"MARIA!!!!!!!!!!!" her voice rumbled across the part of the town
where the Flower Bud Library was located. "Oh, gosh, I can't believe you!!
How many times have I told you to just say no!!!!!"
In the midst of this dramatic scene, there were tears in little Maria's eyes just as they were looking at two large watermelons that were sitting on the lawn just outside the library. Ann shook her head at her in pity and in shame.
"Well... I just felt sorry for him. I felt that he needed the money, so... so I...."
"So you bought them. He ripped you off, Maria!!"
"I'm sorry...." little Maria backed down, folding her hands behind her back and hanging her head low.
"Hey Ann, what's going on? Hi, Maria!" rang Jack's voice, and he himself approached them in a cheerful manner, but his face fell when he saw the looks of distress on their faces. "What's happened here?"
"That stupid salesman just ripped Maria off. What are we going to do with these two watermelons that she bought?" Ann looked at Jack desperately, then was quick to admire the way he handled problems like this that hit so suddenly.
"Well, how about if I buy one from you, Maria?" his gaze fell on the library receptionist, and Maria's face colored. So she wasn't the only girl to fall for Jack's charm, after all.
"That's a good idea," added Ann. "Here's 150 G. I'll take one for dessert tonight." Somehow she felt more connected with Jack even after a simple helping act from one friend to another. It was almost as if Jack and Ann were working as one team to help Maria, even though she privately knew that was not true.
"Wow, thanks!!" Jack said brightly as he held the other in his arms. "I really like this. Thank you, Maria." It was comical to see him walk and carry the heavy watermelon at the same time, smooth and slippery in the grasp of his sweaty palms and fingers. He really was working harder. Maybe choosing to restore his grandfather's farm was a change for the better after all.
Subconsciously they began walking in the same direction together, watermelons in hand and everything. Ann once again felt like they were working as a team, and thought of how fun it felt. She was glad that they had become such (very) good friends.
"Sometimes I wish I could do something for her," declared Jack out of the blue as they turned the corner by the midwife's house, moving oddly as he bore the watermelon.
"Maria? Yeah, she's really nice." Ann told herself firmly before she went to sleep last night that she and Jack would remain friends-- there would be fewer disappointments that way, and romance wasn't the kind of fun that she was used to-- but she couldn't help wondering if he accidentally let on that he liked Maria. "But she has a tendency to back down; she doesn't speak up for herself and that's what makes me mad. Not at her, but at those who try to take advantage of her the way that ignoramus of a salesman did."
"I've noticed," Jack looked straight ahead, into the thin air as if he could see Maria in it and was scrutinizing her. "Not like you, Ann."
The way he said it made her heart hammer. She pretended to look like she wasn't brooding over it, and said nothing.
"I mean, if she could just speak up for once and come out and have a good time once in a while," he continued, then added, looking at her, "then she could have something like... oh, what you and I are."
Ann longed to hear more but tried to convince herself that he was implying that they were just friends. They came to the end of the dirt path and it was straight to the Harvest Farm and right to Green Ranch. Ann sighed frustratedly as she figured out that they would have to separate soon. Or maybe not if he didn't have to, but she always resorted away from wishful thinking to avoid disappointment. The sun was already making its way on the opposite side and she guessed that it was almost 5:00.
"W-what do you mean, Jack?" she burst out when they stood near the Flower Bud Village sign, then mentally cursed at herself for stalling him. She couldn't help it; she longed to know.
Much to her surprise, he blushed!
"It--It's just that, you're such a fun person to be with, Ann. I've noticed that from the very beginning. You're so outspoken, and... and you never get embarrassed! I like how you don't hide anything from me, and I'm glad I've gotten to be such close friends with you," he said honestly, trying to be as straightforward as she was.
Ha! There's a lot I'm hiding from you, trust me.
"Oh, no! Well, I--uh--I've gotta go, Ann. But I'll see you at the Harvest Festival on the 12th," Jack said, waving and running off, seeing that it was past five already.
Ann barely felt the weight of the watermelon, much less her own weight. She wondered just what the heck Jack meant, but then decided to take it in a very good way. She felt very, very good about how today went, and as she walked home she started thinking about how he remembered the Harvest Festival on the 12th, and just maybe he might ask her to dance with him.
Dessert started off wonderfully. After a full dinner that Gray cooked she just had enough room for the watermelon she bought from Maria, and felt especially good because she and Jack paid her a total of more than she had bought them from the salesman for. Gray and Hall had already left the table, declining her offer for a piece of the watermelon, so she'd tied a cloth napkin around her neck as if she were in a pie eating contest and examined the whole melon with a large knife in her hand.
Midway through her third medium-sized slice of the naturally-sweet goodness, and the happiness of spitting out the black seeds into the sink drain, Gray came up to the table and sat down in the lantern light.
"I saw you walking with Jack today," he said, keeping on his trademark solemn look. Only tonight Ann couldn't help noticed that he looked a little more pissed off than usual.
"Yeah, and? So?" Ann continued making disturbing slurping noises with the watermelon juice when she reached the green part at the bottom of her third piece.
"Did he give you that watermelon?" Gray didn't blink once, and it seemed almost like his mouth wasn't moving. His blue eyes looked just like hers except he held his in a fixed cruel expression, piercing into her.
"No. We bought these from Maria. Why?" she looked up curiously, pink juice dripping from her chin.
"I saw you carrying them together. You seemed to be talking animatedly about something, then he blushed."
"Did he?" Ann pretended to be absentminded like usual. "Are you sure it wasn't the red light of the sunset?"
"Ann."
"What?" she looked at him challengingly now, as if it were a game.
"Are you seeing him?"
"What do you mean? What is this 'seeing him' all about?" She cocked an eyebrow at him and was near getting angry. Since when was it his place to interrogate her about her personal affairs? She found it more acceptable if Hall did that, which she knew he wouldn't do for a long time anyway.
"That is what I would like to ask you. What I mean is, do you two like each other? Because, although hard to believe, I think he likes you! And I don't want him to hang around you like that."
"Why not????" she practically exploded.
"I told you Ann, He-Is-A-City-Boy. He's in it for absolutely nothing but a girl like you to take advantage of, and maybe a change of scenery. That is the only thing that separates him from a tourist."
"Take advantage of???? And I've never even heard such harsh talk from Dad!!!" Ann put a stop to eating her watermelon and clutched the wooden handle of the knife in her hand, almost pounding the end of it into the table.
"Be logical, Ann. Jack has no idea what it's like to live in our village. In fact, he has no idea how to run a farm. I doubted him in the beginning, but I left him alone about it. But now that I see him being a total sleaze around you, I don't want-"
"I will NOT let you talk that way about my friend!!" Ann said firmly, wiping her mouth, dropping the knife onto the platter and standing up to meet his eye level.
"He is using you to restore his grandfather's farm!!!!!!!!!" Gray had never yelled like that, but from the way he was doing so, it sounded more like he was being a jerk than a caring big brother. Gray didn't know Jack. It wasn't his place to judge at all. "Suppose he charms his way into making you accept the blue feather from him. Then what? Soon people in town will be saying that Ann from Green Ranch--yes, the sensible one!!-- was bribed into having Jack's horse win the Local Horse Race, and who knows what else!! Besides, he is not from a hard-working background. Have you seen his father when he came by here early this spring?"
"YOU IGNORAMUS!!!!" Ann yelled. "Jack is kind and gentle and smart, he loves animals, he is definitely more fun to be with than you, and Popuri likes him!!" She took her best guess at whom Gray would like, and used it as her best defense. "So if I like Jack, that's entirely my affair, and you... shouldn't be... involved in it." She shut her mouth fast as soon as she finished her sentence, having blurted it out to the last person she would have wanted to---Gray. Her brother. The one she had been fond of for years and years, and he had become such a jerk. What's more, she also admitted her crush on Jack to herself.
"Fine," Gray said through bared, gritted teeth. "Maybe he'll back off when you are married and he finds out that you can't cook."
Tears had begun in Ann's eyes before but now she cried harder than she'd cried in a long time. So much for her simultaneous thoughts of, "No, no, I won't let him ruin the taste of this good watermelon..." and her internal decision to keep her infatuation to herself.
Gray became frightened at his tough sister's tears and added quickly, "Now Ann, you know that what I said is for your own good. I didn't mean to ruin your... your happiness you feel from him, but... I'm just worried about you, and---and----well I'm trying to be a good brother and I never thought that you would feel this way about a boy so soon and...sometimes I forget you're sixteen!... It's okay Ann, you can make fun of me and tell the whole world I like Popuri, it's okay..." But Ann still kept sobbing.
"What's going on here? Ann? Gray? Are you guys okay?" Hall came out of his office with a caring, tender look on his face they'd both never seen before. It was such an upsetting evening for Ann; this sudden change in Hall definitely didn't help. It made her feel like this was such a big situation that everyone had to know about.
"Dad," Ann whimpered, catching herself being such a wimp, "Gray has a problem with the friends I make and the people I choose to talk to, and he's insulting my closest friend! It's not right, Dad, if only you heard what he said...."
"I just suspect that Ann is being taken advantage of and I tried to be a little hard on her so that she would stay safe, that's all. I really didn't want to hurt her feelings or make her cry... Dad," Gray said fearfully when Hall looked at him. "Honest, I didn't."
"I believe you both," Hall said, his face looking more tired than stern. In the lantern light Ann and Gray thought they saw silver-gray hairs on their father and were all the more frightened by how long they had been faking that their family was falling apart. "But, son, you know that the subject of her affairs with others is to her own discretion, right?"
"Yes, sir. But I couldn't help being worried. I know that she is sixteen now and should make decisions for herself-" Gray looked at his sister sympathetically, almost as if he could cry himself.
"Good, because that was the next thing I was going to ask you. Ann..." Hall looked at his daughter in a way that he hadn't looked at her since that one day when his departed wife held her in her arms. Gray left discreetly, sensing that all that had to be said to him was said.
"I'm--I'm sorry for crying like this, Dad," Ann whimpered, wiping her face. "I'm being such a wimp right now."
"No, you're not, honey. You're being a girl," he said calmly, taking her into his arms. "Aw, Ann, now when was the last time I held you like this?"
"I don't know," she said as she calmed down. Her father, her very best friend, soothed her.
"It's okay, stubborn. You cry as long as you need to."
"I'm okay now, Dad. Thank you so much."
"Ann?"
"Hmm?" she stepped back, looking up at his dark eyes.
"This was... about Jack, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Ann, I always anticipated discussing this with you in a different way, but when it comes to boys in general--I'm not saying you're involved with Jack or anything-- you have more freedom than you did before, because you are sixteen. I just hope that if something goes wrong with the way a boy is treating you, you'll come see me."
"Of course, Dad. And Jack won't ever treat me badly, you can trust that."
"I know that, honey, and I trust that. Ann... you look so much like your mother now."
"That's what Gray says."
"I know. Now Ann, you mind Gray sometimes, won't you? Please?"
"I always have." She hugged him again and wrapped the watermelon to place it in the refrigerator, and when she had done so, she got ready for bed with her usual routine of keeping her mother's cross necklace on, kneeling to pray before getting into bed, and tucking the gold cross in her top so that it wouldn't get lost when she slept with it on. Ann fell asleep with the kind of tranquility that comes when a girl admits she loves a young man and ends her day by dreaming about him.
In the midst of this dramatic scene, there were tears in little Maria's eyes just as they were looking at two large watermelons that were sitting on the lawn just outside the library. Ann shook her head at her in pity and in shame.
"Well... I just felt sorry for him. I felt that he needed the money, so... so I...."
"So you bought them. He ripped you off, Maria!!"
"I'm sorry...." little Maria backed down, folding her hands behind her back and hanging her head low.
"Hey Ann, what's going on? Hi, Maria!" rang Jack's voice, and he himself approached them in a cheerful manner, but his face fell when he saw the looks of distress on their faces. "What's happened here?"
"That stupid salesman just ripped Maria off. What are we going to do with these two watermelons that she bought?" Ann looked at Jack desperately, then was quick to admire the way he handled problems like this that hit so suddenly.
"Well, how about if I buy one from you, Maria?" his gaze fell on the library receptionist, and Maria's face colored. So she wasn't the only girl to fall for Jack's charm, after all.
"That's a good idea," added Ann. "Here's 150 G. I'll take one for dessert tonight." Somehow she felt more connected with Jack even after a simple helping act from one friend to another. It was almost as if Jack and Ann were working as one team to help Maria, even though she privately knew that was not true.
"Wow, thanks!!" Jack said brightly as he held the other in his arms. "I really like this. Thank you, Maria." It was comical to see him walk and carry the heavy watermelon at the same time, smooth and slippery in the grasp of his sweaty palms and fingers. He really was working harder. Maybe choosing to restore his grandfather's farm was a change for the better after all.
Subconsciously they began walking in the same direction together, watermelons in hand and everything. Ann once again felt like they were working as a team, and thought of how fun it felt. She was glad that they had become such (very) good friends.
"Sometimes I wish I could do something for her," declared Jack out of the blue as they turned the corner by the midwife's house, moving oddly as he bore the watermelon.
"Maria? Yeah, she's really nice." Ann told herself firmly before she went to sleep last night that she and Jack would remain friends-- there would be fewer disappointments that way, and romance wasn't the kind of fun that she was used to-- but she couldn't help wondering if he accidentally let on that he liked Maria. "But she has a tendency to back down; she doesn't speak up for herself and that's what makes me mad. Not at her, but at those who try to take advantage of her the way that ignoramus of a salesman did."
"I've noticed," Jack looked straight ahead, into the thin air as if he could see Maria in it and was scrutinizing her. "Not like you, Ann."
The way he said it made her heart hammer. She pretended to look like she wasn't brooding over it, and said nothing.
"I mean, if she could just speak up for once and come out and have a good time once in a while," he continued, then added, looking at her, "then she could have something like... oh, what you and I are."
Ann longed to hear more but tried to convince herself that he was implying that they were just friends. They came to the end of the dirt path and it was straight to the Harvest Farm and right to Green Ranch. Ann sighed frustratedly as she figured out that they would have to separate soon. Or maybe not if he didn't have to, but she always resorted away from wishful thinking to avoid disappointment. The sun was already making its way on the opposite side and she guessed that it was almost 5:00.
"W-what do you mean, Jack?" she burst out when they stood near the Flower Bud Village sign, then mentally cursed at herself for stalling him. She couldn't help it; she longed to know.
Much to her surprise, he blushed!
"It--It's just that, you're such a fun person to be with, Ann. I've noticed that from the very beginning. You're so outspoken, and... and you never get embarrassed! I like how you don't hide anything from me, and I'm glad I've gotten to be such close friends with you," he said honestly, trying to be as straightforward as she was.
Ha! There's a lot I'm hiding from you, trust me.
"Oh, no! Well, I--uh--I've gotta go, Ann. But I'll see you at the Harvest Festival on the 12th," Jack said, waving and running off, seeing that it was past five already.
Ann barely felt the weight of the watermelon, much less her own weight. She wondered just what the heck Jack meant, but then decided to take it in a very good way. She felt very, very good about how today went, and as she walked home she started thinking about how he remembered the Harvest Festival on the 12th, and just maybe he might ask her to dance with him.
Dessert started off wonderfully. After a full dinner that Gray cooked she just had enough room for the watermelon she bought from Maria, and felt especially good because she and Jack paid her a total of more than she had bought them from the salesman for. Gray and Hall had already left the table, declining her offer for a piece of the watermelon, so she'd tied a cloth napkin around her neck as if she were in a pie eating contest and examined the whole melon with a large knife in her hand.
Midway through her third medium-sized slice of the naturally-sweet goodness, and the happiness of spitting out the black seeds into the sink drain, Gray came up to the table and sat down in the lantern light.
"I saw you walking with Jack today," he said, keeping on his trademark solemn look. Only tonight Ann couldn't help noticed that he looked a little more pissed off than usual.
"Yeah, and? So?" Ann continued making disturbing slurping noises with the watermelon juice when she reached the green part at the bottom of her third piece.
"Did he give you that watermelon?" Gray didn't blink once, and it seemed almost like his mouth wasn't moving. His blue eyes looked just like hers except he held his in a fixed cruel expression, piercing into her.
"No. We bought these from Maria. Why?" she looked up curiously, pink juice dripping from her chin.
"I saw you carrying them together. You seemed to be talking animatedly about something, then he blushed."
"Did he?" Ann pretended to be absentminded like usual. "Are you sure it wasn't the red light of the sunset?"
"Ann."
"What?" she looked at him challengingly now, as if it were a game.
"Are you seeing him?"
"What do you mean? What is this 'seeing him' all about?" She cocked an eyebrow at him and was near getting angry. Since when was it his place to interrogate her about her personal affairs? She found it more acceptable if Hall did that, which she knew he wouldn't do for a long time anyway.
"That is what I would like to ask you. What I mean is, do you two like each other? Because, although hard to believe, I think he likes you! And I don't want him to hang around you like that."
"Why not????" she practically exploded.
"I told you Ann, He-Is-A-City-Boy. He's in it for absolutely nothing but a girl like you to take advantage of, and maybe a change of scenery. That is the only thing that separates him from a tourist."
"Take advantage of???? And I've never even heard such harsh talk from Dad!!!" Ann put a stop to eating her watermelon and clutched the wooden handle of the knife in her hand, almost pounding the end of it into the table.
"Be logical, Ann. Jack has no idea what it's like to live in our village. In fact, he has no idea how to run a farm. I doubted him in the beginning, but I left him alone about it. But now that I see him being a total sleaze around you, I don't want-"
"I will NOT let you talk that way about my friend!!" Ann said firmly, wiping her mouth, dropping the knife onto the platter and standing up to meet his eye level.
"He is using you to restore his grandfather's farm!!!!!!!!!" Gray had never yelled like that, but from the way he was doing so, it sounded more like he was being a jerk than a caring big brother. Gray didn't know Jack. It wasn't his place to judge at all. "Suppose he charms his way into making you accept the blue feather from him. Then what? Soon people in town will be saying that Ann from Green Ranch--yes, the sensible one!!-- was bribed into having Jack's horse win the Local Horse Race, and who knows what else!! Besides, he is not from a hard-working background. Have you seen his father when he came by here early this spring?"
"YOU IGNORAMUS!!!!" Ann yelled. "Jack is kind and gentle and smart, he loves animals, he is definitely more fun to be with than you, and Popuri likes him!!" She took her best guess at whom Gray would like, and used it as her best defense. "So if I like Jack, that's entirely my affair, and you... shouldn't be... involved in it." She shut her mouth fast as soon as she finished her sentence, having blurted it out to the last person she would have wanted to---Gray. Her brother. The one she had been fond of for years and years, and he had become such a jerk. What's more, she also admitted her crush on Jack to herself.
"Fine," Gray said through bared, gritted teeth. "Maybe he'll back off when you are married and he finds out that you can't cook."
Tears had begun in Ann's eyes before but now she cried harder than she'd cried in a long time. So much for her simultaneous thoughts of, "No, no, I won't let him ruin the taste of this good watermelon..." and her internal decision to keep her infatuation to herself.
Gray became frightened at his tough sister's tears and added quickly, "Now Ann, you know that what I said is for your own good. I didn't mean to ruin your... your happiness you feel from him, but... I'm just worried about you, and---and----well I'm trying to be a good brother and I never thought that you would feel this way about a boy so soon and...sometimes I forget you're sixteen!... It's okay Ann, you can make fun of me and tell the whole world I like Popuri, it's okay..." But Ann still kept sobbing.
"What's going on here? Ann? Gray? Are you guys okay?" Hall came out of his office with a caring, tender look on his face they'd both never seen before. It was such an upsetting evening for Ann; this sudden change in Hall definitely didn't help. It made her feel like this was such a big situation that everyone had to know about.
"Dad," Ann whimpered, catching herself being such a wimp, "Gray has a problem with the friends I make and the people I choose to talk to, and he's insulting my closest friend! It's not right, Dad, if only you heard what he said...."
"I just suspect that Ann is being taken advantage of and I tried to be a little hard on her so that she would stay safe, that's all. I really didn't want to hurt her feelings or make her cry... Dad," Gray said fearfully when Hall looked at him. "Honest, I didn't."
"I believe you both," Hall said, his face looking more tired than stern. In the lantern light Ann and Gray thought they saw silver-gray hairs on their father and were all the more frightened by how long they had been faking that their family was falling apart. "But, son, you know that the subject of her affairs with others is to her own discretion, right?"
"Yes, sir. But I couldn't help being worried. I know that she is sixteen now and should make decisions for herself-" Gray looked at his sister sympathetically, almost as if he could cry himself.
"Good, because that was the next thing I was going to ask you. Ann..." Hall looked at his daughter in a way that he hadn't looked at her since that one day when his departed wife held her in her arms. Gray left discreetly, sensing that all that had to be said to him was said.
"I'm--I'm sorry for crying like this, Dad," Ann whimpered, wiping her face. "I'm being such a wimp right now."
"No, you're not, honey. You're being a girl," he said calmly, taking her into his arms. "Aw, Ann, now when was the last time I held you like this?"
"I don't know," she said as she calmed down. Her father, her very best friend, soothed her.
"It's okay, stubborn. You cry as long as you need to."
"I'm okay now, Dad. Thank you so much."
"Ann?"
"Hmm?" she stepped back, looking up at his dark eyes.
"This was... about Jack, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, Ann, I always anticipated discussing this with you in a different way, but when it comes to boys in general--I'm not saying you're involved with Jack or anything-- you have more freedom than you did before, because you are sixteen. I just hope that if something goes wrong with the way a boy is treating you, you'll come see me."
"Of course, Dad. And Jack won't ever treat me badly, you can trust that."
"I know that, honey, and I trust that. Ann... you look so much like your mother now."
"That's what Gray says."
"I know. Now Ann, you mind Gray sometimes, won't you? Please?"
"I always have." She hugged him again and wrapped the watermelon to place it in the refrigerator, and when she had done so, she got ready for bed with her usual routine of keeping her mother's cross necklace on, kneeling to pray before getting into bed, and tucking the gold cross in her top so that it wouldn't get lost when she slept with it on. Ann fell asleep with the kind of tranquility that comes when a girl admits she loves a young man and ends her day by dreaming about him.