Ellie looked out over the sea of faces in the classroom as she read, seeing that her honesty was stunning them all. She even thought that Hannah looked ashamed when she got to the part about the black patent leather ballet shoes.
The other fifteen girls in the room were still stunned when Ellie finished reading her autobiography and took her seat.
Mrs. Crispin broke the silence. “I can’t believe anybody thought you were a princess,” she said.
“I can’t understand why anybody would think I was a princess, either,” said Ellie.
“That’s how silly rumors can be, how quickly they can get out of hand. The girls here have started a lot of rumors in the past, but I’ve never heard of one quite like this before. I wish I could have stopped it, but I’m usually the last to know about things. I didn’t tell the other girls about your background because I wanted to respect your privacy, and I just didn’t think it mattered anyway.”
“It wasn’t your fault. It was mine,” Ellie said. “I should have stopped it.”
Ellie somehow knew what Mrs. Crispin wanted to tell her: that everything would be just fine; that everybody would show up for her surprise birthday party; and that nobody would care where she had come from—just where she was going. But Ellie knew Mrs. Crispin wouldn’t lie.
Ellie wanted to hug Mrs. Crispin, to tell her she was sure this was the day Okey Dokey would come right to her. That somebody had found her dog, Pandy, in time for Ellie’s birthday. She wanted to say all those things, but she wouldn’t lie, either.
She wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t pretend.
Not now. Not ever again.
14
On the morning of her birthday, Ellie woke up late to the smell of chocolate. Probably the frosting for her birthday cake. Then she heard the sound of scraping. Probably her mother peeling potatoes for her famous potato salad. Lots of scraping meant lots of potato salad nobody would show up to eat at her surprise birthday lunch. How would she explain to her mother why nobody came to a surprise birthday party she wasn’t even supposed to know about?
Ellie stayed in bed, trying to figure out why she was so sure nobody would come. She hadn’t really betrayed anybody, or even lied to them. The other girls had made up the rumors; she hadn’t. She figured some of them, the really snobby ones, couldn’t be bothered with someone like her who was different, who had been homeless, who didn’t know or want to play by their rules. Scratch them and you’d sniff a snob, Mr. Cook had said.
But what had her mother meant by “Sniff a snob, and you’ll get a whiff of scared”? Scared of what? What could the snobs possibly be scared of? Ellie still couldn’t figure that out.
She was the smartest, and she was the poorest. Ellie realized she had two strikes against her at Twin Creeks. She couldn’t help but be a misfit. Just like Glory and Buttermilk and Pogo and Hannibal and Raffles and Okey Dokey. Only she didn’t have someone like Mr. Beckwith or Mr. Hunter to rescue her this time. She’d have to figure out a way to rescue herself.
She thought about Mr. Hunter again. What did he look like? Would he invite her to the big house when he returned in the spring? What had he thought of the thank-you note she and her mother had written him? Why did he do nice things for people he didn’t even know? For unwanted horses?
She pulled on her jeans and basset hound sweater and some old boots. “Would you mind feeding Okey Dokey this morning, Ellie?” she heard her mother call. “I’ve got some things to do around the house.”
“But you told me not to go near him.”
“It’s your birthday. You’re older now, and I’ve seen how good you are with horses. But be careful. I still want you to keep a distance.”
“I’ll go,” Ellie said.
In the feed room, she ladled oats into a bucket and threw hay in the burlap bag. Then she went back into their apartment to grab a carrot. She walked to Okey Dokey’s pasture and watched him at a distance for a long time. When she left the food in his shed and turned away, she could somehow feel the mustang looking at her, sizing her up from across the pasture. She walked back and climbed onto the top rung of the fence. Bracing herself against the cold, Ellie sat there, willing the horse to trust her. “Okey Dokey,” she yelled, loud at first. “Come on up here.” He didn’t move. Then Ellie tried to say the words exactly the way her father used to say them. “Okey Dokey. Everything’s going to be okey dokey.”
Ellie would have given anything to hear her father say those words just one more time.
The horse came nearer, but not near enough to see her wrinkled heart. Maybe he would come that close later, when he realized he could trust her, when he was ready. Everything in its time.
Ellie walked back toward the stable. She heard a horse’s whinny—it sounded like Hannibal’s. Then she heard a whinny coming from Okey Dokey’s pasture. She had never heard him whinny, and she loved the sound of it. When she turned into the feed room, Ellie heard another sound: scampering feet and the almost-stifled giggles of girls.
When she looked around the corner into the stable, Ellie heard the giggles again, and she could tell they were coming from the last stall. The heads of the gigglers were hidden by the top of the closed stall door, but Ellie could see shoes through the crack at the bottom of the lower one.
Lots of shoes.
Galoshes-looking shoes with smiley faces drawn in Magic Marker; ugly brown orthopedic shoes fancied up with pink laces; two pairs of loafers; four pairs of black patent leather ballet flats with bows—pretty, prissy, princess-y shoes just like Ellie’s father had bought her in that boutique.
Not all the girls in her class were there, but sixteen shoes meant eight were . . . the ones who liked her not for what she had, but for who she was. Who she really was! Then she saw one more pair of shoes. They were much larger—black, sensible shoes—exactly like the kind Mrs. Crispin always wore.
Even before the gigglers could jump out and yell “Surprise!” Ellie knew all those shoes were telling her that things would be okey dokey again.
She would have the best birthday.
Because she was the best Ellie.
The best Ellie Ever!
Ellie Ever Page 6