a long time.
After working in the hot greenhouse for more than an hour, I’m happy to take a break. We sit on the back porch of Blake’s house. Me in an Adirondack
chair overlooking the pond, Blake and Tally squished on the glider.
“So how come you don’t have seventeen pets?” I ask Blake. Tally has been going on and on about this new kitten at the ARK. I’m just not sure my cat,
Oscar, is ready for a sibling.
“Allergies,” Blake says. “I have to take an antihistamine to get within a hundred feet of Tal’s house.” He kicks the ground and the glider starts to move.
“Of course I’m allergic to everything. Animals, peanuts . . . you name it.” As if on cue, he sneezes. He smiles at me. “Living in the country is rough when you
have allergies.” He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket—one of those blue ones you always see on cowboys—and blows his nose. “What was it like
living in Manhattan?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I guess it was like living anywhere else.” Blake takes a bite of his tomato, eati ng it like an apple. He swears it’s good.
“Yeah, except there’s actually things to do there,” Tally says. She pulls her knees up, hooking her heels on the edge of the glider. “There we could be
going to museums and bookstores and sitting around in cafés.” She sounds wistful, and it makes me miss the City for a moment. “Here, we have what?
Picking tomatoes.” Tally leans into Blake with her shoulder. “No offense.” Blake smiles at her with tomato in his mouth, making Tally wrinkle her nose.
“Do you miss it?” Blake asks me.
I nod and look at Tally, but she’s rubbing at the toe of her sneaker, trying to make a tomato stain go away. “Some things,” I say.
“Your friends?” Tally asks. She doesn’t look up when she talks—just keeps rubbing the toe of her sneaker.
I haven’t been in contact with anyone that much. I want to be, but I’m afraid that if I tell my old friends about my new friends, they might make fun of them.
They wouldn’t understand it if I told them I picked tomatoes and had fun doing it. “It’s mostly my dad I miss.” I feel like a jerk as soon as the words are out
of my mouth. After what Tally told me, I have no right to whine.
Before I can think of something to say to make it better, Tally looks up at me. “It’s hard,” she says sympathetically, and I just nod.
“Know what else is hard?” Blake asks. We both look at him. “Listening to you two sometimes.”
“What do you mean?” Tally asks.
“Girls are so dumb.” Tally squints at him threateningly, but he continues. “With guys it’s simple. When I hang out with my friends, we just chill. You two are
all with the ‘Oh, I wonder if so-and-so likes me.’ ” Blake makes his voice high when he says it.
“Is that supposed to be me?” Tally asks.
“Yes, you.” Then he points at me. “And Penny. All of your kind.”
“Are you as offended as I am?” she asks me, pretending to be insulted. I nod.
“I’m going to end this thing,” Blake says. “Tally, do you take Penny to be your friend?” She looks at me and says, “I do.”
“Penny, do you take Tally to be your friend?”
“I do, too.” A tiny spark glows inside of me, one that I didn’t even know had gone out.
“I now pronounce you two friends,” Blake says. He kicks the ground to make their glider swing. “Now can we please talk about something more
interesting?”
“What could possibly be more interesting than our friendship ceremony?” Tally asks.
“Anything,” he says. “As long as we don’t have to talk about how we feel about it.” Blake takes another bite of tomato and then throws the stem end over
the fence to the chickens. We laugh as one of them grabs it and runs off, making the others chase it around the yard. If only my City friends could see me
now.
chapter thirteen
Sunday morning Gram gets me up early to pick blueberries. I mean early—like dark-thirty. She wants to make enough jam to last the winter. Even though
it’s before dawn, Mom is already gone. She’s been working long hours at the bakery. Twice this week I found her asleep on the couch, a book tented on
her chest and her reading glasses still perched on her face. I’ve tried to help, but Mom and Gram keep reminding me that school comes first.
“I can see my breath,” I say, dropping a handful of berries into my pail. Gram just smiles at me —or I think she does by the look in her eyes. Her mouth is
mostly covered by her scarf.
“Autumn is just around the corner,” Gram says. She rakes her fingers through the bush, making blueberries fall into her pail. “You’ll love the fall here, Penny. Once the leaves start turning, the hills look like they’re on fire.” She’s quiet for a moment, then she looks over at me, sliding her scarf down so I can see her whole face.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m cold,” I say.
“I meant more in general.”
If it were Tally I’d say I was generally cold, but I know better than to push my luck with Gram . “I’m okay, I guess.”
“You want to try again?” Gram asks. She rakes more blueberries into her pail. Already she’s more than doubled my haul.
I sigh. “It’s hard.” I pull another berry from the bush I’m working on and pop it into my mouth, buying myself a little thinking time.
“You already have a couple of friends,” Gram says.
I nod. And enemies, I think. “I like being with you. And I like school—mostly.”
“Any cute boys there?”
“Gram! I am not having that conversation with you.” She laughs, and I immediately give in. “Well, there is one. . . .”
“Mmm-hmm. One is all you need.”
Yeah, too bad there are at least two of us interested in him, I think.
We work for a while longer. Just as the sky is starting to brighten, Gram tells me she has enough berries for two cases. She’s nice enough not to
mention that she has about seven times as many berries in her pail as I do in mine. We start walking back down the hill toward her house. The closer we
get, the more we can smell the ocean. Gram stops when we hit the sand and looks out over the water. I think she’s going to make some comment about
the gulls or the clouds or some other part of nature she’s forever trying to make me notice, but she doesn’t.
“Your parents love you,” she says.
“I know.” Coming from Gram, it doesn’t sound hollow. “I just wish—” Wish what? I don’t know anymore.
“I just wish she’d talk to me,” I say.
“You should tell her that. Goodness knows I’ve tried.”
I want to tell Gram that I’ve actually heard her trying. And I know Mom’s just trying to shield me. Dad, too. But part of protecting someone is letting them
know what they’re being protected from.
“Just give it a little time,” Gram says. I nod. Since it looks like we’re staying for the near future and then some, I have time to give. A lot of time.
Monday, Gram leaves me a note, telling me she’s out picking berries again. She also leaves me fresh blueberry muffins for breakfast. Art has become my
favorite class, and that’s saying a lot, since it’s the only class I have with Charity. Miss Beans steps to the center of the room. “This weekend, I’d like all of
you to start thinking about what your contribution to the parade is going to be.” She passes around old HHHS yearbooks, featuring photos of parade
floats. The floats look just like you would expect. There’s a truck hauling the biggest pumpkin I’ve ever seen. The Boy Scouts have a float about first aid.
They must have been practicing some pretty advanced stuff. A couple of the kids have realistic-loo
king head wounds, and three of them seem to be
missing limbs. Tally and I point out the funny ones to each other before passing the yearbooks to the next table.
“Remember, if your float idea is selected,” Miss Beans says, “you’ll get to see your vision realized. Your float will carry the Hog Queen and her court.”
“Awesome,” Tally whispers. “I can hardly wait.”
I try to picture my mother getting excited about riding around town on a farm trailer decorated with Styrofoam and crepe paper. The back table starts
whispering and giggling. Tally makes another face at me and does a fake beauty queen wave, making me laugh. I look over at Charity and see her staring
at me. She mouths something, but I can’t decipher it. I know it’s mean, though. It’s obvious from her expression and the way everyone at her table has to
cover their mouths to keep from laughing. She does her ice queen smile and looks away.
We keep passing yearbooks around as we start sketching our ideas. I’m just blocking in the trailer when I see Tally stop on a yearbook page and then
slam the book shut. She quickly puts it in her lap.
“What is it?” I whisper. She just shakes her head. I look up and see Charity smiling at me again. “Show me.” Tally shakes her head again and then
shoves the book under her chair.
When it’s time to clean up, I hang back while everyone else stacks their sketchbooks in their cubbies. I slide the yearbook out from under Tally’s chair
and open it in my lap. One of the pages is dog-eared, and on it I see an old photo of what must have been my mom. It’s impossible to tell for sure,
because the face has been drawn over with black ink. You know, the usual —glasses, mustache, black teeth. Underneath the photo someone crossed out
her name and wrote in Hog’s Hollow Ho.
My stomach twists. I rip the page out of the book and crumple the paper in my lap. I don’t bother to hide it from Tally when she sits down.
“Aren’t they clever?” Tally says loudly. “How do they think up these things? It must take them weeks.” Then, under her breath, she says to me, “Don’t let
those morons get to you.”
Miss Beans has been collecting the yearbooks from each table. When she comes over to us, I hand her ours and say in a wobbly voice, “This one has a
page missing.”
Before I can say any more, she looks into my eyes and says, “Hmm. I guess I need to be more careful about who I trust with these. Not everyone is as
mature as you are, I’m afraid. Thanks for letting me know, Penny.” She gives me a little pat on the shoulder before she walks away.
“She’s totally onto them,” Tally says.
“She’d have to be blind not to be,” I say, wondering why Miss Beans doesn’t do more to stop Charity.
But I can feel some of the tension seeping out of
me.
Tally elbows me and points out into the hall. Blake is leaning against the lockers, wearing his sunglasses and looking half asleep. His hair is hanging in
his face, making him look less like a pineapple and more like a puppy. The bell rings, and he jumps.
“Late night?” Tally asks, ruffling his hair.
Blake smiles and nods, pushing away from the lockers. “The heater broke in one of the greenhouses. I was up most of the night hanging blankets
across the windows to keep the plants from freezing.” He yawns and leans against the wall while I get my lunch from my locker.
“Come on, sleepy,” Tally says, pulling the sleeve of his jacket. After the frigid night, it’s an oddly warm day. Way too warm for this time of year. We head
out onto the front lawn, where Blake stretches out under a tree and promptly falls asleep.
“Are you going to submit a design for the parade?” Tally asks. I shrug and bite into my sandwich. “You should, Penny. I’ll bet it’d win.”
I chew, not sure what to say. Having my design built would be cool, but it’s like every time I sort of g et into a groove here, Charity is right there to push
me off track again. I look over to the wall where a lot of people are sitting eating lunch. Charity is standing with some guy, laughing as she touches his arm.
They’re both looking at a book he’s holding. Then I realize it’s not some guy, but Marcus.
Tally is talking about the parade, about how much money we’ve raised for the ARK, about the movie she and Blake are going to see. I force myself to
listen and not look back at the wall, back at Marcus. It’s as if he’s two people. One I like a lot. But the other one, the one who is always letting Charity hang
off him, I’m starting to like a lot less. My sandwich is hard to swallow. I’m just so tired of everything.
Tired of just taking it. I try to think what I’d do if this were happening at my school in the City. But maybe it’s like I’m two people now, too—a “before” and an
“after.” I drop my sandwich onto my lunch bag. By the
way it bursts apart, it’s really more of a throw.
“Tell me about Charity,” I say. Tally raises her eyebrows at me. “What’s the saying? Know your enemy?”
“Know thine enemy,” Blake mumbles. Then he yawns again and puts his arm over his eyes.
“Sleeping Beauty probably knows a lot more about her than I do,” Tally says, smiling over at Blake. “My interactions with her have been limited to the
pageant brouhaha last year and the fruitcake thing at the Winter Carnival.” I want to ask What fruitcake thing?, but she keeps talking. “She was in France
all last spring, doing some student exchange thing.” She shrugs and reaches into her lunch sack. “I wish I knew more. It would make getting back at her
easier.” She pulls out her sandwich and lays it in front of her on the flattened bag. “All I really know is she’s vain and mean and superficial.”
“And dumb,” Blake says from beneath his arm.
“And dumb,” Tally echoes.
“And into Marcus,” I say softly, glancing over to where they are still looking at the book spread on his lap.
Tally picks up her sandwich and then puts it back on the bag without taking a bite. “He’s not into her,” she says.
“You should tell him that,” I say.
Blake just moans under his arm, earning a shove from Tally.
“If you don’t like what we’re talking about, stop eavesdropping,” she says.
“What kind of sandwich is that? Cheese?” I ask, looking at the pieces of white goo peeking out from between her bread. Tally shakes her head and
leans back on her hands. A group of Charity’s friends walks by, and I notice them all looking at us. It’s not so much us they’re staring at, but Tally’s
sandwich. Tally has repeated the spoon-in-the-can trick several times, earning her weird eating habits a reputation. “When are you going to tell me what’s
going on?” I ask.
“I’ll tell you what my sandwich is made out of,” she says. She doesn’t have to. I’ve already guessed: lard.
I just shake my head. She opens her Ziploc full
of grapes and pops one into her mouth. “What is lard?” she asks.
“Animal fat,” I say. I look down at my sandwich. This whole conversation is taking away my appetite.
“More specific,” Tally says. She watches me with a half smirk on her face. I shrug. I’m not much of an expert on lard. “Pig fat,” she says. She pops two
more grapes into her mouth and starts pushing everything back into her sack. She is careful to fold her sandwich so anyone watching would think she ate
most of it. People start packing it in and walking toward the school. I shove the rest of my lunch into my sack and slip my sneakers back on.
Tally is still talking as she stands up and brushes off the back of her jeans. “Lard is the traditional source of fat in our diet. It wasn’t until we started
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eating so many fat-free and low-fat foods that we all got fat.” I nod, still wondering why the sudden interest in rendered pig fat. She’s talking louder than
she needs to, and I notice Charlotte listening off to one side. The first bell rings, clearing the lawn. I stand up. Blake seems to actually be asleep. Tally
bends to try and wake him up. Charity and her friends are clustered at the door, watching us.
Something’s brewing. There are popping noises all around
us.
“Oh man!” Tally says. She shakes Blake’s shoulder. “Go!” she yells to me. “Hurry!” Blake sits up and rubs his eyes behind his sunglasses. I stand there,
not sure what the noise is. The water is cold when it hits me. The spri nklers. Blake stands up on wobbling legs. All three of us run for the sidewalk, but it’s a long way, and by the time we get there, we’re drenched.
“Talk about a rude awakening,” Blake says, shaking his head, sending droplets of water flying in all directions.
Tally peels off her sweatshirt and uses it to rub at her hair. “Since when do they water the lawn during the day?”
“Since Charity paid off the janitor,” I say, wringing out my ponytail.
You-Know-Who and her friends are still on the front steps, now poi nting and laughing at us, along with dozens of other people who have gathered there.
Still more are watching from the windows overlooking the lawn.
“Everyone’s looking,” I say.
Tally turns toward the building and waves, making a few people laugh. Blake bows deeply, and the laughing gets louder. They both turn and look at me. I
curtsy, holding out a fake skirt in my hands. Charity and her friends push through the crowd and walk back inside, but not before I see her face. She’s no
longer smiling.
“It’s all in the way you spin things,” Tally says as we walk inside. I now know that’s Classic Tally. Spinning things. Blake holds out his arm and Tally takes
it. By the time we enter the hallway, I’m smiling. Blake keeps doffing an invisible hat at everyone we pass, and Tally gives everyone her best queen wave.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe I just need to spin things a little on my own instead of letting everything else spin me. I, too, wave at everyone hanging out of
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