, and George, and they’re in college, but they all grew up spending summers on Seagate.

They’re pretty much our local celebrities.

After a few minutes, Avery Sanders joins us in our section. She high-fives me when she sees me and then starts dancing with us.

“Silly face with glasses,” I sing. “Oh yeah.”

“Kissy face with Amy,” Micayla sings. “Oh yeaaaahhh.” The end of that verse drags on, and she does it perfectly.

“Thumbs-up! High five! Fish face, smooch, eyebrow twist.” This is the part of the song that starts to go really fast, and Bennett can totally keep up with them. They usually find Bennett in the crowd after and tell him that he can fill in if one of them gets sick.

Bennett gets all excited when they tell him this, and I think he secretly hopes one of them does get sick so he can be in the band. So far it hasn’t happened. But it would be so cool to see Bennett up there. I’d cheer for him as loud as I possibly could.

“That song was really crazy,” Claire says, as we’re applauding. “I mean, photo booths are fun and everything, but who sings about them?” She looks at us to agree with her, but obviously we’re not going to.

“Shh,” I say. “They could hear you. And their feelings would get hurt.”

“What?” She makes a face at me. “They’re grown-ups in a band. You don’t need to worry about them, Remy.”

She didn’t say much, but the few words she did say made me feel like the stupidest, most immature person in the world. I don’t know how she was able to accomplish that so quickly.

And I don’t know why she even came down here if all she was going to do was insult the songs of one of our favorite bands.

I remember how my mom always tells me to ignore the kids at school when they say dumb things, so I try to do that now. But it seems harder than usual, like I’m out of practice.

I never had to worry about stuff like this on Seagate before, and I shouldn’t have to worry about it now. This Claire girl doesn’t even belong here, especially because she doesn’t want to be here in the first place.

The band starts playing their next song, “Friend Me,” and this one is really fast-paced, and Micayla and I always hold hands and dance around to it while Bennett sings as loud as he can.

I’m about to hop up and start dancing when I notice that Micayla and Bennett are staying seated. It doesn’t take me long to figure out why—they’re embarrassed in front of Claire.

Don’t they know that she doesn’t really matter?