"Martin, Ann M - Bsc Special Edition Shannon's Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

I didn't know, but I didn't like it.
And that was why I wasn't excited to be thinking about Mother's Day surprises or Mother's Day gifts or Mother's Day anything at all.
Chapter 4.
Saturday morning. Hah. It was mine, mine, mine, all mine and I loved the deeply serious decision I faced when I first woke up: go back to sleep, or get up and do nothing.
Guilt-free either way.
The sound of my father's car backing out of the garage is what woke me. I rolled over and squinted at the dial of my Dream Machine. Wow. I'd have to remember this if I ever considered being a lawyer. Getting up at that hour is for early birds and worms.
And possibly Kristy, I thought sleepily.
I wondered if our fearless leader across the street was waking up early. If she was, I wondered if she'd face the same decision I'd make, or just get up automatically and start on some project. I decided that she'd do the project thing. Kristy is so organized that even her free time is organized.
On the other hand, I feel that free time is a
reward I earn for being so organized: true free time, when you don't have to be anywhere or do anything and your tests are studied for and your homework is under control and your chores are done.
Giving one last, brief thought to Kristy and what she might suggest I do with this vast, unbroken stretch of Saturday morning free time, I yawned. Then I made my decision: I rolled over and went back to sleep.
When I awoke again, it was past ten. The house was still quiet, but it was a different kind of quiet, an empty quiet.
I can be a morning person when I have to be, but when I don't have to be, I am a basic slug. I got up (slowly) and wandered around my room, thinking vaguely of breakfast and lunch and whether I had to get dressed. As I wandered by my bedroom window, a movement caught my eye and I realized that Tiffany was hard at work in her garden. I wondered how long she had been there and how much work anyone could possibly do in a garden, or at least in a garden the size of Tiffany's. It wasn't all that big.
Hmmm.
I pulled some jeans on, stuffed the shirt tail of my giant sleeping shirt into them, and wandered downstairs in search of breakfast. A note on the refrigerator door informed me that
Mom had taken Maria to a swim meet. All accounted for, if not present.
Breakfast was peaceful. I toasted English muffins and got all the flavors of jam out of the refrigerator and mixed them together in different combinations on my plate. It was something I used to do when I was a kid (okay, okay, so I was playing with my food like a little kid), but no one was around and it was Saturday morning. Then I reheated a cup of coffee in the microwave with half a cup of milk and three teaspoons of sugar.
Cafe au lait. Coffee with milk. That's what it's called. I wasn't sure how to say sugar. Sucre? But it was fun to imagine I was sitting in a Paris cafe with my friends, drinking coffee.
I made another cup of cafe au lait (mostly au lait) and headed out to the garden.
"Hi," I said. "How does your garden grow?"
Tiffany sat back on her heels and looked up at me with glowing eyes. "Look! The peas are coming up, just like it said in the book," she said. She pointed to a row of tiny pale green bean-sprout-looking things, just breaking the soil. Or I guess I mean pea sprouts.
"That's great, Tiffany," I said. "How long before we have peas?"
"This kind will make peas in forty days, this kind in forty-eight days," Tiffany said. "And
I put another row of the same in over there a week later so we'll have a long pea season. I love fresh peas, don't you?"
"Uh, yeah," I said.
"They're very sweet," said Tiffany. "This kind is called sugar snap. You can eat the peas and the pod!"
I wondered if Claudia had heard of sugar snap peas, and how they would rate on her junk food chart.
"You're turning into quite a gardener," I said. "Mom said her grandmother used to like to garden and had a real green thumb."
"Our great-grandmother? Maybe I inherited it from her," said Tiffany, looking even more pleased.
"Didn't Mom tell you that when you started working on your garden?"
Tiffany shook her head. "She just told me to be careful not to dig up the roses. As if I couldn't see a bunch of big, thorny rosebushes! Sometimes Mom treats me like a little kid."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," I said.
Picking up her trowel, Tiffany said invitingly, "You want to help? I'm digging manure in for tomato plants. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and need lots of nourishment."
"Manure? Um, no thanks," I said. "Maybe some other time."
"Okay." Tiffany went back to her gardening. As I left, I heard her begin to whistle tunelessly.
The sun felt good on my face. I sat on the back step while I finished my coffee and watched Tiffany work. Rule #2 about free time (right after rule #1, Do Nothing) is that free time feels even better if you are doing nothing and watching someone else work. Rule #2A is that the work has to be work you don't feel guilty about not doing yourself or helping to do.
I enjoyed rules #1-2A until the sun was high overhead and I heard Mom's car pull into the driveway. I got up and went into the kitchen and began to rinse my cup and breakfast things to put into the dishwasher.
"How'd it go?" I called.
"Maria's team won/' said my mother's voice and a moment later she appeared in the kitchen door.
"Another victory for SDS Junior Swim Team," I said. "Where's Maria? I want to hear a splash-by-splash."
"Maria's freestyle relay came in third in one of the events," said my mother. "She and her teammates decided to stay after the meet and get some extra practice in. Something about faster starts."
"Oh," was all I could think of to say.
"Anybody call?" asked Mom.
Was she thinking about my father? I shook my head. It was hard to read my mother's expression.
"What about some lunch?" she said. "Watching all that swimming made me hungry."
"I've been goofing off all morning," I confessed. "And I'm hungry, too."
We made sandwiches and salads and Mom went out to get Tiffany. A few minutes later she returned, looking puzzled.
"Tiffany said she can't leave her garden right now."
"Won't," I said. "She's really into it."
Mom smiled. "She is, isn't she? It's nice to be so involved in something."