Summer at Fraser’s Mill

Go West

S aturday, July 16 th , rolled around, and with it Grace’s flight back to California. As usual, she had to fly early in the morning to get the 2,000-mile trip done in one day.

She finished her packing the night before and said goodbye to Alex, Charlie, and a few other townspeople she ran into. Dorothy stopped over at the Murrays’ house to bring Grace some cookies to take on her flight.

It was going to be hard, leaving all these people she had seen all summer. Her parents, Alex, Dorothy, Elaine, Charlie, Sam, and all those other people who made Fraser’s Mill what it was—they were a great community.

She still hadn’t seen Doc even once since their fight, but she didn’t care if she said goodbye to him anyway.

Her parents both went with her to the airport, even though it was forty-five minutes away and it was four o’clock in the morning. Grace breathed in the crisp morning air as they drove through the pines. She’d be back in the heat and the smog of California in the evening.

Grace arrived early for her flight. Mom pulled up at the curb outside the airport after Grace insisted there was no point in her parents waiting inside. “You’re running the store today,” she told them. “I think you both oughtta go home and take a nap until opening time.”

Grace’s suitcases took up a lot of the car. Dad helped her lift them down—he promised he wasn’t going to hurt his foot—and they all stood there on the sidewalk outside the airport doors.

“Gracie,” Dad said, “I want you to know how much it meant to me and your mother that you spent more than half of your summer helping us out. You’re a good daughter, and I’m proud of you.”

Mom squeezed Grace’s arm. “Me too,” she said. “We couldn’t have managed without you, Grace. It’s been difficult for your dad and me to run the store even before he broke his foot—I can’t imagine what we would have done by ourselves during that time. Thank you so much for everything. I hope all this doesn’t make it difficult for you to get ready for the school year.”

Grace hugged them both. “I was happy to help. And it was lots of fun spending time with you and being around town again.”

“Good luck with everything,” Dad said. “Call us often, you hear?”

“Of course! I’m going to need a full update on everything about the dollar store and how your profits are going. I’m not going to stand idly by and watch them drive you out of business!”

§

The trip out to California was uneventful, which was a mercy, because Grace was in no mood to deal with delays and rescheduled flights. She wanted to get back and dive into all the things she needed to do. School would start in a few weeks, and she wasn’t ready at all.

On the plane, Grace rummaged through her backpack and pulled out a notebook. That list of goals she’d made earlier in the summer was in there. She had been so busy working in the store and hanging out with people in Fraser’s Mill that she had almost forgotten all the things she had planned to do this summer.

1. Finish the school year well. Prepare reviews and quizzes carefully for the next two days. That was crossed out, finished.

2. Work on National Board prep at least one hour every evening. She had begun strong with that and then slacked off for most of the summer. Her work for the store had been important, but there were so many times she could have worked on National Board materials and had chosen to do other things instead. Now she’d be way behind. She’d better devote a lot more time to that before the school year started.

3. Be more consistent with daily exercise. Over the last few weeks she’d been even worse with her exercise than usual.

4. Make a Shipt shopping schedule for the summer to make enough money but not get overwhelmed so there’s no time left for other things. Well, she’d kept busy at Murray’s Grocery, but the pay hadn’t been much. After she paid for her new catalytic converter, there would be hardly anything left.

She hadn’t done much for her planned goals from the beginning of the summer. But she had helped her parents. They should be better equipped now to compete with the dollar store. So she’d done something worth doing. Now she’d have to buckle down and work on attaining the rest of those goals she’d been ignoring for so many weeks.

Somehow, Grace couldn’t get excited about those goals right now. She stuffed the notebook into her backpack and looked out the plane window. All she could see were clouds. Somewhere beyond those clouds, far below, Michigan was getting farther and farther away. Grace sighed and turned from the window.