True Colors (21 page)

“You know,” she said, “we never actually found any evidence last time. I think we should go on another spying expedition over there. I’ve got it all planned.” But I was
only half listening. I kept going back and forth in my mind on whether I should tell her about finding the animals. Best friends shouldn’t be keeping secrets from each other, and I was keeping one big secret from her already. But she couldn’t tell anyone else, and that’s the part that worried me. Nadine was kind of a bigmouth when it came to secrets.

By the time we got to Nadine’s yard, I’d decided to tell her. Maybe it’d be easier if I told her
this
one; that way I wouldn’t feel so guilty about
not
telling her about her parents’ divorce.

Nadine leaned her bike up against the porch. She ran in and got us two Popsicles, and we sat on the steps licking them. I decided to start with taking back my column, then I’d tell her about the animals.

“Thanks for writing my column for me,” I said, “but I can write it now.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind,” Nadine said.

“I know, but I told Mr. Gilpin I’d start writing it again,” I said.

“Mr. Gilpin said I could do it as long as you needed me to,” Nadine said.

“I don’t need you to anymore,” I said.

“But I’ve already got it partly written,” Nadine said. “And, no offense, but I think Mr. Gilpin would rather have
me
write the columns.”

“Mr. Gilpin said he wanted
me
to write the columns
again,” I said. That wasn’t exactly what Mr. Gilpin had said, but I didn’t think Nadine would want to hear what Mr. Gilpin had said about
her
writing.

“I think you’re making that up,” Nadine said. “You’re just mad because everybody liked my columns better than yours.”

“Did not,” I said.

“Did too!” Nadine yelled. “And you’re mad, too, because I’ve got a father
and
brother and you don’t.”

“Oh, yeah?” I yelled back. “Well, at least I don’t have parents that are getting a divorce!”

chapter 27

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to snatch them back, but it was too late.

Nadine’s face went as white as the spot on Chrysanthemum’s forehead.

“You’re lying,” she whispered.

“I heard your mom on the phone,” I said.

“When?” she asked.

“When I stayed with you,” I said. “When Hannah was in the hospital.”

Nadine’s mouth formed an O.

“That was
weeks
ago,” she said. “All this time, you knew and you didn’t tell me? You’re supposed to be my
friend
.” She threw the rest of her Popsicle on the ground, jumped up, and ran inside, but at the door, she turned back.

“You know, you were only my best friend here because
no one else was around,” Nadine hissed. “Back home, I have lots better friends than you.”

I stood, too stunned to say anything, and watched her slam the door behind her. I’d always been afraid that was true, that Nadine was
my
best friend but that I wasn’t hers, and she’d just admitted it.

I felt like one of those shell-shocked soldiers I’d seen in old magazines, eyes wide open but empty. I didn’t even remember walking home. Once there, I went into the barn instead of the house so Hannah wouldn’t see me. I crawled into a corner of the hayloft and cried myself dry.

That night, not even tucking the blue quilt under my head could make me sleep. Tossing and turning, I couldn’t help but think that telling Nadine about the divorce had been every bit as mean and thoughtless as she’d been to me.

All the next day, I moped through church and Sunday school and around the house, my feelings going between angry and guilty and back again.

“I know I hurt her,” I told Cat. “But she hurt me first. Besides, she doesn’t even
want
to be friends with me. Who needs her, anyhow.”

Two days passed with no sign of Nadine. My anger had simmered down, and now I mostly just felt sad.

My column was due in one more day, and I hadn’t written a single news item for it. Now that I
had
to write my column again, I didn’t feel like it. All I could think of was Nadine and how much I’d hurt her.

Last time, our fight had been Nadine’s fault—in fact,
most
of the fights had been Nadine’s fault—but this time it was mine. Even if we weren’t friends anymore, I felt I needed to write her an apology.

I got out a piece of paper, but couldn’t think of anything to say, and decided I needed to look in Mr. Gilpin’s dictionary for the right words.

Hannah sent me into town with some deliveries, so afterward, I swung by the
Monitor
.

Next to the dictionary on Mr. Gilpin’s desk was a photo of an old plane with a young woman sitting in the seat.

“That’s Hannah,” Mr. Gilpin said. He was looking at the picture so he didn’t see my jaw drop. I looked closer, squinting.

“She was a daredevil,” Mr. Gilpin said. “In 1911, the first plane came to the fairgrounds, and the pilot offered to give rides. It was awfully gusty that day, and Roy Allard said a person would have to be a fool to go up in that contraption, but Hannah went up.

“After that, Hannah was just crazy for airplanes,” Mr. Gilpin went on. “She wanted to learn how to fly. She could have been another Amelia Earhart.”

“Why didn’t she?” I asked.

“After her father and brother died, Hannah had to help her mother run the farm,” Mr. Gilpin said.

So Hannah had had to give up her dreams. Maybe that’s why she wanted me to go to college so much.

I wished Nadine and I were still friends so I could talk to her about it. Cat was a good listener, but all my conversations with her were one-sided.

It took me an hour looking through Mr. Gilpin’s dictionary to come up with the words I wanted to say. I chewed on the end of my pencil and then wrote:

On the way home, I tucked the letter into the Tiltons’ mailbox.

All the next day, I waited for Nadine to come over, but she didn’t. Maybe they hadn’t found my letter yet, I thought, but when I checked their mailbox, the letter wasn’t there. I did chores, sneaking glances toward their camp and hoping I’d see Nadine walking up the road, smiling, ready to make up.

“Maybe she just said all that because she was mad,” I told Cat. “Maybe she really
didn’t
mean I wasn’t her best friend, and she’s sorry about what
she
said, too.”

Cat scratched behind her ear with her hind leg.

Over the next two days, I must have checked our mailbox a least a dozen times.

“What’s gotten into you?” Hannah asked. “I declare, you’re as jumpy as Cat.”

Finally, on the third day, when I’d just about given up hope of Nadine ever answering me, I found a letter on our porch steps. I took it up to my room so I could read it in private.

My throat stung the whole time I spent ripping that letter into tiny pieces.

I carried out a bowl of milk to go talk with Cat.

“Nadine must have spent
two
hours looking up all those words,” I said. “
Sneaky
and
underhanded
I get. But
per-fid-i-ous
and
men-da-cious
?”

Cat finished her milk and sat down, watching me.

“I told her I was sorry. A
real
friend would have forgiven me. I forgave
her
.”

Cat licked her paw and washed her face.

“I guess you’re the only friend I have now,” I told her. “Even if you’re not a very
friendly
friend.”

I made my deliveries and rode home by the ball field, hoping to see a game, but no one was there.

I rode by Nadine’s house on my way home, hoping she’d be outside and we might start talking to each other.

I didn’t think I could feel any worse, but I was wrong.

A big sign was tacked up on the Tiltons’ mailbox.

FOR SALE
.

I hadn’t thought it would really happen. I guess I’d thought that, somehow, Mr. and Mrs. Tilton would get back together, or that Mrs. Tilton would decide to keep the camp, or that Nadine had her mother and father so wrapped around her finger that she’d find a way to keep the camp, too. But that
FOR SALE
sign made it real. They were actually going to sell the camp, and never come back.

I lay awake a long time that night, my mind racing with
if-onlys
.

If only I hadn’t tried to get my column back from Nadine. Then none of this would have happened. If only Hannah hadn’t gotten hurt. Then I wouldn’t have had to
have
Nadine write my column in the first place. If only Mr. and Mrs. Tilton weren’t getting a divorce. Then I wouldn’t have had to keep a secret from Nadine. If only, if only, if only. One word, one little event, can change everything. Two words,
FOR SALE
, meant I was losing my best friend forever.

I thought of how many times our lives depend on one little event. What if my mama had decided to keep me after all? What if she’d left me in some
other
person’s yard? What if Hannah hadn’t found me?

I thought of Hannah flying in that airplane in 1911. What if that plane had crashed? Hannah never would have been
around
to find me and take me in.

Mr. Gilpin was right. Someone
should
write a story about Hannah. I should ask her what it was like to fly in that plane, and what it was like to shake Teddy Roosevelt’s hand, and if he said anything to her.

The more I thought about Hannah, the more I thought about the other stories the quilting ladies had told about the women in
their
families. If I couldn’t write my article about the missing animals, at least I could write those stories. They’d be more interesting than my columns, and they seemed like the kind of stories that other people, from other towns, might want to read, too. Mr. Gilpin hadn’t written up those stories for the pageant, but they deserved to be told, just as much as Colonel Barton’s, or Alexander Twilight’s, or even Spencer Chamberlain’s. Esther was right: they were stories that really shouldn’t be forgotten.

I slipped out of bed and found my Big Chief tablet and pencil. Sitting back in bed, I wrote down story after story, trying to remember everything the women had said, not using big words, just telling the stories the way the quilting ladies had told them.

I wrote down as much as I knew of Hannah’s story, too, her grandmother coming from Scotland, Hannah shaking Teddy Roosevelt’s hand, and how she might have been another Amelia Earhart if her father hadn’t died.

I’d forgotten most of the dates and wondered if I could find some of them in the old newspapers. And I really had meant to look up those articles that Mr. Webster had written. Maybe they’d give me an idea of how to write my stories better.

It was time I found out about my history, too, and that’s when I decided. First thing in the morning, I’d ride to the train station and buy a ticket to Barre. I could use the money I’d earned from writing my column.

The next day, as I rode to town, Dolly tried to go into the Tiltons’ yard, but I kicked her with my heels to keep going past.

It was on the way to the train station that I thought of a problem. Mr. Blanchard, the ticket agent, would be sure to ask questions as to why I was traveling to Barre all by myself, and word would get back to Hannah. Maybe I’d better buy my ticket at
another
train station, one where they didn’t know me. Except that would take me an extra hour to ride to the next town, so I’d have to wait till tomorrow to do that.

Red, white, and blue banners were already being put up throughout town, and tents were going up at the fairgrounds, getting ready for the sesquicentennial.