Prairie Evers (16 page)

“Prairie Evers,” she hollered back, and she took me and that banjo into a big bear hug. After a moment she set me back and looked me over and gave me a grin to let me know she thought I looked all right. And then she said, “And you must be Ivy.” Ivy had walked up to within grabbing distance, and Grammy grabbed her and gave her a hug identical to the one she gave me.

Ivy looked bashful, but her arms reached up to go around Grammy’s neck.

After that, we dragged Grammy into the house to see Mama, and Mama rang the dinner bell to bring Daddy inside, and we all began to get caught up. Everyone was talking at once and no one let anyone else finish a sentence, and I swear Mama and Daddy were just as tickled and surprised as me.

Grammy said she missed me too much, and couldn’t stand having me grow up so far out of her sight. She said she didn’t like living with Great-Uncle Tecumseh after all; the space was too small, and he was too set in his ways. She said it was just not the same down home at all, without me and Mama and Daddy. Plus she claimed to have a hankering to experience a winter up north. She said she always did like a white Christmas, and you didn’t hardly ever get that down in North Carolina anymore,
not even in Vine’s Cove. I said as warm as it was it didn’t look like we would have a white Christmas in New Paltz either, but Grammy said that was of no consequence.

Most of all, she said, this business of me going to school and making a fine friend like Ivy, and Ivy coming to live with us, had tickled her interest to such a degree that she just couldn’t stand to stay there in North Carolina and hear about it in letters but must come to see for herself how it all was. She had caught a bus and ridden it all the way north, all the way to New Paltz, and then hitched a ride to the end of our driveway.

“I wanted to surprise you all. It tickled me to think of giving you such a start. Besides which, you two have got to have someone to teach you how to play those instruments. A book is a help, but it’s not the same as a teacher. So here I am. I’m surprised you didn’t guess I was coming, after a guitar and a banjo arrived in your living room.” Grammy laughed with delight, a little
tee-hee
that I had sorely missed.

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR

I was so happy
to have Grammy home. I was busy every minute telling her everything that had happened in the last year that I might not have remembered to stick into a letter, and making her tell me everything she could think of about Vine’s Cove and Peabody Mountain that might’ve been the least bit different from when I left.

I couldn’t wait to get off the bus each day so I
could check and make sure she was really there. It was like my birthday and Christmas combined, every time.

I adore Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. I love Christmas trees and cookies and carols and presents and wrapping paper and decorations and wreaths. I love how the stores and the streets of towns are all dressed up, and people seem happier, like they’re wearing their best moods instead of their everyday ones. I love the sound of the Salvation Army volunteers ringing their handbells, reminding everyone to be kind and generous. I love making presents and wrapping them up and hiding them away. This year I had big plans to share it all with Ivy, but to my surprise she just would not get into the spirit of things.

On our first night of winter vacation I couldn’t get her to help me string popcorn for the tree. I said, “Ivy,
what
is the matter? You’re about as fun as a science test.”

“Nothing,” she said.

I asked again and she answered the same and we went back and forth that way until finally I got fed up. “Well, I’m going to start in on that project we talked about. Do you want to come?” We were going to make bookmarks out of colored paper and fabric scraps and ribbons and buttons and things and give them out as gifts. I had the idea when I was helping Mama clean up after one of her quilting projects one day.

“No. Not right now.”

I couldn’t believe it. We’d already talked the whole plan out. “Fine.”

I marched up to our room. I slammed the door behind me and started hauling my supplies out and setting them on top of my dresser, but I was getting madder and madder. After about two minutes I marched back to the kitchen, where Ivy was still moping at the table. “Ivy, you are just stubborn and no fun at all. It’s like you’re trying to spoil Christmas.” I had my hands on my hips and was glaring at her, and Ivy did not look any too cheerful herself.

Before either one of us had a chance to say anything else, Mama said, “Prairie, I need your help out in the barn for a minute. Come on, get your coat.”

I started to insist on knowing why, but Mama said, “
Now
, Prairie. Not so many questions. It’s coming up on Christmas, after all.”

I realized it might be a fun secret, so I scooted out the door after her, hauling my coat on as I went.

But when we got outside, it was not a fun secret. Right away Mama said, “Prairie, honey, you have got to think before you speak.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s Ivy, sweet pea. You’ve got to think how she might be feeling.”

“Happy! Or she
ought
to be. She’s here with us and it’s Christmas vacation, and Grammy’s home and everything.”

“It’s almost Christmas,” Mama said patiently, “and your family’s all around you, but her mama has hardly even called since she’s been here.”

I bit my lip. Good riddance was how I thought of Ivy’s mama. But maybe Ivy didn’t think of it quite that way. Probably she didn’t.

“She hasn’t asked for Ivy to come to Poughkeepsie except that one time.”

I looked down at the toes of my boots. Ivy had gone to Poughkeepsie at Thanksgiving, but George and her mama brought her back on Saturday instead of Sunday. They said something had come up. Ivy didn’t say much about it. I thought maybe she didn’t mind and was just glad to be home. But maybe there was more to it than that.

“So far they haven’t even asked her to come for Christmas Day.”

I started to say,
Who’d want to spend Christmas with them, anyway?
but then I said, “Oh,” instead.

“That feels bad to Ivy.”

“Has she said something to you?” A big suspicious feeling swarmed over me. I didn’t like the idea of Ivy talking to Mama before me.

Mama sighed. “No. Not a word. But really, Prairie—how else could it feel?”

The fact settled on me hard: she was right. I should have
thought of it myself. I don’t know why I’m so dumb sometimes. I don’t mean to be.

I went back inside and I gave Ivy a little smile, even though I still felt mad. Not mad
at
her so much as just mad in general. I didn’t want Christmas to be complicated. I just wanted everyone to be happy. “I’m sorry I got so crabby.”

Ivy shrugged.

“Do you want to go work on those bookmarks?” I whispered, hoping she would just say yes and we wouldn’t have to fight anymore.

“No, you go. It was your idea anyway. I don’t want to steal it.”

“I don’t care about that!”

She gave me a real smile then, though it was still kind of sad. “You go start. I’ll come in a minute, maybe. I want to finish my homework.”

“It’s not due until we go back to school after New Year’s!”

Ivy shrugged. I sighed and went to make my bookmarks.

I laid everything out on the floor and got started. I got real involved and forgot about everything but what color I was going to put where, and what button and what ribbon. I saw how Mama could enjoy quilt making, but I was glad the bookmarks didn’t take too long. After a while I realized Ivy never had come in. I padded back to the kitchen to see where she was, and she and Mama were at the oven, pulling a tray of cookies out.

I felt kind of funny. Why were they making cookies without me? But Ivy looked happy finally, just as happy as I’d been wanting her to be. That made
me
happy. After a second I turned and tiptoed away, back to my bookmark project.

SLOWPOKE

By the time
I went to bed, I felt good and sweet, like you’re supposed to at Christmas. But try as I might, it didn’t keep on like that.

Even though we had two weeks off from school and acres of time to play in and all kinds of Christmas things to do and nothing but fun to be had in every direction, Ivy was pretty often quiet and far off. It seemed like everything we said to each other came out wrong, and instead of getting along like peanut butter and jelly, we were all pins and needles, poking each other no matter how we tried not to.

Christmas came and went so fast, I couldn’t believe it. We got all kinds of presents: books and games and a puzzle and a sled and a bunk bed Daddy built for us, and it
snowed
, inches and inches. We got songbooks from Grammy for our guitar and banjo, and she showed us how to play “Jingle Bells” together, which we did until we about drove everyone to distraction.

It was mostly wonderful, but I felt cranky sometimes. Grammy was
my
grammy, but now she was Ivy’s too, and it wasn’t a hundred percent easy to share her, or Mama and Daddy. Besides which, even though everything was just about perfect—Ivy was with us and we loved her—she seemed so blue. I wanted to fix it, but there was nothing I could grab ahold of to tackle.

I watched Ivy carefully from start to finish a couple of days after Christmas. She was as polite as ever, saying, “Could you pass the butter, please,” at breakfast and offering to help Mama with the dishes after supper (and I did sometimes wish she wasn’t quite so helpful that way, as it showed up how little I liked to pitch in with the inside chores). She wrote in her notebook and played with Pup and helped feed the chickens and gather the few eggs they were still laying now that winter had come and the days were shorter, but she was so quiet about all of it.

“What’s wrong?” I asked one day as we were closing the henhouse gate.

“Nothing.” Ivy headed up the path to the house.

“Wait up,” I hollered, and she did stop, but she didn’t turn around.

I gave her a little push on the shoulder when I caught up to her. “C’mon, tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She gazed off into the distance.

I frowned and studied her a minute. Then I said, “Come on, let’s go up in the tree house.”

“I don’t want to. It’s cold.”

“I don’t care.
I
want to.”

Ivy bit her lip and kept looking off into the distance.

“Don’t be a pain. Just go up in the tree with me.”

Ivy gave a little sigh, but she followed me up the ladder into the maple tree. It was cold, but not as cold as usual for late December in New York, and we were all bundled up in our winter coats and boots anyway.

When we were up there, we sat swinging our legs over the edge. The chickens were down below us, just like in summer, only now we had to feed them meal and kitchen scraps every day because there wasn’t much of anything for them to find in the way of grubs and bugs. I watched them finishing their suppers, and a warm feeling stole over me. I did love my chickens. They always seemed to slow me down if I was feeling snappish. I said again, nicer this time, “What’s wrong, Ivy? Please tell me.”

“Nothing. I’m all right.”

“But you’re sad.”

Ivy shrugged one shoulder. “I was thinking maybe I should move to Poughkeepsie now that your grammy’s here.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m in the way.”

“You are not!”

“I’m like a guest. One who’s staying too long.”

“You are not!” I hollered. Then I toned my voice down some and said, “You are not a guest. Guests don’t wash the supper dishes and feed the chickens and share my room, and they sure don’t carry dead mice out for the coyote.”

Ivy kind of smiled at that.

“You are not a guest,” I repeated again for good measure, very firm.

“I guess.”

“Don’t you like it here?”

“I like it a lot.”

“Do you
want
to go live in Poughkeepsie?”

“No.” I could tell by the look on her face that she meant it.

“Do you miss your mama?” I asked real soft. In all the time she’d been with us, I’d never asked her that.