Dad said I should look at her when I talked, but mostly I looked at the butter. I wanted full credit, though, so at the very last second, I glanced at her. She looked mad.

“Whatever,” she said.

Then Aunt Ess made her say that she accepted my apology, which I think was almost as bad for her as it was for me to say sorry in the first place, because after she accepted my apology, Angelica looked furious.

Fine. I was furious, too. Was she even thinking about the fact that I hadn’t said anything about James? Or about how I felt when she didn’t invite me to lie on towels yesterday? I was holding it in, and it took everything I had. It took more than I had.

After I apologized, I got busy buttering my bread, while Dad tried to convince Uncle Frank to try some bacon-and-onion omelet. Uncle Frank said he’d stick with his boiled egg. When I put the butter knife down, Aunt Ess silently pushed the sugar bowl toward me. We both like to sprinkle a little bit on top.

I Told Miriam

Mom has a saying: “And then worse met worst.” That day at the lake was the worst. The girls from cabin 11 showed up right after I finished my sugar bread. We were getting our suits on. Angelica grabbed one girl with each hand, led them into her parents’ bedroom, and shut the door on me. Uncle Frank and Aunt Ess were already out on the porch, in their chairs.

Friday morning was when Angelica and I always took the canoe to get Uncle Frank’s newspapers at the general store. Every Friday. I waited around by the top of the porch steps for Angelica to come out. I tried to stay out of Uncle Frank’s sun, and I waited, watching the door of Aunt Ess and Uncle Frank’s room. My back was to the lake, which was why I almost missed seeing Angelica and the girls from cabin 11 get into our canoe and push off without me. They must have taken the deck stairs on the other side of the house, which no one did, ever. They sneaked out without me, on purpose.

I walked down to our beach and watched the canoe go around some trees and disappear. For a while, I could still hear them talking and whooping it up, and then I couldn’t. I took a pointy rock and scratched my itchy arms, and then I walked into the water, but only to my ankles because I didn’t have a swim buddy. I skipped about fifty rocks. On rock fifty-one-ish, James came up behind me and said, “You didn’t go? I thought you love the waterslide.”

And that’s when I realized that Angelica and the girls from cabin 11 hadn’t gone to get Uncle Frank’s papers. They had gone to the waterslide.