Welcome to Camden Falls

  Flora glanced from the pages in her hand to the dark recesses of the wardrobe. Her mother’s diary here in her mother’s old room, the room in which Flora now slept.

  “Ruby!” said Flora. “Come here. You really have to see this.”

  Ruby abandoned her glass and sat on the floor with her sister. “What is it?”

  “An old diary of Mom’s. Look.”

  The girls bent over the pages and read about the autumn of whatever year their mother had been documenting.

  Wendy and I closed ourselves in my room this morning, another entry began. We had to lock the door to keep Allie out. What a pest. Every time we mention boys, she asks us if we’re going to marry them and then makes these kissing noises.

  “She and Olivia’s mom were best friends,” said Ruby.

  “And she and Aunt Allie drove each other crazy,” added Flora.

  “Ew!” squealed Ruby as she turned to a new page. “Mom really did kiss a boy! I can’t read about that!” She leaped onto the bed and held the glass to the wall again.

  But Flora remained on the floor with the pages in her lap. She knew, of course, that her mother had grown up here. And she was aware that this had been her mother’s room. But it wasn’t until now, with her mother’s words in front of her, her mother’s voice in her head, that Flora understood that she, Flora Marie Northrop, belonged here. There was a place for her in this room, in this house, in this town. She could feel her Camden Falls roots reaching out to her.

  For some reason this both comforted and frightened her, and she jumped up to stuff Frannie Read’s diary back into the corner of the wardrobe. Then she shut the door with a bang and joined Ruby on the bed.

  Ten minutes later, glasses still to the wall, Ruby and Flora were startled to hear the front door open and Min call, “Girls?”

  “We’re upstairs!” Flora replied.

  “Quick! Hide the glasses!” said Ruby in a loud whisper.

  The glasses had been safely stowed in Flora’s dresser by the time Min appeared in the doorway.

  “What happened?” Ruby asked.

  “Well,” said Min, looking serious (and also, thought Flora, very tired), “Gigi and I talked to Dr. Malone. He was upset, of course, but actually not surprised. He said he suspected that something was going on with Lydia. He just didn’t know what. He’s going to talk with her this evening.”

  Flora, who felt sad for the Malones, couldn’t help also feeling relieved. She sent Ruby a secret smile, thinking of the happy phone call they could make to Nikki.

  Not long after Flora and Ruby and Min had finished their dinner that night, when the crickets were tuning up for their loud nighttime symphony and the open windows admitted a damp breeze that turned Flora’s dark hair into wispy curls, the telephone rang.

  Min answered it, and as soon as Ruby heard her say, “Yes, Roger,” she ran to Flora’s room and exclaimed, “Dr. Malone is on the phone! I bet he talked to Lydia. I wonder how much trouble she’s in.”

  “Ruby,” said Flora, “you don’t have to sound so excited.”

  “I can’t help it. I solved the crime! Well, we did. And we got Nikki out of trouble, even if we got Lydia into it. It is exciting. Come on. Let’s go downstairs.”

  Min hung up the phone in the kitchen and turned to see her granddaughters. “My stars,” she said. “That was Dr. Malone. He had a long talk with Lydia, and Ruby, you were right. Lydia admitted to shoplifting the compact, along with the necklace, the thread, and a number of other things. Dr. Malone sounds shaken. He said Lydia’s having a hard time right now and missing her mother. She’s at a difficult age, too. Still, that’s no excuse for her behavior. She’s committed a crime, after all. Dr. Malone is going to see to it that she tells Mrs. Grindle what she did, that she apologizes to Nikki, that she returns the items she stole, and that she pays the shopkeepers back for any items she can’t return. Hopefully, none of the shopkeepers will want to prosecute her for shoplifting. I’m more interested in seeing her get straightened out. Dr. Malone’s going to make sure she finds a job to occupy her for the next few weeks until school starts. He doesn’t want her to have so much time on her hands. She needs to earn money to pay everyone back, anyway.”

  “Wow,” said Flora.

  “Ruby,” said Min, “I’m glad you told Gigi and me what you saw. You did the right thing. I think the Malones will work out their problems, even though they’re having a tough time.”

  “Gosh,” said Ruby as she and Flora climbed the stairs to their bedrooms later that night. “Maybe I should become a detective.”

  “Maybe,” said Flora, whose mind was still on her mother’s diary — and also on the box she’d found in the attic. She had forgotten about the box until, holding the creased pages of the diary that afternoon, she had once again found herself peeking into a long-ago life. Flora retreated to her room and waited until Ruby had closed her door for the night. Then she crept into the attic, hauled the box of papers out from under the eaves, and wrestled it down the stairs and into her room, where she shoved it as far under her bed as she could reach. For reasons she didn’t understand, she wanted the box to be her secret.

  One morning when Flora awoke, she stretched out in her bed and realized she was chilly. “King,” she called to the cat curled by her head, “go lie on my feet. Brr.” Flora sniffed the air. “Autumn,” she murmured. “It smells like autumn already.” And it was, she realized with a start, almost the end of August. Summer vacation would soon be over. The Row House party had come and gone. Min’s wrist was nearly healed. The necklace mystery had been solved and Lydia had found a job — she was now Robby’s full-time sitter. Flora and Ruby had been living in Camden Falls for two months, and in a few days, school would start. Another beginning for Ruby and me, Flora thought. A new school year in a new school with new kids and new teachers. But not all new kids, she reminded herself. Olivia would be there. Nikki, too. Not every face would be unfamiliar.

  Later that day, Flora and Olivia spread out their butterfly on a worktable at Needle and Thread. Flora was explaining to Olivia how to turn a curved seam (“Before you turn the fabric right side out, trim the seam to about a quarter of an inch and clip along the curve, right to the stitching, but not through it”) when the bell over the door rang and in walked Nikki Sherman, looking cheerful.

  “Hi!” she called.

  Flora and Olivia abandoned the butterfly. “Hi!” they replied, surprised but pleased to see Nikki without Mrs. DuVane, who hadn’t been in the store since the embroidery class had ended.

  “How did you get here?” asked Olivia.

  Nikki grinned. “On my bicycle. I never had a bicycle of my own, and then this morning Tobias — that’s my brother — he said to come outside, and there was a bicycle waiting for me in the yard. It isn’t new; Tobias found it at the dump. But he fixed it all up and made it run perfectly, so now I have wheels! I can come into town anytime I want.”

  “Nikki, that’s great,” said Flora.

  Nikki glanced around the store. “Where’s Ruby?” she asked.

  “Running an errand for Min,” Flora replied. “She’ll be right back.”

  “Guess what,” said Nikki.

  “What?” said Olivia and Flora.

  “Last week our phone rang — it doesn’t always work, but it’s working now — and I answered it and it was Lydia Malone. She was calling to say she was sorry about getting me in trouble over the necklace. And then the next day Mrs. Grindle called and she apologized, too.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Olivia.

  “Nope.” Nikki crossed her heart. “I still don’t think I’ll ever go in her store again, though.”

  “Me, neither,” agreed Flora. “Not after what she did to you.”

  “She’s a big meanie,” added Olivia. “She always has been.”

  “At least she apologized,” said Nikki.

  Ruby returned a few minutes later, carrying a handful of mail and a bag from Camden Falls Art Supply. “Nikki!” she exclaimed
. “What are you doing here?”

  So Nikki repeated her story. When she finished, Ruby said, “I’m never going to Stuff ’n’ Nonsense again, either. Min sent me there to get Post-its, but I got them at the art supply place instead.”

  “You guys?” said Nikki. “I have to say something to you. I mean, I want to say something. I want to say … I want to say that I’m really sorry I wasn’t very nice before. You were nice to me, and, I don’t know — coming here with Mrs. DuVane I felt kind of weird, and —”

  “That’s okay,” said Flora. “It wasn’t all your fault. We weren’t always nice.”

  “I got whiney,” said Ruby.

  “I was bossy,” added Olivia. “But let’s just forget about that. Come on. Let’s go sit down.”

  The girls settled onto the couches.

  “You know what?” said Flora. “Weeks and weeks ago I had this idea about making teddy bears for kids who are having a bad time.” She told Ruby and her friends about the article she’d seen and then she said to Olivia and Nikki, “After the accident, Ruby and I held onto our bears until someone came to take us home from the hospital.”

  “Min,” said Ruby.

  “Really? Not Annika’s mother?” said Flora.

  “No, it was Min.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Flora. “The thing is that we held onto those teddies for dear life.”

  “Do you still have them?” asked Nikki.

  “Definitely,” said Ruby.

  Flora was going to add that she slept with hers every night, but suddenly she wanted to keep that detail to herself.

  “You know what?” said Olivia. “We could have a teddy bear workshop here at the store. If Gigi and Min say it’s all right, Needle and Thread could give a workshop for free and supply all the materials, too. The workshop could be for kids, and they would learn to sew by making the bears, and then the bears would be donated to kids who need them.”

  “That’s a great idea!” said Nikki.

  The girls were busy planning the workshop when Mary Woolsey entered the store.

  “Hi,” said Flora, Olivia, and Ruby.

  Mary stood before them, looking weighed down by her layers of clothing, her necklace glinting in the overhead lights. She nodded to the girls, then made her way quietly to the table at the back of the store.

  “Gosh, if Mary’s here, it’s later than I thought,” said Flora. “You know what I want to do? I want to run home and check our mailbox. I sent off for this package of Halloween stencils, and I want to see if it came.”

  Flora dashed out of the store. Fifteen minutes later, she was back. “You guys!” she said. “The stencils aren’t here, but guess what did come.” She held out two white envelopes. “They’re from Camden Falls Elementary. I bet they’re our room assignments. Min, can we open these?” Flora handed the envelopes to her grandmother.

  “Let’s look at them together,” said Min.

  Min sliced open the envelopes with a pair of scissors, while Ruby, Olivia, Nikki, and Flora peered over her shoulder. “Let’s see,” said Min. “Ruby, it looks as though you’ll be in Mr. Lundy’s class, and Flora, you’ll be in Mrs. Mandel’s class.”

  “Ooh, you’re lucky, Flora!” exclaimed Olivia. “Mrs. Mandel is the best teacher in the whole school. Everyone hopes to get her for sixth grade. I’m going to call Dad and see if my room assignment came, too.”

  Olivia grabbed the phone by the cash register, called her father, and then let out a whoop. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I have Mrs. Mandel! Flora, we’re going to be in the same class!”

  “Maybe I should call home,” said Nikki shyly. “Could I use your phone? I think Tobias is there.” (Nikki’s mother had headed for the welfare office that afternoon, Mae in hand. She said having Mae along was good luck because people always took pity on her.) “Tobias could check the mail.”

  Olivia, Flora, and Ruby crowded around Nikki while she made her phone call. When they heard her say, “You’re kidding!I have Mrs. Mandel?” they cheered. (Ruby cheered more softly than the others, though, feeling left out of the Mrs. Mandel Club.)

  Nikki stayed until closing time that afternoon, then said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, now that I have wheels!“ and she hopped on her bicycle and headed down Main Street, with Olivia, Ruby, and Flora waving to her as she pedaled away.

  Flora recalled Augusts that were hot and steamy, day and night, with barely a breeze to stir the air. But here in Camden Falls, the end of August seemed to usher autumn in weeks before the calendar did. The days were warm enough for shorts and T-shirts, but by nightfall, cool air crept into the Row Houses and Min would say as she stood up from the table after dinner, “Land sakes, I believe I need a sweater.”

  It was on one of these cool evenings, with Min wearing her sweater and Flora and Ruby wearing sweatshirts over their nightgowns, that Flora’s thoughts turned to the box hidden under her bed. She said good night to Min and her sister, kissed Daisy Dear on the nose, and hauled King Comma upstairs and into her room, where she shut the door. She retrieved the box, blowing dust bunnies off it, and climbed into bed. She had crawled under the covers with her teddy bear, and King was now purring in the tent under Flora’s knees, when she also remembered her mother’s diary. “Sorry, King Comma,” said Flora. “I have to disturb you. I’ll be right back.” At last, settled in bed with both the box and the diary, Flora once again inched backward through the years. She turned first to the diary.

  October 22nd — THE WEEKEND AT LAST!! Wendy and I are working on our Halloween costumes. We’re going to be Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, except that neither of us wants to be Raggedy Andy. Allie says she’s coming trick-or-treating with us, but excuse me, did we invite her?

  Flora smiled, then shut the diary. She laid it aside and opened the box, deciding to reach in with her eyes closed and see what she pulled out. Her fingers closed over what turned out to be a packet of letters, all written in a precise, tidy hand in faded blue ink, and all from someone named Martha to someone named Sophie.

  Flora frowned. Martha. That was the name of Min’s mother. And Sophie — was she Martha’s sister, Min’s aunt? Flora wondered how all these letters that had been written to Sophie had wound up back in Min’s house. Oh, well. It didn’t matter. Here they were, and Flora was eager to read them. Most of the letters were dated 1929 and 1930. Flora smoothed one out and rested it against her knees.

  Oh, Sophie, this is terrible, the letter began. Lyman has left his job. All those people — his clients, our friends — have lost their fortunes. They blame Lyman, and this morning he told me he felt he couldn’t continue to work. I didn’t want to say his decision seems cowardly, but …

  What? What had happened? Flora placed the letters in chronological order and began to read. Very quickly, she pieced together a story about Min’s parents from a time before Min was born — a story Flora had never heard. It seemed that Lyman Davis, Flora’s great-grandfather, had been a stockbroker at a prestigious company in Camden Falls. Although still young, he had been one of the most trusted men in town in the 1920s and, Flora realized, probably one of the wealthiest. By investing people’s money, he had made small (and sometimes large) fortunes for them and an enormous fortune for himself. He was highly sought after and had a long list of clients, which included many of the Davises’ friends and a few family members as well.

  Then, in October of 1929, the stock market crashed, and — overnight — all across the country people lost their entire savings. The United States was plunged into the Great Depression. In Camden Falls, many of Lyman’s clients blamed him for their misfortune.

  Was this true? wondered Flora. Was he partly to blame, even if the crash wasn’t his fault?

  Flora turned back to the letters. She learned that two weeks after the crash, unable to bear the strain, Lyman left his job and never returned to work. From what Flora could understand, this didn’t affect his family much. Because of an inheritance of Martha’s, they still had plenty of money to live on. Perhaps
they didn’t live quite as lavishly as before, but their lives changed only a little. The lives of many of Lyman’s clients, however, changed dramatically.

  Flora’s eyes were growing heavy, and she set aside the letters. She reached into the box once more and this time pulled out a manila envelope. It was full of loose photos that appeared more recent than some of the other items in the box. Flora sifted through them, then came awake with a start when she realized she was looking at photos of two young girls who she thought were her mother and Olivia’s mother. She turned one of them over. Sure enough, written on the back was Frannie and Wendy, July 1976. Flora smiled. She’d have to show these photos to Olivia.

  “King Comma,” said Flora, now fully awake, “I’m very sorry, but I have to disturb you again. I just thought of something.” Flora slid out of her bed and opened the drawer of her desk in which she had put the picture frame given to her by the Fongs. She remembered that Mrs. Fong had said the frame was for an old photo Flora already had or for a new one not yet taken. But, Flora thought as she inserted one of the photos of her mother and Wendy into the frame, sometimes an old photo could also be a new one. Flora had a feeling she might see something new in this old picture every time she looked at it — and that she was forging the next link in the chain that connected her to her mother and to Camden Falls.

  Flora set the frame on the desk. Then she returned to her bed. She was making a pile of photos to show Olivia, when she found a small photo, slightly older than the others, of her mother at about age four posing with a familiar-looking woman. Flora checked the back of the photo. It was labeled Frannie and Mary — 1970. So this was her mother at age four, but who was Mary? Min’s sister, Mary Elizabeth? Probably. Mary Elizabeth would have been her mother’s aunt.