Something is wrong with this picture.” Randy Jackson shielded his eyes as a gust of wind blew dust from the truck bed into his face. The tailgate on which he and Andrew and Brady sat creaked as he shifted his weight. “It’s not normal,” he concluded.
“What’s not normal?” asked Brady.
“The weather,” said Randy. “It’s the middle of April. “The snow has been gone for two weeks. It hasn’t rained. Every day it’s windy and dry and way warmer than it should be at this time of year. I should be happy that it’s not freezing cold and snowing every day, but this weather just makes me anxious.”
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Andrew pulled his hat down lower to keep it from flying off in the wind. “When it comes to weather,” he said, “there’s no such thing as normal. Take 2004. It never got up to 20° during the spring. Not once. It hit 20° on June 21, the first day of summer. On May 12 we had a snowstorm. The leaves didn’t come out on the trees till the last day of May. June and July were cold. It finally warmed up enough in August so people could go to the beach. Of course it was 30° in the end of September, but what’s the point of that? The days are so short by then. You’ve got no time to enjoy the heat.”
There was a moment of silence.
“What’s your point?” said Randy.
“Stop being anxious,” said Andrew. “Que sera sera.”
“That’s very helpful,” said Randy. “Another week of this wind and our cropland is going to be somewhere in the Interlake. And that’s going to make seeding a logistical nightmare. So don’t que sera sera me.”
“You worry too much,” said Brady.
“Somebody has to do it,” said Randy. “And I’m really good at it.”
“You’re good at it?” said Brady. “How can you tell that you’re good at worrying?”
“Because 99 per cent of the things I worry about never happen,” said Randy.
“I’ll wager none of them would happen even if you didn’t worry about them,” said Brady.
“Ah, but you don’t know that for sure,” said Randy. “Are you willing to take that risk?”
“Absolutely,” said Brady.
Randy sighed. “People who don’t worry have no idea,” he said.
“We appreciate all your hard work Randy,” said Andrew. “Thank you for saving us from all those imaginary disasters.”
“You’re welcome,” said Randy.
“It’s going to rain next week,” said Andrew.
“Oh goody,” said Randy. “Dad says it’s going to rain next week. All of my troubles are over.”
“I have three weather apps on my iPhone,” said Andrew, “and they all agree that it’s going to rain next week.”
“I have an app on my iPhone,” said Brady pulling the phone from his pocket, “that tells me next week is going to be a great week for romance, and also for finishing that novel I’ve been working on.”
Andrew and Randy looked surprised. “You’re working on a novel?” said Andrew.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Brady. “Of course not. But my iPhone apparently thinks I am. Which just goes to show that my iPhone doesn’t know any more about me than your iPhone knows about the weather.”
“Don’t insult my iPhone,” said Andrew. “My iPhone is very sensitive. Last week I got peeved with it when it tried to tell me that hurryhard isn’t a word in the Scrabble dictionary and I flung it across the living room onto the couch and it stopped working for like, 12 hours.”
“You should get an Android,” said Randy. “I swear at mine all the time and it never stops working.”
“How come you swear at it all the time?” asked Andrew.
“Because it’s a piece of crap,” said Randy. “But at least it isn’t overly sensitive.”
“Does it tell you that it’s going to rain next week?” said Andrew. “Because if it doesn’t, you should get a new one.”
“Of course it does,” said Randy. “It always tells me that it’s going to rain next week. It also always tells me that it’s going to be sunny next week. So depending on how you look at it, it’s either always right or it’s always wrong. And I’m more of an always wrong kind of guy.”
“That’s true,” said Andrew. “You definitely are.” A sudden gust of wind forced all three of them to grab for their hats.
“It’s going to be a good summer,” said Andrew.
“Is it?” said Randy. “How do you know?”
“I don’t,” said Andrew. “It’s just a random guess.”
Brady looked up from his phone. “My iPhone agrees with you,” he said.
Andrew patted Randy’s knee. “See?” he said pointing at Brady’s phone. “You should get one of those.”
