“I’ll give it to her,” Miss May said, laying it on the counter.
“Thank you.” I turned to go.
“Elizabeth,” she said. “I do hope everything goes well for you and your mother. And don’t worry. I won’t forget to feed the birds.”
She moved away and went to the counter to make coffee.
Thirty-Four
Dear Dad,
Thank you for the letter. I’m glad everything is going okay. It’s good to know the other people were nice when you first got there. I know from living at Good Hope that people can surprise you in a lot of ways if you let them.
Mom and I moved into a new apartment in June. We love it. There is even a flower garden, and I can walk to the barn. I guess you know Mom and Jamie are getting married on Christmas Eve, so we’ll move again then, to his house, and I’ll have a stepsister, Kennedy. She’s a photographer and horse trainer.
Mom, Jamie, and I drove to Wyoming to see my friend Bryce in July. He was my first friend here, and it was a great trip, even though it took so long to get there. We had to stop a lot for Mom to take pictures.
I started a program at Birchwood for kids who live at Good Hope. I had some money saved, so I used part of it to buy riding boots at a thrift store and a couple of new helmets. Joe, the stable manager, agreed to let me bring the kids over once a week for a riding lesson on a semiretired pony named Rusty. I think it’s really made a difference to the kids, and I was happy to find a meaningful way to use the money.
There is a horse at Birchwood I named Promise. She’s a beautiful black mare. She was really scared when she first came, and I was the only one able to connect with her and get her calmed down. Joe has been working with her since then, and I finally started riding her a few weeks ago. Joe promised he wouldn’t sell her until I could buy her myself. I love her so much, and she loves me.
Mom and I drove to the old house. The people who live there now let us dig up some dirt from under the red maple. I think the part we got has Grandma’s and Granddad’s ashes in it, and I feel much better knowing they are back with us again. I keep the dirt in a wooden box that Jamie made as a gift when he asked me if he could marry Mom. I’d never heard of anyone asking a kid if he could marry her mom, but apparently there are a lot of things I never knew.
School starts on Monday. I’ll be in eighth grade, but I get to take a high school creative writing class for poetry. I’m sending you a poem I wrote last year for an English project, and I’ll have Kennedy take a picture of me with my horse when she is finally mine. Promise.
Love,
Lizzie
Author’s Note
The number of school-age children in America who experience homelessness each year is staggering. It is a tragedy, and there aren’t enough places to give them all shelter like Good Hope: A Home for Families in Transition. Although Lizzie didn’t realize it until she had come to terms with some of the reasons she was there, kids like her are the lucky ones. There are many, many more who sleep in cars, under bridges, in stairwells, all while trying to succeed in school and maintain friendships without divulging their secret.
My children and I easily could have been Lizzie and Mom. When my sons were little, there were two times when we suddenly found ourselves without a home. This can happen in the blink of an eye, to people with good jobs and even coming from large extended families. Like us. Those factors did nothing to ease the shock and the shame I felt as I tried to figure out how to protect my children. I was a single mother, already working two jobs, and I was terrified. Both times this happened, minutes before we ended up sleeping in our car, someone reached out a hand and offered us temporary housing until we could get back on our feet. One place was a small single room above a store that was previously occupied by a large black snake, which—after he was removed—we gratefully accepted. The other was an empty room in a friend’s home an hour and a half away from my children’s school and my job. The three of us piled into sleeping bags on the floor and ate way too much take-out pizza. Because these people reached out to help us, we never went without a roof over our heads. Not so for far too many families in like circumstances.
Most recently, as an adult closing in on retirement age, I once again found myself in a precarious position without housing when the historic meadow cabin I loved and had rented for many years was suddenly sold just as winter was approaching. My sons are grown, so this time I had only myself to worry about, but it was still frightening and a shock. My very dear friend Bettina Whyte quickly offered me shelter and comfort in her lovely home for the winter, to get through an upcoming brain surgery and to finish writing this book. I had written part of Georgia Rules there under different circumstances, so I already knew it to be a place that fed and sustained my creative muse. Bettina opened her home to me for no other reason except that, underneath her businesslike exterior, lives one of the softest, most tender and gentle souls I have ever had the honor of knowing. It is the rare Bettinas of the world who offer shelter to the weary. I am eternally grateful to her for the roof over my head, the love that came with her gift, and the stunning mountain views that gave me strength, courage, and inspiration to help me plow through the many revisions of this book.
I have been one of the lucky ones.
About the Author
Photo credit Ashley Turner
NANCI TURNER STEVESON grew up in Connecticut, England, and Texas, always with a book in one hand, the reins of a pony in the other. She wrote her first “novel” at the age of nine about a wild horse named Liberty. Nanci works with the Off Square Theatre Company as a stage manager and youth-performer shepherd. She is a reading fairy to book-hungry children and a riding instructor. The mother of two grown sons, Nanci lives in a meadow at the foot of the Grand Tetons in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, with her Arabian horse and a 100-pound rescue dog named Story. She is the founder of the Literacy for Hope project, dedicated to getting books into the hands of the homeless. Visit her online at www.nanciturnersteveson.com.
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Copyright
LIZZIE FLYING SOLO. Copyright © 2019 by Nanci Turner Steveson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.harpercollinschildrens.com
Cover art © 2019 by Benjamin Plouffe
Cover design by Catherine San Juan
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2018954198
Digital Edition APRIL 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-267320-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-267318-3 (trade bdg.)
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1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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