Chapter 23

A SHOVELFUL OF SAND

“Delsie!” Mrs. Fiester calls.

I stop. “Hi, Mrs. Fiester. How are you?”

“I’m good, but I really haven’t seen you around for a while. What have you been up to?”

“Lots of stuff. Helping Grammy. Training for a 5K. And, you know, the summer.”

“Well, Brandy has missed having you around. You should go find her. She’s down on the beach.”

I wonder if Brandy has told her that or if she is just doing the mom thing. Sometimes adults have no idea what’s really going on.

“Okay, thanks,” I answer, and turn toward the beach. She didn’t say if Tressa was there or not; I pray she isn’t.

It’s a perfect summer day, and the beach is crowded. Colored umbrellas and beach chairs cover the sand like confetti. Boogie boarders ride the waves. Sandcastles line the water’s edge.

I spot Brandy. Alone. Relieved, I start down the wooden steps to the beach, but by the time I’m halfway down, I see Tressa walking out of the waves with a boogie board. She sees me, so I don’t feel like I can just turn and go now. Especially if Brandy has missed me at all.

“Hey,” I say as I reach them.

“Hey, Dels,” Brandy says, and that makes me happy.

Tressa smirks. “What are you doing here? Cleaning rooms?”

There’s a girl getting buried in the sand right next to us. Her friends are slowly covering her up, and I can hear her whining, “Why can’t one of you do this instead?”

“What’s the big deal?” one of the kids asks.

“Don’t be such a baby,” snaps another. “You said you wanted us to do it.”

“Hel-looo?” Tressa asks, pulling me back. “What are you doing here?”

The voice of the girl being buried bugs me. And I think about the day I had lunch with Brandy and Tressa. Or, rather, I didn’t because I thought they’d make fun of my sandwich. I remember pretending to know things and like things I didn’t just because I wanted them to like me.

Tressa laughs.

The girl behind me cries.

I hear Grammy’s voice telling me they can’t break me.

I stare Tressa in the eye and straighten my back. I step forward. “I’m here because I live here. The Cape is my home. And, yeah, I was cleaning rooms because that’s what my grammy does here and she needed my help. She works hard and is a great person. You are not.” I turn to Brandy. “And you . . . you are just disappointing.”

Brandy goes from watching me to looking at her feet.

I turn away and walk over to the girl being buried in the sand. She stops crying and gazes up at me. This stranger standing over her.

“Listen,” I say. “You can either stay there while they throw shovelfuls of sand on you or just climb out. Your choice. Not theirs.”

Then I head toward the stairs, not even looking back at Brandy or Tressa. And it feels really good to step away from the shovels of sand they’ve been throwing on me for weeks and finally climb out of the hole.