My happy wagon is almost empty, Leo. Only five pebbles left. Happywise, I'm operating on only 25 per cent capacity. Remember when I first showed my wagon to you? How many pebbles were in it then? Seventeen? And then I put another in, remember? I never told you this, but before I went to bed that night, after we kissed for the first time on the sidewalk outside my house, I put in the last two pebbles. Twenty. Total happiness. For the first time ever. It stayed that way until I painted that big sign on a sheet and hung it outside the school for all the world to see...
STARGIRL
LOVES
LEO
Was that my mistake, Leo? Did I overdo it? Did I scare you off? It seems like ever since then I've been taking pebbles out of the wagon. And now it's down to five and I feel rotten and I don't know how to feel better. So I played hooky today. My mother trusts me to play hooky every now and then. (In fact, we have a course called Hooky, but not for credit.) I just got on my bike and rode. Rode and rode. Now that I think of it, I was heading west. To Arizona? Somewhere along the way I heard a sound. I looked up. A Canada goose was flying across the grey sky. Honking. I've never seen a solo goose before. They always fly in V-shaped flocks, or at least in pairs. Had he been left behind? Was he trying to catch up, calling, "Hey, wait for me!"? Had he just lost his girlfriend and was calling out her name? Was she dead? Or flown off to Arizona with another goose? One voice honking across the sky. The loneliest sound I have ever heard. And then I thought of the bundled man in the cemetery. I turned back. I hadn't realised I'd come so far from town. I rode to the graveyard. There he was, same spot, sitting in an aluminium folding chair, green and white strapping. This time I went in. His chin was on his chest. He was dozing. Most of his face was lost behind the brilliant red and yellow checked scarf. An old-fashioned black domed lunch box sat in the grass under the chair. I was afraid to go too close. I foot-pushed my bike around behind him. There were two names on the gravestone: Grace and Charles. Under her name were the dates of her life. Under his name were his birth date and year, then a dash, then nothing. Death day to come. Under that was
TOGETHER FOREVER.
Grace. It was her second date that surprised me – she died four years ago. And still he was here. Grace. I think she gave him the scarf. I think she called him Charlie. Grace. I whispered her name. I backed away as quietly as I could.
