Ruby set the owl on the floor and cocked her head to listen. She heard a creak and jumped, her knee connecting with the box and causing an alarming rattling sound. She leaped to her feet, fully expecting to find Flora standing accusingly in Min’s doorway, but everything was silent again. Ruby hurriedly replaced the rubber band on the box, stashed the box in the back of the drawer again, and closed the drawer. The owl still lay on the floor.
Ruby picked it up. She would just borrow it, she thought, like she had borrowed the bug and worn it to dinner. She carried the owl down the hall to her room and stood in front of her bureau. “Animals,” she said, “I want you to meet a new friend.” She held the owl aloft. “This is Owlie. He’s been stuffed away in a box for about a year and a half, poor thing. It’s really tragic. Polar Bear, you’re the newcomer here. I want you to make Owlie feel welcome.” It was while Ruby was re arranging the animals that her hand slipped and she dropped the owl. She watched as, in horrible slow motion, it hit the edge of her metal wastebasket and then landed squarely on the eight-inch strip of wooden floor between the edge of her rug and the wall.
The little owl now lay in three jagged pieces, the wings broken off of the body amid a handful of smaller shards.
“Uh-oh,” said Ruby. And when she heard Flora climbing the stairs, she added, “Yipes.”
“Ruby?” called her sister.
Ruby slammed her door shut. “Just a minute!”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“I need to ask you something.”
Ruby opened the door two inches. “What?”
Flora frowned and tried to peer into the room. “What do you want for dinner? Min said to start something before she gets home.”
“Spaghetti,” Ruby replied, and closed the door firmly.
She sat on her bed and stared at the mess. “Okay,” she said to herself as Flora’s footsteps retreated. “Okay. This is going to be all right. First things first. Clean up the mess.”
Ruby retrieved the dustpan and broom that Min kept in her sewing room and swept the pieces of crystal into a bag, which she would dispose of very carefully later on so that no one would get cut.
Now, how to replace the owl? For that was what Ruby had already decided she must do: replace the owl before Min realized it was gone. Ruby was certain Min looked in the box from time to time (that was why the rubber band was new), so simply pretending the event hadn’t taken place was out of the question. The owl would be missed eventually. But Ruby thought she had some time in which to make the switch, perhaps even several months. The question was whether the owl could actually be replaced. Certainly Stuff ’n’ Nonsense didn’t carry anything like it, but maybe one of the fancier stores on Main Street did. Ruby would check all of the gift stores as well as the new jewelry store. If necessary, she could also check the stores out at the mall someday.
Ruby’s heart, which had been beating very fast, began to slow down. But she continued to sit on her bed and think. She had been in a bit of trouble recently. Actually, more than just a bit. She had nearly gotten herself expelled from the Children’s Chorus back in November for not attending rehearsals and subsequently making a mess of one of her solos in the Thanksgiving concert. In the end, although she hadn’t been expelled, she had very embarrassingly been put on probation. Furthermore, her grades, which had always been mediocre at best, had been slipping even further, and just the previous week, when school had started again, her teacher had called Min and arranged for a special conference, reminding her that Ruby would soon be in sixth grade, with a heavier workload and more responsibilities. Was Ruby prepared for that? Min had returned home and had quite a talk with Ruby that evening.
Miserably, Ruby began to list her other faults: She didn’t listen to adults, she was careless, she was messy, she was impulsive, she didn’t plan ahead, and evidently she had a tendency to be rude.
“Well, I’m going to take care of all that,” Ruby now said aloud.
She jumped up and made her way to her desk. The fact that she couldn’t find anything in the stew of junk there made her more determined than ever to take matters in hand.
“I will draw up a self-improvement plan,” she announced. “And I’ll start off the list with: Be neater.”
To that end, Ruby threw away all the gum wrappers and stray scraps of paper littering the surface of her desk. She stowed her pencils and pens and markers in the top drawer, and put all the nondesk items (jewelry, candy, clothing) in their proper places in her room. At last she sat down, pulled a pen and a sheet of paper from the recently tidied drawer, and wrote: Ruby Northrop’s Personal and Private Self-improvement Plan. THIS IS SERIOUS.
Ruby began her list. It took her ten minutes to complete it and she was quite pleased with it.
1. Be neater.
2. Go to all lessons and rehearsals unless I am sick.
3. Plan ahead. (Ask someone how to do that.)
4. Finish homework on time.
5. Practice lessons (chorus, tap) at home.
6. Listen to adults and then actually do what they say.
7. Try very hard not to be rude. If I slip up, I should apologize right away.
8. Check my work before I hand it in.
9. Think before I act.
(Previously, Ruby had been under the impression that this last bit of advice referred to acting on the stage, but now she realized it had a different meaning, and that maybe it would even help her to plan ahead.)
10. Become the Doer of Unpleasant Jobs again.
In November, when Ruby had realized she needed to earn some money to buy Christmas presents, she had started a small business. She had become the Doer of Unpleasant Jobs and had distributed flyers to her neighbors announcing that she was available to do all those unappealing chores people tended to put off: cleaning out basements and storage rooms, washing windows, organizing shelves, and so forth. Her business had gotten off to a good start, but Ruby had let it lapse after she had earned enough money to buy gifts for Min and Flora and Aunt Allie and Janie and several of her friends and neighbors.
Now, Ruby realized, she would have to get her business up and running again. She had a feeling that a crystal owl (should she be able to find one identical to the one she’d broken) would not be cheap. Certainly it would cost more than $6.71, which was the sum total of Ruby’s cash that afternoon.
Ruby had her work cut out for her.
But as she sat on the bed amid her unfinished homework (which she now realized she would have to complete, and complete properly, before she went to sleep that night) she felt calm. Calm and rather grown-up. The accident with the owl had been bad, but it had awakened something in Ruby that had led her to address her problems in a very adult manner. The only sad thing was that she couldn’t tell anyone about the self-improvement plan, or at least not the reason behind it. That would have to remain a secret.
Oh, well, thought Ruby. I guess that’s part of growing up, too. Sometimes you do something just because you have to, even if you’re the only person who knows how great it is.
And she lugged her books to her desk and sat down to begin her assignments.
If you were to view Camden Falls, Massachusetts, from above, you might think it was a sleepy town. And if you breezed by the exit for Camden Falls on the highway and noticed the sign reading POPULATION: 14,767 (the sign isn’t accurate, but for heaven’s sake, it can’t be updated every time someone is born or dies or moves to or from town), you would think it was a small town. And it is small. And maybe it’s sleepy compared to cities. But that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in drama. A thousand small dramas are unfolding in the town at any moment on any day.
Come and take a look at Camden Falls on this afternoon in early January in what, so far, has been an unusually warm winter. Start your tour on the outskirts of town, where Nikki Sherman and her family live. Today is Friday, and Nikki has been simultaneously looking forward to this day and dreading it. She’s been looking forward to the
return of her beloved brother, Tobias. He’s been back at school for a scant two weeks since the holidays, but Nikki always misses him when he’s away, and now he’ll be home again in less than an hour. On the other hand, she’s been dreading today because it’s the last one before her father will return and (Nikki is quite certain) send her family into turmoil. Nikki stands at the front window of her careworn house and stares across the barren yard to the county road, which she can barely make out in the distance. If she were to look to the right and left, or to stare out a back window of the house, she would see more of the same barrenness: a leafless tree here and there, the colorless hollow stalks of grasses that in the summer are green and supple, a hedgerow, a shack. It’s lonely sometimes out here in the country — but Nikki wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. She reaches down to pat Paw-Paw’s head and then squints her eyes. Has a car turned off the county road and onto her lane? She stares. Yes! Tobias is back early. Nikki and Paw-Paw fly out the door and are waiting to greet him before he has even pulled to a stop.
The weather is mild, as every single person in Camden Falls has been noting for weeks now, so you won’t mind a walk through the country in the direction of Camden Falls. Step carefully, keep your eyes open, and you’ll probably see deer, maybe a skunk or a possum, definitely squirrels and birds of many kinds, and if you’re lucky you’ll spot a fox or a coyote. Nikki saw a mink one memorable winter day.
Pass the turnoff for Minnewaska State Park, pass Al’s Produce Stand (closed for the winter), pass The Blue Barn (antiques), and now you’ll see more and more roads intersecting with the county road. A few more blocks and you’ll reach Main Street. But stop a couple of blocks before Main Street, turn left, then right, and you’ll find yourself standing before what can only be described as a cottage. The small house surrounded by gardens looks as though it should be the home of an elf or a fairy. The youngest children in town actually believe that, and then they grow up and learn that the old woman who lives there all alone is practically a recluse, and some of them call her Scary Mary. Scary Mary, who isn’t scary at all, works several days a week at Needle and Thread, and has recently learned that after decades of thinking she was an only child with no relatives other than her mother (her father left her and her mother when Mary was a baby), she in fact has a large extended family, including a younger half sister, who contacted her on Thanksgiving Day. Mary is going to meet part of her family soon. Eight of them will be coming to visit her. Mary never dreamed that at the age of nearly eighty her life would change in this impossibly wonderful way. Maybe she really is a character in a fairy story.
You’re just a few blocks from Main Street now, so you might as well stroll along it. It is, after all, the heart of town. Camden Falls might be small and even a little old-fashioned, but it is not unchanging. While some of the stores and businesses have been around for decades — the movie theatre, Needle and Thread, Fig Tree, Zinder’s — others are new. Sincerely Yours opened less than a year ago, the diner opened in the fall, and just before the holidays a magic shop opened. As the economy declines (a topic the adults discuss endlessly and the children try to ignore), other businesses are struggling. The shoe store is about to close, and other stores will surely follow. Still, Main Street is a pleasant place, and on a winter afternoon, a cozy one as well. Old friends are meeting at Frank’s Beans for a cup of coffee or greeting one another in front of the post office. Store windows shine, and the lampposts are wound with tiny gold lights. Walk as far north as Dutch Haus, turn left onto Dodds Lane, then right onto Aiken Avenue, and there before you are the Row Houses, where Nikki occasionally imagines herself living along with Flora and Ruby and Olivia.
The Row Houses take up a good portion of the street just off of Dodds. While they were once populated by Camden Falls’s wealthiest families, families who could afford maids for the maids’ rooms (not to mention gardeners and chauffeurs), the people who live in them now have turned the maids’ rooms into offices and playrooms, and they do their own gardening and driving.
The small dramas of Camden Falls are unfolding here on Aiken Avenue, too. In the second house from the left live the Hamiltons — Willow Hamilton, who’s a friend of Flora and Olivia, her little brother, Cole, and their parents. Mrs. Hamilton, however, has been absent from the house since the unforgettable evening before Thanksgiving when the police were called to the Hamilton residence and Mrs. Hamilton, after years of unstable behavior, was taken to a hospital for treatment. Willow and Cole were sad at first, and then relieved. Their home has been a steadier and happier place since she left. Willow misses having a mother, but she doesn’t miss her mother’s unpredictable and mysterious house rules, and now, less than two months since that night, she feels a peace that she wonders if most people feel every day without recognizing its extraordinariness. She looks out her window and sees Cole playing in the yard with Bessie, their dog, and the Morris boys from next door. Cole is tearing after Mathias and Travis in a game that looks like tag but that Willow thinks the boys have made up this afternoon.
To the right of the Hamiltons’ house is the one belonging to the Malones — Dr. Malone, a dentist, and his daughters, Margaret and Lydia, who are in high school. Margaret spent the autumn busily applying to colleges, and she has just learned that she’s been accepted at her first choice: Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Margaret won’t be traveling far to go to her new school, and yet Northampton feels worlds away. To begin with, it’s twice the size of Camden Falls. But what Margaret is thinking as she lies on her bed, trying to process the news she’s just received, is that she will soon be a college student — at what she believes is the perfect college. For her, anyway. A college with an art museum and a theatre department and more courses than she can imagine. She plans to take classes in writing and psychology and history and the history of art. She loves Camden Falls, but she can’t wait to start her new life in Northampton.
Next door to Margaret, Flora, alone in her house, is sitting at the sewing machine in her bedroom. She’s decided to start her weekend homework on Saturday. For now she wants to do nothing but sew, and she’s finishing the inseam on a pair of corduroy rompers for Janie. Seated at the machine in the quiet of her house on a late winter afternoon, Flora feels a calm settle over her.
Walking slowly to the door of the third house from the right are Rudy Pennington and Jacques. Mr. Pennington’s pace is due not to his stiff joints but to the news he got when he took Jacques to the vet this morning. The doctor, a woman Mr. Pennington likes and trusts — she’s been Jacques’s vet since he was a puppy — has told him that Jacques probably doesn’t have many weeks left to live. And Mr. Pennington is wondering how on earth he will be able to say goodbye to his companion.
“Come on, boy,” says Mr. Pennington, and he holds the door open so Jacques can limp inside.
Nikki lay in bed, holding her breath and listening. She wondered how much time she had spent listening in her house: listening for the sound of her father’s footsteps on the stairs late at night, for the sound of angry hushed voices from her parents’ room, and especially for the sound of tires crunching gravel on the lane to her house. Tires on gravel were the worst sound of all, because they signaled an end to a peaceful time, even if it had been only an hour or so, when her father had been blessedly absent from the house. For a year now, Nikki had been able to replace her worried listening with other more productive activities. But this morning was different. This morning her father would be returning. And so Nikki was once again listening for tires on gravel.
“Nikki? How many more minutes until he gets here?” Mae said sleepily from the bed across the room.
“I don’t know,” replied Nikki. “It’s still early. He won’t be here for a while, anyway.” But Nikki wasn’t sure about that, which was why she was listening.
There was no response from Mae, so Nikki tossed back her covers and padded barefoot across the chilly floor to her sister’s bed. “Mae?”
“I heard you.”
/> “Well, come on, get up. Let’s go downstairs and have breakfast with Mom and Tobias.”
“I don’t want him to hurt Mom,” said Mae. And Nikki understood that Mae was talking about their father.
“Tobias won’t let anything happen,” replied Nikki, trying to sound confident.
Nikki spent a considerable amount of time that morning listening. Everyone in her family was on edge. Mae sat on the floor and stared distractedly at the television, and when Paw-Paw walked in front of her, she swatted his rump and said, “Get out of my way!”
“Mae!” exclaimed Mrs. Sherman. “That is not how we treat living creatures.”
“It’s how your husband treats us,” muttered Mae.
“Not while I’m here,” said Tobias, darkening.
“Enough,” said Mrs. Sherman. “Stop it, all of you.” (Nikki had said nothing, but this wasn’t the time to point that out.)
Mae, glowering, got to her feet and kicked an armchair.
“Do you need a time-out?” Mrs. Sherman asked her.
“No.” But Mae disappeared up the stairs anyway.
And that was when Nikki finally did hear gravel crunching. “He’s here,” she whispered.
“Better put Paw-Paw outside,” said Mrs. Sherman, and Nikki whisked him out the side door. “Stay, boy,” she commanded softly.
Mae had run back down the stairs and was peering out a window. After a few moments, she left the window to turn and press her face into her mother’s waist, as if she were a toddler.
Nikki, who was now listening for the sound of a knock on the door, was so startled when the door suddenly opened that she actually let out a cry.
“I’m home, everybody!” announced Mr. Sherman. He set down two shopping bags, closed the door behind him, and shrugged out of his coat. And then he stood by the door, his arms dangling at his sides.