bit of difference.â â
And I knew right then that it wouldnât. There were no right words for Aunt Patty to say. Words are not enough.
15
Second Thoughts
I tâs about midmorning and the roof is beginning to heat up. The sun is high and the air is kind of sticky. I wish I could get Little Sister to go back in. Her nose and cheeks are getting too pink. She pretends she hasnât heard me. I know she is feeling the sun, though. My shoulders feel tingly, and my nose burns if I scratch it.
Aunt Patty has gone back inside the house. Sheâs gone back inside three or four times now, to dress or to do something else that needs doing. She always comes back out. I am enjoying the peace and quiet for as long as it lasts.
Youâd think there wouldnât be much to do on a rooftop. But youâd be wrong. To begin with, thereâs the view. Green rolling hills rimmed with red clay earth, big patches of yellow buttercups and purply-pink stuff in bloom, the flash of light wherever a creek cuts across the fields.
Black-and-white cows over there and the tip-top of a red barn behind that hill.
A white church spire rising out of the valley over there where a bell will toll come twelve oâclock.
A short strip of the highway is visible between two hills and there is a never-ending stream of matchbox-sized cars that when I stare long enough begin to look like the same cars coming back again. Like they arenât really going anywhere, but are glued to a wheel that is going round and round in the distance like a Ferris wheel.
Sometimes we watch and sometimes we play. Little Sister and I devised a game of tic-tac-toe using pieces of broken roof tile somebody left beside the dormer window. The crossed lines are already there in the roof tiles that are laid all over the roof.
Or we count.
I started her on multiplication tables some time ago. I figured the numbers were so big she would get tired of counting on her fingers and speak to me. But Little Sister began to see a game in it.
She worked out new ways to give me an answer to how many of something she could count. A thousand of something is a thumb stuck out like sheâs hitchhiking; a hundred is a finger pointing down; and when she flashes her hands, sheâs holding up as many fingers as she means tens. She only ever needed the thousand sign once, when she was trying to count the gumballs in a machine. Little Sister always was sassy.
So if the number of roof tiles is 132 on this nearly square section over here, she points one finger down for the hundred, then flashes three fingers for thirty, then holds up two fingers until Iâve said the number sheâs shown me: 132. And when we add up all the sections weâve counted and get 1,611, she flashes me a triumphant look. Sheâs going to need that thousand sign again.
She jerks her thumb once for a thousand, points six fingers down for six hundred, flashes one finger and then holds one up until I say sheâs right. The thing is, Little Sister has the last laugh because she is fast enough that I have to stay on my toes to keep up with her. And she still hasnât had to say a word.
We counted how many green roofs there are in town, how many gray and brown, how many red, and there are two blue rooftops. Youâd be surprised how most people pick the same color for a roof. There are mostly green ones, 102 that I can see.
Youâd also be surprised at the amount of foot traffic Aunt Pattyâs dead-end street sees. Mostly bird-watchers, youâd think, since so many of them look up. A few of them have been carrying binoculars. Little Sister and I are quite the attraction.
By now, if Aunt Patty gets caught out here looking up, she acts like thereâs nothing at all unusual about two people sitting out on the roof all morning. She acts like sheâs only checking on whether we want peas or carrots with our dinner. It would be funny if it wasnât so sad.
Aunt Patty
And I knew right then that it wouldnât. There were no right words for Aunt Patty to say. Words are not enough.
15
Second Thoughts
I tâs about midmorning and the roof is beginning to heat up. The sun is high and the air is kind of sticky. I wish I could get Little Sister to go back in. Her nose and cheeks are getting too pink. She pretends she hasnât heard me. I know she is feeling the sun, though. My shoulders feel tingly, and my nose burns if I scratch it.
Aunt Patty has gone back inside the house. Sheâs gone back inside three or four times now, to dress or to do something else that needs doing. She always comes back out. I am enjoying the peace and quiet for as long as it lasts.
Youâd think there wouldnât be much to do on a rooftop. But youâd be wrong. To begin with, thereâs the view. Green rolling hills rimmed with red clay earth, big patches of yellow buttercups and purply-pink stuff in bloom, the flash of light wherever a creek cuts across the fields.
Black-and-white cows over there and the tip-top of a red barn behind that hill.
A white church spire rising out of the valley over there where a bell will toll come twelve oâclock.
A short strip of the highway is visible between two hills and there is a never-ending stream of matchbox-sized cars that when I stare long enough begin to look like the same cars coming back again. Like they arenât really going anywhere, but are glued to a wheel that is going round and round in the distance like a Ferris wheel.
Sometimes we watch and sometimes we play. Little Sister and I devised a game of tic-tac-toe using pieces of broken roof tile somebody left beside the dormer window. The crossed lines are already there in the roof tiles that are laid all over the roof.
Or we count.
I started her on multiplication tables some time ago. I figured the numbers were so big she would get tired of counting on her fingers and speak to me. But Little Sister began to see a game in it.
She worked out new ways to give me an answer to how many of something she could count. A thousand of something is a thumb stuck out like sheâs hitchhiking; a hundred is a finger pointing down; and when she flashes her hands, sheâs holding up as many fingers as she means tens. She only ever needed the thousand sign once, when she was trying to count the gumballs in a machine. Little Sister always was sassy.
So if the number of roof tiles is 132 on this nearly square section over here, she points one finger down for the hundred, then flashes three fingers for thirty, then holds up two fingers until Iâve said the number sheâs shown me: 132. And when we add up all the sections weâve counted and get 1,611, she flashes me a triumphant look. Sheâs going to need that thousand sign again.
She jerks her thumb once for a thousand, points six fingers down for six hundred, flashes one finger and then holds one up until I say sheâs right. The thing is, Little Sister has the last laugh because she is fast enough that I have to stay on my toes to keep up with her. And she still hasnât had to say a word.
We counted how many green roofs there are in town, how many gray and brown, how many red, and there are two blue rooftops. Youâd be surprised how most people pick the same color for a roof. There are mostly green ones, 102 that I can see.
Youâd also be surprised at the amount of foot traffic Aunt Pattyâs dead-end street sees. Mostly bird-watchers, youâd think, since so many of them look up. A few of them have been carrying binoculars. Little Sister and I are quite the attraction.
By now, if Aunt Patty gets caught out here looking up, she acts like thereâs nothing at all unusual about two people sitting out on the roof all morning. She acts like sheâs only checking on whether we want peas or carrots with our dinner. It would be funny if it wasnât so sad.
Aunt Patty
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