Read Online Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - Free Book Online
Authors: Jerry Spinelli
Tags: United States, Fiction, General, People & Places, Juvenile Fiction, Social Issues, Love Stories, Young Adult Fiction, Large Type Books, Love & Romance, Education, Friendship, Pennsylvania, love, Emotions & Feelings, Diaries, Letters, Eccentrics and eccentricities, Home Schooling
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never be anywhere but
there.
Does it make you wonder, Leo? Someday in the far future, when the Milky Way has turned another cosmic click, will someone carry a chair to your grave site and keep you company forever? Can you imagine someone loving you that much? Can I?
And I’m thinking maybe I did the donut thing all wrong. How was he supposed to know what was in the bag? Or that the donuts were for him? He probably thought it was just litter and in the name of Grace booted it away.
So this time I’ll do it differently. I got a small white wicker basket. I put in three donuts. I covered the donuts with plastic wrap so he could see what was there. I’ll sneak out early tomorrow morning, à la Dootsie, while it’s still dark, and leave the basket by the tombstone.
June 16
He took it!
I rode to the cemetery this afternoon. I was nervous. I pedaled around behind him. I kept my distance. At first I didn’t see it. Then I changed my angle—and there it was, the white basket, sitting in the grass beside his foot. He was nodding off, his chin in his chest. I was so happy I gave a little “Yippee!” as I pedaled away.
June 18
Here’s the new ad I put in the
Morning Lenape
today. I don’t know if he reads the paper. I decided it would be safer not to use names:
Every day he visits her,
talks with her,
sleeps with her.
June 21
Summer Solstice.
When you woke up this morning, dear Leo, the sun was directly above the Tropic of Cancer. You will never find it any farther north. This is the longest day of the year. From now until the Winter Solstice on December 21, each day will be a few minutes shorter than the one before. Today is the official beginning of summer.
In other words, it’s a holiday. Not a people holiday—a natural holiday. And who wants to celebrate a holiday alone? And since you’re not here, I thought:
OK—Dootsie.
When I told her about it last week, the first thing she said was, “Let’s get dressed up!” Amazing how this little kid is always one step ahead of me. We went to my mother’s workroom. My mother dove into the remnant pile of her recent costume-making jobs, stitched together some pieces, and voilà: Dootsie looking like she flew through a rainbow. As for me, I got out the buttercup dress I wore to the Ocotillo Ball. (You remember, don’t you? The ball you didn’t ask me to.)
I decided to do it, naturally enough, on Enchanted Hill. Dootsie stayed over at my house last night. My mother had told her parents what I had in mind. They had no problem with Dootsie sleeping over, but they were a little shaky on her going outside while it was still dark, even for such a short distance, even with me. So my mother volunteered my father.
“He’ll drive them in the milk truck,” she told them.
“Won’t he be late for work?” they said.
“It happens now and then,” she said. “The customers understand. Acts of God and nature. Snow. Ice. Crazy daughter.”
“Okay,” they said.
Dootsie was limp as a rag doll when I dressed her at 4:30 a.m. As usual, my mother came down to the porch, walkie-talkie in the pocket of her bathrobe. Turning on the porch light, I noticed that the porch light of our next-door neighbors, the Cantellos, was also on.
We loaded Dootsie and her little wooden wagon—the one that had carried Boss Queen in the parade—into the truck and rattled off to Enchanted Hill. A whole minute later my father parked the truck at the weedy edge of the field, near the white stucco bungalow, and carried the wagon and bath mat while I toted the little sleeper. The earth was lumpy as always, but softer now than during the winter. I didn’t use my flashlight. The quarter moon, and my father, were enough.
My father put down the wagon and stood beside me facing the horizon. It was still too dark to tell where earth stopped and sky began. He reached for my hand. He turned to us. He touched
there.
Does it make you wonder, Leo? Someday in the far future, when the Milky Way has turned another cosmic click, will someone carry a chair to your grave site and keep you company forever? Can you imagine someone loving you that much? Can I?
And I’m thinking maybe I did the donut thing all wrong. How was he supposed to know what was in the bag? Or that the donuts were for him? He probably thought it was just litter and in the name of Grace booted it away.
So this time I’ll do it differently. I got a small white wicker basket. I put in three donuts. I covered the donuts with plastic wrap so he could see what was there. I’ll sneak out early tomorrow morning, à la Dootsie, while it’s still dark, and leave the basket by the tombstone.
June 16
He took it!
I rode to the cemetery this afternoon. I was nervous. I pedaled around behind him. I kept my distance. At first I didn’t see it. Then I changed my angle—and there it was, the white basket, sitting in the grass beside his foot. He was nodding off, his chin in his chest. I was so happy I gave a little “Yippee!” as I pedaled away.
June 18
Here’s the new ad I put in the
Morning Lenape
today. I don’t know if he reads the paper. I decided it would be safer not to use names:
Every day he visits her,
talks with her,
sleeps with her.
June 21
Summer Solstice.
When you woke up this morning, dear Leo, the sun was directly above the Tropic of Cancer. You will never find it any farther north. This is the longest day of the year. From now until the Winter Solstice on December 21, each day will be a few minutes shorter than the one before. Today is the official beginning of summer.
In other words, it’s a holiday. Not a people holiday—a natural holiday. And who wants to celebrate a holiday alone? And since you’re not here, I thought:
OK—Dootsie.
When I told her about it last week, the first thing she said was, “Let’s get dressed up!” Amazing how this little kid is always one step ahead of me. We went to my mother’s workroom. My mother dove into the remnant pile of her recent costume-making jobs, stitched together some pieces, and voilà: Dootsie looking like she flew through a rainbow. As for me, I got out the buttercup dress I wore to the Ocotillo Ball. (You remember, don’t you? The ball you didn’t ask me to.)
I decided to do it, naturally enough, on Enchanted Hill. Dootsie stayed over at my house last night. My mother had told her parents what I had in mind. They had no problem with Dootsie sleeping over, but they were a little shaky on her going outside while it was still dark, even for such a short distance, even with me. So my mother volunteered my father.
“He’ll drive them in the milk truck,” she told them.
“Won’t he be late for work?” they said.
“It happens now and then,” she said. “The customers understand. Acts of God and nature. Snow. Ice. Crazy daughter.”
“Okay,” they said.
Dootsie was limp as a rag doll when I dressed her at 4:30 a.m. As usual, my mother came down to the porch, walkie-talkie in the pocket of her bathrobe. Turning on the porch light, I noticed that the porch light of our next-door neighbors, the Cantellos, was also on.
We loaded Dootsie and her little wooden wagon—the one that had carried Boss Queen in the parade—into the truck and rattled off to Enchanted Hill. A whole minute later my father parked the truck at the weedy edge of the field, near the white stucco bungalow, and carried the wagon and bath mat while I toted the little sleeper. The earth was lumpy as always, but softer now than during the winter. I didn’t use my flashlight. The quarter moon, and my father, were enough.
My father put down the wagon and stood beside me facing the horizon. It was still too dark to tell where earth stopped and sky began. He reached for my hand. He turned to us. He touched
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