I’m beyond excited to share the cover of Apricots (The Gilly Diaries #2)—and invite you to read the first three chapters today! Gilly is back with her notebook, her tangerine tree, her wonderings, and her quirky truths about life, friendship, and jam. If you loved Tangerines, this next chapter in Gilly’s world will feel like coming home—with a few secrets, new branches to climb, and the quiet things that stay.

The Quiet Things That Stay

Three months have slipped by since I last opened this kind of notebook. Three whole months—enough time for everything to change, for seasons to pass, and for me to realize I’d need a whole new notebook just to explain it all—and maybe to figure out how I feel.

So instead, I thought, maybe I’ll just list the things that haven’t changed. I’ll do that now.

My mom (even though she used to be a circle and now she’s a line—I’ll explain later), Dad, Oggy, Mississippi, Odelia, Eternity, the gardener, the man with the white beard, my home, Oggy’s home, Orti—my tangerine tree—the open fields, the green river near our house, Sabigail the yanaka, Queen Lulula the dancing monkey, Neretz the cherry tree, the witch house, and the ship house. Also, the mountains—all seven of them—and the Four Seasons train. And the sunset. That hasn’t changed either.

Obviously, if most of these don’t make sense to you, it’s probably because my first diary didn’t become a famous book—and neither did I—so you never got the chance to read about them. But believe me, they were part of my life, they still are, and they always will be.

The funny thing about things that stay the same is that if you look closely—really closely—you can see they’ve moved a little too. Maybe it’s just because you moved the same amount, so it feels like you’re all standing still together, not noticing you’re drifting gently along.

So yes, Mom gave birth to my new sister, Gilma—a name Oggy made up and Mom just happened to love. And Dad can now see me every week for twenty-five minutes—not one minute more—which is also a big change. Mississippi and I talk more often now.

But while nothing is exactly like it used to be, I’m glad they’re all still around me. Because even when things shift and drift, the important things—the quiet things, the hopeful things—still feel steady.

Today I climbed Orti to say a new prayer I wrote just for Mississippi. I whispered:

Dear forest,
send Mississippi someone
who’ll make her laugh—
louder than winning at cards,
sweeter than apricot jam,
and warmer than sunlight
on a chilly morning.
Amen.

Prayers feel like they reach higher when you’re sitting in a tree. I never thought about it before, but then Oggy told me about a half-girl, half-wolf who climbed high into the snowy mountains because she believed it brought her words closer to the gods’ ears.

At first, I wasn’t sure—especially because Oggy swore it was part of Greek my-tho-lo-gy, which I’m not totally sure about, since I’ve never heard that story before.

But once Oggy said it, I started to wonder.

What if there really was such a girl-wolf? And what if she had those glowing amber eyes and pointed silver-tipped ears, and sounded so wild and lonely at night when she howled at the moon? 

And what if she looked a bit like me? Or woke up at night sometimes, like I do, and thought about all kinds of things?

So I thought about her more—until she felt real in my mind. So real, I didn’t want to ignore her anymore. And that’s when I started climbing Orti whenever I have an important prayer I wrote and want to say.

But I should also explain why I prayed for Mississippi in the first place, shouldn’t I? It’s a good story.

We spend more time together now—not just when she visits to play cards with Mom and Odelia and Eternity, but also when she drives me to Odelia’s house every Tuesday to see Dad, or when we wander along the path that leads to the river, or when we take her car (the only one around here) out for a drive.

Mississippi feels more like a big sister now than just Mom’s friend or an aunt.

I like it.

The other day, she told me she felt it was finally her time to find her own jam.

When she said that, I was so happy I wasn’t watching where I stepped—and my foot sank right into a dip in the path, hidden under leaves. My ankle twisted, and I tumbled forward, scraping my knees and getting dirt and bits of moss all over my clothes. But even as I sat there on the forest floor, I was still smiling—just as happy as I was before I fell.

Falling doesn’t change your mood.

As long as it’s not into muddy water.
Or brambles.
Or nettles.
Or thorn bushes. Especially not thorn bushes. Because those can swap your mood completely—from sunshine to storm clouds—faster than you can say “snukka snukka.”

I have to explain two last things quickly (or is it three?) because too much explaining just makes everyone more confused. And after saying a prayer, I’d rather sit and wait quietly for it to come true than start to explain a whole tangle of things.

First, “snukka snukka” is a real sound you can hear by gently touching the nose of a yanaka. Yanakas live only in our forest, and Oggy says that without me seeing them, they wouldn’t even exist. They’re as tall as llamas, as hairy as llamas, and can spit like llamas—but they aren’t llamas at all. They’re just … yanakas.

And the other thing—“finding your own kind of jam” in our forest means finding someone who’ll love you. Romantic-kind-of-love you.

Here, everyone makes, sells, or buys jam. So nothing is more common than jam—just like nothing is more common, or more special, than wanting to find your love.

Now that I’ve explained it all, I can rest and wait for the prayer to drift up into the gods and the sky. But as I see Oggy stepping out of his house and looking this way, I know this peaceful waiting isn’t going to last long.

I Can Count Just Fine

Pickup trucks don’t rumble down our road, not usually. But from my spot on Orti’s branch, I just saw one, creaking to a halt right by Oggy’s house, and its flatbed carries six young trees.

Mr. and Mrs. Bloom spilled out their blue door, chattering with the driver, who scratched his blue cap and nodded. Mr. Bloom kept pointing to a corner of their big round gravel yard, where there’s a blue flag fluttering in the breeze.

Maybe that’s where he wants those trees to stand. Or maybe he’s just saying to the driver, Look at this—so much blue. I almost forgot green—or tangerine orange. It’s like the sky fell and painted everything.

But I can’t hear what they’re saying for real, which makes everything even more fun from up here.

What if the driver says he came here by mistake and wants to leave those beautiful six young trees with Mr. Bloom—if only he gives him directions on how to get out of here?

​​Or maybe he says he’s been planting trees all across the world and this is his very last stop.

Or maybe he asks if they have cookies inside, and if they do, he’ll trade six trees for one warm chocolate chip.

Just like I thought, Oggy didn’t linger with his folks. He came straight to me, his sneakers kicking up dust clouds—way more than any regular sneakers should. Of course he loves it: stomping pebbles, crunching twigs, churning dirt with every step.

I don’t mind.
Oggy’s Oggy.
I’d still like him even if he rolled down a hill made of pine needles.

I slid down Orti, my sandals smacking the soil, kicking up a little dust myself—just to show him that fancy sneakers aren’t the only way to make the ground hum. Plain sandals can do it just fine.

Then I looked at him, pointed back at the driver with the blue cap, and said, “Maybe he’s telling Mr. Bloom that one of the trees is enchanted—but he forgot which one.”

Oggy went, “What are you talking about?”

But I know he knew exactly what I was talking about, so I just kept pointing at that man and asked, “What’s with the big pickup truck? Why’s it parked at your house?”

Oggy stuffed his hands in his pockets and mumbled that there are six of them.

So I said that I can see there are six. I can count pretty well.

Then he said he knows that because everybody in the forest and beyond knows I’m obsessed with counting things.

And I said, “Oh yeah, like what?”—but I really didn’t want him to start counting all the things that I count or used to count, especially not the etched hearts on Orti, because those were the most private and so I just pointed at the sky and said, “Look how blue the sky is today.”

He looked at me as if he were counting all the times I’ve done just that—changed the subject on him just because I didn’t feel comfortable enough talking about something.

Then again, I was the one who first mentioned the trees, so I asked, “Why apricots?”

And he said that there are two reasons, not one, but he’s not sure it’s time to tell me the second one.

“What’s the first?” I asked.

“It’s just my mom … Mrs. Bloom … She loves apricot jam best of all jams. So now she’ll have more to pile on her toast,” he said.

I gave him half a tangerine I’d just picked from Orti and peeled right in front of his face, and he stuffed it in his mouth. I did the same, and when our eyes met, I could almost see his thoughts—how he was super proud of knowing something I didn’t.

”I finished the tangerine, kicked some dust with my sandals, and said, “Okay, come on. Give me a hint. What’s this other secret about?

He just said that things are changing fast, and not everyone can handle that—especially not the extra sensitive, like me.

I told him I’m not extra anything and that he shouldn’t worry so much. (Obviously, that’s not extra true—but for some reason I really lost my patience right then, under my tangerine tree.)

“Come on—what’s gonna change?” I asked.

He said all he could say was that it’s something that’s going to affect everyone’s feelings—his, his parents’, and probably mine too.

I tried so hard to figure out how six apricot trees could mess with everyone’s feelings, but my brain was as empty and hollow as a joompa—a hole in a trunk.

Which is weird, because that just doesn’t happen. I’m almost never out of ideas.

Maybe the tangerine’s sweetness made my thoughts all sticky for a bit.

So I acted like I didn’t care and asked Oggy if he wanted to play Queen of Feathers—that game we made up where you throw pinecones into the river, each with a tiny feather tucked between the scales, and see which one gets carried away faster. The first to disappear around the bend wins—unless your feather falls out or sinks in the water. Then your pinecone queen loses the round. No excuses.

We played Queen of Feathers for a whole hour, until the big pickup truck finally rumbled away. Then Oggy said he had to go home because of this new secret, and that he was sorry for leaving right when he was still ahead—9 to 8.

He’d been leading 9 to 1, but then I got the right pinecones and the right feathers and almost turned the whole thing around. But this is Oggy. He can’t lose.

As he ran down the hill, the six young trees stood tall in the dirt, their naked branches swaying just a little in the breeze—like they wanted to tell me something. Maybe that thing Oggy wouldn’t share.

It felt like Mr. and Mrs. Bloom, and Oggy, and even the trees were in on it, and I was the only one left out—standing there with my sandals all dusty.

What a classic Monday. 

Never mind. 

Tomorrow is a Special Tuesday.

Tuesday Jam

Tuesdays are when I see Dad. We meet at Odelia’s house, because Mississippi says it’s better to pick somewhere that’s not his or mine. Odelia’s place is kind of perfect—quiet, plain, just a couple chairs and super soft light. Nothing noisy. Nothing pretending to be fancy. Except for that glass parrot in the corner that stares at you with its shiny little marble eyes. Mississippi says Odelia got it from a friend of hers on the other side of the world, and sometimes when I go there, I sort of imagine what that friend might look like—maybe covered in feathers too, and wearing rings on every finger, sitting on a windowsill with the big ocean right in front of him, all wide and loud and blue.

I don’t mind places with those super soft yellow-ish lights—I actually kind of love them. They’re nothing like the man with the white beard’s guest house, where the lights are so bright they flood everything, and you have to hold your hand above your eyes just to look around. 

In our house, I think it’s kind of in the middle. 

But I don’t really know what the lights were like back when my dad still lived here. Maybe they were more mellow yellow—like that pale warm butter Mom spreads on toast. Or maybe not. The few photos I have from then—mostly from the green album, and a few from the red—don’t really show it. 

Light looks different in pictures anyway. Even that one from the guest house, where I’m standing with Mom and the man with the white beard, looks all soft and dim, like the lights forgot how blinding they actually were.

But I remember.

Sometimes I sit in my room, looking out at the fields and the sunset (they’re in the same direction), just letting the light fade until my room’s almost pitch-dark. Then I light a candle in the shape of a wobbly (smart) duck and stare at it, wishing every hour could feel that calm and wrapped-up.

When I’m calm, I know exactly what to do. But when my head gets all rainy, or foggy, or windy—or when my thoughts feel heavy like big hailstones—I get mixed up. I still do stuff, but later I might think … that wasn’t the best idea. I’ve noticed that writing in my notebook by candlelight makes the words dance and wiggle, like they’re happy to be born on my pages.

Today, I asked Mom if she could make a present for this Tuesday’s visit to Odelia’s—to see Dad. She said she’d make special jam—not the usual kind we get from Olaf the II, that chatty jam vendor. I got so excited! Mom’s one of the only people around here who doesn’t make or sell jam—she just buys it from Olaf. So her making jam herself, just because I asked, means it’ll be super special. For real. For me. And for Dad.

I bet while Mom makes that jam, she’ll think sweet thoughts about Dad—maybe some good memories from before. It’s got to be hard to make jam for someone without at least one tiny, sugary thought about them. I mean, maybe if she were making plain rice or eggs or even potato salad, sure—but jam has feelings. It remembers things. And when you make it, it brings all of that up.

She also said she’ll make enough for me to take to school, which made me wonder what the other kids will say. Or maybe I’ll just eat it quietly, not telling anyone it’s the most special jam in the world. That might make it even more special.

Did I even mention that I started going back to school after quite a few months away last year?

It all started after I told Mom about my night trip through the forest with Oggy and Sabigail—to see Dad, for the first time in almost a thousand sunsets. Her eyes got big (probably just like mine when I’m scared but happy all at once). Then she asked what other wild adventures I had planned for the rest of the summer.

I thought hard, and the only wild thing I could come up with wasn’t catching snake-like creatures with Oggy and Sabigail in the forest, or wrestling monkeys, or anything like that.

It was just … going back to school.

I never used to think of that as wild—and I guess most kids my age wouldn’t either—but after so much time staying home, just etching hearts into Orti every day and playing with Oggy when he got back from school, the idea felt like the wildest thing I could imagine.

Maybe because it suddenly looked so scary. Maybe even scarier than crossing the forest at night.

Going back to school. Seeing kids my age.

Or maybe seeing my dad the way he really is made the most feared thing feel a little smaller—and I was finally ready for new kinds of brave.

Last year, I stopped going to school after too many kids laughed at too many of my thoughts—sometimes all of them. Mom taught me at home. It was fun sometimes, but other times it felt kind of like living on the moon. Alone. (Which I did once—but not for long.)

Still, I was afraid to even think about going back, so I wrote a whole notebook called:

WHY I’LL NEVER GO BACK TO…

I was even too scared to write the name of the place I meant. Not on the cover. Not even inside.

The funny thing about fear is that the more time passes, the more you find yourself in that place in the middle of the woods where two roads wait, both untaken. One road whispers, Come here. The other stays silent.

The silent road always has more branches on the ground, pits, holes, thorns, nettles, brambles, and tangly vines—and even wasp nests in the trees (or under the leaves, or dangling from the dark corners). So obviously, it’s tempting to choose the other one—the smooth, easy-looking path that keeps saying, Come here, come here.

But if you pick the thorny road—the one that doesn’t call you in—a strange thing happens. You get scratched, you get bruised, you get muddy … but the deeper you go, the better you feel. You keep walking until you reach the end of that road and find a clearing in the forest (where most of the monkeys live). From the little hill there, you can see all the way to the salty lake or the faraway mountains. And it’s the best view you could ever get.

I know the thorny one is better because I’ve seen that view. And even though I had to come back, if I had to choose again—because of fear—which road to walk, I’d choose the same.

And actually … that’s what I did, when I chose to go back to school.