The Secret Book Club

  It’s getting late now, but there’s time to peek in one final window before Camden Falls starts to go to bed. Come away from Aiken Avenue and walk toward the elementary school to a fine house with a pool in the backyard. Many windows are lit in this house, and if you were to peek into the one at the west end of the second floor you would find Tanya Rhodes, a classmate of Flora, Olivia, and Nikki’s. Tanya is planning a pool party and she is busily drawing up the guest list. Several names are already on the list, names of girls who were in her sixth-grade class with Mr. Donaldson. Tanya pauses, then adds Flora’s name to the list, then Nikki’s, and, finally, Olivia’s. She puts her pen down, considers the names, and picks up the pen again.

  She crosses Olivia Walter off the list.

  Olivia Walter was aware that some things about her — actually, many things — had led her classmates to decide she was weird. This was not fair. After all, was it Olivia’s fault that she had skipped a grade? No. It was not. Her parents and teachers had made her do that. Was it Olivia’s fault that she had a late birthday, and that while most of her friends and classmates had already turned twelve, Olivia was still only ten? No. It was not. Olivia had very much enjoyed the surprise one-oh party her friends had given her the previous fall, but it had done nothing to help her catch up with the twelve-year-olds. Was it Olivia’s fault that she was small for her age and that she apparently could do absolutely nothing to tame the mass of black curls that bounced around her head like springs? No. It was not. She couldn’t help how she was born. Was it Olivia’s fault that what interested her most was not soccer or fashion or dances but birds of prey and weather conditions and chemical properties? Well, maybe that was Olivia’s fault. Maybe this summer she could try to expand her interests a bit. But she couldn’t just make herself interested in something that didn’t actually interest her, could she?

  Olivia was very grateful that she finally had friends, and that she truly did share interests with them, or at least with Flora and Nikki. Olivia and Ruby had little in common, except that (Olivia had recently realized with horror) she was actually slightly closer in age to Ruby than she was to the others. But Olivia, Flora, and Nikki shared a love of reading and of quieter pursuits. Furthermore, Nikki had set her sights on one day becoming a wildlife artist, which meant she spent a good deal of time studying the animals and insects she drew.

  Olivia sighed. She had a feeling she and Nikki and Flora would never be popular kids, not like the older girls Olivia saw hanging around in front of the central school — the very school at which she would become a student in the fall.

  Oh, well. Olivia was not going to ruin her summer by worrying about these things. On this cozy, rainy day, she and Flora were happily occupying one of the couches at the front of Needle and Thread. They were lying on their backs, Flora’s head resting on one arm of the couch, Olivia’s on the other, their feet just far enough from each other’s faces so that neither was tempted to complain about any odors. Gigi and Min were helping customers; Mary Woolsey was working at her table in the back, pinning up the hems on all the dresses for a bridal party; and two women were busily paging through the catalogs of sewing patterns. A peaceful, rainy June afternoon.

  Olivia and Flora were reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, having already finished The Saturdays. Olivia was turning pages so fast that Flora was beginning to find it annoying, when the door to the store opened and in walked Nikki, holding an envelope in one hand and appearing puzzled.

  She fanned the air with the envelope and said, “Look. Look at this.”

  “What is it?” asked Olivia, sitting up.

  “We sure have been getting some interesting mail at our house lately,” Nikki continued.

  “What is it?” said Flora.

  Nikki sat on the couch between her friends and pulled a card out of the envelope. “It’s an invitation.” Nikki paused. “To a pool party at Tanya’s house. Tanya’s.”

  “Tanya Rhodes?” asked Olivia incredulously, and Nikki nodded.

  “Wow,” said Flora.

  “It must be a joke,” said Nikki.

  Flora and Olivia crowded close to their friend and peered at the card.

  “It looks like a regular invitation,” said Flora.

  “That’s what would make it such a good joke,” replied Nikki. “It doesn’t look suspicious at all — so I show up at Tanya’s house with last-year’s swimsuit, and then Tanya and her friends all laugh at me, like who am I to think I’ve been invited to swim in Tanya’s fancy pool?”

  Olivia wrinkled her nose. “But why bother? Tanya never did anything that mean to us.”

  “She probably is having a party,” said Flora, “and her mother made her invite all the girls in our class. If we went home and checked the mail, I’ll bet we’d find invitations for Olivia and me, too.”

  “Really?” said Nikki.

  “Definitely,” Flora and Olivia both said at the same time.

  “Okay. Can we go right now?”

  Five minutes later, the girls, sharing a giant umbrella loaned to them by Gigi, were walking down Main Street, Olivia slurping her sandaled feet through every puddle she saw.

  “Hey, Nikki,” said Olivia, “what did you mean when you said you sure have been getting some interesting mail at your house? What else came?”

  “Tobias got a letter from a college. A little college in Connecticut. Leavitt College, I think he said. It turns out that he secretly applied to a couple of colleges and was wait-listed at Leavitt. He just found out that there’s a place for him there this fall and he’s eligible for a scholarship.”

  “Wow,” said Flora. “What’s he going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Nikki. “I mean, it’s funny. He never thought about going to college. When my dad was living with us, we just … didn’t think about things like that. College was part of some other world. But now Dad is gone, and Mom is in charge. And she’s changed so much — I mean in a good way — that she’s like another person, really. So anyway, Tobias applied to these colleges, not thinking he would actually get in to them, at least not so soon, and now he has this big decision to make.”

  The girls had turned onto Aiken Avenue. They passed the Morrises’ house, then Mr. Willet’s, then the Malones’, and Flora burst out from under the umbrella and ran up her walk. She reached into the mailbox, shuffled through the envelopes she pulled out, and crowed, “Ha! I got one! See?”

  Nikki grinned. “Okay. I feel better. Go get yours, Olivia, and then I’ll feel totally fine.”

  Olivia sprinted across the wet grass to her own mailbox. “Hmm,” she said as she riffled through a stack of envelopes and catalogs. “I don’t see one.”

  “Look again,” said Flora. “You must have missed it. You have more mail than we do.”

  Olivia looked carefully at every envelope. “There’s nothing for me,” she said after a moment.

  “Well, it’ll probably come tomorrow,” said Nikki. “You know how the mail is.”

  “I guess,” said Olivia.

  Olivia made a point of being at home when the mail was delivered the next day. Her letter carrier was still striding away from the Walters’ door when Olivia snatched the mail from the box. No invitation.

  There was no invitation the next day, either. Olivia plunked down on her front stoop and allowed Wednesday’s mail to spill across her lap. She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.

  Left out again. Only this time it was worse than not being invited to Meagan’s skating party in second grade or Jilly’s sleepover in fourth grade, because then she hadn’t had best friends who had been invited.

  Olivia’s thoughts strayed to September and the start of school — of seventh grade in the big central school for grades seven through twelve, serving students from elementary schools in all the surrounding small towns. A huge school. With the high schoolers right there. Right there with their makeup and iPods and dances and guys who needed to shave.

  Olivia buried her face in he
r hands.

  “What do you mean, you weren’t invited?” exclaimed Ruby shrilly, her hands on her hips.

  Olivia knew Ruby was partly acting (she did indeed look convincingly indignant), but partly truly upset on Olivia’s behalf.

  “I mean that those guys” (Olivia indicated Nikki and Flora, who were sprawled across Olivia’s bed in the direct path of an energetically whirling fan) “got invitations days ago, and I didn’t get one.”

  “Maybe yours got lost in the mail,” said Ruby.

  Olivia made a face. “I highly doubt that.”

  Ruby, who had been sitting at Olivia’s desk, examining the intricate butterflies on a mobile, suddenly gasped and jumped to her feet.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Flora, looking alarmed.

  “I just thought of something!” cried Ruby. “What if, um …” She paused. “Olivia, what if you weren’t invited because of, you know … your skin color?”

  Olivia gazed out the window. “There are probably a lot of reasons Tanya doesn’t want me at her party, but that isn’t one of them.”

  Ruby looked at Flora and Nikki on the bed. They were shaking their heads.

  “Nope,” said Nikki. “Olivia’s right. Tanya is half African-American and half Japanese. Skin color doesn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “I was excluded,” said Olivia, making a face, “not because I’m black, but because I don’t fit in with any of the other kids in our class. I never have. Only you guys understand me.”

  “I guess it doesn’t matter why you were left out,” said Ruby. “You were still left out. And that isn’t fair.”

  “Gigi would say that life isn’t fair,” replied Olivia. “And I guess she should know. She has been excluded from things because of her skin color.”

  “Well, I say that if Olivia wasn’t invited to Tanya’s party, then Nikki and I shouldn’t go,” said Flora. “We’ll RSVP that we can’t come.” She sat up and folded her arms across her chest.

  “Yeah!” exclaimed Ruby. “Good idea. I wish I’d been invited, so I could blow Tanya off, too.”

  “No. That doesn’t seem right,” said Olivia in a small voice. “I want Nikki and Flora to go. You guys will have fun. You shouldn’t miss out because of me.”

  “But we barely know Tanya,” said Nikki.

  “There’s another thing to consider,” Olivia went on. “Nikki, if you and Flora snub Tanya, it isn’t going to look very good. I mean, socially. Everything’s going to be different when we start seventh grade, and you don’t want to have a reputation as the girls who snubbed Tanya, who, I don’t have to remind you, is one of the more popular girls in our grade. There’s no reason all three of us should start off on the wrong foot at our new school. Who knows what cliques and things will form there. It might be good if you’re friends with Tanya and the other girls. You guys should go to the party.”

  Grudgingly, Flora and Nikki agreed with Olivia.

  That night, Olivia sat alone in her bedroom. She pictured Nikki and Flora swimming in Tanya’s pool, laughing with their new friends. She pictured them in the fall, being invited to other parties, to dances, to sleepovers. In all of Olivia’s fearful imaginings about going to the central school, it had never entered her mind that Flora and Nikki might be pulled away from her. What would she do without them?

  Ruby Northrop stepped out of Needle and Thread and sat on the bench in front of the window. She made up a little song and sang it aloud to a tune she remembered from day camp, a tune about a dog named Bingo: “There was a day in summertime when Ruby had no plans-oh. B-O-R-E-D, B-O-R-E-D, B-O-R-E-D, and Ruby had no plans!” Ruby edged closer to the open door and sang more loudly: “THERE WAS A DAY IN SUMMERTIME WHEN RUBY HAD NO PLANS-OH. B-O-R-E-D, B-O-R-E-D, B-O-R-E-D, AND RUBY HAD NO PLANS!”

  “Ruby,” called Min from within the store. “Please come here for a moment.”

  Ruby sighed. She had wanted Min to hear her, but now she felt nervous about the tone of Min’s voice.

  “What,” said Ruby fatly as she reentered the store.

  “Any person,” Min began, taking Ruby by the elbow and seating her on one of the couches, “with all the brains and personality you were lucky enough to have bestowed upon you, should not be bored. There is no good reason for it.”

  “But I don’t have chorus or rehearsals or anything until Turbo Tappers begins.”

  “What about the book club?” asked Min.

  “I read The Saturdays.”

  “And Mrs. Frisby?”

  “I have partially read Mrs. Frisby,” Ruby replied cautiously.

  “How about finishing it?”

  “It’s at home.”

  Min drew in a very deep breath and then said slowly, “Ruby. If you want to be bored, that can be accomplished easily. But so can not being bored. Go to the art store and buy a crafts kit. I’ll lend you the money. Think about your ‘green’ project. Write a play. Go to the library. Call Lacey Morris and see what she’s doing. You are smart, Ruby.” Min tapped her head. “Smart. And creative. So please find something to do.”

  “I think,” said Ruby, rising from the couch, “that I’ll take a walk.”

  “Stay on Main Street,” said Min.

  Ruby didn’t reply. She walked out of the store, and Min turned to Gigi and said, “Saints preserve us.”

  Ruby turned right when she left Needle and Thread. Maybe, she thought, she would go into every store in town. That would be a good project. And it would probably take up the rest of the day. It was too bad she didn’t have more money with her.

  Ruby poked her head into Zack’s, the hardware store. Hardware stores held little interest for her, but Olivia had told her that if she peeked through the knotholes in the old wooden floor, she could see down into the basement below. What might a person see in an ancient basement? Ruby walked up and down the aisles of Zack’s until she found what she thought was the biggest knothole in the store. She lay on her stomach, closed her left eye, and pressed her right eye to the hole.

  “Who goes there?” said a loud voice.

  Ruby jumped. She widened her right eye and stared and stared into the darkness, wondering what kind of basement creature said, “Who goes there?”

  “Hello?” called Ruby.

  “Hello?” said the voice, and Ruby felt a tap on her shoulder. She pulled her head up and scrambled to her feet. Zack was standing behind her.

  “Looking for treasure?” he asked.

  Ruby blushed. “No, just … looking.”

  Ruby left Zack’s in a hurry. She wandered through Heaven, glancing aimlessly at the jewelry. Already, the prospect of visiting every store on Main Street seemed less exciting.

  Next to Heaven, though, was Sincerely Yours, Olivia’s store. Ruby had barely entered when Robby Edwards called loudly, “Good afternoon, Ruby!”

  “Hi, Robby,” Ruby replied.

  “Are you here to get a basket? I can help you. Do you need a birthday basket for someone? How about this birthday mug and some chocolates and look at these funny hats. We just got them in.” Robby proudly led Ruby to a shelf near the cash register. “These are all new items,” he told her.

  Ruby looked around at the Walters’ store. Olivia’s parents sold candies and baked goods (made by Mrs. Walter) and everything a person could need to create a gift basket for any occasion. Robby had been working in the store for several weeks. It was his first job ever, and he took it seriously.

  Ruby held out her empty hands. “I don’t have any money,” she said. She felt in her pocket. “Well, I have a little. But I’m just walking around.”

  “Can I offer you a piece of chocolate?” asked Olivia’s father from behind the counter.

  “Yes, thank you,” replied Ruby, who never, ever turned down free candy. She selected a peanut butter patty.

  Ruby emerged from the cool of the store into the sticky warmth of the afternoon. Immediately, she could feel the last bite of her candy grow melty and slidey in her fingers. She thrust it into her mouth. The
n she stood in the shade, savoring the last of the chocolate, and looked across the street at Time and Again, the used bookstore. The display in the window read FUN IN THE SUN — SUPER SUMMERTIME READING! Ruby didn’t care much about summertime reading, but she thought she would see whether Sonny Sutphin was working in the store.

  She crossed Main Street and pushed open the door to Time and Again. And there was Sonny, sitting in his wheelchair behind the information desk. He was talking to Ruby’s aunt Allie.

  “Hi!” said Ruby, surprised to find her aunt in the store.

  “Ruby!” exclaimed Allie, sounding equally surprised.

  Aunt Allie, the younger sister of Ruby and Flora’s mother, was a writer. A writer of books for grown-ups and famous in some circles, Min said. Which Ruby took to mean it was okay that she had never heard of any of her aunt’s books. Allie had long lived in New York City, and Ruby had thought she must be terribly glamorous. Then Allie had come home to Camden Falls for Christmas the previous year, and Ruby had been dismayed to meet an uncomfortable, serious, and generally unappealing adult, one whose interest in food ran to tasteless, cardboardlike organic products, and whose lips would never admit a Twinkie or a cheese puff. Ruby was further dismayed when Allie announced that she had decided to remain in Camden Falls permanently — and she ended up living with Ruby, Flora, and Min for months while she house hunted. Now, at long last, Allie had a home of her own, and Ruby’s gratefulness knew no bounds.

  But what was Aunt Allie doing out shopping in the middle of the day when she should be working? She was a very disciplined person (no surprise there), and, when she had lived at the Row House, had been capable of becoming quite crabby if Ruby or Flora interrupted her writing schedule.

  This was probably why Aunt Allie now looked so startled to see Ruby enter Time and Again. Caught! Ruby had caught her aunt out shopping when, according to Allie’s own schedule, she should be at home clacking away on her laptop.