Daphne's Book (6 page)

"Don't worry about it," Mom said. "Just tell me how to get to your house."

Following Daphne's directions, Mom drove through Adelphia's curving streets and then out into the cold, dark farmland surrounding the town. To my relief, we passed the Exxon station without stopping. About two miles down Cook's Lane, Daphne pointed to a mailbox sagging open on a crooked post. "You can let us out right here," she said.

"It's dark, Daphne. I can't just drop you two by the side of the road. Is it up this driveway?" Mom slowed down to make the turn.

"Yes, but the house isn't far. We can walk easily."

Ignoring Daphne, Mom drove up a rutted driveway, bouncing us around when she hit the bumps. As we emerged from an arch of old trees, we saw a house standing all alone on a rise of ground, a tall, black shape against the starry sky. Not a light shone anywhere.

"Is anyone at home?" Mom sounded worried.

"She must be in the kitchen." Daphne opened the door,
flooding the car with light. "Come on, Hope. She's probably worried to death."

"Thank you very much for bringing us home," Hope said. "And for letting Baby Mouse go on the journey," she added, smiling at me.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs. Taylor," Daphne said as she took Hope's hand. Together they ran across the yard and up the steps.

Mom sat there for a minute, staring at the house until she was sure they had gotten inside. Then she put the car in reverse and eased back down the driveway, hitting the bumps just as hard as she had coming in. Neither one of us said a word until we were back on Cook's Lane.

"Well, I hope everything was all right," Mom said. "That house looked so dark and lonely."

"I know." I shivered and moved a little closer to Mom. "I asked them to stay for dinner, but Daphne said they couldn't."

"It was nice of you to ask." Mom smiled at me. "How did it go today?"

I shrugged. "While we were working on the book, we had a great time. She was so different from the way she is in school. She talked and laughed, and she's a wonderful artist. I wish you could have seen the things she drew." I sighed. "But when they were leaving, she got all strange again. You saw how she was about the ride. Don't you think she acted kind of weird?"

"Oh, I don't know. I think she was uncomfortable about something. And shy." Mom paused. "And she's probably a little afraid to get too friendly with you, Jessica. After all,
you haven't shown any interest in her before now, and she certainly doesn't have any reason to think that anyone at Oakcrest wants to be her friend."

"That's true." I leaned back against the car seat and thought about the afternoon I'd spent with Daphne and Hope. Strange as it seemed, I'd had the best time I'd had in a long time. In fact, I could hardly wait for Daphne to come over again. And not just to work on the book. There were so many things I didn't know about her, so many questions I wanted to ask her.

"Do you think maybe she likes me, then? Even if she did act funny about your giving her a ride home?" I asked Mom.

She smiled at me and patted my knee. "Of course she likes you. She wouldn't have stayed so long if she didn't." She slowed down to turn from Cook's Lane into Adelphia, leaving the bleak countryside behind. "Just be patient with her, Jess. Give her a little time. And don't let the kids at school make you forget that Daphne has feelings."

I stared at her, shocked. "I've never made fun of her, Mom! I wouldn't hurt her feelings for anything."

U
NFORTUNATELY, IT
wasn't as easy for me to avoid hurting Daphne's feelings as I thought it would be. When I left for school on Monday, I told myself that I was going to be very friendly to Daphne and that I didn't care what Michelle said, did, or thought. Feeling proud of myself, I hurried down the hall to my locker, planning to walk right up to Daphne and say hello.

But just as I saw Daphne, Michelle and Tony stepped in between her and me. They were laughing and talking, and as Michelle's eye caught mine, I smiled at her and pretended not to see Daphne.

Stuffing my parka into my locker, I grabbed my books and hurried down the hall to walk with Tracy.

"Oh, Jess, you should've come to Skateland with us. I never had so much fun." Tracy grabbed my arm and giggled. "Scott asked me to skate couples with him twice, and Michelle asked him if he likes me and he said yes!" She hugged her books, her eyes shining. "Michelle thinks he's going to ask me to go with him."

"Really? That's neat, Tracy." I tried to smile at her, but it made me uncomfortable to see her acting more and more like Michelle. If she got a boyfriend, she'd never be my friend again. She would do everything with Michelle and Tony and Scott, and I would never see her.

Before I could say anything else, Michelle rushed up and butted in between Tracy and me. "Guess what Tony told me?" she asked Tracy.

While the two of them talked about Tony and Scott, I walked along, feeling forgotten. Ahead of me in the hall, I saw Daphne all by herself. I wanted to catch up with her, but I didn't have the courage. Instead, I trailed along with Tracy and Michelle, pretending to be interested in what had happened at Skateland.

In English, Mr. O'Brien gave us fifteen minutes to work on our books while he walked around the classroom looking at our outlines and sketches.

Mustering my courage, I tried to get Daphne's attention. She seemed as remote as always, as if Saturday had never happened. Finally she looked up at me.

"When can you come over again?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Probably next Saturday." Without waiting for an answer, she bent her head over a drawing of Princess Heatherfern. "Look, Jessica," she said to the paper. "You don't have to be my friend just because we're doing this book together. I know you probably didn't want to be my partner, so you don't have to worry about hurting my feelings or anything."

I stared at her hair, falling like a curtain between us, and I wished I could see her face. It was hard to talk to hair.

"It's true," I whispered. "At first I was mad, but I don't feel like that anymore."

Daphne shrugged, making her shoulder blades jut out sharply under her faded black turtleneck. "You didn't seem very friendly this morning."

"When?" I felt my face flush as I remembered how I'd avoided her in the hall.

"At our lockers before school started."

"I didn't see you," I mumbled.

She looked at me then and caught me with a burning red face. "You saw me, Jessica. You just pretended not to."

It was my turn to look away, to stare at my desk and wish I had a long curtain of hair to draw across my face. "I did not pretend. I really didn't see you, Daphne," I muttered.

She sighed. "Well, I'll come over on Saturday so we can finish the story."

Then the bell rang, and she was up and gone before I had even picked up my books.

In the cafeteria I sat down next to Tracy. Daphne was sitting at the end of a table about three rows away, but her back was to me. After our conversation in English, I was too embarrassed to look at her, let alone go and sit beside her.

"Does my hair look funny?" Tracy asked me. "When I was curling it this morning, I just couldn't get the two sides to look the same." She lifted a strand to show me, then dropped it scowling.

"Then, when I was looking for my best jeans, I found them in the dirty-clothes basket, and somebody had thrown a wet towel on top of them. I was going to spray some perfume on them—I thought it would hide the moldy smell from the towel. But then I noticed they had a big spot on the knee like I'd spilled ketchup on them or something, so I had to wear these, and they don't fit me nearly as well." Tracy plucked at her jeans. "Do they look too terrible, Jess?"

I shook my head, wishing I could think of a way to make her talk about something more interesting than her jeans and her hair.

I didn't have to worry long. Michelle and Sherry came over, and Michelle plopped her tray down next to Tracy. Leaning toward me, she said, "You and Daffy looked real friendly in English today."

Embarrassed, I stared down at my sandwich. "We were just talking about our book," I said. I wanted to say more, I wanted to tell them how different Daphne had been from her usual school self, but I knew they wouldn't understand. Somehow they'd turn it all around and start laughing at me.

"What was she like?" Sherry asked.

I saw her nudge Michelle, and I knew Michelle was trying not to laugh. "Yes, Jessica, tell us all about your Saturday with Daffy Duck," Michelle said, pretending to be very serious.

I shrugged. "I showed her the story and she started drawing the pictures. She's really a good artist."

"Is it about ducks?" Sherry asked, trying to keep her face straight.

"No, it's about mice." Somehow I knew they were going to think that was funny.

"Mice?" Sherry and Michelle started laughing. "Your story is about mice?"

Just as Sherry and Michelle were about to have hysterics, Tony, Scott, and Mike sat down at our table. Luckily for me, they forgot all about Daphne and me and concentrated their attention on the boys. Tracy, though, did give me a sympathetic look before she started teasing Scott about something he'd said to her before school.

For the rest of the week Daphne ignored me, and so did everyone else. Tracy, Michelle, and Sherry spent most of their time giggling and following Tony, Scott, and Mike up and down the halls. I was so unhappy that I had to force myself to get up and go to school, but I tried to act as if nothing was wrong. I was sure that if I let Michelle know that she was hurting my feelings, she would do worse things than pass notes like the one I saw in Science.

She had written the note to Sherry. After Sherry read it and giggled, she left it lying on her desk. Since I sat next to her, it was easy for me to see it.

"Once upon a time, Jessica Mouse built a little house," I read. Michelle had illustrated it with a crudely drawn mouse wearing glasses.

Unhappily, I stared at my textbook, trying to read the paragraph Mrs. Kaufmann was talking about, but the words blurred. They thought I was a baby, a mouse, a little nothing. Could I help being short and skinny? Could I help wearing glasses? It just wasn't fair. Nothing was fair.

Glancing across the room, I saw Daphne, half-turned away, gazing out the window at the wintry sky and bare trees. Before I could look away, she stared back at me for a second, her eyes catching mine. Then, tossing her hair, she turned back to the window.

 

On Saturday, I lounged around the house, afraid to go anywhere in case Daphne came to see me. She hadn't said an other word about doing any more work on the story, but I hoped she would show up.

At two o'clock, the doorbell rang. Daphne and Hope stood on the steps, shivering in the cold cold air.

"It's mice time!" Hope said, hopping up and down. "Squeak, squeak, Jessica!"

I laughed and invited them in for hot cocoa. This time, Mom was home, and she served us all some brownies we'd made earlier in the morning. That pleased Hope very much.

"Where do you put them all?" Mom asked Hope as she finished her fourth one.

"Right here!" Hope rubbed her tummy and laughed. She liked my mother a lot, but Daphne seemed as suspicious of Mom as she was of everybody. No matter how hard Mom tried to get a conversation going, Daphne sat silent as a statue, slowly eating one brownie and sipping her cocoa as if she were afraid of burning her tongue.

"Do you want to work on the story now?" Daphne asked. It was almost the first thing she'd said since she'd sat down at the kitchen table.

"Sure." We rinsed our cups and plates, grabbed our jackets, and ran outside.

As soon as we spotted the mouse house, I knew everything was all right. The roof was intact and, as soon as we took it off, I saw the three mice, still sleeping safely under my mitten.

The creek was frozen near the banks, but we built a raft and let the mice sail down the middle, past ice grottoes where Frost Giants tried to catch them, between cliffs where trolls hurled boulders down at them, and finally to a safe landing on a pebbly strip of beach near a footbridge.

Once they were safely ashore, we built a new house for them. While the princess and the wizard rested, Hope and Baby Mouse went off to explore the forest.

"Do you still think the story should have an unhappy ending?" I asked Daphne.

She looked up from her sketch book. "Have you found Sir Benjamin in real life?"

I shook my head sadly. "Not a sign of him."

"Well, then, I don't think Princess Heatherfern should find him in the story. Sometimes people really do go away and you never see them again. Never." She shook her head, but she didn't look at me.

It bothered me the way she repeated "never." Her face looked so unhappy and her voice sounded as cold and dull as the winter wind sighing through the branches overhead.

"But this is a magical story," I said. "It doesn't have to be like real life. In stories you can make things come out the way you want them to."

Daphne shook her head. "Sir Benjamin is gone for good, and Princess Heatherfern has to accept that."

A gust of wind found its way down the back of my neck and I shivered. "Maybe you should write the story." Even to me, my voice sounded nasty. Babyish.

Daphne looked at me then. "I'm sorry, Jessica. It's your story. End it any way you please." Closing her sketch book, she got up.

"Where are you going? You haven't finished the drawings yet, have you?" I scrambled up, too.

She shrugged. "I don't want to be so late getting home this time. Just tell me how you want to end the story, and I can draw a few more pictures before I
go.
"

I picked up Princess Heatherfern and stared at her bright little eyes. "Well, suppose she's standing here on this rock." Kneeling down, I stood the little mouse on a rock. "And she's looking down the river and wondering if she'll ever see Sir Benjamin again. Then Cragstar could climb up next to her." I looked at Daphne, silently entreating her to pick up the wizard and start the story going again. Without her help, I knew I couldn't finish the book.

Solemnly, Daphne placed the wizard next to the princess. "Ah, my lady," she said in her deep wizard voice. "Another day has passed and there is still no sign of him. You must accept the sad truth that he is gone forever. You will never see him more. Never, my lady, never."