Dear Pen Pal

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  Queen Clementine has decreed that unless I shape up, I won’t be going along on the class trip to Washington.

  I heave a sigh. Social studies is not my favorite subject—that would be PE—but still, I would hate to miss the eighth grade field trip. “There’s this girl,” I begin reluctantly. “My friend Jess’s roommate at Colonial Academy.”

  He consults his notebook. “Savannah Sinclair?”

  “Yeah, only we call her Julia Pendleton.”

  Dr. Weisman’s brow puckers.

  “Because she’s just like this character in Daddy-Long-Legs. A book we read for book club.”

  “Ah, yes.” He nods thoughtfully. “Jean Webster. My wife loves her. So tell me more about this Savannah girl.”

  I pick at a hangnail. “What’s to tell? She’s a stuck-up, spoiled rich girl who’s mean to Jess and all the rest of us too. She sabotaged our sleepover party and messed up my hair, so we decided to get even.”

  Dr. Weisman consults his notes again. “Which you did with Half Moon Farm’s ‘Blue Moon’ cheese?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I take it Senator Sinclair is not fond of that particular brand of cheese.” Dr. Weisman’s face is serious, but behind his glasses his eyes are twinkling just a tiny bit.

  I perk up at this. Maybe there’s hope for the D.C. trip after all. “Who is?” I scoff. “Have you ever smelled the stuff?”

  Dr. Weisman smiles. “Indeed I have. Blue cheese is one of my favorites. But not, perhaps, in a suitcase.”

  I drop my gaze. Dr. Weisman is quiet for a while. He’s really good at being quiet. I guess that’s part of his job. And the thing is, I trust him. He’s known me for two years now, and even though I hate to admit it, he’s really helped me a lot.

  So I start to talk. I tell him about Operation New Roommate, and how I feel about the baby coming, and how it still feels weird to have Stanley living in the house with us even though I like him and everything, and how I know I’m supposed to be happy that Courtney got accepted to UCLA, which was her top choice college, but how I wish she didn’t have to go away. I tell him about Jess, and how it bugs me when people pick on my friends. Eventually, I admit that maybe the blue cheese thing wasn’t such a good idea, even though Savannah definitely deserved it. Dr. Weisman just listens, and occasionally asks me a question, and takes notes. When I’m done, he taps his pencil on the desk, then swivels around in his chair and stares out the window.

  “Okay, Cassidy, I’m going to need to talk to your mother and stepfather alone one more time,” he says finally, turning around to face me again.

  He stands up and walks me to the door, then beckons to my mom and Stanley. I take a seat in the waiting room and this time Dr. Weisman’s secretary forgets to close the door all the way so I can hear the low murmur of their voices. “Nothing terribly wrong . . . a lot of change right now . . . confusing time . . . not an easy adjustment . . . don’t blame yourself” and stuff like that, and then my mom cries some more, and then it’s my turn to go back in.

  “Cassidy, are you familiar with Gilbert and Sullivan?” Dr. Weisman asks me as I sit down.

  I glance over at my mother and Stanley, worried that this is a trick question. “Do they play hockey?” I reply cautiously.

  Dr. Weisman laughs. “Heavens, no—not by a long shot. Gilbert and Sullivan were a famous musical duo. Arthur Sullivan was a composer and William Gilbert was a librettist, a writer. The two of them teamed up on some of the most sublime comic operas in history, including H. M. S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and my all-time favorite, The Mikado. Are you familiar with it?”

  I shake my head, wishing Jess were here. She’d have heard of these guys for sure.

  “Well, in The Mikado there’s a character called the Lord High Executioner.”

  I’m not liking the sound of this one bit, but I nod and Dr. Weisman continues, “There’s a wonderful scene in which he sings, ‘My object all sublime / I shall achieve in time / To let the punishment fit the crime / the punishment fit the crime.’”

  Dr. Weisman pauses and looks at me. “Do you understand why I’m bringing this up, Cassidy?”

  Uh-oh, I think. Here it comes.

  “You mentioned when we were talking that perhaps you acted a bit rashly in this incident, and that you might have thought the consequences of your actions through a bit more thoroughly.”

  I lift a shoulder. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, that’s the main thing I was looking for in talking with you today. One’s own conscience always punishes one more thoroughly than any outward agent.”

  I look at him hopefully. Does this mean I’m off the hook?

  “However, your mother insists that there be consequences, and that is what reminded me of Gilbert and Sullivan. Barring you from your class field trip is a punishment that doesn’t fit the crime. It’s too extreme, we agreed, given the fact that your actions were provoked. However, I think we’ve come up with a suitable consequence for your actions. First of all, you will need to write letters of apology to Savannah and to her parents—your mother has the Senator’s address—and I’d also like you to start writing letters to the baby. At least two a week. Then I want you to come back and see me next month.”

  I gape at him. “You want me to write to the baby? Why? It didn’t have anything to do with the blue cheese!”

  “Cassidy,” warns my mother.

  “Mom! I’m not being rude, honest!” I protest. “It’s just that I don’t understand how writing to the baby is supposed to help. It can’t even read! Plus, I’ve already got a pen pal.”

  “That’s your punishment, take it or leave it,” Dr. Weisman says calmly.

  I glance over at Stanley and my mother again. My mother lifts an eyebrow. Very regal. Very Queen Clementine. Obviously I don’t have a choice.

  I sigh. “Okay, okay, I’ll do it. But what am I supposed to write about?”

  Dr. Weisman shrugs. “Anything at all. Hockey, school, your book club, boyfriends, whatever.”

  I snort. Boyfriends? As if.

  My mother makes me sign a contract again, the same way she did two years ago when she wanted me to be more ladylike, and then we head home.

  “Can you pull over for a minute?” she asks Stanley as we turn down Main Street. “Right there, in front of the bookstore.”

  Stanley pulls over and my mother gets out of the car and disappears inside. We sit at the curb in silence for a few minutes, then Stanley turns around and rests his arm on the top of the driver’s seat. The corners of his eyes are crinkled up and he’s trying to squelch a smile.

  “Okay, so don’t you dare ever tell your mother I told you this, because she will absolutely kill me, but the blue cheese?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Brilliant. Stupid, but brilliant. That little weasel deserved it too, after what she did to your beautiful hair.” He reaches out a forefinger and strokes my bangs softly. “Remember, though, you never heard it from me, okay?” He turns around again and flips on the radio.

  I stare at the back of his head, too astonished to reply. Obviously I still have a lot to learn about my new stepfather.

  A minute later my mother reappears. “Here you go,” she says, climbing back in the car and thrusting a paper bag over the back of the seat at me. I open it and look inside. Great. Stationery with little bunnies on it. Like the baby’s going to notice. My mother gives me a smile, though, and I figure that’s a good sign, so I force myself to smile back.

  Stanley pulls into the driveway a couple of minutes later, and I hop out of the car and go inside straight up to my room. I lie on my bed for a while, thinking about everything, and then there’s a tap on my door and Courtney pokes her head in.

  “Can I come in?”

  I shrug.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, closing the door behind her. “So how’d it go with Dr. Weisman?”

  I shrug again. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Are you going to get to go to D.C.?”
r />   I roll over and stare at my hockey posters. I’ll bet Cammi Granato and Henrik Lundqvist and the Boston Bruins never had to go to a shrink. “Yeah, as long as I do my homework for Dr. Weisman.”

  “Huh?”

  “He wants me to write a bunch of letters,” I explain bitterly. “As if I don’t have enough letter-writing to do these days with my pen pal in Wyoming. I have to apologize to Savannah and her parents, and then he wants me to write letters to the baby. How stupid is that?”

  Courtney thinks it over. “Actually, it’s a pretty cool idea,” she says finally. “It’s kind of like keeping a diary or something. I mean, someday, when our little brother or sister is your age, he or she will be able to read the letters and know about you and the things you did and how you felt and everything.”

  I shrug, unconvinced. My sister walks over to my desk and picks up the picture that’s propped against the lamp. “Is this your book club pen pal?”

  I nod.

  “What’s her name again?”

  “Winky.”

  “She’s really cute. Haven’t you had fun writing to her?”

  Fun? I think about it. For me, writing letters is a chore. I’m not like Emma—she lives for this stuff. And I’m not some big animal freak like Jess, either, but I guess it’s been interesting, hearing about life on a ranch. I know it’s hard work, because I’ve watched the Delaneys with their farm, but Winky makes it sound exciting. Really different from tame Concord, that’s for sure. Winky and her brothers get to go camping and fishing all the time, and she knows how to shoot a rifle—there are bears and mountain lions near their ranch—and how to train horses and rope a calf. I’ll bet Dad would have really liked her, and I’ll bet he would have loved Wyoming.

  “Yeah, sort of,” I finally admit.

  “See? The baby is going to have just as much fun reading your letters to him or her.”

  “In about a decade when it can read,” I grumble.

  Courtney sits down on the bed beside me. “So are you going to come visit me at college next year?”

  I shoot her a look. “Like Mom’s going to let me.”

  “Why wouldn’t she? I’d take really good care of you. You could fly out for spring break, maybe, and we could drive down to Laguna Beach.”

  That’s where our family used to live, back before Dad died and we moved here to Concord and Mom married Stanley Kinkaid.

  “We could visit all your favorite places,” Courtney continues. “Go boogie boarding at Brooks Street beach, drive up to Crystal Cove and watch for dolphins—”

  “And get burgers at the Shake Shack?”

  “Definitely.”

  We smile at each other, remembering. It suddenly strikes me how weird this is, the two of us talking and getting along and everything. We used to fight all the time—Courtney really knows how to get on my nerves, especially when she and Mom gang up on me about clothes and stuff. But something’s different this year. It’s like both of us know that things are about to change forever. It’s never going to be the same again, all of us living here in the same house, doing the same things we’ve always done. She’s going away, and next year I’ll be in high school and after that I’ll go away too. And then there’s the baby.

  “I still wish you didn’t have to go,” I tell her.

  Courtney leans over and gives me a hug. “Don’t worry so much, Cass. It’s going to be fine. Maybe we can talk Mom and Stanley into getting you another cell phone—that way we can call and text each other.”

  The last cell phone they got me accidentally fell out of my pocket at the rink and somebody mistook it for a hockey puck. “That would be cool,” I tell her.

  “And you’re going to like having a little brother or sister around, wait and see.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I like having you around, you dork,” Courtney says, punching me on the arm. “I wouldn’t trade having a little sister for anything.”

  Suddenly my eyes feel hot. I roll over quickly onto my stomach so she won’t see the tears. “Thanks,” I mumble.

  “You’re welcome.”

  After she leaves I think about what she said, and then I reach over the side of my bed and pick up the paper bag from where I tossed it on the floor. I pull out the bunny stationery and grab a pen.

  Dear Baby, I write. I’m really, really going to miss Courtney next year. . . .

  Jess

  “She believes that if you are a Pendleton, that fact alone admits you to heaven without any further examination. Julia and I were born to be enemies.”

  —Daddy-Long-Legs

  Humming to myself, I skip down the front steps of the music building and head toward the dining hall. Chorus was especially fun today, but now I’m starving, and good lunch smells are wafting from the kitchen. Here and there purply-blue patches of early spring crocus—Crocus vernus—are poking cheerily through the garden beds that line the campus paths, reaching for the sun. I reach my face toward it too, savoring its warmth. But spring hasn’t completely arrived yet and I wrap my jacket closer around me as the wind whips across the quad.

  “Hey, Jess! Wait up!”

  I turn to see Adele running toward me.

  “What is it?”

  “Mr. McNamara just posted the list!” she tells me excitedly, pushing her wind-blown bangs out of her face.

  My heart skips a beat. “Really? Did you—”

  “Yup. And so did you!”

  “I did? We’re MadriGals?”

  She nods, her eyes shining. Most of the members of Colonial Academy’s elite a cappella group are high schoolers, but every year a handful of eighth graders are chosen to audition, and a few get in. I was sure I wouldn’t make the cut. I reach into the pocket of my jacket for my cell phone, to call my mom and tell her.

  “Frankie didn’t get in,” Adele adds sadly.

  I’d completely forgotten about Frankie! I look around the quad but she’s nowhere in sight. “Where is she?”

  “Back at the dorm. I think she wanted to be by herself for a while.”

  This takes a little of the shine off the news. It’s hard to be completely happy about something when one of your good friends’ hopes just got crushed.

  “Oh, and there’s something else,” says Adele.

  “What?”

  “Savannah’s name is on the list too.”

  I sigh. Of course. Things with Savannah Sinclair have been really awkward ever since Operation New Roommate backfired big-time. When the administration found out about our prank war, the two of us got hauled into the headmistress’s office. My parents were there, too, along with Mrs. Crandall, and Savannah’s parents joined us on speakerphone.

  Senator Sinclair started blustering right away. “I demand that my daughter be moved to a different room!” he’d said. “I will not tolerate her being subjected to this kind of ill-bred behavior.”

  Savannah had pressed her lips together, trying to hide a smile. I could tell she was used to her father running interference when she got in trouble. My dad, however, didn’t look too happy with the Senator’s choice of words.

  “Ill-bred?” he’d repeated, leaning forward in his chair like he was going to make a grab for the speakerphone. “Now, see here—”

  My mother put her hand on his arm. “Michael,” she warned, “let Mrs. Duffy handle this.”

  Mrs. Duffy didn’t seem at all phased by the Senator’s blustering. I guess when you’re in charge of a school like Colonial Academy, you get used to dealing with big-shot parents who like to throw their weight around.

  “I can assure you, Senator,” she’d said calmly, “that we have conducted a full investigation into this incident, and it’s quite clear that the blame rests squarely on both parties. In fact, from what I understand, it was your daughter who was responsible for the initial provocation.”

  Savannah’s father started to argue with her, but Mrs. Duffy cut him off. “And furthermore I don’t need to remind you, sir, of the conditions for your daughter
’s continued tenure here at our school.”

  This got his attention, and the speakerphone fell silent. I glanced over at Savannah, who wasn’t looking quite so confident all of a sudden. I’d forgotten she was put on academic probation.

  “Colonial Academy has a philosophy about roommates,” the headmistress continued. “Sometimes what initially seems like a mismatch can, in the end, prove most fruitful in the forging of character. When compromises have to be made, and there’s give-and-take on both sides, valuable lessons in patience, tolerance, and diplomacy are learned. Sometimes, lasting friendships are even formed. Surely you know the truth of that, Poppy.”

  Over the speakerphone, I heard Mrs. Sinclair sigh. “You’re right, Betsy.”

  Mrs. Crandall saw the puzzled look on my face, and she leaned over to me and whispered, “Savannah’s mother was a student here once.”

  So that explained how Savannah got accepted! I couldn’t wait to tell the book club.

  In the end, Savannah and I had to apologize to each other, and promise to make more of an effort to get along. Mrs. Duffy assigned us to meet with Mrs. Crandall once a week and let her know how things were going, and asked us to be sure and enlist her help in sorting out any future differences, instead of taking matters into our own hands.

  “And Savannah, one of the reasons we paired you with Jessica is because she’s such a strong student,” the headmistress had added. “It might behoove you to let bygones be bygones and ask for her help now and then.”

  “Race you to the dining hall!” says Adele, pulling me out of my daydream. I shove all thoughts of Savannah aside and take off across the quad after my friend.

  After lunch, the two of us head back to our dorm. There aren’t any classes this afternoon, since we’ve got a long weekend coming up. Our spring midterm exams start next week, and most of the girls are using the time to go home for a visit and a study break. I’ve promised to babysit Maggie for the afternoon before my mom comes to get me.

  Mrs. Crandall is waiting for me in her office.

  “Hello girls,” she says. “Adele, your dad called—the airport van will be here in about an hour to pick you up. He wanted to make sure you’re packed and ready to go, okay?”