Cassie Binegar Read Free Page B

understand the meaning of Margaret Mary’s message.

4
Gran
    C ASSIE AWOKE LATE the next morning. The sun was high, and Cassie sat on the edge of her bed, thinking about Margaret Mary. She reached for her thesaurus and took out her notebook and pen. Margaret Mary , she wrote: proper , perfect . She frowned a bit, thinking of Margaret Mary’s wild laughter. Confusing , mysterious , she added.
    â€œCass,” her mother’s voice came up the stairs. “You’re late getting up today. Are you all right?”
    â€œFine,” called Cassie.
    â€œI’ll need help.” She could hear her mother coming up the stairs. “Gran’s coming tonight.” Her mother stood there, filling the doorway.
    Gran . Cassie’s heart began to pound. She had forgotten. No, not really forgotten. Gran had always been there on the edges of each day, like the memory. And like the dream that had begun to blur the memory.
    â€œMaybe you could wear the shirt she sent you, the one with the embroidery? She’d like that.”
    Cassie nodded. Her mother paused, looking at her, her eyes bright and sharp, like Gran’s. But she said nothing, and after a moment, she left.
    Cassie walked slowly to the closet and took down a blue denim shirt. She held it up and looked at the many stitched memories on it that Gran had sewn for her. A large tree, her tree back home. A rose, one that she and Papa had grown and tended together. “Dang rose!” Papa had yelled at it once. At her surprised look he had explained, “Flowers need stern words. Everything needs stern words at one time or another.” A small rowboat, light blue, that she and Gran had rowed together on the back pond, talking and trailing their fingers in the water, watching the turtles sunning, then slipping into the water when they rowed near. A candy box with a red ribbon. Cassie smiled, thinking of the chocolates that she and Gran had always eaten, hidden, in secret places. Once in the backseat of her mother’s car, Gran and Cassie had stuffed them greedily into their mouths, warm and melting from the box. “What are you eating?” her mother had asked. “Remember, no snacks before dinner.” “Why, we know that, Kate,” her Gran had said matter-of-factly. “Celery sticks and carrots,” she had replied, making Cassie giggle. “But I hear no crunching!” Cassie’s mother had insisted, trying to look at them in the rearview mirror while Cassie and Gran burst into laughter, happily locked into a secret of their own.
    Cassie sighed and tried on the shirt. She looked at herself in the mirror for a moment, then she took out her notebook with her poem “Spaces” in it. She read the first two verses, then she wrote:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  My clothes are spaces, too: a shirt ,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  My pants
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  My socks
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  A dress
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  A skirt ,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And in my shoes, below my clothes
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Are spaces there
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  for
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â      all
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â      my
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  toes .
    Not good verse, she thought. But not bad either. Fair to middling, she thought, remembering one of Gran’s expressions. As she slipped the notebook