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"I’ll do it, don’t worry"

They unloaded a night’s worth of gear In a few days, Caleb would have to return to town, an eight- stock: a oat or two, chickens His seeds were ready to plant; the soil had been turned They would be growing corn and beans in alternating roith a kitchen garden out back The first year would be a race against tis would settle into a h life would never be easy, by any means

They ate a simple dinner and lay down on the on to the floor of the main room He’d wondered if Pi out here, just the three of theht beyond the city walls But the opposite seeer to see how their situation unfolded Of course, there was a reason The things that had happened to her when she was a young girl had becoth

Pi, when Sara had brought her hoe, she had hardly seeroans unnerved hi even the sier The situation had started to change when Sara taught Pih this i out every word, then advancing to whole phrases and ideas that could be captured with a single swoop of the hand A book froave it to Caleb to study, he realized that estures Pie that only she and her ree, Kate and her father--shared Caleb was, by this point, fourteen or fifteen He was a clever boy, unused to proble to him What sort of person was she? The fact that he could not communicate with her as he could with everybody else was both frustrating and attractive HePiestures into memory Alone in his roo both sides of dialogues on arbitrary topics How are you today? I am very well, thank you What do you think of the weather? I enjoy the rain but a forward to war of his new abilities until he had acquired the confidence to engage her on a range of subjects The opportunity presented itself on an afternoon outing their faether to the spillway While everyone else was enjoying their picnic by the water, he had cli on the concrete, writing in her journal She was alriting; Caleb had wondered about this She glanced up as heon him in their intense way, then looked away dislossy and tucked behind her ears, flared with captured sunshine He stood for aher She was three years older than he was, basically an adult in his eyes She had also becoh in a no-nonsense way that ca, even a little icy

His presence was obviously unwelcome, but it was too late to back out Caleb walked up to her She regarded hi an expression of bored ned

She closed her book around her pencil You want to kiss me, don’t you?

The question was so unexpectedly direct that he actually startled Did he? Was that what this was all about? Now she really was laughing at hi with her eyes

I know you knohat I’ned

He found the ansith his hands: I learned

For ht Both

Have you kissed anyone before?

He hadn’t It was soet around to He kneas blushing

A few tinized the truth of this All his study and practice, yet he’d failed to notice the obvious fact, which Pie of cohtness Within its compact rhetoric, little space re half-truths that were most of what people said to one another

Do you want to?

She stood and faced hi this was sohtly, and leaned forward Their noses bu in a soft collision It was over before he knew it