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“Say, Gyro, what’s in that book’a yours?” Johnny asked, pointing to the little leather bound notebook laying on the ground by Gyro’s foot.
They sat alongside one another on the rocky bank of a slow moving stream. The water was clear and rolled gently across the various stones scattered about its bed. Sunlight peeking through the leaves above made the water glow a soft gold color. It was shaded by old, grown up trees that did well keeping the sun off their skin and the nearby cliff provided a cool breeze when the wind would sweep through the little crop of forest. The sound of cicadas echoed through and mixed with blue jay songs and woodpeckers. Catching a break, no matter how brief, was something to savor. They were becoming rarer the further the race went on.
“Take a look for yourself.” Gyro nudged the book across the sand, riling up a little cloud of dust.
The offer was taken. Johnny leaned over and took the book in his hand. It was a decent weight and he could see where there had been things shoved in between some of the pages. About a third was untouched though from what he could see. The edges of the leather had worn and the paper was yellowed. Delicate things like paper didn’t last long. The constant parade of dirt, sand and dust could tear up just about anything after a while. There was a single strap holding the covers together which Johnny carefully unbound. It wasn’t fragile but he was cautious not to be too careless with something of Gyro's.
The first page, to his surprise, was blank. So was the second and third. It wasn’t until the fourth page that he found something. Top to bottom; full of writing. Granted, it was in Italian, and it wasn’t worth the trouble to try and read anything. The pages had no lines or guides yet each line of writing held straight. The pencil marks were heavy but neat. Something about Gyro’s handwriting was very unique. Johnny carried on flipping the pages and tried to skim the text for anything that made a lick of sense, just in case. He could pinpoint his own name a few times and that was about it. There was something ethereal about reading words of a different language, even if he was butchuring his own mental pronunciation. Once the writing had ceased halfway through a page, the turn of the next revealed a handful of pressed flower petals. It was definitely not something Johnny expected to find. They looked to be wild bleeding hearts. The dusty rose-pink that the blooms usually were had muted since they’d dried. He recognized them with ease since he’d always spotted them growing in fields or gardens in Kentucky.
“What are these for?” Johnny asked, still looking over the page.
“I’ve been trying to keep up a little flower pressing collection.” Gyro replied, not missing a beat. “It gives me something to keep myself busy with.”
It was as if he had already come up with his answer to Johnny’s question before he even thought to ask it. He had a good intuition like that sometimes. It wasn’t unlike Gyro to pick up on odd little fascinations from time to time, yet this one seemed to be a bit more passionate, like he’d kept up with flower pressing since the day the race began. Johnny flipped a couple more pages to another spread of petals without a name written down. In the corner there was a little doodle of the flower though. “Do you know what this one is?” Johnny held up a single blue leaflet.
Gyro grinned. “Cornflower. It’s a cute blue shade don’t you think? Likewise of you I’d say.”
“Bit queer.”
“‘Bit. It’s your color though.”
Johnny focused back on exploring the collection of flora scattered among the pages. A good amount had labels. Mostly in English. Queen Annes, Flax, Wild Sunflowers, Butterfly Bush cuttings and a single unlabelled March Flag, which Gyro picked off the page before Johnny could turn it.
“Now, this one I’m stuck on. What do I call it?” He asked, holding the bloom up close to his eyes and studying it.
“That ones easy, march flag. If you wanna be up the ass about it, jonquil. It is not a daffodil though, don’t ever call it that!”
“Alright then,” Gyro dug around in his bag for a moment and fished out a wooden pencil sharp enough to poke someone's eye out, twirling it about. “Write it down for me. You’re better at it than I am.”
“I will if you-” Johnny snatched the pencil out of Gyro’s hand. “If you stop waving that thing around, for fucks sake!”
He pressed it lightly on the paper and scrawled out the name of the flower in messy handwriting (clearly not as eloquent as Gyro’s), adding his own note about how it is most certainly not a daffodil. He was a bit anal about that. “Now ya’ better not forget.”
“Why’s it called a March flag?”
“They bloom ‘round the first of March, like a flag for the coming month. That’s how I see it anyways.”
Gyro handed the yellow bloom back to Johnny and it was returned to its page before they continued. “I’ve got a good few more that don’t have names.”
There was another break in the flower pages and a couple pages full of writing like before. Likewise, they were filled top to bottom. “D’you expect me to understand any a’this stuff?”
“Why do you think I’m letting you peep in my notebook, huh?”
“Good point. Y’write well. Sure, if it was in English I could read it like any printed paper.”
“Aw, now that’s queer of you, complimenting my writing and all.”
“Oh, so I can’t be nice now?” Johnny sighed and fell upon pressed leaves this time. They were a minty green color with little white hairs covering them. Still soft to the touch even after being dried a bit. “No name for these yet either?” He asked.
“No clue.” Gyro answered. “They feel real’ nice on the skin though.”
Truthfully, there was no telling what the real name was. Johnny had never bothered to learn it, and like most flowers he could point out, the name was far from whatever technical term was correct. “I call em’ lamb ears.” He said as he rubbed the outside of one of them between his thumb and index finger. “They grew up around my house a lot.”
“Fitting for a flower that soft.”
“It’s a leaf, Gyro.”
“Don’t have to be a smartass about it.”
Johnny put the Lamb’s Ear back and pinched the corner of the page, starting to turn it, though when Gyro heeded him to wait it was too late. The regret had already set in when he realized what he’d done.
“You pressed... a Cattail. A whole goddamn Cattail.”
There were fluffy white puffs of seeds everywhere. They seemed to explode off the page and covered Johnny’s hands and his lap. “Gyro, are you thick in the head? What were you even thinking?”
“Once I shut the page on it first, I knew it was too late. I was too scared to open it again. Hey, at least you did me a favor. Cattail, is it?”
Johnny closed the book, rehooked the strap and threw it right at Gyro’s head, knocking his dumb hat right off and into the stream. Gyro cursed and scrambled to fish it out before the water whisked it away. “That was rude!” He pouted.
“It was rude to let this seed shit get everywhere.”
“Blame the cattail, not me. I didn’t know any better.”
Johnny scoffed. “Like there ain’t cattails in Italy.”
He started to brush off the seeds that coated his thighs and clung to the fabric of his pants. “We ought to-”
“Hold on, one more flower.” Gyro interrupted, grabbing the book and reopening it to a page near the back. “Tell me what this is and we can get movin’.”
Johnny took the book back into his hands and looked at the page, forgetting about the Cattail seed mess everywhere. Two single baby blue blooms were pressed flat on the paper. “Easy. Forget-Me-Nots. You didn’t know that?”
“I did.”
A gust of wind blew past the two of them, picking up the blooms and sending them off.