Chapter 2 Name: Mrs. Donnelly

1
(No Transcript)
2
Chapter 2Name Mrs. Donnelly

• The instant I saw him standing there with all
  that
• hair and all those beads, I just knew. Garland
  Farm. It
• had to be. Nobody else looked like that. Nobody
  had
• looked like that since 1970. Except at Garland.
  He
• seemed terrified, and with good reason. No one
  knew
• what lay ahead for him better than I did.I held
  out my hand. I'm Mrs. Donnelly.He made no move
  to take it. Capricorn.Capricorn. Wasn't that
  just classic? My own name,
• Flora, was short for Floramundi a world of
  flowers.

3

• I'd been out of that place more than thirty
  years, but one
• sight of this kid, and it all came roaring back
  in a tsunami of
• Day-Glo ponchos and organic lentils.I was five
  when my family joined the community too
• young to remember any life before that. For six
  long years,
• that place was my universe. I ran around
  barefoot, wearing
• peasant dresses, shared my parents with the other
  kids,
• protested the Vietnam War, did farm chores, and
  listened to
• a whole lot of sitar music.So help me, I didn't
  know how weird it all was until my
• parents decided they were too old to be hippies
  anymore,
• and we rejoined the real world. That part I
  remember like it was
• yesterday this little flower child, who barely
  knew how a
• doorknob worked, suddenly dropped in the middle
  of a society
• several centuries ahead of the one she'd just
  left.

4

• I looked at Capricorn Anderson, and that's what
  I saw not a
• case, but a time traveler, about to step into a
  world that had
• forgotten the sixties except for J.F.K. and the
  first moon landing.In my right hand was a piece
  of paper with the address of the
• foster home the Department of Child Services had
  assigned for
• this boy. I crumpled it up and tossed it into the
  nearest trashcan.Well, Capricorn, it looks like
  you're going to be staying at my
• house for a few weeks.Absolutely not! he
  exclaimed. I have to get back to the
• community. The plums aren't in yet. And after
  that the apples.
• Everything has to be ready for when Rain comes
  home.I remembered Rain. She was one of the
  founders of Garland ,
• the queen bee of the place when I lived there. I
  was always afraid
• of her. I thought she was a witch.Wait a minute
  I put two and two together. Rachel Esther
• Rosenblatt is Rain? Your grandmother?He
  brightened. You know her?

5

• Thats when I figured out the key to Capricorns
  
• heart, so I could do what needed to be done for
  his
• own good.
• I used to. Way back before you were born, my
• family lived at Garland. Rain would want you to
  be
• with someone who understands.
• I had a reluctant houseguest.