Free The Secret Hum of a Daisy by Tracy Holczer

like the one out in the pasture. A golden retriever lying at the base of a chair, a man’s boots nearby. I didn’t understand why Grandma had to keep the fanciful part of herself, if there really was one, behind a closed door.
    â€œSo you’re saying you want me here?”
    â€œOf course I do. You’re my granddaughter.”
    But I didn’t know how to believe her, how to undo the last twelve years.
    Grandma said, “How about you stay in the house tonight. It’s almost morning. We can get an early start on pancakes before school.”
    This wasn’t turning out the way it was supposed to. She was supposed to be mad, mad enough to start thinking about sending me back to Mrs. Greene. Instead she was offering to make pancakes. I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned around and ran back to the shed.
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    After school on Thursday, there was a letter from Lacey stuck into the shed door. My first letter! I rushed through my duties in the shed, stoking the fire and checking the rain bucket. Then I wrapped in Mama’s quilt on the sofa and tore it open.
    Dear Grace,
    You would not believe what Marsha Trett has done now. She actually asked Denny to the Spring Formal. Can you believe the nerve of her? Was she raised in a barn? Does she not have a decent mother telling her that it’s the boy’s place to ask the girl to the dance?
    I’m sorry to have to tell you that Denny said yes. I thought you should know because I’m never going to talk about him again and now you’ll know why. Plus, anyone who would go anywhere with Marsha Trett isn’t worth a second thought. Right?
    I’m wearing the green sweater you picked out for me. Did I ever tell you that every time I wear it, people tell me it really makes my eyes pop? Then all I can think about are random cartoons where the character’s eyes literally pop out of their skulls. So then I giggle. I’ve always giggled when this happens, but now Marsha has started calling me stuck-up because I can’t take a compliment. As if THAT isn’t the pot calling the kettle a midget, or whatever that saying is.
    I thought of something else for Plan B. I read that if you blow out the pilot light on the water heater (just in case you were wondering why I included a picture of a water heater. It should be in the garage or near the kitchen somewhere) you have to get some special person to come out and turn it on again. Good luck!
    Any idea if your grandma will be getting a computer? E-mailing would be so much easier and I could totally write to you fifty times a day! I miss you so much and can’t wait to talk to you. Ten o’clock on Saturday morning. Not a minute later!!
    Love,
    Lacey
    I tucked the letter into the Kerr jar next to the Threads postcard and origami, itching to write things down in my notebook. I’d learned early that writing worked like that little hole in the teakettle where steam came pouring out. I could pour all my steam onto the page, along with my crazy notions about the world. But every time I looked at that blank page in my notebook, I just couldn’t get myself to write in the After.
    I wrapped tighter into Mama’s quilt, looking through the jar at Lacey’s letter, reminding me of everything I’d lost from Before, and at the Threads postcard that I hoped might be a way to get me back. Mama was out there somewhere, trying to help, and the possibilities of what might happen flew around my head, pecking like birds.
    I tried reading Frost poems so I could relax. Sometimes I could conjure my father with Mr. Frost’s words. It didn’t happen all the time. But once in a great while, when I wasn’t even trying, I could see him there plain as day, moving around doing some dull task like sweeping the floor or hammering a nail. I tried to conjure him since I didn’t know how to do that with Mama yet.
    I chose “Reluctance,” since that was