Chapter Sixteen: Mia

I had so much to do after school Friday. First, it was time to put the garden to bed for the fall because we've already had two light frosts, and the next one was going to finish off our tomato plants which were already looking thin and droopy. so I picked all the tomatoes that were left and most of them were green. Mama and I are going to make some chili with them, and they're great fried, too. Then, I had to gather eggs and clean out the henhouse. The manure just piles up if I don't clean the coop every week, and the poop sometimes gets into the nest boxes...the hens just track it in there...and then I have to clean off the eggs before I put them in the refrigerator. Poppa just loves some kind of egg dish and spicy sausage several times a week for breakfast.

Then it was time for me to help Mama with dinner. We made this great baked fish meal with yellow onions, peppers, and garlic from the garden with roasted chili peppers and the last of the ripe tomatoes. I barely had time to help Mama clean up the kitchen, before I had to walk to go babysit a neighbor's kids. I try to make money babysitting every Friday and saturday nights. I have four or five families that know I'm reliable and will take good care of their kids. I've saved every dollar I've made for college. I know the money I make from my babysitting and whatever my other jobs are in high school won't be enough to pay for my tuition freshman year. But it will be a start.

Friday night, I babysat the two Harmon girls; they're four and six and are pretty well behaved. I put them to bed by 8, which meant I finally had some time to myself for the first time all day. All week, Camila and Hannah, all they could talk about was Homecoming and would anybody ask them out. I know Poppa won't let me date this year, but I wouldn't have gone if someone had asked me out. I've just got to save my money for college and I'm not going to waste it on a dress for just one night. some of the girls are going to go to Homecoming in a group, which is probably what Camila and Hannah will end up doing. But I don't want to go sit in a group of girls and hope some boy will pick me out to dance with. It would be so humiliating to not be chosen all night.

When Camila and Hannah weren't talking about Homecoming, they were teasing me about Luke. Luke and I sort of have his math tutoring schedule all worked out now. After eating a quick lunch with Camia and Hannah on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I go to the library to meet him at a table. We go over his homework for the night, and I try to help him get prepared for his weekly Friday math test or quiz. since I've started working with him, his grade has gone from an F to a middle D and his parents haven't gotten him a tutor so far, which he says means he can still go off into the woods and outdoors on saturdays and sundays. I would love for him to ask me to come along, but I can't ask him to...maybe he will ask me sometime.

On Fridays, I skip lunch and go straight from third period to the library and meet up with Luke. That's our day for just sitting at side-by-side computers and reading about whatever one of us suggests. That's my favorite time of the week, in or out of school. A lot of the time we read about something that went on in honors history class, which we have together; sometimes we read about something about the outdoors. Luke always suggests that, of course. I was amazed at first about how much he knew about biology stuff. He knows all about trees, and birds and fish and what wild foods you can eat. Yet he has a D in science class fourth period. I bet he knows more about those types of things than Mrs. Burkhead does, and she's really smart. He says all she wants to teach about is amoebas and one-celled creatures and how boring is that. And then I tell him that she's got to teach the boring stuff because of the state testing and before we can get to the interesting lessons. But he's right, though, science class is pretty boring most every day, but I still have an A in it. I'm trying to convince Luke that he and I should form a two-person book club, that on Fridays we could select a book to read over the next week...that one week I could select a book for the two of us, then the next week he could. But he's been resistant to that idea.

I think a lot about Luke and wonder if he thinks of me. That's mostly what I did Friday night when I finally had some time to myself. I hope he thinks of me sometimes. But I do see him changing some. He's not as nervous in some of the classes, like English and history, as he was when the year first started. But I can imagine that he's just an all-out mess in math, and I can tell without him telling me that he can't stand Mrs. Burkhead.

I finally put Luke out of mind for a while and started reading ahead on the history chapters. sooner or later school is going to get really busy, and I want to be prepared. Around 10:30, the Harmons got back and since they were late, they gave me an extra few dollars, plus a $5 tip. It took me 10 minutes to walk home, and I went straight to bed. I was exhausted.