Thwonk by Joan Bauer Read Free Book Online Page A

beach.”
    “Why?”
    “Patience, my friend. You must learn to see with new eyes.”
    I grumbled that if seeing with new eyes meant losing touch with gravity, I was against it. I crabbed that it was unnerving to take orders from a creature that only I could see! I pointed a shaking finger at the cupid and felt a tap on my shoulder.
    I swung around to face a very large policeman.
    “Everything okay, miss?”
    “Uh…”
    He put his hand on his nightstick. “You want to talk about it, miss?”
    The cupid zipped around the officer’s head and landed on his hat. My mind stretched toward its outer limits. I said I had the lead in the school play and that I was acting out my part, which took place on a bleak, wintry street so that I could sense the cold, numbing futility of my character in her true surroundings. I took a huge breath and prayed.
    “Well, now,” said the officer, “that sounds like some play, little lady.”
    I said believe me, it was the role of a lifetime, andbacked away onto Browning Road looking massively dramatic. Trish would have been proud. Stieglitz strained on the leash, his tail dragging.
    “Heel,” the cupid commanded him.
    Stieglitz clipped into a perfect heel. Traitor. The cupid zipped along millimeters from my earlobe.
    I shuddered. “I almost got arrested for being a psycho!”
    The cupid soared upward and swooped down; his wings buzzed faintly. “Turn left, please.”
    “It’s prettier over here—”
    “
Left!
” he ordered.
    I went left past the huge stone houses set back from the Crestport Beach.
    “A little past these bushes,” he directed. “Let your dog off the leash and open yourself to the experience.”
    I groaned that I’d had enough experiences for one day and released Stieglitz to careen on the snowy sand. The cupid motioned me forward. He soared over the boarded-up Snack Shack. He perched on the lifeguard’s chair. He skimmed the polluted water of Long Island Sound as it splashed against the rocks and went back again in nothing resembling waves.
    “How do you do that?” I whispered.
    The cupid zoomed through the air as the wind whooshed across the sloppy gray lot.
    I kept walking. I loved the beach in winter. It was wild and free without that putrid smell of suntan lotion.I didn’t even mind February because I was partial to black-and-white photography. All that silvery beauty and subtle tonality.
    I pulled up my collar and shoved my hands in my pockets as it started to snow. I lifted my face as the big flakes fell. They glided from heaven and covered the beach.
    A Heinz ketchup bottle washed up on shore and I remembered sitting on this very beach with Todd Kovich who said I was rare and pretty and who kissed me like he meant it. Two hours later he went to Yale.
    I jammed the Heinz ketchup bottle between two rocks and tore off five quick shots. It spoke to me. About rich people in big boats who dump their trash without paying the price. About massive oil spills and disappearing rain forests. About mounting nuclear waste and Julia Hart.
    That’s when I saw it.
    Just to the left of the embankment that jutted out to the Sound. It was painted on a huge, craggy rock set apart from the rest. It read:
    DONNA LOVES STEVE
    GARY
    DEREK
    NATHANIEL
    DONNA IS CONFUSED
    I laughed as snow twinkled down. Love in the age of angst! It was perfect Valentine funk.
    “Of course it’s perfect,” the cupid said hovering over the rock.
    “How did you know about this? I was here five days ago; I didn’t see it.”
    A sunbeam illuminated the scene. “Make available light work for you, my friend.”
    “Yes. I know what to do.”
    I focused my F2 to the left of the rock, I studied the rock, looking for the best angle—from the right, I decided. The sun soaked into Donna’s muddle, the rock sparkled like quartz. I tore off four shots that would immortalize Donna in the hearts and minds of millions of Americans. I worked quickly, not knowing how long the sunbeam effect would last. I