It wasn't exactly eavesdropping, Avery told herself, it was just that kids sometimes had to find out about grown up things the best way they could.  It was just lucky that the lake cottage was built with single partitions that didn't go as high as the peaked roof.

There were more stirrings in the next room.  Uncle Linn's feet hit the floor with a thump and she could hear his giant hippopotamus morning yawn.  There was a faint tinkle that sounded to Avery as though Aunt Doffy dropped a handful of hairpins.

Presently Uncle Linn said, "Umph err umph."

"Well, I know," answered Aunt Doffy's soft voice, "But you must remember she's almost twelve."

"Err umph," remarked Uncle Linn.

"Yes, I suppose it is her father's place to tell her but you know how Waldo is - such a gentleman.  I doubt if he could get out the words and besides, it should be done by a woman."

Avery's stomach got that falling in a pit quivery feeling again.  Here it comes, she thought.  This is where they tell me I'm really adopted and then I suppose I'll have to run away and find my true parents.  She closed her book, "The Secret Passion", on her finger and squinched her eyes to listen better.

"I just don't know how to explain it to her," continued Aunt Doffy.  She was brushing her hair.  Avery could hear the little electric sparkles against the brush.  The next words came through a mouthful of hairpins.

"My mother never told me a thing and I had no idea what to expect.  The only time she ever talked about sex at all was the day before our wedding and then she told me it wouldn't be as bad as I expected."

Uncle Linn gave his little huff of an amused snort.

"But with Avery, she continued,"I just don't know quite how to do it."  She dropped a hairpin.

"Oh, good," whispered Avery , "I hope she knows more about it than Aunt Sara and Nanna did."

In the four years since her mother's death, a pattern had evolved.  During the winter, she went to school in Minneapolis and lived with Aunty Clare.  Her father taught at the University during the day and came to be with Avery in the evenings at Aunty Clare's house.  During the summer, Avery was farmed out to various relatives in New England to visit until her father finished teaching summer school. This year her first visit in the east had been to Aunt Sally's house.  Aunt Sally who always did things with a flair, took her out to the grape arbor one afternoon.  They sipped lemonade while Aunt Sally, pink faced, told her about the father planting a seed in the mother's stomach and the baby growing there.  After she had finished and the lemonade was gone, she said, "If your poor mother was alive, she would be the one to tell you these things.  You must let me try to take her place while you are here, and if you have any questions, dear, just bring them to me."

"Well, yes, I do..."  Avery wriggled against the back of the garden bench, scratching her back, "It's about the seed, for one thing.  I don't understand how the see...""

"Oh my goodness!  Look at the time.  Never mind that now, honey.  We'll have to hurry if we're to get downtown. You carry the glasses and I'll take the pitcher."

And as they went back to the house through the fragrant afternoon garden, Aunt Sally told a lively story about when she and Avery's mother were girls.  The subject of babies had been skirted after that afternoon and, in a few days, Avery was packed up and sent off on schedule to visit Grandmother Lathrop.

When Nanna, usually so lively and full of jokes, grew pensive one evening just before bedtime, Avery's back began to itch.  She leaned over the arm of her Grandmother's chair to kiss her good night and Nanna suddenly reached up and fastened her hand around Avery's arm.  Startled, Avery looked down into eyes so wide open she could see the whites all around the blue part.

"Promise me you'll never let any man touch you before you are married," she said fiercely, "You must never let them touch you!"

"What do you mean?" quavered Avery.

"You know what I mean," insisted Nanna, "And I can tell you that you will be very sorry if you allow it!  Promise me!"

Avery tried to pull away.  "Yes, yes, I do promise."

Then she was free, but Nanna did not release her gaze. Rubbing her arm, Avery backed away slowly, still held by the accusation in her Grandmother's eyes.  She felt guilty, as though she planned to do something unspeakably evil, and as though her Grandmother knew what it was.  She puzzled over the incident several times afterward but what Nanna had meant and why she had acted so scary, Avery could only guess.  She put it away with the other grownup mysteries, probably something to do with babies.

So Aunt Doffy was going to try that "now you are growing up" talk.  Avery sighed.  Maybe Aunt Doffy would give her the answer.

In the meantime, "The Secret Passion" was still in her hand.  She turned once more to the part where he rained hot kisses on her neck.  She read it again, weighing each word and looking for clues she might have missed.  She carried the book around with her, reading as she dressed.

With the book hidden under the mattress, she made the bed carefully as insurance against Aunt Doffy deciding to remake the bed herself and discovering the book before it's secret was revealed.

The first day they arrived at the cottage she had found "The Secret Passion" slipped down behind the faded print cretonne cushion of one of the wicker chairs.  As soon as she saw the picture on the cover, she sensed that this book could tell her more about the grownup mystery than all of the aunts and the grandmother.  Since everyone wanted to talk about being grown up and no one seemed to want her to know anything about it, she decided not to risk having this source of knowledge taken away.  She had slipped it under the waistband of her bloomers and taken it to her room.

Uncle Linn went to the office in Portland every day and once a week brought a generous stack of books home from the Children's Room of the Public Library.  Albert Payson Terhune and Gene Stratton Porter wrote good books, too, but they certainly lacked the flesh crawling excitement, the tingling mystery of a hero raining hot passionate kisses on the neck of the beautiful heroine.  And always, there was the possibility that on the next page there might be the answer to the mystery of how.

As she picked up her damp bathing suit from its huddle in the corner, she wondered fleetingly if Uncle Linn ever rained hot kisses on Aunt Doffy's neck.  No, he was probably oo old - and for another thing, they didn't have any children.  She was nearly certain that raining hot kisses and planting seed had something to do with one another.

Breakfast sounds and toast and bacon smells were drifting over the partition.  She snatched up her current daytime reading, "Lad, a Dog" and went out to set the table.

Elizabeth Rose was Avery's best friend since Friday. She was visiting in the next cottage and the girls spent hours together on the beach or exploring in the woods behind the cottages.

In front of the cottage and slanting over the beach almost to the water line was an ancient pine tree.  The waves had washed against the bank in stormy weather and exposed some of its large and twisted roots.  Avery and Elizabeth Rose were making a secret plce for their secret club there.

They had each chosen a favorite place to sit - back against the bank among the roots.  If you skootched way down, no one could see you from either cottage.

After they had their skootched down secret club meeting and decided on their password, "Help Everybody", Avery said, "Elizabeth Rose, did anyone ever tell you about babies an'that?"

"Oh honestly, of course they have.  Everyone always gets a lecture about that when they are almost twelve.  Besides, my cousin is a flapper and she knows all that stuff."

Avery took a deep breath.

"Good," she said, "Did they tell you where the father gets the seed and how he plants it and how the baby gets out?"

"Well, I guess I know how."  Elizabeth Rose tossed her red bobbed hair knowingly.  "Nobody has to tell you stuff like that.  The father plants the seed when he kisses the mother and then the baby grows in the mother's stomach for awhile and comes right out through her belly button."

Avery considered.

"Are you sure?"

"No, not really, I guess."  Elizabeth Rose had the grace to look shamefaced, "But it's the only way I can think of. Besides, I think the whole thing is pretty dumb...boys and that.  I'm not ever going to have dumb boy friends and get married when I grow up...ick...That's just dumb.  I'm not even going to think about dumb stuff like that!"

"Gosh, Elizabeth Rose, it's easy to tell you are two months younger than me...and you'd better start thinking about it or someday someone will touch you or something and you'll find yourself with a baby in your stomach and you won't even know where it came from.

Elizabeth Rose giggled.

"Anyway, if I got a baby then I bet I'll know something you don't know.  I bet I'd know how it got out of my stomach."

Avery threw a handful of pine needles at her.

"Prolly come right out of your ear..."  They shrieked with laughter and began wildly throwing pine needles at each other.

By the time they had picked pine needles out of their hair and shaken out their middies, it was time to go home for lunch.

"Let's take our sandwiches outside and eat on the porch steps,"  Aunt Doffy dropped a knife.  "The lake is so pretty today and we can have our own little picnic."

Avery was tipping her glass up for the last drop of milk when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Aunt Doffy sit up straight.

"Did I tell you that you have a new little cousin?"

Aunty Harriet had a baby boy just last month."  She tore at her yellow paper napkin and nibbled her lower lip.

"No, I guess you didn't say."

"Do you ever wonder about babies? "

Avery's back began to itch just between the shoulder blades.  She wished Aunt Doffy wouldn't be so unhappy.  She heard herself begin to babble in a high breathless little voice she had never heard before.

"You mean the difference between boy babies and girl babies?  Sure, I know that.  Boy babies have this little extra thing on front that they go to the bathroom with.  Once when Aunt Ruth was changing Jackie, he..."

"Yes, dear, that too.  But I wanted to talk to you about b...about babies being born." She finished with a rush.  Her paper napkin by now was yellow confetti.  Her cheeks were bright red.  She seemed very interested in some fishermen out on the lake.

"Oh, I know that part all right."  Avery's high little voice hurried onwards.  She wanted to help Aunt Doffy. Her back itched.  She wanted to run away, but she had to stay and find out how.  "Aunt Sally told me when I was there.  About the father planting the seed and the baby in the mother's stomach and all.  She told me that part all right, but what I didn't understand is about the seed.  I can't imagine how..."

"Oh, well, if your Aunt Sally told you all about it, everything's taken care of."  Aunt Doffy beamed.  She stood up quickly, brushing crumbs briskly from her apron.  "I just didn't want you to be puzzled about ...anything."

"I just wanted to know how..."

"You can invite Elizabeth Rose over to go swimming on our beach later if her mother says she can. Now, we won't worry about the lunch dishes.  I'll just put them in the sink and we can do them with the supper dishes."

Avery glowered on the steps for a few minutes and then wandered into her room and sat on the bed.  She lifted up her middy and examined her navel.  She thought about the Aunts. They got right up to the point of "how" and then the conversation vanished like mist over the lake.  Perhaps they didn't know, either.

Her hand felt the shape of the book under the lumpy mattress.

Carefully, so as not to unmake the bed, she slipped "The Secret Passion" out and looked again at the picture on the cover.  A lovely young lady in a red robe was languished on a chaise and this man was looking right into her face and leaning over to kiss her outstretched hand.  There was little doubt that he knew the answer to how.

Suddenly she knew that "Lad, a Dog" was not for her this afternoon.  She tucked "The Secret Passion" under the waistband of her bloomers, tugged the middy down on top of it and, holding her arm against her side, walked stiffly out through the living room and outside.

Under the big pine tree, Avery settled against the bank, looped a leg over a pine root and extracted the book.  She started in right after the part about the kisses.  This beautiful lady was married to a really mean man and then this handsome young man came along and they fell in love and pretty soon the husband got meaner and meaner and so Ralph - that was the hero's name - told Louise once when they were meeting secretly at this spooky old ruined church that they would have to fly away together and they did and got away just in time because the husband was after them with a pistol and when they got to Ralph's ancestral home, the hot kisses started again and Louise showed Ralph her bare shoulder and Ralph put out the lights and next morning there was the print of Ralph's head on the pillow.

Avery shut the book on her finger and stared at the lake.  Now, we are getting someplace.  It's something they do at night - in the dark - with their heads on the pillows...

"Hoo hoo, Avery.  Time to go swimming."

Aunt Doffy was standing on top of the bank with one hand braced against the pine tree and her shoes nearly touching Avery's head.

"Oh, there you are, dear.  What are you reading?"

"Mm...just a book I found around."  She put the book behind her and smiled up with a stiff guilty little smile.

"You found it here?  Not one of the ones Uncle Linn brought you?"

"No, I just found it in the cottage.  The people that were here before must have left it."

"May I see?"

The hand was outstretched.  Short of hurling it in the lake, there was nothing to do but relinquish it.

Aunt Doffy looked at the beautiful picture on the cover and riffled the pages, making little sounds of dismay with her tongue against her teeth.  Finally, holding the book by thumb and forefinger with her little finger curled away as though the cover might soil her hand, she said gently,

"This book is just trash.  I can't let you read it, dear.  It will be much better if you just read the books Uncle Linn brings you from the Library."

Suddenly Avery was angry.  She felt humiliated and helpless.  She was frustrated.  She was disappointed.  Tears stung in her eyes.

"Maybe you ought to read that book, too," she screeched. "Maybe it would tell you some things you ought to know.  It's not fair.  It's just no fair.  You took it away and now I'll never find out how...it was my very last chance to find out how..."

Avery's tears, though infrequent, were never ladylike and never calculated.  She bellowed and howled, snuffled and blubbered.  Her face got red.  Tears dripped off her chin. She beat her fist on the pine roots.

Aunt Doffy , horrified at the uproar she had started, patted and loved, hugged and murmured.  But never once did she loose her hold on "The Secret Passion".

When the storm died, everyone went swimming and by supper time, not even a residual hiccup remained.  The book had vanished and the subject of "The Secret Passion" was closed forever.

Avery was still awake.  Lying stiff on her bed, she heard them come into their bedroom.

"Well," asked Uncle Linn, "How did the enlightenment program go?"

"It seems Sally had the same idea and told her, too."

Uncle Linn chuckled.

"You don't need to laugh.  I could have done it if I'd had to - and better than you could have done, anyway," said Aunt Doffy with unusual sharpness.  "But one thing did worry me.  This afternoon, I found her reading a dime novel kind of book called "The Secret Passion" or some such title.  Of course, I had to take it away from her and she got very upset and cried and shouted at me -- not like her at all.  She kept saying that now she's never know how and that I'd taken away her last chance.  But I couldn't let her read it, could I? What would Waldo say?"

"Ummm,," said Uncle Linn.

The next day was library book day.  When Uncle Linn came home from Portland, he brought in a high stack of books and dumped them on the square green table with the woven cane top.  Aunt Doffy was in the kitchen chirping over dinner.  Avery was frowning at the lake.

"Psst!" Uncle Linn had on his secret smile.  "Come here a minute, Avery.  I got something you might want to see."

Uncle Linn pawed through the books.  He picked out one that had been rebound in dull gray.  The corners of the pages looked used.

"There's one and here's the other,"  He placed a thin red volume on top of the gray one.  "I can't see how one flaming love story is going to ruin your life forever," he whispered and opened the first one.  Inside was a picture - the same beautiful heroine languishing on the same chaise - "The Secret Passion".

"Uncle Linn!" squeaked Avery.

"Shh, you'll get me in trouble.  This will be our secret since I don't believe in book burning.  Now here's another one I want you to read.  Miss Abbott finally let me have it for you, but I had to beg."

The smaller book had a dull red binding and no printing on the outside except some dim white smeary marks on the spine.  Avery opened the cover.  The title was "What Every Young Girl Should Know".

Her mouth fell open in astonishment.

"It may not have everything in it, Sweetie, but it'll give you a start."

"What will give her a start on what?"  Aunt Doffy, wiping her hands on her apron, peeked over Avery's shoulder. "For goodness sake, Linn, she doesn't need that now.  Sally and I have both done our duty along that line."

 Uncle Linn winked at Avery and slipped an innocent looking gray book back into the middle of the stack.