The Secret Book Club

  Flora shrugged. “Last year. It’s one of the best books ever. I’ll be happy to read it again. And you guys are going to love it.”

  “I like that we can talk about the cover even though we haven’t read the book yet,” mused Ruby.

  Flora shot Olivia an amused glance, but Olivia didn’t return it.

  Nikki looked from Olivia to Flora, then said, “Let’s read the letters.”

  “I wonder what our next Saturday adventure will be,” said Ruby.

  “You read, Olivia,” said Flora.

  Without looking at the other girls, Olivia opened her copy of the letter. “Wow,” she said after a moment. Then, “Wow.”

  Roll of Thunder was the story of Cassie Logan, an African-American girl growing up in a loving family in Mississippi during the Depression, and of her family’s fight to save their farm while at the same time battling bigotry and oppression during the tumultuous ninth year of Cassie’s life. The list of things to talk about covered such topics as family relationships, Jim Crow laws, and the Underground Railroad.

  “Why the Underground Railroad?” said Flora, looking confused.

  And Ruby cried, “Jim Crow laws! That’s a funny name. What are Jim Crow laws?”

  “The Jim Crow laws are not funny, Ruby,” said Olivia.

  “In my mind they are.” Ruby was picturing a human-size crow, dressed in judge’s robes, presiding over a courtroom, wings flapping.

  “The Jim Crow laws,” said Olivia, “have to do with segregation and with discrimination against black people. When the laws were put in place, they were supposed to create separate but equal status for whites and blacks. The result was that black people not only had separate water fountains, separate seats in restaurants and theatres, separate schools, and so on, but that these things were not the same as those for white people. They were inferior. And the laws made black people feel like second-class citizens. How would you like to be really thirsty on a hot day and find a water fountain in a park, but then see the sign on the fountain that says WHITES ONLY?”

  Flora thought Ruby looked a bit frightened. “Well,” said Ruby after a moment. “Well … I’m sorry I made a joke about it, Olivia. Is this really what the book is about?”

  “Sort of,” said Flora, “but there’s so much more to Cassie’s story. Wait until you start reading about her family, especially Little Man, her younger brother. And it’s a really exciting story. You won’t believe what happens. What I can’t figure out is why we’re supposed to talk about the Underground Railroad. That isn’t part of the book.”

  “Let’s see what our Saturday adventure is,” said Nikki. “Read that part of the letter, Olivia.”

  Olivia scanned the letter, then said, “Okay. Here it is. ‘Two Saturdays from now, after you have read this compelling story and discussed it, sit down together and write one additional chapter to Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Write about what you think happens to the characters in the years after the book ends. Be sure to include your thoughts about T.J.’” Olivia paused. “T.J.?”

  “He’s a really interesting character,” said Flora. “You kind of want to not like him, but you can’t. I mean, you can’t hate him. Not really. Not that it’s okay to hate anyone,” she added hastily. “Well, I don’t want to give the end away, but wait until you see what happens to T.J. I know why we’re supposed to include him in our chapter.”

  “I’ve never written a chapter to a book before,” said Nikki. “How are we going to do that?”

  “We’ll all be working together,” Flora pointed out.

  “It still sounds hard.”

  “I think it sounds like fun,” said Olivia, who didn’t look as though she was having any fun at all at the moment.

  “We’ll have to write a lot of pages,” said Nikki.

  “Believe me, there will be plenty to write about,” said Flora.

  “Is that it?” asked Ruby. “We just write a chapter? I have to say, this sounds kind of like homework. The Melendys never chose homework for their adventures.”

  “Nope, there’s more.” Olivia picked up the letter again. “Okay, let’s see. We’ll have to finish our chapter early in the afternoon, because at three o’clock we’re supposed to … huh.”

  “What? What?” cried Ruby, scanning her copy of the letter.

  “The letter says,” Olivia continued, “‘At three o’clock, ring the doorbell at number three fifty-seven Harmony Lane. The rest of your adventure will unfold from there. Don’t worry — I’ve already spoken to your parents or grandparents about this and have their permission for you to go to the house.’ Then the letter ends with, ‘Enjoy your next Saturday adventure!’”

  “Huh,” said Nikki. “So Min and all our parents know who the secret book club person is.”

  “Where’s Harmony Lane?” asked Flora.

  Nikki shrugged, but Olivia said, “We can walk to it from the Row Houses.”

  “I wonder what a house on Harmony Lane has to do with Roll of Thunder,” said Ruby.

  Ruby, Nikki, and Flora turned to Olivia, but Olivia said, “Don’t look at me. I only know about the Jim Crow laws.”

  “Hey, there’s Mr. Willet!” exclaimed Ruby as the door to Needle and Thread opened. “Hi, Mr. Willet!”

  Mr. Willet smiled at the girls, and Ruby and Olivia squinched over on the couch to make room for him.

  “Are you here to buy something?” asked Ruby.

  “No. I had an idea and I wanted to talk to your grandmother about it. Your grandmother, too, Olivia.”

  Mr. Willet’s idea, it turned out, was to hold a series of sewing workshops at Three Oaks, where his wife now lived. “Of course, Mary Lou wouldn’t be able to join in the workshops, but lots of the other residents would. Three Oaks offers classes all the time, and I know there are a number of talented seamstresses living there, and they’d love to take a specialized class. Seamstresses being a misleading word, by the way, since a number of those people are men,” Mr. Willet added. “Anyway, what do you think?” he asked Min and Gigi, who had now joined Mr. Willet at the front of the store.

  “It’s a wonderful idea, Bill,” said Gigi. “The only problem is that Min and I don’t often leave the store at the same time.”

  “I have a thought, though,” said Min. “What if Flora and I taught the classes?”

  “Me?” cried Flora.

  “You’re capable,” said Min.

  “More than capable, I imagine,” said Mr. Willet. “Well, I think that sounds fine. I’ll talk to the activities director at Three Oaks and let you know what happens.”

  “Hey, Mr. Willet,” said Ruby, “have you heard about Nelson Day?”

  “Is that the fund-raiser to help the Nelson family?”

  “Yup.” Ruby nodded. “And it was all my idea.” She glanced at Min. “But, um, it isn’t just about me. I mean, everyone is helping with the project. Nearly everyone in town! You know,” she went on, “I just thought of something. We’re kind of like the animals in The Rats of NIMH, all doing our part for,” she paused, “for one great cause.”

  “It sounds as though you girls are enjoying your secret book club,” said Mr. Willet.

  Olivia frowned. “You know about the book club? Did we mention it to you?”

  “I think Min did,” said Mr. Willet quickly.

  The bell over the door jangled then. Min and Gigi got to their feet to help the customer, and Flora forgot about books and the book club and turned her attention to the thought of teaching a sewing workshop for grown-ups.

  Mary Lou Willet’s mind had once been sharp and clear. People had said she had an unusually good memory. Long ago, when she was a little girl, her second-grade teacher had told her mother that Mary Lou had a mind like a steel trap. Mrs. Willet was nearly seventy-nine now and her memory was fuzzy and fading. Worse, many everyday things no longer made sense to her.

  “How strange,” she would say when a tray of food was placed before her on the dining table.

  “How strange,” she would s
ay when the television in the lounge was turned on and a performer began to sing.

  “How strange,” she would say when that man who might be her husband came to visit and brought with him news from a place he called Aiken Avenue.

  It was because Mary Lou’s mind had begun to fail that Bill Willet, her husband, had finally made the decision to move her to Three Oaks, a continuing care retirement community featuring apartments for people who could live independently, rooms for people who needed nursing or special care, and a wing for people with Alzheimer’s — people such as Mary Lou Willet, whose mind now took alarming turns down unfamiliar pathways and retrieved distorted information for her. “How strange.”

  Bill Willet felt remarkably lucky to have secured a room for Mary Lou at Three Oaks so quickly.

  It was because of the Willets that Nikki Sherman knew of the good reputation of Three Oaks. So when Mrs. Sherman returned from work one evening and announced that she had applied for a job as the dining supervisor there, Nikki was pleased.

  “It’s a big job,” Mrs. Sherman added, “a full-time job.”

  “What you’ve been looking for!” exclaimed Mae, who was listening from her place at the kitchen table.

  Mrs. Sherman smiled. “Yes, it is. It would mean a lot of changes for us, though. I’d have to leave every morning before eight, and I wouldn’t get home until after six in the evening. And sometimes I’d have to work on weekends or holidays.” (Nikki wrinkled her nose.) “On the other hand,” Mrs. Sherman continued, “the salary is great. More money than I earn at my part-time jobs put together.”

  “Would we be rich?” asked Mae rapturously.

  “No. But we’d be in much better shape.”

  “When will you find out if you have the job?” Tobias wanted to know.

  “Next Friday. I was asked to come in for an interview — I went on my lunch break today — and the woman I talked with said she’d have an answer next Friday.”

  Today was that Friday, and Nikki’s nerves were in a tangle as she waited for her mother to return at the end of the day with news.

  “What if she doesn’t have any news?” Nikki said peevishly to Tobias at breakfast. “What if the woman at Three Oaks hasn’t made up her mind after all?”

  Tobias shrugged. “Then we wait a little longer.”

  “I don’t see how you can be so calm about this…. I’m going to call Mom this afternoon to see if she’s heard anything.”

  “At the restaurant? Don’t call her there,” said Tobias. “Really, don’t. You know how they are about personal phone calls. And if Mom doesn’t get the new job, then she’s going to want to hold on to her old ones.”

  Nikki sighed. “Won’t it be great not to have to worry about money all the time?”

  “Yup. And I won’t have to worry about you and Mom and Mae so much.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Nikki.

  “When I’m away at school. I mean, if I go away.”

  “Tobias! Did you decide to go?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because I’m still thinking about it. But … I guess I know what I’m going to do. I just haven’t done it yet.”

  “Wow,” said Nikki. “College. I’ve dreamed about it since I was Mae’s age. And now you’re going to get to go. You are so lucky.”

  “I know. But you’ll go, too, Nikki. You’re a much better student than I am. Talented, too. You have your art. You’ll get a scholarship for sure.”

  “I can’t believe you’ll be leaving. Mom and Mae and I will be here by ourselves. That’ll be weird. Just the three of us.”

  “I know.”

  “I won’t be scared, though,” said Nikki, who, even as she spoke the words, was thinking that she might in fact be quite scared. “Bad things don’t usually happen in Camden Falls.”

  “Well, don’t get … what’s the word?”

  “Complacent?” suggested Nikki.

  “See?” said her brother. “I’m the one going to college, and you’re the one who knows words like complacent. Trust me, seven years from now, you’ll be off to college, too. It will happen somehow. The old bat — I mean, Mrs. DuVane — will help you.” Mrs. DuVane, a wealthy acquaintance of Nikki’s mother, had years earlier, in a blunt and tactless way, taken on the Shermans as what had felt to Nikki and her family like something of a charity project. But over time, she had softened, and Nikki had been grateful for her many kindnesses.

  “By then we might not need Mrs. DuVane anymore,” said Nikki. “Won’t need her money, anyway. If Mom gets the job, we could be on our feet seven years from now.” She sighed. “Seven years. That sounds like such a long time. Imagine me, going to college. I’ll be practically an adult by then.”

  “Are you saying I’m not an adult yet?” asked Tobias.

  Nikki laughed. “No. You’re an adult.”

  “Getting back to being complacent, though … Seriously, Nikki, I know this is Camden Falls and all, but when I’m gone, you and Mom and Mae have to be careful about locking the house at night —”

  “You mean, because we’ll be three girls alone way out in the country?”

  “Nikki.”

  “We’re going to be careful. I promise.”

  “You’d better be. Because if you’re not, I’m going to come home from school.”

  “Tobias, we can take care of ourselves.”

  “I know you can.”

  When Nikki imagined lying in her bed, though, in the darkened Sherman house, her brother miles and miles away, she felt an uncomfortable hollowness in her chest, the same hollowness she used to feel sitting alone on the school bus, separated from her laughing classmates by both inches and miles.

  Nikki spent the long, lazy afternoon by herself, waiting for her mother to come home. Tobias had left for his part-time job and Mae was at day care. Nikki was unaccustomed to so much time alone. She took her copy of Roll of Thunder onto the stoop, squatted down, and leaned against the wall of her house, stretching her skinny legs in front of her. Paw-Paw joined her, curling onto his side and pressing his back hotly against Nikki’s bare leg. Nikki couldn’t bring herself to move him.

  She opened the book. She had stopped reading the night before at the end of Chapter Nine, a very exciting point in the story. Nikki hadn’t wanted to stop, but the book had kept slipping from her hands, and she had finally realized that, exciting as the story was, she had read the last paragraph three or four times. Reluctantly, she had turned off her reading lamp. Now she turned to the tenth chapter, marked with a piece of cream-colored cardboard on which Mae had written vertically, NIKKI/SISTER/BEST FREIND. The bookmark had been Mae’s birthday present to Nikki.

  Nikki read. And read and read. She reached the last sentences of the book: I cried for T.J. For T.J. and the land.

  Nikki felt her own tears falling, and Paw-Paw looked up at her in alarm, then struggled to his feet and licked Nikki’s face.

  “It’s okay, Paw-Paw,” said Nikki.

  She sat motionless on the stoop and thought about what Flora had said the other day — that it wasn’t okay to hate anyone. But Nikki had very strong negative feelings about quite a few characters in the book, Lillian Jean, for instance, and Mr. Granger, and about what they felt they could do to Cassie simply because she was black.

  “There are a lot of hateful people in the world,” Nikki said to Paw-Paw. “People who are full of hate, I mean.” And maybe that was why, Nikki reflected, Flora had said it wasn’t okay to hate people — because then you became one of the hateful ones.

  It was all very complicated. Nikki was grateful that soon she would be able to discuss the book with her friends. She had a lot to say about it.

  Nikki went into the kitchen, placed Roll of Thunder reverently on the table, and got a drink of water. She returned to the porch and stood for a few moments in the hot silence of the July afternoon, regarding the sky, regarding the dusty earth, regarding the pinpricks of light in the distance, s
unshine reflecting off cars on the county road.

  Her mind strayed from the complications of Cassie Logan’s story to something simpler and much safer. “Paw-Paw,” said Nikki, turning around and finding him sprawled on his back, tail sweeping the porch, “I’m going to make you a costume for Halloween this year.” Paw-Paw, who had the patience of a saint, according to Mrs. Sherman, had allowed Nikki and Mae to dress him, variously, as Santa Claws, a princess, a cat, and even Baby New Year.

  Nikki spent the next hour trying various articles of clothing on Paw-Paw, who remained sleepy throughout the ordeal. Her thoughts swarmed dizzily like bees around their hive. She imagined Paw-Paw going trick-or-treating with her and Mae in town. She thought of Cassie Logan on her long walk to the Great Faith Elementary and Secondary School with her brothers. She wondered, briefly, where her father was. She thought that perhaps Camden Falls should hold a costume parade for dogs in the fall.

  When at last Nikki heard the sound of her mother’s car in the lane, she jumped off the stoop, abandoning Paw-Paw, who was wearing a T-shirt and two pairs of lace-edged socks.

  “Did you get the job? Did you get it?” called Nikki, running into the yard.

  Mrs. Sherman climbed out of the car. She was grinning and carrying a bag of takeout food. Before she could answer, Mae burst from the backseat of the car and cried, “Mommy got the big job!”

  “I knew it! I knew you would!” Nikki threw her arms around her mother.

  “I called Three Oaks from work this afternoon,” said Mrs. Sherman. “I got the good news, hung up the phone, and quit both my jobs.”

  Nikki stooped to Mae’s level and whispered in her ear, “Come upstairs with me. I have an idea.”

  That night when the Shermans sat down to their meal of takeout food — a luxury on which they rarely splurged — Mrs. Sherman wore a badge made from pink construction paper proclaiming her a Very Important Person.

  One Saturday night, several months before the start of this summer that was changing Olivia in subtle but noticeable ways, Olivia, Flora, Nikki, and Ruby had had a sleepover at Min’s house. In the wee hours of the morning, as the girls were starting to fall asleep, Ruby had said, “If you guys could each have just one wish, what would it be?”