Rose's Story

by Thomas Kinkade

  “I’ll go, too,” Lizabeth said. “I do admire your nerve! We’ll bike to the Cranberry station. Amanda and I can take the two of you on our handlebars. No, I’ll ride on the handlebars.”

  “We’ll meet here immediately after school,” Kat said. “I’ll bring Todd’s clothes, and Lizabeth, you bring Christopher’s.”

  “He’ll kill me if he ever finds out,” Lizabeth said. “He gets mean if anyone touches his things with even a pinky finger!”

  “I don’t approve at all,” Amanda said, “but I’m not letting you face this alone, Rose. I’ll arrange for Hannah to play at Mary Margaret’s tomorrow.”

  “I’ll ask Aunt Norma to take care of Star in the afternoon,” Rose said.

  “And I’ll get Todd to stand by for my shift at the lighthouse,” Kat said.

  “What about Rose’s hair?” Amanda asked.

  “Cut it!” Lizabeth said.

  “No!” Rose screamed. “Not my mane!”

  “We’ll tuck her hair into Todd’s newsboy cap,” Kat said. “I’ll bring my hairpins,” Lizabeth said. “This is exciting!”

  Hairpins were forever falling out of Lizabeth’s pompadour. What if my hair falls down, Rose thought. She was going to go through with it but would anyone believe she was a boy?

  fourteen

  They left Amanda and Lizabeth’s bicycles at the Cranberry station and scrambled onto the four-thirty train just in time.

  “We made it!” Kat’s eyes were sparkling. “We’re on our way.”

  “I love traveling on trains,” Lizabeth said.

  “Look, there’s the high school going by!” Amanda was glued to the window, watching the scenery speed past.

  Lizabeth laughed. “The school isn’t going by. We are.”

  The whistle blew twice as the train rounded a curve.

  “This is such fun!” Kat said.

  Even Amanda was caught up in the excitement. Only Rose sat very still and quiet. Along with being scared and worried, she was itchy and too hot—the fault of Todd’s knickers. In the lighthouse tower, Rose had tried on a pile of clothing. Christopher’s trousers were much too long and the pants legs looked ridiculous rolled up. Todd’s clothes were tight, but she’d managed to get into these black-and-white wool tweed knickers. There was no other choice.

  It was unseasonably warm for April and the knickers were thick and itchy. She’d be sweating even if she was calm—which she certainly wasn’t. The wool newsboy cap that hid her hair made her that much hotter. She wore a long-sleeved blue striped shirt of Christopher’s. Her arms were too girly, Kat said, and she had to hide them. The shirt was too big, but Lizabeth said it didn’t look terrible tucked in. To go with it, Lizabeth had brought Christopher’s blue tie. Leave it to Lizabeth to have everything match, even for a disguise! They almost missed the train because it took them so long to figure out how to tie a tie. Todd’s kneesocks and shoes—too small, her feet were cramped—completed her outfit. Rose was hideously uncomfortable.

  Rose sneaked a look at the other passengers in the car. One had his nose in a book and the other four were busy talking to each other. They weren’t looking her way, but still…

  “Kat, the outlines of my limbs show,” Rose whispered.

  “That’s all right, boys’ knickers show their legs,” Kat said.

  “But I’m not a boy,” Rose whispered. “If anyone knew—” It would be a huge scandal. “It’s—it’s almost like being naked!”

  “Well, that’s what Lady Godiva did on horseback, isn’t it?”

  “Kat!”

  “Rose, if no one knows you’re a girl, it won’t matter.”

  “What if…I think impersonating someone is against the law,” Rose said. Could she be arrested for pretending to be a boy? She shuddered. A jailbird: like mother, like daughter!

  “If you register as yourself, that’s not impersonating,” Kat said, “What’s your middle name?”

  “Lorraine. Rose Lorraine Forbes.”

  “All right, you’re R. L. Forbes.” Kat grinned. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Wait! What about my voice?” There were too many things they hadn’t thought of that would give her away in a minute!

  “Hmmm. What can we do about Rose’s voice?” Kat asked Lizabeth and Amanda. “She might have to answer a question or…”

  “Easy,” Lizabeth said. “She has terrible laryngitis. We have to speak for her—I mean, him.”

  Rose nodded. “All right, that’s good.” She took a deep breath and fanned herself with her hand. I can do this, she told herself, and tried to relax back into her seat. “Maybe I can pass as a boy.”

  “I think so,” Lizabeth said, “though you’re an odd-looking boy.”

  “You’re much prettier as a girl,” Amanda added.

  “Pretty? Me?” Rose was stunned.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know that,” Lizabeth scoffed.

  “Those high cheekbones are an artist’s dream,” Kat said. “My nose,” Rose mumbled. “I have an awful profile.”

  “No, you don’t!” Kat laughed. “Seriously, I’d love to paint your portrait sometime.”

  “Don’t let her,” Amanda said. “She’ll make you sit absolutely still and—”

  Amanda was interrupted by the conductor. “Menasha!” he called as he strode through the cars. “Menasha!” The train pulled into the station.

  “Oh, good, we’re here!” Lizabeth said.

  They gathered their belongings and scurried off the train. Except for Rose, who couldn’t scurry in Todd’s shoes. They forced her to take awkward, somewhat pigeon-toed steps.

  They blinked in the sunshine on the station platform. Amanda checked her wristwatch. “A quarter to five. It was a short ride.”

  “Oh, no.” The dismay in Kat’s voice made everyone stare at her. “This is Menasha. We wanted North Menasha. The next stop.”

  They watched helplessly as the train chugged from the station and became smaller and smaller in the distance.

  “Well…” Lizabeth swallowed. “We’ll have to wait for the next train.”

  “The next train won’t be for hours,” Kat said.

  “Registration closes at six,” Rose said. “I have to register today!”

  “North Menasha is walking distance,” Kat said. “We can still make it.”

  Amanda shook her head. “I know the way, but we have to take Pequod Boulevard and that curves all around before it ever gets to North Menasha; it’ll take forever!”

  “No good. We have to go a direct way,” Kat said. “Through the woods.” She pointed to the trees that surrounded the station.

  “Through a forest? Do you actually know the way?” Lizabeth asked.

  “All we have to do is follow the train tracks. We know we have to go north, don’t we? How hard can that be?” Kat answered.

  They entered the patch of woods alongside the station. It was mostly scraggly trees, hardly a forest. There was a well-worn dirt path and they could easily see the train tracks through the thin brush. They walked in the direction the train had gone.

  “My shoes!” Lizabeth complained. “I wasn’t planning to hike today!”

  My feet, Rose thought, I’m getting blisters.

  “Oh, come on,” Kat said.” We’ll be there in no time.”

  But then the path veered off at an angle. The girls stopped.

  “The path or the tracks?” Amanda asked. The brush had become dense.

  “The path. There’s nowhere to walk along the tracks—look, it’s all thick brambles,” Lizabeth said. “My dress will be ripped to shreds!”

  “I guess you’re right,” Kat said. “The path has to lead somewhere. I bet it comes back around to the tracks.”

  “As long as we know the direction we’re going in,” Rose said.

  “We’re definitely heading north,” Kat said.

  They set off without speaking, moving ahead determinedly. The silence was broken by snapping twigs underfoot and the constant buzz of insects. The woods
became denser. The deep shade was a relief to Rose; her face was flushed with overheating, and drops of sweat trickled down her arms.

  And suddenly the path ended in the middle of nowhere.

  “What now? Should we try to get back to the tracks?” Amanda asked. “They’re to our left, aren’t they?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kat said. “The path turned the other way, didn’t it?”

  “If we try to cut across to the tracks, we’d be going out of our way, wouldn’t we? I think we should go ahead to get to North Menasha,” Rose said.

  “We could go back the way we came,” Lizabeth suggested. “On the path.”

  “But then we’ll never get to registration in time,” Rose said. “What time is it?”

  Amanda checked her watch. “Five-twenty.”

  “We have to hurry!” Rose said.

  They rushed forward, pushing their way through bushes. Branches tugged at them. Rose tripped over a log, and when she straightened up she saw crawly things coming from the moss under it. They looked for clear spots to place their feet.

  “Everybody, stop!” Amanda called.

  “We can’t, come on,” Rose encouraged.

  “No, stop. I mean it,” Amanda said. “See that oak tree? We passed it ten minutes ago. We’ve gone around in a big circle.”

  “That’s impossible,” Kat said. “There are hundreds of oak trees, Amanda.”

  “But I know that one because, see, there’s that longish nest hanging from the fifth branch up and I wondered what it was.”

  “There are hundreds of nests, Amanda,” Kat said, but she sounded less confident.

  “Not in a tree with white violets at the base,” Amanda said. “And a big mushroom growing on the trunk. I know this is the same one.”

  “I think that’s a wasp’s nest.” Lizabeth’s voice quivered. “Let’s keep walking.”

  “Fine,” Kat said, “but in what direction?”

  “You mean we’re lost?” Lizabeth asked. “I told you we should stay on the path and go back the way we came!”

  “Told-you-so’s won’t do us any good now,” Kat said. “I suppose we could keep walking until we reach…um…something.”

  “We might reach nothing and just get deeper into the forest,” Lizabeth said. “It’ll get dark and if there are mountain lions—”

  “There are no mountain lions in Massachusetts!” Kat said.

  “Just because you haven’t seen one…” Lizabeth said. “Please, don’t argue. We have to think,” Rose said.

  “Maybe we should stay put until someone finds us,” Amanda said.

  “Why would anyone in their right mind ever come here?” Lizabeth said. “We may have to eat berries and moss to stay alive and…and they might not find us until spring.”

  “It is spring,” Kat said. “Lizabeth, could you please stop?”

  “That’s it! Moss!” Rose said.

  Everyone looked at her. “What?”

  “I remember exactly what to do,” Rose said. “Everyone, look for trees with moss growing on the trunks.”

  “What? Why?” Kat asked.

  Lizabeth’s eyes became huge. “We’re not really going to eat moss, are we?”

  “No,” Rose said. “Moss always grows on the north side of a trunk. That’s a fact. So we’ll know which way to go.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Kat said. “How did you know that?”

  “And a New York City girl, too!” Amanda marveled.

  “My old school had Nature Lore in Central Park,” Rose said.

  They found moss on tree trunks and—Rose breathed deep with relief—it was all growing on the same side. The fussy Nature Lore teacher knew what she was talking about after all!

  They headed north with new energy. How far off did we wander, Rose worried. Will we actually get to North Menasha? And if we do, can we make it to Town Hall before six o’clock?

  fifteen

  “That big white building in the distance,” Rose said. “Is that the town hall?”

  They had finally reached Constitution Street in North Menasha.

  “That’s it, straight ahead,” Kat said.

  “Rose,” Lizabeth said, “you’re not walking like a boy.” “Well, what am I supposed to do?” Rose cringed with embarrassment when they passed other people on the street.

  “I don’t know, but you’re walking like a girl,” Lizabeth said.

  “Tread heavily and swing your arms,” Kat instructed. “Walk like everyone else is supposed to get out of your way.”

  “Forget about walking,” Amanda said. “It’s ten to six. We have to run!”

  “I can’t run and I can’t tread either, whatever that is! Todd’s shoes are killing me!” But Rose gritted her teeth and kept up with the others with a peculiar loping gait.

  It was five minutes before six when, out of breath and gasping, they reached the columns in front of the town hall. Kat stopped everyone. “We have to get ourselves together. Rose, tuck in your shirt.”

  Lizabeth pushed Rose’s stray hair back under the newsboy cap and looked at her critically. “This is the best we can do.”

  “I’m…I’m scared,” Rose whispered. “I don’t think I can…”

  Kat pulled her inside the building. The main entrance of the town hall had an impressive marble floor. Todd’s shoes squeaked. Rose winced with each step.

  Kat took a step into the only open door off the entrance and the others followed.

  “Yes, may I help you?” a lady behind a desk said.

  “We want to—I mean, our friend wants to register for the horse fair. For jumping.”

  “Charlie! Another one!”

  The man called Charlie was at a coatrack at the side of the room. He was shrugging a seersucker jacket over his shirtsleeves.

  “We’re closing,” he said.

  “Sir, it’s only five to six,” Lizabeth insisted.

  “Three to six now,” Amanda whispered.

  “Sorry, girls, there’s a chicken pot pie waiting for me.”

  “But sir, our friend came all the way from Cape Light,” Kat pleaded.

  “Walking most of the way,” Lizabeth muttered.

  “Please, sir,” Amanda said with her most appealing smile.

  “All right, all right, hurry along. Let’s make this fast.” He led them to a desk at the side of the room and pulled a notebook out of a drawer. His eyes slid past Kat, Lizabeth, and Amanda. Then he spoke to Rose. “Which event?”

  “Jumping,” Amanda answered.

  He flipped a page in his book. “Name?”

  “R. L. Forbes,” Kat said.

  The man stared at Rose. “What’s the matter with you, boy? Cat got your tongue?”

  “He’s got awful laryngitis, sir,” Amanda said. “He can’t speak at all.”

  “What’s the R stand for?”

  There was a pause.

  “Come on, come on, what’s his first name?”

  “Um…Ro,” Kat said.

  “Row? As in row your boat?”

  “That’s why everyone calls him R. L.,” Lizabeth explained.

  “Horse’s name, age, gender?”

  “Midnight Star,” Amanda said, and then she looked at Rose. Rose whispered in her ear and Amanda continued, “Five years old, gelding.”

  The man scribbled on a yellow card and handed it to Rose. “Here you are, be sure to have it with you. You’re last, number ten. Angel’s Field. Jumps are first, twelve noon. Good night.”

  Rose frantically tugged at Kat. “Ask him when I can see the course.”

  Kat and Rose ran to catch up to the man at the door. “My friend wants to know when sh-he can see the course.”

  “It’ll be set up by ten tomorrow morning.” He took a closer look at Rose. “There’s a lot more wrong with you than laryngitis, boy. Looks to me like you’ve got a serious fever.”

  Rose wiped the sweat from her brow. Before anyone had a chance to even thank him for his time, the man was gone.

  On Constitut
ion Street, Kat, Lizabeth, and Amanda giggled and skipped. Rose limped along, giddy with relief.

  “Good thing he was in a hurry,” Amanda said.

  Kat laughed. “We’re lucky he loves his chicken pot pie.” “And I have an entry card!” Rose waved it in the air.

  They laughed and congratulated themselves all the way back to Cranberry on the train.

  “We pulled it off!” Kat said when they stepped onto the sidewalk at the Cranberry station.

  Rose loosened the tie. “But what if I can’t pass tomorrow?”

  “Don’t worry so much.” Kat took Rose’s hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. “You did fine today. You were really brave.”

  Suddenly a deep voice called, “Lizabeth?”

  Lizabeth gasped. “Oh, no, there’s Christopher!”

  Kat dropped Rose’s hand as if it were a hot coal.

  Two boys came toward them. One had black hair, brilliant blue eyes, and even features. He was the more handsome of the two, but there was something about the sandy-haired boy that made Rose’s heart race. His brown eyes glinted with mischief and his crooked grin signaled a private joke. He looked rather wild and full of devil-may-care confidence. Incredibly, he seemed to be drawn to her, too. He was staring straight at her!

  Lizabeth made quick introductions. “My friend R. L., my brother, Chris, Chris’s friend Michael Potter, from Cranberry.”

  “We just came from The Great Train Robbery at the nickelodeon,” Chris said. “It was good. It had a real story, not just scenes.” He was talking to everyone, but he kept glancing over at Rose. And Rose could only think, Oh my, the exciting sandy-haired one is Christopher Merchant, Lizabeth’s brother! He put her brain in a jumble.

  “One time, the actor pointed his gun straight at the audience. It looked like it was coming through the screen.” Chris laughed. “People screamed and one lady ran out. Lizabeth could have gone into her phony swoons.”

  “I don’t do that!” Lizabeth protested. She swallowed. “Anymore.”

  “What are you doing in Cranberry, anyway?” Chris asked.

  There was an uncomfortable silence as the girls looked at each other. “We were planning to go to the nickelodeon, too,” Kat finally said.

  “You’re too late, Katherine,” Michael snarled. What had Kat ever done to him, Rose wondered.