The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby

by Jenny Lundquist

  Stupid, stupid, stupid, I told myself as I stood up. I know Izzy has a temper, and I know not to lose mine around her. Once, she didn’t speak to me for over a week because I was mad and called her weird—even though she’d just done something that was totally weird and that could’ve—and eventually did—get us into a ton of trouble.

  Daisy and Sophia both hurried over. “What happened?” Sophia asked.

  “I said something really stupid to Izzy, and now she’s gone,” I said. “I don’t know what do to.”

  “Go after her,” Sophia advised.

  “Yeah,” Daisy added. “We’ll cover your table.”

  I grabbed my coat but immediately started shivering as soon as I went outside. It felt even colder than it had an hour ago. My breath came out in white puffs as I tried to figure out where Izzy would go. I decided to head for the Kaleidoscope Café—it was so cold, I thought maybe she’d go get a cup of hot chocolate. But when I walked up and looked through the café’s window, I didn’t see her. The only people I recognized inside were Austin and his parents. They were sitting in the big red booth in the front window, eating slices of cake.

  Austin caught sight of me and said something to his parents before standing up and coming outside.

  “It’s colder than Frosty’s butt out here,” he said, jumping in place to warm himself.

  “So your mom is back?” I said.

  Austin nodded. “She loved the cooking school.”

  “When does she leave again?” I knew I needed to be finding Izzy, not talking to Austin right now. But I was already planning. I’d make a list of nice things to do for Austin on his first day without his mom: a pot of Stinky Soup, a nice card, and—

  “Oh, no,” Austin said quickly. “She’s not leaving right away. She didn’t like the nine-month program. But she loved the summer program.”

  “The summer program?” It shouldn’t have mattered to me which program Mrs. Jackson liked. But still, I felt something like disappointment creeping into my bones.

  “Yeah. She’s going to go back for the summer program. And the best part? My dad decided he’s way overdue for a long vacation. He has an uncle in New York, and we’re going to stay with him for a month.” He pumped his fist in the air. “It’ll be the best summer vacation ever!”

  As he finished speaking, something small and white drifted between us and came to rest on his nose. His eyes shot to it—making him look severely cross-eyed—and as more puffs fell around us, I understood:

  Snow.

  It hadn’t snowed in Dandelion Hollow since I was five years old. And even then, it was only once, for five minutes in the middle of the night. But here it was falling; drifting all around us. Shyly at first, like an uninvited guest at a party where the welcome is uncertain, but picking up steam, taking over until all movement and all sound had come to a stop. All over the square, the people of Dandelion Hollow were staring up into the night sky. The Christmas carolers had ceased their singing, their melodies trailing off and spiraling upward into the night. A few of them, mouths hanging wide, were unintentionally catching flakes in their mouths. An iridescent snowflake came to rest in Austin’s hair.

  “Iridescent”—it means “shining with many different colors when seen from different angles.”

  I figured maybe that described how Austin and I felt about each other. From one angle, I thought Austin was cute and I liked talking to him. And if I was honest, I sort of liked being the person he talked to about his mom maybe leaving for nearly a year.

  But now I was looking at things from a different angle. Sort of like that moment in a movie theater right after the film is over, and the lights come back on. You have to blink a few times before you see clearly enough to stand up and move on with your day.

  As we stared at each other I felt my heart plummeting, which is just a gold star way of saying it was falling, and falling fast. I was happy for Austin, for his whole family. I really was. But I knew things were going to be different now. Maybe I’d never had a real crush on him. Maybe I’d just liked feeling like there was someone I could really talk to. But why, out of everyone I knew, had I picked Austin? If I really thought about it, I was pretty sure it was because I thought once his mom left for New York, we’d have a lot of things in common.

  But Mrs. Jackson wasn’t leaving her family behind. She was taking them with her.

  “So, listen,” Austin said, “our project is due in a few days, and I was thinking: Maybe I could handle the model of the pyramid and you could handle the essay? That would be the fastest way to get it done.”

  “Sure,” I mumbled. “That sounds great.” I felt so confused. I wasn’t sure I still had a crush on Austin. And had he ever had a crush on me? He’d definitely flirted with me a couple times—but he didn’t seem all that flirty right now. Or maybe like me, he got crushes all the time, but they never lasted more than a week or two.

  “Sweet! Text you later?”

  “Sure, text me later,” I said.

  After he went back inside, I drifted over to the town Christmas tree. The snow was already turning into a light rain—and a pang went through me when I realized I’d missed my chance to make a snow angel—and check off the hardest remaining thing on Mom’s list. A few small snowflakes were still resting on the Christmas tree, but they were melting fast. A girl was standing in front of the tree with her back to me. Her combat boots were pink and sparkly, and the charm bracelet on her wrist matched my own: Izzy.

  “Izzy!” I called as I ran over to her. “Izzy!”

  She turned, caught a slippery patch of concrete, and went skidding across the square. I was about to tell her she looked like a combat-booted ice-skater—until her legs flew out from under her and she fell, striking her head on the ground.

  CHAPTER

  32

  INDESTRUCTIBLE

  Three days after Mom had told me she had cancer, I was standing outside her bedroom door, keeping watch while she took a nap. There was a knock at the front door, which I ignored. A few minutes later, Dad appeared. He had a hollowed-out, vacant expression in his eyes. “Izzy’s here,” he said. “She wants to know if you want to come outside?”

  I looked over at the stair railing and imagined I could see Izzy downstairs, framed in our front doorway—her hair tangled in knots, her knees scraped up—waiting for me. Then I looked back at Mom’s room; she was breathing heavily and looked pale.

  “Tell her I’m busy.” I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the beginning of Izzy and me not being friends anymore.

  I looked back at Mom. “Please be okay,” I said then.

  • • •

  “Please be okay,” I said now, from the backseat of Melanie’s minivan. I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d gotten there. Izzy’s dad must have been nearby and seen her fall, because all of a sudden he was at her side, and a short time later she was being loaded into an idling ambulance, its siren silently flaring and flashing. The next thing I knew, I was crouching in Dandelion Square, Melanie and Olivia standing over me, the glow of lamplight surrounding them like a halo.

  “She’s hurt,” I’d said, and it sounded like my mouth was stuffed with rocks.

  “What?” Melanie had said. “I didn’t catch that.”

  I glanced over at Melanie’s car; it was parked at an odd angle against the curb. The headlights were still on, and the backseat was piled high with shopping bags.

  “She’s hurt,” I said again. Or did I just say it in my head?

  “She doesn’t look so good, Mom,” Olivia whispered.

  “I know. . . . Sir?” Melanie called to an elderly man who was standing near the lamp stand. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “A girl fell and hit her head,” he had replied. “The chief of police’s daughter, I think. Not the prodigy one—the younger one. Her dad decided to have her checked out at the hospital. Just to be safe.”

  Just to be safe. I heard his words, but I couldn’t keep my mind from playing a game:

 
; What If?

  What if Izzy was really hurt? What if a doctor at the hospital talked to Izzy’s dad and said the same six words that had once changed my whole life: “We have something to tell you?” Melanie had glanced at me, and I think she’d read everything I was thinking in my eyes, because she’d nodded her head, and when she spoke, she’d used her teacher voice. The Hammer’s voice: “Olivia—call Mitch and tell him we’ll be home late tonight. We’re going to the hospital. Violet—” she held out her hand—“get up. It’s time to go. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re going to see Izzy.”

  Please be okay, I thought again, as I stared out the car window. Everyone was silent as Melanie drove; the only sound was the whooshing of the windshield wipers.

  “Violet?” Melanie glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay? You look a little greenish. Do I need to pull the car over?”

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “It’s my fault she’s in the hospital.”

  “Izzy fell because the streets are slippery tonight,” Melanie said. “Not because of anything you did.”

  “That’s not true.” Quietly, I told her and Olivia all about hanging out with Austin, even after I thought Izzy liked him again. About ignoring Izzy’s walkie-talkie calls, about telling Austin things I didn’t tell Izzy. About not telling Izzy about my own crush on Austin. After I finished, they were both silent. I figured they thought I was a rotten friend.

  “There was this boy I liked in the tenth grade,” Melanie said softly. Through the rearview mirror I could see her smile. “Troy Wilkins. He was a football player, and a genuinely nice guy, or so I thought at the time. I was head over heels for him, and absolutely sure he liked me, too—until the next week, when he asked my best friend to the homecoming dance.”

  “Did she go to the dance with him?” Olivia asked, curious.

  “She did. Oh, we had a terrible fight over it. Anyway, after the dance, the two of them became a couple—for about five weeks, until Troy dumped her for someone he’d met over Christmas break. But the damage was done. Our friendship was never the same after that, and gradually, we stopped being friends—all over a boy who wasn’t a significant part of either of our lives.” Melanie caught my eye again in the rearview mirror. “There are a lot of reasons why girls stop being friends, Violet—people change and drift apart. Don’t let a boy be one of those reasons.”

  • • •

  After Melanie parked the car in the hospital’s lot, we went to the check-in counter, where the receptionist was happily gabbing away on the phone—apparently, her boyfriend was on thin ice, and had better get her something good for Christmas this year, or else. A line of irritated visitors stood in front of her desk, waiting for her to hang up. “Excuse me,” Melanie said loudly. “But we’re trying to locate my daughter’s friend.”

  Olivia and I exchanged confused glances. Izzy and Olivia liked each other okay, but I didn’t think they were actually friends.

  The receptionist swiveled in her chair to glance at Melanie, but she kept talking; and after a few more seconds, Melanie ripped the received from her hands and snapped, “No one here cares about your taste in jewelry. Now get off the phone and help all of us.”

  The receptionist glared at Melanie, but wilted under the Hammer’s stare. “What is your daughter’s friend’s name?” she asked in an almost-polite voice.

  “Izzy Malone,” Melanie answered.

  “How does she do that?” I whispered to Olivia, who shrugged.

  “It’s an art,” she whispered back. “She’s like a magician.”

  But when I looked back at Melanie—jaw set, steely Hammer stare—she looked more like a warrior.

  A warrior who was fighting for me.

  • • •

  We couldn’t see Izzy right away; she was in the emergency room being examined by the doctor. It felt like we’d been sitting in the waiting room forever before her dad came out to see us.

  “She’s okay,” he said immediately. “The doctor checked her out, and she’s fine. No concussion.”

  “She’s okay,” I repeated, and let out a breath. I felt shaky on the inside, and I wondered if any of the others understood just how differently tonight could have gone. How one minute a person can be fine, and then the next they’re just . . . not fine.

  “Do you need me to call anyone for you?” Melanie asked him, and he shook his head.

  “I already talked to Izzy’s mom—she was in San Francisco with Carolyn for a music recital tonight—and they’re driving back right now. The doctor said she doesn’t have to stay overnight. I’m going to the cafeteria to get something to eat before I go back into her room. Violet, would you like to go look in on her?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, still feeling shaky.

  Mr. Malone led us through the double doors to the emergency room. “She’s over that way, just past the emergency exit,” he said.

  “I think Olivia and I will also go to the cafeteria,” Melanie said. She placed a hand on my shoulder, and whispered, “Remember what we talked about in the car.”

  “I will,” I said.

  The three of them left, and I found Izzy in an alcove off to the side. She was lying under a blanket on a cot, surrounded by medical equipment.

  “Hi,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded. “I’m fine. Apparently, I have a really hard head. It’s indestructible!”

  “Indestructible”—it can mean “unbreakable” or “durable.” I guess that’s what I wanted my friendship with Izzy to be like: Stronger than boys and secrets and crushes and the hurts of the world. Something that couldn’t shatter into a million pieces.

  “About what happened tonight,” I said. “I figure Austin Jackson isn’t worth us fighting over.”

  Izzy made a face. “You’re just figuring that out now? I thought you were the smart one.”

  I laughed and sat next to her on the bed. “I guess I’m not always as smart as I think I am. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was hanging out with him.” Slowly, I began to tell her about Mrs. Jackson’s cooking school and bringing Austin a pot of Stinky Soup and ice-blocking and stringing popcorn garland and how it felt standing in the snow tonight, when he told me his mom wasn’t going away for the year, and how it was a little bit like waking up from a dream.

  “I’m not even sure I have a crush on him anymore,” I finished. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t.” That was all true, but even so, I felt a little sad and disappointed inside. Like going back to school in January and realizing all the fun and anticipation of the holidays were over and it was back to real life again.

  “Can I ask you something?” Izzy sat up and looked at me tentatively. “Did you kiss him?”

  “No,” I said. “Definitely not.”

  “Good—would you have really wanted Austin’s spit in your mouth?” Trust Izzy to turn kissing into the grossest thing in the world.

  “Well, geez, Izzy, when you put it like that, I may never kiss a boy ever in my life. Most of the time, we just talked about things.” I took a deep breath. “Actually, we talked about my mom a lot.” I wondered if I should apologize for talking to Austin instead of Izzy. But Izzy didn’t look mad; she just seemed sort of sad and a little bit puzzled.

  “A lot of the time it seems like you don’t want to talk about your mom,” she said. “But you can; you know that, right? You could talk to me—and Sophia and Daisy.”

  “I know. . . . I guess a lot of the time I feel like you guys wouldn’t understand.”

  Izzy thought about that for a second. “I guess we wouldn’t—couldn’t—understand. But isn’t that what friends are for? To help you try to talk through the things there’s just no making sense of? Besides—” a touch of competitiveness entered her voice—“I am a way better listener than Austin.” She flopped back on her bed. “Ugh. Austin’s going to get an A on his Egyptian project because you’re his partner. I seriously hope we have a lot of classes together next semester, Violet. If someone’s going to
benefit from your braintasticness, it should be me.”

  I had a feeling Austin and I wouldn’t be hanging out quite as much once our project was finished. But something told me that if things had turned out differently, if Mrs. Jackson had moved away for most of next year, we would’ve continued on commiserating. I could have told him all about how to get used to living with just his dad, even if it was just for a short time. But that wasn’t going to happen, and I figured it was okay. I guess what I really needed was just what Izzy had said: to start talking to the friends who were always there for me, no matter what. Sophia and Daisy, and especially Izzy.

  “Let’s make a pact,” I said, and held out my hand. “From now on, we tell each other everything. . . . And do not spit in your hand, Izzy Malone,” I added sternly, when it looked like she might. “That’s not how I make deals.”

  Izzy laughed. “You’re on.” She took my hand and shook it.

  Just then a doctor approached. “Hi, Izzy,” he said. “I just need your dad to finish filling out a bit of paperwork, and then we’ll get you out of here.”

  He was young. And cute. I mean, really, really cute.

  “Thanks, Doctor,” Izzy said, a giggle in her voice.

  After he left, we looked at each other and smiled. And at the same time, we yelled, “Crush dibs!”

  CHAPTER

  33

  DANCING SNOW

  Dear Mom,

  I remember a long time ago how you once came bursting into my room late one night, the light from the hallway streaking in behind you, as you told me to Wake up! Get up! . . . There’s snow! Let’s make snow angels! A flurry of untangling covers and hastily donned boots and jackets, and we rushed out into the night, me clinging to your soft hand. But the moment was already gone. The snow, brief as it was, had turned to misty rain.

  I still have that half-formed memory in my mind. But now I have another memory of snow: of watching it dance on the bridge of Austin’s nose last night, the exact moment before I knew he wouldn’t be my One, the way Dad was yours. And knew that I didn’t even like him anymore. But I think maybe I know now why it’s called a “crush” when you like a boy. Because when it ends, it feels like a piece of your heart gets crumpled up and ripped to pieces. Crushed.