Fifteen by Beverly Cleary

Author:Beverly Cleary [Cleary, Beverly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

“Love me on Monday, but don’t love me one day. Love me on Tuesday…” Jane sang in a throaty voice as she tossed her schoolbooks onto her bed. She pulled a comb through her hair and, smiling dreamily, paused to run a finger over the design on her back-scratcher, now tied to her mirror with a red ribbon. Then she kicked off her shoes and plopped herself cross-legged on the bed. English and French and math assignments could wait. Jane was knitting Stan a pair of Argyle socks for Christmas.

With awkward fingers she untangled the bobbins of green and yellow yarn and, after reading the directions twice to make sure, began to knit from a ball of gray wool, “Love me on Tuesday, don’t make it a blues day,” she hummed happily, as she thought back over the first week of school. It had been a wonderful week. All her daydreams had come true and, in the matter of locker assignments, had even been improved upon by the administration of Woodmont High. Stan’s locker was almost directly across the hall from hers. This stroke of good luck was something not even Jane had dreamed of, and she marveled at it several times a day when she saw Stan across the hall. Another piece of good fortune was that Stan’s history class met in the room next to her French class. They even had the same lunch period and although Stan ate with a group of boys and Jane with several girls, they usually met on the lawn toward the end of the period and walked to their lockers together.

This was enough to establish Jane as Stan’s girl in the eyes of Woodmont High, and because she was Stan’s girl, Jane floated through the week in an aura of joy. She was no longer Jane Purdy, onlooker. She was Jane Purdy, Stan Crandall’s girl. She belonged. The other students watched her walk down the hall beside Stan and thought, Jane and Stan…. And she was able to say, “Stan and I….” Memories floated through Jane’s mind. Stan holding the handle of the drinking fountain for her. Stan sitting beside her on the front steps of the school, the golden brown hair on his arms glinting in the sunlight. The touch of his identification bracelet against her wrist as his arm brushed hers in the crowded hall. Stan’s greenish eyes smiling down at her as he leaned against her locker, or waited for her outside her French room, or stood in the same line in the cafeteria. Oh, it had been a wonderful week.

Jane paused to untangle the bobbins that dangled from her knitting, and her eyes fell on the first issue of the Woodmontonian, which had slipped out of her notebook when she tossed her books onto the bed. Listed in a box in the center of the front page were the school social activities for the semester. Jane put down her knitting and picked up the paper. The list began with a tea to introduce the freshmen to the faculty (thank goodness, she was past that stage).

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