Once Was a Time

  “Dare,” Dakota said. “I dare you to tell Jake Adler that he’s a big fat baby.”

  The playground grew still and silent for a moment. The chatter of my classmates below me faded into nothing. Kianna and Sydney watched me the way Aunt Matilda’s cat used to watch budgies in their cages: with wordless, captivated delight.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because,” Dakota said, “he is a big fat baby.”

  “But why do I have to tell him that?”

  “Because those are the rules.”

  I blinked a few times. “I’ll get in trouble,” I said. “He’ll tell Mrs. Vasquez, and I’ll get in trouble.” I assumed that happened at schools everywhere, even in America, even in the future.

  But the three girls were already shaking their heads. “Jake won’t tell,” Dakota assured me.

  “How do you know?”

  Dakota shrugged. “Because he never does.”

  Well, maybe he should, I thought. But then I thought about what I did when Betsy, Margaret, and Jeanine told me that I couldn’t be a Film Star, because I acted too young, because I liked to read, because I wore glasses, because I was me.

  I did nothing.

  So I could believe that Jake would do nothing, too.

  Dakota and her friends were the Film Stars of Sutton Brook Elementary School. It was obvious. They dressed different, they talked different—but underneath all that, they were the same. Cruel and self-important, because they could be.

  I could have walked away. I could have said, “Oh, sod your blooming game,” climbed all the way down from the Top of the Playground, and tried to make different friends.

  What would happen, if I said no? These girls would hate me, I assumed. I would no longer be the clueless orphan with the cute accent and the romantic life story. They would most likely turn on me and treat me as they did Jake and try to make me miserable for however long I stayed in Sutton.

  And maybe I would be able to make different friends, better friends—but maybe I wouldn’t. There are only so many Kittys in the world, and I had already been lucky enough to have one of them in my life. I didn’t expect to find another Kitty waiting for me here at Sutton Brook Elementary School.

  Especially considering that I had abandoned the first one.

  But none of that, really, was the reason I climbed down the metal structure and walked across the playground to Jake, with the other girls close at my heels. I could have lived with them hating me, I could have lived as a lonely outsider. I could have been brave enough to make that choice. But I didn’t, and this is why:

  Ever so occasionally, you come to a moment when everything about you is tested. When you must decide, with one action, what kind of friend and person you want to be. I knew this because I had already come to such a moment: when I was given the chance to stand by Kitty’s side, or to let her die alone. And at that moment, I had already decided what kind of person I was: the bad kind. The kind who could not be trusted.

  You cannot do something so drastic and expect not to have to pay for it. We get what we deserve.

  I used to know who I was. As my obituary had said: I was Elizabeth and Robert’s daughter; Justine and Thomas’s sister. I was in Miss Dickens’s class at the Westminster School for Girls; I lived at 30 Orchard Close; I’d been born on October 18, 1930. I was Lottie Bromley. And Lottie Bromley would not have followed Dakota’s orders.

  But now all of that was gone. All those things that defined my life had been sucked up by the past, leaving behind not even a photograph to prove that they’d once been mine.

  Without any of that, who was I?

  I was Charlotte now. I had to forget Lottie. I had to move forward. And that’s why I took the Dare.

  I crossed that playground and stopped in front of Jake. He was sitting alone, drawing something in the dirt with a stick, mumbling to himself.

  Jake looked up at me and smiled, then stopped smiling when he saw Dakota, Sydney, and Kianna behind me.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hullo,” I said. There was a lump in my throat, so I could barely get out my next sentence, but I rasped it out as best I could. “Jake, you’re a big fat baby.”

  It was obvious that I didn’t mean it. My words sounded hollow, forced, and fake. But sometimes we do things that we don’t mean, and they hurt every bit as much as if we meant them.

  Jake’s head drooped, but he didn’t run to tell Mrs. Vasquez, and he didn’t fight back. And my new friends shrieked with laughter. I was one of them now.

  That was the first way that I paid penance for what I had done to Kitty. But it didn’t make me feel better. Until I found my way back to her, I would be paying for Kitty for the rest of my life.

  Chapter 16

  “Melanie tells me your first day of school went well,” Keith said to me over supper that night.

  “I suppose so.” I cast about for something positive to say. All I came up with was, “I’m hopeless at American history.”

  For some reason this made Melanie and Keith laugh. We were eating in front of the television, which, I’d come to realize from the two weeks I’d lived with them, was where they always ate dinner. They had a big dining room with a long table, but I had never seen them use it. We mostly ate takeaway food. Tonight we were having something called burritos. They were quite nice.

  Before Mum left, she used to cook for us every night. She made a lovely Sunday roast, and she knew how to make a ration card stretch. But after she left, we more often than not ate plain jam on bread, or whatever Justine brought home from the fish and chip shop. So I didn’t mind the takeaway at Melanie and Keith’s. It was better than what I’d grown used to.

  “What are you thinking about doing for extracurriculars?” Melanie asked.

  I stared at her blankly. I thought about saying “Oh,” as usual, but it didn’t seem like it would fit here.

  “She means after-school activities,” Keith explained. “Like soccer.”

  Over the past two weeks, I had learned two things. One, “soccer” was what Americans in the future called “football.” Two, Penelope had been an absolute soccer champ. What I did not learn, because I had already known it, was that I was rubbish at sport and would not be following in Penelope’s footsteps any time soon.

  “Must I have extracurriculars?” I asked.

  “You don’t have to,” Keith began.

  “But it’s a good idea,” Melanie finished. “Especially since you’re new in town. Activities are a wonderful way to make friends. And it will make you well-rounded.”

  I didn’t know what “well-rounded” meant, exactly, but I was fairly certain I did not want to be it.

  “Plus,” Keith added, “you don’t really want to spend every afternoon hanging around with us old folks, do you?”

  It occurred to me then that maybe he did not want to spend every afternoon hanging around with me.

  “You could join the school band,” Melanie suggested. “Do you play an instrument?”

  I shook my head. “But my mum sings,” I blurted out. I didn’t know why. It was true, though, wasn’t it? The obituary had said that it was true.

  Melanie and Keith glanced at each other quickly. I had told them almost nothing about my parents, and I could tell that they had been trying hard not to ask too much, not to push me. I could almost see them filing this fact away with the few others that they had: Charlotte is from England, she’s ten years old, and her mother sings.

  “Dance classes?” Melanie offered next. “Ballet or something?”

  “Chess team?” Keith said.

  “Oh, honey, be serious. Do you think the girls are going to be friends with the new kid on the chess team?”

  “Mostly I just like to read,” I said. I thought about adding and play pretend, but I didn’t. “Can’t I read for my extracurricular?”


  Melanie just shook her head, turned back to the television, and unmuted Beach Bums, her favorite program.

  The question of extracurriculars was still bothering me after school the next day, when I stopped by the library to say hello to Miss Timms and get a new book.

  Today Miss Timms was a million places at once: picking up magazines that had been left on the ground, showing a young woman how to look for a new job on the computer, and trying to help an old man find a book with print big enough that he could read it without his glasses. I followed her around like a little puppy.

  “I’m sorry to be so busy today, hon,” she said as she hurried down an aisle of books, straightening spines as she went. “Now that school is back in session and everyone is home from summer vacation, I’m finding it really hard to get everything done. There’s just not enough time! Anyway, not your problem. How are you liking school?”

  I shrugged. Today Dakota had got new pencils, and Kianna, Sydney, and I had to spend most of the day admiring them. They were imported, Dakota told us. From Japan.

  “I feel you,” Miss Timms agreed, even though I hadn’t spoken. “Settling into a new school is never easy. My dad was in the military when I was growing up, so we moved four times before I was even your age! When I was a teenager, I went to boarding school just so I wouldn’t have to deal with packing up my bags and trying to make new friends every two years. It’s hard.”

  “Not only that,” I said, “but Melanie and Keith told me I need to have extracurriculars. Like soccer. Or the chess team.”

  “Well,” Miss Timms said thoughtfully as she restarted a computer that wasn’t working properly, “that’s not a bad idea. Activities are a good way to make friends with similar interests to yours.”

  I frowned. I’d expected that Miss Timms would be on my side. She often seemed like the one person who was. “But I never had to have extracurriculars at home. I don’t see why I should start now.”

  “What did you do at home, then?” Miss Timms asked.

  “I read books, of course.” I sighed. “I reckon Melanie and Keith just want me out of the house so they don’t have to watch me all the time. Not that they do have to watch me all the time, even if I was there. But I think they feel like they do. I wish I could just stay here with you all day.”

  Miss Timms paused. It was the first time I’d seen her stop moving since I got to the library that day. “That’s a great idea, hon,” she said. “Do you want to work here?”

  “At the library?” I felt my eyes grow wide.

  “Yes. You’d be a big help to me. You could take care of the shelving when I’m too busy to do it. I can even teach you how to check out books. That would free me up enormously to work on some of my bigger projects that I can’t seem to ever find the time for. And fund-raising, obviously.” She made a face. “I feel like half my job is fund-raising sometimes. The depressing half. Anyway, I couldn’t pay you very much, I’m afraid, but I could give you a small stipend. What do you say?”

  My mouth was hanging open a little. “You’d trust me with all that?”

  “Charlotte,” Miss Timms said, leaning in closer. “When it comes to books, I trust you one hundred percent.”

  “I would love to,” I said. “I would love, love, love to work here!”

  Miss Timms chuckled. “Excellent! Then all we need to do is get permission from your foster parents.”

  How odd, I thought, that these two near-strangers would be able to stop me from doing something that I wanted so badly, just because they were grown-ups and somebody had told them that they were in charge.

  But Melanie and Keith didn’t say no. They said if working at the library was what I wanted my extracurricular to be, they would give me their full support. (Then they added that if I ever decided I did want ballet lessons, after all, I should just tell them.) So I went to the library almost every day after school. I got better and better at using the Internet. I learned how to read the labels on books to figure out where every one belonged. Soon I could answer almost every question about where to find books on different subjects.

  After I’d been in Sutton for nearly two months, going to school, working at the library, and quietly fitting in, I gathered the courage to ask my new friends if they would hold a séance with me, like the kids I’d read about in that book. “Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we could conjure an actual ghost?” I said.

  It was recess, and we were sitting back on the Top of the Playground, even though the autumn chill had started nipping at our skin. I’d worried that my friends would respond to the séance as dismissively as when I’d asked if we could play Martians. But instead they loved the idea—even Dakota, who I quickly had learned did not often love ideas unless they were her own.

  “A séance! Can we do it right now?” Kianna asked.

  “No,” Dakota told her with authority. “We have to do it in the dark, and with a Ouija board or a crystal ball. We have to create an atmosphere that a ghost would be comfortable coming to.”

  I didn’t know where Dakota had gotten her expertise on séances, but I was glad for it.

  “We can do it at my house on Saturday,” Sydney suggested. “We can have a slumber party! I’ll ask my mom, but I’m sure she’ll be okay with it.”

  “And we can order pizza!” Kianna suggested, bouncing up and down.

  “And watch a scary movie,” Dakota added.

  “And have the séance,” I reminded them. “The séance is the important part.”

  On Saturday evening, Keith dropped me off at Sydney’s house. As Kianna had hoped, Sydney’s mom ordered us a couple of pizzas, though we had to share them with Sydney’s little sisters, who kept begging me to say “British” things. I was glad the kids at school had already tired of that game. It was boring.

  After dinner we watched a movie, though not a scary one, because Sydney’s stepdad said that her sisters had to watch with us and it couldn’t be anything that would give them nightmares. Dakota whispered to me, “If we unleash a restless spirit into this house, do you think that will give them nightmares?”

  I shivered.

  “Are you scared of ghosts?” Dakota hissed.

  I didn’t think I was scared of ghosts. But I was terrified of the thought of Kitty being restless, caught somewhere between heaven and Earth.

  Once everyone else had gone to bed, it was time for the séance. “We have to be quiet,” Sydney said, “so we don’t wake them up.”

  “It’s almost midnight,” Dakota said, checking her phone. “The witching hour.”

  I felt goose pimples break out all down my arms.

  The four of us sat in a circle on the floor of Sydney’s bedroom, holding hands. We’d turned off all the lights, so I could see my friends thanks only to the streetlamps outside and the night-light casting eerie shadows on the walls. None of us had been able to find a crystal ball, but Kianna put a glass of water in the middle of our circle, because she’d read online that spirits could disturb the water to make their presence known.

  “Everyone close your eyes tight,” Dakota ordered. We did. Then she went on, in a deep voice: “Spirits, we welcome you into our home tonight. We wish to communicate with you; we wish to hear whatever you have to tell us. You are safe here.”

  I cleared my throat. “Dakota?”

  “What?”

  “Shouldn’t we try to summon a particular spirit? Don’t you think that might work better than just calling any random spirit at all?”

  “My grandmother!” Kianna blurted out, squeezing my hand. “I want to know how she’s doing.”

  I took on a deep voice of my own and intoned, “Kitty, are you there? It’s me. I’m here.”

  “Who’s Kitty?” Kianna asked in a whisper, her hand gripping mine even more tightly now.

  “Kitty,” I said again, my eyes squeezed shut. “I’m here, Kitty. I’m waiting right here
. I want to talk to you. Please, please, talk to me. If you’re with us, do something to make your presence known. Please.”

  A moment passed in silence. I felt a cool air, and a quiet rustling.

  I heard Kianna gasp beside me. She pulled her hand away from me.

  I opened my eyes to see that the cup in the middle of our circle had been knocked over. Water was spreading across the floor, seeping into the rug, dampening our legs.

  Then Kianna started to scream.

  Chapter 17

  It took more than an hour for everyone to calm down after the séance. Sydney’s parents had sprung awake at the sound of Kianna’s screaming and had come running into the room in their pajamas. Once they realized that nobody was hurt, and Kianna was just screaming because a glass of water had spilled, they immediately turned from concerned to annoyed.

  “Go to bed,” they told us. “It’s late.”

  But Kianna wouldn’t stop shrieking. “There was a ghost! This house is haunted!” There seemed to be a part of her that was relishing the drama. But I was furious with her.

  Kitty had been here. Kitty had come to see me. And Kianna had ruined it all by breaking the circle and panicking. If she’d just stayed still, maybe Kitty would have told me something useful. Maybe I could have begged for her forgiveness. To Kianna this was all some big game. But it was my life.

  All the commotion woke Sydney’s sisters, and they started crying, so their parents left us to comfort them. “Go. To. Bed,” Sydney’s stepdad said in an I-mean-business tone before firmly closing the door behind him.

  But we didn’t follow his orders right away. Dakota kept teasing Kianna that the spirit might come back, and it might want something from her.

  “It won’t,” I snapped at last, weary of all of this.

  “Won’t what?” Kianna asked, her voice extra-trembly. “Come back, or want something from me?”

  “Either,” I said. “Both. You frightened it away, Kianna, and it’s not coming back. Excellent work. Now can we just go to sleep? This séance was a terrible idea.”