An-Ya and Her Diary by Diane René Christian Page B

quiet and held my candy bag.
    117
    Dear Penny,
    Sitka came with us to the lake again today. I gave Sitka one of my Chinese jelly candies. She said it was great and called the candy very cool .
    It wasn’t hot enough to swim but warm enough to wear shorts. I have these new blue shorts with big white polka dots. Sitka said that she loved my shorts and was going to ask her parents to get her a pair too so we could match. I asked her why she wanted to do that, and she said it was some kind of friendship thing that girls do—they wear matching clothes to show that they are best friends. I didn’t know that we were best friends, but I am ok with it. I guess that means that she has forgiven me for hitting Ellie.
    We helped Ellie make a sand castle and then we took Angel Bones for a walk on the beach. She is doing really well now on the leash. I have been working with her. She doesn’t even really need the leash anymore. She will walk with me everywhere I go, and she doesn’t ever try to run away. But the lake beach has rules, and one of them is that your dog needs to be on a leash.
    On our walk I told Sitka about what happened with Levi. She couldn’t believe it and kept saying—
    No way! No way! Get out!
    She told me I needed to be careful with boys and I asked her why. She said because—
    They will play you .
    I asked her what she meant by ‘play me’ and she said—
    You know, An-Ya, they will play with your emotions.
    I asked Sitka why she thought Levi would play me, and she said because he might want to touch my boobs. I told her she was crazy because I barely even have boobs for him to touch.
    118
    Dear Penny,
    Ellie’s birthday is soon and she is really excited about it. Of course, she wants balloons. She said she wanted them to all be pink, except for one that should be yellow and one that should be blue. Wanna asked her why she chose those colors, and she said that the pink ones were for her, the blue one was for me, and the yellow one was so the party would be sunny.
    What is so great about balloons anyway? I don’t get it.
    In the orphanage everybody liked balloons. The kids made such a big deal about them—even Abby. They would blow them up and toss them around and then untie them and take the air out and use them all over again until finally they would tear or pop.
    The Mean Boy was always trying to break other people’s balloons with his marching band stick. One time he popped Abby’s balloon, and she cried for the longest time. She didn’t usually cry very much, hardly ever, but she cried for hours over that stupid balloon.
    119
    Dear Penny,
    It is late and I want to go to sleep, but my brain can’t get Levi’s face out of my head. Do you think that he is thinking about me? Probably not. He probably didn’t mean anything by holding my hand. It was probably no big deal to him. I wish it wasn’t such a big deal to me.
    Sitka asked me today if Levi was my boyfriend. I said no. She told me that I was lying and that I shouldn’t lie to my best friend. So I admitted that I hoped that he would be my boyfriend someday, but really I didn’t have any idea what we were or if there even was a ‘we’.
    Honestly, I don’t even know what happens when you have a boyfriend. I asked Sitka what boyfriends and girlfriends do and she said write love letters and poems to each other and stuff. Maybe I should start practicing writing poetry? Wanna has some poetry books. I guess I could study those.
    120
    Dear Penny,
    I have news, but it is not all good.
    Wanna came into my room today. I was trying to braid my hair. My hair is longer, but I can’t braid it yet without the braid sticking straight out from my head.
    Wanna asked me to sit down on my bed with her and have a talk.
    I didn’t know what she wanted to talk about. She was holding a map and a piece of paper.
    She said—
    I have news for you about Abby…about Ye- Bi.
    I wanted to be excited, but Wanna didn’t look excited. She looked concerned.
    I