True Colors

by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock

  “Quit wiggling,” I told her.

  “I’ve got to go,” Nadine whispered back.

  “You can’t go,” I told her. “We just got here.”

  “No,” said Nadine, wiggling more. “I mean I have to go.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, go, then.”

  “Out here?” Nadine said, incredulous.

  “Yes, out here,” I said.

  “I can’t go out here,” Nadine said, shuddering. “There’re snakes and spiders and things.”

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I told her. “Well, there’s the Wrights’ outhouse over there. I guess you could use that.” I thought it best not to tell her that I thought there’d be even more snakes and spiders inside the outhouse than outside.

  From the look on Nadine’s face, I could tell she was thinking the same thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She ran across the yard and opened the door. I decided it was best not to tell her about the hornets’ nest hanging under the eaves, right over the door.

  Nadine’s face scrunched up, and it seemed I could almost smell the outhouse from where I was. Nadine hesitated, then held her breath and popped inside, the outhouse door slapping shut behind her.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dennis come around the corner of the barn. A second later, Wesley followed him.

  My heart plummeted to the ground, bounced, and came back up, threatening to bring supper with it. The Wright brothers weren’t in Hardwick; they were walking toward the outhouse!

  “I tell you, I heard something,” Dennis said. “Sounded like the outhouse door.”

  “Maybe it’s another skunk,” Wesley said. “Let’s put this one in Old Lady Paisley’s car.”

  They were only a few feet away from the outhouse. What was I going to do? I couldn’t let them find Nadine in there.

  I remembered how Raleigh had rescued that heron from the Wright brothers and how my attempt to rescue him had backfired.

  I hoped my aim would be better this time. I’d be getting revenge for Dolly, too.

  Straight as an arrow, the rock left my hand and ripped into the hornets’ nest with a satisfying thunk. Both brothers only had time to glance upward at the sound, and the next second, they were hollering and slapping as angry hornets poured from the damaged nest. Dennis and Wesley took off running toward the house, a black cloud of hornets following them.

  Nadine tore out of the outhouse, screaming for all she was worth, but her raincoat and rubber boots protected her from getting stung.

  I was having a hard time holding Dolly, what with the hornets and Nadine screaming, but as soon as I’d helped Nadine scramble aboard, Dolly took off toward home faster than I’d ever seen her go. We made it to Nadine’s house in record time.

  We dashed up the stairs and into her bedroom, slamming the door behind us. We flopped on the floor, panting as if we’d run five miles. That had been way more dangerous than playing crossing the Iron Curtain. I felt like we’d just escaped across enemy lines! We looked at each other and laughed.

  Nadine picked up her pillow and threw it at me.

  “I can’t believe you hit that bees’ nest,” Nadine said. “Those boys were screaming like little girls.” That from a girl who did scream like a girl.

  I tossed the pillow back at her.

  “They were hornets,” I said, “and I wouldn’t have had to hit it if you hadn’t just had to go in that outhouse.”

  Nadine giggled, but then her face got serious.

  “I never should have told them about Raleigh being afraid of water,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  I knew how hard it was for Nadine to apologize, and I smiled at her. I wished we hadn’t wasted so much time this summer being mad at each other.

  Nadine propped herself up on her elbows.

  “With everything going on, it must be hard to concentrate on your column,” she said.

  I sat bolt upright. My column!

  “I forgot all about it,” I said.

  “I thought maybe you had,” Nadine said, “so I wrote it for you.”

  “Really?” I said. “You did that for me?”

  “Sure,” Nadine said. “I’d be happy to keep doing it, too, you know, till Hannah’s better.”

  I felt guilty, Nadine having to do my work for me, and I didn’t know what Mr. Gilpin would say about her writing my column, but it sure would take a weight off my shoulders.

  “I’ll ask Mr. Gilpin tomorrow to see if that’s all right with him,” I said.

  “I’ll go with you,” Nadine said.

  I felt like hugging her. She was a true-blue friend. Which made me feel even worse about keeping secrets from her.

  I spotted my blue print quilt on the floor. With everything going on lately, I’d forgotten to take it back home. I bent over to get it, but Nadine was quicker, and snatched it up before I could. She held it at arm’s length, wrinkling her nose.

  “I can’t believe you haven’t thrown this ratty old thing away,” she said. “Maybe I just ought to burn it.”

  “No! Give it back,” I said, grabbing for it, but Nadine tucked it behind her.

  “Not till you tell me why you’re saving it,” she said.

  Maybe it was because I was tired of keeping it a secret, or maybe it was because spying on the Wright brothers had brought us closer, or maybe it was because I wanted Nadine to be the kind of friend that I could unburden myself to, but whatever the reason, I told her the truth about looking for my real mama, and about finding out the quilt was the one that I’d been wrapped in, and about Esther and Peddler Jenny, everything, except for the part about her parents getting a divorce.

  Nadine listened all the way through without interrupting once.

  “So this quilt’s a clue,” Nadine said. “We can use it to find out who your real mama was.”

  She’d said we. It’s amazing how that little word made me feel so much better. I wasn’t doing this alone anymore.

  Nadine frowned and held the quilt close to her face, squinting.

  “What are these letters for?” she said.

  “What letters?” I asked.

  “Here,” Nadine said, “in the corner.”

  I snatched the quilt out of her hands and held it up to the window so I could see better.

  In the corner, three letters stitched in white thread, so tiny it was almost as if whoever had sewn them there hadn’t wanted anyone to find them: MRS.

  chapter 25

  “Mrs. who?” Nadine asked, but I didn’t know.

  All this time, ten years, those letters had been in the corner of the quilt, like a secret.

  I wasn’t too happy that it was Nadine instead of me who’d found those letters. I’d overlooked a big clue. Didn’t make me much of an investigative reporter, did it?

  I’d let myself get sidetracked, searching for those missing animals instead of for my mama. Well, that was all going to change, but good.

  Why hadn’t my mama put her last name on the quilt, too? Had she been in such a hurry that she’d only had time to sew Mrs.? Right now, it didn’t seem like much of a clue, but it did mean that whoever had left me was married.

  Peddler Jenny had been married. But I didn’t know her last name, and I was beginning to realize how hard it is to track down someone if you don’t know their last name, but at least I had Nadine helping me out now.

  If I hadn’t known about Mr. and Mrs. Tilton getting a divorce, the evening would have been perfect. Nadine and I built a bonfire on the shore, and we roasted hot dogs on sticks, and then marshmallows to make s’mores, and watched as a few shooting stars zipped across the sky. It was just like old times, and I hated going home, afraid to break the spell.

  After chores the next morning, I met up with Nadine, and we rode Dolly into town to talk to Mr. Gilpin. Nadine wasn’t her usual talkative self, but I chalked it up to all the excitement of yesterday.

  “After we ask Mr. Gilpin about you writing the column for me,” I said to her over my shoulder, “may
be we could look through old copies of the paper for more information.”

  Nadine didn’t answer right off, and when she did, it was with a question.

  “If you do find out who your mama is, what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Go meet her, I guess,” I said. “I want to know why she left me in Hannah’s kettle.”

  Nadine frowned.

  “But you aren’t thinking of leaving Hannah, are you?” she said. “That just wouldn’t be right.”

  I should have known all that good feeling between us last night couldn’t last. Who was she, with her perfect family, to be telling me what was right or not?

  “You see, I was thinking more about your mama last night, after you left,” Nadine went on. “I’m not sure you should be looking for her.”

  What?

  “It would be wrong to leave Hannah,” Nadine said. “Besides, your mama hasn’t come back for you, has she?”

  Her words stung me. I thought friends were supposed to support you no matter what. I wished I hadn’t told Nadine after all.

  “Don’t you think that if she was coming back, she would have done it by now?” Nadine said.

  That took my breath away. I managed to nod.

  “Good,” Nadine said. “I’m glad that’s settled. Now, let’s go talk to Mr. Gilpin about the column.”

  The rest of the ride into town, Nadine prattled on about the queen’s coronation, but I didn’t even listen. I kept thinking about what she’d said. Was she right? Was it wrong of me to be looking for my mama?

  “How’s Hannah doing?” Mr. Gilpin asked, first thing.

  “She’s sure not taking it easy,” I answered. “She was up at four o’clock baking, and I—” I was going to tell him about all the extra deliveries I had to do, but Nadine interrupted.

  “Blue has something she wants to ask you,” she said.

  I thought that was rude of her to interrupt, but I reminded myself that she was helping me out with my column.

  “If it’s all right with you, Nadine said she’d write my columns for me,” I said. “Just till Hannah’s better.”

  Mr. Gilpin looked at Nadine and then at me.

  “Can she write?” he asked me, but Nadine jumped in.

  “I write for the school newspaper back home,” she said. “Actually, Mr. Gilpin, I’m a much better writer than Blue is.”

  I glowered at her, but she didn’t look my way.

  “Well,” said Mr. Gilpin. “I don’t know about that, but Blue does have a lot on her plate right now. If it’s all right with her, I guess it’s all right with me. We’ll see how you do.”

  Nadine pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket.

  “Actually, I’ve already got it done,” Nadine said. “And I’m partly done with next week’s column as well.”

  Yesterday, having Nadine write my column had seemed like a weight off my shoulders. So why did it feel like a stab in the back today?

  When the paper came out on Thursday, people started talking about Nadine’s column. Even Mr. Gilpin and Mr. Allard.

  I walked into the Monitor office just as Mr. Gilpin and Mr. Allard were leaving. They both nodded at me but kept on talking.

  “I can’t believe she actually used the word catanadromous,” Mr. Allard said. “I consider myself an educated man, but even I had to look that one up.”

  “Nothing wrong with educating the public by developing their vocabulary,” Mr. Gilpin said.

  I went straight to Mr. Gilpin’s dictionary, which was already open to the right page. I wondered if Mr. Gilpin had had to look it up, too.

  “Cat-a-nad-ro-mous, adj. referring to fish that go from salt water to freshwater every year to lay their eggs.”

  Hmph, I thought. Anybody can look up words in a dictionary. Doesn’t make them writers.

  Nadine was too busy finishing up next week’s column in the evenings to go swimming, or make s’mores, or watch fireflies.

  “Well, I’d like to, Blue, really I would,” she said, “but I’ve just got too much to do to make this column something people will want to read.” Which was an insult no matter how you looked at it.

  The second week, Nadine used the words glossophagine (“taking food with the tongue, like a frog or an anteater”), atrabilarious (“feeling melancholy”), testudineous (“slow-moving like a turtle”), susurrus (“a whispering sound”), and ranine (“pertaining to frogs”) all in the same paragraph!

  “Nadine’s supposed to be writing about people,” I told Cat. “Not fish, turtles, and frogs. She’s not writing a nature book, for Pete’s sake.” But I knew if I said anything to Nadine, she’d just get mad.

  On my deliveries, I heard other people talking about Nadine’s columns, too.

  “It’s been years since I’d used my dictionary for anything other than a doorstop,” Mr. Moulton said.

  Riding past the river one day, I saw Mr. Hazelton standing knee-deep in the water, fly-fishing. He grinned and waved.

  “Trying to catch me one of those catanadromous fish,” he said.

  Nobody had talked about my columns that way. It looked like Nadine was doing a better job than I had.

  I could tell Mr. Gilpin was glad to have her there, too, because he told me, “Don’t worry about the column. You’ve got enough to handle right now.”

  He might as well have said, Don’t bother coming back to work.

  It had taken about two minutes for Nadine to step in and replace me. Even with knowing her folks were getting a divorce, I was finding it hard to feel sorry for Nadine.

  I fussed about it with Cat.

  “Who does she think she is?” I asked her.

  Cat twitched her tail.

  “Maybe she is a good writer,” I said. “But she didn’t have to steal my column.”

  I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to keep looking for my mama, but I wasn’t going to talk anymore with Nadine about it. I’d let her think I’d given up on the idea. I was determined to get to Barre, too, one way or the other.

  chapter 26

  Saturday morning, the sun broke through the clouds just in time for the Old Home Day parade.

  All week long, I’d been trying to figure out how to get to Barre. I even considered hitchhiking and jumping on a train like a hobo, but it was Hannah who gave me the answer.

  Nadine and I were going to ride in the parade together. She’d decorated her bike with crepe paper streamers. I’d taken strips of red wool, the kind that Hannah used to make rugs, and braided them into Dolly’s mane. I’d decided not to say anything to Nadine about her stealing my column, or about solving the missing animals case. I just wanted us to have fun today. I was especially looking forward to the taffy pull and the three-legged race.

  Hannah didn’t feel up to going to the parade, but she was sending bread and cookies for the bake sale. She handed me a jar of chicken soup.

  “And I need you to deliver this to Mrs. Gray. Her mother’s very sick, and I thought this soup might taste good to her.”

  I groaned.

  “Mrs. Gray?” I said. “But that’s in the other direction.”

  “Well, it won’t take that long,” Hannah said.

  “But I’ll be late for the parade,” I said.

  “Not if you hurry and stop arguing with me,” Hannah said.

  I wasn’t done arguing by a long shot, but then it hit me. This was the perfect opportunity to ask Mrs. Gray for a ride to Montpelier! From there, I’d find a way to Barre, where I could start looking for Peddler Jenny.

  “Okay,” I said, and Hannah’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  To get to Mrs. Gray’s place, I had to ride two miles out on the other side of town, take a right-hand turn, and go another two miles.

  “Oh, that Hannah,” Mrs. Gray said, taking the soup. “She’s always so thoughtful.”

  Yeah, I thought, to everybody else. Nobody cared if I missed the parade.

  “Mrs. Gray?” I said. “Are you still going to visit your daughter in
Montpelier?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Gray. “My lumbago’s been acting up, so my daughter’s going to come visit me instead.”

  My heart sank, and I fumed as I headed back down the road. Great. I’d wasted the morning on a wild-goose chase. Not only did I not have a ride to Barre, but I was going to miss the Old Home Day festivities.

  Two miles down, a left-hand turn, and two miles straight back to town, just like one of those right-angle triangles Miss Paisley had shown us in arithmetic. I’d never make it back in time for the parade.

  Unless I took a shortcut.

  What was that word Miss Paisley had used for the side of the triangle opposite the right angle? It sounded something like hippopotamus.

  Hypotenuse. Yes, that was it.

  I couldn’t remember how to figure out the length of the hypotenuse, but it just made sense that it’d be shorter to cut across instead of going back the way I’d come. I rode Dolly past Mrs. Gray’s house, across the fields behind the house, and pointed her in the direction I thought town was.

  I hadn’t figured on there being no road, just dense woods and swamp. Poor Dolly was either knee-deep in mud or scrabbling through thick brush, and goodness knows how many swarms of mosquitoes and horseflies we rode through, and she didn’t like it one bit.

  She didn’t know how to figure out the hypotenuse any more than I did, it looked like.

  Just when I thought we were lost for all time, I heard the river, and we came out into a little clearing next to it. In the distance, I could see the church steeple and hear calliope music from the fairgrounds. I wasn’t sure whether that hypotenuse had been shorter after all, but I thought Miss Paisley would be pleased to learn I’d used arithmetic over the summer.

  I was wondering how we were going to get across the river when we came to a rickety little bridge. It had some boards missing, and to tell you the truth, it didn’t look like it’d hold me up, much less a horse. Dolly took one look and said no way was she setting a hoof on that, that she’d wade across the river instead, thank you very much. (Wasn’t one of those phobias that Nadine had mentioned a fear of crossing bridges? Well, Dolly had it.) But that bridge got me to thinking. There was a bridge that led to Raleigh’s. Was this it? I knew I might be late to the parade, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to finally see Raleigh’s house. And because I’d be riding Dolly through the swamp, I didn’t have to worry about the bloodsuckers.