Wonderland

by Barbara O'Connor

  Mavis wished Rose were here, being her best friend again.

  She swished a stick around in the dry dirt beside the log.

  She wrote Rose + Mavis.

  Then she tossed the stick into the bushes and headed home to listen to her mother complain about Mrs. Tully.

  ROSE

  Rose was pretty sure that she was the unhappiest girl in Landry, Alabama. She sat on Grace’s window seat and made a mental list of the reasons she was so unhappy.

  1.  Mr. Duffy, who had always been so fun and cheerful, was now sad and a little grumpy.

  2.  That same friend, Mr. Duffy, was getting more and more forgetful and making so many mistakes that folks in Magnolia Estates were getting more and more impatient with him.

  3.  She had argued with her new (and only) best friend, Mavis, and now they weren’t even talking anymore.

  4.  Mr. Duffy never seemed to want to play checkers with her, but then there he was, playing checkers with Mavis. So now maybe he liked Mavis more than he liked her. But then, who could blame him? Mavis was fun and adventurous and brave, which she, Rose Tully, was not.

  5.  That poor, sweet dog, Henry, needed a home. And Mavis was so sure that she could convince Mr. Duffy to adopt him, but Rose wasn’t so sure.

  6.  Her mother complained about Miss Jeeter nearly every minute of every day.

  7.  Her sister, Grace, was gone and Rose needed her.

  Seven reasons to be unhappy.

  That was a lot.

  Suddenly a noise outside made Rose stop thinking about how unhappy she was.

  The sound of a skateboard on the driveway.

  Mavis.

  It had to be Mavis.

  Rose jumped up off Grace’s window seat and ran downstairs and out the back door. She hurried through the hydrangea garden to the front of the house.

  Sure enough, there was Mavis riding the skateboard up and down the driveway. She glanced over briefly, but then looked away and began to whistle as she rode the skateboard up one side and down the other. Wasn’t that just so like Mavis, breaking that rule about not riding the skateboard on the driveway? And then whistling while she did it! Such a Mavis thing to do.

  Rose marched out into the middle of the yard with her head high and her arms swinging. Then she took off her sandals and flung them into the air so high that one of them landed in the top of her mother’s favorite magnolia tree.

  Then she, Rose Tully, scampered around in circles on the grass, not caring one little bit if she got ringworm.

  Mavis had stopped riding the skateboard and was standing gape-mouthed at the edge of the yard, staring up at Rose’s sandal in the magnolia tree. Then she grinned at Rose and hollered, “That’s what I’m talking about!”

  Rose grinned back.

  Then the two of them headed up the street toward the gatehouse, Mavis’s skateboard whirring and Rose’s bare feet slap, slap, slapping on the asphalt road.

  MAVIS

  Mavis could hardly believe her eyes when Rose had flung her sandals up in the air like that. So unlike her. And then she’d gone and run around the yard barefoot as if she’d never even heard the word ringworm.

  This was a new Rose.

  And best of all, a Rose who wasn’t mad at her anymore.

  Mavis was relieved.

  Now they could get back to being best friends again.

  When they reached the gatehouse, Mavis hopped off the skateboard and said, “Okay, here’s plan B. We’ll do the ole guilt trip.”

  Rose looked puzzled. “What guilt trip?”

  “You know, like, make Mr. Duffy think his heart really is a thumping gizzard if he can go and let a poor, innocent dog have no home of his own and nobody to love him.”

  “I don’t know,” Rose said. “That seems kind of mean.”

  “No, it’s not,” Mavis said. “I’m really good at guilt-tripping.”

  When they got inside the gatehouse, Mr. Duffy was on the phone telling somebody he was certain he had never had the names Joleen and Travis Bivens on the guest list. Then he held the phone away from his ear and rolled his eyes.

  The person on the other end of the phone was mad. Mavis could hear snatches of loud, angry words.

  “I told you—”

  “How many times—”

  “—so embarrassing—”

  Mr. Duffy shook his head and winked at Rose and Mavis. Then he put the phone back to his ear and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and hung up.

  “You don’t have to hang from a tree to be a nut,” he said. “And that woman is most definitely a nut. I swear she could start an argument with an empty room.”

  Then he turned to Rose and said, “Rose Tully! What got into you, running out of here like you done the other day? You trying to make an old man older?”

  Rose blushed. “No, sir.”

  Mavis jumped in quick before the old worried Rose came back and took over the new brave Rose.

  “Everything’s good now. Right, Rose?” she said.

  Rose nodded.

  “We want to talk to you about Henry,” Mavis said.

  Before Mr. Duffy had a chance to say anything, Mavis started working on the guilt trip. She told Mr. Duffy how Henry was all alone in this world. How he’d devoted his whole life to racing, and now he was a has-been and nobody wanted him. How all he wanted was a little love and a home of his own. Was that so wrong?

  On and on.

  Guilt-tripping like crazy.

  A couple of times Mr. Duffy opened his mouth to say something, but Mavis kept right on going. Every now and then she said, “Right, Rose?” but she didn’t stop long enough for Rose to do more than nod.

  When she finally felt like that guilt trip was the best that it could be, Mavis stopped.

  Mr. Duffy took his cap off, ran his hand over his bald head, and put it back on again. He looked out the window and up at the ceiling and down at the floor.

  Then he took a breath and opened his mouth to speak, but a noise at the screen door made him stop.

  He looked at the door.

  Rose looked at the door.

  Mavis looked at the door.

  There, scratching on the screen, was Henry.

  HENRY

  When Henry had wakened from that dream about having someone all his own, he’d made a decision.

  He was tired of being alone in the woods.

  He was going to look for those girls.

  They had been so nice to him, kissing him and petting him.

  So he ran for hours through fields, across roads, and in and out of woods until he found what he was looking for.

  The wrought-iron fence where the freckled girl had left him bowls of food.

  He sniffed around the ferns and leaves and wild raspberries. He wandered in and out of the fragrant pines and shady sycamores.

  But those girls were not there.

  Then he remembered the little house where they had taken him. The one with the gray-haired man.

  But he also remembered that that was where Roger had come to get him.

  What if Roger came again?

  But maybe this time something good would happen.

  Maybe this time Roger wouldn’t come.

  Maybe this time those girls would let him stay with them.

  Henry had followed the same route as before, running along the fence and up the asphalt street to the little house beside the gate.

  His heart had leaped with joy when he heard voices through the screen door.

  Voices of those girls and the gray-haired man.

  He scratched on the screen.

  When they saw him, the girls squealed, “Henry!” They ran to the door and let him in and showered him with hugs and kisses.

  Henry had never been showered with hugs and kisses before.

  The old man said, “Jeekers! How in the heck did that dog get back here?”

  “Please don’t call Wonderland,” the wild-haired girl said.

  Then she put her hands together l
ike she was praying and added, “Let’s keep him for a little while.”

  The quiet girl said, “He’s so skinny! I bet he’s hungry.”

  The old man heaved a big sigh and shuffled over to his desk. He took a paper bag out of a drawer and brought Henry a tuna fish sandwich.

  Henry had never had a tuna fish sandwich before.

  He gobbled it up, and then he put his head in the old man’s lap.

  The old man put his hand on top of Henry’s head.

  His hand was warm.

  Henry let out a little whine of contentment and wagged his tail to say thank you.

  ROSE

  Rose looked at Mr. Duffy sitting there with his hand on Henry’s head, and for the first time she had a little glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, Mavis’s plan had worked.

  Maybe all that great guilt-tripping had convinced Mr. Duffy to keep Henry.

  But that glimmer disappeared when Mr. Duffy said, “Y’all know this dog has to go back where he belongs, don’t you?”

  And then, of course, Mavis had jumped in, the way Mavis always jumped in, reminding Mr. Duffy that Henry was up for adoption and needed a home.

  Rose was afraid Mr. Duffy was going to start talking about how he was too old to get another dog, but that didn’t happen.

  Instead, Henry lifted his head off Mr. Duffy’s lap and walked over to Queenie’s bed and lay down.

  The little gatehouse grew quiet while Rose and Mavis and Mr. Duffy looked at Henry curled up on Queenie’s bed, already fast asleep.

  He looked so peaceful there on the fluffy round bed with QUEENIE embroidered in blue.

  Rose’s mind raced.

  Would Mr. Duffy get mad at Henry for sleeping in Queenie’s bed?

  Would he wake him up and tell him to get off that bed? It wasn’t his bed.

  But Mr. Duffy didn’t do that.

  What he did do was look at Rose and Mavis and say, “I’ve got to call Wonderland to come get that dog.”

  MAVIS

  Mavis dropped onto the stool with a big, heaving sigh.

  She made a pouty face.

  She let out another big, heaving sigh.

  But it was no use.

  Mr. Duffy called Wonderland to come get Henry.

  Mavis went over to where Henry was still sleeping on Queenie’s bed and lay on the floor beside him, trying her best to look pitiful.

  She was glad to see that Rose was doing a pretty good job of looking pitiful, too. She sat slumped in Mr. Duffy’s desk chair, spinning it slowly in circles with her toe.

  Mr. Duffy stood at the gatehouse door, watching for the van from Wonderland.

  It didn’t take long for the van to arrive and Roger to come into the gatehouse carrying a leash.

  “I swanee, Rocket Boy,” he said. “What are we going to do about you?”

  At the sound of Roger’s voice, Henry opened his eyes and sat up.

  Mavis threw her arms around him and hugged his neck. Then she turned her pitiful face to Roger and asked, “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “He’s gotta go back to Wonderland,” Roger said. “I’m trying to find a foster home for him, but no luck yet.”

  Mavis forgot about making her pitiful face and jumped up off the floor.

  “Foster home!” she said. “Really?”

  “Sure,” Roger said. “We always try to find foster homes for our rescue pups. It’s better for them to be in a home instead of cooped up in that adoption center.”

  Mavis whipped her head around to look at Mr. Duffy. “Did you hear that?” she said.

  Mr. Duffy held up a hand and said, “Hold on now, missy, I don’t—”

  “But it’s perfect!” Mavis said. “Right, Rose?”

  Rose looked at Henry and then at Mr. Duffy and said, “Yes! It’s perfect!”

  Mavis grinned. Finally Rose wasn’t being wishy-washy and hemming and hawing like she usually did. Now it was time to try the old guilt trip again.

  “You won’t be keeping him,” Mavis said. “You’ll be giving him a nice place to live until somebody whose heart isn’t a thumping gizzard comes along to help a sad, homeless dog.”

  Mr. Duffy frowned. “Don’t be pulling that on me, Miss Mavis.”

  Mavis tried to look innocent. “Pulling what on you?”

  Mr. Duffy cocked his head at her and narrowed his eyes.

  “Just think what good company Henry would be,” Rose said. “I bet he’d like to go fishing with you down at the lake and—”

  “Now don’t y’all go ganging up on me,” Mr. Duffy said. He stroked his chin and looked down at Henry.

  “See how quiet he is?” Mavis said. “He hasn’t barked one single time since we found him.”

  “And I bet he’d love your trailer,” Rose said. “And he could ride in the truck with you and stay here in the gatehouse with you while you work.”

  On and on they went.

  Mavis, then Rose, then Mavis again.

  Working on Mr. Duffy until he finally turned to Roger and said, “So, tell me what I’d have to do to foster this dog.”

  Roger told Mr. Duffy about filling out some paperwork and having a home inspection to make sure Alabama Rocket Boy would be safe.

  “Then just take him home, feed him, and love on him a little,” Roger said, “until I find someone to adopt him.”

  Mr. Duffy looked down at Henry. “So, it’s only temporary, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And I can take him back to Wonderland if it don’t work out, right?”

  “Right.”

  Mr. Duffy scratched his chin. “Well, I reckon I can take him for a little while.”

  Mavis let out a whoop, and she and Rose did their special handshake.

  Slapping, snapping, and fist-bumping.

  Plan B had worked out pretty good.

  Now all they had to do was make sure that Mr. Duffy fell in love with Henry. And she had no doubt that she and Rose would be really good at that.

  ROSE

  Rose sat between Pete and Larry, feeling lighter. All those things that had been weighing her down were beginning to lift.

  She was feeling braver every day. Just yesterday she had gone barefoot and ridden her skateboard around Magnolia Estates. Even in front of the Simms’ house with Amanda and a bunch of girls doing gymnastics on the lawn. She had even waved to them. Amanda had looked surprised, but she had waved back.

  Then she had told her mother she wasn’t interested in joining the mother-daughter book club if Mavis and her mother couldn’t join, too.

  But the biggest weight had been worrying about Mr. Duffy. Now he was taking care of Henry, and she could already tell he was happier. He whistled while he worked in the gatehouse. He’d started saying “What’s shakin’, bacon?” like he used to. When it was time to go home, he said, “Look out, catfish, here I come.” He had even played the kazoo yesterday. Things were definitely getting better.

  But Rose did have one little twinge of worry. Her mother and the ladies in her bridge club were still complaining about Mr. Duffy. He forgot to call someone to check on the floodlights down by the tennis courts. He let a car full of teenagers come through the gate to visit Tyler Reed, and they were definitely not on the approved visitor list. And Audrey Jonker was almost certain Mr. Duffy had been sleeping when she drove through the gate the other day.

  Rose pushed that worry away and skipped up the street to the gatehouse. She wished Mavis were home, but today was Miss Jeeter’s day off and the two of them had taken the bus to town.

  As soon as she went into the gatehouse, Mr. Duffy said, “Hey there, Rose Petal!”

  Henry lay on Queenie’s bed beside Mr. Duffy’s chair, thumping his tail on the floor. Rose noticed some of Queenie’s old toys on the bed beside him.

  Even that felt monkey with the stuffing ripped out of it.

  Queenie’s favorite.

  Rose couldn’t help but smile about that.

  Everything was feeling so good again. Maybe Mr. Duff
y would do some magic tricks or ask her to tap dance.

  But just when Rose was thinking Mr. Duffy might take out his kazoo, he put his hands on her shoulders and said, “I have something to tell you, Rose.”

  HENRY

  Henry had never known that dogs could live a life like the one he was living with Mr. Duffy.

  Ever since the day that Roger had gotten into the Wonderland van and driven away from the little gatehouse without him, Henry’s life had been full of firsts.

  He had ridden in a truck with his head out the window, letting the wind blow his flapping ears, and watching a whole world of stores and houses and fields and barns whiz by.

  He had walked beside Mr. Duffy around a lake, the water glistening in the late-afternoon sun.

  He had gone inside Mr. Duffy’s trailer, which smelled like he imagined a home would smell. Like old shoes, biscuits, and bacon.

  Mr. Duffy made hot dogs and baked beans for supper and shared them with him, even letting him up on the couch to eat from a paper plate beside him.

  Sometimes Mr. Duffy was quiet, but sometimes he talked to Henry. He grumbled about his arthritis and remarked about the evening air getting a little cooler and apologized for his lousy cooking.

  The scent of another dog lingered on the sofa and the rugs and even on Mr. Duffy’s slippers under the bed. Henry wondered where that dog was now.

  When the sun went down on that first night, Mr. Duffy turned out the lights in the trailer and motioned for Henry to sleep on the rug beside his bed. In the middle of the night Henry jumped onto the bed and nestled down among the cool, thin sheets. When Mr. Duffy woke the next morning to find him there, he mumbled something under his breath, but he didn’t make him get down. Henry slept on the bed every night after that.

  In the mornings, they ate scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast and went for a walk down by the lake. Then they got in the truck and drove to the little gatehouse where Rose and Mavis came to visit every day.