Littler Women
Page 3
“It’s nothing,” Meg said, sounding slightly mortified. “I just twisted my ankle is all. It was these stupid boots. I should’ve worn my flats.”
“Let me help you,” Laurie said, breaking through the group holding two folding chairs. He carefully guided Meg onto one of the chairs and helped her elevate her ankle onto the other. The chaperones came over and examined the situation, noticing there wasn’t any swelling. Jo ran off to get Meg some fruit punch, but spilled most of it on herself in her rush to get back to her sister’s side.
Jo knew Meg felt uncomfortable being the center of attention. Indeed, Meg’s face was bright red. “I just want to go home,” she said. “It’s really nothing.”
“I already called Grandpa to come get us,” Laurie announced. “He’ll send the Lincoln so you can stretch out your foot.”
Jo looked at him gratefully, happy for his quick thinking. Mr. Lawrence’s huge black town car would be perfect to get them home and save Mom a trip in the van. “But it’s so early! Are you sure you’re ready to leave?” she asked Laurie.
“Completely,” he said. The chaperones helped Meg to the school’s front entrance, where she wouldn’t have much distance to cover when their ride arrived.
The two sisters were whisked home before they even knew what happened, each rushing to thank Mr. Lawrence’s driver. Jo promised Laurie she’d bring him a stack of books in the morning, and everyone said their good nights.
At home, Mom wrapped up Meg’s ankle with an ACE bandage, and the two younger sisters begged to hear every detail of the dance, imagining it to be a grand ball. Meg and Jo indulged them, embellishing every detail of their evenings.
“Even with your ankle, and my spilled punch,” Jo admitted, “we had fun. Middle school dances aren’t so bad. I mean, on a scale of one to ten, they’re like a four.”
It was high praise.
• • •
When everyone had gone to bed and Jo and Meg went to their room to get into pajamas, Meg finally asked Jo the questions she’d been saving for an hour, not wanting to embarrass her sensitive younger sister in front of Mom.
“So, you and the boy next door were adorable together. Do you think he’s cute? Do you like him?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Jo said, sounding crabby. “Can’t a person talk to another person without everyone thinking about romantical nonsense?”
Jo’s voice was sharper than she intended it to be. Her relaxed face immediately turned sour and she set down the hairbrush she’d been using with a clatter. It made Jo angry that her normally sensible big sister was acting exactly like one of the silly gossips in her class, who seemed to talk about nothing so much these days as which boy they thought was cute or which celebrity they wished they could meet. It was so annoying.
“Whoa. I’m sorry. I just . . . You guys seemed into each other is all.” Meg felt bad for ruffling her sister, especially when she’d taken such good care of Meg and her lousy ankle.
“Well, we’re just friends. He’s nice,” Jo said in a huff, flopping onto her bed and curling up toward the wall.
“Hey. Hey,” Meg said in a soft, apologetic tone. “I’m sorry. I really am. I get it; you’re just friends. I promise not to ever tease you again about boys, okay?”
“Deal,” Jo said, muffled by her pillow.
Meg’s Pretty Pillow Pattern
Materials:
• Piece of fabric, at least 34 by 17 inches (Old curtains, sheets, or clothing can be fun materials, but make sure to ask an adult before you cut anything!)
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Piece of chalk
• 20 straight pins
• Spool of thread in a color that matches your fabric
• Sewing needle (a slightly thicker one will be easier to work with)
• Needle threader (optional)
• About 13 ounces of pillow stuffing
• Iron
Directions:
1. Carefully measure out two 17-by-17-inch squares onto your piece of fabric and mark them on the “wrong side” (the side of the fabric that looks like the back, without any pattern on it) with the chalk. Cut out the two squares.
2. Lay the squares down flat with their “wrong sides” up. On each side of each square, measure half an inch from the edge and put a chalk dot to mark the spot. Make several of these dots along the edge of the fabric on each side. Connect the dots with the ruler and trace the line with the chalk so there is an outline all the way around each square half an inch from the edge. This is where you’ll sew.
3. Put the “right sides” of the fabric together, so the “wrong sides” of the fabric are facing out. Put a pin at each corner of the squares, holding them together. Then, place four more pins on each side of the squares, evenly spaced, perpendicular to the edge so the pin and the edge form a T shape.
4. Thread your needle (a needle threader can make this easier) and pull the thread through about 30 inches. Then cut the thread off so that there are 30 inches of thread on each side of the needle hole. Bring the strands together and tie a knot at the end.
5. Starting at a corner, make small stitches straight along your chalk line. 1/4-inch stitches are a good size. If you run out of thread, just tie a knot, cut the thread, rethread your needle, and start again where you left off.
6. Stop sewing about 2 inches from where you started. Tie a knot and cut your thread.
7. Turn the pillowcase right-side out using the 2-inch opening you left. Make sure to poke out the corners so you can see the points.
8. Lay the pillowcase down and ask an adult to help you iron it so that the seams are flat.
9. Stuff the pillowcase with cotton batting through the opening. You can make it as firm or squishy as you like.
10. Fold the edges of the fabric at the opening over 1/2 inch on each side and use 2 pins to hold them together. Use small stitches to sew across the opening. Make a knot and cut your thread.
CHAPTER FOUR
Back to Reality
“I hate being good.” —P. L. Travers
Jo felt wretched. The sky was gray, the air was cold and damp, and the snow that had looked so perfectly picturesque at Christmas time had morphed unattractively into dirty slop coating every outdoor surface. As she trudged from school to Aunt Em’s house, Jo noticed that each car driving by was covered in the salt and sand that the city had placed on the roads to make things less slick.
Usually Jo loved winter. It meant ice-skating and hockey, and snowball fights and delightfully huge mugs of hot chocolate in front of the fire. But today, the dark season weighed on her. The merriment of Christmas had passed, she missed Dad horribly, and life felt like one long chore list with no end in sight.
Today, her main duty was visiting Aunt Em. In theory, all four March sisters were supposed to take turns keeping her company in the afternoons, but the chore mainly fell to Jo as Meg had a steady babysitting gig, Beth wanted to stay home to bake and practice piano, and Amy was too young to read as smoothly aloud as Aunt Em liked. Jo dreaded having to read magazines to her aunt. For one, her favorite was Ladies’ Home Journal, which Jo had zero interest in whatsoever. And for two, all the issues in the house were at least seven or eight years old. It was like a time capsule inside Aunt Em’s house, but not in a good way.
Jo reached the cobblestone walk that led up to the mansion’s grand front porch, complete with pillars. She sighed deeply. If the March house had been built mainly with usefulness and comfort in mind, Aunt Em’s home had been built to impress people. Which made it cold and foreboding.
She knocked, and the door immediately swung open. Em had obviously been waiting for her.
“You’re late!” she exclaimed.
“I am?” Jo was genuinely surprised. “But I came right from school.”
“You must’ve walked pretty slowly,” Em said, her eyes narrowed.
“Can I make you some tea? It’s so damp today,” Jo said, wisely changing the subject. She found that afternoons
went much more smoothly when she remembered to take deep breaths and do nice things for her charge. Arguing never, ever worked.
“I suppose.”
Aunt Em liked to hold court in the formal living room at the front of the house, though she received few visitors. Jo felt the room was the least comfortable of all, with its rock-hard wingback chairs and not even one ottoman or footstool. The sofa was pristine, almost as if it had been covered in plastic for the last thirty years and only recently unwrapped. Mom said Aunt Em had it replaced every two years, the exact same model, in the exact same upholstery. Jo thought the very notion was the silliest thing she’d ever heard, but Mom said to try to be nice and that Aunt Em was “eccentric.”
It took no time at all to make the tea and get settled. Jo reluctantly opened an article about how to properly pluck one’s eyebrows and started to read. She tried to infuse the dull instructions with some verve, pretending it was a tale of danger and suspense: “Plucking perfect eyebrows to possess a flawless, face-framing shape can hurt a lot,” Jo read, her voice trembling as if she were describing a pirate mutiny. “But since full and thick brows can look out of control, you should spend a little quality time with your tweezers each and every week. Get perfect eyebrow arches every single time, and remember—you can always fill in mistakes with your trusty pencil!”
Aunt Em studied Jo’s eyebrows carefully. She didn’t say a word, but Jo knew what she was thinking.
Jo wrinkled her nose. It was true that her eyebrows were thick and a bit unruly—just like Dad’s—but Jo liked them that way. There was no chance she’d let anyone near her with tweezers, least of all her elderly relative. But, since she didn’t want to ruffle her aunt’s feathers, she carefully tore the instructions out of the magazine and placed them gently on her backpack. (She’d throw them out later.)
“How is your tea, Auntie?” Jo asked.
“It’s good. Thank you.” Aunt Em yawned.
Jo smiled a big smile but covered it up with a cough. She knew that if her charge fell asleep, she’d be free to read what she wanted, as long as she sat perfectly still and didn’t make too much noise turning the pages. With that, Jo changed her reading strategy. Instead of trying to make the home decorating tips sound exciting, she subtly started using a more monotonous tone. This, combined with the soothing chamomile tea she’d prepared, did the trick. Aunt Em was out like a light and Jo was free!
Inch by careful inch, she reached for her backpack and her copy of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which she was reading for the first time and loving.
This way, the two passed the next two hours peacefully. At five thirty, it was time for Jo to return home for dinner and homework, which she did gleefully.
• • •
The mood at the March house was dim as the unfortunate facts of winter settled in. It was cold, it was gray, it was drafty, Dad was still gone, and there was no extra money for dinners out or special treats. The girls, who were eating leftovers in the kitchen with Hannah while Mom worked late, were gloomy.
“The twins were extraterrible today.” Meg sighed, hoping for sympathy from her sisters and from Hannah. Meg babysat the King twins, who were three, most days after school to give their mother time to run errands and see friends. Though the Kings lived in a big, beautiful house, Meg didn’t particularly like spending time there. The twins were spoiled and allowed to do almost anything they wanted. It was pretty chaotic. “Today, Chloe spilled an entire bowl of cereal, with extra milk, on the carpet. When I was trying to clean that up, Jacob knocked over a houseplant. The dirt went everywhere. I almost cried.”
Beth patted her older sister’s shoulder consolingly. “Maybe next time you should just cry,” she said. “Three-year-olds understand tears. They’d probably put themselves in time-out.”
“Not these three-year-olds,” Meg said, shaking her head. “Besides, the Kings say they don’t believe in punishment. What a nightmare.”
“I’m sorry, Meg,” Jo said sincerely. “Your job is definitely harder than keeping Aunt Em company. But not by much,” she added, explaining to everyone how Em had looked critically at her eyebrows.
“Your eyebrows are beautiful!” Beth exclaimed.
“No, they’re not,” said Amy in a quieter voice. “They look like caterpillars.” Jo heard her youngest sister, but fortunately the comparison struck her as funny, and she started giggling and wiggling her caterpillars menacingly.
Jo’s laughter made all the sisters smile, but most of all Beth, who wanted everyone to get along. Beth had actually stayed home from school that day complaining of a stomachache. She didn’t like school very much and preferred to stay home whenever Mom would let her. School was loud and complicated; home was quiet and peaceful. Beth liked to pass the time playing with her kitten, Snowball, or making new pieces for her elaborate dollhouse. She also loved to bake. Hannah was teaching her how to create the perfect apple pockets, and Beth relished the project.
Beth and Jo were a pair. Jo took special care to look out for her sensitive younger sister, and felt that Beth understood her better than anyone else, maybe even better than Mom sometimes.
Meg, on the other hand, felt that Amy was her counterpart. The oldest March and the youngest March could spend hours at the mall together if Mom would ever let them, or in the bathroom playing with the curling iron, a magazine open between them.
“Well, I had a miserable day too,” Amy announced. “I think my nose is getting worse. If that’s even possible.” She started rummaging in the kitchen drawers and produced a small chip clip, which she ceremoniously placed on her nose, hoping to coax it into a more pleasant shape.
Jo, with a twinkle in her eye, said, “I don’t think noses are like teeth, Amy. You can’t, like, put braces on them to straighten them out.”
“Who says? You’re not a doctor,” Amy replied petulantly.
“If Amy wants to wear a chip clip all night, she can wear a chip clip,” Hannah said, settling the matter and winking in Amy’s direction. Amy’s willfulness sometimes gave Hannah a headache, but she found the youngest March amusing in the extreme.
“I’m sure it’ll help,” Beth said kindly. Amy smiled at her and stuck her tongue out at Jo.
“Let’s go sit by the fire,” Hannah said. “I have a treat for you. But first, put your dishes in the dishwasher. There are no elves here cleaning up after us.”
The girls cleaned up the kitchen and eagerly moved into the living room, where Hannah had placed Beth’s perfect, delectable apple pockets on a large platter for dessert. She also had a big bag of marshmallows for them to roast on sticks over the fire. “Yay!” Amy shouted, her nose completely forgotten at the prospect of sweets. “Thank you, Hannah!”
As everyone got settled in the glow of the fireplace, Mom arrived home. She changed from her coat into her robe and got comfortable in her chair. Meg brought her the first melty marshmallow, which Mom ate with a smile.
“How was your day, girls?” she asked. “Mine was bonkers.”
“Terrible!” Meg said. But she didn’t sound upset as she put a fresh marshmallow onto her stick.
“Wretched!” added Amy, as she bit into an enormous piece of apple pocket.
“Pretty good,” Beth said, picking up her knitting project. She wasn’t eating dessert because she’d had so many samples after baking earlier and her stomach really was quite sensitive.
“I’d give it a three,” Jo concluded. “Is there a new e-mail from Dad?”
“Not today, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Sounds like January around here,” Mrs. March said, nodding. “It can be hard work getting back into the swing of things after such a nice Christmas. But we do all right, don’t we, girls?”
Everyone grumbled in reluctant agreement. No one wanted to tell Mom they felt grumpy, even if they all did a little bit, even Beth.
“The winter doldrums can be difficult and regular life isn’t always fun, but we have everything we need to be happy—most of all each other,” Mom reminded them.
“Can we get cable?” Amy asked. “Everyone on earth has five hundred channels except for me. How can I live?”
Jo gave her chip clip a squeeze. Amy squealed.
Beth’s Apple Pocket Recipe
Ingredients:
1 pound frozen bread dough, thawed
6 cups peeled and sliced apples
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
Directions:
Thaw frozen bread dough ahead of time in the refrigerator (at least 8–12 hours before you plan to bake). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. With the help of an adult, roll out the dough on a floured bread board to 1/3-inch thick. Cut into squares (4 inches by 4 inches).
Mix sliced apples with cinnamon, lemon juice, and sugar in a large bowl. Place three tablespoons of the apple mixture on each square. Fold corners together, pinching tightly. Place on greased cookie sheet, pinched side down. Let rise 20–30 minutes. Place in oven and bake for 25–30 minutes. Serve warm with butter.
CHAPTER FIVE
Good Neighbors
“Always be on the lookout for the presence
of wonder.”
—E. B. White
Even winter couldn’t stop the weekend from arriving. The March girls eagerly welcomed a day to do as they pleased—at least after the family chore list was completed. Beth had to clean up Snowball’s litter box, Amy had to pull the sheets off of all the beds and carry them down to the basement to be washed, and Jo and Meg worked together to clean the bathroom.
“There is enough hair around this house to make six wigs,” Jo said, wrinkling her nose as she cleared the tub drain and emptied the garbage can. “It’s gross.”
“That’s true. I nominate you to chop yours off,” Meg said, admiring her own long, pretty locks in the mirror as she wiped away the toothpaste spray in front of her with a paper towel and some glass cleaner.
“Maybe I will,” Jo said, liking the idea.