A Drop of Hope

by Keith Calabrese

  When Lizzy got to the house, Ernest was waiting eagerly on the front steps.

  “What’s that?” he asked, pointing at the envelope as he hopped off the steps.

  “The manuscript,” Lizzy said. “I took some notes.”

  “Like, active reading notes?” Ernest said, suddenly worried. “Were we supposed to do that? Because I didn’t do that.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “I mean, I just read it,” he went on, “like for fun, you know?”

  He was getting worked up. Ernest’s ability to overthink things amazed Lizzy sometimes. You’d think after everything they’d been through together, he’d have figured out how not to sweat the small stuff.

  “Ernest …” Lizzy said slowly.

  “I could go back inside and get—”

  “Ernest,” she said, less slowly.

  He stopped, looking at her searchingly. “Relax?”

  “Relax,” Lizzy said.

  “Okay.”

  THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

  Ryan was sitting at Mrs. Haemmerle’s kitchen table with Tess when Ernest and Lizzy came to the door. He still thought of it as Mrs. Haemmerle’s kitchen; he suspected Tess did, too. If she was in town when he did the lawn, she always invited him in for a sandwich, or a drink and a cookie. Sometimes they’d talk; sometimes they’d just sit in the kitchen together, and that was nice, too.

  “We’re heading over to school now,” Ernest said. “Want to come?”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said, doubtfully. “I didn’t read the book.”

  “That’s okay. Mr. Earle didn’t get to read it, either.”

  Ryan didn’t really feel like it, but Tess caught his eye and she gave him a look that said, Go live, have fun, be young.

  “Yeah, okay,” he said.

  As they walked to school, Ernest and Lizzy were going back and forth about the book, talking a mile a minute, and Ryan felt himself tagging along a bit behind them.

  He didn’t mind.

  Ryan had done his best in the last several months to avoid thinking too much about everything that had happened in the past year. And though it had all worked out better than he’d ever dared hope, sometimes he still felt … cheated.

  It was ridiculous, he knew. He was lucky he wasn’t in juvie for attempted burglary. He had no right to complain. Still, there was one wish that he’d really wanted to come true, one really important time the well came up short, and it nagged at him.

  THE NEW THOMPKINS WELL

  Mr. Earle had propped open the front door for them. As they entered the school, Ernest noticed Ryan drifting over toward the courtyard.

  Last April, while Rod Serling Middle School had been closed for spring break, Winston Patil and Tommy Bricks had completely covered the courtyard in tarps to shield their work from any outside view.

  Then, six weeks later, on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, the tarps came down, and their secret project was finally revealed. In the center of the courtyard, Tommy had carefully constructed a full-sized replica of Thompkins Well out of junk. The entire structure was made up of various pieces of discarded scrap and detritus, broken, twisted fragments of metal and plastic and wood and brick—all this refuse that had once been pieces of other things, but was now put back together in a different way to make something new.

  Something special.

  Then, on that ugly cinder-block back wall, the one that was supposed to have been glass instead of the concrete eyesore it had been for decades, Winston had painted a massive two-story mural of the town of Cliffs Donnelly, drawn meticulously to scale and with all the local landmarks represented in painstaking detail.

  The courtyard was unveiled to minimal fanfare. There’d been a brief assembly at the beginning of the school day, a dedication and polite applause, and that had been that.

  No reporters. No television cameras.

  It did not trend on social media.

  But then, as the weeks passed, people started adding their own little touches to the courtyard. A laminated page on convergence insufficiency from an old medical textbook appeared inside the well. It was joined by a pair of old running shoes, slightly singed on the sides and still smelling of burnt leaves. A few days after that, a tiny ID bracelet from the infant care ward showed up. Then a first pay stub from Wilmette Stamping, Tool & Die. And so on.

  It wasn’t something anyone expected, but sometimes things just take on a life of their own. Tommy’s replica of Thompkins Well had originally been conceived simply as a statue to honor the beloved local landmark. But since the actual Thompkins Well had been destroyed last fall (maple tree, lightning), the people of Cliffs Donnelly began to adopt Tommy’s replica as a kind of replacement for the obliterated original. A Thompkins Well 2.0. Before long, the new Thompkins Well became a local landmark in its own right. A place where people could go to hope, to wish, and to create their own stories.

  Ernest and Lizzy turned down the hall toward Mr. Earle’s room. Ryan was still lagging behind, staring into the courtyard.

  “You guys go ahead,” he said. “I’ll catch up later.”

  THE WELL’S LAST LAUGH

  “They did a heck of a job, didn’t they?”

  Ryan turned to find Mr. Earle standing by the windows next to him. “Yeah,” he said. “They really did. So, it must have been a pretty big surprise to hear that your old Sunday school teacher is about to be a famous author?”

  “Nah, not really,” Mr. Earle said. “She was always good at telling stories.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Mr. Earle said, then smiled just a little. “Where do you think I learned it?”

  They were quiet for a moment. Then Ryan said, “I have to know—do you believe any of it? The well, the wishes, Ernest’s attic full of old toys?”

  Mr. Earle looked at him quizzically. “Do you mean, do I believe you?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I believe you told me the truth.”

  “That’s only half an answer,” Ryan said. “I’m asking—”

  “If I believe in miracles?”

  Ryan gave him a look that said, You said it, I didn’t, but since you said it, do you?

  Mr. Earle shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he thought about it. “Do you remember when I first told the class the story of Thompkins Well?”

  “Yeah. During Council.”

  “And we talked about folklore and legends and the reasons we have for telling the stories we tell?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “And you said fear. To teach kids to be afraid and obedient.”

  “I thought that kind of cheesed you off, when I said that.”

  Mr. Earle shook his head. “No, you were right. But there’s another reason, one nobody mentioned that day. Stories bind us together; they connect us. Our stories are a shared history, a way to relate to each other. Even if they are make-believe.” Mr. Earle shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know if Thompkins Well could grant wishes or not. And I really don’t care. I do know that you and your friends helped a lot of people. For me, that’s all that matters.”

  Ryan and Mr. Earle returned to the classroom just as Ernest, Lizzy, and Mrs. Reeves finished talking about the book. Mrs. Reeves had brought homemade cookies and lemonade, and she told them stories about what Mr. Earle was like as a kid.

  Then Ernest asked her how she got her book published, and she started to tell a curious story.

  She said that she had begun writing the book during a difficult time for her family. Her husband had just sustained a work injury that cost him a good job. Money was tight, and they were worried they would lose their house. To top it all off, her own mother was very sick, dying actually, in Boston, but they didn’t think they could afford to send her there in time to say goodbye.

  What she didn’t know was that her son had been secretly putting money aside from his part-time job at the grocery store to pay for her plane ticket. Mrs. Reeves told them about how he’d come into the kitc
hen, a handful of crumpled bills in his hand.

  It was at this point that Ryan started to get a funny feeling running up the back of his neck.

  Pressed by her family to make the trip to Boston, Mrs. Reeves had bought a last-minute ticket with her son’s money. By some quirk of fate and generosity, Mrs. Reeves was bumped up to first class, where she sat next to a book editor for a major New York publishing house.

  Ryan sat motionless in his seat, an unnerving but not unpleasant chill running through his entire body.

  “You okay?” Lizzy whispered, nudging Ryan lightly in his side.

  “Huh?” he said, turning to her.

  “You look like you saw a ghost or something.”

  Ryan said, “No, I’m good.” And left it at that.

  It was late in the afternoon when Mrs. Reeves’s husband pulled up in front of the school. She thanked Lizzy and Ernest for their help, hugging them warmly.

  “And thank you, Marcus,” Mrs. Reeves said, kissing him lightly on the cheek.

  “Anytime, Mrs. Reeves,” Mr. Earle said, and for a minute Ryan thought he could see what his teacher had been like as a kid.

  As Mrs. Reeves approached the car, Ryan watched a boy a couple of years older than him get out of the passenger’s seat and climb into the back to give his mom the front seat. The boy happened to look Ryan’s way for just a second and they locked eyes.

  Ryan knew.

  He was the boy at the well. The one whose story had hit Ryan the hardest of them all. The wish that got away.

  And Ryan didn’t even care that he’d never have any idea how it had all worked out in the end. How a toy ray gun that was meant for Rollo Wilmette—the only gift left—had gotten from Mrs. Haemmerle’s garage to wherever it needed to go to make sure Evelyn Reeves was seated next to a book publisher. In fact, not knowing made it better.

  Because Ryan realized that for every wish he knew about, there must have been dozens that he didn’t. Maybe that was the point, in the end. You can’t fix the world. But you do your best in your own little corner of it.

  And you hope.

  INTO THE DARK

  Tommy couldn’t remember ever really being afraid of the dark. From an early age, he always had more practical things to fear.

  But tonight was really dark. There was no moon out and the sky was pitch-black. The houses on this block weren’t big on porch lights, either, so it was hard to see the road in front of him.

  It was spooky quiet, too.

  They’d set out around three in the morning, riding their bikes across the sleeping town. Tommy carried a duffel bag, the straps looped around his arms like a backpack. The bulky contents slammed into his spine as he pedaled. He hadn’t expected Winston to come along and was still surprised that he’d wanted to. When Tommy first told him what he planned to do, shortly after the unveiling of the new Thompkins Well, he made sure to say it so Winston knew he wasn’t on the hook, that it was okay if he wasn’t comfortable with the idea.

  But Winston was in, right from the start. Tommy realized he should have expected as much. Ever since that night in the storm, Winston had become someone Tommy could always count on. Tommy knew he was never completely alone.

  But he also knew that there was a big difference between better and all better. Because while over the last several months the Patil house had become a second home for Tommy, it was still just a second home. And he still had years left to live in his first. Tommy knew those years would have their share of his father’s drunken rage and his belt. Because in between better and all better there’s always some worse.

  There would be some bad days ahead.

  Buckle out days.

  In the meantime, Tommy still had the storage room in the back of the school. It had come in handy more than once since that night in the storm. And it wasn’t without its comforts. Truman the Custodian was always leaving behind a forgotten bag of chips or a can of soda. Sometimes, it would occur to Tommy that the soda was always cold, or that the chips had been pretty easy to find, and then he’d wonder. Maybe that old custodian wasn’t so clueless after all.

  Tommy and Winston turned onto a quiet, tree-lined street at the southernmost edge of town. Some of the houses on this block had their porch lights on, and Tommy could see the sign up ahead.

  “Almost there,” he said.

  VANDALS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN

  It was the middle of the night and Jack Hought couldn’t sleep. So he put the kettle on and sat in his kitchen. And he thought about things.

  He lived in a modest but well-cared-for house at the southernmost edge of Cliffs Donnelly, a mere one hundred feet from the city limits between Cliffs Donnelly and the rural county township of South Liberty that bordered it. Of course, ever since he and Stanley Donan had collected the reward for the Holyoke Red Diamond, Jack’s friends had been teasing him about taking the money and running. To Florida or Hawaii, somewhere warm and sunny.

  And if he was being honest about it, sometimes he was tempted. But he couldn’t leave Stanley. And this town was his home, after all.

  It was a quiet night, so he could easily hear the two boys pedaling down the street, despite the obvious care they were taking to be silent. They both wore dark hoodies, and the bigger one hauled a duffel bag across his back.

  As the boys passed his house, Jack Hought picked up the phone and watched them warily. For a brief moment he thought they might be casing the neighborhood for a car to break into or a house to rob.

  But the two riders passed opportunities for each and headed, instead, for the old municipal sign at the city limit. The one welcoming visitors to Cliffs Donnelly.

  Jack had been complaining about that darn sign for years, ever since someone had defaced it so that it now read:

  But no one ever fixed it.

  Upon reaching the sign, the larger boy dropped the duffel bag on the ground and started rooting around inside it. Jack was about to dial 911 when he noticed something. Instead of spray cans, the two boys were taking out stencils and paintbrushes and small bottles of paint.

  Jack sat down in the high-back chair by the window and drank his tea as he watched the two boys set to work with a brisk, largely unspoken efficiency. The larger boy painted over the sign entirely, smoothly, carefully, creating a blank slate for the smaller boy, who began reprinting the sign.

  Once he was finished, the larger boy took over again, painstakingly working around the edges of the sign with his own paint and brushes. After about twenty minutes, the two boys packed up their supplies and slipped away, back into the night.

  After the boys left, Jack Hought drifted off to sleep in his chair.

  When he awoke, just before dawn, he put on his robe and some boots and made the one-hundred-foot trek to the sign. As the first rays of sunlight crested over the horizon, he saw that the boys had repainted and restored the sign. But more than that, they had improved it. Though the paint was fresh and new, they had made the sign look old and distressed, weathered but classic. Timeless.

  And it now said, in an official, friendly font:

  I would like to start off by thanking family, both the one I started and the one that started me. No one does it alone. At least no one I’ve ever met.

  Thank you, Kirsten, the first eyes on anything I write and the first (and often last) voice I listen to.

  Thanks to Mom, Dad, and Alison for, among so many other things, allowing me the delusion that I was always the smartest one in the house.

  On a more serious note, I am light-years beyond grateful for my editor, Jenne Abramowitz. Thank you for making the book better. Thank you for making me better. Thank you for being our champion.

  My thanks to Emily Mitchell, for being my wonderful agent but also for being wonderful before she was my agent. First, by agreeing to read my manuscript despite what I’m sure was one of the least convincing cover letters to pass her desk in some time, and then actually reading that manuscript even though the formatting of the PDF file had been so corrupted that half the
book was crammed into one huge block of text like the longest Latin inscription ever.

  This story is, in no small part, about the enduring power (not to mention cumulative effect) of small kindnesses. To this end I would like to thank several people who went out of their way for me, who helped me when they stood to gain nothing for the effort. Who were, simply, kind: Sam Bichara, Gene Reznik, Peter Turchi, Stephanie Mehta, Carolyn Manetti, Bill Straus, Stephen White, Brendan Halpin, Marysue Rucci, Joe Purdy, Donna Rifkind, and Ben Wendell.

  Finally, though I’ve dedicated this book to my teachers, there are two I’d like to single out: Ms. Karen Saupe and Ms. Daryl Yaw. One told me not to fear failure, because it’s rarely permanent, and the other advised me that I could stand to close my mouth and listen a bit more because I wasn’t nearly as clever as I thought I was.

  They were both right.

  Keith Calabrese is an author and screenwriter who holds a degree in creative writing from Northwestern University. A former script reader, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, kids, and a dog who thinks he’s a mountain goat. This is his first novel.

  With special thanks to Amla Sanghvi

  Copyright © 2019 by Keith Calabrese

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Calabrese, Keith, author.

  Title: A drop of hope / Keith Calabrese.

  Description: New York, NY: Scholastic Inc., 2019. | Summary: Times are tough in the small town of Cliffs Donnelly, Ohio, (sarcastically called If Only), especially for some of the kids at Rod Serling Middle School, but then an old dry well suddenly begins to grant wishes, or so it seems—three of the students, Ernest Wilmette, Ryan Hardy, and Lizzy MacComber, know what is happening (but do they really?), because sometimes a good deed can make magic happen.