funny. My mother told her that when she is able to stop taking the medicine, after a while, her hair will grow back thicker and curlier than it was before, but when Mom said that, Molly just said, "Great," very sarcastically and kept staring at her comb full of blond strands. Then Mom said that if it got worse, they would buy her a wig, and Molly said, "Oh,
gross!
" and stomped off to our bedroom.
So things are kind of difficult at our house now. Molly can't go back to school until she gains a little weight and gets her color back. She says she won't go back to school
anyway
if her hair keeps falling out. Mom and Dad don't say much about school. They're depressed about the whole thing, I can tell.
It will just take time. If we're all patient and wait, everything will be the same as it used to be, I know.
Will Banks is very kind to Molly. He comes to the house three evenings a week to work in the darkroom, and he always brings something for her: a library book to read, or a candy bar, some little thing like that. One night he brought a handful of pussy willows that he had found behind his house: the first ones of spring, and Molly was thrilled. It was the first time I'd seen her really happy about something for a long time.
"Oh, Will," she said softly, "they're beautiful." She held them against her cheek and rubbed the softness like a kitten. We were sitting in the kitchen, and I took a small vase and ran some water into it.
"No water, Meg," said Will. "If you put pussy willows in water, they'll blossom and then die. Just put them in the vase alone, and they'll stay beautiful forever."
There's so much I don't know. I gave Molly the vase, without water, and she arranged the pussy willows in it; she took them up to our room and put them on the table beside her bed. That night, after we were in bed and Molly was already asleep, I looked over, and the moonlight was across the table and across Molly; behind her, on the wall, was the shadow of pussy willows.
It's not surprising that Will knows so much about so many things, because he has an incredible memory. When we began working together in the darkroom, I showed him, first, the basic procedures for developing film. I only showed him once. Then
he did it himself, developing a toll that he had shot of his truck and his dog, using his own camera to make sure it was working properly before he gave it to me. He remembered everything: the temperatures, the proportions of chemicals, the timing right down to the second. His negatives were perfect. The pictures weren't great, because, as he said, he'd been "just fooling around, wanting to get the feel of the camera again," but they were technically perfect, developed exactly right.
And he's immensely curious. When I could see that he'd learned to develop film properly, I wanted to go on to the next step: printing the pictures. But Will said, "Wait. What would happen if, when I was developing the film, I purposely made the chemicals too warm? What would happen if I agitated them less? Or more? And what if I had underexposed the film, Meg, when I took the pictures? Couldn't I compensate for that when I developed the film, maybe by prolonging the developing time?"
I thought for a minute. Those things had never occurred to me, and they should have. Of
course
you could compensate.
"I never tried," I said, thinking. "But I bet you could. There must be a book that tells how. Let meâ"
He interrupted me. He's also impatient, I've
found, and very independent. "Oh, the heck with books, Meg. Let's figure it out for ourselves. Let's experiment. Someone must have figured it out once, in order to write a book. Why can't we do the same thing?"
So we did. That was a Monday night, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, each of us shot several rolls of film, purposely underexposing and overexposing them. On Wednesday night we developed them, each one a different way. We changed the temperatures on some, the developing time on some, the amount of
gross!
" and stomped off to our bedroom.
So things are kind of difficult at our house now. Molly can't go back to school until she gains a little weight and gets her color back. She says she won't go back to school
anyway
if her hair keeps falling out. Mom and Dad don't say much about school. They're depressed about the whole thing, I can tell.
It will just take time. If we're all patient and wait, everything will be the same as it used to be, I know.
Will Banks is very kind to Molly. He comes to the house three evenings a week to work in the darkroom, and he always brings something for her: a library book to read, or a candy bar, some little thing like that. One night he brought a handful of pussy willows that he had found behind his house: the first ones of spring, and Molly was thrilled. It was the first time I'd seen her really happy about something for a long time.
"Oh, Will," she said softly, "they're beautiful." She held them against her cheek and rubbed the softness like a kitten. We were sitting in the kitchen, and I took a small vase and ran some water into it.
"No water, Meg," said Will. "If you put pussy willows in water, they'll blossom and then die. Just put them in the vase alone, and they'll stay beautiful forever."
There's so much I don't know. I gave Molly the vase, without water, and she arranged the pussy willows in it; she took them up to our room and put them on the table beside her bed. That night, after we were in bed and Molly was already asleep, I looked over, and the moonlight was across the table and across Molly; behind her, on the wall, was the shadow of pussy willows.
It's not surprising that Will knows so much about so many things, because he has an incredible memory. When we began working together in the darkroom, I showed him, first, the basic procedures for developing film. I only showed him once. Then
he did it himself, developing a toll that he had shot of his truck and his dog, using his own camera to make sure it was working properly before he gave it to me. He remembered everything: the temperatures, the proportions of chemicals, the timing right down to the second. His negatives were perfect. The pictures weren't great, because, as he said, he'd been "just fooling around, wanting to get the feel of the camera again," but they were technically perfect, developed exactly right.
And he's immensely curious. When I could see that he'd learned to develop film properly, I wanted to go on to the next step: printing the pictures. But Will said, "Wait. What would happen if, when I was developing the film, I purposely made the chemicals too warm? What would happen if I agitated them less? Or more? And what if I had underexposed the film, Meg, when I took the pictures? Couldn't I compensate for that when I developed the film, maybe by prolonging the developing time?"
I thought for a minute. Those things had never occurred to me, and they should have. Of
course
you could compensate.
"I never tried," I said, thinking. "But I bet you could. There must be a book that tells how. Let meâ"
He interrupted me. He's also impatient, I've
found, and very independent. "Oh, the heck with books, Meg. Let's figure it out for ourselves. Let's experiment. Someone must have figured it out once, in order to write a book. Why can't we do the same thing?"
So we did. That was a Monday night, and on Tuesday and Wednesday, each of us shot several rolls of film, purposely underexposing and overexposing them. On Wednesday night we developed them, each one a different way. We changed the temperatures on some, the developing time on some, the amount of
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