Write Before Your Eyes by Lisa Williams Kline Read Free Book Online

through fallen yellow leaves, and sprinted down the path beside the golf course to the weeping willow by the edge of the creek.
    She pulled aside a screen of willow fronds, like strings of yellow-green beads hanging in a doorway, and ducked inside the small, dappled room they formed. Her heart was beating all out of time and the inside of her head roared. She couldn’t catch her breath. Whew, that cat had been scary. She sat on a hump formed by the tree’s scaly gray roots, hugging herself and rubbing her T-shirt against her body to absorb the sweat trickling down her side.
    Gracie examined the cover of the journal. She opened it and ran her fingers over the spidery words on the onionskin flyleaf as she reread them.
    Remember what the dormouse said.
    Okay, face it.
She didn’t want to give the journal back. She’d been waiting her whole life for real magic and here it was. Long ago she’d read
Half Magic
by Edward Eager, and those kids made a lot of mistakes at first with that magic coin. But eventually they figured it out. And Merlin, in Jane Yolen’s books, was unsure how to use the power of his dreams when he was a boy. He had to learn. And then there was Sparrowhawk, the young wizard of Earthsea, who was so rash about using his powers at first. And, of course, Harry Potter. He and the others at Hogwarts needed seven years of training to properly learn magic. Mistakes while you were learning were expected. Somehow she had to get a better handle on this. She wouldn’t give the journal back. Not yet. Not until she’d fixed the things she’d messed up.
    Hurried footsteps approached and Dylan’s elfin face appeared through the willow fronds. He stepped inside and sat on the other tree root without a word.
    “You’re here!” Gracie said. She could never stay mad at him, so she was silent as he sank his chin in one hand. She searched his face. “So?”
    “So…what?” Dylan drummed his fingers on his knees and examined a thread hanging from the hem of his khakis.
    “How’d it go? With Lindsay?”
    Dylan shrugged. “Fine.”
    “That’s it? Fine? I’m not a pervert or anything, so I don’t need gory details, but I guess I thought you’d be happier.” Gracie’s heart began to pound. Something had gone wrong again, she could feel it. But hadn’t she actually been hoping for it this time, deep down inside? She had a vision of Dylan kissing Lindsay, of Lindsay’s dark hair tumbling over his arms. She blinked it away.
    “Well…” Dylan sighed with what Gracie thought was an exceeding amount of drama. “We got caught.”
    “Oh no!” Gracie grabbed his wrist. “Who?”
    “Ms. Vowell, the
former
schoolboy crush of my life.” Ms. Vowell had played Titania in the community theater production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
and given Dylan rides to and from rehearsals for two months. His crush had actually intensified after he found out she had two children in elementary school and a long-haired live-in boyfriend who competed in triathlons. He and Gracie had even invented an exceedingly clever code name for Ms. Vowell: Ms. Consonant. “I’m suspended for three days. Ms. Vowell said she had never been so disappointed in a student.”
    “Ooh.”
    “Yeah, you know, when they berate you, it’s not that bad. It’s the I’m-so-disappointed-in-you routine that tends to arouse hideous feelings of guilt. Although I did see her once last summer in a fond embrace with her triathlete. In some circles, by the way, that’s called hypocrisy.”
    “Well, she
is
a grown-up.” Gracie blurted out her real worry. “Before you and Lindsay got caught…I mean…was it worth it?”
    Dylan shook his head. He licked his lips. Gracie wondered if they looked chapped. The vision of him kissing Lindsay shoved its way into her consciousness again and she pushed it out.
    “She doesn’t like me, Gracie. I mean, she wanted my notes. I tried to put my arm around her and she was trying to slide away and…well, maybe I got