Table of Contents
Title Page
Map
Chapter 1 Back to School
Chapter 2 Jane Marie
Chapter 3 Boy Trouble
Chapter 4 The Self-improvement Plan
Chapter 5 A Peek in the Windows
Chapter 6 Escape
Chapter 7 Good-bye, Old Friend
Chapter 8 Mr. Barnes
Chapter 9 Ruby the Perfect
Chapter 10 Olivia the Moody
Chapter 11 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Chapter 12 Blizzard
Chapter 13 Spill the Beans
Chapter 14 A Family for Mary
Chapter 15 A Job for Flora
Chapter 16 Caught!
Chapter 17 Just Friends
Chapter 18 Bad-bye
Chapter 19 Flora Northrop, Working Girl
Chapter 20 Ruby’s Reward
Chapter 21 Just Sew
Chapter 22 The Sad Farewell
Chapter 23 Springtime
Also Available
Copyright
“Are you going to eat that?”
Nikki Sherman looked up from her plate, which held a slice of unbuttered bread and part of a carrot, to the boy who was sitting across the cafeteria table from her. She assumed Jacob was referring to the bread and not the carrot tip. “No,” she replied. “Do you want it?”
Jacob held out his hand. “Thanks.”
Although Nikki liked Jacob very much, she thought privately that he was something of a human Dustbuster, although she would never have said as much to Olivia Walter, who was one of her best friends — and Jacob’s girlfriend. Nikki passed Jacob the bread. “It has a little tomato sauce on it,” she said.
Jacob waved one hand in the air, his way of saying he couldn’t care less, and used his other hand to stuff the bread in his mouth in one enormous bite. Nikki would have been horrified, except that she had an eighteen-year-old brother, and she was used to watching him eat. When he was Jacob’s age, he could put away three or four helpings of dinner, followed by two helpings of dessert, followed by a bedtime snack of three whole English muffins with peanut butter (translation: six slices). So she wasn’t surprised that Jacob wanted her bread after having finished a rather large lunch. But she still couldn’t get the Dustbuster image out of her head.
Jacob swallowed the bread, and Nikki saw him looking around the cafeteria. His eyes fell on one of the food lines. Was he seriously considering buying something else to eat? He had cleaned his plate and everyone else’s at the table. The lunches at Camden Falls Central High School were pretty good, but still.
Not that Nikki had anything to compare them to except the lunches at Camden Falls Elementary, where she had gone to school until this year. Now Nikki and her friends were seventh-graders at the big central school in Camden Falls, Massachusetts. Switching schools was just one of many changes they had faced lately.
Jacob scarfed up the lone carrot tip while Flora, Nikki’s other best friend, twirled an apple around by its stem. She gave the apple a vigorous spin, then leaned over and whispered to Nikki, “If Tanya and Melody don’t stop staring at us, their eyes are going to bug out of their sockets.”
“They’re not staring at us, you know,” Nikki whispered back.
“Okay, at Olivia and Jacob, but it’s the same thing. They keep staring over here. They’re making me nervous.”
“Just ignore them. Pretend they’re mosquitoes.”
“I can’t. It’s more like they’re vultures, and it’s really hard to ignore vultures.”
Nikki sneaked a look at the next table, where Tanya Rhodes and Melody Becker were sitting side by side, each burdened by several pounds of silver jewelry and each sporting a newly colored streak in her hair — pink for Tanya, green for Melody. Their eyes were trained on Jacob and Olivia.
“They are kind of vulturelike,” agreed Nikki, forgetting to whisper.
“What?” said Olivia from across the table.
Nikki blushed. “Nothing. I’ll tell you later.”
Olivia swallowed a mouthful of pasta. “So, Nikki, when is your dad coming?”
Nikki could feel her blush deepen. She shrugged. The only problem with the fact that Jacob rarely left Olivia’s side was that the three girls had almost no time to themselves anymore, especially when they were in school. Nikki was glad that Olivia had been singled out by Jacob to be his girlfriend, but there was no way Nikki was going to talk about her family in front of him. She considered Olivia and Flora her sisters. She did not consider Jacob her brother.
“Your dad hasn’t decided yet?” Olivia tried again.
“You know, I’m kind of glad to be back in school,” was Nikki’s answer. “Christmas was fun and everything, but it’s nice to be in our old routine. Plus, I get to see you guys every day.”
Olivia frowned. “Nikki, I asked if your dad —”
Olivia levitated out of her seat then, and Nikki suspected that Flora had kicked her under the table.
“Ow,” said Olivia, reaching down to rub her shin.
It was a Friday in January and the end of the first week of school after the holiday break. Nikki truly had enjoyed her vacation, but she was also truly glad to be back at school. Of all the changes facing her and her friends, the biggest one, in Nikki’s opinion, was her own parents’ impending divorce and her father’s return to Camden Falls to finalize things. It was all making Nikki very anxious, and she was grateful to be able to escape to school.
Her father had been gone for over a year now, one blissful year in which her fractured family had slowly been able to mend without him. It was as if her family had been a broken vase, and once the vase had been glued back together, it turned out there was an extra piece that didn’t belong. Her father.
When Mr. Sherman had walked out their door the November before last, following an autumn of fights and threats and arguments, of punches ducked and kicks sidestepped, Nikki had breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t cared that despite her father’s promises to send money, her mother was going to have to support Nikki and her brother and sister all by herself. She hadn’t cared about living far out in the country without Mr. Sherman for protection. Tobias, her brother, would take over that role. There had been nothing at all that Nikki would miss. Not unless she planned to miss the sight of her father staggering to the bathroom in his pajamas at three o’clock in the afternoon, or the sound of the phone ringing when his current boss called to say that Mr. Sherman had missed work three days in a row, or the quiet of the house when the phone didn’t ring because her father had spent the phone bill money at the bar over in Essex and their service had been turned off again.
Mr. Sherman had come back briefly that Christmas, but for months after he’d left the second time, Nikki had lived in blissful ignorance, thinking she would never see her father again. How could she have thought that? Of course he was going to have to return, at least temporarily. Her mother wanted a divorce from him, and her father wanted some of the things he had left behind in their house — the rest of his clothes, everything that was his that he hadn’t jammed into his suitcase on that November day.
And now he was planning his trip back to Camden Falls, and Nikki, as much as she wanted to get things over with, was as nervous as the stray dogs that hung around her property, the ones that had so enraged her father. Her mother was nervous, too, she knew, even though she did a good job of hiding it. Mae, who was seven, was nervous — that was obvious — and Tobias was so nervous that he planned to take a break from his freshman year at college so he could be at home until Mr. Sherman had packed up and was gone for good. Tobias refused to leave his mother and sisters alone with his father. He wasn’t sure how he would make up the coursework he’d miss, but knew he would straighten things out eventual
ly.
Nikki let her eyes wander to the cafeteria windows and beyond, to the school lawn, brown now in a winter that so far had yielded very little snow. In her mind, she continued her journey along the tree-lined lanes that led to Main Street, to the shops and businesses that were the heart of town. This part of town, though, was not Nikki’s Camden Falls. Hers lay several miles away in fields and woods, where deer outnumbered people and where at night the only light came from the moon and the windows of her own house. Main Street was Flora’s Camden Falls, and Olivia’s. Nikki’s friends were comfortable strolling along the sidewalk, greeting shopkeepers and visiting their families’ stores. Needle and Thread, the sewing store, was owned and run by Flora’s and Olivia’s grandmothers, and Sincerely Yours, a new gift-basket store, belonged to Olivia’s parents. The girls were as at home on Main Street as they were on nearby Aiken Avenue, where Flora lived with her younger sister, Ruby, and her grandmother Min, and where Olivia lived with her little brothers and her parents.
It was funny, Nikki thought, that Flora felt so comfortable on Main Street, while Nikki sometimes still felt like an outsider there. After all, Nikki had grown up in Camden Falls, while Flora and Ruby had arrived less than two years earlier. But the sisters had been plunked into life on Main Street and Aiken Avenue, with its large cast of store owners and neighbors, while Nikki had grown up in her isolated house in the country.
Nikki dragged her mind back to the cafeteria just as Jacob stood up, fished in his pocket for his swipe card, and said, “Anybody want anything else?”
Nikki, Olivia, and Flora shook their heads, and Jacob shrugged, as if he couldn’t believe the girls weren’t still hungry. As soon as he was out of earshot, Olivia screeched, “Flora! Why did you kick me?”
“Because Nikki doesn’t want to talk about her father, not here in front of Jacob … and anyone else who might be listening,” she added, casting her eyes in the direction of the jewelry-laden vultures.
“Sor-ry,” said Olivia. But then she added, “Actually, it would be nice if we could sit by ourselves sometimes, just the three of us, so we could talk.” She paused. “I mean, really talk.”
“Is there something you want to talk about, too?” asked Nikki curiously. “Something you can’t say in front of Jacob?”
“Well,” Olivia started to reply, then glanced up and whispered, “Never mind. Jacob’s paying already.” A few moments later, Jacob slid into his chair again, this time carrying a piece of chocolate cake wrapped in cellophane. The cake disappeared in three mouthfuls.
“Hey, you guys,” said Flora, smiling suddenly. “You have to come see Janie again soon. She is so cute. And you can practically watch her grow. I know she’s only been here a few weeks, but already she’s completely different. She smiles now, and I know it isn’t just gas, no matter what Aunt Allie says.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Olivia. “You know what I saw in Bubble Gum the other day? Little baby hair bows. You should get one for her, Flora.”
“That’s perfect. I’m making her a pair of polka-dotted overalls. I could buy a bow to go with them.”
At the mere mention of Janie, Flora’s new little cousin, Jacob’s eyes glazed over. This was the one change in the lives of Nikki and her friends that the girls could actually talk about in front of Jacob — and he wasn’t interested in it. Well, that wasn’t entirely fair, Nikki reflected. Jacob had been happy for Flora’s aunt Allie when she had adopted Janie, but talk of baby clothes and chubby arms and hair bows and nightlights and crib bumpers, and especially dirty diapers and spit-up, caused Jacob to tune out and go off into some unrelated twelve-year-old-boy world.
“Aunt Allie just can’t figure out Janie’s sleep patterns,” Flora was saying. “Three nights in a row Janie slept for six hours straight, but then last night she was up every two hours —”
Flora was interrupted by Jacob, who suddenly announced, “Did you guys hear that the community center might have to close two days a week?”
“What?” said Nikki, whose mind had been snugly in Janie’s bedroom. “Seriously?”
“Yup.” Jacob wiped a nearly invisible dot of frosting off of the cellophane and licked it from his finger. “It’s expensive to keep it open every day. Not as many people can afford to take classes now, so my mom said the people who run it are going to have to let some of the employees go and cut some of the classes and programs.”
“That’s horrible!” exclaimed Olivia. “I took an art class there once. And Mom and Dad were going to sign my brothers up for basketball.”
“Mae’s been begging to take ballet,” said Nikki. “Mom was going to save up for the summer classes for her. I wonder if ballet will be cut.”
“I wonder if anything is going to have to close down completely,” said Olivia darkly. “I know Mom and Dad are worried about Sincerely Yours. And if they’re worried, I’ll bet other people are worried about their stores. And their jobs. You know, Mary Louise Detwiler’s mom lost her job, and then her dad lost his job, too.”
“Oh,” said Nikki faintly, and her eyes strayed to the end of the next table, where Mary Louise was sitting, attempting to read a book in the midst of the noise and commotion.
“Min said business at the store has been really slow lately,” spoke up Flora. “But Needle and Thread has been around for years. I think Min and Gigi can keep it going.”
“Hulit’s is closing,” said Jacob.
“What!” exclaimed Olivia. “The shoe store? Where are we supposed to buy shoes?”
“At the mall, I guess,” said Nikki, trying to sound casual. But an insistent and very annoying voice in her head was whispering, What if Mom’s job gets cut? Then what happens to us? Nikki tried to will the voice away and only succeeded when lunch ended and it was time for her next class.
“See you guys!” Jacob said to Nikki and Flora as he stood up from the table.
Nikki looked expectantly at Olivia, who, she was sure, wanted to say something in private to her friends, but Olivia merely smiled tightly and followed Jacob into the corridor.
“Is something going on with Olivia?” Nikki asked Flora.
Flora shrugged. “We didn’t see each other that much over vacation.”
“Huh,” said Nikki. This was surprising, considering Flora and Olivia lived next door to each other.
“Yeah, huh,” said Flora. “She and Jacob were always together.”
Nikki knew that her mother had arranged for Mae to attend the Camden Falls Elementary after-school program precisely so that Nikki wouldn’t have to be responsible for her little sister every afternoon. And on those days when Nikki had plans with Olivia and Flora, she truly appreciated the arrangement. But on days like today, when the school bus dropped her off at the end of her lane and she walked to her house alone, she missed Mae’s company. Sometimes the house felt creepy, even when Paw-Paw glued himself to Nikki’s side.
Nikki unlocked her front door, talking to Paw-Paw as she did so. “I’m home, boy. You can come out now. Go play in the yard for a while.” And Paw-Paw, the big brown stray, endlessly patient, who had become a member of Nikki’s family only after her father had left, bolted onto the porch and into the yard, where he ran around and around like a cartoon dog. Nikki half expected to see a circular rut form under his speeding paws.
Nikki dumped her school things by the front door, made a snack, and gave a bite of it to Paw-Paw. Then she settled at the kitchen table to start her homework. She could work at the desk in her room, but she felt vulnerable up there, so far from the front door. In the kitchen, she had a view of the driveway — and an escape route. She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of, exactly. But she didn’t relish being the only one at home on these silent, dark winter afternoons.
When at long last she saw the headlights of her mother’s car in their lane, she let out her breath and closed her books.
“They’re here,” she said to Paw-Paw. “Mom and Mae are home.”
Paw-Paw ran full tilt toward the front door, which was only fou
r feet away, so he nearly crashed into it.
Nikki laughed. “Klutz,” she said, and wrapped her arms around him before opening the door.
“Hi! I’m home!” Mae announced, squeezing past Nikki and Paw-Paw, her arms laden with library books, art projects, and stray articles of clothing. On her head she wore a hat made of balloons. “Like it?” she asked Nikki.
“It’s stunning,” Nikki replied, and grinned at her mother. “I started dinner,” she added.
Mrs. Sherman heaved a sigh and kicked off her shoes. “You’re an angel,” she said.
“Am I an angel?” asked Mae.
“Most of the time,” Mrs. Sherman replied.
Half an hour later, Nikki, Mae, and their mother were seated at the kitchen table, which was set for three, and Nikki was privately recalling the days when the table had been set for five. When her father was still at home, and Tobias was still in high school. When trouble could erupt at any moment between her father and her mother, between her father and Tobias. (Her father was always involved.) And trouble could lead to flying furniture and broken dishes and the need to run for cover.
As if Mae could read Nikki’s thoughts, she now said, “Mommy? When is —” She paused. “When is your husband coming back?” Nikki would have laughed if she hadn’t known what lay behind Mae’s refusal to call her father Daddy.
“A week from tomorrow,” Mrs. Sherman replied.
Mae nodded soberly. “And when is Tobias coming home?”
“A week from today.”
“Yes!” Mae cried. She adjusted her balloon hat. “Maybe I’ll make a hat like this for Tobias next week.” She ate a bite of chicken, then said casually, “Tell me again why your husband is coming here.”
“A few reasons,” said Mrs. Sherman evenly. “First of all, he wants to see you and Nikki and Tobias. He hasn’t seen you in a long time.”
Mae made no comment.
“Also, he needs to finish moving out of the house. We talked about that. Do you remember what I said?”
Mae nodded.
“He’s going to pack up the rest of his clothes and things so that he can take them to his new home.”