Free Orchards by Holly Thompson

do
     
    I call others
    every single one
    of last year’s eighth-grade girls
    and boys
    and very last I call Noah
    who I’d forgotten
    I had a crush on
    way back
    in the months
    that seem like
    ages ago
    before all this happened
    Noah, who I have not even
    thought of once
    in that way
    since you walked up the hill
    to Osgoods’ orchard
    that night
     
    just looking at him
    used to be hard for me
    talking to him
    unthinkable
    but now I just call
    start speaking
    right away
    and he, too
    says sure,
    he’ll help
     
    so I start the plans
    for real
    I visit
    lumberyards
    hardware stores
    garden centers
    websites
    libraries
    stonecutters
    and even sign up for
    a continuing-ed carpentry course
    at the community college
     
    knowing that
    next spring we’ll gather for you
    and Lisa
    meet with you
    feed your spirits
    and afterward
    we’ll say farewell
    for a year
    and we’ll
    go on
     

Acknowledgments
    My deepest gratitude to all my
mikan
farming friends in the Nishiura district of Numazu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, most especially Hiroshi Arai and family, who welcomed me into their groves for eighteen months to learn every aspect of
mikan
cultivation, from planting to harvest. Enormous thanks also to Ellen Hopkins and Suzanne Morgan Williams for the Nevada SCBWI Mentor Program and to my amazing mentor, Esther Hershenhorn; to Gerda Klein and Randi Klein, for their patient guidance; to my careful readers Adam Clark, Asako Clark, Laura Shovan and Avery Udagawa; to all my SCBWI Tokyo writer and illustrator friends; to my agent, Jamie Weiss Chilton; and to my editor, Françoise Bui. And thanks always and forever to Bob, Dexter and Isabel—you keep me going.

About the Author
    HOLLY THOMPSON grew up in New England. She earned a BA in biology from Mount Holyoke College and an MA in English with a concentration in creative writing from New York University. A longtime resident of Japan, she teaches creative and academic writing at Yokohama City University. Her stories and articles have been published in magazines in the United States and Japan, and she is the author of the novel
Ash
and the picture book
The Wakame Gatherers
. Visit her online at hatbooks.com .