by Beth Vrabel
Would he be able to whittle there? How would he get his wood? I sighed, wishing I would’ve grabbed some from the backyard before we left. We should’ve brought something to cheer him up.
Almost like he read my thoughts—or maybe because he’s just not capable of driving by without stopping—Dad pulled into the Williams Diner. “Let’s get a milkshake for Mr. Hamlin,” he suggested.
“And a couple for us.”
“Of course.”
Mayor Hank sat at the counter next to a kid I had seen at the library next to a stack of local history books. The boy was furiously typing into a laptop and firing questions at the mayor.
“Ah, the competition,” Dad said as we slid into a booth.
I shrugged. “Lots of kids are entering the contest.”
“Did you finish typing yours yet?” Dad asked.
I shook my head.
“I’m sure you’ll do great,” Dad said without looking up from the milkshake menu. “You’ve got your mother’s talent.”
I didn’t say anything, trying to listen to what the kid was asking Mayor Hank. It sounded like he wanted to know a lot about the Bartel family. Kind of the obvious way to go, I told myself, even as I mentally kicked myself for not doing the same. I mean, just about everything in the whole darn town was named for the paper mill owners, and I had nothing—nothing—about the family in my research.
Again I thought of Sandi and her interviews with representatives and even a senator.
What was I thinking, doing a Sinkville Success Stories essay without mentioning one famous or prominent person? I guess I had Mayor Hank, but only from when he was a newbie in town.
“I don’t think I’m going to finish the essay,” I said, not looking up from my menu.
Dad slapped the laminated paper to the tabletop. He didn’t say anything, just arched a fuzzy eyebrow at me.
I glanced around to make sure Gretel wasn’t nearby, even though I could hear her in the kitchen. “Look,” I whispered, “Sandi interviewed famous people. The kid over there is researching the Bartels. All I’ve got are interviews. One with an old man in an old folks’ home. Another with a milkshake maker. And one with a mayor talking about when he was a teenager. I’ve got a story about a deranged albino squirrel and other rejects at the sanctuary. Basically, nothing worth writing about.” I sat back in the booth and squeezed my eyes shut. When I am upset, my eyes flutter like crazy and I knew Dad was tuned into that.
He moved from his side of the booth and slipped into my side. He kissed the tip of my nose. “Every time your mom wrote an article, she was sure it was going to get her fired. She never mentioned the usual touristy spots or ate in the fancy restaurants.” Dad sat back and smiled; I knew he was thinking of Mom with her camera around her neck and her notebook in her hands. “She found the real people, the real stories. And you know what? That’s what made her so good.”
He squeezed my hand and went back to his side of the booth as Gretel sauntered up to our table. “You’re getting the fruit smoothie with spinach. No arguing,” she told Dad, pointing at him with her pen. Her velvety voice still made me break out in chills, thinking of Grandma. “Can’t have my best customer going and getting diabetes on me.” She turned to me. “You, my darling girl. You can have anything you’d like.”
Before I could order, she turned toward Mayor Hank. “But make it quick. As soon as that kid’s done talking to Harold, we’re outta here. Got a date.” She winked at me.
I popped up and squeezed Gretel into a quick hug. “Yes!” I cheered.
Gretel smiled and popped her pen cap, ready to write down my order.
“What’s Mr. Hamlin’s favorite shake?”
“Vanilla with a dash of caramel sauce,” she answered immediately.
“I’ll take one of those for me and one to go for him.”
She smiled at me. “I’ll make it with extra love. Be sure to tell him that.”
After Gretel disappeared back in the kitchen, Dad smiled at me for so long that I was the one arching a fuzzy eyebrow in his direction. “What?”
“Just love you, kiddo,” he said. “That’s all.”
I took a deep breath as we walked up to the glass doors of Bartel Village.
It didn’t look like an old folks’ home. Really, it looked like a beautiful white house. A wide ramp led to a huge wraparound porch, with loads of wooden rocking chairs and pots of flowers. We passed a few people in wheelchairs, staring out across the parking lot like they were waiting for a visitor.
Inside, Dad signed a guest register as I watched fish swimming in a big tank. A lady leaned on the arms of a metal walker beside me, a curled-up finger tracing the route a bright yellow fish was taking through the water. “Blub, blub,” she muttered.
I chewed my lip and turned away. “Mr. Hamlin’s on the second floor,” Dad said, grabbing my hand. I’m a little old for hand holding, but I didn’t let go.
A photograph of Mr. Hamlin was taped to the door of his room. It was of him sitting on the dock, whittling knife and wood in his hands. Dad knocked on the door and eased it open. “Hmm,” he said when no one was inside.
A nurse walking by smiled at us and said, “You looking for Mike Hamlin? He’s doing arts hour in the cafeteria.”
She gave Dad directions while I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to picture old folks’ art hour. What would they be doing? Knitting doilies? Poor Mr. Hamlin was probably sitting in a dark corner, remembering his lake, missing his whittling. And all I had for him was a stupid milkshake. “Let’s just go home,” I nudged Dad.
He ignored me, grabbing my arm and leading us to the cafeteria. I opened my eyes and sucked in my breath. The cafeteria was huge, with dozens of little round tables. The room was drenched with light from huge floor-to-ceiling windows. And yes, the table in front of us was filled with ladies knitting. But other people were painting or drawing with tabletop easels or sculpting clay on small trays. And everywhere was laughter and chattering.
“Is that him?” Dad pointed to a table by the window. I sort of shrugged. The man was too far to see for sure and Dad, who had never met Mr. Hamlin, was just going by the photograph he had seen on the door. Dad moved forward, but the closer we got the less I thought it could be Mr. Hamlin. This man was sketching.
Beside him, a man with a wild fluff of gray hair was telling bad jokes about pirates’ favorite letters (“R,” answered the Maybe Mr. Hamlin. “Nope, a pirate’s first love is always the C ! Ha!”) and the Maybe Mr. Hamlin was belly laughing in a way I had never heard before.
But when I got close enough, I knew it was Actual Mr. Hamlin. He was wearing the same thin flannel shirt as last time I saw him and he smelled the same, like wood shavings and pine. His back was to me, but I recognized his hand, now gripping a charcoal pencil instead of a knife. He was shading in a drawing so realistic of the dock that I forgot he didn’t know I was there and moved closer to see all of it. My face was just a few inches from the paper, looking at the little girl and the dog sitting at the edge of the dock, when I felt Mr. Hamlin’s hand cup the back of my head. “Gnome Girl,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling.
I turned and, surprising us both, I hugged him. “I brought you a milkshake,” I said into his bony shoulder.
“Made with extra love, I hope.”
I nodded and leaned back so I could see his face. Mr. Hamlin was smiling, too big and easy to be fake. “Meet my friends,” he said. “This here is Pat Winchester. We went to high school together. You believe that?”
Mr. Winchester, the pirate joke teller, grinned at me, popping his fake teeth out and back again. Guess that’s the thing for old men to do when they meet girls.
“Haven’t seen Pat in, what? Twenty years?”
“Not since before Margi passed,” the comedian said.
Mr. Hamlin introduced us to a half-dozen other “old buddies,” but I was too busy watching the whittler’s face to be polite. When was he going to drop this happy act? Sure this place was sunny and bright. B
ut it wasn’t our lake. It wasn’t the dock.
I was still watching Mr. Hamlin a half-hour later when Dad excused himself to go to the restroom. Art hour had ended and the cafeteria was mostly empty.
“Relax, Gnome Girl.” Mr. Hamlin patted the top of my head. “I like it here.”
“You said you never wanted to go to an old folks’ home.”
He nodded. “I didn’t. But then I busted my ankle.” He ran a finger along the deep, still healing cut in his left palm. “Sliced up my hand. Can’t whittle. Sarah’s about to go to college. Tony’s too busy lawyerin’. I’d be a pathetic old man on the dock if I weren’t here.”
I shook my head. “I’d visit you. Me and Tooter.”
“Ain’t Tooter on house arrest? And you’d be in Columbia in a few weeks at that fancy school.”
I felt all the blood in my face rush to my feet. Somehow between Tooter and the essay, I had forgotten all about the school for the blind, even though that’s all I had talked about to Mr. Hamlin a few weeks ago. “I told you: I’m not going there!”
Mr. Hamlin shrugged. “Okay.” He sighed and lay his arms out across his chair. “You know, I used to get up. Eat alone. Whittle alone, unless you or Sarah swung by. Eat alone again. Rock alone. Eat alone again. Sleep alone. And I was sure as sunshine it was what I wanted.”
I didn’t answer him, just shook my head.
“Then I come here. Only been two days and I already got a routine. Eat breakfast with my buddies. Do stuff. You know, bingo, cards, or drawing. Work on getting my ankle fixed up. Have lunch with my friends. Read or nap or chitchat. It’s not bad.” He rolled over to the little desk in the corner and grabbed a piece of paper. “Check this out,” he said, handing me a Bartel Village flyer including a packed schedule of activities. “All these things I can do.” He flipped it over and pointed to a long list of volunteer positions. “All these people who come in to help us old farts have fun.”
“You miss the lake. You miss your house. I know you do.” I had been so worried he was miserable here, wasting away alone. Here Mr. Hamlin was telling me he was happy. Showing me that he was happy. And now I was trying to convince him he was sad. I hated the boiling mush feeling in my chest as I spit out my words but I couldn’t stop.
Mr. Hamlin nodded. “That I do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t like it here.” He gave me a crooked smile. “You know, I actually thought I wasn’t old enough to live here. Now I sort of wish I had been here sooner. You know, before I developed bad habits. Like stubbornness.”
I looked at my feet. “I’m not blind enough for that stupid school.”
“Maybe.” Mr. Hamlin nodded. “Or maybe not. Won’t know ’til you check it out, though.”
Dad came back. He pushed Mr. Hamlin’s wheelchair back to his room. I tried not to look at Mr. Hamlin when he was in the chair. It was too hard to picture him going over the roots and rocks on the trail to the dock in a wheelchair. I knew he wouldn’t be able to do it.
I stared at the flyer he handed me and its long list of activities and volunteers. “Can I keep this?”
“Sure, Gnome Girl. Got something else for you, too, ’less you’re sick of these pieces of junk.” Mr. Hamlin grabbed something from his dresser and held it out for me.
It was a perfectly whittled Tooter. The little statue dog’s mouth was hanging open and its tail bent mid-wag. I squeezed it in my hand and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re happy.”
It was a statement, not a question, but he nodded. “I’m happy. Be even happier if you visit soon.”
“I’ll check on you often,” I promised.
Chapter Sixteen
When you were a reporter, how did you know what to write about?” I asked Mom. We were curled on the couch, both of us tired and in our pajamas but not ready to go to bed.
She smiled and pulled my head against her shoulder. “I thought about your dad. What would be the first thing I’d tell him about the trip I was on? That was where I would start my story.”
“I feel like my story’s not important.”
“You’re writing about people. And every story about a person is important. To someone, that story is everything.”
“Can I show you something?” I pulled out the Bartel Village flyer from my pocket. I had circled an open volunteer position. “They’re looking for someone to interview residents. To find out their stories and write them down. Maybe even to photograph them.”
Mom took the flyer from me. Her eyes fluttered to me then the flyer and back. “I think that’d be a pretty big undertaking for a young girl.”
“But maybe not for a journalist mom.” I kissed her cheek and went to bed, not bothering to scour the newspaper for job openings on the way.
The next morning, Mom dropped me off at the library on her way to the vet’s with Tooter. Sinkville Success Stories contest entries had to be emailed to Mayor Hank’s office by midnight and I had only gotten through writing Mr. Hamlin’s part. And not even really that. I wanted to add about him finding happiness in Bartel Village. I still had to write about Williams Diner and the Sycamore, plus I wanted to add a section on Dr. Ross’s work with abandoned animals. “Good luck,” Mom said as I got out of the car. Tooter farted.
I stationed myself at the computer desk, earbuds in and iPod on, trying to block out everyone and everything. Unfortunately, Sandi was at the computer next to mine. “My laptop keyboard is too small,” she whined as I sat down, as if I cared.
Still, I couldn’t block out that for every word I typed, she sighed. Coughed. Twitched. Broke pencils. Ripped up paper.
Mrs. Morris, who had told me Kerica stayed home to work on a project, walked by a couple times. I figured that meant she was working on the painting for the Williams Diner. Mrs. Morris kept patting Sandi’s shoulder and whispering things like, “You can do it!” and “Keep your chin up.” Sandi kept right on biting her nails, drumming her fingers onto the tabletop, and cracking her knuckles. Everything but writing her essay.
After two hours of this, I couldn’t help myself. I asked her if she was okay.
“I’m fine,” she snapped. And then burst into tears.
Sandi couldn’t type. Not really a sob-worthy thing, if you ask me. But Sandi was a blubbering mess, her tears pouring over her hands as she rocked back and forth in her computer seat.
“So what?” I said. “Lots of people can’t type. Just write it out and maybe someone will type it up for you.”
“Ahbanniteiteiter.”
“What?” I pulled Sandi’s hands from her face.
Much softer, head still down, she repeated. “I can’t write, either.”
“You’re being hard on yourself,” I said. “I know how much research you’ve done. You’ve just got to write it.”
Sandi stopped hiccupping. She lifted her face and pierced me with red-rimmed eyes. “I. Can’t. Write.”
My vision problem? That’s because my eyes don’t have enough pigment to send whole picture messages down my optic nerves. The nystagmus—the twitchy movement of my eyes—is my brain’s way of trying to get more information, trying to focus. I can’t ever fully focus, but my brain never stops trying.
Sandi’s brain never stops trying to turn letters into words, even though somewhere between when her eyes see the letters and the time that message gets to her brain, the message gets mixed up. She has something called dyslexia. And just like I’m toward the worst-you-can-get part of the albinism spectrum, she’s got a bad case of dyslexia. Her essay was in her head, but it scattered by the time it got to paper.
“Is it something you were born with?” I asked.
Sandi shrugged. “I guess so. Mom just thought I was stupid and lazy. Kept telling me to try harder when I was learning to read, then sent me to a bunch of tutors. Mrs. Morris helps a lot. She says I’m harder working than anyone she’s ever taught.” Sandi lifted her chin like she expected me to disagree. “She even told my mom that.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“If it�
�s about your stupid dog, forget it. I’m sorry, but my mom’s really mad about it and she doesn’t get over stuff easily.”
I bit my lip hard enough to sting and shook my head. “I think you and your mom are being jerks about Tooter, but that’s not what I was going to ask.”
Sandi rolled her eyes and tilted her chin in a go-ahead sort of way.
“Why are you doing the essay? I mean, it’s voluntary, right? Why would you volunteer to make yourself miserable?”
“Same reason as anyone.” Sandi rubbed at her eyes with her sleeve cuff. “The prize money. Isn’t that why you’re doing it? I mean, that’d cover some legal fees.”
I bit my lip again and shook my head. “I’m doing it because . . .” I started to say something untrue and, okay, a little snobby. Like, because I love Sinkville and want to celebrate its successes. But she was being honest, so I could, too. “So I could prove to everyone that I could do it. Mostly prove it to my mom.”
Sandi’s smile spread slowly until it covered her whole face. “That’s pretty much why I do everything.”
“You’ve got tons of money,” I pointed out. Sandi nodded. “Why do you want the prize money?”
Sandi’s face stiffened and I knew she was about to say something mean. But she shook her head and then told the truth. “Mom bought me an American Girl doll when I failed kindergarten. I mean, seriously. Who fails kindergarten? Jeremy Rogers ate an entire bottle of glue and he passed kindergarten. When I had to quit cheerleading because I couldn’t remember the chants, she bought me a new wardrobe. When Bartel School for Girls suggested I find a place ‘more appropriate to my needs,’ Mom bought them a new library and hired Mrs. Morris to be my tutor. If there is a problem, she throws money at it.”
I nodded, waiting for her to continue.
“I’m going to give the money to Mom. I’m going to tell her she’s the problem.”