The first day of summer vacation should have been perfect.
Instead, I was sitting on my front porch steps, watching Piper wave her hands around like she was conducting an orchestra.
“And then the dolphin jumped right over our boat!” she squealed. “I swear it was looking right at me!”
Charlie nodded so hard her glasses almost fell off. “The water was so blue, Kiora. Like, bluer than anything you’ve ever seen. And the sand was white as sugar.”
“Sugar sand,” Piper added dramatically. “That’s what they call it in Florida.”
I picked at the peeling paint on the porch railing. “Sounds amazing.”
“Oh, it was!” Piper plopped down next to me. “We went parasailing and jet skiing and—”
“I get it,” I muttered. “You had the best vacation ever.”
Charlie sat on my other side. “So what are your family’s plans for this summer?”
I stared at our boring front yard with its boring brown grass and boring fence. “We don’t have any.”
“None?”
“Well, Dad mentioned maybe going to the hardware store this weekend.”
Piper giggled. “That doesn’t count.”
“Tell that to my family.” I slumped forward. “We never go anywhere. Ever.”
“Come on,” Charlie said. “Your parents took you to that water park last year.”
“That was two years ago. And it was only because Dad had a coupon.”
The screen door creaked behind us. Mom stepped out with a glass of iced water, her hair still messy from her morning jog.
“Hi, girls,” she said. “How was Florida, Piper?”
“Incredible!” Piper launched into the dolphin story again.
I rolled my eyes. “Mom, why don’t we ever take real vacations?”
Mom took a sip of her water. “We take vacations.”
“The grocery store doesn’t count.”
“What about when we went camping?”
“That was in our backyard.”
Piper and Charlie exchanged glances. I could feel my cheeks getting hot.
“All my friends get to do cool stuff,” I continued. “Reese went to soccer camp. Charlie’s family drove to the national park. Piper got to swim with dolphins!”
“I didn’t actually swim with them,” Piper said quietly.
“You know what I mean.” I stood up and faced Mom. “Why can’t we go somewhere amazing? Just once?”
Mom set down her glass. She had that look—the one she got when she was trying to figure out how to explain something without hurting my feelings.
“Kiora, honey, vacations cost money. A lot of money.”
“So?”
“So we have a budget. We have bills to pay and groceries to buy and—”
“Other families have bills too!”
“Other families aren’t our family.” Mom’s voice got that firm edge. “We make different choices.”
I felt tears prick my eyes. This was so unfair. Why did everyone else get to have fun except me?
“I hate being the only kid who never gets to do anything,” I whispered.
Mom’s expression softened. She sat down on the step and patted the spot next to her.
“Come here.”
I didn’t want to, but I sat down anyway.
“You know what?” Mom said, wrapping her arm around me. “If you want to go somewhere so bad, earn half.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Earn half the money for a trip, and Dad and I will pay the other half.”
Piper gasped. Charlie’s mouth fell open.
My heart started beating faster. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” Mom smiled. “Pick a place you want to go, figure out how much it costs, and earn half. We’ll match it.”
I stared at her. This couldn’t be real.
“Any place?”
“Within reason. We’re not talking about Paris or anything.”
“But Florida?”
“Florida’s reasonable.”
My mind started racing. Florida. Real Florida, with sugar sand and blue water and maybe even dolphins.
“How much would that cost?” I asked.
“For a long weekend? Just you and me? Probably around twelve hundred dollars.”
Twelve hundred dollars. That meant I needed to earn six hundred.
Six hundred dollars.
I’d never had six hundred dollars in my entire life. I’d never even had sixty dollars.
But Mom was looking at me with this expression I’d never seen before. Like she was challenging me. Like she thought I might actually try.
The spark that lit up inside my chest was small at first. Then it grew bigger.
And bigger.
“Okay,” I heard myself say.
“Okay what?” Mom asked.
I looked at Piper and Charlie, then back at Mom.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”