“We aren’t that dressed up,” Meg tried reasonably. “I got this outfit on a clearance rack. Besides, you can wear a dress on Sunday.”
“It’s not the same,” Amy wailed. “My life sucks!”
“Your life is just fine. Stop being such a huge pain,” Jo said, starting to get seriously annoyed with her ungrateful sister. “Now leave us alone! I’m serious.” Jo pushed past Amy on her way out of the bathroom.
“Fine,” Amy said, and stomped away with tears streaking her face, furious with Jo for not feeling the least bit bad about excluding her. It seemed like Jo was happy Amy couldn’t go. “You’ll be sorry for being so mean to me, Jo March!”
Jo and Meg walked to Laurie’s house and indeed got to ride downtown in the fancy town car. They had an amazing evening, but Jo did feel the tiniest bit guilty about Amy when she noticed that one of the actresses on stage had golden curls. She realized she would have enjoyed the show even more if her youngest sister had been by her side. Amy loved every kind of art, including the theater, and Jo vowed to make her part bigger in the next movie they all made together.
Amy, for her part, was truly angry when Meg and Jo left the house. Her anger was white hot—it demanded action. She felt like destroying something.
So that’s exactly what she did. In a flash, Amy went up to Jo’s garret and grabbed the top notebook in her sister’s precious stack. Then she ran all the way back down to the living room and tossed it right into the fire before anyone could stop her. Finally feeling a little bit better, she crawled into her bed and fell into a fitful sleep.
When Jo and Meg returned home that night, they saw nothing had been disturbed in the bedroom they shared, and that the household was peaceful. Perhaps Mom had talked to Amy and calmed her down. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
But the next morning, Jo made a discovery that created a hurricane of drama.
• • •
Her newest notebook, the one that contained 90 percent of her latest movie script, was missing.
Jo crawled down from the attic and found her sisters in the living room enjoying breakfast: mini breakfast pizzas with three different cheeses that Beth had helped make.
“Has anyone seen my notebook with the green cover?” Jo asked hopefully. “It has my draft of The Glowing Dragon. We’re supposed to start filming at Easter break, and that’s only two weeks away.”
Meg and Beth said, “No,” right away, looking surprised. Jo’s notebooks were always in the attic or in her hands.
Amy looked guilty. She took a big bite of her food to try to hide it.
“Amy! You know where it is. Hand it over!” Jo demanded.
“I don’t have it and I don’t care where it is!” Amy yelled, spewing bits of egg in every direction.
“Amy, calm down,” Meg admonished. She saw the fury in Jo’s eyes and felt nervous about what might happen next.
“You know where it is. Tell me before I wrestle you to the floor,” Jo said, moving toward Amy menacingly.
“I threw it into the fire. You deserved it,” Amy said with a sniff, and retreated into the couch cushions, as if they could protect her.
“You what?!” Jo screamed. “My script!” She ran over to the fireplace, which was cold and empty of everything save for a few blackened logs. The notebook had been completely consumed. “How dare you?” Jo yelled, turning back to Amy, her temper raising the volume of each word. “I can never rewrite what was lost, and I’ll never forgive you.” She lunged for Amy, but Meg got between them before Jo could hurt her. With rage flashing in her eyes, Jo ran from the room and up the stairs.
When Mom came in a few seconds later with groceries, she could tell right away that something was wrong. Amy was crying silently into the couch. Beth and Meg looked upset, but were making no effort to comfort her. There were several plates of half-eaten breakfast pizza strewn about.
“What’s going on?” Mom asked.
“Amy threw Jo’s notebook into the fire last night,” Meg said. Amy glared at her oldest sister. Beth said nothing. She felt terrible that her sisters were fighting. Quietly, she slipped away from the living room and went upstairs to comfort Jo.
“Oh, dear,” Mom said, seeing the seriousness of the situation. “Is that true, Amy?”
“Yes,” Amy sniffled. “But she deserved it. And she tried to tackle me too, but Meg stopped her.”
“Well, that’s good. Meg, can we have a minute to talk?” Mom asked.
“Sure. I need to take a shower anyway,” Meg said, a little put out that she hadn’t been thanked for keeping her sisters from killing each other. It wasn’t easy being the oldest, but Meg always did the job well. In her opinion.
Mom regarded her youngest daughter gravely. “Amy, you know how much Jo’s notebooks mean to her. She puts her whole heart into them. How would you feel if she destroyed one of your sketchbooks?”
Amy started to feel bad about what she’d done. A little bit. “I’d be mad,” she admitted. “But she and Meg went to the play without me and didn’t even feel a little bit sorry for me. It was mean.”
“I know you were upset last night. But sometimes it’s not possible for all of you girls to do everything together. Meg and Jo also went to the winter dance at their school without you. And sometimes you’ll do things without them. It’s natural . . . You’re all different ages and you’ll all start to get different kinds of invitations from your friends.”
“I guess so,” Amy admitted. But it felt like the only invitations she ever got were to sleepovers, not to fancy plays downtown. Being nine was the worst.
“The next time you feel angry,” Mom said, “you have to find a way to manage your feelings without destroying things. I think you should apologize to Jo.”
Amy gulped, and saw that Mom was right. Not even Meg, who usually made an effort to see Amy’s side, had defended the way she’d behaved.
“I’ll say I’m sorry,” Amy said. And she meant it.
But when Jo came downstairs later that day for lunch, her face was a thundercloud. She wouldn’t even look at her youngest sister. Even when Amy said, “I’m really sorry, Jo,” all she got in reply was a snort.
Everyone left Jo alone, even Mom, who understood her bookish daughter needed some time. The whole house relaxed a little when she decided to put on her hockey gear and go find Laurie.
He was already outside, lazily guiding a puck around, in the part of the river behind their two houses that widened enough to make a nice little rink. Occasionally, he shot into the net he’d placed near one bank.
“Hey!” Laurie said, pleased to see Jo. He’d been hoping she’d pop up and was just getting ready to call her house.
“Let’s play,” Jo said, skipping hellos altogether. Her angry face looked a little less menacing than it had an hour ago since it was now half-covered by her scarf, but Laurie could still tell something was bugging her.
They swatted the puck around the rink and Jo started to relax. One of her favorite things about Laurie was that they could hang out and have a great time without having to talk. It was a big relief. Laurie and Jo were evenly matched as players and took turns playing offense and defense. The sky was blue instead of white and a few clouds hung above them, spectating their game. Trees that had been coated in ice for a week’s time were starting to drip, drip, drip as the sun warmed their small corner of the world.
Back at home, Amy decided she had to try harder to get Jo to forgive her. She knew that Laurie always put her sister in a better mood, so she decided to meet them on the river and make things better.
“Let’s race,” Jo suggested to Laurie, still feeling she had energy to burn. “First one to hit the dock in front of McLaren’s with their puck wins.”
“Cool,” Laurie said, familiar with the spot Jo mentioned, a half mile downstream. “Let me just check the ice a sec,” he warned. “It’s getting kinda warm out here.”
“Yeah, good idea,” Jo agreed. “We probably shouldn’t skate in the middle of the rive
r.”
A flash of movement caught Jo’s eye as Laurie poked at the ice fifty yards away from her. It was Amy, rushing to put on her skates on the bank. Jo rolled her eyes and skated away, determined to keep some distance between herself and her ex-sister.
She was still angry enough at Amy that she forgot to warn her about the cracking ice.
Still, something made Jo turn around to check back before she went around the bend to catch up with Laurie and begin their race.
In that split second, she saw and heard something awful: Amy slipped down and crashed below the weakened ice with an earsplitting scream.
Terror leapt through Jo’s heart. “No!” she bellowed, scrambling back to the place where Amy had disappeared. Jo tried to call to Laurie, but she was frozen in terror. Amy’s head and arms were above the water, but she had nothing to grab on to. The hole she’d fallen into was big and getting bigger. Amy was struggling to breathe as her heavy winter clothing dragged her down.
Fortunately, Laurie heard both Amy’s scream and Jo’s. He was there in a flash. He lay down flat on the ice, on his belly, as he’d once been taught to do. Though he was still several feet away from where Amy struggled in the frigid water, he was much closer than Jo. He had his hockey stick and planned to use it. “Grab my legs,” he yelled at Jo. “I’ll get her by the arms and you’ll have to help pull us both back.
“Amy! You’re going to be fine! Grab my hockey stick!” he yelled at the flailing girl. “Just hold on to it and I’ll pull you closer.”
For the next minute, Jo operated as if possessed by someone with double strength. Laurie clutched Amy and Jo pulled them both back from the cracking, unstable ice to the shore, clutching some branches. Amy wasn’t hurt, but her lips were bluish and her eyes were terrified. Every single part of her was soaked.
“We have to get her inside right away,” Laurie said, who was pretty wet and cold himself. “She’ll freeze to death out here.”
Jo ripped off her skates and Amy’s, and put her own coat on her sister. Laurie added his to the pile as well. They got her home, and in front of the fire, shivering, frightened, and crying. Jo’s hands were cut and her eyes were wild, even after Amy had fallen into a peaceful sleep and was clearly fine.
Laurie quietly returned home, but only after Beth had plied him with hot chocolate and a fresh batch of gingersnap cookies to share with his grandpa. Jo was so distraught she forgot to thank him for helping to save her sister.
“Is she going to be okay?” Jo whispered to Mom, who handed her some Band-Aids and antiseptic wipes so she could clean up her hands.
“Oh, yes,” Mom said calmly. “You were smart to get her home so fast.”
“That was all Laurie. I didn’t do anything. What if . . . what if she’d drowned? It would be all my fault!” Jo began crying passionately, sobbing in remorse and fear. “I just got so angry and I couldn’t control it.”
“Well, you come by your temper honestly, my dear,” Mom said. “As does Amy.”
“What does that mean?” Jo said, still crying, but less energetically now. She settled into pitiful hiccups.
“It means I have a temper, too,” Mom admitted.
“You?” Jo said this in disbelief. Her mother was the calmest, nicest person on the face of the planet. “You don’t know how it feels, Mom. I felt like I could hurt Amy and enjoy it. I’m horrible, horrible.”
“I know exactly how it feels. You’re not horrible. Your job, like mine, is to remember how this day feels and use it to control your anger when it shows up again. Look at it, recognize it, and refuse to give in to it. I find taking deep breaths helps a lot.”
“It’s so hard,” Jo said. “So hard. But I’ll try. I feel awful and I don’t want to feel like this again.”
“It is hard.” Mom nodded. “You know, a lot of people struggle with anger when bad things happen. But we have to put some distance between ourselves and our feelings sometimes. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Kind of—” Jo hiccupped again and had to readjust one of her bandages, which had gone on crooked.
“We also have to try to see things from the point of view of others when we can. It will help you handle your temper.”
Jo sighed. “I guess I could’ve been a little nicer to Amy when she was so upset about the play on Friday.” She felt so guilty about Amy falling through the ice that she was ready to feel guilty about everything.
Mom smiled. “It’s very intelligent of you to see that, Jo. I’m proud of you. I’m not saying you had to bring her with you that night just because that’s what she wanted. But if you had taken a moment, looked her in the eye, and understood why she was so upset, she wouldn’t have lashed out quite so badly. Listen. I’m going to have this talk with her, too. She shouldn’t have done what she did. If sisters are also to be best friends for their whole lives, everyone has to work at it. A lot.”
Jo nodded thoughtfully. “Having sisters is tough.”
“Sure it is. But also great,” Mom said, laughing. “Of course, if I’d had three of your aunt Tabitha instead of just one, I’d probably have lost my mind by now.”
Jo giggled at that, happy she had such an understanding mother. She thought about all the good memories she had with Amy, and about how, even though Amy was only nine, she often impressed Jo with her sense of humor or smart observations. Jo reluctantly remembered how many times she used something Amy had said in her writing, and how those lines were oftentimes the best ones.
Amy stirred then, and Jo went to her, gently brushing the yellow curls back from her flushed and tearstained face. Amy opened her eyes and smiled a small smile that made Jo feel better. The two hugged each other close and everything was forgiven between them.
Beth’s Mini Breakfast Pizza Recipe
Ingredients:
8 frozen multigrain dinner rolls
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 small can of diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon Italian seasoning
4 eggs, scrambled
1/4 cup diced white onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup crumbled Feta cheese
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
Directions:
Let the multigrain dinner rolls rise. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread out the dough into 6-inch pizza crusts. Put each pizza on a cookie sheet (you’ll need two cookie sheets to bake all eight). Brush or spoon on the olive oil, and smear minced garlic over the top of that. Next, spoon on diced tomatoes from a can. Then, sprinkle on Italian seasoning, scrambled eggs, fresh onions, fresh basil leaves, all three cheeses, and fresh sliced mushrooms. Bake for 15–20 minutes, or until everything looks a little golden and delicious.
These little pies are going to be part of your regular breakfast rotation from now on. The best part is you can buy the multigrain dinner rolls in bags of 24, and just pull out a few as you need them.
CHAPTER NINE
Meg’s Makeover
“Before you can be anything, you have to be yourself. That’s the hardest thing to find.”
—E. L. Konigsburg
Spring arrived quietly and lightened everyone’s mood. The trees in the Marches’ quiet neighborhood grew buds and looked as if they could burst out in a celebration of green at any moment. The river was completely clear of ice now, and the smell of life and of dirt filled the air.
Each girl noticed the season change in her own way: Meg saw the tulip shoots coming out of the ground and smiled each time she saw them grow bigger. Jo got her bike out of the garage and checked the air pressure in the tires. Beth opened the window in the bedroom so Snowball could sniff at that newly verdant air and hear the excited baby birds twittering in the trees. Amy’s sketchbook exploded with new life: huge, unfurling green leaves and vibrant flowers as she chose to work with her brightest paints and most vivid pastels.
One
Friday after school, Meg rushed around the bedroom throwing clothing into piles Jo didn’t understand at all. She was packing for a weekend at Annie Moffat’s house, and Jo was making a sincere effort not to tease her sister for being so hyper about it.
“What difference does it make what you wear?” Jo asked. She was lying on her bed with her chin propped up on her hands, watching her older sister pick up and discard shirts and leggings and dresses one by one.
“It makes a huge difference!” Meg said, flustered. “I wish I had something new. Tonight we’re meeting up with a bunch of boys in my class for a movie, and tomorrow there’s a huge birthday party for Annie. I want to look nice!”
“But you always look nice,” Jo said. “You can borrow my hoodie,” she added playfully. “I think it’ll really set off your eyes.”
Meg stuck out her tongue at her sister. “You are zero help, Joey. Zero.”
“Sorry. I’ll leave you alone.”
Jo wandered downstairs to find some food, and Meg finished her preparations. She decided to wear a striped T-shirt that looked interesting because she’d sewn lace to its hem after being inspired by a picture she’d seen in a magazine, paired with cropped skinny jeans and purple flats. Since it was still cool outside, she actually did borrow something from Jo’s side of a closet: a white jean jacket from Aunt Em that her younger sister almost never wore. The outfit was pretty. Meg just hoped she’d done a good enough job on the lace. If it ripped, she’d be mortified.
In her overnight bag, Meg placed her nicest pajama pants and flannel pajama shirt, and packed two different dresses for the party because she couldn’t decide which one was better. She also added a random selection of scarves, underwear, and other clothing items since she wasn’t sure what the girls would be doing in the morning. A few minutes later, Meg heard a car horn honk lightly in her driveway and flew out the door with a sleeping bag, a birthday gift for her friend, and a loud shout. “Bye, Mom! I’ll call you on Sunday for a ride!”
“Bye, honey, have fun!” Mom called after Meg. “Be good and say hi to Mrs. Moffat for me!” Mrs. March had been a little hesitant to let Meg go away all weekend. But she did know Mrs. Moffat personally as they both served on the board of the local United Way, so she wasn’t too concerned. The Moffats were very wealthy, but also known in the community for their generosity and style.
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