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  Just Sayin’

  Copyright © 2017 by Dandi A. Mackall. All rights reserved.

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  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

  Just Sayin’ is a work of fiction. Where real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales appear, they are used fictitiously. All other elements of the novel are drawn from the author’s imagination.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Mackall, Dandi Daley, author.

  Title: Just sayin’ / Dandi Daley Mackall.

  Other titles: Just saying

  Description: Carol Stream, Illinois : Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., [2017]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016055489| ISBN 9781496423160 (hc) | ISBN 9781496423177 (sc)

  Subjects: LCSH: Domestic fiction. | GSAFD: Christian fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.A27257 J87 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016055489

  Build: 2017-06-13 14:49:08

  Contents

  Just Sayin’

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Cassie Callahan

  Hamilton, MO

  June 8

  Dear Mom,

  Gram is making me write to you, even though it’s past her bedtime (which is about three hours after she falls asleep in the recliner in front of the TV). She told me to tell you I’m doing great and that I understand why you need time alone to get over your broken engagement and your broken heart. But those are her words, not mine.

  Think about it. Instead of living with you and Travis and one stepsister and one stepbrother, one of which is my age, I am living with a very old person. You know how Gram has always lied about her age? Well, she’s started bragging about it now. I think that’s how you know somebody’s turning old, if you didn’t have other things to go on, like wrinkles and the sappy black-and-white movies she watches and all the things she forgets. She’s so old that when she went in to renew her driver’s license, they said not only had her driver’s license expired, but so had her birth date.

  Also, old grandmothers don’t get jokes. Like I told Gram if she would buy me a cell phone, I’d put her on speed dial and make her an InstaGRAM, and she told me to put a sock in it.

  Kirby didn’t eat for two days after you left. Poor dog. But I think she just misses Julie, not you. That dog (because she’s seriously too big to call her a puppy anymore) has been sleeping on my bed. She chewed up one of Gram’s slippers and Kittenie (my stuffed kitten, in case you forgot).

  Since you’ve left me with Gram for who-knows-how-long, I thought you’d like to know what’s really going on. Just sayin’.

  Love,

  Cassie

  P.S. Do you know how to get blood out of denim? And sofa cushions? And the rug? And wood floors?

  P.P.S. And kitchen tiles?

  Jennifer Callahan

  San Bernardino, CA (temporarily)

  June 12

  Dear Cassie,

  What did I tell you about getting a handle on your insults? When school starts up again, do you want to get suspended for name-calling . . . again? (Don’t answer that.)

  Please take it easy on Gram. I’ve left her with more responsibilities than she should have to handle. And by the way, your grandmother only acts old so that you’ll do more around the house. She did the same thing when I was your age. She’s probably younger than some of your friends’ mothers.

  I’m sorry I had to leave you with Gram, Cassie. I just need time to pull myself together. Travis and I would have been married one month from tomorrow if we hadn’t gotten cold feet. I don’t know if it would have worked out anyway. It probably wasn’t really fair of me to ask you to share your room with little Julie. And you and Nick seemed to fight all the time, although I imagine real brothers and sisters the same age would fight too. But maybe it would have been too much for you to be handed an 11-year-old stepbrother and a 7-year-old stepsister just like that. So I guess it’s all for the best.

  Anyway, I don’t suppose it matters now. All the same, I miss Travis, especially the way he couldn’t stop smiling after he laughed at something—usually you and your insults. (But don’t—I repeat, do not—take his laughter as encouragement for more insults. I know for a fact that Travis is as hard on Nick when it comes to banning insults as I try to be on you.)

  Love you more than anything,

  Mom

  P.S. Tell Kirby not to sleep on your bed. She has a perfectly good bed of her own in the kitchen.

  P.P.S. Cold water. I won’t ask. And hey, don’t you read my column in the Hamiltonian or the St. Joseph Gazette? I did a whole bit on how to get blood out of things.

  Cassie Callahan

  Hamilton, MO

  June 9

  Dear Nick, Hey, Camel Breath,

  I can’t believe you! Gram says you and Julie are going to a private school in the fall? I have no idea how she found out. And when I asked her, she narrowed her eyes to slits and said in a creepy voice, “I have my ways.”

  Really? A private school? What’s that about? As if becoming city slickers isn’t bad enough. What part of Chicago are you living in? You’d better keep cheering for the Royals, or else. And the Cardinals. Julie will let me know if you say anything nice about the Cubs or the White Sox, so don’t get any ideas.

  I miss your little sister. You’d better be nice to her, Nick—no insults. Got it? Julie is an insult-free zone.

  I never had a chance to ask you something before you guys tore out of Hamilton, Missouri, like the town was on fire: Did you see this my-mom-and-your-dad breakup coming? I sure didn’t. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gone through the agony of being fitted for that ridiculous bridesmaid dress, which Mom says I can wear to the prom in a few years. Right. If the prom will be held in Candy Land and my date is Lord Licorice or the Gingerbread Boy. Whatever you do, don’t let Julie wear her bridesmaid dress to your fancy new school. Like kids need one more reason to pick on her.

  I’ve been trying to be okay with the breakup, even though it wrecks all our plans. I thought about it all day yesterday when I walked by myself to the creek where you and I have found everything from fool’s gold and arrowheads to raccoon skulls. The only “good” thing I could come up with about not having you as my stepbrother is that we won’t have to be introduced as “steps.” But since I couldn’t sleep last night, here goes another try:

  Top Five Reasons Why It’s a Good Thing You Won’t Be My Stepbrother:
/>   5. You are a habit I’d like to kick . . . with both feet.

  4. You remind me of the ocean—you make me feel like puking.

  3. You are garrulous, which means you talk too much. (Actually, I don’t mind you talking so much if you don’t mind me not listening so much.)

  2. Your music. You have Van Gogh’s ear for music. Even terrorists like the Beatles, C. B. (Camel Breath).

  1. I tried very hard to come up with the #1 reason why it’s a good thing that you won’t be my stepbrother. I can’t.

  Your ex-almost-stepsister,

  Cassie

  P.S. Seriously, did your dad ever tell you why he broke off the engagement with my mom?

  Nick Barton

  Chicago, Illinois (only don’t pronounce the S at the end of ILLINOIS unless you want to really tick people off)

  June 13

  Dear Cassie, Hey, Amoeba Brain!

  When are you going to get a phone, A. B.? In case you haven’t noticed, nobody writes letters in this century. Ever hear of texting? I know you hate talking on the phone because “half of a conversation is being able to read the other guy’s expressions,” blah blah blah. But if you had a cell, you could text. And you’d see as many expressions as you do in letters. Plus, you could use emojis—not the smiley face, of course, but the one with the tongue sticking out, or the frowning one.

  City slickers? Garrulous? Seriously? I think you’ve been hanging out with Gram too much—you’re starting to talk like an old person, even more than usual, I mean. And are you still trying to learn a new word every day? What is it with you and words? Words are supposed to let people know what you mean. Your words don’t. I may talk a lot, but at least it’s in a language other kids understand.

  The private school wasn’t my idea! Dad barely speaks to Julie and me these days. He just mopes around and grunts when you try to talk to him. And when he does talk, it’s just to complain about Chicago traffic. I only found out about the school because he left the brochure on the counter. I yelled and screamed at him, but he wouldn’t even talk about it. Julie, of course, just said, “I like the uniforms, Daddy.”

  My grandfather hired Dad to manage one of his waste disposal operations, the one on the north side of Chicago. We’re staying in Grandad’s old retirement condominium, so Julie and I are the youngest residents here by a century. Grandad’s neighbor, a white-haired lady with a big smile that makes you smile when you look at her, calls Dad “young man.” I think she has a crush on my grandfather, who has trouble remembering her name. And mine.

  Grandad has a “housekeeper,” who acts more like a “grandfather keeper.” She stays with us during the day, and she’s about 200 years old and almost totally deaf. Her hearing is as bad as Julie’s is before Julie puts her hearing aids in. She reminds me of Ms. Ripples, the other fourth grade teacher, the one who looked like she’d break into pieces if anybody ran into her at recess.

  Julie misses Kirby so much that she asked Dad for a dog or even a kitten. But the old-people place can’t have pets—unless they’re blind (the people, not the pets). Dad says he’s looking for a house. He hates working for Grandad’s business and being trapped in an office all day, but it was the only job he could get on such short notice. Besides, he has to take some kind of Illinois teacher’s test and jump through some other hoops before they’ll even let him teach here. Like 14 years teaching Missouri schoolkids isn’t good enough?

  Instead of a top-five list of why it’s a good thing you’re not my stepsister, I’m borrowing dialogue from Winston Churchill and Lady Astor (from last week’s The Hour of Insult). I changed it a little:

  Cassie: “If you were my stepbrother, I’d give you poison.”

  Nick: “If you were my stepsister, I’d drink it.”

  Your almost stepbrother,

  Nick

  P.S. I thought your mom was the one who broke off the engagement.

  P.P.S. Go, Royals!

  Cassie Callahan

  Hamilton, Mo, still

  June 16

  Dear Nick Poshnick (Posh Private School Nick) (and FYI, POSH means “luxurious”, and that means “fancy”),

  Not only am I enjoying my quotidian practice of learning new words, but I am working on inventing a word so amazing that the dictionary people will put it in their official dictionary. I do not expect you to appreciate words the way I do. I’m just glad to see you stringing them together in sentences. Good for you, Poshnick!

  Houston, we have a problem.

  The one thing you and I have always agreed on is that Johnathan Kirby deserves the title of Insult King of the World, right? How many times have we sneaked into your basement to watch him insult his audience? And remember when your dad caught us watching the forbidden show and chased us out of the basement and we had to run uptown to watch the end of it through the window of Ray’s TV and Appliance store? We stood outside in the rain listening to the King. At least with Mom gone, I can watch The Hour of Insult on Gram’s TV. She’s usually conked out in the recliner by then. Or she watches the show and calls it “vintage,” which just means old-fashioned.

  So, I wrote Kirby the King of Insults. I’ve written him two letters since you guys left Hamilton, and he still hasn’t answered me. They were nice letters too. I signed your name with mine on the last letter, in case he really means all those insults he gives to women on The Hour of Insult.

  What do you think about the word FABONOMOUS? It would mean, of course, “enormously fabulous.”

  Me.

  Cassie

  Nick Barton

  Chicago, IL, like it or not

  June 19

  Dear Cassie Knee-Skinner,

  Watching Julie ride her bike around the old folks’ tiny condo courtyard this morning reminded me of how many times you crashed your bike and skinned your knees. Whenever I picture you (not that I do this very much), you have Band-Aids on your knees. You should see the old people at windows up and down the condominiums, watching Julie ride her bike (with training wheels). Something tells me nobody has biked here for a long time.

  In case you think I’m stupid, I figured out that QUOTIDIAN means “every day,” and I didn’t even look it up in the dictionary or online. So there.

  The quotidian stuff Julie and I do at Grandad’s while Dad is at work is boring-er than mud. Grandad tries to entertain us now and then. Yesterday he asked us if we wanted to play Go Fish. You know, the card game? When we said we didn’t, he took us to the aquarium, where we watched fish swim for six hours. Six. Hours. Julie dozed off and almost fell into the shark tank.

  We’ve eaten takeout every night since we got here. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I’m sick of takeout! What I wouldn’t give for a juicy burger fresh off the grill in your backyard, or your mom’s lasagna or spaghetti! I’d even eat your grandma’s not-fried chicken and lumpy mashed potatoes. And maybe asparagus from your mom’s garden.

  Everybody always tells my dad that he looks just like his dad, my grandad. But I don’t see it. I’ll bet your mom thought my dad was handsome, and I doubt if she’d go for Grandad. I do get it when people tell me I look like Dad—dark hair, dark eyes, tallish, handsome. (Put smiley face here.) I guess my mom has dark hair too, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen her that I could be wrong about that. Grandad said he heard that Mom’s new husband (not James—she’s got an even newer one) owns a shady or illegal factory in Dubai, which is so far away that even Grandad isn’t sure where it is.

  I’m not surprised that King Kirby hasn’t answered your letters—your “nice” letters. What would the Insult King want with nice letters? That’s not how to get his respect. He probably threw your letters into the garbage with the bouquet of roses they gave him after last year’s season finale of The Hour of Insult. You better write him an insulting letter if you expect him to answer. And by the way, who gave you permission to sign my name?

  Come on! FABONOMOUS? Back to the drawing board, if you ask me.

  Signed by the real Nic
k

  Cassie Callahan

  Hamilton, MO

  June 22

  Dear Kirby, King of Insults,

  I would be very angry with you if it weren’t Be Kind to Animals Week. Do you think I’m writing these letters to you because my fingers need the exercise? Have you bothered to answer even one of my letters? The answer to both questions is no.

  My almost-stepbrother says you’re not fit to lick my shoelaces. But I stuck up for you and said you were. Now I’m thinking he was right all along, and that’s not a pleasant thought. He is quite garrulous and has a quotidian habit of being wrong.

  I saw you on the Late Night Show Tuesday night. I liked your suit. Do you think it will ever come back in style?

  So, King, now you owe me three letters. (And I don’t mean A, B, C.)

  Sincerely,

  Cassie Callahan

  And Nick

  P.S. We have a dog, and we named her Kirby, in honor of you. But if you don’t “straighten up and fly right,” as Gram would say, we’re changing her name. The dog’s, not Gram’s.

  Johnathan Kirby, the Insult King

  The Hour of Insult

  New York, NY

  June 26

  Hey Kid,

  Quit bothering me, will ya? You and that Nick guy! Your letters are so bad it’s a waste of time opening them. Your letters are such a waste of paper that the forestry department should lock you up for abusing trees. I sure don’t need you two kids to tell me I’m the King of Insults. And the last thing I need is a dumb dog named after me.

  Lick your shoelaces? My suit is out of style? That the best you got, you amateurs? The King would make mincemeat pie outta ya, if he had time to waste on kids.

  The King don’t like kids. They’re just wrong. Their heads are too big for their bodies, and their hands and feet keep getting in their way and breaking things. Not only should children never be seen or heard, but they should never be read. Stop writing, will ya?

  You’re too much of a kid to know who W. C. Fields was, but he was an actor who was pretty good at insults. The most famous thing he ever said was, “I never met a kid I liked.” The King agrees wholeheartedly.