Excerpt: Heart of Clouds

Teenie had her little journal with her -- the one she always carried around so that she could write down poems if they chanced to come into her mind. It was made from paper, with the most beautiful design of colored flowers embossed in relief. And she had her Waterman pen. That had been a gift from her dad, before he’d gone. He’d said to her “Teenie, you have a heart made of clouds, you know that?”
“I do?”
“Never forget that, okay?”
He’d said it gruffly in the way he always talked to her like it was hard for him to really tell her he loved her. That was just how men acted she thought. They were so quiet most of the time.
“Never lose that little twinkle in your eye,” he’d said.

From day two, Nano...chapter -- "Abalone" --

Teenie sat for a long time just looking at the shell. Finally she thought to herself, somebody else. Maybe it was even the person who had built the sea hut! And then, just up in the dunes above her was a boy. He looked like he was her age. The wind ruffled his sandy blonde curls. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt -- that was all she could see of him. It was Devlin Underwood. Teenie stood up to call out to him but he had bolted across the dunes like a young colt. In one instant he was gone. Gone.
The longer Teenie sat there looking at the shell, the more she thought it might have been that boy who had left the abalone. She picked it up and held it to the sun so that she could watch the colors shift inside like magic. It was one of the prettiest shells she had ever seen. The outside was rough and knurled like it had lived for a
thousand years in the ocean, but the inside glittered like a spectacular jewel. It must have had about two hundred colors all swirling around inside it -- like water, almost.
He must have done this, Teenie thought. He must have left this here for me."

From day three -- excerpt chapter three-- "Heart of Clouds"

The gull flapped its wings widely and seemed to almost understand. Devlin knew that animals could speak to humans. Sometimes they did it just with their eyes, or with their wings, or sometimes they made sounds. Each animal had its own special language -- and birds knew the language of the air.
How totally cool, he thought, when he saw the stones. How totally cool of her to leave that. Devlin had never really considered whether girls would think he was good looking or not. It just wasn’t something he thought much about, but for some reason, with this cool girl, it mattered. In fact, that morning when he looked at himself in the mirror he had studied his own face carefully.
It almost seemed like it was the first time he had really seen himself, looking back at his own face. It’s not a bad face, he thought. But, he wasn’t sure exactly what type of face he would call it. He decided to think about it as if it were a wise face, because, wisdom was important to him.

Day four -- dialogue Teenie's mom... from "Apple and feather"

“Mom do you feel like helping me?”
“Mom?”
“No, honey. I don’t.”
“Please?”
“Teenie, I am trying to watch the news.”
“But, mom...”
“Teenie.”
When her mother’s voice sounded short like that she knew that asking for anything was going to be impossible. She’d just have to do it herself. I wish dad was here, she thought.
Teenie’s mom was in her usual place on the sofa, with her pajamas on and feet tucked up under a blanket. Her eyes were riveted to the television screen watching the newscasters talk on and on. That was because of The Wave.
“Another species just went extinct, Teenie,” she called out.
“The Wave is on its way, now.”
“Mom, can we just make this pie together?”
“Mom?”

From Day five! -- chapter "Secret smile" -- Teenie has tea with old Mr.Honeygarten:
(the fun and charm of the romance are building, now!)

“Oh good,” she sighed.
“Why on earth would you ask such a question?”
“Well, I just wasn’t sure whether I was or not.”
“Well you are dear, and prettiness is something that women grow into -- it takes a very long time, by the way. I suppose you are just at the very beginning of that rather long quest, yourself.”
There was silence for a moment while they both took a sip of tea. And then Mr. Honeygarten smiled.
“Is there a boy, my dear?”
“Is there a boy involved in all of this asking about prettiness?”
Teenie Alexander blushed.
“There is,” she said.
“I see, dear.”
But then they ate the pie quietly and neither of them said another word about it. Eventually Teenie’s blush had gone away, all by itself.
Right before she left Mr. Honeygarten had smiled and said, “You know my dear, when I was a boy, there was a certain girl I thought was the most beautiful girl in the world.”
“Her name was Claire.”

From Day six -- chaper six "Touchstone"

And so he began, a little like this:

I am Devlin,
boy of the dunes and boy of the air who left you the magic feather and you are the sad girl that I saw crying.

Then he sat looking at what he had just written to her. He wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have told her that he’d seen her like that. But it was too late. He’d already written it down, and besides, if he wanted to have a relationship with a real girl like she seemed to be, he thought he’d better just tell her the truth. So, he continued.

I am the boy who built this driftwood shelter
I am fourteen years old and my mom died
and so this summer my dad left me here with my grandparents,
do you want to be friends?

The words had just poured out of him from someplace and he wasn’t even sure where. But that feeling of tightness in his chest had lessened while he wrote. He let out a giant sigh. There was no going back now. None at all. He decided that was enough to say for his first answer. He’d wait and see what she was going to say back.
Devlin stuffed her paper airplane in his pocket, and left his note folded inside the abalone shell -- weighting it down with a rock, like she had. It was time to go home and have dinner, and besides what had happened seemed so magical to him that he didn’t want to break the spell by staying too long in the hut.

Day seven --- from chapter "Fog banks"

Devlin slept in for a long, long time. It was the sound of a black crow’s harsh cawing that finally woke him up. Devlin could see him out the window fairly screeching at something.
“Hello, crow,” he said. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” the crow seemed to screech back.
“Nothing at all.”
But Devlin knew that was never really true for crows. They almost always had something in mind. Sometimes they traveled in fierce packs together -- screaming warnings especially if there was a red tail in the neighborhood. With a swift rustle the crow flew away, but not before cawing ten more times, just to let Devlin know he was king of the tree. The whole world outside seemed to be shrouded in a mysterious mist. He’d never really seen the fog before -- not quite like this, when he’d lived in the city. The beaches he’d been to with his mom and dad had always seemed sunny for some reason.
He thought about his mom’s face, and then he remembered where he had put the sad girl’s notes. I better not leave these in my pillowcase, he thought. My grandmother might find them. Devlin had a special wooden box he liked to save things in. It was his wizard’s box in a way, and he had little collections of things that he called talismans.

From Day 8 -- chapter "Landscapes"

Teenie’s clean laundry was dumped in a pile on the chair, and her mom took it to the bed and sat down. She folded the little pile of clothes tenderly, smoothing out the little shirts, and jeans.
“I wish I could get you everything in the whole world, Teenie,” she whispered. “Just everything.”
She knew her daughter more than anyone would have ever believed. She knew that Teenie wasn’t going to ask for anything for school -- including new clothes -- because of what had happened to their family. “You monster,” Teenie’s mom said, to the air. “How could you have ruined our lives like you have. My little girl’s life.”
She was referring to the monster who had bought the newspaper where Teenie’s parents had worked for years. They even met there -- when they were both 25. They’d fallen in love and married and gotten a house on the hill and before you knew it Teenie was more than just a twinkle in their eyes. Teenie’s mom thought of how she’d rocked Teenie to sleep in those first days, just after she was born. What kind of a world will my daughter grow up in? she thought. What kind of a world will our kids be inheriting?
She didn’t like to think too long about things like that or she would have to cry. Tears fell easily, almost every day but she tried to hide them. The pills had helped her with that, but, they also kept her in a slow motion state.

From Day 9! ---chap 9! "emo" ---- a giant gull almost steals Teenie's note to Dev!

This has to be a clue, he thought. It has to be. But? Where was her note to him? Quickly he scanned the rafters where the origami bird had been that first day. Not there. And then he scanned the inside of the hut, but nope, not anywhere there either! There were hundreds of places she could have hidden it in -- any place at all in all that driftwood full of nooks and crannies.
Oh no, he thought. Oh no. Maybe I’m too late, or maybe she didn’t write anything or? He shook his head back and forth in defeat. Maybe she just left this little shell.
Just then a giant gull came to the front of the sea hut -- the one that usually guarded the top of the driftwood where it formed a peak. It began to shriek at him, and started to flap its wings. It stood there cocking its head and looking at him -- making so much sound it was unbelievable.
“Well, gull, what happened?” Devlin asked it.
The gull brazenly went right over to the abalone and dipped
his beak inside, riffling through the sand. He pulled out the note and headed right out the opening for the beach.
“Hey, wait a minute, that’s mine.”
“Hey come back here,” Devlin cried.
All of a sudden about two hundred seagulls arrived and they were all shrieking at once -- at Devlin! They landed all around him -- their colors flashing white and gray against the mackerel sky.
“Hey come back here, you,” he screamed as he ran after the gull. It was teasing him. Every time he got close to it, it flew another few feet and landed, cocking its head at him -- with her note in its beak.
“Give that back!”

Day ten -- from chapter ten -- "seadream"

Teenie Alexander parted the seaweed curtain and stepped inside the hut. It was totally private in there, now that it had a sort of doorway. He’d taken strand after strand of the seaweed and woven it into the driftwood in thick bronze strands -- it would take days to dry out. She went straight to the abalone shell and shook it sideways until the note floated to the top in the sand. Then for a long time she just hugged the little piece of paper to her chest and closed her eyes and smiled. It was like her whole heart was just expanding out in rings. She rocked in place, back and forth, with her eyes closed -- just listening to the sounds that the ocean was making.
The waves had their own rhythm -- a really special sound, and it always depended on what the mood and the weather of the day was. If there were storms they sounded violent as they crashed up against the rocks -- almost like pounding. Those kind of days they rose up out of the sea like giants had formed them and they were in an angry mood. But on days like today, they made a slow, shushing sound -- with long silences in between. Before she opened the note, Teenie looked out to sea for a long time. Way out on the horizon she could see a lone sail, from a sailboat -- way, way out to sea. On the edges of the island it was clear -- it didn’t look like there was going to be any fog today at all.
When Teenie had gotten dressed that morning, she’d pulled on her most favorite hat. Even though the days were getting cooler because it was fall, it wasn’t too cold out yet. She remembered the day her dad had gotten her the hat. He’d said, “Teenie, every writer needs a hat.”
He’d had her pick it out at the hat store and now it was two years old. But, she still loved it. It was so plush and soft -- she pulled it down over her ears -- tugging it, and running her hands over its furry surface. It almost felt like one of her old stuffed animals in a way. One of the things that hat did was give her brain some privacy besides making a fashion statement. Also, she rubbed it for good luck, too. In a way it was like a lucky charm sometimes, and, it always made her think of her dad, too.
Dad, I think you’d like this boy, a lot, she thought.
And then, she slowly unfolded Devlin’s note very carefully.

from day 11 -- chapter "first kiss"

She’d hidden it in the shell, too. Just like before. And she’d taken his note, too. What he didn’t know though, was that Teenie had left a kiss on the paper of the note she left him. It was invisible because her lip gloss had worn off -- but it was there, anyway. She’d kissed it right before she buried it in the sand.
If Devlin had known that? Well, then he wouldn’t have had to have been so worried. Would he?
Invisible kisses are quite magical that way. What Teenie meant by leaving that like that was almost like how writers in the old days put sealing wax on the backs of their letters, and then stamped them with a mark. That meant their letters were only meant for one person to read, and only one person to open, I bet you didn’t know that’s where the expression “sealed with a kiss” comes from, did you?
That’s what she had done. In a way, it was like a pact between Teenie and Devlin.
It must have been the magic in that invisible kiss that caused Devlin to do what he did next. After he finished reading everything that she had written to him in that letter, he took off down the beach straight for home. But not before he left one last note. It said:

MEET ME HERE TOMORROW AT TEN O’CLOCK
Love, Devlin

from chaper 12 -- "hearts" -- Devlin's dream sequence of The Wave

All night long Devlin slept fitfully, tossing and turning in his bed. He’d had the strangest dream of sea turtles. The turtles had asked him to come and visit the sea kingdom -- and they wanted him to ride on the back of the largest one. The beach had been different, though. The beach in his dream was littered with thousands and thousands of plastic objects. Every where he looked he saw broken things and shoes and bottles -- dozens and dozens of bottles.
The color of the ocean was even a sickly yellow-green, mixed with purple. The turtles told him they were going to take him to the heart of the dead zone so that he could see for himself.
When the largest turtle Tut spoke, it was as if he communicated with Dev, just by using his eyes. They were weeping, as Dev looked into them. “You will ride me,” he’d communicated, and then he nodded slowly and turned so that Devlin could climb aboard his very large shell. “I shall take you to the source of The Wave, Devlin Underwood,” he’d said.
Ten blue whales and seven sharks and dozens of dolphins were going to lead the way in a sort of flotilla. The turtles launched themselves into the sea, with Devlin aboard the king. He was very, very old.

day 13 -- nada ('twas friday I daresay...)

day 14 -- from the chapter "the language of the heart"

Tut had sat on the top of a giant clamshell on the bottom of the sea while his grandfather had been telling him these things. He had no idea how important his life was going to be at that time, because he was just a child.
All of his life he’d swum the seas with a squadron, and he was friends with everyone in the ocean. Many times over the course of his life he’d stopped to learn a little bit from everyone and everything in the sea.
He even knew some of the other languages that the things in the sea spoke. He knew the language of the coral, and the language of the shining fishes who flashed by, and he knew the language of the Orcas and the Blue whales, and even the tiniest little crabs. It was said of Tut that he was the wisest turtle in the sea, by almost
all who knew him. And he was very much loved by all who knew him, too. This is why everyone in the ocean had decided that he should wear the crown bestowed upon the king of the sea.
“Your task one day, my Tut, will be to meet a boy who can speak the language of the air. And he will be meeting a girl who can speak the language of the heart and the language of the animals.”
“It will be a time, my Tut, when the world will be in grave danger because the sea has been poisoned by things that the humans have thrown into her. “And, it shall be your task my Tut, to show that to this boy.”
“It shall be on the darkest day for the world, that you, my Tut, will speak to the boy named Devlin in his dreams.”
“You must promise me that you shall never forget, little Tut.”
“I won’t grandfather,” Tut had promised.

day 15 ---- "seachange"

All the dolphins that were near the island began to make their way to the shore where Tut was waiting. They swam purposefully now from far across the channel in dozens of pods. Tut had sent a signal and they had picked it up with their radar.
As Devlin walked he couldn’t help noticing all the plastic bottles that seemed to be washing up on shore. It was just like in his dream. They didn’t look anything like the beautiful seaglass he’d seen all his life on the beaches. This is just like my dream, he thought. This is so ugly, I can’t stand it.

day 16, from chapter "lost worlds" -- old Mr. Honeygarten recalls his love for Claire...

“My dearest, dearest Claire,” he said, as he touched her faded picture reverently, bringing to his lips and giving it an invisible kiss. His old hands shook as he opened the first poem he had ever written to her. A tiny rose petal fell out of it, to his surprise. It had been perfectly preserved all these years.
And it had been from one of her roses.
My dearest, dearest Claire, he whispered, as a tiny tear rolled down his cheek.
What he had written to her was a love letter. And you see, a love letter is the most important letter any person can ever receive because they are the most beautiful sorts of letters in the world.
You see, a love letter can never ever die.
Not ever.
Because, once you open a love letter that has been written in handwriting it will live forever just as it was penned, by the person who wrote it. Inside the trunk Mr. Honeygarten had every letter that Claire had penned to him and every one he had penned to her. As he looked at them now, all the memories of the two of them flooded his heart with life and beauty.
He thought of Teenie Alexander and the way she had blushed as she had struggled to tell him of the boy she’d met named Devlin. And, he remembered that he had been so shy around Claire at first that he hadn’t even known what to do in the begininng except to try and take her hand -- just to hold it in his. Now as he looked at the dried petal in his hand he remembered her smile as he had asked her if he might hold her hand, once so very, very many years ago.

from chapter day 17 "love tokens" -- Devlin gets a puppy!

Devlin’s grandmother hadn’t been able to keep from smiling when she saw what her husband Jess had done. He’d taken his old truck to town and out in the truck was Dev’s surprise -- like a little chocolate ball.
“Oh Jess,” she’d said.
“What are we going to name him?”
“That’s Devlin’s job, sweetheart.”
“Oh Jess, look at him.”
“Just look at him.”
“Isn’t he cute?”
“He looks like a chocolate malt ball.”
“He does, doesn’t he?”
“He’ll be good for the boy. I think he really needs a companion to help him get through this time, sweetheart.”
“I’ve been so worried about him, Jess.”
“I know sweetheart. He doesn’t say much.”
The tiniest little puppy lay curled in a little cardboard box on the
seat of the old red truck. He was a chocolate colored Labrador. Jess knew that the boy needed something warm and alive to love on his own, just then.
They had tried not to bring up the subject of his mother much.

``````` `and Teenie Alexander learns of old Mr. Honeygarten's love for Claire!

“What was magical, Teenie dear?”
“Just everything, I guess.”
“Mostly the shell, though.”
“The shell?”
“The beautiful abalone shell he left for me that very first day.”
“Oh my, that sounds quite intriguing dear.”
“I left him a tiny note folded into a bird, Mr. Honeygarten.”
“I see.”
“He left me a note, too.”
“He did?”
“It was a feather!”
“How extraordinary,” Mr. Honeygarten exclaimed, as he put his
teacup down.
“My dear, I once gave Claire a feather.”
“You did?’
“I did, my dear.”
“She used to wear it in her hat.”
“She did?”
“Always.”
“Let me show you something, dear.”
Teenie hadn’t noticed the small stack of folded letters next to Mr. Honeygarten on the little side table. They were yellowed with time and there were some dark leather bound sketch books underneath them. Mr. Honeygarten put on his spectacles and opened the first little volume. Teenie looked at this handwriting and the swirling inky curves it made. What he had written was scratched out in places and it looked as if he had tried for hours to find just the first words that he wanted to say.
“This, my dear, is the first poem I ever wrote to Claire.”
“It is?”
“It was only the first, my dear.”
“You wrote poems to her?”
“I did, but I was only a lad and I don’t suppose they were terribly good, Teenie.”
“She seemed to like them though, my dear.”
“You wrote poems to her?”
“I did.”
“Sometimes it was the only way I knew how to speak to her because she was so beautiful, my dear. I was quite in awe of her actually.”
Teenie was quiet for a moment and just sipped her tea for quite some time. The both of them did. It was so silent in his parlor that the only sound was the ticking of the old clock at the foot of the stairs, just beyond.

from day 18 -- "sleepytime" pathos: depression in T's mom:

It seemed to Teenie that ever since her dad had gone her mom had just closed up like a book that somebody had finished reading.
They almost never talked anymore at all, and her mother looked so

grey. Most of the time she looked like a day full of rain, as if all the life was just gone from her. Teenie wished she could have told her about Devlin Underwood but as usual she’d been curled in that little ball asleep on the sofa so Teenie had gone to Mr. Honeygarten’s instead. She’d just really wanted to tell somebody about Devlin because it was really important. But at her house, it was so quiet all the time. Teenie looked up at her old house on the hill and remembered all the parties her parents used to have.
All the people who worked at the newspaper in the village used to come over and everyone brought big platters of food and she thought about her parents and how happy they had looked when they were dancing. When everyone was dancing.
Teenie had just slipped out of the house quietly when she saw her mother asleep. Had she known what her mother was going to do though? Teenie would never have gone at all.

* * *

Jax, why did you have to leave me? Teenie’s mother thought as she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her face was pasty and too pale in the early morning light that came through the white cotton curtains. She’d taken a very long bath that morning. Teenie had gone out and so she had plenty of time to think and cry because Teenie was gone. She’d had to put on a very strong face for her daughter even when she was falling apart on the inside.
Why is my life so hard? she’d thought, as she slipped into the water. Jax, why did you leave?
It made Teenie’s mom both sad and angry that he was gone. “My nerves are like glass,” she’d told the doctor. “Let me give you some of these, he’d said. “And these.”
The pill bottles were all over the house. She’d been given so many different types that even she couldn’t get them straight. Most of the time she floated around as if she were a zombie. It was really hard to focus on anything.
The doctor hadn’t really bothered asking her why she was so sad. He’d just called it a depression as he made some notes on a little piece of paper and wrote out her prescriptions.
If there were a way to describe what a depression felt like it had to be gray. It had to be where there was no color at all to see anywhere in the world. Some days she felt that she was in the center of a storm like when a hurricane blows through a town and leaves everything just devastated. Some days she felt as if she were being hurled and tossed about at the edges of things -- those days felt like tornadoes in her soul, in a way. Or as if she was out on the edges spinning round and round and round and waiting for the tornado to just drop her off or spit her out, when it felt like it.

from day 19 ---- chapter "chances" -----

“Mom, wake up,” Teenie whispered in her mother’s ear.
“Mom.”
“Mom, please wake up, please.”
Teenie began by holding her mother’s hand. She held it in both of hers, and she was rubbing it between them, as if she could warm it -- that’s how cold it felt. The more Teenie looked at her mother’s hand, the more she realized how much she loved her. Mostly it was a tiny little freckle right in the center of her mother’s
hand that Teenie focused on. She couldn’t remember ever having seen it before.
“Mom, wake up. Please.”
“Please mom.”
But it wasn’t doing any good. Teenie’s mom was barely breathing at all it was so shallow. Teenie began to cry, just little tears at first but, soon she was really crying and the tears fell on her mother’s hand.
“Mommy, please.”
“Please, mommy, please,” Teenie cried, her tears were falling faster and faster now, so many it was almost like rain.
Something was wrong and Teenie began to realize that, because her mother had always woken up before when Teenie had asked her to, but today it just wasn’t working at all. She began to shake her mother’s shoulder back and forth, starting off just softly at first.
“Please, mommy, don’t leave me alone,” she cried.
“Mommy, please.”
Suddenly Teenie remembered something that her father had told her once -- well he had shown her how to do something actually -- that had to do with having something called a heart-to-heart. They’d always called it that whenever they had gone out on a
walk together, when she’d been littler, and he had still been home. Except, they had both been awake. How could she have a heart to heart talk with her mother if she was asleep like this?
Teenie came up with an idea and it was one of the best ideas she had ever had. She put one of her hands on her chest and she could feel her heartbeat.
“Heart, I need you to speak to Mommy,” she said.
And then she took her other hand and put it on her mother’s heart. She could feel it just barely beating under her mom’s thin bathrobe.
“I need your heart to talk to my heart, mom,” she said.
“Please talk to my heart, Mom.”

--- day 20 --- from chapter "puppy love"

“Teenie Alexander, I think my little girl is growing up.”
“I am, mom.”
“Tell me about Devlin some more.”
“Only if you tell me about Delos and Charles.”
“You go first!”
“Okay,” Teenie said but she wasn’t exactly sure where to start.
“He left this really beautiful abalone shell in that driftwood castle he built and I thought he might have left it there for me so I left him a note. I hid it up in the beams, mom.”

“And then he left me a note back.”
“What did he say?”
“That his mom died, and so he had come here to live with his grandparents. I don’t think he really knows anybody here yet.”
“Teenie, that’s so sad.”
“I know mom. I don’t know what I would do if I ever lost you.”
“Honey,” she said. “I love you Teenie.”
“I love you too mom.”
“Mom, was Delos your friend?”
“He was honey, that summer.”
“Now that I think of it Teenie, he asked me to kiss him but I didn’t.”
“He did?”
“He said that Susie had kissed Paul.”
“Well, I just thought about it, but, I didn’t want to so I didn’t.”
“Did you kiss Charles?”
“Yes, honey I did.”
“Was it when he gave you that ring?”
“It might have been. He designed that ring himself because we were both taking a jewelry class together.”
“Did he like you?”
“I think he did, honey.”

“We were reading a book called The Hobbit when we took that class and he made a ring that looked like it came out of that book.”
“Did you wear it?”
“Well, it seemed like if I wore it it would mean something and I wasn’t sure about that, so I kept it in my jewelry box instead.”
“What did it look like?”
“It was silver with a dragon swirling all around it.”
“Wow.”
“Mom, what was kissing like?”
“Well, when I was fourteen I didn’t kiss boys often Teenie. So Charles and I might have only kissed on the cheek when he gave me that ring.”
Teenie didn’t really want to tell her mother about that invisible kiss that she’d already put on Devlin’s note. It just meant that she really liked him.
“Mom, can a boy and a girl be friends without kissing?”

day 21 --- excerpt chapter "feelings"

“When I saw you crying that day I knew you had a heart,” he said. “Because only people who have hearts cry.”
“Do you know what happened that day, Dev?”
“I was looking at the little journal my dad left me and the pen he gave me right before he left the village. He told me I had a heart made out of clouds and that I should never forget that.”
“That’s really beautiful, Teenie.”
“And then I was looking up in the sky at the clouds and it was like it was magic or something because all of a sudden I saw a heart-shaped cloud up in the sky. It was like my dad sent it to me or something. I just really felt that.”
“I bet he did send that cloud to you,” Devlin said.
“I bet he knew how much you missed him.”
And then Devlin leaned over until he was really close to Teenie. He did something that she had never had anyone do in her whole life, well, maybe except her parents. He kissed her on the cheek.
“The girl with the heart made of clouds,” he said.
“That’s how I’m going to think of you too.”

Teenie just sat there in stunned silence the minute after he did it. Her heart stared to race inside her chest. Devlin Underwood had just kissed her. He kissed me, he kissed me, he kissed me, she thought.
A boy named Devlin Underwood just kissed me.
“You know which note was my favorite one so far,” he asked her.
Teenie just shook her head back and forth.
Devlin looked right into her eyes as he spoke.
“The one with the little heart and the clouds.”

from day 22 -- chapter -- "heartwood"

Devlin had never really thought of having a girlfriend before -- not until he saw Teenie Alexander on the beach that very first day. It was more than just a girlfriend he wanted though. What he wanted most was a friend, but, there was more than that -- every time he thought of her. It had felt really nice holding her hand and even he hadn’t realized that he was going to kiss her cheek before he did it. It just kind of happened, before he even knew it.
The thing that Dev liked best about Teenie was that she was so natural looking. She didn’t seem preoccupied with shopping and makeup and he had never heard her say any mean things -- like the girls at his old school had.
When he woke up with little Brownie snuggled at his side, Teenie was the first thing on his mind. He could still see her as she’d looked sitting in the sand dunes in that leaf green T-shirt. It was almost the color of the ocean when the light hit the waves in a certain way. Because it was Saturday, he stayed in bed a little longer than usual -- watching Brownie sleeping beside him.
“You up, son?” his grandfather asked at the door, softly knocking. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Devlin’s grandfather was wearing his plaid bathrobe and slippers -- he’d just gotten up himself -- and he let himself in and closed the door quietly behind him.
“Your grandmother’s still asleep,” he said.
“Did you see your little friend again, Devlin?”
“She loved Brownie, grandpa.”
“I thought she might, son.”
Devlin’s grandfather reached over and stroked the tiny brown ball of fur -- the puppy stretched out and rolled over on his back and then Dev’s grandpa cuddled him to his chest.
“Grandpa, do you think I could ask Teenie and her mom over for dinner?”
“Why sure, son.”
“Do you know somebody named Mr. Honeygarten?”
“Honeygarten?” Dev’s grandfather looked like he was puzzling through the name. “I’m not sure I do, son.”
“Teenie was telling me about him yesterday.”
“Don’t think I know him, Devlin.”
“I wanted to ask him too.”

from day 23 -- chapter "sweet lives" ----

The sky was the palest blue that day, as Devlin threaded his fingers into hers.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked her.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“What do you want to be?”
“I don’t know either.”
The two of them laughed a little at their lack of plans. “I think I might be the kind of person who sees where life takes me without too many plans, Teenie.”
“Me too,” she said.
“I want to see a lot of things around the world though.”
“Me too. I want to learn a lot of different languages too.”
“I want to have adventures.”
“I want to ride on a camel sometime.”
“I want to go deep inside the heart of a cave.”
“I want to swim in the deepest ocean.”
“I want to climb the highest mountain.”
“I want to plant the tiniest tree.”
“I want to find a road no one has ever been on.”
“I want to see all the stars over the desert at night.”
“I want to ride every kind of horse.”
“I want to drive every kind of car.”
“I want to travel to every country on earth.”
“I want to write poems.”
“I want to create maps of things.”
“I want to look through telescopes.”
“I want to dress up in costumes.”
“I want to bake pies with you.”
Teenie laughed and squeezed Devlin’s hand as he said that last one.
“I want to run to the ends of the earth,” he continued.
“I want to hide in the treetops.”
“Which trees?”
“Old redwoods. My dad taught me about them.”
“I want to fly a plane over the trees you will be hiding in.”
“I want to decorate the castles you build.”
“Like the driftwood hut?”
“Oh, all the different ones,” she said.
“I want to build a wooden boat and sail the seven seas.”
“I will be the pirate who comes aboard.”
Teenie started to laugh again, just looking at the clouds. It felt nice to be making all kinds of plans with Devlin Underwood at her side. It felt nice the way he was holding her hand too -- not too tightly but warm and happy, under the sun and the bluest sky she’d ever remembered seeing.
“I want to make you a crown of flowers,” he said.
And then he was off, running across the meadow in search of them with Melloman at his heels. Brownie had been sleeping by her side and she picked him up and cradled him against her. Teenie watched Devlin as he soared across the meadow like a bird almost. His arms were outstretched like wings. He was off to find the last of the flowers that had carpeted the meadow all spring.

from day 23 and a half! -- chapter "first loves"

Many, many years into the future Teenie Alexander would look
back upon all the turns her life had taken, and all of the different kinds of love that it had had in it.
None had had the sweetness of her feelings for Devlin Underwood though, for each kind of love is quite different in its own way, isn’t it?
Devlin had been Teenie’s very first love, and the very first boy she had ever written to -- the very first boy she had let into her heart by simply telling him the truths inside herself.
They spent those few days of the summer’s end and the early fall on the beach with Brownie as he frolicked down at the driftwood hut by the edge of the sea. It would take a very long time before the winter storms would break the hut apart and float it back out to sea as they always did.
It had been a magic time that year, for Teenie and for Devlin
too, as all years are really full of magic if you learn to think of them
that way.
That summer she hadn’t felt shy yet, with boys, and especially not Devlin. They’d been all over the cliffs together, holding hands and carrying Brownie down to the beach. They’d been friends.
Devlin had taken her to all his special places and she had taken him to all of hers.
They’d climbed the creekbed up to the caves and hidden in them and once he’d etched a little heart into the sandstone wall with her name inside it.
“If you ever forget me, just come back here,” he’d said.
It had rained that day, in a surprise downpour and they’d been caught inside the cave for hours together. He’d carved the heart while he grinned at her, on the first day he kissed her on the lips. It was the very first kiss Teenie would have, like that, and it was a kiss she would never forget -- as all first things in life are the sorts of things we never forget, aren’t they?

from final day! --- at novel's end -- chapter --" castles" -- Day 24

He remembered the tiny little notes that she had left for him, and the abalone shell, and how sad he had been that summer
because his mother had died, and the way that the girl had been so kind, as so many had been kind to him that year.
He remembered the roosts where the hawks had hovered and he looked up now to see a handful of them once again as they turned cartwheels in the sky.
It must have been just here, he thought, this is where I would have built my castle. He sat down to rest at the base of the dunes and laid back against them in the warm sand. She was the very first girl whose hand I held, he thought. And the very first girl I kissed.