Chapter 1: A Summer Trip
By Steve Brezenoff
One thing I’ll always remember about Mount Rushmore: It’s far. It’s far from everything else in the world, I think. My best friends and I went with the rest of the History Club on a special summer trip. The bus ride was long. And it was hot. The bus’s air conditioner wasn’t working, so all the windows were as far open as they’d go.
“Cat,” said Samantha, better known as Sam. She was sitting next to me in the back row of the bus. Her voice was quiet and dry. “Pass me the bottle of water, please.”
I nodded slowly and reached into my tote bag. “It’s almost empty,” I said. I handed it to Sam. “Don’t finish it. It’s the last water we have.”
Sam frowned as she unscrewed the cap. She took a short sip. “Thanks,” she said. She could barely get the words out.
I leaned my head against the window, letting the warm summer air blow across my face a little. It didn’t help much, but it was better than nothing. “It’s . . . so . . . hot,” I said.
Sam tried to nod. Her mouth fell open and she panted. Then she closed her eyes and collapsed against my shoulder.
“Stop being such drama queens!” Gum said. He and Egg were sitting across the aisle, watching me and Sam. Egg snapped a picture of Sam playing dead. Then we all busted up laughing.
“Okay, future historians,” said Ms. Juniper, the gym teacher and faculty advisor of the History Club. She was in the front of the bus, standing carefully in the aisle, holding on to the back of a seat. She also had a whistle around her neck. She always had a whistle around her neck. “We’ll be arriving shortly,” she said.
Everyone cheered, except Anton Gutman.
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Adapted from The Mount Rushmore Face That Couldn’t See, by Steve Brezenoff, ©️ by Capstone. Reprinted with permission.
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Questions
Which character thinks Samantha is being too dramatic?
Egg
Gum
Cat
Ms. Juniper