The Secret Book Club (10 page)

“How are we going to decide who goes first?” asked Ruby.

It was Saturday. To be more exact, it was the first Saturday of August, which was the month in which Ruby would begin her Turbo Tappers class, the month in which the girls' garden would finally begin producing vegetables, and the last month of summer vacation.

It was also Brave Saturday, and Ruby and her sister and friends were sitting in the shade of a beech tree in Min's backyard. Daisy Dear, who had been resting beneath a lawn chair, front legs stretched daintily before her, now crawled out from under the chair, padded across the lawn to the girls, and lowered herself to the grass at Ruby's feet. Her sides
were heaving and she was panting, her mouth open wide.

“Daisy looks like she's smiling,” observed Olivia.

“She's just as happy as we are to be outside,” Flora replied. “Even if she is hot. I asked her two times if she wanted to go indoors, and she wouldn't budge. I think she's tired of being cooped up in the air-conditioning.”

“Ahem,” said Ruby. “I asked a question.”

“Who will go first today?” said Nikki.

Ruby nodded.

“How about if we draw straws?” said Flora. She turned to Olivia and Nikki. “That's what our father used to suggest when we needed to make a choice,” she explained.

“That won't work,” objected Ruby. “We need a fifth person to hold the straws.”

“Okay, then let's make four slips of paper,” said Nikki, “and write a number — one, two, three, or four — on each slip. We'll put the slips in a bowl and each choose one. With our eyes closed. Whoever gets number one will go first and so on.”

“Perfect!” said Ruby, who ran inside and returned with a piece of paper, a pencil, and a plastic mixing bowl. “Now,” she said when the slips of paper were ready, “who gets to draw first?”

Olivia giggled. “This could go on forever. We'll all
draw them at the same time, okay? Everybody, close your eyes. On your mark, get set, go!”

After a brief scramble of hands in the bowl, Nikki said, “Does everybody have one?”

“Yes,” said Olivia, Ruby, and Flora.

“Then open your eyes.”

“Uh-oh,” said Flora, peering at her piece of paper. “I guess I'm going first. Well, I'll be glad to get it over with. Who's going second?”

“Me,” said Nikki.

“I'm going third,” said Olivia.

“And I'm last,” said Ruby. “Darn. I'll probably have to wait all day.”

Three heads turned to Flora.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Olivia.

Flora drew in her breath. She let it out slowly and said, “I'm going … to hold a snake.”

Ruby screamed.

“Cool,” said Nikki.

“Where are you going to find a snake?” asked Olivia.

“At the Cheshire Cat. I'm sure Sharon will let me hold one.” The Cheshire Cat, Camden Falls's pet store, sold pet supplies and small animals — but no cats or dogs, since, as Sharon the owner pointed out, there were already plenty of stray cats and dogs who needed homes.

“Is this
really
a brave thing you'll be doing?” Nikki asked Flora.

“Are you kidding?” said Flora, just as Ruby said, “For Flora it is.”

“All right, then. Let's go.”

The girls led Daisy Dear back into Min's house and then headed for Main Street. When they reached the Cheshire Cat, they stood in a row and looked through the window.

“Maybe they don't have snakes right now,” said Ruby.

“Yes, they do. I already checked,” replied Flora. “Little garden snakes or garter snakes. I can't remember. But some kind that doesn't bite. Not that it matters. I'm afraid of every single thing about a snake.”

“I think you're going to be surprised when you actually hold one,” said Olivia.

“What if it slithers out of my hand and escapes?”

“Then I'll catch it,” replied Olivia. “Come on.”

The girls entered the store, found Sharon, and told her about Brave Saturday.

“And so,” said Flora, “I've decided that what I'm going to do is hold a snake, since I'm very, very afraid of them.”

“You're sure about this?” asked Sharon, who was smiling.

“Positive. Unless you think it's mean to the snake or something.”

“No, just be gentle.”

Sharon reached into a cage and withdrew a small green snake. “Hold out both hands,” she said.

Flora obliged, and Sharon laid the snake across them.

“Aughhh!”
shrieked Flora, but she held still. The snake began to slide forward, and Flora moved her hands with it. “It's soft,” she said after a moment. “It isn't slimy like I was expecting. It feels sort of silky.” She paused. “How long do you think I've been holding it?”

“About ten seconds,” said Nikki.

“That's enough.”

Sharon took the snake back, and at once Flora began jumping up and down, wiping her hands on her shorts. “I did it! I did it!” She turned to Sharon. “Can I go wash my hands?”

Five minutes later, Flora, Ruby, Nikki, and Olivia were once again standing on Main Street. “Your turn,” Ruby said to Nikki.

“Okay. Well … all I have to do is go to the post office.”

“What for?” asked Olivia.

“I have to mail a letter. It's right here in my pocket.” Nikki patted her jeans.

“That doesn't sound very brave,” said Ruby.

“It's a letter to my father.” Nikki looked sternly at Ruby. “And I'm not going to tell any of you what's in it. That's private.” She kicked at a pebble. “At first I thought maybe my brave thing would be telling Mrs. Grindle, to her face, exactly how I felt last summer when she accused me — in public — of taking the necklace. But then I decided that that had happened too long ago. Anyway, just believe me, sending this letter to my dad is very brave. There are a few things I wanted to say to him.”

A portion of the letter flashed through Nikki's memory:
I don't know if it's correct to say that you “abandoned” us, since you didn't love us. Don't you have to love a person in order to truly abandon her? I don't know. Maybe not. But anyway, you had a responsibility to us, and you chose to leave us. So now I think I have the right to tell you what kind of a father you were to me
. Nikki winced.

Olivia, Flora, and Ruby were quiet until finally Flora said, “You know where your father is, then?”

“Sort of. He writes to my mom from a post office box in a town in South Carolina. That doesn't necessarily mean he lives there. Mom thinks he lives somewhere nearby.”

“Nikki,” said Flora, “I know you don't want to tell us what you wrote, but I can sort of imagine. Are you sure you want to send the letter? I think it was pretty
brave of you just to write down your feelings. Maybe you could leave it at that.”

Nikki looked at her friends. “No,” she said after a moment. “I mean, thank you, but I want to mail the letter. For me, that's the truly brave part. And I want to make absolutely sure the letter goes out. I'm not going to drop it in the mailbox. I want to hand it personally to Donna or Jackie.”

The Cheshire Cat was located next to the post office. Nikki turned now to look through the post office window. Inside, she could see Donna and Jackie standing behind the counter, waiting on customers.

“Are you ready?” asked Olivia.

Nikki nodded. She pushed the door open and her friends followed her inside.

Nikki stepped up to the counter. “Hi, Donna,” she said. “I have a very important letter here and I want to make
sure
it gets mailed. Can I give it to you instead of dropping it in the slot?”

“Absolutely,” Donna replied seriously, and she held out her palm.

Nikki placed the letter on it. For a moment, she felt like jumping up and down and wiping her hands on her jeans, as Flora had done after handing the snake back to Sharon. Instead, she turned slowly from the counter and walked toward the door. She looked back at Donna once, and Donna said, frowning, “Are you certain you want to mail this?”

“Yes.” Nikki walked out the door.

Ruby, Flora, and Olivia waited a few moments before following her.

“Nikki, are —” Flora started to say.

But Nikki cut her off. “Okay, Olivia. It's your turn now.”

“Let's go sit on the benches,” said Olivia, pointing across the street to the town square. “I have to explain something to you guys before I do my brave thing.”

The girls found an empty bench by a water fountain and sat on it in a row.

Olivia, at one end, leaned forward so the others could see her. “All right. Here's the thing,” she began. “This probably seems silly to you, but it isn't silly to me —”

“What isn't?” asked Ruby.

“I'm going to tell you! It probably seems silly to you,” Olivia continued, “but I can't stop thinking about Tanya's party. You just don't know how much it hurts to be left out of something.”

“I do,” said Nikki.

Olivia nodded. “Maybe. But I was left out of something two of my best friends were invited to. That's mainly why I was so upset — I felt like I was being torn apart from you guys. And right before we move to the central school, where I think I'll need you more than ever. Plus, I feel like you two just got bumped up to something better — you know, socially — and I was
left behind with the b —” Olivia, glancing at Ruby, caught herself before she said the word
babies
. “And I was left behind.”

“But —” said Flora.

“Wait,” said Olivia. “I know what you're going to say, or I think I do — that that would never happen, we're friends forever, blah, blah, blah. But I
still
felt left out. So … I made a decision: I'm going to give a party of my own. And I'm going to invite Tanya and the girls who went to her party, and you, too, Ruby. I just want to show Tanya that we can
all
be friends, that she doesn't have to leave me out. I already talked to Mom and Dad about this and they said I could have the party at Sincerely Yours. I have no idea how it's going to go. I don't know anything
about
parties, really. But I'm going to try this.”

Olivia stood up then. “I have something in my pocket, too,” she said, smiling at Nikki. “And we have to go back to the post office.” Olivia reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of envelopes. “The invitations,” she said. “All ready to be mailed.”

Ruby saw that Olivia's hands were shaking.

The girls crossed the street to the post office, and Olivia dropped the invitations in the mailbox by the door. “Oh, boy,” said Olivia under her breath, and Flora squeezed her hand.

Flora, Olivia, and Nikki then turned to Ruby.
“Okay,” Flora said, raising her eyebrows. “You're the last one.”

Ruby was uncharacteristically quiet. Her face began to grow red.

“Come on. What is it, O Sister Without Fears?”

“Well,” said Ruby, staring off down Main Street, “we have to go home. And we have to go to your room, Flora.”

“Why —”

“No questions,” said Ruby. “Let's just go.”

So Ruby, Flora, Olivia, and Nikki walked back to Aiken Avenue, back to the Row Houses, and along the walk to the fourth one from the left. Ruby led the way upstairs. She stepped into Flora's room and said, “Where's Mom's diary?”

“Mom's diary?” Flora repeated. When Ruby didn't answer her, she opened the bottom drawer of her bureau and pulled out the notebook. “I keep it here now,” she said.

Ruby reached for it. “I'm going to read this,” she announced.

“I thought you didn't care about it,” said Flora. She remembered the day she had discovered the old notebook in a dark recess of her wardrobe and realized it was a diary her mother had kept decades earlier. Flora had opened the notebook and begun to read it at once, but Ruby had seemed uninterested and hadn't asked to see it again.

“No,” said Ruby quietly, “I never said that.”

“I guess that's true,” said Flora thoughtfully. She sat on the bed next to her sister. “What's this about, Ruby? Tell us.”

“I didn't want to read the diary because … I thought it would hurt too much. I don't see how you can read it, Flora. You think you're not a brave person, but
I
think you do brave things all the time, and reading the diary is one of them. I can't imagine what it will feel like to see Mom's handwriting, and to hear her voice in the words, but I'm going to read the diary now. Some of it, anyway.”

“Do you want us to leave you alone?” asked Flora.

Ruby hesitated. “Yes,” she said.

Flora, Olivia, and Nikki edged toward the hallway. Flora almost asked Ruby whether she was sure about her decision, then changed her mind and closed the door quietly behind her, leaving Ruby curled on Flora's bed.

Ruby opened the notebook and found herself thrust into the twelfth year of her mother's life. She read about her mother's friends and her crushes on boys, about her longings and frustrations. She heard her mother's voice and found that she didn't feel sad after all; she felt comforted. Maybe this was why Flora turned so often to the diary.

Twenty minutes later, Ruby opened Flora's door
and found her sister and friends across the hall in her room. She joined them on the bed.

“Are you okay?” asked Flora.

The diary lay in Ruby's lap. “Can I keep this in my room for a while?” she asked.

Flora nodded. “We'll share it.”

“Let's get something to eat,” Ruby suggested.

“This has been a very thought-provoking day,” said Olivia, stretching.

“I think it might be my favorite Saturday so far,” added Nikki.

The girls stood up. They were making their way down the stairs to the kitchen when Flora suddenly shouted, “I held a snake!”