Free Words of Stone by Kevin Henkes Page B

quickly before vanishing behind the slope of the hill.

15 BLAZE
    â€œT hat’s about all I know,” said Nova. “But if you like her, it would be nice to have someone to play with. Someone so close.” She moved her basket up a few feet and continued picking beans. The plants were heavy with pods that ranged in color from milky yellow to emerald. The sizes and shapes varied, too. Some beans were huge and so swollen they looked surreal. Others were narrow and small and straight as nails. “Is she here for a long visit, or a short one?”
    â€œShe didn’t say exactly,” Blaze answered. He was sitting in the row next to Nova eating a bean. Mist tickled his eyes when he snapped it. “Her father died,” he said.
    â€œI wasn’t aware of that,” Nova said. She really didn’t know much about Joselle Stark. Or her mother. “I’m not even too familiar with Floy,” Nova told him. “We greet one another, but that’s about it. I guess the hill is big enough and our houses are far enough apart to keep our lives separate.” Nova took off her hat and fanned herself with it. “Would you like to have Joselle over for lunch?” she asked. “Egg salad sandwiches? With homegrown beans and homegrown lettuce?”
    â€œNot today. But maybe sometime.” Would Joselle say yes if he asked her? Possibly. After all, she had kissed him. Blaze had never been kissed by a girl before. Just thinking about it made his heart anxious. And he thought about it a lot. No one had ever been so interesting to him before. And to have Joselle confide in him about her father bonded them.
    When Nova finished picking her row, she pointed to the tomato plants. “I’ve got more tomato plants this year than ever. If they all ripen, we’ll have enough tomato sauce and chili relish and salsa for the entire town,” she said. She heaved her basket of beans into her arms and sighed. “I’m going inside to start blanching these. And I’m hoping that my legs don’t fall off first. Bad circulation,” she added matter-of-factly.
    Blaze watched Nova trudge through the garden and across the lawn. Her thick, corded veins seemed to pulse with each step. Blaze wandered over to his favorite corner of the garden, glancing over his shoulder at Nova until the back door shut behind her. In the corner, a stand of sunflowers formed a wall. Slivers of blue, blue sky shone through the lattice of leaves and huge drooping yellow flowers. When the wind hastened, Blaze could smell the basil, which was planted in a raised bed near the sunflowers. Sometimes he’d pick some of the basil leaves and rub them on a small patch of his arm near his wrist, tinting it green. Then, periodically throughout the day, he’d bring his arm up to his face and inhale deeply. Last year, he had hung a big bunch of basil from the doorknob in his room; the room smelled wonderful for nearly a week. It was amazing to Blaze that everything that was so alive and leafy and aromatic and productive in Nova’s garden had begun as tiny seeds. The whole process was one of the most hopeful things he knew. Thinking about Joselle Stark was hopeful, too. Blaze wondered how long she would be staying with her grandmother. He hoped she’d at least stay until school started in the fall.
    Blaze wanted to do something special for Joselle because he felt so badly about her father. He wanted to give her some kind of gift. He lay down under the sunflowers, trying to think of something appropriate. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep, dreaming, as the morning crept away slowly without him.
    The only things of value that Blaze had to offer Joselle were his lost key collection and his Noah’s ark. He didn’t think he could bear to part with the ark—and besides, he could picture Joselle commenting on how infantile it was—so he gladly put that thought out of his mind. The key