Dawn can't wait for this trip to California.

Since no phone calls were coming in for the We © Kids Club, we just sat around chatting. Jill and Maggie talked some more about the kids I remembered in our class. Right then an idea began taking seed in my mind. I started to picture myself back in the class, and how easy it would be to slip right back in.

Sunny came back up with the food - guacamole dip and cut-up raw vegetables that she had made earlier in the afternoon.

All right, "Jill said, grabbing a carrot stick.

"No calls yet?" Sunny asked.

We shook our heads. The phone hadn't rung once.

Sunny chomped on a celery stick and looked at me.

"It's be great if you can stay for dinner," she said.

I thought back to all the times in the past that I had had dinner over at Sunny's house. How many times had it been? Probably a thousand. Well, at least a hundred. Sunny's mom and dad were great. When we were younger they always let us be excused from the table as soon as we had finished eating, just so we would have a longer time to play.

"I hope you can stay," Sunny said again, and suddenly something popped into my head.

Maybe I could stay. maybe I could really stay. Maybe I didn't have to go back to Connecticut at all, or just go back to get my things. Maybe I could move back in with Dad and Jeff, have my old room back, my old friends, my old school.

It was a strange thought, scary and exciting at the same time. Until then, I had just been having a great time, a fabulous time, but it had never occurred to me that I could think about making it last forever (or at least for longer). Now that the thought occurred to me, what was I supposed to do?

Dawn on the Coast
Published by Scholastic Inc. 1996
ISBN: 0590439006