by Barbara B. Rollins

Syncopated Summer tells students like me, Luisa Lorca, of my summer. I thought "¡Sí!" when Dr. Hinklestein said I could start seventh grade at the Gray Jazz Academy. He collapsed and Mrs. Sherwood, the principal, was screaming. Thank goodness for Miss Paisley Gray! She may be tiny and as old as dirt, but we did CPR until the paramedics got there.

That's the way the whole summer went, from Wow! to Whoa! Peppercorn Cannady explained syncopated when he taught me to play the saxophone while we worked for Miss Gray. What should be strong is droopy and what doesn't stand a chance ends up being a humdinger.

I'd loved Peppercorn all my life, the way he'd turn a baking night into a cool concert. I thought he was just the old one-armed black yardman he looked like, but how wrong that was!

See, since Mamá died Roberto and I’ve helped Papá and the little kids, and it’s tough. For instance, I cooked on kerosene stove like in antique stores. Nobody could fix the leaky valve.

Roberto and I wanted to buy a modern stove. Then before Dr. Hinklestein collapsed into his coma he said I needed to buy a saxophone to go to the Jazz Academy. That meant two hundred dollars more! Roberto and I would need a whole bunch of odd jobs that summer.

I'd tell you more, but I don't want to ruin the story for you. I'll just tell you the summer went back and forth between "Whoa!" and "Wow!" The summer was syncopated, and how!