Wonderland

by Barbara O'Connor

  “So, what do we do now?” Rose asked.

  “I’m going to try and grab him.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. He might bite you.”

  Mavis flapped a hand at Rose. “I’ll let him smell me first. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  Mavis held her hand out toward Henry, who took a slow, careful sniff.

  Then she took two quick steps toward the bushes, reaching for him, but he was gone in a blink, jumping over logs and darting around trees before disappearing out of sight, leaving Rose and Mavis alone in the woods.

  HENRY

  Henry ran and ran and ran until he was sure he was far away from the wrought-iron fence.

  He had been so surprised to see two young girls there in the woods, calling that name Henry.

  A girl with wild curly hair and a girl with a thin brown ponytail tied with a bow.

  When the wild-haired girl had talked to him in that soothing voice, his heart had lifted.

  And when she had held her hand for him to sniff, he’d felt comforted.

  But when she had lunged toward him, trying to grab him, he’d felt scared.

  What if those girls wanted to take him back to Wonderland?

  No. He was not going back to Wonderland.

  So he had run deeper and deeper into the woods.

  Now, as he lay on the mossy ground, his stomach growling with hunger, he wished he could go back and see if there was food in the plastic bowl.

  But he would wait.

  Those two girls might still be there.

  ROSE

  Rose sat on a stool next to Mr. Duffy’s desk and listened to him tell her and Mavis about the kerfuffle yesterday.

  That was the word he used.

  Kerfuffle.

  He told them how Doreen Chapman had marched into the gatehouse and accused him of allowing riffraff into Magnolia Estates. Apparently, the riffraff had been two men in a truck with GREEN THUMB LANDSCAPING on the side.

  Green Thumb Landscaping was not authorized to come into Magnolia Estates.

  Then the two men had gone door to door to see if anyone needed a landscaper.

  Doreen Chapman had said the men looked like reprobates.

  “What in the name of Bessie McGee is a reprobate?” Mr. Duffy asked Rose and Mavis. “They looked about as country as a turnip green to me. Just two old country boys trying to make a living.”

  Mr. Duffy took a box of saltine crackers out of his desk drawer and offered some to Rose and Mavis.

  “Then what happened?” Rose asked.

  “Aw, she went on and on about this, that, and the other.”

  Rose wondered what this, that, and the other was, but she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to hear about anything else Mr. Duffy may have done wrong to make Doreen Chapman so mad. It seemed like things were getting worse every day.

  Just that morning, Rose’s mother had told her father that Mr. Duffy had brought a rickety old fan into the gatehouse, and it had blown a fuse and left burn marks on the wall.

  “Now he’s going to go and burn the place down,” her mother had snapped. “Besides, Gerald Berkley said that if Mr. Duffy would remember to call about the broken air conditioner out there, they wouldn’t have needed the fan in the first place.”

  Rose glanced over at the burn marks on the wall of the gatehouse and frowned.

  Mavis made a little stack of saltine crackers on her lap and said, “Doreen Chapman sounds mean.”

  “Ha!” Mr. Duffy slapped his knee. “Meaner than a wet panther.”

  Mavis laughed, but Rose didn’t.

  She hoped Mavis didn’t want to go back into the woods to look for Henry again. Why was Mavis so stubborn? She was also pretty bossy. Rose was happy to have a best friend, but she wished Mavis wasn’t quite so bossy.

  Rose’s thoughts were interrupted when Mr. Duffy peered out the gatehouse window and said, “Looks like we’re in for some rain.”

  Sure enough, the sky had turned dark, and there was a low rumble of thunder in the distance.

  “Hoo boy!” Mr. Duffy said. “This one’s gonna be a gully washer.”

  Suddenly the rain started, sending waves of steam drifting up from the hot asphalt streets of Magnolia Estates.

  So Rose had lucked out. She and Mavis couldn’t go back to the woods because it was raining. Instead, they ran to Rose’s house and hightailed it up the stairs with Miss Jeeter hollering, “What’re y’all doing in here with those muddy shoes? Who do you think has to clean these floors?”

  Once inside Rose’s room, Mavis collapsed on the bed, laughing.

  But Rose didn’t laugh. She pointed to the muddy footprints on her fluffy pink rug and said, “My mama’s gonna kill me.”

  Mavis sat up. “It’s only dirt,” she said. “Dirt comes off, you know.”

  Then Mavis hurried up the hall and came back with a towel. A thick yellow towel monogrammed with the letter T.

  She wiped at the rug with the towel, and, much to Rose’s relief, the mud came off. Now she only had to worry about the dirty towel.

  “Don’t be such a worrywart,” Mavis said.

  Rose frowned down at the dirty towel in her lap. Why was she such a worrywart? Why couldn’t she be more like Mavis? Mavis didn’t care one little bit if her mama yelled at her.

  Then, wouldn’t you know it, the door opened, and Mrs. Tully looked horrified when she saw the girls in their rain-soaked clothes.

  “Mavis, you need to leave,” she said. “And Rose, please change your clothes. Mrs. Simm invited us to lunch.”

  Mavis hopped off the bed and said, “See ya.” Then she disappeared through the bedroom door with Mrs. Tully’s disapproving looks zapping down the hallway after her.

  “Will Amanda be there?” Rose asked.

  “I assume so, since her mother asked me to bring you.”

  And so the good luck that Rose had had when the rain came had run out. She was having lunch with Amanda Simm.

  MAVIS

  Mavis’s mother blew smoke out of the kitchen window and complained.

  “And that Mrs. Simm thinks the sun comes up just to hear her crow.”

  Mavis took a bag of potato chips from the top of the refrigerator and flopped onto the bed. “What does that mean?” she asked.

  Her mother tossed her cigarette into the kitchen sink. “Means she’s uppity as all get-out is what it means. You should’ve seen the look on her face when she was telling those bridge ladies about how her husband’s the best this and the best that and her daughter’s the best this and the best that and she’s the best this and the best that.”

  She hopped off the kitchen counter and yanked the refrigerator door open. “I swear, every one of those women are like that. Snooty, snooty, snooty.”

  She slammed the refrigerator door shut. “I wish we could go out to eat once in a while. If I had a car, we could. Maybe I’ll take the bus over to the used-car lot this weekend and see what they’ve got. And maybe if Mrs. Queen of the World Tully would pay me more, I could afford to buy something.”

  On and on and on she went.

  Complaining, complaining, complaining.

  Mavis was used to her mother complaining. She complained about Mavis’s dad, who never sent money when he was supposed to and was a mama’s boy. She complained about jealous boyfriends, nosy schoolteachers, the high cost of cigarettes, and her flabby arms. And she complained about every job she had ever had. But it seemed like this time the complaining had come sooner. They had only been in Landry a couple of weeks.

  Mavis took the bag of potato chips out on the little porch at the top of the steps and sat down, looking up at the starry summer sky and thinking about Henry. She and Rose had gone back to the woods behind Amanda’s house three more times but hadn’t seen him again. Mavis decided that tomorrow they should ask Amanda if Henry was still coming to the fence for food. She knew Rose was scared that her mama would find out she’d been going back in those woods where she wasn’t supposed to go. But, dan
g it, Mavis was determined to carry out her plan of getting a dog for Mr. Duffy.

  * * *

  When Mavis saw Rose walking toward the apartment steps, she got a sinking feeling. Why was she so dressed up? A sundress? She didn’t look like somebody who was going into the woods to look for a dog.

  “Where’re you going?” Mavis asked.

  Rose looked surprised. “To look for Henry with you.”

  “But why are you so dressed up?”

  Rose looked down at her dress. “I’m not.”

  “You’re gonna go in the woods like that?”

  Rose blushed. “Um, yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, I have an idea.”

  Rose didn’t look very interested in hearing Mavis’s idea, but Mavis went on. “Let’s go ask Amanda if Henry’s still coming to get the food back by her fence,” she said. “Then we’ll at least know for sure that he’s still around.”

  “Oh,” Rose said. “Well, um…”

  “Please?”

  Rose hesitated for a minute, but finally said, “Okay.”

  Then, before Rose could change her mind, Mavis grabbed her hand, and off they ran toward Amanda’s house.

  ROSE

  Rose hated going to Amanda’s house.

  Amanda always made her feel like a baby, especially when other girls from Magnolia Estates were there. They always talked about things that Rose didn’t care about, like soccer and lip gloss.

  Rose was also worried about getting her white sandals dirty.

  But here she was, running to Amanda’s house with Mavis.

  When they got to the Simms’ house, Mavis leaped right up onto the porch and rang the doorbell while Rose waited on the sidewalk. When Mrs. Simm opened the door, icy cold air floated through the screen door and mingled with the hot summer air on the porch.

  “Is Amanda here?” Mavis asked.

  Mrs. Simm’s face had disapproval written all over it.

  Mrs. Simm disapproved of Mavis because Mrs. Simm disapproved of Miss Jeeter.

  And Mrs. Simm disapproved of Miss Jeeter because of the things Rose’s mother had been telling her.

  Just the other day, when Rose and Amanda had sat in silence at the Simms’ kitchen table eating banana pudding, their mothers had been in the living room, eating crab salad and talking about Miss Jeeter. They had talked low, but Rose had heard them.

  Mostly it was Rose’s mother talking.

  “And she had no idea what aspic is…”

  “She put the sheets on the bed without even ironing them…”

  “And I swear I saw her flirting with Monroe Tucker, strutting up the driveway and flipping her hair. Can you imagine? Monroe Tucker. The gardener!”

  Mrs. Simm didn’t say much. She only said things like “Good heavens” and “Seriously?” and “Good heavens” again.

  Now, with Mavis standing on her front porch, Mrs. Simm’s eyes traveled from her dirty bare feet to her wild hair, and she raised one eyebrow in a perfect arch. “Yes, she is. Would you like me to give her a message?”

  “We need to talk to her,” Mavis said.

  Mrs. Simm let out a sigh. “Just a minute,” she said, closing the door.

  Mavis looked back at Rose and said, “Oh brother.”

  Rose licked a finger and wiped dirt off one of her white sandals. She wished she could go barefoot like Mavis. But Mrs. Simm would see and tell her mother, and her mother would remind her about ringworm. Mavis probably wouldn’t care if she got ringworm, but Rose sure would.

  After what felt like a long time, Amanda opened the front door. “What do you want?” she said, narrowing her eyes at Mavis.

  “Is that dog still coming to your fence to get food?” Mavis asked.

  “His name is Henry,” Amanda said.

  “Then is Henry still coming to your fence to get food?”

  Rose recognized that tone of voice coming from Mavis. Any minute now, she was liable to call Amanda a ding-dong. Then Amanda would get mad and tell her mother, who would tell Rose’s mother that she had come to their house wearing dirty sandals, and Mavis had been barefoot and called Amanda names.

  Amanda stepped out on the porch and closed the door behind her. She was wearing a sparkly red headband, and her cantaloupe-colored hair hung perfectly straight down her back. She had once bragged to Rose that she hadn’t cut her hair since third grade.

  “Don’t talk so loud,” Amanda said to Mavis.

  “Why not?”

  “Because my mother told me not to feed Henry anymore or else he’ll keep hanging around, and my parents don’t want dogs hanging around.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because stray dogs have ticks and fleas and mange and maybe even rabies.” Amanda straightened her headband and added, “But yes, Henry ate the cheese I put out there yesterday.”

  “Are you sure it was Henry and not a raccoon or something?”

  “I saw him from the porch,” Amanda said. “It was definitely a dog, and I’m pretty sure it was him.”

  “Great,” Mavis said. “Thanks.”

  Then she hopped down the steps and said, “Come on, Rose.”

  And just like that, Mavis ran toward the woods behind Amanda’s house, leaving Rose standing on the sidewalk.

  “She is so rude,” Amanda said, and disappeared inside her house.

  For a very brief minute, Rose considered going back home.

  But she didn’t.

  She ran off after Mavis, trying her best not to get her sandals dirty.

  HENRY

  Henry had stayed hidden in the brush when the girl with the freckled arm reached through the fence and put something in the plastic bowl.

  He had waited until the girl ran across the green lawn toward the big brick house, then he hurried to see what was in the bowl.

  Cheese!

  The girl had put little cubes of cheese in the plastic bowl.

  Henry had never tasted anything so good.

  When he had licked the bowl clean, he noticed that the freckled girl was watching him from the porch of the brick house.

  He wished she would come talk to him and pet him and play with him.

  But something about the girl told Henry that the family in that house didn’t want a dog.

  The way the girl whispered.

  The way she quickly put food in the plastic bowl and then ran off.

  So when the girl stopped to watch him from the porch, Henry had run away.

  Now he was sleeping in a pile of damp oak leaves, dreaming about things that dogs dream about.

  Playing with dogs.

  Chasing rabbits.

  Eating cheese.

  When Henry woke from his dream, he felt lonely.

  He missed his friends at Wonderland.

  But he wouldn’t go back there.

  Because something didn’t seem quite right at Wonderland.

  MAVIS

  Mavis watched Mr. Duffy sort through papers on his desk, then make notes on a clipboard.

  “Wanna play cards?” Mavis asked. “Rose and I can teach you how to play I Doubt It. Right, Rose?”

  Rose sat on the stool beside the desk and nodded.

  Mr. Duffy wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief. “Naw, you girls play without me,” he said.

  “Play the kazoo, and me and Rose’ll make up a song,” Mavis said. “I’m good at making up songs.”

  Mr. Duffy shook his head and wiped his forehead with the handkerchief. “Aw, I ain’t played that thing in so long, I doubt I could wrestle a tune out of it,” he said.

  Just then the phone on the desk rang. Mr. Duffy answered it.

  He said “Yep” and “Nope” and “Yes sirree” and “Beats me” and “You bet your boots” and “Suit yourself.”

  Mavis noticed that Rose had that worried look of hers, so she piped up and asked, “Who was that?”

  Mr. Duffy turned on the little fan on his desk and placed his coffee mug on some papers so they wouldn’t blow away.

  “That
dern fool of a contractor working on that house over on Creekside Drive,” he said.

  Then he mumbled, “Dumber than a bag of hammers.”

  “What’d he want?” Mavis asked.

  “Wanted to complain,” Mr. Duffy said. “Must’ve figured I hadn’t heard enough complaints today.”

  “What’d he complain about?”

  “A bunch of nonsense stuff.”

  “Like what?” Mavis asked.

  “Like the streetlight that’s flickering down on the corner and where was the street sweeper that was supposed to clean up that sand in the road and why didn’t I let the concrete truck in yesterday and was he going to have to speak to the homeowners’ association?”

  “Speak to them about what?” Rose asked in a quiet, trembly voice.

  Mr. Duffy shuffled across the gatehouse to the coffee maker on the file cabinet in the corner. “That man’s all hat and no cattle,” he grumbled.

  “What does that mean?” Mavis said.

  “Means he’s all talk.”

  Then, before she could stop herself, Mavis said, “I bet if you got another dog, people wouldn’t complain so much.”

  Dang it! Why’d she have to go and say that?

  Silence settled over the little gatehouse.

  Except for that fan.

  Rotating back and forth.

  Back and forth.

  And Mr. Duffy’s rattly breathing.

  Finally, Mr. Duffy broke the silence.

  “You need to pack that idea away, Miss Mavis, ’cause I’m just too tuckered out. There ain’t no dog out there that wants an old gizzard-hearted codger like me. Besides that, you could bring a whole passel of dogs in here, and folks’d still be griping. A dog ain’t gonna change that.”

  Mavis wanted to tell him about her plan. That if he was loving a dog again, then he wouldn’t be so down in the dumps. He’d be like the Mr. Duffy he’d been before she came to Landry. The Mr. Duffy that Rose had told her about. Doing magic tricks and whistling “The Boogie-Woogie Whistle Dance.” And Rose would stop worrying. She wanted to tell Mr. Duffy that Rose was her best friend, and she was pretty sure that’s what you do for your best friend—help them to stop worrying.