The Stamp with the Empty Corner
Chapter 1Twenty Blue Flowers
Gitty pressed her handmade flower stamp into the blue ink pad and onto an envelope.
A neat flower appeared in the upper left corner.
"Twenty," she said.
Ruchy fanned the envelopes across the table. The girls had made invitations for their class mothers' craft morning. Each card had a tiny drawing of a basket inside.
The flower on the outside was Gitty's idea. She had practiced until every petal showed.
Morah came over with the address list.
"Leave the upper right for postage," she said. "And put our school's return address at the upper left."
Ruchy looked at Gitty.
Gitty looked at twenty blue flowers.
Chapter 2Between the Petals
"I can write around them," Gitty said.
On a spare envelope she fitted the first line between two petals. The next line slanted below a leaf. By the last line, her letters were very small.
Ruchy held it out at arm's length.
"I know what it says because I watched you write it."
Gitty took it back. Her name was not on the invitation, but she felt as if the flower had her name all over it.
"Maybe the flower can be the address," she said, almost joking.
"Then the letters will return to a garden."
Gitty laughed despite herself.
Chapter 3The Scraped Corner
She rubbed a spare stamped corner with an eraser. The ink faded a little. The paper went fuzzy.
Ruchy stopped her before she tried a finished envelope.
"That one was our practice envelope. We don't know what happens to the others."
Gitty put down the eraser.
The twenty invitations lay in a neat pile. Replacing every envelope would mean asking Morah for another pack, and there was no reason to ruin them first.
She carried the practice envelope to Morah.
"My flowers are in the return-address space. Could you help us find another way?"
Chapter 4White Over Blue
Morah brought plain white address labels.
Gitty held one above a flower. It would cover the whole thing.
For a moment she wanted to choose a smaller label. One petal would remain, but there would be less room for the writing again.
She put the full-sized label down.
"The address needs to be readable."
On the practice envelope, Ruchy wrote the school's return address on the label. Morah checked every line.
The blue flower no longer showed. The paper stayed smooth.
Gitty rubbed the label's edges flat with her finger.
Chapter 5One More Test
They made one complete envelope before changing the pile.
Return address at upper left. Recipient's address in the middle. Upper right left clear for postage.
Morah checked it against the list.
Then Gitty slid an invitation inside. It fitted without bending the little basket picture.
"Ready?" Ruchy asked.
"Almost."
Gitty carried it across the classroom and asked another girl to read the return address without telling her what it said.
The girl read every line.
Now Gitty brought the labels to the table.
Chapter 6A Flower Finds a Place
While they worked, Ruchy opened one invitation.
"There is a plain space on the back of the card."
Gitty held up the stamp. "Not over any words?"
"No words there."
They asked Morah, then stamped a practice card and waited for the ink to dry before closing it in its envelope.
Nothing smudged.
Gitty put a blue flower on the back of each finished invitation. Ruchy checked the envelope addresses against the list, one at a time.
This took longer than Gitty's first twenty flowers. She did not announce the number after each one.
Chapter 7The Covered Garden
Morah collected the finished invitations for mailing.
Ruchy picked up the practice envelope with the crooked little letters.
"Should we keep this?"
Gitty placed it beside her ink pad.
"Yes. It can remind me where not to grow flowers."
The white labels covered twenty blue blooms. Inside, twenty fresh flowers waited on the backs of the cards.
Gitty washed the stamp and set it on a scrap to dry.
There were still faint blue marks on her fingers. Those, at least, did not need an address.
