Read Online Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli - Free Book Online Page B
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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about my choice of boyfriend. You remember how crushed I was when nobody showed up to greet me after I won the oratorical contest—well, that was nothing to how bad I felt when I saw his reaction to my trading in Stargirl for conventional Susan. The look in his eyes when I told him—that was maybe the low point in my life. I hope I never hurt anyone like that again. Even so, he wanted to blame you. He believed you pressured me to betray myself. I tried to tell him no, it was my choice. I was a big girl and I knew what I was doing; it was no crime to be popular. He pretended to understand and accept, because he loved me that much, but he would never call me Susan, and I never saw him happier than the day I told him I had decided to become Stargirl again.
As for you, I think he feels conflicted. He wants to like you. He does like you. You get automatic points for being the boy in my heart. And he knows that the better part of you didn’t give up without a fight. On the other hand, I think he still secretly blames you for my self-betrayal. He doesn’t think you’re—in his word—“ready” for me. He says in his letter he deliberately threw you off the trail by telling you we moved to Minnesota, not Pennsylvania. I had to laugh at that.
He tells me you still attend meetings of the Loyal Order of the Stone Bone. He tells me that he showed you my “office” in his toolshed. (I was hoping he would.) He says you were properly impressed. He says you appeared to be truly touched. He says there may be hope for you after all.
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
As for you, I think he feels conflicted. He wants to like you. He does like you. You get automatic points for being the boy in my heart. And he knows that the better part of you didn’t give up without a fight. On the other hand, I think he still secretly blames you for my self-betrayal. He doesn’t think you’re—in his word—“ready” for me. He says in his letter he deliberately threw you off the trail by telling you we moved to Minnesota, not Pennsylvania. I had to laugh at that.
He tells me you still attend meetings of the Loyal Order of the Stone Bone. He tells me that he showed you my “office” in his toolshed. (I was hoping he would.) He says you were properly impressed. He says you appeared to be truly touched. He says there may be hope for you after all.
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
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