Summer of the Gypsy Moths by Sara Pennypacker Page B

frayedeach day, and the berries had definitely stopped growing.
    I raked more mulch around them, watered them, and pulled more weeds. I started hoeing in the morning’s coffee grounds when I figured out why Louise had saved them: I read that it made the soil more acid, the way blueberries liked it. I worked until I was sweaty and tired every morning, but nothing helped. I had promised to take care of them, and I was failing.
    By noon each day, I would give up. I’d drag on a bathing suit, scrounge up something to eat, and head down the path to the beach.
    I felt better when I got there. I don’t know what it is about a beach—the drifty, fake-coconut scent of suntan lotion, the endless whoosh of little waves lapping the shore, or the way the sun beats down so bright and hot, you feel too baked to think—but when I was there, I could almost forget everything. I floated in the cool water, too tired to actually swim, then flopped down on a towel and read. I read a lot. Louise hardly had any books to choose from—she used to say she liked her stories on the tube—but I found a set of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books in her bedroom, and those kept me going.
    Although what I found out was this: The books were abridged, which I figured meant the Reader’s Digest people put in little bridges between what they decided were thegood parts, cutting out whatever they decided was boring. The problem was, what if the Reader’s Digest people and I didn’t agree about what parts were boring? Most people would probably say, go right for the action: people fighting and chasing each other, or kissing, or lying about things. But my favorite parts were different. I liked it when two characters were getting to know each other. Just talking. It was best if they were inside a house, and the author spent a little time describing the room, so I could feel like I was there, too, sipping cocoa and watching the curtains billow in and out.
    What I did about the Reader’s Digest problem was this: Whenever I came to a part that looked like something might be missing, I made up something I’d like to be there. And I started to think, lying out there on my towel in the sun, that maybe I’d make a good author. One thing about any books I’d write—you would be reading about the cleaning-up parts of scenes. It drives me crazy how characters are always making messes and then the author doesn’t tell about cleaning them up. Everybody eats dinner in books, but nobody does the dishes. People wrestle around in the mud and have accidents with blood, and nobody does the laundry. I just hate that.
    The other thing I did out there on the beach was watch people. It’s easy to do behind sunglasses. There were loads of families, old couples reading newspapers, and groups ofteenagers working on suntans, but what I liked best were the clammers.
    They came at low tide and they worked on their hands and knees, digging dark holes into the sandbars, their wire baskets filling up beside them. Now and then one of them would sit back on his heels and call out something and the others would laugh; I never caught the words, but I liked it that they were teasing each other, making the time pass. Spinning their strands.
    I got to recognize the clammers after a couple of days—mostly they were grown men, but there was one boy. He was almost as tall as the men but only about thirteen or fourteen, and he had ragged cutoffs and messy, sun-bleached hair. He stayed to himself, and every time I looked over, his shoulders were working steadily as he pitched clam after clam into his basket. When he finished working a hole, he filled it back in with sand, even though the next high tide would take care of that in a few hours. I understood that; I would do that, too. I wished I could tell the clammer boy that, but Angel had made me promise not to talk to anyone.
    Angel. She was back to barely grunting at me, but every