A Summer to Die by Lois Lowry

hospital, and I had to do most of the cooking. Then, when she was getting better, my father had to work doubly hard on the book because he hadn't been able to concentrate on it when she was so sick. I realized that I hadn't been concentrating on my schoolwork, either, for the same reason, so I had a lot of catching up to do too.
    But finally things were calming down. It was school vacation, Molly was getting better, and even the mud outside had dried up a little. At night it would still freeze, and in fact I noticed, as I walked past, that there were tire tracks frozen into the driveway of the big house across the field.
    That was another reason I wanted to see Will
After that first awful night, when I had seen the light in the window, other things had been happening at the house. Nothing seemed as mysterious as that light in the middle of the night; still, I was curious. There was a car at the house occasionally, and the driveway had been cleared of the last spring-muddied bits of snow. Sometimes when the day was very quiet I could hear the sound of saws and hammers coming from the house. Once I had seen the figure of a man on the roof, working. It certainly looked as if someone were getting ready to move in. I asked my father if the nephew had gotten permission to turn the house into an inn, but Dad said he hadn't heard anything about it; on the other hand, Dad pointed out, he'd been so distracted and so busy that he probably wouldn't have noticed if spaceships had landed in the field.

    Will was under the hood of his truck again. I should have taken my camera with me. If there is one way in which I will always remember Will, it is under the hood of that old truck.
    "Is it your battery again, Will?" I called as I approached him.
    He straightened up and grinned. "Meg! I was hoping someone would drop in for tea. In fact, I have the kettle on. I'm so glad fate sent you instead of Clarice Callaway. She's been hinting for years
that she'll come to call someday, and I live in perpetual fear of seeing her heading down this road with her Sunday hat on and a fistful of overdue library slips to deliver."

    I giggled. Clarice Callaway is the village librarian. She's eighty-two years old, and I'm not giving away any secrets when I say that, because she tells everyone that herself as soon as they're introduced to her. She's also the president of the Historical Preservation Society, and my father says that's a real exercise in irony, because Clarice herself is the best-preserved historical monument for miles around. Also, she has a crush on Will. He told me that whenever he goes to the library, she disappears into the ladies' room and then comes out again with bright pink rouge
on
her cheeks, so that she looks like a French doll his sister had when she was a child.
    He sighed and wiped his hands on a rag. "It's the radiator this time. In the winter it's the battery, and when spring comes it's the radiator. The tires go flat in summer. Sometimes I think I'll buy a new truck, but then I figure I'd have to learn to deal with a whole new set of disasters. At least now I
know
that every April the radiator hoses will break and the engine will overheat. Better to know what your enemy is before you confront him; right, Meg?"
    "Right," I agreed, even though I wasn't at all sure I wanted to be confronted by enemies or disasters, whether I knew them or not.

    "Come inside," Will said. "I have a surprise for you."
    But my surprise was first. After Will had poured tea for both of us, I opened the big envelope and took out the pictures. I laid the six of them on the kitchen table and watched as Will picked them up one at a time. He didn't laugh or blush or say "Oh, I look
terrible
" the way kids do when they see pictures of themselves. I knew he wouldn't. He picked up each one and studied it, smiling at some, looking thoughtfully at others. Finally he chose the same one that was my favorite: the one where his eyes were closed, and the smoke from his