Love, Stargirl Read online

  Dootsie was going for my pockets. I blocked her. The feather had come to mean you. Us. Stargirl and Leo. Blocking my pockets only made her suspicious. She knew I was holding back. “You have something!” she wailed. She was crying. Crying for lack of something to give.

  I had been crying a lot lately too. I remembered Archie’s words, the words you told me he said to you once: “Star people do not shed tears, but light.”

  Dootsie was tugging. “Gimme!”

  Give.

  And what had that loose change been doing in my pocket in the first place? Remember how it used to be, Leo? I never had change because as soon as I got some I would toss it onto the sidewalk to be found.

  What happened to that Stargirl?

  Shed.

  Light.

  Tears don’t bounce. Light does.

  I gave her the feather. She gave it to a man walking his dog. “April fools!”

  April 2

  And so I’m me again, Leo. Thanks to the example of a five-year-old. I’m hoping you wouldn’t wish it any other way. Not that you weren’t flattered, right? I mean, to have a girl two thousand miles away going to pieces over you, weeping at the mere memory of you, losing her appetite, losing her self and her self-respect—well, that’s trophy enough for any guy’s ego, huh?

  You occupied my space. But because you were not in my present, when I looked into my future I saw…nothing. Isn’t that sad? And stupid?

  Well, I hope you enjoyed your smuggies while they lasted because it’s over now. Oh sure, I’ll still be missing you as much as ever. I’ll still smile at the memory of you. I’ll still be—OK, I’ll say it again—loving you, but I won’t abandon myself for you. I cannot be faithful to you without being faithful to myself. I’ve reclaimed my future. If we are destined to be together again, be happy to know you’ll be getting the real me, not some blubbering half me.

  So I gave my wagon a booster shot the other day—five pebbles! That’s six now.

  Spring has finally caught my attention. I say, “Good morning!” to daffodils.

  And I’m dropping loose change again.

  As for the paper money in my allowance, I have a new use for it. The local newspaper is called the Morning Lenape. (The Lenape tribe—it’s pronounced len-AH-pay—used to live around here.) The paper has a section for classified ads. Three lines, three days, fourteen dollars. Most people use the section to advertise yard sales and such.

  Here’s my first ad. It will run Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday next week:

  Dootsie Pringle

  is the BEST April Fooler

  in the world!

  April 11

  Something happened today that was both disturbing and mysterious.

  Dootsie has been sick with the flu, so I went over to let Cinnamon cheer her up. I had just left the Pringles’ and climbed on my bike to head home when I heard a gruff voice behind me: “Hey.”

  It was Alvina. Charming Alvina. I stopped.

  “Hi,” I said. “Growl at anybody today?”

  She ignored the question. “I’m going home from my job.”

  “I see,” I said.

  The little plastic Pooh Bear around her neck was holding out his arms and wearing a huge smile—unlike the sour face above him.

  She threw a thumb toward Betty Lou’s house. “That lady’s getting wackier.”

  “Mrs. Fern?”

  “Mrs. Wacko.”

  I asked her what happened.

  “I left her donuts on the porch—”

  “This is Wednesday,” I said. “I thought you do that on Mondays.”

  She shot me a disgusted look. “If you stop interrupting me I’ll tell you.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “So, yeah, I dropped them off on Monday. And they’re always gone by the next day. Only yesterday—Tuesday”—she paused and glared, daring me to interrupt—“when I walked by, they were still there. And now today—still there.”

  Of course, I thought. Dootsie couldn’t take the donuts in because she’s been sick. I should have done it myself. Stupid.

  Alvina went on: “So just now I rang the bell. The lady came to the door, but she wouldn’t open it. I yelled at her, ‘Open the door! I got your donuts!’ Her voice comes back all squealy, ‘I can’t. I’m having a bad day.’ I said, ‘I’ll give you a bad week,’ but I don’t know if she heard me.” (I almost laughed.) “‘Can’t you squeeze them under the door?’ she squeals. ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘if I flatten them with a steamroller.’” (Now I did laugh.) “She—”

  Alvina suddenly stopped talking. Her eyes darted over my shoulder. Her expression showed curiosity, then shock, then fury. “Hey!” she yelled past my ear, and practically knocked me down as she took off.

  I turned to see, up the block, a boy on Betty Lou’s porch. He had the white donut bag in his hand. He paused on the top step to look at us, then started running.

  Alvina chased him up Ringgold, then into an alley where they both disappeared, though I could still hear her screaming. And then I couldn’t. I had continued on my way home when she came puffing back down the street. She flung a finger toward Betty Lou’s house. She yelled: “Serves ya right, ya wacko!”

  She was close to me now, but suddenly she took five steps backward. She squinted. “What’s that?”

  I had taken Cinnamon out of my pocket and perched him on my shoulder.

  “My pet rat,” I said. “Cinnamon.”

  “You got a rat for a pet?” Her lip was curling as if she smelled something bad. Pooh Bear was still beaming.

  “Best pet in the world,” I said. “Come meet him.”

  She pointed, clearly at me, not Cinnamon. “You know what? You’re wacko too.” She crossed the street and continued on home, muttering, “This place is fulla wackos.”

  I detoured to Margie’s and got some donuts and brought them back to Betty Lou’s. I persuaded her to open the door enough to let me squeeze in. We had a nice talk, and we agreed that whenever she was having a bad day she would hang a red slipper sock in the front window, so Dootsie and I would be alert to give her special attention that day.

  And all the time I was at Betty Lou’s, I kept remembering the face of the boy on her porch. It was the same face I had seen during the milk run. In the Dumpster.

  April 19

  Sunrise.

  It’s been on my mind ever since the last milk run with my dad. Ever since Archie’s letter. Ever since I turned back to the first page of this letter to you—which is becoming the Longest Letter in the History of the World—and read the first sentence.

  And so I decided to wash my mind on Enchanted Hill one day a week—at sunrise.

  My parents weren’t too happy. They don’t like my going out alone while it’s still dark. On the other hand, they appreciate how attached I become to things like this. So we worked out a plan. We got walkie-talkies, one for me, one for my mother. And a flashlight for me. I’ll do it on Thursdays. I started today.

  My mother dragged herself out of bed and sat on the porch and watched me as I walked down Rapps Dam Road. She got stuck with the job because, of course, my father the milkman is long gone by then. With my flashlight on, my mother could see me almost all the way to Route 113. I crossed the road and a minute later I was in the middle of Enchanted Hill. The first thing I did was walkie-talkie my mother and tell her I was OK. It was still pretty dark out, but the sky was lightening by the minute. I sat on an old bath mat I carried along. I faced east and closed my eyes and dissolved into the elements. Sometime later, a glint in my eyes told me the sun was up and it was time to go.

  When I returned home I expected to find my mother nodding off on the porch, but she wasn’t. She was wide-awake. She smiled and hugged me and said, “Why do I have to be stuck with two people who leave the house in the middle of the night?” We laughed and went back to bed. Someday I hope I can be as good a mother as she is.

  April 23

  I want to leave a donut for the man at the cemetery—Grace’s Ch
arlie. But I’m a little shaky. Will I be intruding? Imagine that—Stargirl afraid of intruding!

  April 24

  OK—I decided. I’m going to do it. I bought a donut at Margie’s. Cinnamon-sugar. I’ll leave it at Grace’s grave site tonight, so Charlie will find it tomorrow when he arrives. I’ll be careful to put the bag beside the grave, not on top of it.

  April 25

  I chickened out.

  April 26

  I did it. (With a fresh donut.)

  April 27

  I went to the cemetery this afternoon. It was a warm, beautiful day. Balmy. He wore a gray sweater. The red and yellow plaid scarf was draped over the back of his chair.

  I circled around behind him. I kept my distance. I didn’t see the white bag. He took it! I thought, thrilled. Then I saw the bag, a few grave sites away. It didn’t look like it had been opened. Lurched up against a tombstone, as if he had angrily flung it there. Maybe even kicked it.

  I am a meddling, nosy, interfering, inconsiderate, intruding busybody.

  April 30

  I tried again.

  May 1

  Same story. This time he kicked it farther. Should I give up?

  May 4

  Dootsie and I touch little fingers—our secret sign of affection. Like you and I used to do. And I sadly think of what Archie says, that the sounds of extinct birds may be preserved in the songs of mockingbirds.

  May 19

  Dogwood Festival!

  It’s been going on since Monday, but today, Saturday, is the big day.

  First the parade. People lining Main Street from downtown to Bemus Park. Bands. Fire engines. Dance academies. Little Leaguers. Clowns on unicycles. Politicians flinging candy from convertibles. The Dogwood Queen and her Court. The Grand Marshal was a TV weather lady.

  Dootsie was all over the candy, a great white shark among guppies. Every time a three-year-old reached for a piece, Dootsie snatched it. She was stuffing them in her pockets, her mouth. When she stuck a mini Tootsie Roll up her nose, I drew the line. I yanked her out of the gutter, pulled the Tootsie Roll from her nose, squeezed her shoulders. “Dootsie, you’re being a piggy and a bully. You’re undoing all the nice things you did on April Fools’ Day.” She glared at me. She unwrapped a Mary Jane and popped it in her mouth. And spent the rest of the parade giving her candy away to three-year-olds.

  Bemus Park was mobbed. Food stands sold everything from cotton candy and shish kebabs to funnel cakes and pierogies—and of course Margie’s donuts. You could pitch pennies to win a goldfish or find your future in the fortune-teller’s tent. There were rides for the little kids and a haunted house and open mike all day at the band shell.

  Herds of teenagers roamed everywhere. I’ve never seen so many lip rings and purple hair spikes. To Dootsie it was a zoo. She kept tugging at me and whispering: “Look!…Look!”

  At one point I happened to be looking at a food stand selling cotton candy and caramel apples when I saw the boy—the face in the Dumpster, the boy on Betty Lou’s porch. Someone had just paid for something and the clerk had turned away to get change when the boy veered to the stand, reached out, plucked a caramel apple from the counter, and breezed on his way.

  I started to pull Dootsie along after him—I don’t know what I had in mind—but we didn’t get far because just then I heard a horrific shriek, and people were turning and running. Kid voices yelled, “Fight!” It was nearby, in front of the Rotary Club hot dog stand. Two kids were on the ground. The one on top was pummeling the one beneath, pounding fist on face. I was paralyzed. I can’t remember ever seeing a real fight before. Until that moment, for me, one person striking another was something in books and movies. History. But history never made me queasy. All this happened in a few seconds, then two men were hauling the kids off the ground and pulling them apart even as they continued to flail at each other.

  One was a boy, the one on the bottom. Blond. The other was Alvina. The boy’s face was bloody from the nose down. There was even a streak of blood in his blond hair. I couldn’t be sure, but he might have been one of the three boys at the donut shop that day. He was spluttering bloody noises at Alvina, who glared at him with a hatred I’ve never seen on a human face before, not even at Mica High last year. Then she made a fist and held it out to the boy and said in a soft snarl, almost a smile, teeth bared: “Taste this, punk.” But something just before that had caught my eye. It must be new, because I’m sure I would have noticed it before. It was the nail on her little finger. It was different—not plain, not short, not kid-scruffy like the others. It was long. And pink. And glittery. It was elegant. And then it disappeared into the balled fist.

  The men were pulling them off in opposite directions when Alvina screamed, “Wait!” She wrenched away from the man (mostly—he kept hold of her by one wrist) and went crabbing around on the ground until she found something. She picked it up, spat on it, cleaned it with her shirt-tail, and put it in her pocket. It was her yellow grinning Pooh Bear necklace.

  In the next instant, one horror replaced another. I suddenly became aware of Dootsie’s hand in mine. I looked down. She was looking up at me. Her lip was quivering. Tears streamed down her face. “Oh, Dootsie,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I snatched her up and ran.

  I didn’t slow down till I was out of Bemus Park. She was sobbing now, her little body heaving against mine. I tried to put her down, but she wouldn’t let go of me. I walked some more, talking to her. “This was all my fault, Dootsie. Stargirl is bad. I never should have let you see that. I was only thinking of myself and I forgot all about my best friend Dootsie. I’ll never forget about you again.”

  Her squeaky little voice came through the sobs. “Promise?”

  I kissed her salty tears. “Triple promise.”

  Soon we were sitting side by side on the steps of the library.

  “Alvina is mean,” she said.

  “She’s a pip all right,” I said.

  “What’s a pip?”

  “Well, a pip is a feisty person. Someone who’s maybe a little out of control.”

  “I hate Alvina.”

  I pulled her onto my lap. “No, don’t hate Alvina.”

  “I do. I hate your boyfriend too. Because he dumped you.”

  I laughed. “Don’t hate him either. You shouldn’t hate anybody.”

  “I can’t help it. I have to.”

  “No,” I told her, “you don’t have to. If you start by hating one or two people, you won’t be able to stop. Pretty soon you’ll hate a hundred people.”

  “A zillion?”

  “Even a zillion. A little hatred goes a long, long way. It grows and grows. And it’s hungry.”

  “Like Cimmamum?”

  “Even hungrier. You keep feeding it more and more people, and the more it gets, the more it wants. It’s never satisfied. And pretty soon it squeezes all the love out of your heart”—I pointed to her heart; she looked down at her chest—“and all you’ll have left is a hateful heart.”

  She gave me a serious look and shook her head. “I’m not gonna get hungry. I’m just gonna hate Alvina.”

  So much for my lesson.

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Before you start hating Alvina, let’s give her another chance.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I think she’s got a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “I think she’s angry.”

  Her eyes rode up to mine. “What’s she angry at? The boy?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe the boy. Maybe something else. Maybe she’s just having growing pains.”

  “Growing pains? What’s that?”

  “It’s when a little kid is becoming a big kid. Sometimes it hurts.”

  “Will I have growing pains?”

  “Maybe just a teeny one.”

  “Am I gonna beat up a boy?”

  I lifted her down to the sidewalk. We headed for home. “I certainly hope not,” I said.

  May 2
1

  I invited myself and Dootsie to dinner at Betty Lou’s today. We got there mid-afternoon so we could help her make her famous cheese-and-garlic smashed potatoes—more specifically, so Dootsie could smash the potatoes.

  As soon as Betty Lou and I settled into peeling the spuds, Betty Lou said, “So. How was the Dogwood Festival? I want to hear all about it.”

  Dootsie piped, “Alvina beat up a boy!”

  Betty Lou turned to me. I nodded. “Sad but true.”

  “Did she hurt him?” said Betty Lou.

  “He was bleeding,” said Dootsie. “I cried.”

  “It was over in a minute,” I said. “People pulled them apart.”

  “Alvina’s a pip,” said Dootsie.

  Betty Lou gave a sad smile and wagged her head. “That she is.”

  Dootsie said, “I wanna be a pip.”

  Betty Lou swallowed her in a hug and laughed aloud. “You are a pip, my little pip-squeak. Now tell me about the festival. How about the Dogwood Queen? Was she beautiful?”

  “I got lots of candy!” said Dootsie.

  “She was beautiful,” I said.

  “I was a piggy and a bully!”

  Betty Lou nodded knowingly. “The Queen always is beautiful. She’s always a senior girl from the high school, you know. On Friday she’s just another student in the hallways. And on Saturday”—her fists bloomed into fingers—“poof!—she’s up there on the backseat of a shiny bright convertible, smiling down on her people, waving. A Queen. Perfect.”

  She was looking out the kitchen window. She was seeing festivals past, Queens of other Mays.

  “I gave it all away!” shouted Dootsie.

  Betty Lou smiled at the window. “I was in the Queen’s Court, in case you didn’t know.”

  I was shocked. “Betty Lou! You were?”

  “Oh yes. I wasn’t beautiful enough to be Queen, of course. But I was a bit of a looker in my own right.” She gave me a sly grin. “Believe it or not.”

  “Oh, I do believe,” I told her quickly, before my eyes, seeing the lady in red slipper socks and purple bathrobe and gray hair across the table, had a chance to contradict me.