Lost Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

earlier this year, erasing our chances of knowing the planet better.
    Now Tonya was closely examining the petals of jewelweed. “This is awesome,” she said. “Very interesting that it has this translucent stalk.” She pressed it between her fingers. “There’s gold liquid inside.”
    â€œThat’s the healing salve,” Lynn said.
    She touched one of the seedpods nestled inside the flower, and it popped out. “Amazing,” she said. She looked at me for a minute, the first time we’d made eye contact in weeks or months or years, who knew? She probably assumed I would share her enthusiasm for the biological profile of jewelweed, but I stayed silent.
    Lynn had taken us to the path along the creek that ran through the center of the park. Farther up the path, at the crest of the hill, the observatory loomed. Stone steps led up to it, but it had been closed, of course, thanks to the public revelation of the observatory as teenage party spot. Or because of budget cuts, which was what the park gave as the official reason. Between here and there, the walkway was muddy and worn away. It would have been hard to get to even if it were open. Even if I could have handled it.
    â€œWhat are we actually doing?” I asked Lynn, who had crouched beside a rut in the dirt; the other kids circled around him.
    â€œWe’re identifying the optimal spots to build the footbridge,” he said, as if that should have been obvious to me.
    â€œUm,” I said, “shouldn’t you leave that footbridge stuff to the professionals? I do not have an impressive history with woodworking projects.”
    Lynn stood up and smiled at me so earnestly that it was like bright lights shining in my eyes. “Kids, listen up: don’t tell me that you can’t do something. Tell me that you want to learn to do something—​that you don’t know yet, but you will. Got it?” He took his own hammer out of the loop on his pants and held up a shiny nail. “Look,” he said. “This is a hammer. This is a nail.”
    â€œAnd this is your brain on drugs,” I said.
    â€œYou may not know how to use them now,” he continued, ignoring me, “but by the end of the summer, we’ll have built a bridge in the park. And”—​he emphasized this last part—​“with each other.” I fake-gagged, but I couldn’t get a laugh out of anyone.
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    By the end of the afternoon, my boots were caked with mud, I had dirt under my fingernails, and I was exhausted. My summer job at Dot’s Duds had mostly involved sitting on a chair, folding accessories (many of which ended up in my pocket), and stepping out to smoke cigarettes that I’d stolen from Dot. But, of course, I had told the therapist about that, too. I was essentially unemployable because of her, even though technically I’m pretty sure her big-mouth-ness was illegal, or at least unethical.
    Before we left, Lynn had us sit in a circle beneath the very welcome shade of a beechnut tree and write in our notebooks about our impressions of the program after day one. I had already lost my golf pencil, so I told Lynn, “I’m gonna do mine in invisible ink.” But he gave me his own pen, black and green marbled, heavy and cool to the touch.
    â€œThis is one of my most prized possessions,” he said. “Make sure you give it back. A good pen is hard to find.” Around me, my fellow inmates were furiously scribbling. I just wrote, “I hate this job already,” and closed the notebook tight. I kept his pen.
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    My father wasn’t home when I pulled my bike into our yard. As I went to lean it against the house, I heard the sound again, the music. Somehow I missed the side of the house and the bike came crashing down, right on my foot. I yelped.
    â€œYou okay?”
    It was the boy. He was tall enough that he could see over the fence, and he was holding his