Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

I wonder if I'm crazy to have come.

No girl would get out on a boardwalk on a day like this.

It must be practically a hurricane.

She's there, though.

As soon as I turn the corner to the beach, I can see one figure, with its back to the ocean, scarf and hair blowing inland toward me.

I can't see her face, but it's Mary, all right.

There isn't another soul in sight.

I wave and she hunches her shoulders up and down to semaphore, not wishing to take her hands out of her pockets.

I come up beside her on the boardwalk and turn my back to the ocean, too.

I'd like to go on looking at it—it's all black and white and thundery—but the wind blows your breath right back down into your stomach. I freeze.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come on a day like this," I say.

"Me too. I mean I was afraid you wouldn't."

"Mom and Pop thought I was crazy. I spent about an hour arguing with them. What'd your mother say?"

"Nothing. She thinks I'm walking alone with the wind in my hair, thinking poetic thoughts."

"Huh? What for?"

Mary shrugs.

"Mom's like that. You'll see. Come on, let's go home and make cocoa or something to warm up, and then we'll think up something to do. We can't just stand here."

She's right about that, so I don't argue.

Her house is a few blocks away, a two-family type with a sloped driveway going down into a cellar garage.

Neat.

My pop is always going nuts hunting for a place to park.

Mary goes in and shouts, "Hi, Nina! I brought a friend home. We're going to make some cocoa. We're freezing."

I wonder who Nina is.

I don't hear her mother come into the kitchen.

Then I turn around and there she is.

Table of Contents