What Love Sees Read Free Page B

camp for blind kids?”
    “No. Just a girls’ camp.”
    “Will Lucy go too?”
    “No, she’s going to Cape Cod.”
    “But how can I?”
    “You will.”
    Then she heard him turn the page.
    Camp? He hadn’t even asked her.

Chapter Two
    “I like to walk behind you, Jean,” Icy said.
    “Why?”
    “I like to watch your feet pick out the path.”
    “Must look pretty silly.”
    “No. I just like to watch it. You’ve got small feet. They look like hands in mittens.”
    “Trying to find a pea.” Her hand rested on Ellen’s shoulder in front of her as the line of girls hiked through the woods. She felt the earth harden beneath her feet. That meant rocky ground might lie ahead. Time to concentrate more. She didn’t think she walked much slower than the other girls, only more carefully and probably less gracefully. Walking was a matter of trust, different from the trust she felt toward people. It was more a dependence on herself, a trust in her own new awareness. If she didn’t concentrate all the time to pick up the clues, she stumbled. And that, of course, was different than the others.
    She heard twigs cracking under foot and the sound of dry branches scraping against someone’s jacket. “Hold them out for that blind girl,” someone up ahead told Ellen. It sounded awful, “that blind girl,” as if she was something to stay away from, something that didn’t have a name, as if just because she couldn’t see that meant she couldn’t hear either. A breeze made the skin on her arms tingle and she shivered. Birds chirped in the trees. “What kind of birds are those?” she asked.
    “Robins and maybe wrens,” Icy said. “Finches, too, I think. They make that high little chirp, fast, like old women gossiping.”
    “They sound like piccolos to me,” said Jean. Suddenly, like a whip, a twig snapped across her face. “Ouch!” she cried. It stung and made her eye water. She gulped air and lost her footing, but stumbled ahead quickly in order to keep her hand on Ellen’s shoulder.
    “Sorry.” Ellen’s voice was breezy.
    That word, so casual, stung her, too. She blinked her eyes and wiped away the wetness. This was the third time today. Why couldn’t Ellen—or anybody—remember? Unless, of course, she let it happen on purpose. That was too awful to think—that people could be like that. Just let Ellen try walking through the woods blind and let’s see what she does. It hurt to swallow. She tried to think about something else—about how the woods smelled fresh and piney. When Icy walked ahead of her, though, it never happened. She could relax more then. If only they were walking in a different order.
    Off to the left she heard other voices. “Hi-lo inni minni kaka, um chow chow, oo pee wawa, ay-dee, ai-dee, oo-dee, you whooo?” The Camp Hanoum call. It sounded pretty silly, she had to admit, but kind of musical, too. She joined in when the girls in the line chorused back. The chattering up ahead increased, sign that two pathways merged.
    “We’d better hurry,” someone said, “or Luddy will be upset.”
    Mrs. Luddington gave a piano concert once a week and she didn’t tolerate latecomers. Secretly, the girls looked forward to the big cry. Every week Miss Throstle, the singing teacher, sang the same soppy love song. They all mopped their eyes appreciatively each time and joined in on the chorus. By the last verse everyone was sobbing with their arms around each other. Not to miss this week’s tears, they stepped up their pace.
    “Jean, stop,” said Icy from behind, grabbing her forearm to make her. “Listen.” Arm in arm they stood immobile while the others went on ahead. A loon called far out on the lake. They both sucked in their breath and didn’t move until they were sure it had finished.
    “Doesn’t it just give you the creepies?” Jean asked.
    “Yeah, wonderful.”
    “Mysterious.”
    “Eerie.”
    “Spooky.”
    “Lonely,” said Icy, stretching out the “o.”
    “He only knows