Dear Pen Pal

  I nod. I still can’t believe how young and pretty Mrs. Crandall is. Somehow I’d thought of a housemother as somebody a lot older, with gray hair up in a bun like Mrs. Lippett, the stern head of the orphanage in Daddy-Long-Legs. But Mrs. Crandall’s hair is brown, like mine. It’s curly like mine too, but she wears hers shoulder-length. Looking at it, I wonder if maybe I should grow mine out.

  Jess finally shows up, and after changing out of her riding clothes into clean jeans and a sweatshirt, she walks with me over to Hubbard Street to get Cassidy and Mrs. Sloane. I mean Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid. I’m still adjusting to her new name. Cassidy and her family live in this cool old Victorian house, and there’s a light on in the turret, which probably means Cassidy is up there. It’s her favorite hangout.

  “Is Cassidy ready?” I ask, when Courtney answers the door.

  “She’ll be down in a minute,” she replies. Courtney is Cassidy’s older sister. She’s a senior in high school this year and looks just like her mother, with the same long straight blond hair and huge blue eyes. Cassidy, on the other hand, with her red hair and gray eyes and freckles, looks like a stray that they picked up somewhere. Or an orphan. But she’s not—she just takes after her dad. Her real dad, not Stanley Kinkaid.

  “Hurry up, Cassidy!” Jess yells up the stairs. “It’s book club time!”

  “Shhhh,” Courtney shushes her. “My mother’s napping.”

  “Isn’t she coming tonight?” I ask, disappointed. Book club won’t be the same without Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid.

  “Yeah, but she’s going to be a little late. She asked me to see if you guys would mind taking over a few of the leftover pies.”

  “Sure,” Jess replies. “No problem.”

  I don’t tell Courtney that with the way my luck is going today, I’ll probably drop them.

  We follow her down the hall to the kitchen. Mrs. Sloane—I mean Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid; am I ever going to get that straight?—did some remodeling before her TV show started this season, and they have this big professional refrigerator now with glass doors. Jess and I peer longingly at the row of pies on the middle shelf.

  “I’m starving,” says Jess.

  “Me too,” I add, feeling hungry for the first time all day.

  While Courtney packs up the pies, I browse through the stack of college catalogs that are piled on the kitchen counter. “Have you decided yet where you want to apply?”

  “UCLA is my top choice,” Courtney replies. “I really miss California.”

  The Sloanes moved out here to New England from Laguna Beach a couple of years ago, after Cassidy and Courtney’s dad died. I fish the UCLA catalog out of the stack and leaf through it. They have a lot of writing classes. Maybe I’ll think about going there someday.

  “Cassidy will miss you if you go all the way to California,” says Jess.

  Courtney laughs. “I’m not so sure about that,” she replies. “She’ll probably be glad to get me out of her hair.”

  Cassidy and her sister argue a lot, but I think Jess is right. Darcy’s a pretty good big brother, but if I had a big sister, I’d want her to be just like Courtney.

  Cassidy finally slumps into the kitchen. She doesn’t say a word in reply to our greetings, just plucks a jacket off one of the pegs in the mudroom and pulls it on. I guess she’s having a bad day too.

  “Tell Mrs. Chadwick that Mom will be over soon, okay?” Courtney says, loading us up with bags of pies and shooing us out the back door.

  It’s dark outside, and chilly now, with Halloween only a few weeks away. Normally, Cassidy’s mother would have the house all decked out for the holiday, but I don’t see even a single pumpkin on the steps. Weird.

  The three of us walk as fast as we can without endangering our cargo, cutting over on Walden to Main Street, and from there to Monument Square. Becca and Stewart live on Lowell Road, just past the Colonial Inn. Cassidy’s still really quiet, but Jess and I chatter away, and we’re breathless by the time we reach the Chadwick’s house.

  “There you are, girls!” says Mrs. Chadwick. “We were beginning to worry that you weren’t coming.” She peers past us into the darkness. “Where’s Clementine?”

  “Mom will be over in a little while,” Cassidy tells her. “She’s napping.”

  Mrs. Chadwick frowns, then crosses to the foot of the stairs.

  “Check out her earrings,” Jess whispers.

  “How could I miss them?” I whisper back. Dangling from Mrs. Chadwick’s ears are a pair of tiny monkeys eating peeled bananas, and every step she takes sets them swaying vigorously.

  I overheard my mom and dad talking about Mrs. Chadwick recently, and my dad said something about a “midlife crisis.” I don’t know exactly what that entails, but I wonder if it involves jungle prints and exotic earrings.

  “Rebecca!” Mrs. Chadwick bellows. She hasn’t gotten the “it’s a whole new me” thing down pat yet in the voice department. “Your friends are here!”

  Becca clatters downstairs a moment later, followed by Stewart and Yo-Yo, the Chadwick family’s big, friendly Labradoodle. Yo-Yo makes a beeline for the bags of pies we’re carrying.

  “Down, boy!” says Stewart, grabbing his collar. He tosses me a smile, and for the first time all day I start feeling like maybe the world isn’t such a terrible place. I smile back at him.

  “What’s in the bags?” Becca asks.

  “Pies,” Jess tells her.

  Mrs. Chadwick looks at us suspiciously over the top of her leopard-print glasses. “Pies?”

  “Leftovers from Cooking with Clementine,” Cassidy explains, still sounding grumpy.

  Mrs. Chadwick purses her lips. “I already have our meal planned. Pie is not on the menu.”

  “Oh, come on, Calliope, you can never have too much dessert,” says Jess’s mom, opening the front door behind us and letting herself in. Mrs. Wong and Megan are right behind her. “There’s always room for pie.” She gives Jess a hug and a kiss. “Hi, honey! How’s your week going?”

  Mrs. Chadwick still looks annoyed. “Well, put them on the counter in the kitchen out of Yo-Yo’s reach. And Stewart, put Yo-Yo in the basement before he gets into something. I don’t trust him around food.”

  “I don’t trust me around food either,” Jess whispers as Stewart coaxes Yo-Yo away from the grocery bags. “I can’t believe how hungry horseback riding makes me.”

  “What’s for dinner?” I ask Becca.

  Becca gets the same look on her face she had earlier at our editorial meeting. Her eyes slide away from mine. “You’ll see.”

  Uh-oh, I think. This doesn’t sound promising.

  Mr. Chadwick appears and builds a fire for us in the living room, then disappears again. Dads usually tend to make themselves scarce when it’s book club time. “A little too much female energy,” my father says. We gather around the hearth to wait for Cassidy’s mother. The Chadwicks’ house is kind of stuffy and formal—Mrs. Chadwick really likes antiques—but the flicker of flames in the fireplace helps make it a little cozier. A few minutes later the doorbell rings.

  “Sorry I’m late,” says Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid.

  Mrs. Chadwick takes her coat, then nods at Becca. “If you’ll excuse Rebecca and me, we need to leave you for a few minutes,” she says. “Stewart? Will you take over as host?”

  As Becca and her mother vanish upstairs, Stewart leads us out of the living room and across the hall. “Welcome to the John Grier Home!” he announces, not sounding too happy about it. He slides open the pocket doors to the dining room.

  We all stand there, openmouthed. The Chadwicks’ formal dining room is barely recognizable. The walls have been stripped of the paintings that usually hang on them, and there’s not a curtain in sight, just a big paper banner over the windows that reads JOHN GRIER HOME. The table is completely bare except for a metal cup, bowl, and spoon at each place, along with a blue gingham napkin.

  “Are those Boy Scout mess kits?” asks Mrs. Wong, looking closely at the place settings.

/>   “Mom had me borrow a bunch from my friends,” Stewart replies. “She said something about them being like the tin plates they used at the orphanage in the book you’re reading.”

  “What is your mother up to?” I whisper to him.

  “She made me promise not to tell,” he whispers back.

  Megan and Jess exchange a worried look.

  “I thought it would be fun to do a theme night,” says Mrs. Chadwick from behind us. We turn around to see her standing there in a shapeless gray dress. Her hair is gray and shapeless too. She’s wearing a wig, its locks piled up in a bun. She forgot about her earrings, though, and the monkeys swing mischievously with every turn of her head, undermining the stern effect. “You may call me Mrs. Lippett, and you are all my charges.”

  “Very clever, Calliope,” says my mother, but I don’t think it’s clever at all, especially when I think about what the orphans at the John Grier Home actually ate.

  “Rebecca!” Mrs. Chadwick trumpets once we’re seated. “We’re ready!”

  Becca skulks in through the doorway. She’s wearing a blue gingham dress and carrying a tray with a pitcher on it and a big metal bowl.

  “Ah,” says Mrs. Delaney. “The orphanage uniform. Of course.”

  Mrs. Chadwick beams proudly.

  Becca moves around the table, filling our tin cups with water and ladling spoonfuls of something that looks like pale yellow oatmeal into each of our bowl.

  “Dig in, everyone!” says Mrs. Chadwick. “It’s cornmeal mush.”

  Across from me, Cassidy’s mother spoons up a bite, turns pale, and excuses herself hastily. Cassidy watches her go, a peculiar expression on her face.

  “Did orphans really eat this stuff?” asks Jess, prodding at the glop with her spoon.

  “Well, in Jean Webster’s books they did,” says Mrs. Chadwick, sounding defensive. She looks over at Becca, whose face is aflame with embarrassment. Now I understand why she was so huffy at our editorial meeting this afternoon. This is almost as humiliating as my speech.

  “I thought that by serving what the orphans might have eaten, you girls would gain a better understanding of those less fortunate than you are,” Mrs. Chadwick continues stiffly. “It might interest you to know that the money I would have ordinarily spent on dinner I’ve set aside to donate to a charitable cause.”

  Mrs. Wong brightens at this, naturally. “What a wonderful idea, Calliope!”

  “Are there orphans in Concord?” asks Megan. “Maybe we can give them the money.”

  “I don’t think so, although there is a family shelter I’m sure could use some help,” my mother tells her. “These days there aren’t many orphanages, as every effort is made to place children in need with foster families. The orphanages that do still exist are nothing at all like the grim institutions they used to be.”

  “Maybe we could donate some to the Concord Animal Shelter, too,” Jess suggests. “That’s sort of like an orphanage. I mean, people drop off kittens and puppies and hope that they’ll be able to find a good home.”

  “That’s a nice idea,” Mrs. Wong says, and everyone nods, even Mrs. Chadwick.

  I look at my mother hopefully. “Don’t you just hate the thought of orphan animals?”

  “Yes, Emma, and no, Emma, you may not have a puppy,” she replies automatically.

  I’ve been wanting a dog for as long as I can remember, and my parents have said no for just as long.

  Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid returns to the table and takes her seat while the rest of us poke dolefully at our bowls.

  “Perhaps it’s time for dessert,” suggests Mrs. Delaney. “What do you think, Calliope?”

  “I don’t recall the orphans in Daddy-Long-Legs ever eating pie,” says Mrs. Chadwick with a wounded sniff. She looks around the table at our hopeful faces. “Oh, very well, if you all feel that strongly about it,” she says crossly, throwing down her gingham napkin and sounding more like her old waspish self. She excuses herself and trundles off, the monkeys and their bananas bobbing indignantly.

  “How about we all sneak out for pizza later?” Mrs. Delaney whispers, when she’s out of earshot. “My treat.” She puts her arm around Becca’s shoulders and gives her a squeeze. “No offense to your mom, of course. Her heart is in the right place.”

  Becca doesn’t answer.

  “It could be worse,” Jess tells her. “You weren’t at the first book club meeting at my house. My dad tried to get us to wear lilac crowns and do the dance of the maypole maidens.”

  The corners of Becca’s mouth quirk up. “Really?”

  “Really,” says Jess, and we all start to laugh, remembering. We’re still laughing when Mrs. Chadwick returns with the pies.

  “What’s so funny?” she demands suspiciously.

  “Nothing,” says my mother. “Just a happy memory. What do you think about dessert in front of the fire, Calliope—I mean, Mrs. Lippett? Don’t our orphans deserve a little warmth?”

  “And can I please take this stupid dress off now, Mom?” asks Becca.

  Her mother sighs. “Oh, why not,” she says. “We’ve abandoned everything else.”

  Mrs. Chadwick is still sulking as my mother passes around our monthly handouts.

  FUN FACTS ABOUT JEAN

  1) Jean Webster was born July 24, 1876, in Fredonia, New York, and christened Alice Jane Chandler Webster.

  2) Her great-uncle was Mark Twain, author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. A big fan of cigars, Twain was “the smokiest man I’d ever met,” Jean would later recall. She also told an interviewer, “I am not sure that my grand-uncle’s fame as an author was really a spur to my own ambition. As a child I was always trying to write something even before I had a very clear idea of what the word ‘author’ meant.”

  3) While attending Lady Jane Grey boarding school in Binghamton, New York, Webster changed her name to Jean to avoid confusion with her roommate, who was also named Alice.

  “Hey look,” I point out. “Jean changed her name at school, just like Jerusha changed hers to Judy in Daddy-Long-Legs.”

  “A lot of authors get ideas for their stories from real life,” says my mother.

  I remember the name “Zelda Malone” on the slip of paper in my father’s office, and wonder if the novel he’s working on is based on any real people. He’s been really secretive about his book, and it’s driving my mother nuts.

  Megan puts her page into her binder. “I’ll bet Jean Webster knew someone like Savannah when she was at school,” she says. “Don’t you think she’d have to, to invent a snooty roommate like Julia Pendleton for Judy Abbott?”

  “Interesting point, Megan,” says my mother.

  “Maybe we should start calling Savannah ‘Julia,’” Megan adds, and Cassidy and Jess and I all snicker. Becca gets kind of quiet, though, and Mrs. Chadwick frowns and opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but takes a bite of pie instead.

  “At least Judy had Sallie McBride, too,” I note. “If I ever have a roommate I want one just like her.”

  We talk about the characters in the story for a while, and agree that Judy Abbott is a kindred spirit, just like Anne Shirley was last year. We talk about how much we like her, and how much we can’t stand Julia Pendleton and her obsession with her superior family tree.

  “I love what Judy wrote about Julia’s family coming over in the ark,” I say, “and her father’s side dating back further than Adam.”

  “That’s just like Savannah!” Jess exclaims, and Mrs. Chadwick gets a funny look on her face again.

  “So what was your favorite part of the book so far, girls?” Mrs. Hawthorne asks us.

  Before I can stop it, my hand shoots up.

  “Emma!” everybody choruses.

  I snatch my hand down again. “I can’t help it,” I tell them, and it’s true. Our third year of book club, and I still can’t break the habit.

  Becca smirks at me, and I squelch a sudden urge to throw my plate of pie at her. Once a Chadwick, always a Chadwick, I
think, and then I feel guilty because Stewart is a Chadwick too.

  “So what was it you were going to say, sweetheart?” my mother asks.

  “Oh, just that I really liked this part.” I open my book and start to read: “‘You can’t know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor-box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others.’”

  Jess gives me a sympathetic smile, but my mother looks puzzled. Doesn’t she remember making me wear all those clothes from Nicole Patterson? The only good thing about having to wear school uniforms is that now I don’t get stuck with all her hand-me-downs. My eyes flick over to Becca, who’s looking a little sheepish. She should. She knows exactly what I’m talking about, because she’s the one who used to tease me about wearing Nicole’s cast-offs.

  “So who else has some comments about the book so far?” my mother asks.

  The room is quiet. I look around at my friends. Jess is fiddling with the carpet. Cassidy is suddenly very intent on her pie. And Megan and Becca are trying not to look at each other.

  “Wait a minute, didn’t you guys do the rest of the reading?” I say in disbelief.

  “I’ve been really, really busy,” Jess says. “You don’t know how tough some of my classes are. Plus, there’s Savannah to deal with. . . .” Her voice trails off.

  “I tried, but I’m getting behind in math now that Jess is gone,” says Cassidy. “I almost flunked the last test, even after Kevin tried to explain it to me. Plus, I had to write to my pen pal.” She looks at her mother accusingly.

  It’s been a really long, horrible day, and thanks to Mrs. Chadwick’s stupid theme night idea, I’m still hungry. “How are we supposed to have a book club if nobody does the reading?”

  “Emma,” my mother chides. “It’s not that big a deal. Sometimes people get busy. We can all catch up next month.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t even have a book club!” I continue, my voice rising. “What’s the point? Everybody’s off doing other stuff these days anyway.”

  I try not to look at Jess, but I can’t help it. She looks back at me, stricken. She should have been there this morning, when I crashed and burned. That’s what best friends are for. And instead, she’s off at her new school with Adele and Frankie and all her other new friends. I don’t care if she’s stuck with a Julia Pendleton clone for a roommate, and I don’t care about the stupid scholarship. It’s no excuse.