Summerlost by Ally Condie Page A

“Hopefully they’ll tip too.”
    â€œEight!” I said. “That’s a record.”
    Leo nodded but he had wrinkled his nose up in that way he did when he was worried. “So someone saw us back in the forest?”
    â€œI think so. But it was one person looking in our direction. It wasn’t like they called out to us or came over or got mad or anything.”
    â€œMale or female?” he asked. “Tourist or worker? Gary?”
    â€œToo far away to tell,” I said. “But if it was Gary, he definitely didn’t recognize us, or he would have done something.”
    Leo still looked worried.
    â€œHow close are you?” I asked Leo. “To having all the money?”
    â€œNot close enough,” Leo said. “My dad and I counted it out last night and looked into buying tickets. They’re already more expensive than I thought they’d be.”
    â€œAre you sure your dad won’t cover it for you? Or can’t you pay him back once you get the rest of the money?”
    â€œThat’s not the deal we made,” Leo said, and his jaw was set. “I’m not going to ask for that.”
    We walked a few steps in silence. I put the lollipop in my pocket. Root beer.
    â€œMy dad’s nice,” Leo said. “But he doesn’t really get me. He’s into football and his job and watching sports on TV and fishing. I like all that stuff fine. Especially fishing. But he’s way more into it than me.”
    â€œHe’s going to the play with you in London,” I pointed out.
    â€œYeah,” Leo said. “And it was a big deal for him to agree so I want to live up to my part of the bargain. Not ask for help.”
    And then I got it. Leo wanted to go so badly because he wanted not only to be in the presence of greatness, but because he wanted to share something he thought was amazing with his dad.
    â€œI feel like if my dad sees Barnaby Chesterfield, he’ll understand,” Leo said. “I mean, he will. Right?”
    â€œYeah,” I said, thinking of my own dad, of the way we’d yell at everyone else to be quiet while we watched Barnaby Chesterfield in
Darwin.
I remembered how my dad would lean in to hear Barnaby talk, how everything he said sounded both sonorous and snipped. But most of all how it felt to be with my dad and to love the same thing so much. “He will.”
    That night I put the root beer lollipop on the windowsill. It was gone the next morning.

20.
    My next job in the costume shop was sorting buttons. Days and days of sifting through buttons to see which ones might work for repairs and which ones belonged to costumes we weren’t using this season but would use again another year.
    It was kind of the worst.
    And also the best.
    Because the buttons were super annoying, but everyone kept forgetting I was in the corner working. So sometimes I heard and saw interesting things.
    Everyone went quiet when Caitlin Morrow came in, looking portrait-faced and beautiful even without a trace of makeup. Caitlin played Juliet in one of the plays and Rosalind in another. She was the biggest star of the festival this summer.
    â€œWell,” she said. “I guess you all heard what happened last night.”
    I hadn’t. But it looked like the others had. Their faces changed from serious to trying-not-to-laugh.
    â€œRomeo’s breeches split,” Caitlin went on. “Right down the back.”
    No way.
    â€œI had to grab a blanket off the bed on the stage and put it around him and pull him close to me during the scene so that he didn’t moon the entire audience,” Caitlin said.
    â€œYou saved the show,” Meg said. “And the innocence of that senior citizens’ group sitting in the front rows.”
    Caitlin snorted. “Can you give me a guarantee,” she said, “that I am
never
going to have to see Brad Murray’s butt again?”
    â€œI’ve been on the phone