Love, Stargirl Read Online Free PDF

And that’s the way they keep it. At 214 White Horse Road it’s still 1940. We just walk on in. Dad turns on a small table lamp with a fringed shade so we can see. We stay as quiet as we can. While Dad heads for the kitchen, I like to stop and look at the pictures. There must be a hundred family photographs in the living and dining rooms. I watch them go from black and white snapshots—the young married couple, he in his World War II uniform, she in a floral dress and wide-brimmed hat, standing arm in arm in front of a Ferris wheel—to color pictures of the old couple surrounded by kids and grandkids and, it looks like, great-grandkids.
    Leo, some people might say it’s creepy, tiptoeing through someone’s house at four o’clock in the morning—but it’s not. It’s wonderful. It’s a sharing. It’s the Huffelmeyers saying to us,
Come into our house. Look at whatever you like. Get to know us. We’re upstairs, sleeping. Feel free to stroll through our dreams and memories. We trust you. And don’t forget to take the empty bottles.
    An hour later we left the weekly cottage cheese and orange juice in the kitchen of the Dents, who are even older than the Huffelmeyers. My father headed east then, toward a silver-gray sky. New day coming. So far we had hardly said a word to each other. Now we did, though the conversation was stop-and-go, shorthand, constantly interrupted by the rattle of the milk carrier as my father hustled off to another customer.
    Dad: So.
    Me: So.
    Dad: Blue these days?
    Me: More like gray.
    Dad: I see you’re down to two pebbles.
    Me: You noticed.
    Dad: Leo Borlock?
    Me: Leo Borlock.
    Dad: Still?
    Me: Still.
    Dad: Worth it?
    Me: Not sure. I think so.
    Dad (
his hand on mine
): One thing you
can
be sure of.
    Me: That is?
    Dad: Me.
    Me (
smiling
): I know.
    Dad: And Mom.
    Me: I know.
             
    By the time we headed home, kids were pouring onto the playgrounds of grade schools for morning recess.
             
    March 24
    I was pretty OK the rest of yesterday. Puttered around the house. Visited Betty Lou’s with Dootsie. Then, as soon as I was alone—bedtime—it all came back.
    I dreamed of Señor Saguaro again. This time he didn’t spit darts. He didn’t speak. I couldn’t even see his mouth. Then I realized it was on the other side of him. I walked around to his back, and the mouth moved to the front. And that’s how it went: wherever I looked, the mouth moved to the other side. Soon I was desperately running in circles around the old cactus, trying to catch up with the mouth, because I knew that only when I caught up to it would it speak to me.
    I’m disappearing, Leo. Like Dootsie’s trick, except this is real. Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she’s gone. I’m not me anymore.
    I went to the stone piles today. I had a feeling that the shuffling man would come by again, and he did. Still wearing the moss-green knit pullover cap and tassel and navy peacoat, still gravelsliding along. He stopped in front of me. He said, “Are you looking for me?” and shuffled on without waiting for an answer. I called after him, “I’m looking for me! Have you seen me?!” but he just kept on moving, green tassel bobbing….
             
    March 27
    I played homeschool hooky. I stayed in my room all day—writing, reading, daydreaming, remembering. My mother didn’t object, didn’t ask why. I wrote three haiku and two lists. Maybe I’ll send you the haiku someday. Here’s the first list:
    THINGS I LIKE ABOUT LEO
    1. You loved me
    2. You liked my nose freckles
    3. You were nice to my rat
    4. You loved Archie
    5. Your shy smile
    6. You followed me into the desert
    7. You held my hand in front of everybody
    8. You chose Me over Them
    9. You filled up my happy wagon

    And the second list:
    THINGS I DON’T LIKE ABOUT LEO
    1. You dumped me
    2. You liked Susan more than Stargirl
    3. You