The Secret Book Club (2 page)

“Min?” suggested Ruby. “Gigi?”

Everyone turned to look at Min and Gigi, who were talking earnestly with a customer.

“Somehow I don't think so,” said Flora.

“Let's not try to figure it out,” said Nikki. “At least not right away. I like having a mystery.”

Olivia frowned. “I can't help trying to figure it out. That's just how my brain works.”

“Well, I'm going to start reading,” said Flora.

“At least,” said Ruby, “the summer isn't going to be boring after all.”

Ruby felt that, of the group of friends consisting of Nikki, Olivia, Flora, and herself — Ruby Jane Northrop — she was more different from the rest of them than any of the others were. She knew that the other girls would not agree. For one thing, everyone is different. Min said so all the time. And of course each of the girls was unique. And
Flora
said there aren't degrees of uniqueness. You're either unique or you aren't. But Ruby didn't agree. She felt she was the most unique.

Olivia was different from the others because she was so smart — frighteningly smart, really. She had skipped a grade and could still master her schoolwork far more handily than any of her year-older classmates. Plus, she could read at the speed of light. Nikki was different because she lived way on the other side of
Camden Falls, while Flora and Ruby lived within inches of Olivia. Nikki's family had been in turmoil for years while her alcoholic parents tried to get their lives under control. Ruby could barely fathom such a thing. Flora was different because she was the shyest of the girls (even shyer than Nikki, which was saying a lot), and she possessed many solitary talents, such as her love of writing and her ability to sew and do needlework as well as most adults.

And then there was Ruby. She was younger than the others, even younger than Olivia, and while in the fall the rest of the girls would begin seventh grade at Camden Falls Central High School, Ruby would remain behind at Camden Falls Elementary to start fifth grade, where, she already knew, she would not distinguish herself as a student, unlike the older girls, who frequently earned A's and won scholastic awards. Furthermore, there was the issue of Ruby's talents. Nikki, Olivia, and Flora each had talents, but they were of the less showy sort, such as Flora's needlework and Nikki's artwork and Olivia's tendency to win blue ribbons at science fairs. Ruby, on the other hand, possessed talents of great noise and flourish. She could sing. She could dance. She could act. And she did all three as frequently as possible in front of as many people as possible. She couldn't imagine what it felt like to be shy — although she had occasionally had to
act
shy in
order to play a part realistically. So Ruby was quite confident that although each of the four friends was one of a kind, she was the most one of a kind.

She was thinking about this as she climbed into bed on the evening of the day on which the secret book club packages arrived. Yet another thing that set Ruby apart from her sister and Nikki and Olivia was her lack of interest in reading. Ruby was a good reader; there was no question of that. She could read and memorize scripts in a jiffy. And when asked to read aloud in school, her teachers always said she read with great expression, which apparently implied that her comprehension was good. But spend a perfectly good summer afternoon curled up reading? Or wake up early in the morning in order to read before it was time to get ready for school? That was not Ruby's style.

She glanced at
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
and
The Saturdays
sitting on her bedside table.
The Saturdays
was on top, since the girls were supposed to read it first. Ruby reached for it and settled back against her pillows, King Comma under the covers, resting warmly against her leg.

Ruby lifted the blanket and peered in at King. “It's, like, eighty degrees outside,” she said to the cat. “How can you stand to be under there? You're going to melt.”

King opened his eyes, yawned widely, and closed his eyes again.

Ruby looked at the cover of the book and then at an illustration inside that showed four kids she guessed were the Melendys.

“What an odd name,” she said to King.

At last she turned to Chapter One and began to read. She read determinedly for four pages and decided the book was rather old-fashioned and that if not for the secret club, she probably wouldn't finish it. (This was another difference between her and Olivia, Nikki, and Flora. The older girls had started the book that morning — and loved it — and Olivia was already on Chapter Seven.) But Ruby persevered. After all, the letter had mentioned Saturday adventures, and the book was called
The Saturdays
. She was rewarded when, several pages later, Randy Melendy (who, despite her name, was a girl) came up with the idea of a club, which her brother Rush suggested calling the Independent Saturday Afternoon Adventure Club. Well, that was more interesting.

Ruby reached the end of Chapter One, returned the book to her table, switched off her reading light, and lay in the dark. Through her partly open door she could see that Flora's light was still on. She was probably sailing through
The Saturdays
. Ruby rolled onto her side and lay in the sticky night air. She listened to King's rumbly purr and to the singing of crickets. Her eyelids drooped.

When the sirens started, Ruby was dreaming that
King Comma had escaped from the Row House and was lost in a fierce rainstorm. Ruby could hear him yowling and howling.

“King!” she called in the dream. “King, I'm right here!”

The howling became more insistent and Ruby opened her eyes. That was when she realized that the noise was real, only it wasn't a cat's howl, it was the shriek of a fire engine — of several fire engines.

Ruby smelled smoke. She sat up, sniffing.

Ooooooo-OOOOOOO-ooooooo
. The wail of the sirens rose and fell.

Ruby scrambled to her window and peered through the screen. She could see flames, and they weren't far away. A fire engine rushed along Dodds Lane and screeched around the corner, making a left onto Main Street. Another one followed it, and then another and another.

Ruby switched on her reading light and looked at her clock. Two-forty. She leaped from her bed, opened her door, and crashed into a bleary-eyed Flora in the hall.

“A fire on Main Street!” cried Ruby.

“I think it's Plaza Drugs!” said Flora.

“Min! Min!” called Ruby.

Min shuffled drowsily out of her bedroom, tying a robe around her ample waist. “Girls?”

“Fire!” exclaimed Ruby.

Min and Flora followed Ruby into her room, and they crowded around the window. In the distance, orange and yellow flames roared into the air.

“It's noisy. A fire is noisy,” said Ruby in wonderment. She shivered.

“Don't you think it's Plaza Drugs?” Flora asked Min.

“Maybe. That's about the right spot.”

“Can we go into town?” asked Ruby.

“Now?”
exclaimed Min. “It's the middle of the night.”

“But I want to see.”

“Absolutely not. But I think I will just call the rescue squad and make sure the fire hasn't spread to the next block. We'll learn more tomorrow morning as soon as we get to the store. If not before,” added Min, thinking of how quickly news spread in Camden Falls.

Min returned to her bed, but Flora and Ruby, shoulder to shoulder at Ruby's window, watched the activity (what little they could make out in the distance) until they felt dizzy with fatigue and Flora said she was falling asleep. She crossed the hall to her room, and Ruby finally joined King under the covers again.

 

Ruby had thought she might feel tired in the morning, but she was awake before her alarm went off, and was dressed and ready to leave for Needle and Thread while
Flora and Min were still sitting groggily in front of bowls of cereal at the kitchen table.

“Come
on
! Let's
go
!” said Ruby, standing impatiently by the front door.

“It takes an actual fire to get her up early on a summer morning,” muttered Flora, and Min smiled.

“Well, I'm going to wait for you outside,” said Ruby, and she stepped onto the front stoop and looked up and down the Row Houses, hoping for the sight of a neighbor who might have a tidbit of information.

The house on the far left belonged to the Fongs, a young couple, artists, who had recently had their first baby. Flora didn't expect to see them up at this hour, what with the nighttime feedings Min was always talking about. Next to the Fongs lived Robby Edwards and his family, and on the other side of Robby's house were Mr. Pennington's and then Olivia's. No one in that direction.

Ruby turned her head to the right. No one there, either. Oh, well. She sat on her stoop, then stood up again when she heard someone call her name.

“Ruby! Ruby! Did you hear? It was a big fire last night!”

Robby Edwards had emerged from his house and was running across the lawns.

Ruby stood up. “I know! I saw the fire engines.”

“Me, too, Ruby! I like fire engines.” Robby paused.
“But I don't like fire. I'm glad it wasn't Sincerely Yours that caught on fire. Or Needle and Thread. Or College Pizza. Or Dutch Haus.” Robby Edwards, who was eighteen years old and had Down syndrome, had recently begun his first job working alongside Olivia's parents at Sincerely Yours, their new store on Main Street.

“What
did
catch fire, Robby? Do you know?” asked Ruby eagerly.

“Yes, I know. We heard on the radio this morning. It was the Marquis Diner.”

Two thoughts crossed Ruby's mind at exactly the same time. One was, Why didn't I think to turn on the radio? The other was, What's the Marquis Diner?

“What's the Marquis Diner?” she asked Robby.

“It's next to Plaza Drugs. It's a new restaurant.”

“Oh,
that
place. In between Plaza Drugs and Hulit's, right?”

“Right, Ruby.”

Min and Flora hurried out the front door then, and Ruby and Robby chorused, “The Marquis Diner burned down!”

Flora frowned. “You don't have to sound so excited.”

“But it
is
exciting,” said Robby. “Well, I have to go get ready for work now. Bye.”

“Bye, Robby,” said Ruby and Flora.

“We'd better get a move on,” said Min. “We're a little poky this morning.”

“Not me!” cried Ruby, running ahead.

Min, Flora, and Ruby made their way down Aiken Avenue. By the time they reached the corner, they had stopped to speak with Dr. Malone, Mr. Willet, and Ruby's friend Lacey Morris, and had heard three different stories about the fire: It had started in Plaza Drugs and spread to the Marquis, and no one was hurt. It had started in the Marquis and spread to Hulit's, and one person had been injured. It had been contained in the Marquis, and a firefighter had been slightly injured.

Ruby thought of the flames she had seen the night before and remembered the sound of the sirens in the night. She pictured the fire engines whizzing along. Robby was right. This was exciting, the most exciting thing that had happened in town in ages. Still hurrying along in front of Min and Flora, Ruby reached Main Street, and instead of turning right to go to Needle and Thread, she turned left — and came to a standstill.

A small crowd of people stood outside the building that housed Plaza Drugs, the new diner, and Hulit's shoe store. The people were standing in the street, and Ruby saw that a section of Main Street had been closed off.

“Oh, no,” said Min, putting her hand to her mouth as she and Flora joined Ruby.

Ruby's excitement vanished suddenly and a sick feeling crept into her stomach. She stared at the ruined
building, the sidewalk in front of it blackened and wet. The windows of Plaza Drugs and Hulit's were broken and everything inside was covered in shards of glass but otherwise didn't look too bad. However, between the stores, the newly opened diner was destroyed. From where Ruby stood, she saw nothing inside but a gaping charred room, still dripping with water from the fire hoses. She slipped her hand in Min's.

“Oh, my,” whispered Min.

Gigi joined them. “What a shame,” she said, and Min nodded. “I heard that the drugstore and Hulit's can be repaired fairly easily — they'll only be closed for a few weeks — but that the people who bought the Marquis will have to start over from scratch.”

Someone standing just behind Ruby said, “There they are now.”

“Who?” asked someone else.

“The Nelsons. The owners of the Marquis.”

Ruby stood on her tiptoes, saw nothing but shoulders, then squirmed through the crowd until she had a better view of the building. She saw a tired-looking man, a tired-looking woman, and two dazed children — a boy of about five and a girl about Ruby's own age — gathered around a police officer. The woman looked as though she'd been crying.

As Ruby stood staring, she was surprised to see Min and Gigi make their way to the Nelsons, hold out their hands, and introduce themselves. Then Min said, “Our
store is just over there.” She pointed down Main Street.

“Please come by later, all four of you,” added Gigi. “We'll get the coffee started.”

“That's — that's lovely of you,” said Mrs. Nelson, sounding surprised.

“You're part of Camden Falls now,” was Min's brisk reply.

Ruby, her earlier excitement completely drained from her body, followed Min, Gigi, and Flora meekly to the safe haven of Needle and Thread.