Dear Pen Pal

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  Adele nods and starts for the stairs. Mrs. Crandall turns to me. “I just put Maggie down for a nap. She usually sleeps until about three, so you’ll have a couple of hours to get some study time in before she’s up and around again.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Crandall.”

  She cocks her head. “Is everything okay? You look a little, I don’t know, less sparkly than usual.”

  I manage a halfhearted smile. “I’m fine,” I tell her. “I got into MadriGals.”

  Mrs. Crandall’s eyes widen. “Wow, Jess, that’s fabulous!” She gives me a hug. “It’s a real honor, too—hardly any eighth graders get chosen.”

  I nod glumly, and her brow puckers. “So why the long face?”

  “Savannah got in too.”

  “Oh, I see.” Mrs. Crandall sets her purse on the table and takes a seat on the sofa. She pats the cushion next to her. “Want to talk about it?”

  “I guess.” I plop down beside her. I’m really glad I have Mrs. Crandall for my housemother. Even though I see my own mother every weekend, and can call her any time I want, it still helps to have someone here at school to talk to. “It’s just that Savannah and I—well, I just don’t see how we’re supposed to ever be friends. She doesn’t like me! I try to be nice to her, honest, and I help her with her homework like Mrs. Duffy asked, but she still keeps bugging me all the time. Plus, there’s nowhere I can go to get away from her. We room together, eat together, take riding lessons together, we’re both in the chorus together, and now, with MadriGals—”

  “A little too much togetherness?” suggests Mrs. Crandall.

  “Exactly!”

  Mrs. Crandall nods sympathetically. “I understand your feelings, Jess. I’ve known a lot of girls like Savannah in the time I’ve been here at Colonial. But there’s a side of her that I don’t think she’s let you—or anyone else—see yet, for whatever reason. So try and be patient a little while longer, okay? I think you could be a really positive influence on her.”

  Great, I think. Why do I always have to be the positive influence? Why can’t somebody else take a turn for a change?

  “Okay,” I tell her, without enthusiasm.

  My housemother laughs. “Now I have another assignment for you. I want you to go to the kitchen and help yourself to some of the mocha almond ice cream that’s in the freezer. You need to celebrate getting into MadriGals!”

  She leaves and I dish up a bowl of ice cream and settle in to study for my Latin exam. That’s the only one I’m really worried about. Everything else feels like it’s under control. I get a head start on my English paper too, because I want some time to relax and enjoy myself this weekend.

  When Maggie wakes up I change her diaper and bundle her up and stick her in the stroller, and then I take her down to the barn to see the horses. Maggie loves animals almost as much as I do. I hold her up so she can pat Blackjack’s nose, and she squeals and laughs.

  I hear boots on the wooden floor behind me and turn to see Savannah coming in, dressed in her riding clothes.

  “Hey,” I say in surprise. “I thought you were flying to Washington this weekend.”

  “Change of plans,” she says shortly. She disappears into the tack room and emerges a moment later carrying a saddle and bridle.

  “Taking Cairo out for a spin?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “Sheesh, I was just making conversation.”

  “Well, make it with Maggie, okay? Just leave me alone.”

  “Gladly,” I retort, putting Maggie back in her stroller and wheeling it swiftly out of the barn, and myself out of range of Savannah’s sharp tongue.

  Unfortunately, later that night at the dinner table I make the mistake of telling my family about this latest run-in.

  “Hold on, did you say Savannah is stuck on campus all weekend?” my mother asks when I’m done.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  She pushes back from the table and goes into the kitchen. A minute later I hear her on the phone. “Kate?” she says.

  I frown. Is my mother calling Mrs. Crandall?

  “I understand that Savannah Sinclair didn’t end up going home for the weekend. Uh-huh. I see. Well, do you think you could get permission from her parents for her to come here to Half Moon Farm?”

  My fork clatters to my plate. I turn to my dad in horror. “What is she doing?”

  He shrugs. “Beats me. You know your mother.”

  “Dad! She can’t come here! Not Savannah!”

  A moment later my mother reappears.

  “Please don’t tell me you just invited Savannah Sinclair to our house for the weekend!” I beg.

  “It’s the perfect opportunity for you to make amends,” she replies calmly.

  “But I’ve already been doing that at school!”

  “This will help prove to the Sinclairs that you really meant it when you apologized. Besides, I can’t stand the thought of that poor girl being stuck on campus when everyone else gets to go home.”

  No amount of protesting on my part has any effect, which is usually the case when my mother makes her mind up about something. She may be petite, like me, but she’s no pushover.

  “She’ll be here first thing in the morning,” my mother tells me. “And I don’t want to hear another word about it. It’s the right thing to do, period.”

  I hardly sleep a wink all night. The worst thing is, there’s nobody around for me to call on for moral support. Everybody’s out of town for the long weekend. Emma’s gone with her mother to a library conference in Connecticut, Cassidy is in Boston with her grandparents, Megan and her family are taking Gigi out to see the Berkshires, and Becca’s in New York with her mother and Stewart, who has another Flashlite modeling gig.

  I’m completely on my own.

  The next morning after breakfast, my mother and I are doing the dishes when there’s a knock at the front door.

  “That must be Savannah,” says my mother. “Promise me you’ll be a good hostess.”

  “I promise,” I reply sullenly. Forcing myself to smile, I follow her to the front hall.

  “Hello,” says Savannah coolly, as my mother shows her in. Her hands are shoved into the pockets of her navy pea jacket, and her long chestnut hair is pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Hi.”

  Briggs, her chauffeur, comes in behind her, carrying her suitcase. Her new one, since the Blue Moon cheese wrecked the old one. He stands there, looking a little uncertain. Mostly because there’s a chicken pecking at his left shoe.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Loretta,” says my mother, scooping her up and thrusting her into my arms. “Put her back outside, would you, Jess?” She looks over at Savannah and the chauffeur, shaking her head in mock despair. “I don’t know what it is with these chickens of ours, but they’re just determined to be house pets. Every time one of us forgets to close the back door, they sneak inside.”

  The chauffeur laughs politely, but I can tell he thinks we’re weird. And I don’t even have to look at Savannah to know what she’s thinking. I doubt many senators have chickens wandering around their backyards, let alone inside their houses.

  Just then, my little brothers come dashing down from their room. They’re wearing underpants on their heads, and their faces are peeking out of the leg holes.

  “We’re deep-sea divers!” Dylan announces.

  “Watch!” adds Ryan. He pulls a straw out of his pocket and sticks it in his mouth like a snorkel, then breathes through it noisily.

  “I see,” says my mother calmly, as if it’s completely normal for third-grade boys to run around with underpants on their heads. Which in our house is pretty much the case. “Why don’t you two go search for sunken treasure in the cookie jar, then take your game outside?”

  We’re a freak show, I think, my face ablaze with embarrassment. Clutching the protesting chicken in my arms, I herd the twins toward the kitchen. As I put the boys and the straying poultry outside, it occurs to me that maybe a freak show is
a good thing. Maybe our family will seem so incredibly weird to her that Savannah will get creeped out and leave. I return to the front hall feeling hopeful, but the only one who leaves is her chauffeur.

  “Why don’t you help Savannah get settled?” my mother suggests. “I’m going to start lunch. Your father’s probably starving—he’s been up since before dawn with Sundance and Matilda.” She heads down the hall to the kitchen, leaving us standing awkwardly by the stairs.

  “Was your mother really on HeartBeats?” asks Savannah, watching her go.

  “Yup.” I know exactly what she’s thinking. It’s hard to believe that someone who looks so ordinary was ever the star of a TV soap opera. Today my mother is dressed in her usual early spring uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and flannel overshirt. She rarely bothers with makeup on days she’s not planning to leave the farm, and with two goats in labor, none of us are going anywhere today, that’s for sure.

  “My mother never wears jeans,” Savannah informs me loftily.

  “Your mother doesn’t live on a farm,” I snap, grabbing her suitcase and hauling it upstairs. It weighs a ton. What the heck did she bring, her entire wardrobe?

  When we get to my room I heave her suitcase on the bed closest to the wall. With any luck, it will rain. Sometimes when it really pours, the roof leaks on that side of the room. That will send her flying back to Colonial Academy. On her broomstick.

  I take a scrapbook from one of my shelves and toss it casually onto her bedspread. Inside are photographs I collected from fan magazines the year my mother lived in New York. She’s glammed up to the hilt as Larissa LaRue in all of them.

  Savannah flips through it. I can tell she’s impressed, but of course she doesn’t admit it.

  “So how come you didn’t go away this weekend like you were supposed to?” I ask.

  “My parents had to fly to Brussels at the last minute,” she replies. “Some NATO thing.”

  Savannah’s father is on the Senate Foreign Relations committee. The only reason I know this is because Savannah told me. Many times, in fact. I guess it’s a big deal—at least in Washington. It’s not like anybody I know gives a hoot.

  Thinking about Washington makes me wish I was back at Walden Middle School. Their field trip is coming up soon, and I’m really sad to be missing it. The D.C. trip has always been the best thing about eighth grade at Walden, and Colonial Academy takes their students in the sixth grade, so I missed that chance too. On the other hand, Mrs. Chadwick and Mrs. Wong are going along as chaperones, so it’s possible the trip won’t be quite as much fun as I think.

  Savannah makes no move to unpack, but instead starts prowling around my room. She pauses by the window and looks out over the porch roof to the pastures and the barn. “Do you have horses?” she asks.

  I nod.

  “Maybe we can go riding later.”

  I smother a laugh. “You’re welcome to try.” Led and Zep are great behind a plow, but they’re not exactly what Savannah is used to. They tolerate it when my brothers and I hop on their backs, but it’s kind of like sitting on a tank, and lumbering around on a Belgian is hardly like learning dressage at Colonial Academy. I don’t try to explain, though. She’ll see for herself soon enough.

  Savannah gives me a funny look, then continues her inspection of my room. She scans the shelf of science fair prizes and moves on to the framed photograph of me as Belle in our sixth grade production of Beauty and the Beast.

  “Who’s the cute guy?” she asks, gazing at my costar.

  “Zach Norton.”

  “Is he your boyfriend?”

  I hesitate, wondering if I should tell a white lie. I know Zach wouldn’t mind—he’s a good sport. I could probably even get him to play along if we ever ran into him downtown. “Actually—”

  “Didn’t think so,” Savannah says dismissively, returning the photograph to its place. “Besides, I forgot, it’s that kid Kevin something you’ve got a thing for, right? The little twerp who keeps leaving notes for you with Mrs. Crandall?”

  Stung, I sit down on the edge of my bed. How did Savannah find out about Kevin Mullins? I can only imagine how many people she’s told, too. I should have sat Kevin down a long time ago and told him to cut it out, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Life is tough enough on Kevin as it is. Still, now I’m feeling really stupid that I didn’t have a talk with him earlier.

  Savannah continues circling my room, ignoring the holes I’m drilling in her back with my eyes. I can’t believe my mother thought it was a good idea to invite her over. The least she could have done was put her in the guest room, instead of in here with me. Aren’t we forced to spend enough time together at school?

  Next up on the Jessica Delaney Room Tour is my bookshelf. Savannah runs a well-manicured forefinger over the titles, and my books suddenly seem incredibly dorky. Not that Savannah is much of a reader—she likes magazines, mostly, and all that gossipy stuff about bubble-headed celebrities. The only real books I’ve ever seen her read are the ones assigned to us for English class, and most of the time she just reads the CheatNotes versions. She even did that with To Kill a Mockingbird, which is the best book I’ve ever read in my life.

  Most of my books are about science and nature, except for the ones we’ve read for book club. Savannah’s finger, which has been moving steadily across titles like Birds of New England and Teach Yourself Astronomy, pauses at Little Women, then stops completely at Anne of Green Gables. She glances at me over her shoulder and smirks.

  “Book club, right?”

  I’m tempted to throw something at her. How dare she paw through my stuff and pass judgment? Before I can say or do anything, though, she spots more photos on one of the lower bookshelves. She leans down and picks two of them up. The first one is in a nice frame. My dad took it last summer, right before our book club went on the hike Mrs. Wong planned as a bachelorette party for Cassidy’s mother. We’re lined up with the White Mountains behind us, wearing backpacks and smiles. The other one is the picture Madison Daniels sent me with her first letter last fall.

  “Who’s this?” Savannah asks.

  “My pen pal,” I reply grudgingly. No way am I explaining about the mother-daughter book club in Wyoming.

  “Y’all have a pen pal?” Savannah sounds incredulous. “How lame is that?” She puts the photos back, then spies an envelope that’s on the shelf beside them. “Is this from her, or is it a note from your little boyfriend?”

  I spring to my feet. “That’s private property,” I tell her, my voice rising.

  Savannah holds it up in the air out of my reach. Short of jumping for it, which I’m not about to do and which wouldn’t work anyway since she’s so much taller than me, there’s not much I can do. I cross my arms and glare at her. Grinning, she plucks the letter out of the envelope and starts to read:

  Dear Pen Pal,

  Thanks for your letter. I’m glad to hear that your parents are going to let you keep one of the kittens. Since your dad’s into rock music, I think you should name him either Jimi Hendrix or Elvis. Maybe Elvis would be better with that Nashville theme your mom’s got going with all her country-music-star chickens.

  Nothing much new to report here. It’s still snowing; spring takes forever to get to Gopher Hole. Since I’m stuck indoors so much I’ve been practicing a ton. The guitar I got for Christmas rocks, and I know a whole bunch of new songs now.

  Your friend,

  Madison

  P.S. I don’t care what anybody says, your snotty roommate totally got what she deserved.

  Savannah’s voice trails off.

  Serves you right, I think, but aloud I just say smugly, “I told you it was private property.”

  She tosses the letter and its envelope back on the shelf. “I’m glad I’m not in a stupid book club.”

  “I doubt there’s one that would have you,” I retort, the words flying out of my mouth before I can stop them. So much for being a good hostess.

  We glare at each other, but befor
e either of us can say anything else, my mother calls.

  “Girls! Lunchtime!”

  I stalk out of the room, not caring if Savannah follows. Downstairs in the kitchen, my mother takes one look at my face and points to the cellar door. “I need a jar of pickles,” she says, giving me a little shove. Then she turns to Savannah. “And would you mind setting the table for us, honey?”

  A moment later my mother is in the basement with me. “What is going on?” she whispers.

  “She’s impossible, mom!” I whisper back. “She’s going through all my stuff and making fun of everything—I can’t believe I have to spend the entire weekend with her! Can’t we send her back?”

  My mother puts her hands on her hips. “Let me remind you that you’re the reason she’s here in the first place,” she says. “She’s a guest in our home, Jess, and as such I’m expecting you to treat her kindly. Is that too much to ask?”

  We go back upstairs to find Savannah standing where we left her, looking flustered.

  “What’s the matter?” my mother asks.

  “Um, I’m not exactly sure what to do, Mrs. Delaney.”

  “Oh, you know, just put out plates, napkins, silverware—the usual. I left everything right there on the counter for you.” She points to the counter.

  Savannah picks up the stack of plates, then hesitates.

  “Oh, my,” says my mother. “You’ve never set a table before, have you?”

  Her face flushed with embarrassment, Savannah says softly, “Back home, our housekeeper always takes care of that.” She shoots me a look, one that says Don’t you dare say a word.

  A snicker slips out before I can stop myself.

  “Jess,” warns my mother, frowning at me, then adds gently, “Savannah sweetheart, there’s no shame in that, but here at Half Moon Farm life is a little different. We all pitch in to do the housekeeping, and pretty much everything else. While you’re staying with us I consider you one of the family, so if it’s okay with you, you’re going to learn some new skills this weekend. Setting a table is a snap—Jess will show you how.”

  Wordlessly, I pick up the napkins and silverware. Savannah follows me into the dining room with the plates she’s still holding. Using exaggerated gestures, like the kind you’d use to demonstrate something for a complete idiot or a space alien, I set a sample place at the table. Savannah watches me, her lips pressed together in a tight line. We set the rest of the table in silence. I try not to gloat but I can’t help it. I can’t wait to tell my friends about this.