The Sunflower Forest

‘Yeah, they’re lucky.’

‘Yeah,’ he agreed.

‘Yeah.’

Silence.

‘So. Where are you going to college?’ he asked me. ‘Have you been accepted anyplace yet?’

I shrugged.

‘I’m going to Ohio State. They’ve got a good statistics department there. That’s what I’m going to major in. Statistics.’ He shifted his books again. ‘My old man says there’s lots of jobs available in statistics. And you know how it is. You pretty much do what the old man says.’

With a smile, I nodded. I had located my vocabulary notebook, so I shut the locker door. By the hall clock I could see I had only two minutes left to get to German and I didn’t want to be late because Mr Tennant gave us marks when we were tardy.

Paul was studying the fingernails on his left hand. ‘I wanted to ask you something – in history class,’ he said, still regarding his hand. ‘But you weren’t there.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘No.’

Still the intense interest in his fingernails.

‘See, I’m a friend of Kurt’s – you know, Claire’s brother. And about this thing on Friday night.’ He looked over. ‘You going to it?’

‘You mean Claire’s party?’ I asked.

He nodded.

I shrugged. ‘I guess so.’

‘You want to go with me?’

My jaw went slack.

‘I mean, assuming you’re not going with anyone else or anything. Are you?’

‘Yes. I mean, no, I’m not. I mean, yes, I’ll go with you. If you want.’ I grinned. ‘Yeah. OK. I will.’

‘Great, then.’ He hoisted up his books. ‘I gotta go to English. Listen, I’ll talk to you more after school, OK?’

I nodded.

With a smile he turned and took off down the hallway.

I stood next to my locker, a stupid grin plastered all over my face, and watched him disappear. Astonishment had me spellbound.

So this was it.

Still grinning like a Cheshire cat, I tossed my pencil way up into the air and tried to catch it. The teacher monitoring the hall gave me an odd look. I hooted at her, then grabbed my books and ran for German.

Chapter Four (#ulink_ae87b594-1b76-5f64-8439-580772168571)

When I arrived home from school, I went into the kitchen to fix myself a snack. Megan was sitting at the table and spreading butter on soda crackers. I took down the bread and then went to the cupboard to get the peanut butter.

‘There isn’t any peanut butter,’ Megan said.

‘There was this morning.’

‘Yes, but I ate it already.’

Frowning, I turned. ‘You know I always have a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich when I get home from school. Always. Since before you were born, you little brat. That was my peanut butter.’

‘Not any more!’ She giggled. ‘Here. You want some crackers?’

‘Aren’t there any apples left either? Did you pig them all up too?’

‘No. But all that’s left are the old wormy ones that fell off Mrs Reilly’s tree.’

I sat down at the table and took the crackers away from Megan. Intently, I worked on extracting one from the wrapper without breaking it. ‘Where’s Mama?’

‘In her bedroom.’ Megan was concentrating on spreading butter to the exact edges of her cracker.

‘Is she OK?’

Megan shrugged. ‘I guess so. She’s still got her bathrobe on. And she doesn’t look like she combed her hair yet today. But when she was out a little while ago, she said “hi” to me, so I guess she’s all right.’ Megan paused to look up. ‘But you know what she’s doing?’

‘What?’

Megan wrinkled her nose. ‘She’s got all those photographs out. You know. The ones of Popi and Mutti and Elek.’

I sighed.

‘You know something, Les,’ Megan said, ‘what I really feel like doing someday when she isn’t looking is taking all those old pictures and burning them in the fire.’

‘What an awful thing to say, Megan. All Mama’s family got killed in the war. And she misses them. If something happened to all of us, would you want some kid of yours to burn up our pictures?’

She took out another cracker. ‘Well, I dunno. If it kept me from remembering I had real live kids here in front of me, then I might.’

‘She remembers us, Megs. Don’t be so selfish.’

Megan didn’t reply.

‘Hey, you want to hear some super news,’ I said, hoping to distract her. ‘You know Claire’s party on Friday?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, guess what? I got a date for it.’