September Surprises

  “Picture it with all my furniture inside,” said Mr. Willet, as if he were reading Flora’s mind.

  And she tried very hard.

  “Let’s not sit with Tanya and Melody today,” said Nikki. She and Olivia stood against the front wall of the cafeteria, holding their trays and waiting for Flora to pay the cashier.

  “Really?” exclaimed Olivia. “Really?! Wah-hoo! Let’s go back to our old table.”

  “Well, I was thinking —”

  “Okay,” said Flora, joining them. “Sorry that took so long.”

  Olivia began threading her way between tables and chairs, stepping over backpacks and jackets, heading for the table that had been her island of safety the week before. “How come you don’t want to sit with Tanya and Melody anymore?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Olivia, come back here!” said Nikki. “I didn’t mean —” She waited for Olivia to turn around.

  Nikki and Flora watched as Olivia, tray teetering, returned to them. “What?” said Olivia.

  “I was going to say,” Nikki began impatiently, “that we thought we might sit over there.”

  She pointed to a nearby table — one of the quieter ones, Olivia noted. Already seated around it were Claudette, Mary Louise, Randall Tyler, and Sheldon Pecha, all from their sixth-grade class at Camden Falls Elementary. Olivia looked at the table at which Melody and Tanya were sitting. “I wonder why Claudette isn’t with them,” she said.

  Nikki shrugged. “I don’t know. But let’s sit with Claudette and everyone, okay? Something different?”

  “Even though they’re from our old class?” asked Olivia.

  “Yeah,” said Flora. “Why not?”

  Olivia followed Nikki and Flora across the cafeteria.

  “Can we sit here?” Nikki asked Claudette.

  Claudette smiled at them. “Sure.”

  Olivia had just settled into her seat and stuck a straw in her juice box when Jacob appeared, flushed and somewhat out of breath. He dropped into the empty chair next to her.

  “Hey!” cried a girl who had been about to sit in the chair herself and had nearly landed in Jacob’s lap.

  “Sorry,” said Jacob, but he didn’t move. “Hi, Olivia.”

  “Hi.” Olivia looked across the cafeteria at Melody and saw that she was glaring at Jacob, the seat across from her now empty. “Weren’t you just sitting —” Olivia began to say.

  Jacob waved a hand at her. “I wanted to sit with you, um, with you guys again.” He arranged the items on his tray, all of which had slid to the right, and hung his jacket over the back of the chair.

  On the other side of the table, Nikki grinned. “Jacob, do you know Mary Louise and Randall and Sheldon? They were in our class last year.”

  “Hey,” said Jacob. He glanced at the pile of books by Olivia’s tray. “How come you’re carrying all those around?” he asked her.

  Olivia flushed. “I don’t, well, I …”

  Jacob reached across Olivia and picked up the book on the top of the pile. “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry,” he said. “What’s that? Is it good?”

  Olivia nodded. “I read it over the summer. We all did,” she told him. “I mean, Flora and Nikki and I did.”

  “You all read the same book?”

  “We had a book club,” said Nikki. “It was really fun.”

  “At first it was a secret,” added Flora.

  “What do you mean, a secret?” asked Claudette.

  Nikki and Flora and Olivia told the others about the secret summer book club.

  “You guys are so lucky!” exclaimed Claudette.

  “What else did you read?” asked Sheldon.

  “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH,” said Nikki.

  “The Summer of the Swans,” said Flora.

  “The Saturdays and Understood Betsy,” said Olivia.

  “We should have a book club,” spoke up Jacob.

  “Without the girl books,” added Randall.

  “What,” said Jacob, “is the best book you’ve ever read? Everybody answer, starting with you, Olivia.”

  “Roll of Thunder,” said Olivia instantly. “I’m reading it again right now. I think I’ll read it at least once a year for the rest of my life.”

  Jacob turned to Nikki. “Oh, I can’t choose just one,” she said. “There are too many.”

  “Mine is The Watsons Go to Birmingham,” said Mary Louise.

  “When I was little,” said Claudette, “my favorite book was Wait Till the Moon Is Full. Now it’s The Cat Ate My Gymsuit. Or maybe Bridge to Terabithia. No, wait! It’s Tuck Everlasting. Oh, I can’t decide.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “What’s yours?” Olivia asked Jacob.

  He scrunched up his face in serious thought. “The Hobbit,” he said after a moment.

  “Oh, I loved that!” cried Mary Louise.

  “Hey, you know what, you guys. We really should start our own book club,” exclaimed Nikki.

  “With us? The eight of us?” asked Sheldon.

  “And anybody else who wants to join. We could have it here at school.”

  “How do we start a club in school?” wondered Flora.

  “Let’s talk to Mr. Barnes,” said Nikki.

  “But he’s new here,” said Randall.

  “He’s a teacher,” said Nikki. “Teachers always know how to do these things.”

  “You’re going to start a book club?” said an incredulous voice. Nikki turned around to find Melody, hands on hips, addressing their table. “A book club? Oh, my God. That is so, like, dorky.”

  “Lots of people belong to book clubs,” said Jacob evenly. He addressed Nikki again. “Okay. We’ll talk to Mr. Barnes after school. We’ll all go.”

  “I’m not going,” said Melody.

  “I didn’t mean you,” replied Jacob, and Melody stalked off.

  “I know where Mr. Barnes’s office is,” said Nikki. “It’s on the second floor near the main staircase.” She looked at her watch. “Lunch is almost over,” she added, “but this afternoon, we should all tell anyone we think might be interested in a book club to meet us at the office right after last period.”

  To Nikki’s astonishment, nineteen seventh-graders crowded around the door to Mr. Barnes’s office that afternoon. Nikki, Olivia, Flora, and Jacob explained what they wanted to do.

  “We don’t know how to do it, though,” Nikki said. “We don’t even know how often we should meet or anything like that. We just know that a lot of kids are interested.” She nodded toward the students waiting in the hallway.

  “It’s a terrific idea,” Mr. Barnes replied. “So … I’ll do a little digging and get some answers for you. Why don’t we meet on Friday afternoon in my classroom and talk again then?”

  Nikki turned to Flora and Olivia. “Yes!” she cried.

  Ruby stood on the corner of Main Street and Dodds Lane and considered Camden Falls on a dreary, wet September afternoon. She didn’t ordinarily stop and pay attention to her surroundings (dreamy Flora was the one who did that), but Ruby had recently decided that if she was serious about becoming an actor, then perhaps she ought to be a more observant person.

  “This is Main Street in Camden Falls, Massachusetts, on September eleventh,” Ruby said to herself. She noticed that the shop windows seemed brighter than usual against the dull sky. She noticed that the streetlights had already come on, even though it was only mid afternoon. She noticed that the few trees that had begun to change color seemed almost to glow. She watched as a gust of wind sent a fistful of red and yellow leaves swirling around the door of Stuff ’n’ Nonsense before they landed wetly on the pavement.

  Ruby turned the corner and made her way up the block. She breathed in the smell of oregano and tomato sauce as she passed College Pizza. She stopped just long enough in Needle and Thread to call hello to Min and Gigi, to tell Min she was going to go to Hilary’s apartment (eventually), and to stow her backpack behind the counter. Then she continued up the block, waving to Olivia??
?s parents and Robby Edwards as she passed Sincerely Yours.

  Ruby crossed the street, turned left, waved to Dr. Malone in his office and to Frank in Frank’s Beans, studiously avoided horrible old Mrs. Grindle in Stuff ’n’ Nonsense, and finally paused at the window of Cover to Cover to look at the display of children’s books.

  At last, she crossed Main Street again, then Dodds Lane, and stood before the Marquis Diner. The diner hadn’t yet reopened, but the street in front of it was crowded with people and activity.

  “Note the excitement, note the bustle,” Ruby told herself.

  “Ruby! Hi!” Hilary Nelson ran down the flight of stairs next to the entrance to the diner. “Come see what my new room looks like! When I left for school, the moving van was full and the apartment was empty. Now the moving van is almost empty and the apartment is almost full. Do you want to see?”

  “Are you sure it’s okay?” asked Ruby, eyeing the cartons on the pavement and the movers squeezing in and out of the doorway.

  “It’s fine,” Hilary replied, and she took Ruby’s hand and pulled her up the stairway. Halfway to the top, Ruby and Hilary had to stop and flatten themselves against the wall as one of the movers, sweating and out of breath, made his way back down the stairs, an empty carton in his right hand and four wooden dollies looped over his left wrist like enormous bracelets.

  “Come on!” cried Hilary when he had lumbered by them, and she and Ruby ran to the top of the steps and through an open door. “This is it,” announced Hilary. “Our new old apartment. It’s very long. All the rooms are off this one hall. That’s the living room in front. It looks out on Main Street, see? Then here’s the kitchen. It has no window because it’s in the middle. Here’s the bathroom. Next is Mom and Dad’s room.” (Ruby noted that it had no window, either, and knew that Flora would feel claustrophobic in it.) “And back here where the hall stops are my room and Spencer’s room. Can you believe we each have our own bedroom? They were one bigger room before the fire, but Mom and Dad decided to put up a wall to divide it in two. I know the rooms are small, but I like my privacy. And see, we each have a window.”

  Ruby looked out Hilary’s window and said, “Hey, that’s Aiken Avenue! You face my street.” She peered around to the right. “You can’t see our house, though. Oh, well.”

  Hilary plopped down on her bed. “Have you ever seen such a mess?” she asked.

  Ruby nodded. “Yup. Last summer when Flora and I moved here. You should have seen our house. Practically every one of our neighbors came by to help. There were people everywhere.”

  “I forgot that you’re new here, too,” said Hilary.

  “Well, not new new. Flora and I had visited Camden Falls lots of times when we were little. But then, you know, our parents … anyway, it was right after school ended last year that Min brought Flora and me back here to live.” Ruby paused. “And on that first day my room looked pretty much like yours does right now.”

  “Ruby? Do you like living here?”

  “Sure.”

  “But don’t you miss your old life?”

  “Do you miss yours?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “I guess that’s how I feel.”

  “Hilary?” called Mrs. Nelson from the other end of the apartment.

  “I’m in my room!” Hilary turned to grin at Ruby. “My room,” she said. “Not that stinky room in the rented house. My own room.”

  Mrs. Nelson poked her head in the door. “Oh, Ruby, hello. I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Nelson.”

  “Hilary, I need you and Spencer to help me with the boxes in the living room, okay? Some of them belong back here.”

  “I’ll help, too,” said Ruby.

  “Thanks.” Hilary headed for the door.

  “Wait,” said Ruby. “Hilary, I have an idea. Can we open your window? Just for a second?”

  Hilary raised her window and Ruby leaned out of it.

  “Careful!” cried Hilary.

  “I will be.” Ruby craned her neck as far to the right as she could and then she exclaimed, “Hilary, I knew it! You can see my house from here! You can even see my exact bedroom window.”

  Hilary joined her new friend, and together they looked out over Aiken Avenue as lights came on in the Row Houses.

  It was because Olivia had decided she needed money that she had to miss the Friday afternoon meeting in Mr. Barnes’s classroom.

  “Come with us. Please?” Nikki implored her at lunchtime. “You want to be in the book club, don’t you?”

  “Yes, but I begged Mom and Dad for a job in the store, and they didn’t want to give me one at first. They said that Henry and Jack and I are kids, and just because our family owns a store doesn’t mean we should be put to work in it. But I need money. Christmas is coming, after all.”

  “Christmas?!” Flora exclaimed.

  “Yes. Christmas. Anyway, I made a big deal out of wanting a job, and finally — finally — Mom and Dad said yes. But they said I have to start small. Just one afternoon a week. And this is my first afternoon, so there’s no way I’m going to miss it. You guys can tell me what happens at the meeting. Just don’t suggest that the club meet on Fridays or I really won’t be able to join it.”

  “All right,” said Nikki.

  And Flora added, “We know the job is important, Olivia.”

  When the last bell rang that day, Nikki and Flora made their way to Mr. Barnes’s room, and Olivia headed for her locker. She stood in front of it and made a great show of twirling the dial around and around. Then she opened the door and removed the mountain of books she would need for her weekend homework. Several long-term projects had already been assigned, and Olivia wanted to get a head start on them.

  Humming to herself, and still quite pleased with the fact that she felt confident navigating the halls of Central, Olivia hurried through the front doors and out into another moist, gray afternoon. Her hair had escaped the confines of her barrettes long before lunchtime, and now she didn’t even bother to try to pat the stray wisps back in place.

  By the time she reached Sincerely Yours, she was out of breath and vaguely damp — but excited about the prospect of her first day at work. She entered the store and deposited her books on the floor of her parents’ office with a satisfying thump.

  “Good heavens, Olivia! Did you bring home the entire library?” asked her father from behind the cash register.

  Olivia smiled. “I have math homework, English homework, Spanish homework, and three projects to start. One of them is for science, and my teacher said I can do it on butterflies.”

  “Olivia! Hi! Good afternoon!” exclaimed Robby Edwards. Robby had begun working at Sincerely Yours over the summer, and recently the Walters, after a discussion with Robby and his parents, had increased his hours, a fact that pleased Robby immensely. “Are you ready to be an employee?” he asked Olivia.

  “I’m all set.”

  “Do you know what your responsibilities are?”

  “Well …” Olivia looked first at her father, who was now helping a customer, and then at her mother, who was overseeing the making of chocolates in the kitchen. “Actually, we didn’t really discuss that.”

  “Do you want me to help you?” asked Robby.

  “I guess.” Olivia turned to her father. “Dad, can Robby tell me what to do?”

  “Sure. But mostly we just need you to help customers with their baskets when the store gets busy.”

  At Sincerely Yours, customers could create gift baskets for any occasion, filling wicker baskets with soaps, trinkets, ornaments, small toys and books, and Mrs. Walter’s homemade chocolates and baked goods.

  “The important thing,” said Robby, beginning to jump up and down, “is that the customer is always right. The customer is always right, Olivia! Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. And also, keep the shelves neat. But I’m in charge of making coffee. That’s my job.”

  “Good
,” said Olivia, “because I don’t know how to do that.”

  “I’m a champion,” Robby announced. “Oh, look, here comes a customer. Do you want to help this one?”

  “Okay,” replied Olivia without turning around. “But only if he actually needs —”

  “She. It’s a she,” said Robby.

  And Olivia felt a tug on her sweater. “Hey!” cried a familiar voice. “I didn’t know you would be here!”

  “Oh. Melody,” said Olivia. “I — I just started working here.”

  “Melody! Melody! I like that name!” announced Robby. “A name like a song.”

  Melody frowned, then turned away from Robby. “Olivia,” she said, “I want to put together a basket for my mom’s birthday. Can you help me?”

  “I can help you,” said Robby, his hands starting to flap. “I can help you, too.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think … I mean, well, Olivia’s my friend and all.”

  I am? thought Olivia.

  And Robby muttered, “Not nice, not nice,” and edged away.

  “Okay, here’s the thing,” said Melody, ignoring Robby. “I want to give my mom something really special for her birthday, but I don’t have much money. I need expert advice.”

  “Well,” said Olivia, “I’m pretty good at creating budget baskets.”

  “Excellent! What do I do first?”

  “Start by choosing a basket. They’re over here. Since you’re on a budget, take one of the smaller ones.”

  “Really? A small one?” Melody wrinkled her nose. Then she whispered to Olivia, “Could you give me a break on a bigger one? A bigger one would look so much better.”

  “I guess …”

  “Thanks. Now. What should we put in it?”

  “The less expensive things are over here,” said Olivia. “You can go a long way with soap and pens and little things like that. Because when you’re all done, we’ll wrap the basket in glitter cellophane and tie it with ribbons — for free. It’ll look really cool.”

  “All right.” With Olivia’s help, Melody selected two bars of scented soap, a vial of bath salts, and a pen with a heart on the end.