Flora was about to reply when Ruby entered the store, holding aloft a paper bag from Ma Grand-mère. Flora stuffed the picture back in her pocket and whispered to Olivia, “We can discuss this later.”
Now she had even more questions … and no answers. Although she did like the idea of someone, anyone, having a secret past.
If you had never before visited Camden Falls, you might first choose to walk down Main Street; you might walk from one end to the other, passing Frank’s Beans and the used bookstore and the post office and Ma Grand-mère. You might pause to look in the window of Camden Falls Art Supply with its back-to-school theme, and the window of Needle and Thread, where Evelyn Walter and Min Read have already displayed orange and black Halloween fabrics. You might call hello to cranky Gina Grindle as she closes up Stuff ’n’ Nonsense for the evening, and then you might glance curiously at Sonny Sutphin as he inches his wheelchair along the sidewalk. You might breathe in the aroma of oregano and cheese and tomato sauce as you pass College Pizza, and of chocolate and almonds and butterscotch as you pass Dutch Haus, the ice-cream parlor.
At Dutch Haus, you would find yourself at one end of downtown Camden Falls, and you might choose to turn left off Main Street, and then right onto Aiken Avenue. If you did this, you would soon face a row of eight attached homes, a mansionlike block of granite known locally as the Row Houses. These homes, nearly identical to one another, once grand, now solidly practical, were built 125 years before Flora and Ruby came to Camden Falls to live with their grandmother, which was 71 years after Min Read (then Mindy Davis) was born in the very house in which she now lives with Ruby and Flora.
If you were standing on Aiken Avenue not too long after Flora Northrop showed her friend Olivia Walter the mysterious photograph, you would be able to peek into the lives of the Row House residents on an early September evening, the night before school starts in Camden Falls.
In the house at the left end of the row, you would find the Morrises. There are four Morris children, and tomorrow Alyssa, the youngest, will begin all-day preschool, which means that for the first time, every Morris child will be in school five full days a week. Mrs. Morris thought Alyssa would be thrilled to go off to school like her older sister and brothers, but now Alyssa is close to having a tantrum.
“I don’t want to go to school,” she cries, “and you can’t make me.”
“But, Lissy, school is fun,” says Lacey, her big sister. “Especially preschool. You get to paint and make things and play games.”
“I can do all those things with you and Travis and Mathias,” says Alyssa, and her sister sighs in a very frustrated fashion.
Next door, old Mr. Willet is just as frustrated as Lacey Morris, except that he’s frustrated with his wife, who has been insisting all day that people are spying on her from inside their television set. She has draped the set with a towel, and anytime Mr. Willet tries to fold it up and put it away, she exclaims, “But now they can see us! And I don’t want people spying on me. I’m still in my nightie.” This is not true. Mrs. Willet is dressed. She has been dressed in the same outfit for three days straight. Mr. Willet, for the life of him, can’t convince her to take off the pants and top he chose for her on Sunday morning. This business of dressing and undressing has been a problem all summer long, and he has no idea what to do about it. He has no idea what to do about the TV people, either.
In the house between the Willets’ and the one Flora, Ruby, and Min now share, you would find the Malones — Dr. Malone, Camden Falls’s dentist, and his daughters, Margaret and Lydia. Margaret is sixteen and will be a junior at Camden Falls Central High School. She is beginning to think about colleges and wishes her mother were alive to help her with the big decision she will soon have to make. Not that her father won’t be helpful, but Margaret is thinking about going to Mount Holyoke, which is where her mother went to college.
Margaret’s sister, Lydia, is fourteen and will be a freshman at Central. She has had a difficult summer and now, as she sits in her bedroom, she feels a wave of panic wash over her. Will she be able to avoid Brandi and the other kids who helped get her into trouble? It seems that this will be impossible once they are all in school together. Lydia throws herself onto her bed, iPod cranked up to full volume.
On the other side of the north wall of Lydia’s bedroom, Flora Marie Northrop is at her desk. Spread around her are scraps of paper, several lace remnants, sequins, stamp pads in three different colors, and all of her birthday-themed rubber stamps. Flora is trying to concentrate on making a card for Olivia, whose birthday is coming up, but her mind keeps wandering to the next morning, when she will go to a brand-new school. She can’t keep her heart from pounding in her ears.
The Walters live in the fifth Row House from the left, and on this evening, Olivia and her brothers and parents are having a family meeting. Olivia is growing more and more concerned about the fact that her father hasn’t yet found another job. “Why don’t you work, Mom?” she asks. “You could get a job.”
“I may do that, Olivia,” her mother replies. “There are all sorts of possibilities for your father and me. But we want you kids to understand that we will be okay for a while if neither of us is working. Truly. We’re very lucky that we can afford to do that. We want to wait until just the right opportunity comes along. We may have to pinch pennies for a while, but we’re going to be fine. Okay?”
“Okay,” say Olivia and Henry and Jack.
Mr. Pennington lives next door to Olivia’s family, and on this warm evening, you wouldn’t be able to see him from the street. He is sitting in a lawn chair in his backyard. The porch light is on, his old dog, Jacques, is at his feet, and he is gazing at the stars, thinking of nothing but how fine the night is and how he can’t imagine anywhere else he would rather be at this particular moment. The only thing he might wish for would be his wife at his side. She would have enjoyed this evening, too.
Robby Edwards, one house over, is in the kitchen, bouncing enthusiastically up and down on his toes. “Tomorrow will be the first day of my last year of school,” he says. “And then I am going to find a job. I want a job. I want to work. I want to work at Stuff ’n’ Nonsense with all the fragile items.”
His parents smile at him. “That certainly is one possibility,” says his mother.
“But after you graduate, you could continue in school for four more years,” his father reminds him. “There’s a special program at Central.”
“Nope! Not for me! I want to work,” says Robby, and his parents say, “We’ll see.”
In the very last of the Row Houses, Barbara and Marcus Fong sit together in their living room. They are leaning close to each other and reading the newspaper. Barbara looks up from her article, glances at her husband, pats her round belly, and says, “School starts tomorrow. Just think — six years from now we’ll be getting ready to send our own child off to kindergarten.”
“Maybe we’ll have twins,” says her husband. “Maybe we’ll be getting two children ready.”
“We’ll know soon enough,” says Barbara.
Now, having come to the end of the Row Houses, if you were to look to the evening sky as Mr. Pennington is doing, you might find the Little Dipper. And if you were to lock your gaze on it, you and the constellation and Nikki Sherman would form a silent triangle, since several miles away Nikki, sitting in her darkened room, has turned her own face to the sky. It is too early for her to go to bed, even on a school night, but her little sister, Mae, with whom she shares the room, has fallen asleep, and Nikki doesn’t dare leave this pocket of safety. Downstairs in the kitchen, her parents are having another fight. Words and plates fly through the air, and Nikki knows better than to call any attention to herself. She squeezes her eyes tightly shut and starts to recite “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” but stops before she reaches the end. She can never choose just one thing to wish for, so she makes no wish at all.
The next morning, the Row House adults — every single one of them — stood on their
front steps and called good-bye to the Row House kids. Even the Fongs and the Willets and Mr. Pennington were there. They all waved to Margaret and Lydia as the doors to the Central High bus swooshed shut behind them and the girls lurched toward seats at the back. They called, “Have a good day, Robby!” as he stepped into the minivan that would transport him to Mrs. Fulton’s class. Robby flopped onto the front seat of the van and waved exuberantly out the window. “I’ll see you this afternoon!” he called back. Then the adults turned to the eight children who had gathered on the sidewalk in front of Min’s house: Lacey, Travis, and Mathias Morris; Olivia, Henry, and Jack Walter; and Flora and Ruby Northrop.
“Have fun!” said Mr. Fong.
“Come visit me after school and tell me what you’re going to be reading this year,” called Mr. Pennington. “I always like to know.” Mr. Pennington had been both a teacher and a principal.
“Remember to come to the store this afternoon before you go anywhere else,” Min said to Flora and Ruby.
“Okay, okay,” replied the girls, and Lacey added, “Alyssa, this afternoon you can tell us all about your school.”
Then the Row House kids hurried along the sidewalk. When they came to the first corner, they turned right. All summer long, Flora and Ruby had turned left at this corner to accompany Min to Needle and Thread. Now they were turning right, and their next adventure was beginning. Flora glanced at her sister and found that Ruby was humming something under her breath and smiling.
“Are you ready?” asked Flora.
“Ready!” said Ruby.
“Who’s your teacher this year?” Lacey asked Ruby, skipping ahead so she could walk next to her.
“Mr. Lundy. In my old school, I would probably have had Mrs. Erickson, and no one liked her. She never laughed. No one ever even saw her smile. She never took kids on field trips or let them do special projects like make volcanoes or learn to crochet. She was B-O-R-I-N-G. And a little mean.”
“Not Mr. Lundy,” said Lacey. “He’s supposed to be nice.”
“You guys are going to like our school,” said Olivia confidently. “It’s really cool. We have an auditorium with a stage and real seats like in a theatre. And a gym and a cafeteria and a big library.”
“And one whole room just for art,” spoke up Jack, who was starting first grade and was very excited about joining the ranks of the big kids who went to the big school.
“And if you want to learn to play an instrument, you can take band after school,” added Mathias, Lacey’s twin. The twins would be in third grade.
“What’s the principal like?” asked Ruby.
Flora giggled. “Ruby got to know our last principal pretty well. Didn’t you, Ruby?”
“Those things were not my fault!”
Henry looked impressed. “What’d you do?”
Ruby ignored him. “Olivia,” she said, “you’re going to be ten on your birthday, instead of eleven like Flora, right?”
“The big one-oh,” said Olivia.
“Really, Ruby, what did you do?” Henry, who was eight, asked again.
This time Ruby was saved by Travis. “Look — there it is!” he cried, pointing. “There’s our school.”
The children had reached an intersection that was busier than the others on their route. A man wearing a bright orange vest and holding up an equally bright orange sign stood on the corner.
“Hi, Charlie!” called Travis.
“Hi there, Travis,” replied Charlie. “Welcome back.”
“That’s our crossing guard,” Travis said to Flora and Ruby. “His real name is Charles, but he lets us call him Charlie.”
The Row House kids stood in a pack behind Charlie. As he shepherded them across the street, Olivia said, “Charlie, these are our new friends, Flora and Ruby. They live next door to me.”
“Greetings, Flora and Ruby,” said Charlie. “I’m here to help you. If you ever run into trouble on your way to or from school, just come looking for me.” Up close, Flora could see that Charlie’s sparse hair was arranged in what her father would have called a “comb-over,” but she didn’t mind. Charlie had kind eyes.
On the other side of the street, Flora paused. Ahead of her was Camden Falls Elementary. She had visited it the week before. Min had taken her and Ruby there to meet their teachers and to make sure everything was in order. Still, Flora could suddenly hear her heart pounding in her ears again. She did not want to be the new kid, not even with Olivia and Nikki in her class. She hated doing anything that called attention to herself.
Flora let her breath out slowly and looked at the school. It was one story tall and spread out in four directions from a center point, forming a giant X. In back of the school was a parking lot that was filling up fast with cars, and to the side was a sprawling playground. In front was a lane where buses paused to let off their passengers.
“Let’s wait for Nikki,” said Flora, watching the buses.
“Okay, but just for a couple of minutes,” answered Olivia. “I told Mom and Dad I’d take Jack to his class.”
“Mathias and I can do that,” Lacey volunteered. “Travis and Jack are in the same room.”
Olivia’s brothers ran off with the Morrises, and Flora and Ruby and Olivia stood by the bus lane as kids streamed around them. Flora watched new backpacks and new sneakers and new notebooks and new jeans flash by. Kids laughed and called to one another, and every now and then, Olivia would wave or shout back. Flora thought then of Annika, her best friend from her old town; at this very moment, Annika was probably walking to school with Liza, who lived next door to Flora and Ruby’s old house. Flora and Annika had spoken on the phone two nights earlier, and Flora knew what Annika would be wearing this morning, knew the color of the backpack she had bought at Samson’s, knew whose class Annika would be in. Flora wished mightily that she were standing between Annika and Liza right now. She could feel tears spring to her eyes and was wondering if she had any Kleenex with her when she heard Olivia shout, “Nikki! Over here!”
And there was Nikki, one of the last ones to step from her bus, holding tightly to Mae and pointedly ignoring the kid in front of them who jumped down the last step, holding his nose.
“Jerk,” Olivia said in the kid’s ear as he ran by her. He looked at her in surprise, then stuck out his tongue.
“Hi, you guys,” said Nikki, trying to smile as Mae tugged at her hand and asked, “What was that boy doing? Why was he holding his nose?”
Nikki didn’t answer her. She turned to her friends and said, “This is my little sister, Mae.”
“Hi, Mae,” said Ruby, Olivia, and Flora.
Mae regarded the older girls with wide eyes, while Ruby stared at Mae’s thin cotton dress, the rip under one arm, and the holes over each of the big toes of her sneakers. She also noticed that neither Nikki nor Mae wore a backpack.
“Mrs. DuVane is going to take us shopping for school clothes,” said Nikki, “but not until the weekend.”
Ruby turned her gaze to the sidewalk, her face coloring.
The bell rang then, causing Olivia to exclaim, “We’d better go! Come on, you guys!”
This is it, thought Flora, and she stepped inside Camden Falls Elementary with her sister and her friends.
Five minutes later, after depositing Mae in her classroom, Flora, Olivia, and Nikki said good-bye to Ruby, then entered Mrs. Mandel’s room.
Sixth grade had begun.
After no more than ten minutes with Mrs. Mandel, Flora knew why she was the most popular teacher in the school. Mrs. Mandel laughed often, smiled even more often, made jokes, and stood for absolutely no nonsense from her students. When a tall boy with lazy-looking eyes announced loudly that he refused to sit next to Nikki, Mrs. Mandel said firmly, “George, in this class everyone is to be treated with respect. Also, I am in charge, and I make decisions, including who sits where. Now, please look at the front of the room. The chart by the window lists our classroom rules. I expect everyone to follow them. Would you please read the first
rule aloud?”
George made a face. “‘Treat others courteously,’” he said.
“That includes not making faces,” said Mrs. Mandel. “Unless they are funny faces,” she added, making a funny one herself, and the kids laughed.
Flora saw Nikki relax and felt herself relax, too.
As Mrs. Mandel sat down behind her desk, Flora studied her. She tried to guess her teacher’s age and decided she might be sixty. Younger than Min, but still getting a little old. Her wiry hair was gray, and wrinkles had formed around her eyes and mouth. She was plump, and on this first day of school had chosen to wear a blue-jean skirt (stretched tight over her belly), a pink cotton top, and a pair of sandals.
After she had finished telling them what they would be studying that autumn, Mrs. Mandel said, “I want you to know that I have decided to retire next summer. So this will be my last year of teaching.” Flora looked around as she heard several students gasp. “I know,” Mrs. Mandel continued. “I can’t believe it myself. But I’ve been teaching here at Camden Falls Elementary for thirty-seven years.”
“Wow,” Olivia said softly.
Mrs. Mandel smiled. “I even taught some of your parents. I taught your father, Sheldon. And your mother, Olivia. And yours, Flora.”
“Really?” said Flora. “My mother?”
Mrs. Mandel nodded. “In fact, she and Olivia’s mother were in my class together when I taught fourth grade. So it’s doubly nice to have the two of you together in my class this year.”
And, thought Flora (who knew Olivia was thinking the same thing), we’re doubly fortunate to be in your class before you retire.
“We should have a fun year,” said Mrs. Mandel. “In fact, this is going to be an interesting year for all of Camden Falls. Does anyone know why?”