The Blackberry Bush Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’m not sure why. I think she sees Holland, her home, and her family when that happens.
    She misses them and talks about them all the time. Many nights, she pours a glass of local red Cabernet Sauvignon (with a cool label) and writes them a crinkly blue aerogramme in Dutch. I think it’s old-fashioned to write letters, but she looks relaxed and happy doing it.
    She and Dad would like to have had more kids, but they don’t seem to be able to. It would be easier for me if there were more kids in the house. My parents spend too much time thinking about me, and I spend too much time trying to avoid that focus.
    I hear them talking about me at night when they think I’m sleeping. The more they say, the more I can tell they don’t “get” me at all. They are so stressed, and I’m really not afraid of anything. I’ve even skateboarded down the crazy-steep Edwards Street hill. No one else has ever made it to the bottom on a board, even to this very day. I started to get that cool “cartwheel” feel when I knew I was going too fast to bail. Like right after you yell “droppin’ next!” at the half-pipe at Gold Mine.
    I shred. I rip. Whatever you want to call it. I rocketed past a cheering Sam that day on the way down Edwards. Guys were watching from the top and bottom. When I flattened out into a cruise at the bottom, my hands shot up, like Mom’s do in church. I was going too fast to hear my own victory shout.
    The older kids have called me J-Bro since that day and give me fist-bumps and props when they see me. My parents both call me “Yosh” for short, and it’s embarrassing when my friends are around. Their accent can be so cheesy, but I suppose they can’t help it.
    I really like this ThornHeart design. I’m going to have the guy down at the Asian restaurant make me a Chinese ink stamp of it so I can stamp this design all over the place whenever I use paper for anything. I can also stamp it in the books I read. It would look cool in the Thea Beckman books on the inside covers.
    If I leave my room now, I can get out of here before my parents get home. I feel like I get points every time I succeed at fooling them. Who’s keeping score, though?
    Back on my bike, I look down at the lock chain that holds the paper ThornHeart design down in my bike basket and keeps it from blowing away. I’m the only one of my friends who can ride with no hands. But I do wear a helmet all the time; it just makes sense. Besides, a helmet is another surface on which to draw things. I’m going to spray-paint over the old designs so I can put this new one, the ThornHeart, in the front.
    Mr. Park is Korean, and his accent is hard to understand. The restaurant has Chinese and other Asian food. He watches a little TV with Korean shows at the cash register during the day. Like the Catholic church, it smells cool there.
    He greets me with a big smile and calls me “Mr. Josh-wa.” We work out a deal for twelve bucks for an ink stamp, and he says he’ll have it ready for me in a few days. He keeps the picture. It’s okay. I memorized it before I ever saw it. He’ll include a red ink pad.
    Now I’m back on the bike and heading home for supper. It’s been a great couple of hours. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll dream about the pale girl tonight. Hope I can find some more time to draw and dream before I go to bed.
    I’ll have to steal it from my parents, though, because they would rather I lived in their world.

~ B EHIND THE S TORY ~
    Angelo
     
    I t’s dark out, and I’m sitting in another blackberry bush, this one outside of an ancient church in Rotterdam.
    Sometimes it’s the chance encounters that make all the difference. I’m about to witness one of them. Imagine all of the seemingly random events that lead to your very existence. Change one detail, and you’d never even be here. Do you know your backstory? If not, why not dig a little…discover and experience the mystery for yourself?
    Right now the warm summer rain is