Seventeen Against the Dealer Read Online Free PDF

But I can’t.” Her hair fell forward, brushing her cheeks. “But I know James will be a good doctor. You will, James. I don’t understand about counting up millions of years, and I can’t remember the names you said, but—you can think, so you ought to be able to think of how to solve this. People who can think,” she said earnestly, and nobody laughed at her, “can think of things.” She reached up her hand to tuck the long, dark-gold hair back behind her ear.
    â€œMaybeth’s right,” Jeff said. “We can’t think of anything, but you should ask your adviser. Unless you don’t trust him?”
    â€œHer,” James corrected. Dicey grinned. “No, I do trust her.”
    Gram was staring at Dicey. “I remember the first time I ever saw you, girl. You looked about this tired.”
    Dicey’s smile stayed on her face. “You didn’t,” she told her grandmother.
    â€œWell, I wasn’t,” Gram snapped. “I had all the time in the world, at that time, and it was too much time, that was how it felt. Geology notwithstanding, and all the ages, from Precambrian right up to the present, what is it, Helocene?”
    â€œYeah,” James said, not sounding surprised that Gram knew the name.
    Gram’s hands were busy, knitting a blue sock. The three needles formed an exaggerated triangle, each line extended beyond its intersections with the others. The wool rose out of the workbag in a thin line and the tube of sock hung down.“When I think about geology, it feels like time is so long—which makes my own time so short—I don’t intend to waste a minute of it. The hard thing,” Gram concluded, folding the needles together, wrapping the knitting around them, “is knowing what constitutes waste.” She tucked her knitting into the workbag and stood up. “I’m going to bed. A happy New Year to you.”
    As she did each New Year’s Eve, she leaned over to kiss each one of them on the forehead, Sammy first. Sammy reached up to hold her there, so he could return the kiss. They weren’t frequent kissers, the Tillermans, but on New Year’s Eve they always did, just as they always didn’t stay up until midnight. This was their way of marking the end and the beginning, Dicey thought, standing up to wait her turn.
    Maybeth, James, and Jeff, too—Gram kissed her family good night, and finally Dicey. At the door into the hallway she turned around, with a swish of her long skirt. Her eyes took them all in, and her head nodded briskly. “Those dishes are waiting. You three, give Dicey and Jeff a little privacy, you hear me?”

CHAPTER 3
    N ew Year’s Day was about a third gone when Dicey woke up. She didn’t need any clock to tell her it was midmorning; she just looked out the window and saw the bright, cold sunlight sprinkling down on the garden. And she could feel the time in her body. She felt rested from sleeping so long and deep, she felt filled up with energy. She wished it weren’t New Year’s Day. She’d have liked to use this energy getting work accomplished.
    Dicey thought about New Year’s Day, as she went into the bathroom, about how unnatural it was. Spring would be a natural place to start a year, or maybe the first day of winter, the winter solstice. In the school year, September marked the new beginning. Last September was the first fall she hadn’t been in school, so—she splashed cold water over her face, still celebrating not being in school, being done with it, finished for good—maybe she wasn’t used to the change. But January first hadn’t ever felt like anything new. Dicey had never paid it any mind. Although this year she’d have to, because she had a checkbook, and when she wrote checks she’d have to change the year.
    She rinsed her teeth and ran her fingers through her hair. Catching a glimpse of herself in the