Free A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry Page B

put his arm around me as we walked, "do you see that section of the woods over there, where the spruce tree is beside the birches?"
    "Yes," I said, looking where he pointed.
    "Not far into the woods, beyond the spruce, at the right time of year, there's a clump of fringed gentians. Have you ever seen a fringed gentian?"
    How do you like that? When I said something really serious, really personal, for pete's sake, to my best friend, he wasn't even listening. He
was still thinking about his plants.

    "No," I told him, a little sarcastically. "I've never seen a fringed gentian."
    "It will be after you've moved back to town," he said. "It won't bloom until the end of September, maybe even October. But I want you to come back, so I can show it to you."
    "Okay," I sighed. I didn't care about his old fringed gentian.
    "It's important, Meg," Will said. "You promise?"
    Well, if it was important to him, all right. I would want to come back, anyway, and I didn't mind looking at his flower. Maybe he wanted to photograph it or something.
    "I promise, Will," I said.

7.

    Finally Molly has stopped being a grouch. It was gradual, and I'm not even sure the change is a good one. She hasn't gone back to being the old Molly she was before she was sick. She isn't giggly, funny Molly anymore, full of smiles and ideas and silly enthusiasms.
    I don't know what she is, now. A stranger, mostly. It's as if she has become part of a different world, one that doesn't include me anymore, or even Mom and Dad. She's quieter, more serious, almost withdrawn. When I tell her about things that are happening at school, she listens, and asks questions, but it's as if she doesn't really care much; she's only listening to be polite.

    Only a few things interest her now. She spends a lot of time with the flowers. In the past, for Molly, flowers were things to run through in a field, to pick, to bury your nose in, to arrange in a vase on the table. Now, with Will's help, she's learning about them; she reads the books he's brought to her, and identifies the wild flowers she's found in the fields. She classifies them, labels them, arranges them in order in a book that she's putting together. It takes most of her time. She's very careful, and very serious, about her flowers. We don't dare, ever, to tease her about them.
    It's as if she has become, suddenly, old.
    The other thing that still interests her is the baby. She visits Maria often, and they talk and talk about the baby. Molly is helping Maria to make clothes for it; they sew together, and when she finishes something, Molly smoothes it with such care, folds it neatly, and puts it away in the drawer they're filling with little things.
    Even Ben and Maria seem a little puzzled by the concern Molly has for all those tiny nightgowns and sweaters. Once I heard Ben say to her, "Hey, Moll. It's
already
going to be the best-dressed kid in the
valley. Quit sewing for a while, will you? Come with me to see if we can find some wild strawberries."

    But Molly just smiled at him and shook her head. "You go ahead, Ben," she said. "Take Meg. I want to finish this. I want everything to be perfect when the baby comes."
    Ben groaned. "Molly, don't you
know
what babies are like? It's just going to pee on those clothes. Why do they need to be perfect with that kind of future in store for them?"
    Molly smiled at him and went on stitching.
    And sometimes, for no reason, Molly is like a baby, herself. One night after supper, when it was raining outside, we were sitting in front of the fireplace. Mom was working on the quilt, Dad was reading, and Molly and I were just watching the logs shift and send sparks into the chimney as they burned. We had our pajamas on.
    Suddenly, very quietly, Molly got up, went over to Dad, and climbed onto his lap. He didn't say anything. He just put his book down, put his arms around her, held her, and watched the fire. She put her head on his shoulder like a sleepy two-year-old, and with one hand he