A Walk To Remember
by Nicholas Sparks
Table of Contents
Chapter 9 to Chapter 13
Chapter 9
The play is a smashing success. Jamie’s father is very happy, and after the final performance, Hegbert drives Jamie home. Landon wishes that he himself were walking her home. Everyone congratulates the stars—even Eric, who tells Landon that he is proud of him.
Landon believes that this is a turning point for Jamie, that now she will be more normal (since she has revealed how physically beautiful she really can be). However, on the first day back to school, she is wearing her regular old brown cardigan and plaid skirt and is reading her Bible alone in the corner during lunch. Landon waits for an opportunity to tell her the things he has been thinking, but before he can do this, she surprises him by asking him to walk her home from school just before Christmas break begins.
She reminds him of how he was mean to her and that he said he would “make it up to her.” He is confused because he thought he already had made it up to her by doing well in the play and making her father happy. She does not allow him to speak, however, and tells him how he can make it up to her by collecting the 60 jars she has set out near cash registers all over town so that people can put spare change in them for the orphans. She says that since he has access to a car (and she does not), he can do it much more quickly than she can. He agrees to do it even though he has his college application still to finish and tests to study for. He also feels guilty because he and his friends always used to fill those jars with paper clips and slugs as a joke on Jamie. Now he is actually paying for his juvenile behavior.
It takes him three days to collect all of the jars because in a small town, you have to stop and talk to everyone you know and see. It is not as easy as running in and running out. Landon counts the money he has collected and is disappointed to find that it only comes out to just over $50. He knows that Jamie was hoping to do something extra special for the orphans this year, and $50 is...
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