The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones (Wattpad Books Edition)

June 1955 - One

The dust here never settled. When Ethan thrust his suitcase onto Aunt Cara's driveway, a lazy cloud of dirt meandered into the humid air and lingered, lapping gently about his ankles. Like everything else in this town, even the ground seemed half immersed in slumber.

Ethan stood still with his thumb on his brow, squinting at the afternoon sun and the white-paneled house below it. His muscles, tight and tired from a long drive spent crunched into the passenger side of his dad's Mercury as his younger twin siblings kicked at his seat, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. His stomach, on the other hand, was twisting with pent-up adrenaline. He fought the urge to run.

"Give me a hand with this, would you?" Ethan turned to see his dad, knees braced against the bumper, drops of sweat inching down his forehead as he struggled to haul a box of records from the trunk.

"Were these really necessary?" he asked, dropping the box onto the sleepy earth.

Ethan winced, but stepped over his suitcase and lifted the records with ease. He looked down at his dad in annoyance. "You're shipping me off to Nowheresville for three whole months," he reminded him, an edge in his voice. "I need these or I'll go crazy."

His dad exhaled loudly. "If you didn't want to be here, you shouldn't have punched that boy in the face. It's that simple, Ethan."

Ethan felt his face grow hot with rage. It wasn't the first time on this trip or in these past few months that his dad had said something to that effect. In his mind, no amount of explaining could justify Ethan's behavior. Ethan quickly learned that the best response was a deep breath and a change of subject. They stared at each other for a long moment, green eyes meeting brown. Then Ethan let out a sigh.

"Anyway," he muttered, hefting his record collection in his arms. "I'll go ahead and bring this inside, make sure they're home or whatever." No sooner had the words left his lips than the front door was flung open. A woman with blond hair and wide eyes stepped onto the porch with a wave and an unsteady grin. Her stomach made a wide curve beneath her flowy top, revealing the final months of her pregnancy. The baby was due at the end of the summer.

From behind him came a sudden chorus of "Aunt Cara!" and then Anthony and Sadie leapt from the car, their tornado legs kicking up a storm of dust. The last time the twins had seen their aunt was nearly seven years ago, when they were still in diapers, but they clung to her legs as if they had missed her all this time. Ethan, who had been eight back then, had all but forgotten her face.

"Hey, hey." Aunt Cara laughed, her eyes softening. Her voice rolled out in that smooth southern accent that her brother had lost after two decades on the West Coast. She pressed Sadie's mousy hair back from her forehead and detached herself from their grips. "Hey, Andy."

"Cara." Ethan's father had made his way onto the porch and leaned over to pull his sister into an embrace. "Great to see you again."

"Hi, Aunt Cara," Ethan murmured but stayed where he was.

His aunt's smile slipped as she cleared her throat, pausing for too long with her fingers on her stomach before saying, "Come in, come in, and bring all that, Ethan."

The kids immediately dove toward the house, but their father's warning tone reined them back. "Anthony, Sadie, back in the car," he said firmly, pointing to the blue sedan. "I told you we wouldn't be long." They peered up at him with rosy cheeks so like his own, their bottom lips already beginning to tremble. He silenced a chorus of protests with a kind but pointed look, and the twins moped their way back to the driveway.

"Trust me," Ethan muttered as they passed him, "I'd trade places with you in a second." Then he shook his head, repositioned the box, and forced himself onto the front porch.