Welcome to Dog Beach (6 page)

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.

Their most popular song is called “Photo Booth Jam,” and it's kind of silly, describing all the kinds of pictures people take in photo booths. Micayla, Bennett, and I know all the
words, of course, so we stand up and start singing along with them. Aiden always encourages audience participation.

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?

Ever since Claire and Calvin got to Seagate, I've
noticed that I have been thinking really mean thoughts. I never thought these things about people before. Sure, I really don't like wheelie-backpack girls in my school, but I pretty much just stay away from them.

But with Calvin and Claire here, I'm turning into a mean person.

After a few weeks on Seagate, they started complaining to their mom that they were really bored, so she signed them up for two weeks of tennis camp in Westchester, near where they live. And when I found that out, I was ecstatically happy. Too happy. I felt bad about how happy I was. But they were just such a drag to have around. They were always complaining, and Bennett was always trying to include them in things, and then they would still complain.

So now they're gone and it's just Bennett, Micayla, and me again. I still miss Danish, but things are starting to feel close to right.

The annual Seagate Fourth of July Celebration is great, the way it always is: fireworks on the beach, the staff from Shazamburger grilling hot dogs and hamburgers on the boardwalk, enough for everyone on the island to have two of each.

There's a pickle-eating contest, but Bennett is grossed out by pickles, so we never stick around for that. There's a line at Sundae Best that wraps around the whole island, practically, but no one seems to mind. No one worries about their kids staying up late, because everyone can just sleep in the next day. That's the beauty of Seagate: No one is in a rush. Time doesn't really matter, because everyone has so much of it.

“Y'know that kid Mason Redmond?” Bennett asks us as we're on the way to the beach. I'm starting to get a sense that he knows about Micayla's crush, but I'm not sure. Bennett was never involved in our crush talk last summer, even though he was around us all the time. I'm not sure how that worked out, but it did.

We nod.

“He knows what he wants to do when he grows up,” Bennett says. “Do you think that's weird or cool?”

“Weird,” I jump right in. “Kids should be kids, I think.”

Micayla laughs. “You always talk like a grown-up, though, Remy!”

“You know what I mean, Mic.” I nudge her with my shoulder.

Bennett ignores our little back-and-forth. “But he's our age, so how does he know he wants to be a veterinarian? And why is he working on it over the summer?” He seems really concerned, but there's no reason to be.

“Don't worry,” I tell Bennett. “We're kids. We can just focus on being kids. That's what my mom always tells me.”

“My mom tells me that sixth grade at my school is going to be really serious and I'm going to need to buckle down,” Bennett says. “I don't even know what that means, and isn't that a weird expression?”

“Yeah,” Micayla says. “I don't think of buckles as being down; I think of them as, like, being through something.”

They go back and forth about the expression, and then I start laughing, because the whole thing just sounds so silly.

I say, “Guys, we really only get two months of summer, so let's just enjoy it and not think about school, okay?”

They nod.

I'm not sure they agree with me, but at least they go along for the moment. We never used to talk about what we want to do when we grow up. Talking about it now gives me a funny feeling, like I'm lost in a crowd and can't find Bennett or Micayla anywhere.

We're almost at the beach when a poster catches my eye. It's haphazardly stuck to one of the streetlights with masking tape, and it has a picture of a dog on it.

“Guys, hang on one second,” I say. “I have to look at this.”

Micayla and Bennett hang back, and I hear them talking about the whole “knowing what you want to do when you grow up” thing, and I try to tune it out. I'm not sure when my friends became so serious, but I think I liked them better before.

The poster says:

OUR BELOVED OSCAR IS MISSING!

Help us find our amazing boxer Oscar. He has brown fur everywhere except his stomach and his paws, where he has white fur. He answers to the names Oscar, Oscie, or Cuddle Cookies (don't ask). Email [email protected] if you find him.

Reward if found and returned.

Thank you!

I stand there for a second after reading the sign. Then I rip it down. For the first time in forever, I have this feeling like I really need to do something. I have to find Oscar. I know how hard it is to be without a pet, but these people don't have to. And especially since I've become so attached to Marilyn Monroe, the sting of missing a pet feels even more brutal.

“You guys.” I run over to them. “We have to find this dog.” I show them the poster, then feel a little bit guilty for ripping it down. Other people need to see it too, if we're going to be able to find Oscar. But I also need to take it with us—I need
to keep looking at his picture to remember what Oscar looks like, and I need to keep the email address handy for when we find him.