Read Online Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - Free Book Online Page A

Dootsie’s face. He brought us into his arms and held us, Dootsie breathing so deeply between us it seemed she herself was generating the night. I felt his lips through my hair. He gave me a final squeeze on the arm and walked away toward the two red dots that marked the truck in the distance.
    I sat down in the dark and cradled Dootsie like a baby, swinging her gently, humming a lullaby accompanied by the swish of our dresses rubbing together. When night began to fade in the east, I woke her. “Come on. Sunny Sun is coming. We have to be ready.” I stood her on her feet and forced her to walk around the field until she was fully awake.
    “Where is it?” she said.
    “It’s coming,” I told her. The sky in the east was gray now, the little stucco bungalow was coming into view. I pointed. “See? Keep watching.” I straddled the wagon behind her. “See?” I whispered in her ear. “It gets lighter and lighter. The colors change…see…see…”
    I said no more. We watched the sky turn from pearly gray to powder blue…and
there…
out beyond, 90 million miles beyond, a brightening, a mist of lighter light, a puff…
there…now!…
and suddenly I was up and running, as I realized I was on the wrong end of the sled, I was missing something maybe even grander than the sunrise itself. I ran straight for the sun. I didn’t worry about Dootsie, because I knew she never even noticed that I had left the wagon. Then I turned and looked back and saw…and that’s as far as words will take me. So I’ll fall back to this: I saw a little girl in a wooden wagon, her dress spilling colors over its sides, staring at the rising sun as if it were the very dawn of creation. As I walked toward her I had no urge to turn around and see the sunrise myself, for I was already looking at everything I needed to see. She never moved as I came closer and closer, until I could see the growing glint of the rising sun doubled in her eyes.
    I resumed my seat on the wagon behind her. Halfway born, the sun lost its edge and its orange and flooded the east with blinding yellow. I picked her up and propped her on my shoulders, the proper place to greet the sunrise. I looked to the edge of the field—the milk truck was gone. I walked her around. Neither of us wanted to leave. Only the sun inching up from the horizon gave hint that time was passing. As we meandered, she said my name three times:
    “Stargirl?”
    “Yes?”
    “That was better than TV.”
    “It was.”
    “Stargirl?”
    “Yes?”
    “Does the sun do that every day?”
    “Yes.”
    “Stargirl?”
    “Yes?”
    “Every day is sun day.”
             
    All dressed up for Summer Solstice—it seemed a waste to just walk straight home. So I walkie-talkied my mother and told her we were taking the long way. At first the streets were empty, except for the drivers delivering copies of the
Morning Lenape.
The folded papers seemed to leap on their own from the car windows. By the time the sun sat atop the chimneys, school buses were rumbling past and women in robes and slippers were slinking forth to pick up their papers. We waved to everyone we saw. I wondered what they thought: a big girl pulling a little girl in a wagon, both dolled up as if going to a prom or wedding. I like to think we gave them a happy start to the longest day.
             
    June 28
    It was more like a mind rinse than a mind wash at Enchanted Hill this morning. I couldn’t stop remembering, even refeeling, the magic of last week, of Dootsie’s eyes. I sense the wonder still haunting the hill, hungry for more eyes.
             
    June 29
    I got a letter from Archie today. I miss him a lot. Some of my happiest memories are of sitting with Archie on his back porch, rocking in the chair, gazing at the purple Maricopas through his pipe smoke (don’t you love that cherry smell?), talking his ears off about you. He liked you—I didn’t allow him not to—but even then I could tell he had his doubts