By the time we sat down at the table, everybody was in a good mood. Ed told us funny stories about his Italian grandmother, which Mom matched with stories about her Irish grandfather. We laughed so hard we could hardly eat, but somehow we managed to finish everything, even the ice cream.
After dinner, we all cleaned up the kitchen. Ed even mopped the floor while singing an aria from The Barber of Seville. Just to keep us in a nice Italian mood, he said.
"How about playing a game of Clue?" Ed asked as Josh and I plopped down on the couch to watch television.
To my surprise, Josh agreed without even putting up an argument. We played four games, and I actually won once. Josh, of course, won twice, and Mom won the last game. Poor Ed lost every time.
Around eleven, Josh and I went upstairs. In the hall outside the bathroom door, I smiled at Josh.
"He's really not so bad, is he?"
Josh shrugged. "He could be worse."
"Well, he doesn't sing very well, and he's a terrible Clue player, but he's funny."
"Yeah, I guess so." Josh scratched his head. "And I have to admit, we eat better when he's around. Even that tomato sauce turned out to be good." With that, he gave me a shove and ducked into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind him.
"Hey!" I shouted, "I was going in there!"
"Tough luck, Jess-o!" Josh yelled back.
Eight
I SPENT practically all of Sunday shut up in my room working on "The Mysterious Disappearance of Sir Benjamin Mouse." When it was finally typed, the sky outside my window was flushed red with a winter sunset. My back ached, my fingers were sore, and I was very tired, but I felt like a real writer.
I looked at the stack of paper on my desk. Eight pages I'd typed. Eight. I'd never written anything that long before. And it had an ending, something most of my earlier stories had lacked. I'd lost interest in them and they'd just stopped, sometimes in the middle of a sentence.
But this one had a real ending. Not the sappy "and they lived happily ever after" ending I'd planned to give it. Daphne had been right. I would have ruined the story if it hadn't been for her advice.
I stretched and got up, eager to go to school and show it to her. I hoped she would like it.
As I hurried along the footpath Monday morning, I wondered if Daphne had finished any of the illustrations. They weren't due until Friday, but I was eager to see them.
Although I looked for Daphne by her locker, I didn't see her. Unfortunately, I did see Michelle.
"Hi, Jessie," Michelle smirked at me, showing her little white teeth in a nasty grin. "How are the mice?"
"Squeak, squeak," Sherry whispered, jostling against me from the other side.
Before I could say anything, the two of them ran off down the hall. Gritting my teeth, I walked along behind them, hating them both so much I ached.
When I got to English, I stared at Daphne's empty desk in surprise. Where was she? She'd never been absent before. Anxiously I glanced around the room, but I didn't see her anywhere. Disappointed, I got out my notebook and tried to pay attention to what Mr. O'Brien had to say about transitions.
Although I was sure Daphne would be in school Tuesday, she wasn't there. Nor was she there on Wednesday. On Thursday she was still absent, but I had an early dismissal that day because of an appointment with my orthodontist. After Dr. West had finished tightening my braces, I asked Mom if we could drive past Daphne's house.
"Maybe I could just drop in and see if she's coming to school tomorrow. Or if she's finished the illustrations, I could take them to Mr. O'Brien for her."
Mom nodded and drove out of Adelphia, leaving behind all the curving streets and cul-de-sacs lined with look-alike houses and townhouses and apartments. Out in the country, everything was bare and brown and shaggy, unplanned and natural. Farmhouses and bungalows sprang up here and there as if they'd grown out of the earth all by themselves.
As Mom rounded a curve, I saw three people walking along the side of the road, their backs to us. One was an old lady wearing a man's red plaid lumber jacket and a fur hat. Her tall, thin body was hunched over a grocery cart full of trash. The other two, pulling bottles and cans out of the tangled grass and bushes and loading them into the cart, were Daphne and Hope.
Shocked, I slid down in the seat. "Don't stop, Mom! Just drive right past like you don't even see them!"
I guess Mom must have been just as surprised as I was because she did exactly what I told her to do. As soon as we were safely around a bend in the road, I sat up and stared at Mom.
"How come Daphne was outside?" I asked. "If she's well enough to walk along the road like that, she should be in school."
Mom shook her head. "I don't know, Jess. I would have stopped, but I was afraid of embarrassing them."
"What were they doing?"
"Collecting bottles and cans. They're probably going to return them to the store for money."
"Do you think they're that poor?"
"I hope not, honey." Mom didn't sound very sure.
"I guess that was their grandmother." I shuddered. No wonder Daphne had been worried about upsetting her. Even from the back, she'd looked kind of strange and scary.
We rode the rest of the way home in silence. As we turned into our court, I said, "I hope Daphne comes back to school tomorrow. Our stories are due, and I don't want to get a bad mark in English."
But Daphne didn't come to school on Friday, and I had to turn in my story without any pictures.
After class, Mr. O'Brien took me aside. "I know you're upset, Jessica, but people can't help getting sick. Don't worry. I won't lower your grade because Daphne isn't here to give me the illustrations."
I nodded. It was a relief to know that I wasn't going to get an E because of Daphne.
"Have you talked to her?" Mr. O'Brien asked.
"She doesn't have a phone."
Mr. O'Brien raised his eyebrows. "Do you know where she lives?"
"My mother drove her home once. Her house is way out Cook's Lane." I hesitated. "Do you want me to go out there and see what's wrong with her?"
Mr. O'Brien smiled at me. "That would be a wonderful thing to do, Jessica. I'd go myself, but I don't have much free time. Could you go tomorrow?"
I nodded my head and tried to smile back, but I was a little uneasy. It was a long walk, and even though I was curious, I was worried about having to meet Daphne's grandmother. I had a feeling that she wasn't a very friendly person.
It was very cold on Saturday. Since Mom was working, I had to walk, and if I hadn't promised Mr. O'Brien that I would go, I'd probably have turned around and gone home before I was halfway there.
When I got to the mailbox at the end of the drive, I hesitated. A line of trees hid the house from the road, making it impossible to tell whether anyone was home. Suppose Daphne wasn't there? Reminding myself for the hundredth time that I'd promised Mr. O'Brien, I shoved my cold hands into my pockets and trudged slowly up the driveway. Above my head, the wind rocked the branches of the trees and hissed through the weeds in the fields on either side of me.
The house finally came into sight. It was old, Victorian, I guess, and quite a bit larger than I'd thought. It sported a tower, dormers, several stained-glass windows, and enough fancy trim to have kept a woodworker employed for years. Two enormous oak trees, heavily draped with ivy, flanked it like guardians, but the lawn surrounding it had long since gone to weed.
Never had I seen a sadder, more desolate house. The paint was flaking and peeling away, exposing the bare wood to the wind and the rain. Many shutters were missing, and those that remained hung crooked, their slats broken. The roof over the front porch sagged, railings had pulled away, much of the gingerbread was cracked. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that the house had been vacant for years.
Crossing the yard quickly, I ran up the steps and knocked softly on the front door. At the sound, several cats emerged from the bushes around the house. Meowing hopefully, they rubbed against my leg
s and looked at the closed door. They were so thin I could feel their backbones when I petted them.
The cats and I stood there waiting, but there wasn't a sound in the house. Nervously I knocked a little harder. Still nothing.
Two narrow, small-paned windows flanked the door, and I pressed my face against one, trying to see inside. Through the grime, I could make out an empty hallway and a flight of stairs. Bundles of newspaper lined one wall, and shopping bags and boxes full of bottles and cans were stacked on the steps.
The cats meowed louder. There must have been a dozen of them milling around my legs, purring and mewing. Once more I raised my hand to knock, but before my fist hit the wood, the door opened and I almost hit Daphne instead.
She jumped back, obviously surprised, and I thought I was going to die of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, I was about to knock." I stood there, my face crimson.
Daphne stared at me for a minute, and then she started to laugh. Realizing how foolish I must have looked, I started to laugh, too. We both leaned against the wall, laughing till tears ran down our faces.
"Daphne, who's at the door? Who's there?" A voice rang out sharply from somewhere in the house, scaring me out of my giggles. "If it's somebody selling something, you tell them we don't want any!"
"It's all right, Grandmother," Daphne called. "It's just somebody from school." Turning back to me, Daphne was her usual somber self. "What are you doing here?"
A little bewildered by the sudden change in her, I told her I'd come to see if she'd finished the pictures for our book. "They were due yesterday, and Mr. O'Brien was worried about you. He asked me to come out here." Now that she was acting so cold, I certainly wasn't going to tell her that it had been my idea.
"Wait here. I'll get them for you." Shutting the door in my face, she left me alone on the porch. The cats had dashed inside the second the door opened.
I felt like turning around and going home, but I hesitated, not wanting to leave without the pictures. Then a movement at one of the windows caught my eye. Through the glass I saw Hope, smiling and waving at me.
Yanking the door open, she stuck her head out. "Hi, Jessica! Did you walk all the way out here?"
I nodded and smiled at her, reminding myself that it was her rude sister, not Hope, that I was mad at.
"Is that door open?" The old woman I'd seen on the road stepped into the hall behind Hope. Seeing me, she frowned. "Who are you?"
"This is Jessica," Hope said. "She goes to Daphne's school." Seizing my hand, Hope pulled me into the house, letting the door slam shut.
I looked at their grandmother apprehensively. "Daphne went upstairs to get something for me," I said.
The old woman didn't look at all pleased to have company. She stared at me out of sunken, red-rimmed eyes. Her mouth twitched and she rubbed one hand against the other, making a dry rustly noise.
"You're from Adelphia, aren't you?" The woman stepped a little closer, her sharp old eyes taking in every detail of my appearance.
I nodded and glanced toward the stairs, wishing Daphne would come back. I wanted to go home, I wanted to get away from Daphne's grandmother. I didn't like the house; it was dark and cold, full of trash and stinking of cats. But I was too scared to move.
"You've got that Adelphia look," the old woman went on. "Everybody there looks the same. Little cardboard houses popping up everywhere, everybody driving those cheap little cars, throwing their trash all over the place." She glared at me, her hands rubbing together faster and faster. "You won't see me selling my land to any fast-talking developer. I won't have any of those flimsy things on my farm. You hear?"
I looked desperately at Hope, but she just stood there, twirling her hair around one of her fingers and gazing out the window. I wanted to tell her to go get Daphne, but I was afraid her grandmother would become even more agitated.
"What's the matter with you, girl? Haven't you got anything to say for yourself?" The old woman shoved her face so close to mine that I could see the pores in her skin.
"Here are the pictures." Daphne thumped down the stairs and thrust a brown envelope at me. Turning to her grandmother, she said, "This is Jessica Taylor."
The old woman nodded. "She's from Adelphia."
"Jessica, this is my grandmother, Mrs. Woodleigh." Daphne grabbed her parka from a coat tree in the corner. "Come on," she said to me. "I'll walk down the drive with you."
Reaching for her jacket, Hope said, "I want to come, too."
Mrs. Woodleigh grabbed her arm. "No, no, it's too cold outside for my baby. You stay here with Granny."
The door thunked shut, cutting off a disappointed cry from Hope. Daphne hurried down the steps ahead of me, her hair billowing in the wind, and I ran after her, glad to breathe in the fresh, cold air.
When we reached the driveway, Daphne slowed down to a walk and I caught up with her. "Are you coming back to school Monday?"
She glanced at me, then gazed off into the distance, where the houses of Adelphia seemed to be marching over the hills toward Mrs. Woodleigh's farm. "I don't think so," she said, her face hidden.
"You don't seem sick." I stared at her. "What's wrong with you?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. I think I probably have mononucleosis."
"What's that? Is it contagious?"
"Only if you drink out of a glass I drank out of." She turned toward me then, her face worried. "Will you tell Mr. O'Brien that I have mononucleosis?"
"Sure." I said it over a few times in my mind, so I'd be sure to remember it. "When will you be back?"
"Not for a long time. It takes months to get over it."
"But what about your schoolwork? How will you make it all up?" I stared at her, puzzled by her lack of concern. I couldn't imagine being that nonchalant about missing so much school. "Do you want me to bring you your assignments?"
Daphne turned to me, surprised. "I couldn't ask you to do that, Jessica. No, that's okay." She looked down at the ground, nudging the ice on a puddle with her toe until it broke with a little tinkling sound.
"You're not asking me to do it, Daphne. I'm offering." I smiled at her uncertainly. "I don't mind. Honest, I don't."
Daphne brushed her hair back from her face and smiled at me. "You really wouldn't mind?"
I shook my head. "It's okay."
"That's awfully nice of you, Jessica." Daphne's eyes probed mine, as if she weren't quite sure she could trust me.
"Will your grandmother mind if I come out to see you?" I remembered Mrs. Woodleigh's scowling face. "I don't think she likes me very much."
Daphne sighed. "Grandmother is awfully suspicious of strangers. That's why I didn't invite you in. I knew she'd act like that. I thought if you saw her, you'd never come back." Daphne laughed uneasily. "It takes a while to get used to Grandmother."
"Do you and Hope live alone with her?"
Daphne nodded. "Our father was killed in Vietnam before Hope was born," she said slowly. "I don't remember him very well. I was only five when he died."
I waited for her to go on, to say something about her mother, but Daphne was silent. Her hair had blown back across her face, but I knew how unhappy she must feel. Aching with the frustration of not knowing what to say, I clutched the envelope she'd given me.
When the wind rattled the envelope, Daphne looked at me. "I hope you like the pictures I drew."
"Can I look at them now?"
"If you want. Come on, I'll take you to a place where we can get out of the wind." Running ahead of me, she led me behind the house to a grove of tall birches, their trunks silvery in the sunlight. She sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree and beckoned me to join her.
Opening the envelope, I pulled out eight pictures, one for each page, plus a title page and a jacket. Each picture was painted in muted colors, delicately drawn and filled with detail. Not another book in our class had illustrations like these.
"They're beautiful," I sighed, loving each one. "You're a real artist, Daphne."
"Do you really like them?" She looked pleased. "Is Sir Benjamin's hat right? I was a little worried about the plume."
"It's perfect." I smiled at her and put the drawings carefully into the envelope. "I can't wait to show them to Mr. O'Brien."
Daphne smiled again. "I loved drawing them. And making up the story. Hope still talks about Baby Mouse."
"Maybe we could write a sequel," I said. "When I bring you your homework next week, I could bring the mice along with me."
"That's a wonderful idea, Jessica." Daphne sprang to her feet and walked up the tree trunk, balancing with her arms outspread as the trunk got narrower. Laughing, I followed her and we climbed up into the branches and sat there, letting the wind rock us.
"Way out here, we won't have to worry about Michelle coming along and spoiling things," I said.
"I thought you were friends with her," Daphne said.
I shook my head. "I hate Michelle. And Sherry too."
"But you eat lunch with them and you walk around with them." Daphne looked puzzled.
"Only because I like Tracy. She's nice."
"I hadn't noticed," Daphne said quietly.
I looked up at her sharply. "Tracy's not really like Michelle and Sherry," I said defensively. "We've been best friends since we were in kindergarten, but now, I don't know...." My voice trailed away. "She's changed, I guess."
Daphne nodded, but she didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry they've been mean to you," I finally said.
Daphne shrugged. "I don't want to talk about it."
Embarrassed at the unhappiness in Daphne's voice, I sat quietly on my branch, listening to the wind moan in the treetops. Faintly I heard a voice calling Daphne. Looking toward the house, I saw Mrs. Woodleigh on the back porch. From this far away, she was no taller than my finger.
"I guess I better go," Daphne said. "Grandmother worries about me if I'm gone too long." She climbed down from the tree, and I followed her.
"Would you like to come inside and have a cup of tea?" Daphne asked.
"Will your grandmother mind?"
"It'll be all right. She's just old. Once she gets to know you, she'll be nicer."