Love, Stargirl (8 page)

July 4

The Caraways and the Pringles spent the Fourth together. The two families are friends now, thanks to their daughters. We went to the parade. I love the marching bands best. Dootsie and I held our ears and screamed when the sirening fire trucks went by. It was very hot. There was no shade. Mr. Pringle had a plastic spritzer bottle. He kept spraying his face. Dootsie didn’t even notice the heat, but she kept snatching the bottle anyway until she used up all the water before the parade was half over. Mr. Pringle was not happy.

We barbecued chicken and hot dogs and veggie burgers on the Pringles’ patio and did our eating in the air-conditioned den. Don’t ask me how he did it, but in my honor Mr. Pringle even barbecued some smashed potatoes.

At night we watched the fireworks at the American Legion baseball field. Dootsie and I sat toboggan-style on a blanket as we watched the colors burst and spill across the sky. Thousands of upturned faces flashed in the night, people on blankets and lawn chairs, gasping together at the bursting, pulpy pearls, utterly silent between the cannon shots of the high boomers. It seemed the whole town was there—except for Betty Lou. I wondered if she could see from a window. I wondered about the lost man in the moss-green pullover cap. And Grace’s Charlie. And Alvina. And Perry. Were they all looking up, enthralled with the rest of us?

July 5

When I went to Enchanted Hill this morning, I carried more than the usual flashlight, walkie-talkie, and bath mat. I also took:

50 ft of rope

a croquet stake

a heavy hammer

a spatula

Here’s what I did: I pounded the stake into the middle of the field. I tied one end of the rope around the stake and walked the other end toward the eastern horizon and waited for the sun. As soon as it appeared, I used the rope to make a straight line between stake and sun. Then, at the end of the rope, I planted the spatula in the ground.

Have you figured it out yet? I’m making a calendar. Sort of like Stonehenge. It’s the way our ancestors kept track of themselves in time. Every Thursday I’ll plant another spatula. (I bought a bunch of them at the dollar store. They look like little white rubbery paddles.) Twenty-four Thursdays from now, on December 20, I’ll plant the last one. By then the spatulas will form an arc, a quarter circle. The arc will trace the path of the rising sun as it appears above the horizon a little later each week. December 21 is the day I’m aiming for: Winter Solstice. It’s the shortest day of the year, the day the sun turns from its northward path and begins to move south. It’s the official beginning of winter, but in a sense it’s also the true beginning of summer, because from December 21 on, each day will be a little longer than the one before.

But ancient people were never sure that was going to happen from year to year. They were afraid the light might keep getting less and less and finally disappear. That’s why they had Solstice celebrations, to persuade the sun to turn around and come back.

I’m going to have a Winter Solstice celebration. I’m going to invite people. Maybe the suspense is gone, but the wonder in Dootsie’s eyes—that’s what I want to share.

July 6

Three days in a row over 90—it’s officially a heat wave. And it’s worse than Arizona heat. No wonder you moved from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania heat is not only hot, it’s soggy. It’s like walking around in hot oatmeal. It’s like sitting on a steaming teakettle. It’s…oh, never mind, I can see I’m not getting any sympathy from you.

So I was cooling off in the library today, sitting at the end of a table, reading poems by Mary Oliver, when I caught a tiny flying movement out of the corner of my eye. And a tiny sound:
plit.
From where I sat I could look up the aisle to where the book stacks ended. It seemed to have come from between two of the stacks. And there it was again, about fifteen feet away, flying out from between the stacks—it looked like a seed—
plit
against the library window. I didn’t need three guesses.
That boy,
I thought.
Perry.

When the third
plit
came a minute later, I’d had enough. I slammed my book down and stomped up the aisle. There he was, sitting cross-legged on the floor between the stacks, blocking the way, reading a book, sucking on a lemon. I stood there, glaring down at him. At first I thought he was simply ignoring me. As the seconds went by, I became less sure. He seemed totally swallowed up in the book. A sucked-out rind of a half lemon lay on the floor. The other half was moving around in his mouth.

Frankly, I was surprised he wasn’t reading a comic. It was a real book. Of course, it wasn’t much of a book. It was thin. I couldn’t see the title. This was frustrating to me, because whenever I see somebody reading a book I
have
to see the title. Sometimes when this happens on a train or in a waiting room, I can get downright rude as I try to get into position to see the cover. But first things first. “I know you know I’m standing here,” I said.

His head jerked up, his blue eyes wide—a perfect imitation of a surprised person. “You win the Oscar,” I said.

“Huh?” he said, still putting on the surprised act.

“Never mind. You’re spitting seeds again. It’s one thing outside. This—”

He spat another one:
pthoo.

“—is a
library.
” I kicked his foot.

He kicked me back. I was shocked. It hurt. I snatched the book from his hands. It was called
Ondine.
A play by a French writer.

He snatched it back. I tried to give him my most wicked stare, which made me feel kind of silly since I haven’t had much practice at that kind of thing. And my stare was wasted anyway, since his nose was back into the book and he resumed his portrayal of the Reader Who Doesn’t Know There’s a Person Standing in Front of Him.

It occurred to me that there wasn’t a thing left for me to do but walk away. So I did. And came right back and pointed at him and said, “And stay away from Dootsie.”

He never looked up.

July 7

I have to say,
Ondine
is just about the last thing I would expect that kid to be reading. It’s a play about a girl who is not just a girl, she’s something like a mermaid. We might call her magical or fantastic, but I think more than anything else she is simply human. She sees with the eyes of a child. She is happy and forever singing. She lives with an old couple in the forest by a lake, and when a knight named Hans comes by, she thinks he is the most beautiful creature she has ever seen. She wants nothing more than to be his wife and to live happily ever after. But it’s not as simple as that. She has been fished up into a world that does not understand its Ondines. In the end the people reject her and banish her to the waters from which she came. Her beloved Hans dies on the shore. Mercifully, her memory of him is erased, and when she later sees him from the water she is struck anew by his beauty and she cries out: “How I should have loved him!”

Why was he reading this? Why was he reading at all? How could he be reading a book that, now that I’ve read it too, turns out to be my favorite of all time?

July 9

I woke up to a frantic phone call from Dootsie: “Hurry! There’s a red slipper in Betty Lou’s window!”

Ten minutes later we were in her living room. First thing I did was take the red slipper sock from the front window.

“Sorry,” she said, slumped on the sofa. “I didn’t mean to bother you. Sometimes it just gets to me.”

“Hey,” I said, “that’s what good friends are for—bad days.”

Betty Lou was forbidden to work, but she was allowed to give directions, and that’s how Dootsie and I, master pastry chefs, managed to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies. We fed her, combed her hair, massaged her feet, read to her, sang to her, danced for her, and by dinnertime she was dancing along with us.

July 11

Did I tell you?—I’m a working girl. I call myself the Garden Groomer. I put a sign in Margie’s window and an ad in the
Lenape
classifieds. Mr. Pringle made me some business cards on his computer. My logo is a worm with a baseball cap and a big smile. I’m not a flower expert, so I don’t do anything fancy. Just simple stuff—weed, water, deadhead. And I’m cheap. That’s probably the main reason I get jobs. That and my ultra-cool wheelbarrow. I bought it at the hardware store. I painted my worm on one side and a sunflower on the other.

Today I was at the house of a family named Klecko. Mrs. Klecko had called me last week. The house is beautiful, gray stone with a wraparound porch and yellow awnings, on a street shaded by sycamores.

I went right to the back, which is part brick patio, part grass, and the most beautiful garden I’ve worked on so far. The flowers alone would have been enough, but there was more—elegant grasses taller than me, little stone sculptures (a child reading, a garden angel), a white birch and a pair of holly trees, a flagstone path winding through it all. As I’ve told you before, enchanted places cannot be created, they can only be discovered—but the Kleckos’ garden comes pretty close.

The first thing I did was pick up the plastic toys and toss them onto the grass. Obviously, a little kid lived here—a boy, judging from the army tank and water pistol. Then I started in on the deadheading. (Sounds gruesome, but all it means is snipping off dead flowers, so the plant can direct all of its energy to the living.) I was pulling off some cone-flowers when I heard an agonized scream coming from the house. Then a second scream. Then a voice: “I’ll kill you!” And another voice: “I’ll tell Mommy!”

I was debating whether to go into the house and thinking that first voice sounded familiar when a brown-haired little boy in nothing but Batman underpants shot out the back door screaming and made a beeline for me. He was followed a second later by none other than…Alvina!

The boy crashed into me and swung around behind me, hugging me, his ear buried in my rear end, his arms wrapped around my hips. Alvina came up short when she recognized me.

“What are you doing here?” she snarled.

“I’m grooming the garden,” I said. “Do you live here?” I realized I had never known her last name.

“No,” she sneered. “I’m Goldilocks. I just snuck into Baby Bear’s bed.”

She reached for the boy. I saw that her hand was bleeding. He dug his fingers into my waist. She kicked him. He howled—and kicked her back. She howled.

“Stop!” I shrieked, surprising myself. This was a quiet neighborhood.

I peeled the boy off and made him face me. I growled at Alvina, “Back off.” She glared hatefully at me but backed off. “Is this your brother?”

“
It’s
the pimple on my butt,” she said.

“She’s the pimple on
my
butt!” the boy retorted.

“Enough!” I said. “What’s your name?”

He said it as if spitting at her: “Thomas!”

To Alvina: “Where’s your mother?”

“At the dentist.”

“So you’re supposed to be watching him?”

“Watching
it,
” she sneered.

Alvina’s breath came in hissy snorts. Her teeth were bared like a snarling dog’s. This was vintage Alvina. What surprised me was the little brother. Sure, he was cowering, but only in a pound-for-pound-mismatch sort of way. He was no more afraid of her than Dootsie had been in Margie’s. I thought:
Alvina, when he gets bigger, you’re in trouble.

“Your brother is a
he,
” I said, “not an
it.
”

“
It’s
gonna be dead as soon as you get outta here,” she said.

“Then I’m not going till your mother gets back.”

Thomas crowed, “Yeah!” He took a step forward and flicked out a bare leg at her. She came for him. I jabbed my finger in her face. I tried to look stern. “Stay!”

He laughed. “Yeah! Stay, doggie!”

Before I knew what was happening, he turned around, bent over, pulled down his little black and yellow Batmans and mooned his sister. This was clearly nothing new to Alvina. She showed neither shock nor disgust. She simply reared back and spat on the moon. He screamed bloody murder and pulled up his Batmans and rubbed his hiney. Alvina seemed to sense the advantage. Again she came forward. I put out my hand like a crossing guard. “Alvina—not another step.”

She stopped, gave me a sneery grin. “Yeah? What’re you gonna do?
Hit
me?”

What
was
I going to do? I had no idea. Tickle her? We locked eyes for the longest time. Finally she blinked. Her face changed. She jabbed her hand at me. “Look what he did!”

Her little finger was bleeding, the one with the elegant nail, only now it was an un-elegant stub.

“What happened?” I said.

“He chopped it,” she said, whining now, telling me the whole gruesome story. He had gotten hold of his father’s nail clippers. As soon as their mother left, he started clipping himself: fingernails, toenails, eyebrows, eyelashes. Since he was doing this at the breakfast table, Alvina took her cereal down to the basement den. Which is where she was sometime later, nestled in the arms of her father’s super-duper reclining easy chair, watching Comedy Central, except not really watching it, because that easy chair for some reason has the strangest effect on her—whenever she climbs into it she wants to doze off. And that’s what she was doing, not really sleeping but just nodding off in the chair, half hearing the TV sounds, when suddenly she heard a snippy little noise and felt a little tug on her little finger and she opened her eyes and there was Thomas with a mile-wide grin on his face, holding up a full half inch of pink, glittery fingernail that he had just clipped off. Which was bad enough, but that wasn’t all. So shocked was she at the sight of her mutilated fingernail that her hand shot out and knocked her father’s bowling trophy from the side table onto the floor, where it broke in half. Which was bad
enough,
except that her hand hit the sharp edge of the trophy base and came away with a nasty, bleeding cut. Which is when the screaming started.