Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

the moon in your eyes. If you ever kiss me again at night, I’m going to take a peek.
    I’m lonely.
             
    July 29
    Color now on the end of the bud. White tinged with pink. Feathered, layered, sleeping petals. A miniature swan about to be born.
    I groomed two gardens today. I’ve never seen a night-blooming cereus anywhere but Betty Lou’s.
             
    July 31
    I hadn’t meant to fall asleep. I just flopped onto my bed after dinner, and next thing I knew it was night. The house was dark. I leaped from the bed and ran for my bike. I had told my parents about the flower and that one of these nights…
    I pedaled furiously for Betty Lou’s. The moon was high and bright, lighting my way. My tires spat stones as I careened into the alley. I could smell it already:
vanilla!
I jumped from the bike, threw open the gate. There it was—so lovely I wanted to cry. As if a stone had dropped into pooled moonlight: this was the splash. Its size staggered me—it was as wide as both my hands side by side. I swooned at the fragrance. I fell to my knees, so that now it was taller than me. I became aware of faint flutterings—moths were swirling, alighting on the flower, flying off. I thought:
Queen of the Night.
Kneeling there for I don’t know how long, I began to have the strangest sensation, as if a communication, a conversation, were passing between the beautiful blossom and the moon. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into the wonder of it. And yet, as wonderful as it was, something was missing. It needed to be shared. I wanted you there, Leo. Or Archie.
    I picked up a handful of pebbles from the alleyway. I threw them at Betty Lou’s bedroom window. Finally her face appeared. I pointed. I whispered as loudly as I could: “It’s blooming!” Her face vanished from the window. A minute later the back door opened. She stood there in her robe behind the screen door. I held out my hand. “Come on.” I think for a moment I forgot her problem. But she didn’t.
    “I can’t,” she said.
    “It’s beautiful,” I said.
    Her face was moonlit with sadness. “I know.”
    I held out both hands. “I’m here,” I said. “Just for a minute. It’ll be all right. You’re safe.”
    “I can smell it from here,” she said.
    “I know. Yes! Now come see it. It
wants
you to see it.”
    There were no words for a long time. Then the faint creak of the screen door opening. Her arm reached out, ghostly pale. I took her hand. It would not come with me. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She was crying.
    I told her to wait there. I returned to the flower. It took a long time, and I really don’t know how I did it, but somehow I managed to get the great potted plant up the yard to the back door. And that’s how we spent the night—Betty Lou and me and the night-blooming cereus. Betty Lou opened a bottle of champagne for herself, as she always did on this occasion, and a cranberry juice for me. The dark screen between us, we toasted the Queen of the Night. We toasted moon and moths and all brief things. We held hands through the opened door and sang soft songs by turns to each other. We shared our dreams. We fell silent as the flower. We fell asleep, she against the screen door, me on the step. When we awoke, the sun was rising and the flower was dead.
             
    August 2
    My happy wagon is down to five pebbles.
    The temperature today reached 100 degrees. I had a garden job today. I beat the heat by starting early in the morning.
             
    August 3
    I awoke in a sweat despite the whirring floor fan at the foot of my bed. I had been dreaming, but already the dream had fled.
    I got dressed and tiptoed downstairs. I rode through the night and the high moon, down the middle of empty streets, under the
Blob
banner, to the canal. I crossed the bridge and coasted to a stop in the dust in front of Ike’s Bike & Mower Repair. A car was parked out front. I laid the bike down carefully