“Of course not!”
She smiled again, and began to unwrap the packet.
I looked around as she did, taking in the quiet murmur of conversation that drifted from the other side of the church, the rustle of leaves, and the murmur of the river.
“Why did you come over here by yourself?” I asked.
“I like to be alone. Oh, I don’t mind you,” she hastened, “I just don’t like... crowds and strangers.” Her smile was almost apologetic.
“Do you like Pleasanton so far?”
She looked towards the church thoughtfully for a moment. “It’s nice.”
She seemed to have forgotten the snack in her hand, for she held it, half unwrapped, and did nothing with it as she sat there.
I pointed to it after a moment of silence. “What are you eating?”
“Oh.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s... just a little granola square.” She pulled it out of the package and showed it to me, a three-inch square, textured and light one one side, smooth and dark on the other. “I like them.”
“Is that chocolate?” I asked.
“Yes. Dark.” She looked up. “Would you like one?”
“Oh, no thank you.”
There was a momentary silence as she still held it in her hand, looking at it. Then she looked back up. “Are you sure?”
The question was accompanied by a little knowing smile.
I grinned sheepishly. “Maybe I would.”
She reached into the bag and pulled out another packet and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I pulled it open as she watched, then pulled out the little square, feeling the smooth, creamy underside with my thumb. She seemed to be waiting.
Hesitantly, I bit off one corner of the square, watching as she mimicked my motion. The double crunch sounded small in the open air, and I closed my eyes as the flavors took shape in my mouth. The crunchy, nutty, somehow artificial granola, and the smooth, dark chocolate coating.
When I opened my eyes she was watching me, green eyes clearer than ever beside the grass and sky.
She looked away for an instant as my eyes met hers, then jerked her head back as if forcing herself. “What do you think?”
My answer was to take another bite. She chuckled softly, and we finished the squares in silence.
After licking the chocolate off my fingers I asked, “Do you have a nickname?”
She rested her hand on the grass and looked off towards the church, past it, far away. I waited for the answer.
“I don’t know.” Her voice, when it broke the stillness, was quiet. “When I was very little, people sometimes called me Tobi.”
I let the syllables sink into my mind for a moment before I murmured them out loud. “Tobi.” I thought about how it had sounded. “Short for October.”
“Yes.”
I hesitated. “Can I call you that?”
She turned towards me with that warm smile again. “If you like.”
“I do.”
“Okay.”
I couldn’t tell whether she was glad or didn’t much care one way or the other. At least she didn’t seem offended, and I supposed that would do for now.
Friends. Tobi and I were friends. I savored the thought.
Friends.
“Emily!”
Mom’s voice. I sighed. “I think I have to go...” I said, letting my voice trail off. Not finishing the sentence would make it seem less final. It would be so much nicer to stay and talk. I wanted to learn more.
“Okay. Thank you for sitting with me.” She smiled as I stood up. “Have a good week.”
“You too!” I stood just watching her for one moment, then I ran off across the grass to find my family.
But a big chunk of my heart was back at the oak tree.
Chapter Four
I had to drudge through another week of school before I could finally go to church and see October again. Already I had begun calling her “Tobi” in my mind and making plans for how to get a conversation going the next time I saw her.
“What are your hobbies?”
“What’s your favorite movie?”
“Do you have a job?”
“Did you go to college?”
All the normal kinds of things that people asked each other. I had a mental list of them, determined not to be so tongue-tied the next time I got to see my new friend.
On Saturday, Jax came over to study for a history test with me. It was something that he was a lot better at than I was. To me, history was a series of names and dates to be memorized, but to Jax it was alive, breathing its secrets to anyone who took the time to listen.
Thus, when I say he came over to study with me, I really mean he came over to help me.
“And where did Napoleon go?” he prompted, giving me a gentle poke on the head with his forefinger.
I nibbled my pencil. “Um... Melba.”
He sighed. “Close, if you’re looking for the toast instead of the island. It’s Elba, Em.”
I nodded and twirled the pencil, looking at the book in front of me but not seeing it.
He poked me again.
“Ow!” I rubbed my head and glared at him.
“Distracted?”
“Eh. Tired of studying.”
“And?”
“Ready for summer.”
“And?”
I grimaced. “Fine. Ready for tomorrow.”
He grinned. “Well, try to focus. It’ll make tomorrow and summer both come more quickly.”
When I did see October after church, the list of questions flew out of my brain like a canary as soon as I opened my mouth. I managed to stammer out some other, less interesting questions, which prompted laughter from her.
“I was thinking about exploring the woods,” she said, gesturing behind the church. “Want to come?”
I agreed, and Jax, who had tagged along, joined us. Primarily, I think, because he had nothing better to do.
I had been in those woods a hundred times before, mostly as a child—it was the most popular hide-and-seek destination among the Pleasanton First Baptist youth. There was no path except the spots where underbrush had been worn away by the footsteps of new children, and only the barest light struggled through the canopy of leaves.
It all delighted Tobi.
“We can pretend we’re princesses,” she suggested, reaching up to touch a leaf a few inches above her. “This seems like the kind of place princesses would be.”
“Wouldn’t princesses be safe in their castle?” I retorted. “Besides, I don’t want to be a princess. I want to be a dragon trainer.”
“You can be a dragon-training princess,” she laughed.
“Hey, I don’t want to be a princess either,” Jax called from a couple yards behind us. “I don’t have the hair for it.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’d be a prince of course.”
“I have a better idea.” She turned to face him. “You can be a knight. Our knight. After all, it’s hardly wise for two princesses to walk out in the woods alone, even if one of them is a dragon trainer.”
Jax looked gratified, and dug his hands deeper into his pockets.
We explored the woods until my cell phone rang, shattering the illusion, and Mom called me to come home.
*****
I suffered through another week, and when the next Sunday arrived I was prepared with written questions for her. This made her laugh again, but she good-naturedly answered them. Her hobbies were reading and taking walks, mostly. Her favorite movie was A Walk to Remember, though it almost tied with Star Wars. Episode five, she specified. She didn’t have a job, and she didn’t offer any explanations as to why, so I didn’t ask. She didn’t go to college, and I learned that she was five years older than myself, so she probably would have been finished with college even if she had gone. But she hadn’t.
To this, I couldn’t resist asking why. She just shrugged. “I didn’t want to.” And that was all.
She couldn’t drive, and I wante
d to ask about this but something in her eyes wouldn’t let me. She didn’t join any youth groups at church. I didn’t run into her at the grocery store or the mall or even on walks, though I made a point of walking near sunset almost every day in hopes of stumbling upon her again. I once saw her at the library with her face inches from Bleak House by Charles Dickens, but she didn’t see me and I didn’t disturb her. There was a difference somehow between approaching her at church and interrupting her while reading. It felt like it would have been pulling her from her natural habitat.
So I just left the library and went home.
It became a pattern. After church we would either stand talking until Mom or Daddy pulled me away, or if they were in a permissive mood I would take a walk with her. A few times we went to lunch. At first Jax would stand silently nearby or shuffle along behind us, hands in his pockets. Tobi, however, wouldn’t accept this.
“Why doesn’t Jax talk to me?” she asked, glancing his way while she and I sat under the tree outside church again.
“It’s nothing personal. He doesn’t talk much to anybody.”
“Why not?”
I had never considered this question. “I don’t know. It’s just how he is.”
“But he must have something to say,” she insisted.
After this, she made it her mission to draw him in.
“What are your hobbies?” she asked him once when we were all at the Farmland Diner after church one day.
Jax shrugged. “Food is nice.” He demonstrated by taking another bite out of his burger.
I rolled my eyes. Tobi just laughed. “That’s everybody’s hobby, silly. What else?”
He pondered and took another bite. “Uh, I like reading.”
“So do I! What do you read?”
He nibbled a fry. “Pretty much everything, honestly. I just love to read. Some Christian nonfiction. Some sci-fi and fantasy. I’ll read whatever.”
Tobi’s smile brightened. “We should have a book club! You like to read too, don’t you, Em?”
I did. We decided to meet every week after church and picked The Book Thief as our first topic of discussion. The illustrious book club met twice, then we missed a week, then we missed two, then we forgot about it entirely.
One Sunday in particular I was standing next to October in the sanctuary before the service, when Ms. Hendrix approached her, a smile on her wrinkled face.
“You’re Miss Blake, right?”
“Yes?” October turned her head. “I’m October Blake.”
Ms. Hendrix was the head of the Sunday School. I braced myself to hear Tobi once again urged to join the Tuesday night youth group.
But the old lady had something else in mind. “Miss Blake, our preschool and kindergarten teacher is home sick today.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” October said, frowning sympathetically.
“Yes. So we wondered... if perhaps you would sit with the class for us? You don’t even need to worry about the lesson, sweetie.” Here Ms. Hendrix laid a hand on Tobi’s arm. “Just watch after them until Sunday School is over.”
I furrowed my brows. They had no business asking Tobi to do that, not when she was new as well as shy. The class held at least a dozen preschool aged children, including Patrick Charles, and I just knew they were going to overwhelm her. I tugged at her sleeve. “I can do it for you.”
She touched my hand without turning her head, then smiled at Ms. Hendrix “Sure, I can try.”
“I’ll help her,” I blurted out.
Ms. Hendrix smiled sweetly at me. “Why Emily, how kind of you! Can you girls find the room?”
“I know where it is.” I started leading the way out of the sanctuary.
Tobi thanked Ms. Hendrix—for what, I could not imagine—and followed me out.
“Why did you do that?” I asked as soon as we were in the hall.
“What?”
“Why’d you agree? I thought you didn’t like strangers.”
She laughed. “Children don’t count.”
I frowned, but kept leading. “I’ve dropped Patrick Charles off here plenty of times.”
“Your little brother, yes?”
“Yeah.”
I found the door and opened it, then stood aside to let Tobi through. She slipped past me and walked in.
It looked more like a nuclear war zone than a Sunday School room. A dozen little tykes were running, sitting, jumping, hitting each other, crying, and digging through the teachers’ supply cabinet. I saw Patrick Charles fighting with his best friend Freddy over a pencil in one corner, each boy gripping one end of it and pulling it back and forth while yelling insults.
“All right!” Tobi called, positioning herself in the front of the room. “All right everyone!”
The chaos kept going. One near-infant in a fluffy pink dress sat in the middle of the mess and bawled. Sunlight blazed through dust particles that didn’t have a chance to settle anywhere.
“Quiet, please,” Tobi said, a bit louder.
No change at all. I stomped over to Patrick Charles and gripped his arm.
“Ow!” he protested, letting go of the pencil. Freddy ran off in triumph.
Tobi climbed up on the desk at the front of the room, cupped her hands over her mouth, and screamed, “Quiet, everyone!”
The hullabaloo stopped. Even I, clutching Patrick Charles by the arm, jerked my head up along with him and fell silent.
“That’s better.” She seemed quite at home on top of the desk, and she planted her fists on her hips. “Now. Just because you don’t have a teacher or a lesson today doesn’t mean you can’t all take your seats and behave like civilized people.”
I let go of Patrick Charles and he scampered to his seat along with all the others. The child of the pink tutu still sat sobbing on the floor, so I scooped her up and sat down at a desk with her, bouncing her on my knees to keep her quiet.
“Better.” Tobi got down from the desk but kept resting her hands against her waist. “Now. As I was saying. You have no teacher or lesson today, so we are going to have a lot of fun.”
Freddy raised his hand.
“Yes sir?” Tobi stopped and asked.
“How can we have school without a lesson?”
The other children tittered.
“Excellent question,” she went on, unfazed. “It just won’t be regular school. We’ll still learn something. And if you’re learning something, well, it’s school, isn’t it?”
Freddy had no argument with this, so Tobi moved on.
“You have two choices. Learn a song, or listen to a story.”
A mixed chorus of “song!” “story!” went up, until Toby stuck her arms out and yelled again, “Quiet!”
They all went quiet.
“Raise your hand if you want to learn the song.”
Seven little hands went up.
“And if you want to hear a story?”
Four hands. I pushed the infant’s hand up stubbornly, even though I knew we were outnumbered.
“Very well. A song.” She backed up until she stood against the desk. “I’m going to sing, and you’re going to repeat each line after me. Easy. Come line up in front of the desks.”
There was a general hopping off of desks and shuffling to the front to stand in a line. I carried the pink one up there and held her on my hip.
“Now,” Tobi said, once everyone was lined up and looking curiously at her. “This is a song you can learn quickly. You’re going to echo the lines I say, and then after that we’ll sing it together. Like this. Sing after me.”
The other day,
A childish chorus of “The other day” echoed through the little room. I joined in on behalf of the infant, who just stared.
I saw a bear,
“I saw a bear” rang out from the dozen mouths.
Out in the woods,
“Out in the woods” was dutifully sung.
A way out there.
This time the “A way out there” was a bit readier
and more on key and in unison.
“Now together!” she commanded, and they complied.
The other day,
I saw a bear,
out in the woods,
a way out there.
“Good! Now, the whole rest of the song goes like that. Ready?”
“Ready!” the group called back, and we went back to singing.
He looked at me,
I looked at him,
he sized up me,
I sized up him.
He said to me,
“Why don’t you run?
I see you ain’t
got any gun.
And so I ran
away from there,
but behind me
was that big bear.
And then I saw
ahead of me
a great big tree,
oh glory be!
The lowest branch
was ten feet up,
I said “I guess
I’ll have to jump.”
And so I jumped
up in the air
I missed that branch
a way up there.
Now don’t you fret,
and don’t you frown,
I caught that branch,
on my way down!
A chorus of giggles erupted at this, disrupting the singing on the second round of the verse. Patrick Charles laughed loudest of all, and I peeked over the pink thing’s hair and saw him doubled over and holding his ribs.
I grinned. Tobi went on singing, conducting gracefully with her hands.
Now that is all,
there ain’t no more
unless I see
that bear once more.
The gigglers managed to choke out the last verse, then kept laughing. Freddy demonstrated by jumping up and reaching high.
“All right!” Tobi called, clapping her hands hard. “Back to your seats, now.”
Eleven of the kids scrambled for seats, and I trotted to a chair at the back of the room, the now-happy pink thing still in my arms.
Tobi waited for everyone to settle, then she leaned her hands back on the desk behind her.
“Did you all like the song?”
“Yes!” rang out loudly, followed by a cacophony of giggles.
“Good. Now since we still have more time, I’ll tell you a story.”
The children shifted into comfortable positions and fell silent, save for the occasional shuffle or adjustment when a child simply couldn’t be still another moment.
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