The Truth According to Blue Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Eve Yohalem

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Lesley Frances Vamos

  Cover art copyright © 2020 by Lesley Frances Vamos. Cover design by Karina Granda.

  Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  Visit us at LBYR.com

  First Edition: May 2020

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Yohalem, Eve, author.

  Title: The truth according to Blue / Eve Yohalem.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2020. | Audience: Ages 8–12. | Summary: “Thirteen-year-old Blue Broen teams up with her diabetic-alert dog and the spoiled daughter of a vacationing movie star on a treasure hunt to find her family’s ancestral fortune.”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019030782 | ISBN 9780316424370 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316424400 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316424394

  Subjects: CYAC: Buried treasure—Fiction. | Diabetes—Fiction. | Celebrities—Fiction. | Working dogs—Fiction. | German shepherd dog—Fiction. | Dogs—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.Y7585 Tru 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019030782

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-42437-0 (hardcover), 978-0-316-42440-0 (ebook)

  E3-20200410-JV-NF-ORI

  CONTENTS

  COVER

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  For Jen

  CHAPTER ONE

  True Fact: Hundreds of years ago, a wooden ship with square sails and a cargo of gold sank near a tiny island off New York. It’s still there today. (From True Facts, a journal by Blue Broen)

  A long tongue licked my cheek. I smooshed my face into my pillow, simultaneously drying the slime and hiding from another lick. Foiled. The long tongue swiped my ear.

  “Go away, Otis. School’s out.”

  But Otis didn’t go away. I knew because I could feel him panting on my neck.

  I rolled over and patted the blanket, which is my way of hitting the snooze button, and eighty pounds of German shepherd catapulted onto the bed. Otis draped his entire self across me, his chin strategically positioned on my shoulder so I could scratch behind his ears with both hands.

  “Five more minutes…,” I mumbled.

  I finger-combed Otis’s super-soft ear fur, lost in the orange glow of the insides of my eyelids and the dream I’d been having about an octopus that couldn’t hide because its ink was gold instead of black and—

  Poof! Morning brain fog evaporated. I bolted upright and four hairy dog limbs scrambled to the floor.

  “The hunt, Otis! The hunt begins today!”

  Otis barked.

  “Breakfast!”

  Wake-up mission accomplished, Otis retrieved the little pouch of diabetes supplies from my desk and dropped it on my lap before trotting out of the room. By the time I finished testing my blood sugar and entering the number of carbs I was about to eat into my pump so it would know how much insulin to give me, Otis was back, carrying a low-carb bagel with cream cheese and a mini milk carton in the basket that my mom leaves for us in the mornings. Otis and I are big fans of breakfast in bed.

  I unscrewed the bagel top and offered Otis a piece, which he refused.

  “Go on,” I said. “You love bagels.”

  Otis waited.

  “Fine.”

  I scooped a big glob of cream cheese off my side and spread it on his so he’d have double. He gulped it down whole.

  “Get excited, Oats Magoats. We’re about to change the course of history, you and me.”

  Otis was already excited. I could tell by the thwack of his tail and the lift of his nose. And it wasn’t just because today was the first day of vacation. This summer we had big plans.

  This summer, we were going treasure hunting.

  I scarfed down the rest of the bagel as fast as I could.

  “Clothes, please, Otis. Underwear, T-shirt, shorts.”

  Otis went to my closet, pulled what I was going to wear today off the shelves, and brought the whole clump back to me. Yes, my dog picks my outfits for me. It’s not that I’m lazy or anything; it’s that Otis loves having a job to do. Plus, okay, I’m kind of lazy, especially in the mornings. But as long as I don’t care about always having to wear whichever clothes are on top of the stacks, the system works for both of us.

  Dressed, bagel scarfed, and ready to go, we headed downstairs. I could smell peonies—Mom’s second-favorite flower—before I got to the kitchen. While they’re in season she puts vases of them everywhere: on the counter, the table, even on top of the fridge. I grabbed the supplies I needed from various drawers and stuffed them into a backpack: water bottle for me, water dish for Otis, phone for me, bone for Otis, notebook, pen, sunscreen, diabetes kit, underwater-view bucket.

  “Towel, Otis.”

  Otis loped off to the laundry / Mom’s gardening supply / Dad’s tool / my old baby gear room.

  “Why do you need a towel?” Mom said, coming in while I was emptying a box of ind
ividually wrapped packs of cashews into my bag. She opened the freezer and took out a chilled water bottle, her “outdoor AC.”

  “Science project. Why are you still home?”

  Summer is my parents’ busy season, and they’re usually out of the house by seven in the morning, seven days a week. My dad builds houses, and my mom is a gardener. But because we live in Sag Harbor, which is part of the Hamptons (yes, those Hamptons, the New York beach resorts where rich people and celebrities go for summer vacations but also where regular families like mine live and have jobs and go to school), my dad is a “general contractor” and my mom is a “landscape designer.”

  The reason I had homework even though it was summer was because I got an Incomplete in school this year and had to do a makeup project. Turns out when you read The Treasure Hunter’s Bible and Scouring the Seas instead of filling out Blah Blah Weather Data worksheets, it’s hard to pass Earth Science. My project involved collecting water samples all around the harbor to show how the ocean affects the weather. Or possibly how the weather affects the ocean, I couldn’t remember which. My parents knew about the makeup project, which worked as an excellent cover-up, because they didn’t know about the treasure hunt. Nobody—especially my parents—knew about the hunt except Otis and my best friend, Nora.

  Nora. Who was leaving tomorrow for seven weeks at theater camp. Which I was trying very hard not to think about.

  Mom grabbed an apple from a bowl on the counter and stuck it in her tote bag. “We’re going to Edward Buttersby’s house, remember? For the planning meeting?”

  Aha. Now I understood the floaty tunic-y thing Mom had on over her faded work jeans and T-shirt and why she had sent Otis to wake me up when I didn’t have school. And, yes, she meant that Edward Buttersby, the movie star, a.k.a. Command Pilot Jasper Jones from Space Voyager. He also happened to be this year’s host for the annual Cure Juvenile Diabetes Foundation fund-raiser. Since I was the poster child (literally) for the local CJDF chapter, I had to go to the party and give a speech.

  You might think it would be super exciting to hang out with someone like Edward Buttersby at his house, but I’ve been doing these fund-raisers for a long time, and I’ve learned otherwise.

  “That meeting’s not for another week,” I insisted, willing it to be true.

  Otis dropped a beach towel at my feet, and I started cramming it into the backpack.

  “It’s this morning.” Mom sighed. “I told you about it a week ago.”

  It’s possible she was right about that. I crammed faster so I could make my escape.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t go. I have plans.”

  Mom checked her watch. “Get in the truck, Blue.”

  “You don’t need me there anyway. Why do I have to go?”

  “You’re thirteen. Thirteen is plenty old enough to get more involved in community service, which is what this is.”

  I gave up on the towel and swung the backpack over my shoulder. “Mom, my science project is important. It’s homework.”

  “Get in the truck, Blue.” Mom put her hand on the small of my back and gently steered me toward the front door.

  “Otis hates boring meetings. He’ll throw up.”

  “Get in the truck, Blue.” She grabbed her floppy sun hat from the hall table.

  “But—”

  “Come, Otis…,” Mom said.

  We got in the truck.

  CHAPTER TWO

  True Fact: Famous people, when you meet them in person, turn out one of two ways: Either they’re completely normal, like they could be someone’s mom or dad, or they’re completely weird and full of themselves, and you’re glad they can’t remember your name and you’ll never see them again after the party.

  Edward Buttersby had rented a house in East Hampton for the summer. Or more like he’d rented an entire estate. From the road all we could see was a mile-high hedge (privet, according to Mom) that stretched across a property at least three times as wide as any other property on the street, and a driveway so long you couldn’t see the end of it.

  “Three biscuits says he’s a weirdo,” I whispered into Otis’s ear. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and Otis was in his favorite spot in the middle of the back seat, where he could see out the front and breathe on my neck at the same time.

  “I heard that,” Mom said.

  Her pickup truck crunched along the driveway, trailing mud on the pearly white pebbles.

  “Dramatic dogwoods,” she said.

  “Astounding azaleas,” I said.

  “Hexcellent hydrangeas.”

  “Such an elegant English plane,” I said.

  “You knew that was an English plane tree?”

  “Mom, please. I’m your daughter.”

  And then we were there. At the circular part of the driveway in front of what looked more like a beach club than a private house. It had gray shingles and white shutters and was huge. Humongously so. Ancient weeping willows drooped across the front lawn, making shaggy-dog shadows on weed-free grass.

  Mom rang the bell, and the three of us waited for someone to answer it.

  “Please don’t do anything embarrassing,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Mom said.

  “When you meet Edward Buttersby. Please don’t do that thing where your voice gets really high.”

  Before Space Voyager, Edward Buttersby starred in a miniseries based on one of those nineteenth-century English romance novels, which Mom may have watched two or ten or a hundred times.

  “I have no idea what you mean,” Mom said, smoothing her hair in the reflection of the window next to the front door. “Just make sure you don’t do anything embarrassing either.”

  “When have I ever done anything embarrassing?” I protested.

  Mom smiled and smoothed my hair. “Never,” she said.

  The door swung open. Instead of Edward Buttersby, it was my friend Robin’s mom, wearing a white chef’s uniform.

  “Hey, Mrs. Alvarado, how are you?” I said.

  Mom and Mrs. Alvarado kissed hello. Over their shoulders I could see a white floor with a white rug, white walls, and white furniture. I looked down at my fuzzy black dog and pointed to the mat.

  “Wipe, Otis,” I said.

  Otis wiped his paws, and we went inside.

  World-famous actor Edward Buttersby emerged from the whiteness. His feet were bare; he had on jeans that were frayed at the bottom and a denim shirt that had one more button undone than any dad I know would wear.

  “I’m Ed. You must be Emily and Blue.” He stuck out a hand for Mom and then me to shake. “And who’s this?”

  It felt wrong seeing Command Pilot Jasper Jones out of uniform and wearing a leather necklace with a bead on it. I couldn’t decide whether to thank him for saving humanity from mutant alien fungus or tell him that Nora got the same necklace at the surf shop in town.

  “Blue?” my mother said.

  “Sorry,” I said, praying I hadn’t been staring, or if I had that no one had noticed. “Otis, meet Mr. Buttersby.”

  Otis stuck out a paw, which Edward Buttersby shook. Otis has excellent manners.

  “He’s a diabetic-alert dog,” Mom explained in a Minnie Mouse squeak. “He can smell blood sugar that’s too high or too low. I hope you don’t mind him inside the house. We can always leave him out—”

  “No, no,” Ed said, leading us into a snowy-white living room with a wall of windows and a view of what everyone calls the most beautiful beach in America. “Jules and I love animals, right, Jules?”

  I turned away from the ocean and buried all thoughts of boats and treasure. Lounging on the couch was a supermodel, scrolling on her phone with a piece of long gummy candy hanging out of her mouth. She was so into her phone she didn’t hear the question.

  “How old are you, Blue?” Ed asked.

  “She just finished seventh grade,” Mom said.

  “My daughter, Jules, just finished seventh grade too,” Ed said. “We got here a couple of
days ago, and she doesn’t know a soul. This is perfect. Isn’t it perfect, Jules?”

  Jules, who I guess wasn’t a supermodel after all—or maybe she was, if it’s possible for middle schoolers to be supermodels—dragged her eyes up from her phone. “Perfect.” She held out a fresh piece of dangly candy. “Worm?”

  “Jules!” Ed said. “Blue has diabetes, remember? She doesn’t eat candy.”

  Actually, I eat candy every day, but I didn’t think Mom would want me to give Ed a blood sugar management lesson two minutes after saying hello.

  “Sorry,” Jules said, twisting the worm around her finger.

  “Hey, why don’t you two go hang out while Emily and I work on the boring party stuff,” Ed said, like he’d just been struck by the most brilliant idea ever.

  There was a long awkward pause while Jules went back to scrolling and I sent my mom a look of misery and she gave me back a look of helplessness and Otis licked the fluffy white rug.

  “Jules?” said Ed.

  “What? Oh. You wanna go outside or something?” Jules asked me.

  I pictured grabbing Otis and making a run for it out the door, down the driveway—and then nine miles home, where I’d collapse from exhaustion and low blood sugar.

  “Sure,” I said to Jules. “Let’s go outside. Come, Otis.”

  Jules and Otis and I went through one of many sets of sliding doors to a giant deck with an infinity pool that looked out over the ocean. We sat on white lounge chairs under white umbrellas for another long, awkward pause.

  This one was even longer and more awkward than the first. It went on and on and on and on and—

  “Aren’t you supposed to be fat?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You know. Because you have diabetes. Isn’t diabetes a thing that happens to fat people?”

  Deep breath.

  I get this all the time. Lots of people think you get diabetes because you eat too much sugar or you don’t exercise, and if you just lose weight and choke down a bottle of cinnamon every day, it’ll go away. Lots of people are wrong.

  “It’s not like that,” I said.

  “Oh. Cool.” Jules flung her sheet of shiny blond hair over one shoulder. “It’s hot. You wanna go swimming?”