She stopped to take a breath.
And then she said, “And Harold is in the tomato garden.”
She took another breath. “Well, not Harold Harold, but, you know”—she jerked her head and glanced up at the ceiling—“Harold.”
There.
Willow waited.
Her father took off his cap and scratched his head. He put his cap back on and glanced up at the ceiling. Then he looked at Willow and said, “Okay.”
Aggie
Aggie plopped into Harold’s old lounge chair. Her back hurt. That bursitis in her shoulder was acting up again. And the arthritis in her knees was interfering with the day, that was for sure.
But what a day it had been.
Just like the old days.
Well, almost …
“Aggie?” Willow called through the curtain over the office door.
Aggie forgot about her back and her shoulder and her knees.
“Come on in, sweetheart,” she called.
Willow came in and sat on the bed in front of her. She looked so solemn, Aggie felt scared for a minute, like maybe she was about to get some real bad news.
But instead of telling her bad news, Willow said, “We need you to stay.”
“Stay?”
Willow nodded. “Stay here. With us.”
And then the words came tumbling out and Aggie had to lean forward a little to make sure she was hearing everything right.
This is what Willow told her:
That she and her daddy needed Aggie to help them run the motel because Willow would be going to school soon and somebody needed to be in the office while her daddy worked on other things, like weeding and filling the soda machine and checking for wasps under the eaves.
That Willow’s family had gotten a little messed up and if Aggie stayed, well, maybe they could all be like a family right here at the motel.
That Ugly needed to be outside because that’s what cats like, not condominiums and hot tubs.
That when Dorothy comes to visit, she will want to meet Aggie.
And that Willow and Aggie could fix up the garden together—weeding and pruning and planting—while they talked to Harold.
And then she stopped.
And Aggie said, “Okay.”
Kirby
“Hurry up, Kirby. I haven’t got all day,” Kirby’s mother hollered out of the car window.
Kirby jabbed at the gravel with the toe of his sneaker.
Aggie and Willow and Mr. Dover and Loretta and her parents were gathered around him.
Loretta’s parents told him how nice it was to meet him and maybe they could all go fishing next time they were out this way.
Mr. Dover thanked him for helping with the weeding and all. He couldn’t have done it without him.
Aggie told him he was a fine young man and she would send him banana bread. “And you come on down here and visit us when you have some time off from school,” she added.
Willow looked down at her feet and said, “Bye,” with a little flap of her hand.
Loretta said, “Ee-say ou-yay ater-lay, irby-Kay.”
And Ugly purred.
Kirby gave Willow his purple yo-yo.
Willow said, “Thank you.”
Then he reached in his pocket and took out the poodle dog pin and handed it to Loretta and said, “Here.”
He waited for everyone to yell at him.
He waited for everyone to hate him.
But Loretta grabbed the pin and squealed, “My pin! My pin! You found my pin!”
She did a little la-la-la dance around and around in circles, jangling her charm bracelet and kissing her pin.
Then she took the sheriff’s badge off her fringed leather vest and handed it to Kirby.
“Here, you have this,” she said.
Kirby took the sheriff’s badge from Loretta and started to put it in his pocket. But then he changed his mind. “Thanks,” he said, and pinned the badge to his T-shirt.
When Kirby’s mother honked the horn, Kirby looked around at everyone and they were all smiling at him and no one was yelling and no one was hating him.
Kirby felt as light as air, like he was going to float right up into the sky. He got in the car and waved as his mother drove out of the parking lot.
When they started up the winding road toward Smoky Mountain Boys’ Academy, Kirby looked down at the trees and the mountains spread out below them, and he knew he had been wrong.
This wasn’t nowhere, after all.
Loretta
La la la …
Loretta danced around in circles, kissing her poodle dog pin as Kirby’s car disappeared up the winding road.
She climbed into the van and put the pin inside her box. She was never, ever, ever, taking that stuff outside again.
Then she joined the others out in the parking lot.
“We’re coming back next summer and you can go to Dollywood with us,” Loretta said to Willow.
“Okay.”
“We can be best friends, okay?” Loretta said.
“Okay.”
Everyone hugged.
Loretta’s mother hugged Mr. Dover.
Aggie hugged Loretta’s father.
Loretta hugged Aggie.
Around and around the hugs went.
Finally, Loretta and her parents climbed into the van with the sandwiches and cupcakes that Aggie had packed in a brown paper bag.
“Y’all stay in touch, now,” Aggie said.
Loretta and her parents said, “We will.”
Aggie patted Loretta’s arm resting on the open window of the van and said, “Have you decided where you’re going next on that charm bracelet of yours?”
“Yep.”
“Let me guess. Texas?”
“Nope.” Loretta grinned out at Aggie. “O-nay ace-play,” she said.
Aggie cocked her head. “No place?”
Loretta nodded. “I like it here,” she said.
Then the van bounced and squeaked across the parking lot toward the road, with Loretta hanging out of the window, waving both arms.
Her charm bracelet jingle-jangled.
And her mother said, “Aren’t we lucky, Marvin?”
Aggie
Aggie watched the Murphys’ van disappear around the curve. Willow stood beside her, clutching Kirby’s purple yo-yo.
“I guess you and I better get to work,” Aggie said.
She and Willow cleaned Kirby’s and Loretta’s rooms. They changed the sheets and put fresh towels in the bathrooms. Willow ran the vacuum. Aggie dusted.
When they were finished, Willow said, “You wanna go sit in the swimming pool?”
Aggie chuckled. “Okay.”
So she sat down there by the drain with Willow and Ugly. They talked about how good everything had turned out. That tour bus parked over there by the office. Those folks sitting in lawn chairs out by their rooms, studying their complimentary maps of the Smoky Mountains.
They talked about how good things were going to be later. How Aggie was going to be in charge of the office while Willow was at school. How Willow was going to visit Dorothy in Savannah real soon. How they could all go to Dollywood with Loretta next summer. How Kirby could come visit them when he had a break from school.
When the sun started sinking below the mountains and the air grew cool, Willow helped Aggie up off the crumbling cement and they headed for the office.
Halfway there, Aggie said, “Let’s skip.”
So they held hands and skipped across the parking lot. Aggie’s thin gray hair bounced and her glasses slid down her nose.
As she skipped, she glanced up at the sky and said, “Look at me now, Harold.”
Aggie and Willow sat outside the office until the sun disappeared completely behind the mountains.
Lightning bugs flickered out across the parking lot.
The motel sign glowed in the darkening sky.
And NO VACANCY flashed on and off.
On and off.
; Also by Barbara O’Connor
Beethoven in Paradise
Me and Rupert Goody
Moonpie and Ivy
Fame and Glory in Freedom, Georgia
Taking Care of Moses
How to Steal a Dog
Copyright © 2008 by Barbara O’Connor
All rights reserved
www.fsgkidsbooks.com
Designed by Irene Metaxatos
eISBN 9781466809307
First eBook Edition : January 2012
First edition, 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
O’Connor, Barbara.
Greetings from nowhere / Barbara O’Connor.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In North Carolina’s Great Smoky Mountains, a troubled boy and his mother, a happy family seeking adventure, a man and his lonely daughter, and the widow who must sell the run-down motel that has been her home for decades meet and are transformed by their shared experiences.
ISBN-13: 978-0-374-39937-5
ISBN-10: 0-374-39937-9
[1. Hotels, motels, etc.—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Great Smoky Mountains (N.C. and Tenn.)—Fiction. 4. North Carolina—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.O217Gre 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2006037439
Greetings from Nowhere Page 11