Free Jack's New Power by Jack Gantos Page A

replied.
    â€œOne more thing,” he added. “I’ll have your mother get you your own deodorant.”
    I nodded and walked rapidly down the front steps and around to my French doors. I got my diary and went back around to the shed. I lay down across the planks and breathed deeply. The wood was so fragrant, like a cabinet full of spices and dried fruit. I had read about a great poet who kept rotting apples in his desk drawer. Whenever he
was searching for inspiration, he would pull open the drawer, lower his nose, and breathe deeply. The smell of the sweet apples would throw him into a poetic swoon.
    I took another deep breath and ran my finger over her carved name. Suddenly I was struck with poetic inspiration. I opened my diary and wrote:

    LOVE
Her name is Anne
My heart
Has ears
When she speaks
Love, Love, Love
I feel
Fears , Tears, Cheers!

    I practiced saying it over and over again. If I only had a chance to recite it to her, then she would understand how I felt. Poetry was very powerful. Once she heard it, I was sure she’d feel the same way, too.
    I finally got my chance. Two days later I was in the shed. Rain beat heavily on the tin roof. Celeste was with me when Anne opened the door. She had been caught in the storm. Her hair was wet. Her shirt stuck to her shoulders. Her arms were covered with goose bumps.
    â€œSo this is where you hide all day long?” she asked, and hopped up on the plank next to me.
    â€œI like it back here,” I said. “It’s quiet and I can think deep thoughts.” I rolled my head around as though it were so filled with thoughts it was about to tip over and snap my neck.

    Just then Betsy ran by. “Anne!” she shouted. “Anne!” She turned toward the shed.
    Go away, I prayed. There is nobody in the shed. Go away, go away, go away …
    â€œAnne!” Betsy shouted again.
    I locked eyes with Anne. She held one finger up over her lips. I nodded.
    Betsy turned and ran up the back steps and into the house.
    Anne leaned forward and began to pet Celeste. Then she spotted where I had carved “Jack Loves Anne” on the plank.
    â€œDid you do this?” she asked.
    â€œYes,” I said, as though I was confessing to having done something wrong. I was deathly afraid she was going to think that carving her name in wood was immature.
    â€œIt’s very nice,” she said and touched it as I had.
    â€œWould you like to see something else?” I asked. Before she could answer I pulled out my diary and opened it to the page where I had written her name one hundred times.
    â€œYou’ve been thinking about me,” she said.
    â€œA lot,” I replied.
    â€œI’ve been thinking about you, too.” She reached for the neck of my shirt and pulled me toward her face.
    We kissed. Our lips were slippery with the rain that kept dripping from her hair. I concentrated on not sliding off and falling forward on my face.
    Kissing her was dreamy, but I had to say something romantic to her. All the kissing I had seen at the movies was followed by a beautiful thought, perfectly suited to the romantic moment. I wanted to recite my poem to her, but I
couldn’t remember it. I just remembered the part about “My heart has ears.”
    I wasn’t sure what to say, so I went for another kiss while my brain frantically worked at searching for the first line of my poem. But I just couldn’t remember it. So I began to think of other things to say. You are my shining star. You are everything to me. If I die tomorrow, I will not have lived in vain, because we will have kissed.
    Nothing I could actually say came to mind. I held my breath each time I kissed. Finally, I was breathing like I had just run a marathon. I needed some air. It was time to take a break from kissing and talk.
    I was panting and gasping for breath when I looked her in the eyes. She looked into my eyes.
    â€œYour skin smells of wood,” I blurted