Mom’s body tensed up. “He probably doesn’t have good cell phone reception.”
“You should call him,” Freddy suggested. “He’s in a different time zone. I bet he got the schedule messed up.”
Rose shrugged. “It’s okay. He’s probably too busy meeting my new family and telling them about me.”
“Of course,” Mom said. “There are so many wonderful things to tell.”
Rose wiped her eyes. “I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Mom’s jaw clenched as Rose slammed the bathroom door. “I’d strangle him if I could.”
I nearly gasped. Mom didn’t talk like that. Negative words breed negative thinking, and negative thinking creates an atmosphere of sadness and despair. That’s what she always said.
“I’d strangle him, too,” Freddy said. “Then I’d spit on him.”
“Freddy!” I waited for Mom to turn the rain into a rainbow, but she crossed her arms and sighed.
A few minutes later Rose came back with a smile on her face. “I have the best idea ever. Mom, get your guitar. We can go Christmas caroling.”
It was the worst idea ever. It would be like when we were little and Mom would drag us to the beach to sing for the tourists, and they’d toss dollar bills into her guitar case. It’d be like that only seventy degrees colder.
“It’s too cold,” I said.
“Yeah, the cold might damage my hearing aids.” I knew Freddy wouldn’t go along with it. He was Red Fred, but he wasn’t crazy.
“Leave them here,” Rose said. “We’ll be loud because we’re singing. You’ll hear just fine.”
“Won’t the cold make your fingers too stiff to play guitar?” Freddy asked.
“I’m willing to try.” Mom patted Rose’s back. “I think we could all use a mood-lifting activity. Let’s do it.”
Fifteen minutes later we were singing “Jingle Bells” in front of a white house across the street. The old man and woman at the door were Hmong, and I couldn’t tell if they understood English. I couldn’t tell if they celebrated Christmas. What I could tell was they were shivering.
When we paused after the first verse, the woman clapped her hands. The man said, “Very nice,” and shut the door.
Mom blew into her hands. “I don’t think I can play. My fingers are stiff.”
“Told you,” Freddy said.
“We’ll just sing,” Rose said. “We don’t need the guitar.”
“Good idea.” Mom pulled on her gloves as we did the Minnesota duck walk to the next house. Rose rang the bell, and we launched into “Deck the Halls” as soon as the door opened. The woman smiled and wrapped her arms around herself as we fa-la-la-la-la’d. My teeth chattered through the next verse, and Freddy dropped out entirely because he started coughing. When we hit the last note, a man stuck his head out the door.
“The famous author sings!” It was Shorty from the gas station. Mom shifted awkwardly, but she smiled.
The lady said, “I’m Shorty’s sister, Joan. You must be freezing. Come inside and warm up.”
Before we could politely decline—it was their Christmas, after all—Rose hopped through the door.
“Rose!” Mom said. “We need to—”
“You need to come inside and have some pie. That’s what you need to do,” Shorty said. “Come on in.”
Between Mom and Rose and their stranger-loving ways, we’d probably be there until midnight, and we’d probably leave with invitations to New Year’s dinner. And a batch of gizzard soup.
But that’s not what happened.
You know what Mom said?
She said, “No.”
Our mom, Rainbow Queen Martha Lake, said no.
Our Twin Superpowers sparked for a moment. Freddy stared at me like, What’s going on? I stared back at him like, I can’t believe it! Then the connection fizzled. The phone in his pocket must have vibrated with a text, because he pulled it out and read it. Red Fred was so popular kids were texting him on Christmas.
Rose peered through the door. She already had her coat off. “The pie smells amazing. They have cookies, too.”
“Rose, they’re having a family meal,” Mom said. “Let’s go.”
Shorty said, “We ate hours ago. Everyone pretty much left. Come inside or you’ll offend my sister, and everyone in town will hear about it.”
I couldn’t tell if Mom was blushing or if her cheeks were red from the cold. Rose said, “It’s a Christmas adventure, right?” We all shivered and waited for Mom to answer. Mom finally nodded, and we went inside.
Joan introduced us to her husband, Harry, and Harry’s cousin Eric and Eric’s wife, Stacy.
Eric said, “Cold enough for ya?”
We nodded.
“The kids have gone home,” Joan said. “Have a seat, and I’ll get the pie. We finished the cherry pie, but I have two whole apple pies left.”
“We love apple pie,” I said.
“Our dessert was crackers with frosting.” Rose wrinkled her nose.
Joan laughed. “Well, that’s different.”
Mom looked embarrassed. If Joan believed Rose’s story, in two days everyone in town would be talking about the weird writer lady and her frosting-and-crackers dessert. So I said, “Rose is hilarious!” Rose pressed her lips together and didn’t correct me. She got the hint.
Shorty sat next to Mom. “You write books and play guitar and sing?”
“Mom plays piano, too.” Rose helped herself to a cookie from a tray on the coffee table. She licked frosting off her finger. I couldn’t help myself. I took a cookie, too—a cookie shaped like a Christmas tree with green icing. Delicious. “Can she play your piano?” Rose asked. “We could sing carols right here.”
Sure enough, in the corner of the room was an upright piano.
Shorty said, “Yes,” just as Mom said, “No.”
“That’d be nice.” Joan handed out plates of apple pie, which had scoops of ice cream and drizzles of caramel. I put the cookie down so I could eat the pie right away, because it was warm. It was so good I wanted to swallow it whole. “My daughter played piano, but she went off to college, and now it just sits here all lonely and out of tune.”
“We’ll just eat your wonderful pie and go. I’m sorry to impose.”
“Not at all,” Joan said.
“Not at all,” Harry said.
“Not one little bit,” Shorty said.
Eric’s and Stacy’s mouths were full of pie, so they just nodded.
“We didn’t get to church today, which is terrible, I know,” Joan said. “I had my hands full with getting dinner ready. I think ‘Silent Night’ would be good for the soul. My daughter has a whole book of Christmas music.”
“I suppose I could play ‘Silent Night.’” Mom sat at the piano and tinkered with the keys to jog her memory while Joan looked for the music. I prepared myself for embarrassment. With Mom, one song always turned into ten. I hoped she didn’t put her hat on the floor to collect donations. I looked at Freddy and tried to spark our Superpowers, but he was checking the phone.
So I thought really hard and tried to find a rainbow instead of focusing on the potential embarrassment. If Mom kept singing, maybe Joan would offer me another piece of pie. She might even send us home with a bag of her cookies. That was the kind of neighborly thing people in Walnut Grove did. Gizzard soup. Pie. Cookies.
Rose scooted next to me. “See! A sisters’ Christmas adventure!”
“Sure,” I said through a mouthful of pie.
Mom started “Silent Night,” and Joan stood next to the piano. I knew Mom’s voice was pretty, but it sounded different with Joan’s. Their voices were magical together, sweet and joyful and moving. Shorty’s forkful of pie was frozen in midair, like he was too impressed to put it in his mouth. Harry closed his eyes. I swear Eric wiped a tear from his cheek.
When they finished, everyone clapped and whooped.
You know who asked for another song?
Me.
CHAPTER<
br />
FOURTEEN
Miguel brought a box of winter gear downstairs and put it on the kitchen table. Ethan had invited Freddy to spend the rest of Christmas break on an ice-fishing trip in northern Minnesota. Regular winter clothes wouldn’t cut it.
“Most of these are things my grandsons used to wear,” Miguel said.
Freddy pulled out a pair of sunglasses. “I don’t think I’ll need these.”
“Sunglasses are important,” Miguel said. “The lake is covered with snow, and when the sun’s rays hit the snow, it’s like staring into the sun. Your eyes can be damaged. It’s called snow blindness.” He handed Freddy a pair of boots. “These boots are rated for temperatures of forty below, but they might be too small.”
“They look close enough,” Rose said.
Miguel shook his head. “If they’re even a little bit tight, your circulation gets cut off, and your feet will freeze. Never wear tight boots. Very dangerous.”
Mom held up two spikes connected by a wire. “And what’s this contraption?”
“Ice picks,” Miguel said. “If the ice breaks and you fall in, it’s impossible to crawl out because the ice is slippery and there’s nothing to hold on to. You need to stab the ice with a pick and use it to pull yourself out.”
Mom swallowed hard. “I’m not sure I like this.”
“I’ll be fine, Mom,” Freddy said.
“What about a life jacket?” Mom asked.
“If he falls in, he won’t drown,” Miguel said. “He’ll die from hypothermia first.”
I waited for Mom to change her mind, to say Freddy should definitely open himself to possibilities—just not this possibility. She sighed. Rose sighed.
“Maybe I’ll come home with fish to eat. It’s going to be fun, Mom.”
“Or Mom could buy fish sticks,” I said. “Then only the fish are dead.”
Freddy didn’t laugh. He rolled his eyes. Miguel said, “Ethan’s dad knows what he’s doing. Once they get settled in the ice house, they’ll be comfortable. They’ll watch TV and eat leftover pie.”
“TV?” I couldn’t believe it. “How do they get electricity?”
“Generators. Those ice houses are little castles. They’ve got TVs, DVD players, music, microwaves. Everything you can imagine.” Miguel dug into the box and pulled out skates. “And these are for you, Charlotte. Julia wants to take you ice-skating.”
Freddy smirked. “She won’t go.”
“Well, we’re leaving in an hour.” Miguel put the skates in front of me. “Would you like to go?”
I could barely walk in boots, and Julia wanted me to glide on ice basically wearing shoes with razor blades?
Hah!
You know what I said?
I smirked right back at Red Fred. “No, I wouldn’t like to go. I’d love to go.”
I’m full of surprises, right?
* * *
I fell ten times in ten minutes. Each time Julia pulled me up and held my arms until I was steady. A dozen kids had converged on a pond outside of town. I recognized some of them from school. Two kindergartners had hockey sticks but no puck. One girl didn’t have skates. She glided around the pond on her boots.
“I should do that.” I pointed to the girl. “Boot skating.”
“You can do it. Relax. Go with the flow,” Julia said. “You’re jerking around because you’re scared of falling. Don’t think about walking. Put your foot forward and then push to the side and back, like you’re trying to push something off the sidewalk. Flow.”
“Okay. No walking. Just flowing.”
I imagined there was a crumbled-up ball of paper in front of me, and I needed to push it to the side with my foot. The mental picture helped—I wobbled to the other side of the pond without falling.
Julia cheered.
“Are my legs supposed to feel like noodles?”
“Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be fine.”
She effortlessly circled around me. I stumbled as I turned and used the forward-push technique to cross the pond again. I did it over and over, a little faster each time. My cheeks ached from the cold, yet I was sweating. My hair felt wet under my hat, and I could feel sweat trickle down my back. Sweating in the winter!
How was that even possible?
“You’re a natural,” Julia said. “I bet you could learn to skate backward. You could probably do a spin.”
I laughed. “Next time, okay?”
Flowing was a good word. That’s how skating felt once I got the hang of it. Not floating, because I felt attached to the ground, but flowing. I lost track of time. I even forgot about being cold. I went around and around the pond without a stumble until Julia grabbed my arm.
“Getting hungry?”
I had to think about it. “I guess.”
“Let’s get something to eat.” As we skated toward our stuff, Julia said, “Let’s have a skating party with Bao and Emma sometime. We can have a sleepover, too. Want to?”
I bit my lip and shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Jeez, Charlotte! What girl says maybe to a party?”
I was the girl who said no to parties, right? But I thought about Truth or Dare and the lunchroom conversations and working with Julia in the museum. Then I thought about that moment—Julia cheering for me while I wobbled across the pond. It was nice to have someone cheer for me, someone who didn’t have to cheer just because I was a daughter or a sister. Actually, the people who’d been my cheerleaders lately weren’t my family. Mrs. Newman. Gloria. Teresa. Julia. I thought about a sleepover with Julia, Bao, and Emma. Even though I tried to have no reaction, I felt a smile spread across my face.
Was I the kind of girl who said yes to parties?
Maybe. Maybe I was that kind of girl.
“There’s Grandpa.” Julia pointed to the road. “Grandma said we can have cookies and hot chocolate when we get home.”
“Good timing. I’m hungry and freezing.”
Back at the house, Mia let us bring a plate of cookies and our drinks into Julia’s bedroom. We sat on beanbag chairs and listened to a playlist Julia had made. She was quiet, and I realized she’d been cheering for me all morning, so it was probably my turn to ask her a question.
“How was your Christmas and the dad visit?”
Julia made a face. “He gave me a doll. I haven’t played with dolls in two years. He doesn’t even know me. Then he argued with my grandpa.”
“It was a bad-dad day in our house, too,” I said. “Rose’s dad forgot to call her.”
“That’s awful. What about your dad? Is he dead or something? I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay.”
“My parents broke up when we were little, and my mom thought he was a bad guy, so we don’t see him.”
“I’m sorry. That stinks.”
I shrugged. “Rose used to visit her dad, but now he’s totally focused on his new wife. Rose feels terrible. I think it’s better to not have a dad than to have one and watch him turn into a jerk. I just assume my dad is a jerk. Then I don’t miss him.”
Julia thought about what I said. “He probably has some good points. All people have something good inside them.”
“I think people show their bad sides most of the time. If you’re a good person, you have to be careful or you’ll get crushed.”
“You really think so?”
“Of course. There are more mean people than good people.”
“When my dad robbed Shorty’s gas station, some of the kids were really mean to me. Jake Carson called me a jailbird.”
“See?”
“But there were also kids who didn’t say anything at all. They stayed out of it. And there were kids like Emma and Bao. They sat with me at lunch and hung out with me at recess. They invited me to their birthday parties.”
“Just Emma and Bao? You made my point.”
“They were enough. Before the robbery, I thought it would be great to be popular like Katie Turner and have everyone want to be my friend. But afterwar
d, I realized I’d rather have two amazing friends than a bunch of people who just follow me around because I have expensive clothes and cute hair and the fanciest house in town.”
Julia had gambled on Emma and Bao, and she got lucky. It could’ve gone the other way. In Atlanta, there were two kids at school who pretended we had a lot in common because they were twins, too. But I could tell they were faking it, and sure enough, after a week they stopped talking to us.
“And now we’re all friends,” Julia said. “You and me and Emma and Bao.”
I realized I felt warm inside, and it wasn’t from the hot chocolate. It was Julia—Julia and Emma and Bao. I could have three friends. They were right there, right in front of me with parties and sleepovers. We’d move at some point, but Mom obviously needed more time to finish the book. A lot more time. If she kept a pace of five words over five months, we’d never leave Laura and the prairie.
Friends.
Julia said, “That’s pretty cool, right?”
Finally I said, “Yes. It’s cool.”
You know what?
I even meant it.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
We didn’t go back to school at the end of break. The radio reported school was canceled because of cold weather. Minnesota was so cold we got two temperature reports—one being the regular temperature and the other being the regular temperature plus wind. In the winter, the regular temperature could kill you. The regular temperature plus a wind chill could kill you faster. That day the temperature was minus fifteen, and the wind chill was minus forty.
“It’s literally colder than the inside of our freezer.” Mom wrapped herself in a blanket and shivered. “A polar bear would die in this weather.”
I decided to point out a rainbow. “At least we’re not sweating. Remember Atlanta in July?”
Mom snorted. “I fantasize about Atlanta in July.”
My mother didn’t snort.
Who was this person?
I tried another approach. “We get to have a family day! We can play games.”
“You could read the beginning of the Mars book to us,” Rose said. “I really want to hear it.”
“Good idea,” Freddy said.
Mom peeled off the blanket and opened the refrigerator. “I should’ve picked up groceries yesterday. There’s nothing in the house.”
Laura Ingalls Is Ruining My Life Page 10