Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World

by Ashley Herring Blake

  Riddle!

  Conundrum!

  Mystery primo!

  But Ivy didn’t think it was really girls that were the big puzzle, and when she opened her mouth, something else came out.

  “Me.”

  Taryn propped herself up on her elbows and frowned. “What do you mean, you?”

  Ivy pushed the covers back and swung her feet to the floor. Her toes sank into Taryn’s plush carpet. “Nothing. Just saying stuff. We should get ready for school.”

  “Yeah, okay, but…” Taryn sat up. Her bangs were a perfect line across her forehead, even after sleeping. “Ivy, what—”

  “Can I borrow something to wear?” Ivy asked. She headed over to Taryn’s closet, cursing their stupid pondering tradition, cursing that little word that slipped out of her mouth. Because, clearly, Taryn didn’t hear “Me” and think, “Oh yeah, me too.” Clearly, Ivy was the only one who confused herself.

  “Yeah,” Taryn said quietly. “Sure.”

  Ivy flipped through rows and rows of clothes, hunting for something that fit. She found a heather-gray tunic and rubbed the soft cotton between her fingers. Ivy used to have a dress just like this one, except it was a smoky blue color, like a thundercloud about to burst open.

  They got dressed in silence, but it wasn’t very comfortable. It was the exact opposite of comfortable. Because inside Ivy’s head, it was loud, loud, loud. Inside her head, she was trying to say a lot of things to Taryn, things she didn’t know how to say with words. It was like a foreign language in her brain. Ivy-speak. But she wanted to say something. Something true, something Ivy.

  “I don’t want to go to soccer camp with you,” Ivy said. Or rather, blurted.

  Taryn froze in front of the mirror over her dresser, in the middle of pulling her hair halfway up, an elastic band twisted around her fingers. “What?”

  “The soccer camp,” Ivy said. “This summer. I don’t want to go. I suck at soccer anyway.”

  Taryn turned around, her hair falling back into her face. “No you don’t.”

  “Well, I still don’t want to go.”

  “Then why’d you say you did?”

  “I don’t know.” Even though Ivy did know. She might not love soccer, but she loved Taryn. She missed Taryn and the friendship they used to have before boys and girls and crushes and baby brothers. Before mean sisters and disappearing families and tornadoes.

  Taryn crossed her arms and looked down at her feet. Her toenails were painted electric blue, the tips chipped. Ivy was pretty sure it was the same polish Gigi painted on the last time they all hung out at Ivy’s house a few weeks ago.

  “Okay,” Taryn finally said.

  But if it was really okay, Ivy thought she should also feel okay, and she didn’t. She felt like a pumpkin whose innards have been scooped out for Halloween.

  When they went downstairs for breakfast, Taryn grabbed a Pop-Tart and told Ivy she had to be at school early.

  “I promised Ms. Lafontaine I’d help her file graded papers,” Taryn said, throwing her backpack over her shoulder. Before Ivy could offer to come along, Taryn was out the door, leaving Ivy alone with Taryn’s bewildered parents and the giant pile of eggs and cinnamon raisin toast they had made for both girls.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Blue Whales

  When Ivy got to school, June was standing by Ivy’s locker. Ivy blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, but it really was June, wearing a dark purple sundress and grass-green leggings.

  And she was trying to slip a piece of paper through the slats in Ivy’s locker.

  Ivy froze. Her heart zoomed around her body.

  Before she could think of what to do, the paper in June’s hand fell to the floor. June scowled and grabbed it, her eyes meeting Ivy’s as she stood back up.

  “Oh. Hi, Ivy,” she said.

  “Um. Hi.” Ivy forced her feet to move forward. Her palms were sweating. She wiped them on her jeans and tried to breathe. But it was hard to breathe when June looked so pretty, and Ivy hoped so much that this note meant forgiveness and that June liked the picture Ivy drew. It was even harder to breathe seeing June in front of Ivy’s locker with a note in her hand.

  “I was just… I was, um, well…” June puffed out her cheeks and held up the piece of paper. “I wanted to give you this.”

  Ivy took it, and now breathing was nearly impossible.

  “Aren’t you going to look at it?” June asked.

  “Yes,” Ivy managed to say. “I’m going to look at it right now. At this thing you gave me, because you gave it to me.” She was babbling. She didn’t think she’d ever been so nervous in her life.

  June cracked a smile, but said nothing.

  Ivy unfolded the paper. On it was a drawing of a little whale. A blue whale. June had colored it an azure blue, and there was a red heart in its middle, taking up half of the whale’s body. Right below the whale’s tail were some words penned in June’s neat handwriting.

  Love, June

  Ivy’s heart leaped into her throat. She felt sick and glittery, droopy and elated. She had no clue which emotion to trust.

  “I’m sorry,” Ivy said. “For the other night. I shouldn’t have looked in your journal.”

  June nodded. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner. I was—” She bit her lip and looked away from Ivy. “Well, I was mad and really hurt, and I needed to think through it all, but then I realized I missed you and…”

  She kept talking, but Ivy’s attention snagged around what June had just said—I missed you—and wouldn’t let go without a fight. Ivy shook her head to clear it and forced herself to focus.

  “… maybe you were reading the poem because you liked it,” June was saying, “and you were just curious about me, which, I guess, is sort of nice when I think about it like that.”

  “I did like the poem,” Ivy said. “So much. You’re really good. But I know I still shouldn’t have read it. I should’ve just asked.”

  June nodded. “Well. Thanks for the drawing. It was really pretty. Amazing even.”

  “Yeah? You liked it?”

  “Of course! Who wouldn’t? It was magical.”

  Ivy nearly slumped in relief. “Thanks for the whale. It’s really cute.”

  “That thing took me two hours to get right. Can you believe that?”

  Ivy laughed. “It’ll get easier.”

  “Most things do,” June said.

  As they walked toward homeroom together, Ivy couldn’t help but hope that June was right.

  The rest of the day went by in a haze. Ivy kept taking the little whale drawing out of her folder and staring at it. During math, Mr. Santorini almost caught her while he was passing out graph paper, asking what Ivy could possibly find more intriguing than linear functions, but she slipped the drawing into her desk right before he got to her row. She vowed to be more careful. After all the other drawings that she’d lost, Ivy didn’t think she could take losing June’s whale too.

  Then right after the final bell, Ivy found another note in her locker. Her heart skittered into her throat and stayed there. The morning with Taryn had been so horrible, followed by an almost perfect morning with June; she wasn’t sure how much more she could take. She felt too full, like at any moment she’d overflow and start crying or laughing but wasn’t quite sure which one. But when she saw another one of her drawings—this time the treehouse was made out of silvery blue raindrops and the girls were laughing under a glittering umbrella the color of summer grass—she couldn’t help but be glad. It was like seeing an old friend, even if that friend was delivered by an unknown foe.

  Ivy reached inside her locker and unclipped the typed note from her drawing.

  I’m sorry. I only wanted to help. I know what it’s like to have something you want to tell your friends but don’t think you can. If it helps, I think your drawings are the prettiest I’ve ever seen. I look at them every day, wondering about the girls inside. I wish you’d tell me. They look happy.


  Ivy stared at the letter for a long time before she realized tears were running down her cheeks. She still didn’t have her notebook back, but for some reason, she wasn’t even mad. She felt something warm in the center of her chest, like an open meadow in the summer or a crackling fire on a winter afternoon.

  She looked back at the girls in her drawing. They were happy. She had drawn herself laughing, her mouth wide open, no embarrassment at all. If she tilted it just right, the dark-haired one almost looked like June.

  Or maybe Ivy just wanted her to look like June. Her stomach flipped and flopped at the thought. Is this what a crush felt like? A constant stomachache, a bubbly feeling in your fingertips?

  Ivy read the note again, wondering what the keeper of her secret wished they could tell their friends. Ivy’s mind flashed to June’s poem, to the way June had so clearly not wanted Ivy to see it. A fresh wave of guilt washed over her, but then she skimmed the note again. Whoever this person was, they loved her drawings. They weren’t judging Ivy. They didn’t think Ivy was weird or wrong. They were just… curious.

  Ivy couldn’t help but wonder if, just maybe, they were simply pondering mysteries too.

  She grabbed a pencil from her bag and scribbled a message on a piece of notebook paper.

  They’re happy because they’re together. They’re happy because they can be themselves.

  Then she placed the note in her locker and snapped the door closed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Keeper

  The weekend and the next week passed in a blur of fighting Layla for the bed covers, locker notes, and treehouses. Every day at school, Ivy received another one of her drawings and a message from the person who had her notebook, the Keeper of all her secrets. Every day, Ivy wrote Keeper back, and it felt almost like having a pen pal. Ivy had even stopped asking for her notebook. She told herself she just kept forgetting to add the question into her notes, but really, she liked talking to Keeper—so much so that she missed seeing a new note in her locker over the next weekend. In their letters to each other, Ivy was able to say things she’d never said to anyone before.

  Ivy told Keeper about her family and what it was like to be stuffed in one hotel room. She told Keeper that sometimes she wished the twins had never been born because she missed her mom. And then she told Keeper how awful she felt that she felt that way. Ivy even told Keeper about Layla and what a two-faced friend and sister she was. Though Ivy didn’t tell Keeper why. Why still hurt too much. Why was still too scary.

  The Monday after Ivy had told Keeper that the girls were happy because they could be themselves, Keeper stopped leaving typed notes and switched to a blocky handwriting in all capital letters that Ivy didn’t recognize. Still, anyone could make those kind of letters. She spent hours poring over them in her little corner of her family’s room, wondering who could’ve made those pencil strokes. Hoping she knew who did. By now, she was pretty convinced it wasn’t Drew. Keeper didn’t talk like Drew at all. She couldn’t believe he cared about her drawings. He had his own worries. She tried to talk to him once, to see how he was, but ever since the crying incident at his house, he avoided her like she was covered in boils.

  Ivy remembered seeing Annie Demetrios in the gym the day she lost her notebook, but Annie was in eighth grade. Their hall was all the way at the other end of the school, and there was no way Annie knew where Ivy’s locker was.

  Of course, Ivy had considered the possibility that it might be Taryn, but she didn’t think Taryn would have been able to wait for Ivy to talk about the drawings. If she was the one who found the notebook, Taryn would’ve pestered Ivy for every thought in her head that very first day. Plus, Ivy never even saw Taryn in the gym that morning.

  That really only left June, which suddenly made perfect sense. Right after June gave her the whale drawing, Ivy and Keeper started writing more and more notes to each other. It was like that little whale had opened up all these things they wanted to say to each other. The thought made Ivy giddy and queasy at the same time, and she wouldn’t let herself think on it for too long. Keeper was just Keeper, and now Keeper had even more of her secrets.

  I think I might have a crush on someone. But I’m not really sure.

  A GIRL?

  Yes.

  WHO IS IT?

  I can’t write down her name!

  WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’RE NOT SURE?

  What if I just really like her as a friend? She’s fun and makes me laugh and she’s smart. But that doesn’t mean I have a crush on her. Or does it?

  MAYBE, MAYBE NOT. BUT DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT HAVE A CRUSH ON ALL YOUR FRIENDS?

  I don’t think so. I never even thought about it until I started hanging out with her.

  WELL, THERE’S YOUR ANSWER. ARE YOU GOING TO TELL HER?

  I don’t know. Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up.

  SOUNDS LIKE A CRUSH TO ME.

  Ivy smiled when she read that, but then she felt nauseated. Why didn’t she ever think about this stuff with Taryn or any other girl? Taryn was pretty. Taryn was fun and smart.

  Why was June different?

  June and Ivy had spent almost every afternoon together, and Ivy still didn’t know what to do. Dr. Somerset usually worked until dinner, sometimes later, and the two girls would gather up all their art supplies and a few illicit snacks that Ivy sneaked from the inn, and they’d close themselves in June’s treehouse.

  June was hard at work on her project for the Resilient Helenwood art show, her excitement at nearly nuclear levels. If Ivy drew her, June would be covered in neon, the brightest pink and eye-searing yellow. June’s latest additions to her project were photographs, something Ivy knew nothing about.

  “This is like one of Emily Dickinson’s letters to the world,” June said the next Sunday afternoon. She brought an ancient Polaroid camera up to her face, snapping a picture of a pair of grubby ice skates that she had found in her attic and that were at least three sizes too small.

  “Your letter is that you like ice-skating?” Ivy asked. She was splayed on her stomach near the lantern, idly sketching her own face into the yellow notebook Robin had given her. Her fingers itched to make it into one of her treehouse pictures, but she knew she wasn’t ready to show June one of those.

  That is, if June hadn’t already seen them.

  “No, you goose,” June said, gently waving the square photo through the air. “The letter is that I could ice-skate.” She kicked the skates aside and positioned a soccer ball in their place. “Or play soccer or act in plays or swim in the ocean or do whatever I want.”

  “You’ve never done any of those things before?”

  June’s face fell.

  “I mean, I’ve never acted in a play either,” Ivy quickly added. “But…” She trailed off, not quite sure what to say. Clearly, she’d said something wrong and couldn’t figure out what.

  “It’s no big deal,” Ivy finally said, quietly. “If you haven’t swum in the ocean before. I’m sure you will one day. Or ice-skate. Or whatever you want.”

  June nodded. “I’ve seen the ocean. Just not…” She shrugged and rolled the soccer ball a little with her foot.

  Ivy wished June would say more but didn’t know how to ask her. Secrets were tricky like that. Now, more than ever, Ivy was sure June was keeping one of her own, something that didn’t have anything to do with Keeper or Ivy at all.

  Keeper did say that they knew what it was like to keep things from friends. But maybe they didn’t have to keep things from each other. Maybe they didn’t have to be Keeper and Ivy. Maybe they could just be June and Ivy.

  Ivy smiled at the thought. She’d just started sketching the first line for a treehouse on her paper when June pulled strange objects out of her canvas tote bag for the next photo.

  A tube of lipstick.

  A necklace with a silver-and-rose-gold heart locket.

  A pair of fancy red high-heeled shoes that were clearly too big for her.

  “What’s all that?�
� Ivy asked, pushing herself up to her knees.

  June’s face turned as red as the shoes. She draped the necklace across the wooden floor in between the lipstick and shoes. “Just… well… you know, grown-up stuff.”

  “Grown-up stuff?”

  “Yeah, grown-up stuff. You know, things like cool clothes and”—June lowered her voice and looked around like she was about to spill the world’s greatest secret—“love.”

  Ivy swallowed hard, and her heart kicked into high gear. She watched June position everything just so. As June clicked the photo, Ivy couldn’t take her eyes off that locket. It reminded her of the heart arrow that Keeper drew, pointing right at one of her stormy treehouse drawings.

  “Don’t you think about love?” June asked, then she giggled as she laid the photo with the others. “I know Taryn does.”

  “Um… I… well…” Words that came easily with Keeper tangled in Ivy’s throat. June asked it so casually, like she was asking if Ivy preferred dark or milk chocolate, that Ivy couldn’t tell if there was anything behind her question.

  Ivy wanted June to be Keeper so badly, tears clouded her eyes. She wanted to talk to someone real about everything. But every time she pictured it actually happening, she remembered Gigi crying in Layla’s room. She remembered how hurt Gigi seemed and how even Gigi was nervous about telling a real person, and she was sixteen! She remembered that Gigi and Layla weren’t friends anymore. Even if Keeper was June, there was a big difference between writing words on notes in a locker and saying the same words out loud while looking into June’s big brown eyes.

  Ivy stared down at her half drawing and tried to breathe. She was panicking. Full-on panicking, and all the comfort she felt from her notes with Keeper melted away like a sugar cube in a cup of hot tea. She was about to make up an excuse for why she had to get home, when a voice shattered the silence.

  “June Brianna Somerset!”

  June’s eyes widened, and her hands flew to her mouth. “Mom!”