Counting to Perfect Read online

  Also by Suzanne LaFleur

  Threads of Blue

  Beautiful Blue World

  Listening for Lucca

  Eight Keys

  Love, Aubrey

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Suzanne M. LaFleur

  Cover art copyright © 2018 by Ji Hyuk Kim

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Wendy Lamb Books and the colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Visit us on the Web! rhcbooks.com

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: LaFleur, Suzanne M., author.

  Title: Counting to perfect / Suzanne LaFleur.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Wendy Lamb Books, [2018] | Summary: Ignored by her parents since her “perfect” older sister, Julia, had a baby, Cassie, twelve, foregoes her summer plans to join Julia and baby Addie on a road trip. | Identifiers: LCCN 2017049893 (print) | LCCN 2017058947 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7181-2 (eBook) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7179-9 (trade) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7180-5 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-1-5247-7182-9 (pbk.)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Sisters—Fiction. | Babies—Fiction. | Runaways—Fiction. | Family problems—Fiction. | Automobile travel—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.L1422 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.L1422 Cou 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9781524771812

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Suzanne LaFleur

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To Mom and Dad

  with l, a, & 20dc

  Julia named her baby Adele.

  Like the singer? everyone asked.

  No, like herself, Julia said.

  Not that we called her Adele.

  Mostly we called her Addie.

  Never the baby. Julia was very strict about that.

  The other part of her name, the Cassandra part, that’s after me.

  But nobody calls me that, either.

  I’m Cassie.

  I woke to a weight on my chest, Addie’s big blue eyes staring into mine. Her weight wasn’t bad, sixteen pounds of snuggle baby. But it was bright in my room, so I shut my eyes and groaned about being woken up.

  “Morning, Cassie!”

  I peeked at Julia, hovering over us.

  Never leave Addie on the bed! Mom must have said it a hundred times.

  Not that either of us would. Julia always rolled her eyes about that. She rolled her eyes at a lot of what Mom said.

  Julia was very careful. Way more careful than you would have thought from how much Mom reminded her of things. I guess that was Mom’s job, to worry about everything.

  Addie could sit up on her own, so Julia was letting her, but her hands were ready if Addie fell.

  She didn’t. She looked into my eyes and smiled, then let out a shriek. She noticed her bare toes in front of her and leaned forward to meet them, opening her mouth wide and schlurping on them.

  “Aren’t you excited?” Julia asked. “Soon you can just be with us, all day long.”

  My last day of school.

  Julia’d hardly gone to school lately, but she’d gone enough, and graduated with her class two weeks ago.

  Remembering her in her blue gown with red trim, her cap with the tassel, made a strange tickle in my throat.

  I rolled over onto my stomach. Julia caught Addie in time, but she was still smiling.

  They both were.

  “Five more minutes,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  I went to the kitchen to get some orange juice.

  My hand met Dad’s, reaching for the fridge handle, too.

  Probably getting milk for his coffee.

  Dad paused, but not because of me.

  He was looking at Julia’s six A finals stuck all over the fridge.

  First he looked proud, then he got tears in his eyes, then he looked proud again.

  Nothing of mine showed on the fridge anymore. Not my portfolio poem from Creative Writing or my first-semester report card or my fifth-grade class photo from last year. Not for months.

  Everything had been covered up by Julia.

  “Morning, Dad,” I said. “Um, I need the orange juice.”

  “Morning, Cassie,” he said. Like he’d just noticed I was there. Even though our hands had been touching.

  I grabbed the orange juice and poured a ridiculously large glass.

  Let someone say something to me about it.

  Not that anyone would.

  * * *

  —

  I waited at the bus stop with my empty backpack. We hadn’t had any homework, but they hand back so many things on the last day of school that I would need something to carry it all home in. The two other girls from my street, Carly and Elena, stood a little apart from me. They kept glancing toward my house.

  I looked back. Julia was on our front lawn, holding Addie’s hand high, making her wave goodbye to me.

  I faced forward as the bus pulled up.

  Carly and Elena were looking at Julia, though.

  There were some good things about school ending.

  I boarded the bus first and flung my bag into an empty seat. I sat down by a window that showed Julia and Addie, still watching and waving.

  I folded my hands in my lap.

  Julia’s face fell, and she lowered Addie’s hand.

  The bus pulled away.

  * * *

  —

  In the last five minutes of the day, our homeroom teacher handed o
ut large, sealed yellow envelopes.

  Everyone sat up straighter, ready to bolt.

  Inside the packets: our report cards, summer assignments, and the names of our new homeroom teachers.

  We were supposed to give them to our parents first—like that ever happened—and that’s how they were usually labeled: To the parents of so-and-so, printed stickers with our student ID numbers and home addresses.

  But my label was different—a name tag stuck over the official one. It said, TO CASSIE, in several colors of bright marker, and then underneath, very small, (and her parents), like parents were a sorry thing to have to mention and I was most important.

  I looked around. Most of the labels were the official kind. There were a couple other colored ones, but not that many.

  We were released; sixth grade was over. We poured into the halls. Kids tore open their envelopes. What were the teachers going to do about it, really? The kids cheered or groaned as they discovered their fates.

  Seventh grade was done in blocks. Your English teacher was also your homeroom teacher, and then you moved through the day more or less with the people in your block, even if you split later for language or math. Finding out our lead teacher would tell us how much—or little—we’d see our friends next year.

  I could have argued that I had a right to open my envelope, if a teacher caught me, because it was addressed to me, but I held it tight and beelined for the tree out front, where I had promised to meet Piper and Liana so we could open our envelopes together.

  They were both there already.

  “Ready?” Piper asked.

  She and Liana ripped open their envelopes. Envelopes with plain printed labels.

  They showed each other their homeroom teacher’s name, and started jumping up and down and hugging. A match!

  They stopped and looked at me.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  But I already knew.

  My envelope didn’t match on the outside.

  I flipped it over and slid my finger along the seal, unclasped the metal prongs, slid out the papers.

  Mr. Connelly.

  I should have known. Julia had had him. She’d loved him. Like the label, everything he did was a bit more colorful than in the other rooms.

  “That’s okay,” Piper said, after coming to check my paper. “Maybe we’ll still have lunch together.”

  “Maybe.”

  Liana had moved on already, flipping through the summer assignment packet. “Book report on one of the books…letter introducing ourselves to our homeroom teacher…”

  Again, my page was different. The book list was the same, but I wasn’t asked to write a letter.

  Create a journal about yourself so that I can get to know you. Include memories or future hopes. You may choose a traditional text format, or explore other media, such as a photo album, blog, or video diary. You will be graded on the following considerations:

  —Clarity of presentation

  —Apparent time spent

  —How well I feel I know you after “reading”

  Journals are due by August 29, one week before the start of school. You may drop off, mail, or submit by email, as convenient to the format you have chosen.

  I liked writing projects okay, and usually did well on them. But my journal would probably be the most boring thing ever.

  “I’ll write my letter tonight,” Liana said. “So it’s done.”

  “I won’t,” Piper said. “Waste of time. Plus, you never know. Maybe something will happen to me over the summer. I don’t want to have to do it again in two months.”

  “What would happen over the summer that would make things so different?”

  Piper shrugged. “Want to go to my house?” she asked as we started to head toward the buses. We would have to take our own buses home, because we didn’t have notes from our parents to switch, but we could meet up later.

  “You could come to my house,” I said.

  Neither of them said anything for a minute, and Liana bit her lip.

  “I can’t,” she said. “Sorry.”

  “It’s not like it’s contagious.”

  “Well, my mom, you know, she’s annoying.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I said.

  Liana’s eyes grew big.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I mean, I know it’s annoying for you. Her rules.”

  Then her eyes narrowed.

  “I’d come, Cassie,” Piper said. “My parents don’t care. But then Liana couldn’t come, too. My house, okay?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I think we’re doing something anyway. Me and Julia.”

  Piper paused, and then she said, “Right….So we’ll see you at the pool tomorrow?”

  I nodded.

  Then we ran for our buses.

  * * *

  —

  “Cassie, set the table,” Mom said. “Dining room.”

  “Okay.”

  We ate in the dining room a lot. There was just more space.

  I shoved Addie’s high chair next to Julia’s seat at the head of the table and threw a bib on it before I set out our four grown-up plates. I got four glasses of water with three ice cubes each, whether or not anybody was going to want them. I’d rather do that than get in trouble later for having done a lazy job setting the table. Then I sat and played a game on my phone. In three trips, Mom brought in a platter of chicken, a bowl of broccoli, and a huge salad.

  Salad bowls. Crap.

  I went to get them and the dressing bottles.

  “Tell everyone to come for dinner,” Mom said.

  “Dinner!” I yelled.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  I shrugged and slipped my phone into my pocket. We tried not to use phones at the table. The only call we’d ever take was from Carter, if he hadn’t seen Addie that day.

  Carter. Crap.

  “Is Carter eating with us?”

  Mom shook her head as she sat down and started putting broccoli on each plate. Then she reached for the chicken.

  “White meat or dark?” she asked.

  “I only eat dark meat.” Why couldn’t she ever remember that?

  “That’s right.” She served me. “Where is everyone else?”

  “Dinner!” I yelled louder than last time.

  Dad showed up, and Julia with a sleepy-looking Addie. She must have just got up from her afternoon nap. Julia plopped Addie into the high chair and got a jar of baby food and a spoon.

  Dad slid something across the table at me.

  “Thanks!” I snatched up the entry tag for the local pool. Mine was green, for the first time. Under twelve is red, for “needs an adult.” When you are twelve and get a green one, you can go on your own. So Piper, Liana, and I could just be dropped off, and stay all day, without having to get one of our moms to sit there.

  “She had plums for lunch,” Mom said to Julia.

  Julia sighed and returned to the cabinet. “Sweet potato then.”

  “Sure,” Mom said.

  Julia came back.

  Dad finished handing out the pool tags, all green.

  “Addie’s too young to need one,” he explained.

  “I might not need one either,” Julia said.

  “Don’t you want to go to the pool?” Mom asked.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  “You aren’t eating.” Mom put a piece of chicken on Julia’s plate.

  “I’m feeding Addie.”

  “Take a break, I’ll feed her.”

  “No thanks,” Julia said.

  “Suit yourself,” Mom said, but not like she was mad. “I think Addie would like to go to the pool.”

  “You take her,” Julia said.

  Nobody said anything for a few minut
es.

  “How was your last day?” Dad asked me.

  “Super,” I said.

  “Really?”

  I shrugged. “They put on a movie.”

  “Did you get your summer reading list?” Mom asked. “Julia, she’s got that all over her hands now.”

  “It’s on the fridge,” I said.

  “What?” Dad asked.

  I looked at Mom. “My reading list. You asked for my reading list.”

  “Oh, that’s right. We’ll get you the books soon, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “What about a report card?” Dad asked.

  “Hang on.”

  I got the envelope from the kitchen and handed it to him.

  “Wasn’t I supposed to open this?” he asked.

  “It was addressed to me.”

  He flipped it over and checked. “Look at that.” He slid the papers out. “Ah…Mr. Connelly. Here we go again.”

  “Oh, I liked Mr. Connelly!” Julia said.

  “Julia,” Mom said.

  “What?”

  “Just—watch her—I don’t want her spitting sweet potato everywhere.”

  “What am I supposed to do about that?” Julia asked. “You’ll like Mr. Connelly, Cass.”

  “I have a weird assignment already. To write a journal about myself.”

  “Oh, yeah! Mine’s upstairs. In the attic. There’s a box, it says J Middle School. Take whatever you want. You can’t copy it, obviously. But some things will overlap, so maybe it will help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cassie should probably do her own entirely,” Mom said. “Maybe she shouldn’t look at yours.”

  “We grew up in the same family. Our stories overlap,” Julia said. “At least she can see what a finished one looks like. I got an A.”