Eileen Spinelli

“I'm so—” I start to apologize, but Albert laughs. “It's not my birthday,” he says. I'm confused. “It's for you, Bindi.” “Me?” I say. “It's not my birthday, either.” Albert leads me to the chair. He hands me the present. I open it. It's one of those plastic trophy things. It says: “World's Best Sister.” I get all choked up. “I'm really proud of you,” says Albert. “You are?” “Totally. You came through a really rough time, Bindi.” “Not always with flying colors,” I say. “True, but you never gave up.” “I thought I did, sometimes. And you went to all this trouble?” Albert shrugs. “It's what brothers do.” Albert's grandmother pops her head in. I look up. Megan and Kyra are in the doorway, smiling. Mrs. Poole leads us all over to the table. The message on the cake reads: “Bravo to Our Bindi!” “Wow!” says Kyra. Megan turns to Albert. “Need another sister?”

On Tuesday on the way to Tween Time Alison is all bubbly with guess-whos and guess-whats. “Guess who really stole Mrs. Bagwell's ring?” “Guess what Mrs. Bagwell is doing now?” “Guess what you and I are going to do this Friday?” I hold my hand up. “Whoa! One guess at a time, please.”

Fifty-nine days to go. I can't find my purple beach towel. I can't even get to my closet without walking across a sea of dirty socks. Mom pokes her head into my doorway, says: “Time to clean your room, Sophie.” And I have to admit she's right. And it's not that cleaning my room is the worst thing to do. It's just that there are so many other better things to do, like— painting my toenails Strawberry Pink, eating a huge stack of Uncle Joe's pancakes, dreaming of riding the Ferris wheel, thinking up a story to tell around the campfire on Scary Story Night, painting shells, riding waves . . . all the fun, wonderful, sandy, sunny things we do at Summerhouse Time.