Sunday Sundaes (Volume 1) (Sprinkle Sundays, Band 1) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

From cupcakes to ice cream and donuts! When she’s not daydreaming about yummy snacks, Coco Simon edits children’s books and has written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a lot less than the number of cupcakes, ice cream cones, and donuts she’s eaten. She is the author of the Cupcake Diaries, Cupcake Diaries: The New Batch, the Sprinkle Sundays, and the Donut Dreams series. Her newest series is Mia in the Middle.

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Sunday Sundaes

CHAPTER ONE

PLOT TWIST

A hot August wind lifted my brown hair and cooled the back of my neck as I waited for the bus to take me to my new school. I hoped I was standing in the right spot. I hoped I was wearing the right thing. I wished I were anywhere else.

My toes curled in my new shoes as I reached into my messenger bag and ran my thumb along the worn spine of my favorite book. I’d packed Anne of Green Gables as a good-luck charm for my first day at my new school. The heroine, Anne Shirley, had always cracked me up and given me courage. To me, having a book around was like having an old friend for company. And, boy, did I need a friend right about now.

Ten days before, I’d returned from summer camp to find my home life completely rearranged. It hadn’t been obvious at first, which was almost worse. The changes had come out in drips, and then all at once, leaving me standing in a puddle in the end.

My mom and dad picked me up after seven glorious weeks of camp up north, where the temperature is cool and the air is sweet and fresh. I was excited to get home, but as soon as I arrived, I missed camp. Camp was fun, and freedom, and not really worrying about anything. There was no homework, no parents, and no little brothers changing the ringtone on your phone so that it plays only fart noises. At camp this year I swam the mile for the first time, and all my camp besties were there. My parents wrote often: cheerful e-mails, mostly about my eight-year-old brother, Tanner, and the funny things he was doing. When they visited on Parents’ Weekend, I was never really alone with them, so the conversation was light and breezy, just like the weather.

The ride home was normal at first, but I noticed my parents exchanging glances a couple of times, almost like they were nervous. They looked different too. My dad seemed more muscular and was tan, and my mom had let her hair—dark brown and wavy, like mine—grow longer, and it made her look younger. The minute I got home, I grabbed my sweet cat, Diana (named after Anne Shirley’s best friend, naturally), and scrambled into my room. Sharing a bunkhouse with eleven other girls for a summer was great, but I was really glad to be back in my own quiet room. I texted SHE’S BAAAACK! to my best friends, Tamiko Sato and Sierra Perez, and then took a really long, hot shower.

It wasn’t until dinnertime that things officially got weird.

“You must’ve really missed me,” I said as I sat down at the kitchen table. They’d made all of my favorites: meat lasagna, garlic bread, and green salad with Italian dressing and cracked pepper. It was the meal we always had the night before I left for camp and the night I got back. My mouth started watering.

I grinned as I put my napkin onto my lap.

“We did miss you, Allie!” said my mom brightly.

“They talked about you all the time,” said Tanner, rolling his eyes and talking with his mouth full of garlic bread, his dinner napkin still sitting prominently on the table.

“Napkin on lapkin!” I scolded him.

“Boys don’t use napkins. That’s what sleeves are for,” said Tanner, smearing his buttery chin across the shoulder of his T-shirt.

“Gross!” Coming out of the all-girl bubble of camp, I had forgotten the rougher parts of the boy world. I looked to my parents to reprimand him, but they both seemed lost in thought. “Mom? Dad? Hello? Are you okay with this?” I asked, looking to both of them for backup.

“Hmm? Oh, Tanner, don’t be disgusting. Use a napkin,” said my mom, but without much feeling behind it.

He smirked at me, and when she looked away, he quickly wiped his chin on his sleeve again. It was like all the rules had flown out the window since I’d been gone!

My dad cleared his throat in the way he usually did when he was nervous, like when he had to practice for a big sales presentation. I looked up at him; he was looking at my mom with his eyebrows raised. His dark brown eyes—identical to mine—were definitely nervous.

“What’s up?” I asked, the hair on my neck prickling a little. When there’s tension around, or sadness, I can always feel it. It’s not like I’m psychic or anything. I can just feel people’s feelings coming off them in waves. Maybe my parents’ fighting as I was growing up had made me sensitive to stuff, or maybe it was from reading so many books and feeling the characters’ feelings along with them. Whatever it was, my mom said I had a lot of empathy. And right now my empathy meter was registering high alert.

My mom swallowed hard and put on a sunny smile that was a little too bright. Now I was really suspicious. I glanced at Tanner, but he was busy dragging a slab of garlic bread through the sauce from his second helping of lasagna.

“Allie, there’s something Dad and I would like to tell you. We’ve made some new plans, and we’re pretty excited about them.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them. What she was saying didn’t match up with the anxious expressions on their faces.

“They’re getting divorced,” said Tanner through a mouthful of lasagna and bread.

“What?” I said, shocked, but also . . . kind of not. I felt a huge sinking in my stomach, and tears pricked my eyes. I knew there had been more fighting than usual before I’d left for camp, but I hadn’t really seen this coming. Or maybe I had; it was like divorce had been there for a while, just slightly to the side of everything, riding shotgun all along. Automatically my brain raced through the list of book characters whose parents were divorced: Mia in the Cupcake Diaries, Leigh Botts in Dear Mr. Henshaw, Karen Newman in It’s Not the End of the World . . . .

My mother sighed in exasperation at Tanner.

“Wait, Tanner knew this whole time and I didn’t?” I asked.

“Sweetheart,” said my dad, looking at me kindly. “This has been happening this summer, and since Tanner was home with us, he found out about it first.” Tanner smirked at me, but Dad gave him a look. “I know this is hard, but it’s actually really happy news for me and your mom. We love each other very much and will stay close as a family.”

“We’re just tired of all the arguing. And we’re sure you two are too. We feel that if we live apart, we’ll be happier. All of us.”

My mind raced with questions, but all that came out was, “What about me and Tanner? And Diana? Where are we going to live?”

“Well, I found a great apartment right next to the playground,” said my dad, suddenly looking happy for real. “You know that new converted factory building over in Maple Grove, with the rooftop pool that we always talk about when we pass by?”

“And I’ve found a really great little vintage house in Bayville. And you won’t believe it, but it’s right near the beach!”

I stared at them.

Mom swallowed hard and kept talking. “It’s just been totally redone, and the room that will be yours has built-in bookcases all around it and a window seat,” she said.

“And it has a hot...