round and I have thin straight boring not-quite-blonde and not-quite-brown hair that barely stays in an elastic band Hers always looks good even after she’s just woken up Her parents are both from St Lucia in the Caribbean They moved to the United States when they were kids but didn’t meet until college They have amazing accents and when we’re a little bit older they’re going to take me with them when they go back to visit Micayla’s grandma in St Lucia We take our ice cream cups and walk down the wooden stairs of my deck to the beach Even though I do this at least ten times a day I feel lucky every single time On Seagate the beach is my backyard and I’m pretty sure there is nothing better than that in the whole world Sometimes we don’t even bother with towels or chairs we just sit down on the sand We dig our feet in as far as they will go and we eat our ice cream Our plan is to meet up with Bennett when he’s done playing Ping-Pong with his dad and then we’ll decide what to do for the rest of the day I hope this will cheer you up Micayla says burrowing through her ice cream cup for a chunk of chocolate I’ve never seen you sad on Seagate before She’s right about that But she’s also never really seen me anywhere else except for the time her dad brought her to New York City for a last-minute meeting Her mom had flown to St Lucia to visit Micayla’s grandma and Micayla couldn’t stay home alone So Micayla came to New York and we spent the day together I don’t think I was sad that day so she’s never really seen me sad anywhere not just on Seagate But I know what she means I’m happy to be here I just keep picturing Danish running
on the beach And his dog bed is still upstairs I wish my parents would just throw it out but I think they’re too sad to do it And the Pooch Parade during Seagate Halloween will be so horrible without him I know she says not looking at me Well maybe we can figure out something else to do during the Pooch Parade It’s probably weird that it’s not even July yet and I’m already thinking about Seagate Halloween which takes place over Labor Day weekend But it’s one of the biggest traditions of the summer everyone participates Seagate Halloween is exactly the same every year and that’s the way I like it Bennett dresses up as Harvey from Sundae Best He wears his shorts really high and a Seagate baseball cap Micayla dresses up as a mermaid like the statue you see when you first get off the ferry I dress up as a beach pail My mom makes me a new costume every year out of painted cardboard and it comes out awesome every time And the best part was that Danish would dress up as the shovel We’d get the biggest sand shovel we could find and strap it to his back and I’d carry him so we looked like a perfect pair beach pail and sand shovel So happy together We’ve been on Seagate Island for a week and I’ve been partially sad the whole time Happy to be here but sad without Danish I don’t want to be sad here It’s my most favorite place in the universe But I can’t seem to help it Danish was my grandma’s dog so for many years I only ever saw him on Seagate Our house here was Grandma’s house When she died three years ago we got Danish and the house although it always seemed like they were partially ours to begin with
During the summer Danish slept in my bed He spent all day with Micayla Bennett and me Everyone thought he was my dog And the house well the house felt like ours too The yellow room with the canopy bed was mine No one else slept there Mom and Dad had the room around the corner with the blue-and-ivory-striped wallpaper And Grandma’s room was at the end of the hallway She had her own bathroom but she’d let us use it All year she’d be busy on Seagate volunteering at the elementary school to help the kids with math setting up the concert schedule for the summer taking Danish to Dog Beach even when it was a little bit cold outside Even though I knew all that I always imagined her waiting patiently for us to come back for the summer We’d come for weekends sometimes but that didn’t really count Summer was summer Summer was when we were all together Grandma would make her famous corn chowder Mom would set up her easel on the back deck and paint landscapes of the ocean and Dad would try to play Ping-Pong with everyone on the island at least once After Grandma died we were all really sad We couldn’t imagine being on Seagate without her But when we came back that next summer being there was more comforting than we expected it to be Everyone wanted to tell us stories about Grandma Dad did some work on the house to spruce it up a little bit and Mom organized a special concert in Grandma’s memory Now the annual concert series is known as the Sally Bell Seagate Concert Calendar Danish died this past December It was sudden and I don’t really like to even think about it All winter and spring I kept
Avery Sanders has a boyfriend Micayla tells me Yeah I ask She didn’t mention it to me when I saw her at Pastrami on Rye the other night Just saw her at Sundae Best She was going on and on about it She said this new kid moved to Seagate in the middle of the year And he’s like a real-life boyfriend I look at Micayla surprised I wonder why she didn’t tell me before hoping that being back on Seagate would be comforting the way it was after Grandma died But so far it’s not So far I just miss him It was always Micayla Bennett and me with Danish running along with us A key member of our crew is missing I have to tell you something Micayla and I say at the exact same time and then we both burst into laughter You first I say She probably has more exciting news than my babysitting job Avery Sanders is a friend of ours but not a best friend She moved to Seagate four years ago and she lives here year-round She’s the type of friend that we never really call to make plans but if we run into each other we’ll hang out She’s nice but she’s one of those girls who seemed like a teenager when we were like nine and she’d always say that Bennett was my boyfriend even when I didn’t really know what a boyfriend was The past few times I talked to her she told me that she was bored with Seagate and that it has really changed since she moved here I always listened to what she said even though none of it made sense How could Seagate be boring And how could it
