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And the next afternoon I was busily expanding the chaos of my little universe when I heard a
deep voice say, “That's quite an undertaking, young
lady.”
The man standing on our sidewalk was Bryce's grandfather, I knew that much. But I'd only
ever seen him outside one time. All the other times I'd
seen him had been through windows— either one in their sitting room or one in their car. To
me he was just a dark-haired man behind glass.
Having him appear on my sidewalk was like having someone from TV step through the
screen and talk to you.
“I know we've seen each other from time to time,” he was saying. “I'm sorry it's taken me over
a year to come introduce myself. I'm Chester
Duncan, Bryce's grandfather. And you, of course, are Julianna Baker.”
He stuck out his hand, so I took off my work glove and watched my hand completely
disappear inside his as we shook. “Nice to meet you, Mr.
Duncan,” I said, thinking that this man was way bigger than he looked from the sitting-room
window.
Then the strangest thing happened. He pulled his own work gloves and a pair of clippers
from a back pocket and said, “Are you pruning all of
these to the same height?”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, yes. That is what I was thinking. Although now I don't know. Do you think
it would look better to just take them out?”
He shook his head and said, “They're Australian tea shrubs. They'll prune up nicely.” And
with that, he put on his gloves and started clipping.
At first I didn't know what to say to this man. It was very strange to be getting his help, but
from the way he was acting, it was as though I shouldn't
have thought a thing of it. Clip-clip-clip, he went, like this was something he really enjoyed
doing.
Then I remembered what Bryce had said about our yard, and suddenly I knew why he was
there.
“What's the matter?” he asked, throwing his clippings into my pile. “Did I cut it down too far?”
“N-no.”
“Then why the look?” he asked. “I don't mean to make you uncomfortable. I just thought you
might like a little help.”
“Well, I don't. I can do this by myself.”
He laughed and said, “Oh, I have no doubt about that,” then got back to clipping. “You see,
Julianna, I read about you in the paper, and I've lived
across the street from you for over a year now. It's easy to see that you're a very competent
person.”
inute, but I found myself throwing the clippings into the pile
harder and harder. And before long I couldn't stand it. I
just couldn't stand it! I spun on him and said, “You're here because you feel bad about the
eggs, aren't you? Well, our eggs are perfectly fine! We've
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been eating them for nearly three years and none of us have gotten poisoned. Mrs. Stueby
and Mrs. Helms seem in good health to me, too, and the
fact of the matter is, if you didn't want them, you should've just told me so!”
His hands fell to his sides and he shook his head as he said, “Eggs? Poisoned? Julianna, I
have no idea what you're talking about.”
Inside I was so angry and hurt and embarrassed that I didn't even feel like me. “I'm talking
about the eggs that I've been bringing over to your
