R My Name Is Rachel by Patricia Reilly Giff Page A

knelt there as she drew.
    I wheel the wheelbarrow outside and throw in the weeds I’ve pulled up. I spend the rest of the afternoon pulling and throwing, then emptying the wheelbarrow behind the barn.
    From there I see the stream. Joey, his feet in the water, waves the fishing pole Miss Mitzi gave him. Beyond him, I see rows of fern.
    Oh, Miss Mitzi, you’d love this
.
    I don’t stop working until late in the afternoon, when Joey walks by with three fish on a string.
    Poor things.
    Never mind the poor things.
    We need the food.
    And it’s free.
    We eat the fish from head to tail. It’s crispy; it’s so good; I’ve never tasted anything so good. I thank Joey. I even thank Cassie.
    She’s a good cook; I have to give her that. And she’s put a couple of wild onions and chives on top to cover the fish. “So we don’t have to see their sad eyes,” she says.
    She looks sad, too. Her eyes are red. I wonder if she’s been crying.
    I try not to think about it. In the field, she’s found wild strawberries for dessert. They’re no bigger than my pinky nail, but they’re sweet; we sit there, satisfied.
    Imagine, strawberries!
    But something’s wrong with my face. I feel it and Cassie sees it. “Rachel’s as red as a beet,” she tells Joey.
    “You’re sunburned,” he says.
    “Didn’t you wear a hat?” Cassie’s eyes are narrowed, as if the sunburn is all my fault.
    That Cassie.
    My face is so stiff now, I can hardly open my mouth. I push my plate away and go into the living room to ease myself down on the mattress. The pain is worse every minute.
    Joey comes in with thick white paste in a small bowl. “Baking powder and water,” he says. “It’s old and wormy, though. I found it in the cupboard.”
    I try to smile at him. I know he was remembering lastsummer after a hot day swimming. Pop made the paste and spent the night slathering the three of us with it.
    I don’t care that Joey’s paste is old, or even that it’s wormy. I sit up and smear it over my face. It’s cool and it helps. I dab some on the back of my neck, and so what that it’s in my hair?
    Then I sleep through until the next morning. I wake up as soon as it’s light and roll off the mattress, easing myself up. As sunburned as I am, I can’t wait to get outside to work on the garden. I can see the square of deep brown earth. I’ll rake it until it’s smooth and ready to plant.
    The green plants will come up, and then we’ll have vegetables!
    Dear Miss Mitzi
,
    Today Cassie was crying in the kitchen. She says something must have happened to Pop, because he still hasn’t written to us. I reminded her that he said it might be a while, even though I’m uneasy, too
.
    But Joey said maybe she’s worried about something else. I asked him why he thought that, but he just raised his shoulders in the air
.
    I keep remembering her crying and how much I loved her when we were little. I don’t know what happened to us. Cassie is mean; but I’m mean, too
.
    I tried to say something friendly. I began telling her about my Rebecca book
.
    After two minutes, she slammed down a plate. “If you cared so much about a book, you wouldn’t be leaving it in the kitchen to get ruined.”
    “I do not. I certainly—”
    She cut right in. “You like books better than me, anyway.”
    Joey put his finger to his lips, warning me not to say anything I’d be sorry about
.
    I tried something else. “How is your painting going?”
    She burst into tears, went upstairs, and banged her bedroom door shut
.
    Maybe gold isn’t such a hot color for an orange girl
.
    Love
,
Rachel
    Dear Pop
,
    I’ve been working on the garden. The earth is a wonderful chocolate brown. I used the rest of my birthday money to buy vegetable seeds and planted all of them. Afterward I made paper markers so I can tell what everything is—and where everything is. I even drew pictures with pink and purple pastels that were left on the secret stairs: wiggly drawings of radishes and