Holly's Heart Collection Two (20 page)
“It’s fabulous!” I said, starting to write the limerick.
There once was a boy named Jared,
Whom everyone knew was an airhead.
I read it to them softly. “What do you think?”
Andie and Paula were in stitches. “You should do this for a living,” Paula said.
Andie was laughing so hard she couldn’t speak.
“Now for the middle part,” I said. “Think of all the words that rhyme with
pride.
”
Paula started her list. Andie wiped the laughter tears from her eyes, while I made my own list of words starting at the top of the alphabet.
Bride, cried, denied, dried, eyed, fried, hide, lied.
Halfway through the alphabet I stopped. Now Paula was giggling so hard she could barely write. “Is this too much for you or what?” I laughed.
Paula nodded. “You should talk to the editor of the school paper. I hear they could use some help.”
“But I’m moving, remember?” I said.
Sad recognition flitted across Paula’s face. “I’m sorry, Holly.”
When Andie and Paula were finished, we pooled our talents and finished the limerick.
There once was a boy named Jared,
Whom everyone knew was an airhead.
His problem was pride,
“Forgiveness—denied,”
Said Holly, who just could not bear it!
“It may be a little rough,” I said, “but this will state my point.”
“Loud and clear,” said Paula.
“Who’s gonna deliver it to him?” Andie asked.
“What about you, Paula?” I pulled her up from her chair. “Fill out an index card,” I teased. “Then go to the rest room, and on the way back, stick this in Jared’s locker.”
She read the limerick one more time. Laughing, she folded the paper and hid it in her pants pocket.
Andie and I went to the window, watching streaks of cirrocumulus clouds whip past the moon. She slipped her arm around my shoulder. “I’ll never find another friend like you, Holly-Heart,” Andie whispered. “Never in the whole world.”
“Moving won’t change things between us,” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I’ll live in Dressel Hills again someday. You’ll see.”
And in my heart, it was the promise of a lifetime.
GOOD-BYE, DRESSEL HILLS
None of us got much sleep on the carpeted floor of the library that night. At least we had heat. Thank goodness for that. Still, we bundled up in our jackets for blankets.
It was a typical sleepover, only on a larger scale and without the amenities of sleeping bags and DVDs. And instead of five or six giggling females, there were eighty-four of us.
At dawn, we woke up to the sound of snowplows and snowblowers. Andie sat up next to me on the floor, rubbing her eyes. “Hallelujah—we’re going home! I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.”
“Sounds fabulous,” I said, thinking about my cozy four-poster bed…and my beloved window seat. It seemed like weeks since I’d written in my diary.
Paula went with Andie and me to the rest room—nobody needed passes now. Andie peeked around each corner before we proceeded down the hall, making sure neither Jared nor his buddies were nowhere in sight.
In the rest room, I brushed my long hair while Andie groaned at her smashed curls. “I’d give anything to have your hair, Holly.”
“I’ll give it to you if you’ll trade places with me,” I teased, referring to the move to Denver.
Andie shot me a sideways glance. “I’d hate living in a big city,” she said. And that was the end of that.
We made ourselves as presentable as possible. Then we headed to the office with Paula in the lead. She wanted to call home.
Stan was already waiting in the phone line. He looked a bit disheveled, with oily hair sticking out in places.
“Was your bed as hard as ours?” I asked.
“Worse,” he grumbled. “You had carpet, remember?”
I gave him a sympathetic look. “Who are you calling?”
“Dad…again.”
“Then you heard the news?”
“Yeah, I heard.” I could see he didn’t want to discuss things with Andie standing right there.
I changed the subject. “Paula says her dad’ll bring his snowmobile up to school if he has to.”
“Good idea,” he said. “Only it’ll take him several trips to get us all home.”
“Are the city buses running yet?” Paula asked.
“Most of the streets are drifted shut, according to the radio,” Stan said, pulling out his MP3 player, which had an FM radio. “But the city crews’ll be out all day.”
“Some blizzard,” Andie said.
“And poor timing,” I said under my breath.
Stan heard. He shrugged his shoulders, forcing a sad sort of smile at Andie.
By the time Stan and I got home, it was nearly ten o’clock. About the time I usually got up on Saturdays.
Mom threw her arms around us as we came in. Then Uncle Jack hurried down the stairs, looking mighty comfortable in his faded blue jeans and flannel shirt. I, on the other hand, was still unshowered and wearing the same clothes I’d slept in all night.
I held back when Uncle Jack bear-hugged me. He noticed, but he tried to act cool, as though it was nothing. But I had a right to be angry. After all, he’d railroaded his stupid move right through—and while I was stuck overnight at school. It wasn’t fair. Not one bit.
“You’ll have to record this event for posterity,” Mom said, grinning. “I’ve never heard of being stranded at school all night.”
Too tired and overwhelmed to talk, I grumbled a reply.
Mark rolled his eyes, grunting like a gorilla. “Better not happen to me. Oo-o-ga!”
“Go away,” I snapped. Everyone was acting like nothing had happened. Like our whole world wasn’t about to change.
Stephie jumped up and down when she saw me. “I slept with Goofey for you last night, Holly.”
“That’s nice,” I growled.
Mom frowned at my response. “Come have some hot chocolate to warm you up,” she said to Stan and me.
I didn’t answer, but I followed reluctantly to the kitchen and sat on a barstool. Mom filled two mugs with the hot chocolate she’d kept warm on the stove. Stan took his cup and left the room, probably to veg out in front of the TV.
“Why can’t we stay in Dressel Hills at least till school’s out?” I whined as she handed me the steaming hot drink. Going to Denver was the only thing on my mind.
“I’m not comfortable with that,” she said.
I set my cup down on the counter and stared at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said, Holly.” She was equally determined. “We—all of us—are staying together on this.”
I had no idea why she was so adamant about something so illogical. “Where will we live?” I asked.
“Jack’s already found several lovely rental houses to choose from,” she said. “We’ll buy a house later, when we’ve had a chance to look around.”
“What about school?” I wailed.
“The schools should be fine,” she explained. “If we aren’t happy with the public schools where we live, we can always look into private, or homeschool till the end of the year.”
I blew on my hot chocolate. It sure looked like Mom was calling the shots—right along with her new husband. So much for democracy.
“Well, why on earth do we have to move so soon?” I complained.
Mom sighed, obviously tired of my string of questions. “We have to set the office up immediately,” she replied, “or Jack will lose several big accounts.”
Mom seemed enthusiastic—and stubborn—about the move. I couldn’t figure out why. She had never wanted to live in a big city. That was one of the reasons she and Daddy moved from Pennsylvania to Colorado after they were married.
I didn’t tell her I wanted to live with Andie and finish out the school year. But I was dying to.
“It’s going to be quite an undertaking getting this house packed,” she continued. “Each day we’ll do something big. Starting today.”
I should have known. When Mom made up her mind, she pushed forward with all her might to attain her goal.
“After you shower and rest up, you could start sorting through your own closet,” she said. “You’ll find flattened boxes in the attic.” She got up and went to one of the kitchen drawers. Pulling out a roll of packing tape and a scissors, she handed them to me. “The boys’ll be around to help if you need it.”
I won’t cry—I won’t,
I thought as I trudged up the steps to my room, tape and scissors in hand. This house, and everything in it—well, almost everything—reminded me of Daddy. It had been over five years since he’d left. Still, I loved the memories. The nights he read to us till we fell asleep, the summer evenings we spent swinging on the front porch, the jokes he told around the supper table. All were memories he’d made with us here.
Gathering up clean clothes, I headed for the bathroom. As I showered, I thought of my short time in Dressel Hills. Fourteen years had come and gone. The water beat on my back as I cried. No one could hear my sorrow. No one could see my tears. For the first time in my life, I felt totally alone.
After showering, I headed to my room. With a heavy heart, I stared at everything as if for the last time. My comfy bed. My droopy-eyed teddy bear, snuggled onto the lavender window seat next to a pillow. No room could ever be like this one.
I took out my journal, hoping that writing would help me to feel better.
Saturday, March 26—The worst thing happened to me yesterday after school, and it wasn’t the blizzard. I found out that Uncle Jack’s backup plan flopped. The guy he was trying to get for the Denver office turned down the job. So we’re moving to Denver, and Mom’s not even trying to do anything to stop it. I can’t believe it. I always thought she loved Dressel Hills as much as I do!
More horrendous things: Jared and I are finished. Partly my fault, because I didn’t handle things very well and Jared misunderstood. He got real mad and said some horrible things to me. The worst part is he sent a note to me (delivered by none other than Amy-Liz!), and he wants me to think about what happened—like I’m the one who should make the final decision. I really hate this!
I closed my journal. Whether I liked it or not, it was time to get started on packing.
I headed for the walk-in closet in Mom’s bedroom. The ladder to the attic hung down from the ceiling in the far corner of the closet. I remembered hiding up there as a kid. Andie and I had written some of our first Loyalty Papers in our attic. Everything in this house seemed to call out to me—to remind me that I was leaving against my will.
At the top of the ladder, I pushed the wooden door open and poked my head through. The attic was cold, dark, and quiet—like a cave in the snow. Looking around, I shivered. Not much had changed, except there were a few more boxes stacked in neat piles against the wall. Probably Uncle Jack’s stuff.
The attic floor creaked as I made my way to the pile of flattened boxes. A lopsided lamp, minus the light bulb, leaned against the wall, and a large gray trunk stood nearby. Kneeling on the dusty floor, I folded the cardboard along the indentations and made up three large boxes to take to my room.
As I finished the third box, I glanced up and noticed the initials SMJ just above the latch on the old trunk.
“SMJ…Susan Marie Johnson,” I whispered. “Mom’s initials before she married Daddy.”
Almost reverently, I touched it. Mom had used the trunk to haul her clothes and books to college. It was special. Even doubled as a coffee table in the early years of Mom and Daddy’s marriage before they had money for nice furniture. Before I was born. One of our scrapbooks showed them drinking tea on the floor, with a lighted candle perched on the trunk.
In the five years that had come and gone since Daddy left, this trunk had stored Mom’s reminders of him and their life together. Along with scrapbooks and their wedding album, we’d packed up old love letters. Most of them were from Daddy while Mom was completing college. Even the slightest memory brought a veil of tears. Mom had nearly grieved herself sick.
I blew away some dust and slowly, gently, opened the lid.
The awful smell of mothballs brought back memories of the day we had packed this trunk. At age eight, I was too young to care much about love letters. But now, in the depths of my sadness, I wondered if they might hold the answer to The Question—that thing I could not bring myself to face. So deeply buried was The Question, that even though I felt close to my father last Christmas—and had been with him in the quiet of his study, the two of us, alone—I could not force my lips to shape the words.
Deep and dark, The Question stirred within me.
Find the answers,
it urged. But layers of pain concealed The Question. The pain of divorce, the lonely years without Daddy. Mom having to work full time while juggling office and family. The pain of an empty porch swing on cool summer evenings. Baking snickerdoodles without him.
The old days and Daddy—gone forever. And now I was facing another change. One almost as painful as my parents’ divorce.
Reaching into the dim chasm of the trunk, I found three shoe boxes labeled according to month and year. Mom had allowed me to read a few of the letters kept inside. I opened the one on top and read it for old times’ sake. Smiling, I folded it and slipped it into the envelope. My father certainly had a way with words. He could sweet-talk Mom into almost anything.
