Welcome to Camden Falls

  Ruby had been about to pick up a china dolphin that she thought would look nice in her collection (I could name her Delphine, she thought), but now she withdrew her hand.

  Mrs. Grindle stood before her new customers, eyeing them suspiciously. Ruby eyed her back. Mrs. Grindle was tall and skinny as a rake, her hair pulled severely back from her face, spectacles perched on her pointy nose. She looked, Ruby realized, like the illustration of the witch from Hansel and Gretel in an old storybook of Ruby and Flora’s. Ruby wondered why Mrs. Grindle, who apparently didn’t like children any more than the witch did, owned a store that sold so many toys.

  Robby, calmer now, made his way to a wall of stickers and surveyed them, his hands clasped behind his back. “Do you know why stickers are good, Ruby?” he asked. “Because you can get so many and still have money left over to spend on” (he glanced at Mrs. Grindle) “other fragile items.”

  Robby walked around and around the store, studying small objects and their price tags, muttering to himself, adding figures in his head, and sometimes counting on his fingers.

  “The challenge for Robby,” Margaret told Ruby, “is to see how many things he can get for his money. This could take a while.”

  Ruby followed Robby for a few moments, then lost interest, especially since she didn’t have any of her own money to spend. She thought about returning to Needle and Thread but remembered that the embroidery class would be in progress, which meant that Nikki Sherman would be across the street, and Ruby didn’t feel like spending another hour in Nikki’s unpleasant company.

  Ruby watched Mrs. Grindle scowl as she unpacked a carton of newly arrived toys. She examined a display of necklaces by the door. Then she started down an aisle crammed with candles and ornaments and little ruffled pillows but stopped when she noticed someone standing at the other end of the aisle. Nikki Sherman. She was looking intently at a row of dog figurines.

  Nikki? What was she doing here? She was supposed to be at Needle and Thread. Maybe, thought Ruby, Nikki didn’t want to hang around with Ruby and Flora and Olivia any more than they wanted to hang around with her. Ruby tiptoed to the front of the store just in time to see Lydia Malone come giggling through the door with another girl.

  “Hey, Brandi,” said Lydia to her friend, “remember when we used to collect china horses? How dumb was that?” Lydia leaned against the jewelry counter.

  “Speaking of dumb,” replied Brandi. She cocked her head in the direction of Robby.

  Robby had paused in front of a basket of polished stones. “‘Good-luck stones,’” he was saying slowly, reading a card attached to the basket. “‘Fifty cents each.’ Fifty cents! Uh-oh. That’s too much. Margaret! I’m almost out of money!” Robby bounced on his toes.

  At the front of the store, Brandi dissolved in laughter. “What a retard!” she exclaimed, and bounced up and down.

  “Shh!” hissed Lydia. “Shut up! My sister’s here. Get out of the store.”

  Lydia pushed Brandi through the door. Ruby, wincing, turned to look at Robby.

  Robby’s gaze remained on the basket of stones. He dropped the blue one he’d been examining back into the basket, and then, eyes still on the stones, he dissolved into loud tears. He cried the way Ruby used to cry when she was very little and very tired. He drew in a deep breath and sobbed.

  “Good heavens. What on earth is the matter here?” asked Mrs. Grindle, hurrying down the aisle to Robby. Ruby thought she looked supremely irritated.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Grindle,” said Margaret. “Robby’s just a little upset. Robby, are you ready to pay for your things?”

  “No, I am not ready!”

  “Hey, Robby, want a piece of gum?” asked Ruby, pulling a stick of Juicy Fruit out of her pocket.

  “No! And I am not a retard!”

  “Look, Robby,” said Margaret. “How about this little whale? I’ll get it for you. You —”

  “I AM NOT A RETARD!”

  Margaret put her arms around Robby. “That was a horrible thing to say,” she agreed.

  “It is a sensitive subject and that person ought to know better,” wailed Robby.

  Ruby found herself backing away, backing down the aisle toward the door. When she reached the checkout counter, she noticed Nikki, now engrossed in a display of colored pencils. She seemed unaware of Robby, and Ruby felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. Nikki wasn’t bothered by Robby’s crying and shouting. But Ruby was. She couldn’t help herself. And so she hurried out of the store, without saying good-bye to Margaret or Robby.

  Nikki Sherman picked up a box of pencils from the shelf in Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. She looked through the little window in the box to see what colors were inside. Tropical shades, she thought. Very nice. But Nikki had not one penny with her. She set the box back.

  The store had grown quiet. The big boy who had cried so loudly was gone. Nikki hadn’t wanted to appear too curious about what was going on. She felt bad for the boy. Robby, she thought his name was. That horrible, tacky girl had come into the store with the other girl, whose father was a dentist, and she had called him a retard and of course Robby had gotten upset. What had the girl thought would happen?

  Nikki had heard a third girl, a nice one, offer to buy Robby a toy of some sort, and a few minutes later, she and Robby had stood in front of the checkout counter, not far from Nikki.

  “All right,” the store owner had said with a fierce glance at Robby. “What have you got here?”

  Robby spread his items on the counter. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand (which made the store owner cringe and look pointedly at a box of Kleenex) and said, “I added and added and I know I have enough.”

  “Well, let me ring you up,” said the lady impatiently. Her fingers clacked away at the register and she said, “That comes to one dollar and seventy-nine cents.”

  “With tax?” asked Robby.

  “With tax.”

  “I did it! I did it, Margaret. Look. All those stickers and two tattoos and the little parachute man. All those fragile things and I still have some money left over. I did a good job today.”

  “You certainly did,” replied Margaret.

  Nikki marveled that Robby seemed to have forgotten the cruel words that had upset him so — although she had been called many cruel words herself and remembered how quickly she could sweep them to the back of her brain when she needed to.

  Robby pushed his money across the counter and the lady handed him his change and a paper bag, his purchases tucked inside. Then, hand in hand, Robby and Margaret left Stuff ’n’ Nonsense.

  Nikki abandoned the pencils and charcoals and edged to the jewelry counter. She let out a small sigh and looked at the clock over the door. Another half an hour before the old bat’s class would end. What was Nikki supposed to do? She didn’t want to sit around with Olivia and Flora and Ruby again, but she had no money and didn’t feel like looking in stores any longer.

  Nikki let out a larger sigh, left Stuff ’n’ Nonsense, and crossed the street to Needle and Thread. She opened the door, the bell jangling above her. Sure enough, Mrs. DuVane’s class was still in progress. Nikki could see eight heads bent over embroidery hoops and a basket of silk ribbon in the center of the table. Sitting at another table, all alone, was the old lady who was often working away at a pile of mending. On the couch, huddled over some large pieces of brightly colored fabric, were Olivia and Flora. They didn’t look up from their work, but Ruby, who was watching them, did glance at her. And Nikki, tired of always arguing with the girls (feeling contrary used up a lot of energy, she realized), smiled at Ruby. Ruby offered a small smile in return.

  Nikki was about to settle on the couch next to Ruby when the door to Needle and Thread blasted open behind her, and in charged the lady who owned Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. The look on her face was angry — so angry that Nikki, surprised, lost her balance and stumbled onto the couch, nearly landing in Ruby’s lap.

  What on earth was the matter with the lady? Nikki and Ruby looked at each ot
her, and Nikki could read fear on Ruby’s face.

  Flora and Olivia looked up, too, and Olivia said, “Mrs. Grindle? What’s wrong?”

  Mrs. Grindle ignored Olivia. She stepped toward Nikki, held out her hand, and said loudly, “Give it back, please.”

  Nikki said nothing. Give what back? She glanced helplessly from Ruby to Olivia to Flora.

  “Gina?” Gigi left the class and approached Mrs. Grindle, followed closely by Mrs. DuVane and Min. “What’s going on?”

  “This young lady,” replied Mrs. Grindle in a tone implying that she thought Nikki was anything but a lady, “just stole a necklace from my store.”

  “What?” cried Nikki. She held out her hands, indicating that they were empty. “I — I — where would I put a necklace? I don’t have a purse. I don’t even have any pockets.”

  “All I know,” said Mrs. Grindle, “is that you were just in my store, and I had just put a new necklace in the display by the door. You left, and now the necklace is gone.”

  Nikki shrugged. “I still don’t have it.”

  “Well, then you hid it somewhere.”

  “I did not!”

  Ruby stood up. “I was sitting right here when Nikki came in the store, and she didn’t hide anything.”

  “Maybe you just didn’t see her hide it.”

  “Why don’t you search our store?” suggested Ruby.

  “Ruby! Don’t be impertinent,” said Min.

  “But, Min, this isn’t fair,” spoke up Flora.

  “Yeah, Mrs. Grindle’s just accusing Nikki because Nikki is a kid and Mrs. Grindle is a grown-up,” said Olivia, “and she thinks she can get away with it.”

  “Olivia!” exclaimed Gigi. “Please apologize to Mrs. Grindle.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Grindle,” said Olivia, who didn’t sound sorry at all.

  Nikki hung her head and her eyes took in her clothes, which she knew were not at all what Mrs. DuVane had hoped she would wear on her trips into town. Too-small flip-flops, thin T-shirt that had once been white but was now a faint shade of gray and pocked with tiny holes in both front and back, and shorts that were too big and a boy’s besides, since they had once belonged to Tobias. Then there were Nikki’s hands, which were gray with dirt. Nikki raised her eyes to Mrs. Grindle and thought she knew the real reason she was being accused of stealing.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time, young lady,” said Mrs. Grindle fiercely. “Did you take that necklace?”

  Nikki stepped directly in front of Mrs. Grindle. “No. I did not. I don’t steal.”

  Mrs. Grindle stared at Nikki for a few moments. Then she said, “I don’t know whether you are telling the truth, but from now on you are to stay away from my store.” She turned around, stalked out of Needle and Thread, and made her way across Main Street.

  Nikki, her face burning, whispered to Mrs. DuVane, “Can we go home now, please?”

  Early on the afternoon of the Row House party, Ruby and Flora sat on their front stoop, waiting for Min to come home from a doctor’s appointment. Ruby regarded the houses across the street, large wooden homes painted muted shades of mustard and green and tan, dating back to the mid-1800s.

  “Min wasn’t even born when those houses were built,” said Ruby thoughtfully.

  “Min’s parents weren’t even born,” said Flora.

  “Everything is old here.”

  “Everything is different here.”

  Ruby sniffed at the heavy August air and watched a chickadee land on the branch of a maple tree. “I kind of like it, though.… Kind of.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Do you think it’s okay to like it even though Mom and Dad aren’t here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.” Flora looked at her watch. “Min should be back by now. I wonder what the doctor said about her wrist.”

  Ruby didn’t answer. She sat with her chin in her hands for several moments, then said, “I can’t believe Mrs. Grindle banned Nikki from her store. Why wouldn’t she believe her? Is it just because Nikki’s family doesn’t have much money? I hate people like that.”

  “Don’t hate,” said Flora. “That makes you the same kind of person as Mrs. Grindle.”

  “Well, anyway, you know what we have here? A mystery,” said Ruby dramatically. “A true mystery.” She narrowed her eyes. “And here’s the big question: If Nikki didn’t take the necklace, who did?”

  “Tell me again who was in the store when you were there with Robby and Margaret,” said Flora.

  “Well, Mrs. Grindle and Nikki, of course. Nikki was looking at art supplies,” replied Ruby. “And Lydia came into the store for a few minutes with some friend of hers. The two of them were mean to Robby. And there were a couple of people in the back of the store, but I don’t know who they were.”

  “Hmm. And when did Mrs. Grindle think she had put out the necklace? Maybe it was earlier than she remembers, before any of you were even in the store.”

  “Ooh, that’s good, Flora,” said Ruby admiringly. “You’re thinking like a real detective. Hey, look, there’s Min!” Ruby jumped to her feet. “Let’s see if she got her cast off yet.”

  Min, who had walked home from her appointment on Main Street, was still wearing the cast, but she was wearing a smile, too. “The doctor said everything is healing nicely and the cast can come off next week. He also said I can drive again.”

  Flora thought about the last few weeks when Min hadn’t been allowed to drive. Because Camden Falls was small, and because Min had such good friends and neighbors, this hadn’t been much of a problem, certainly not as much of a problem as it would have been in Flora and Ruby’s old town. Here, Min and the girls could walk to Main Street, and the Row House neighbors had shopped for their groceries and driven them on any long-distance errands. Still, Flora had felt vulnerable. Now as she watched her grandmother cross the front yard, her purse and mail clutched in her good arm, she said, “Min? What if you had broken your leg when you fell? What would we have done?”

  “Sweetie,” Min interrupted her, “let’s not talk about the what-ifs right now.”

  “But, really, what if —”

  “Flora,” said Min, “I know things aren’t perfect for us. But I’m working on that. I’m going to make sure you and Ruby are always taken care of. I promise. Right now, it’s time to get ready for the barbecue. It’s going to be a fun afternoon. Try to enjoy it.”

  “But,” said Flora, “what if —”

  “Flora!” Ruby exclaimed suddenly. “We forgot to wrap the prizes! The prizes for the games this afternoon. We’d better go get Olivia. We have to get the stuff for the races, too. The egg, the spoon, the sack …”

  “And I have pies to finish,” said Min.

  Flora’s mind was still stuffed with questions. What if Min got sick and couldn’t work at Needle and Thread anymore? Could she afford to retire? What if Min got sick and couldn’t take care of her granddaughters? What would happen to Ruby and Flora then?

  “Flora? Come on!” said Ruby, stamping her foot.

  Flora had a little talk with herself. Bad thoughts be-gone, she said silently. Get out of my head. I don’t need you here. You are not useful. “Okay,” she said to Ruby a moment later. “Let’s go.”

  Ruby headed for the kitchen door. “Let’s leave this way,” she said. “I want to look in everyone’s backyards. I want to see if people are getting ready yet.”

  Flora looked at Ruby’s hopeful face and remembered the times when her parents had been busy or distracted or tired but had still managed to attend Ruby’s performances or plan birthday parties or sit down to play board games. So she set aside her worries and took Ruby’s hand as they stepped through the kitchen door.

  “Look! People are getting ready!” said Ruby.

  In the yards of the Row Houses, checked tablecloths and extra chairs and ice-filled tubs of sodas were appearing. Dr. Malone had placed stereo speakers in his windows, and the Fongs, as requested by Olivia, Flora, and Ruby, had cleared their yard so that the ra
ces and game playing could take place there. Through open windows, Flora could smell pies and roasted chicken and fresh bread and a new smell — one she hadn’t encountered before this summer in Camden Falls — that she identified as cilantro. Flora skipped a little skip as she and Ruby approached Olivia’s back door.

  Two hours later, the barbecue was under way. Every single Row House resident had ambled into the backyards. Twenty-five people laughing and talking and calling to one another, turning their faces to the sunshine. The Morris girls wore sundresses made by their mother from fabric purchased at Needle and Thread. Robby wore a new yellow baseball cap, and to Flora’s great surprise, Mr. Pennington wore shorts, sandals, and a Disney World T-shirt. From Dr. Malone’s speakers floated various kinds of music, including Min’s beloved Gershwin. Daisy Dear sat with Jacques under a picnic table, waiting for food to be dropped. Sweetie, the Willets’ cat, stalked Twinkle and Bandit, the Malones’ cats. Margaret and Robby sat together on a lawn chair, and Lydia, Ruby noted, sat sullenly by herself next to a bowl of potato chips, which she kept reaching into and finally pulled into her lap, her own personal private bowl of chips.

  Ruby, standing a short distance away, considered Lydia. Here, she realized, was one of the suspects in her robbery case. A good detective would tail her suspect, Ruby thought. She watched Lydia for a solid five minutes, but all Lydia did was glower at people and eat potato chips.

  The younger Row House children ran from yard to yard, shrieking and shouting, until Flora and Olivia convinced the kids to go to the Fongs’ to play games. Ruby joined them.

  When the food was brought out, the children slowed down and, clutching prizes they’d won at the games, milled from yard to yard, investigating the platters of chicken and ribs, the plates of fruit salad and watermelon slices, and later an array of cakes and cookies and pies.

  Ruby filled her plate with food, started to sit down at a table with Flora and Olivia, then noted that her robbery suspect was two yards away. She carried her plate over to the Willets’, where she sat on a bench and observed Lydia, who was perched on the handrail the Willets had installed along the two steps up to their back door. She was holding a hot dog in one hand, a cell phone in the other, and was chatting away. Ruby strained to listen, but all she heard were snatches of conversation that meant little to her: “Six o’clock tonight. Everyone will be there.” “No, not Cheryl, Megan.” “I don’t know, my blue shirt, I guess.”