The Mother-Daughter Book Club

  I leap out from behind the tombstone, holding the flashlight under my chin and shining it on the white goalie mask that covers my face. The Fab Four’s screams split the air, and this time there’s real fear in their voices. I lunge at Megan and she drops Zach’s arm and takes off running. Becca and Ashley and Jen are right behind her, hanging onto one another for dear life as they skid down the steep path. I chase them all the way to the cemetery entrance, then double back.

  Zach and Ethan and Third are collapsed on the ground, howling.

  “Cassidy, you rule!” gasps Third. “That was awesome!”

  I nod smugly. For the first time since we moved to Concord, I feel really, truly happy. Dad would have loved this. I untape the jack-o’-lantern from my hockey stick. As I do so, it blinks again and chuckles.

  The boys stagger to their feet. I shine my flashlight around, looking for Emma and Jess. The beam bounces off Emma’s glasses and highlights Jess’s wild white wig.

  “Hey!” crows Ethan. “I didn’t know that Hawthorne the Heifer and Goat Girl were here!”

  “Shut up, MacDonald,” says Zach. He reaches over and slaps Emma and Jess both a high five.

  Even though it’s pitch-black, I can tell that Emma is blushing. I smile. “Enough with the tricks,” I say. “Let’s go get some treats.”

  And as we head back to town, I can’t resist doing a little victory dance. Final score: Cassidy-1; Fab Four-0.

  Jess

  “November is the most disagreeable month in the whole year …”

  “Why not, Jess? You’d be perfect for the part!”

  The skating rink is cold, and I wrap my fleece jacket tighter around me. “Quit bugging me, Emma. The answer is no.”

  “I’ll help you learn your lines,” she coaxes, thrusting the script under my nose.

  I shake my head. Emma sighs. “C’mon, Jess, you’ve got to at least think about it. You’ve got such a great voice!”

  I stare out at the ice. Doesn’t Emma get it? My mother ran away from home last summer to be an actress. The last thing I want to do is try out for the middle school musical.

  “They should be starting soon,” I say, trying to distract her. Emma is like a dog with a bone when she gets an idea in her head.

  Emma turns to look at the cluster of skaters at the far end of the rink Today is tryouts for the Concord Comets, the middle school boys’ hockey team, and there are about a zillion hopefuls warming up, including Emma’s brother Darcy, Darcy’s best friend Kyle Anderson, and Third.

  “Well, if it isn’t the little women.”

  We turn around to see Becca and Ashley and Jen sliding into the seats behind us. Becca eyes Emma’s winter jacket. “Another Nicole Patterson original?”

  Emma reddens.

  I scowl at Becca and her wannabees. I hate it when they pick on Emma. She can’t help it if her family’s on a tight budget.

  The three of them just laugh. Emma and I turn our attention back to the rink and try and ignore them.

  Out on the ice, the coach blows his whistle and divides the boys into four groups.

  “He’s going to put them through some drills,” Emma explains. I’ve been to a few games, but I don’t know anything about hockey. Emma’s been watching her brother skate since she was still drinking out of a sippy cup.

  The coach blows his whistle again. The first group of skaters takes off down the ice.

  “Full speed!” the coach shouts. “Keep your heads up and stop at the blue line!”

  After all the skaters reach the line, the coach blows his whistle again and they sprint toward the next one.

  “Bend your knees!” hollers the coach, and so it continues on down the ice, group after group.

  I search the crowd for a skater in a blue-and-white jersey.

  “There,” whispers Emma, nudging me with her elbow. “With Third, in this next group.”

  Behind us, Becca and Ashley and Jen are cheering for Becca’s older brother, Stewart. We keep our eyes on the blue-and-white jersey, though, which streaks down the ice at the head of the pack, making each blue-line stop crisply and cleanly.

  Next, the coach sets up orange cones down the middle of the rink.

  “Glide turns,” says Emma, and we watch as one by one the skaters swoop down the rink, carving their way in and out of the cones.

  “Two hands on the stick!” the coach yells, startling Stewart Chadwick, who stumbles and trips over a cone and drops his stick completely.

  “How’s your brother doing?” a voice behind us booms.

  It’s Becca’s mother. She’s carrying a tray from the concession stand loaded with sodas and a jumbo popcorn. Megan Wong is with her.

  “Fabulous, Mom,” Becca replies.

  “Actually, he’s terrible,” Emma whispers to me, and we both giggle.

  Mrs. Chadwick maneuvers her massive behind into a seat and glares at us. “You two troublemakers again. I’ve got my eye on you.”

  Ever since Halloween, Mrs. Chadwick has been on the warpath. The Fab Four were practically in hysterics by the time they got back to the Sloanes’ house from Sleepy Hollow, and, unfortunately, Cassidy’s white hockey mask was a dead giveaway and she got caught. Mrs. Sloane grounded her for a month for pulling the prank. Cassidy didn’t rat Emma and me out, and we certainly didn’t offer any information, but still, Mrs. Chadwick is suspicious.

  After glide turns the skaters are paired up, two playing offense and two playing defense. At the whistle the offensive players race for the net, trying to get past the defense and score. Darcy and Kyle easily dodge Stewart Chadwick and some other player I don’t recognize, whipping the puck back and forth between them until Darcy takes a shot and scores.

  “Walk in the park,” says Emma. She stands up and shouts, “Way to go, Darcy!”

  “You’re blocking my view!” snaps Mrs. Chadwick.

  Looking flustered, Emma sits down. But it’s not Becca’s mother who’s got her rattled. A few rows ahead of us, Zach Norton and Ethan MacDonald slide into a pair of seats to watch.

  The whistle blows again and the blue-and-white jersey streaks down the ice, skips nimbly past the line of defense, zips toward the goal, and scores.

  The coach makes a mark on his checkboard. “You! Number 77! Over there!” he yells, pointing to the skaters clustered to the left of the goal. I spot Darcy, Kyle, and Third amongst them. Stewart Chadwick is grouped with the players on the right.

  Emma leans in close and whispers in my ear, “She just made the first cut.”

  The skater in the blue-and-white jersey is Cassidy Sloane. Not that anyone could tell just by looking. With their helmets and mouth guards and everything, everyone looks alike.

  “Do you think Zach will guess?” Emma asks.

  I give her a sidelong glance. Emma’s voice goes all soft and mushy when she says Zach’s name, and her face gets red whenever he’s around. Just like it is now. Emma thinks she’s got everybody fooled, but I know she likes Zach Norton.

  I’ve never told anyone who I like. Not even my mom, and I tell her everything. Or I used to, before she ran away from home. That’s what we call it, my dad and me. He says she’ll be back, that she’s just trying to figure life out, but I’m not so sure. I try not to think about the D word, but I can’t help it. That’s D as in Divorce, of course.

  I watch Cassidy swoop down the ice again as the coach puts the players through more drills, and I remind myself that things could be worse. It could be D as in Death instead. Cassidy never mentions her dad, but Emma and I overheard Emma’s parents talking about him last spring when the Sloanes first moved to town. “A tragic car accident,” they called it.

  “Emma, your brother was team captain last year, right?” Mrs. Chadwick demands suddenly.

  Emma jumps, then nods in response.

  “Why isn’t my son standing with him and those other boys?”

  I lean in close to Emma. “Maybe because he stinks at hockey,” I whisper.

  Emma kicks me, trying not to laugh
. “Um, I’m not sure,” she replies.

  Becca’s mother looks at us, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “I’m going to talk to the coach,” she informs the Fab Four. “Don’t eat all the popcorn.” And with that she lumbers off, her face a thunder-cloud.

  “Do you really think this is going to work?” I whisper to Emma.

  “I don’t see why not,” Emma whispers back. “Darcy’s right—Cassidy’s good. Really good. She’ll definitely make the team, but I don’t know whether she’ll get to stay once Coach Danner finds out. He’s kind of old-fashioned.”

  One glance at his crew cut had already told me that. “Maybe he won’t find out,” I say hopefully.

  “Whisper, whisper, whisper,” mocks Megan. “You two are full of secrets today, aren’t you?”

  We’re whispering because nobody knows Cassidy is trying out except me, Emma, and Darcy. Technically, Cassidy is still grounded, but we felt we owed it to her when she asked us to help. We figured it was the least we could do, since she covered for us on Halloween.

  “All you have to do is invite me over after school before the next book club meeting,” Cassidy told us. “I’ll tell my mother that you’re going to help tutor me in science”—Cassidy got a D on the last test—“and that we’re going to bake cookies for the book club meeting. I’m sure she’ll let me come.”

  It sounded simple enough, and we said okay because it wasn’t really a lie. Cassidy really did come home on the bus with us this afternoon to Emma’s house. And I really did help her with her science homework. She only stayed for a little while, though, before she got her bike and the hockey stuff she’d had Emma come by and get the day before, and took off for the rink. At the last minute, we had to let Darcy in on the secret, too, because Cassidy panicked when she realized she’d forgotten her helmet.

  “I can’t go home to get it!” she’d wailed. “My mother is there!”

  “Can’t go home to get what?” Darcy had said, walking in on the commotion. “Never mind, I think I know,” he’d added, as soon as he spotted Cassidy’s hockey uniform.

  We ended up telling him, and he was really cool about the whole thing, which he always is. Emma’s lucky to have such a nice brother. Darcy promised not to tell, and said Cassidy was one of the best skaters he’d ever seen and he wouldn’t mind having her on the team even if she was a girl. He even found an old helmet for her to wear, and he gave her some advice, to boot.

  “You’ve got to show Coach Danner what you’ve got right out of the starting gate,” he told her. “Don’t hold anything back. He doesn’t give second chances.”

  From the looks of it, Cassidy took Darcy’s advice, because now she’s standing with all the skaters who made the first cut. She glances over at us and Emma and I give her a thumbs-up. She waves her stick in response.

  “I know a secret too,” says Becca Chadwick.

  We turn around. All the color drains out of Emma’s face. Becca is holding her journal, the new one she got for book club. She must have taken it out of Emma’s backpack while we were watching Cassidy.

  “Oh, Za-ach!” Becca calls. “I’ve got something you need to hear!”

  “Give me that!” shrieks Emma, leaping up from her seat and snatching at the journal. Becca waves it over her head, just out of reach.

  “Defense!” orders Becca, and Megan and Ashley and Jen obediently close ranks between her and Emma.

  Zach and Ethan come up to see what all the commotion is about.

  “Becca, don’t,” Emma pleads. Her mouth is trembling and there are tears in her eyes. “Give it back!”

  Becca waves it again, taunting. “Who’s going to make me? Goat Girl?”

  “What’s going on?” says Zach.

  “Emma wrote a poem for you,” Becca informs him snarkily.

  Stricken, Emma turns and stares beseechingly at Megan. “Please, Megan, make her stop,” she begs.

  A flash of sympathy flickers across Megan’s face. “Maybe this isn’t such a hot idea, Becca,” she says.

  “Oh, that’s right,” says Becca coldly. “I forgot. You two are buddies again now that you’re in that precious book club.”

  Megan and Becca lock eyes. After a moment, Megan looks away. Becca opens the journal with a triumphant flourish. “‘Zach Attack,’ by Emma Hawthorne,” she announces, and Ashley and Jen start to snicker. So does Ethan. Megan looks uncomfortable, but she doesn’t say a word. Zach looks like he doesn’t know what to think. Emma looks like she’s going to faint. Becca starts to read.

  “Hair like summer sunshine.

  Eyes the color of the wind.

  A smile that makes my heart stop.

  Whenever he comes in.”

  “Oh, man,” mumbles Zach, his face flaming, “I don’t think I can listen to this.” He clamps his hands over his ears and stumbles back toward his seat.

  Ethan hoots with laughter. “Zach has a secret admirer—Hawthorne the Heifer!”

  “Wait!” shrieks Becca. “You didn’t hear the best part!” She yells out the rest of the verse. “‘My heart stops! Flip flops! Zach is back! Zach is back! And I’m having another Zach attack!’”

  The Fab Four howl, taking up the refrain. “I’m having another Zach attack!”

  “That’s enough,” says a cool voice.

  The Fab Four start guiltily. Mrs. Hawthorne is standing beside them. Ethan melts away. Mrs. Hawthorne holds out her hand. Without a word, Becca hands the journal to her. Mrs. Hawthorne gives her a reproachful look. “You know better, Rebecca Chadwick.” She turns to Megan. “And I’m surprised at you, too, Megan.”

  Megan looks at the floor.

  Sobbing, Emma hurls herself at her mother. Mrs. Hawthorne puts her arms around her. “Did I see your mother here, Becca?”

  Becca nods.

  “Go get her for me, would you, please? I need to have a word with her.”

  The Fab Four vanish, leaving me and Emma alone with her mother. Mrs. Hawthorne slips the journal into her daughter’s backpack.

  “Why don’t you wait for me in the car, honey,” she says, pulling a tissue out of her purse and dabbing at Emma’s eyes and tear-stained glasses. “Tryouts will be over soon and then we can go home.”

  “I can’t believe they’d do that!” Emma wails.

  “I know, honey,” says her mother, her voice gentle. “It was cruel and heartless and you didn’t deserve it.”

  “I’ve never been so humiliated in my entire life,” Emma sniffles. “I want to go home right now.”

  “I have to wait for Darcy,” her mother says.

  “We brought our bikes,” I tell Mrs. Hawthorne. “Maybe we could just ride home.”

  Mrs. Hawthorne nods, and Emma runs out of the rink.

  She’s already on her bike and pedaling like fury by the time I get to mine. I don’t catch up with her until we reach the library. Emma zips across Main Street and heads for the shortcut to Lowell Road, just past Colonial Academy. I follow, burrowing my chin in my jacket against the sharp November wind.

  “I hate Becca Chadwick’s guts!” Emma shouts, the wind whipping her words back to me. “Ethan’s, too! And I’ll never forgive Megan as long as I live!”

  She skids to a stop in front of her house, abandons her bike on the lawn, and dashes into the house. I’m right behind her.

  “Hey, girls!” Mr. Hawthorne calls as he hears us come in. He pokes his head out of his study. Emma rushes past and pelts up the stairs to her room.

  “Everything okay?” asks her father, frowning.

  “Um, not exactly,” I tell him, explaining what happened.

  He goes upstairs after Emma. I head to the kitchen. The clock on the wall ticks softly as I rummage for butter and eggs and all the other ingredients we need for making cookies. Then I settle in at the kitchen table with my homework.

  I love the Hawthornes’ kitchen. Emma’s mother painted it pink, and it’s always cheerful, even on a cold gray afternoon like this one. There are a handful of places on earth where I feel completely
safe, and the Hawthornes’ kitchen is one of them. Our barn at home is another.

  Melville, the Hawthornes’ orange tiger cat, comes in to see what we’re up to. He twines himself around my legs, then hops up into my lap.

  “Hey, Mel,” I say softly, scratching him under the chin. “How’s it going?”

  Mel sniffs my jeans cautiously. He probably smells Sugar, and maybe our horses and goats, too. I overslept this morning and didn’t have time to change after chores. I tickle him with the end of my braid and he swats at it playfully, then starts to knead my leg, purring as he snuggles down for a nap.

  Melville likes me. Most animals do. In fact, I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d like to be a veterinarian when I grow up. Animals are a lot less complicated than people. Especially dogs. Dogs love you, and that’s that. They don’t betray their friends, and they’d never do something low-down like reading your journal aloud in public. Dogs never leave the people they love. Dogs don’t run off to New York to be actors.

  Emma finally reappears. Her eyes are still red, but she’s washed her face and is looking calmer.

  “Did you finish the assignment for book club?” she asks me.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t quite finish chapter 10. I’ve read it before, but it was ages ago and I can’t remember what happens. Do you think you could read it out loud while I start the cookies?”

  “Sure,” I reply. I nudge Melville gently off my lap and pull Little Women out of my backpack. Across the kitchen, Emma starts to measure and sift and pour.

  “Which March sister do you like best?” she asks me as I flip through the pages.

  “Jo, of course,” I reply.

  “Me, too,” says Emma. She cracks one egg into the dough, then another. Emma is a really good cook, just like her dad. And just like him, she’s a good writer, too. That “Zach Attack” poem was pretty good. I loved the line, “Eyes the color of the wind.” Not that I’d ever bring it up.