Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sadie didn’t know why she took it, the plaid cloth-covered journal that belonged to Karen. After all, she could have gotten one herself, either with allowance money or by asking for one for her birthday.
Karen’s grandmother had given her the journal at the beginning of summer vacation. Her grandma gave it to her with a hug and said, “Go, child, and write about this life around you while you have time to do it. Write, like Ray Bradbury, about the feel of brand-new sneakers in June, write about the sound of a slice of watermelon being broken off. But I don’t need to tell you what to notice. I can see that you already observe so much.”
She hadn’t even had a chance to write in it before Sadie slipped it in her bag. But what was she going to do with it? Write her own thoughts in it? Somehow she didn’t feel that was going to make her very happy. Or just put it in her dresser drawer imagining she had a grandmother who would do that for her? That felt, I don’t know, thin and flimsy because she knew it wasn’t true. Why didn’t her family notice her the way Karen’s family noticed Karen?
Meanwhile, Sadie held Karen’s journal, looking at the pink and green plaid cover as she thought what to do.
