The Secret Book Club (3 page)

On a Friday night in Camden Falls, Massachusetts, population 14,767, some people are wherever they usually are in the evening, and others are not where one might expect to find them. On Friday nights, things and people get shuffled around a little. Come peek inside some of the homes in Camden Falls and find out who's where.

Darkness has not fallen yet, so there's time to take a walk through the still, hot air and stand outside a cottage surrounded by tidy gardens that, during the day, are abuzz with bees. In fact, later in the summer if you were to stand beneath the hydrangea in the front yard, you would find the entire bush humming loudly. This is Mary Woolsey's house, and Mary is at home, as she usually is. But this evening, instead of eating
supper in her tiny kitchen, she's sitting contentedly in her garden, thinking of the afternoon she spent working at Needle and Thread. Her thoughts are interrupted when she sees a flash of bright blue zip through the murky air and light on a branch of the forsythia bush. She exclaims aloud, “Well, I never! An indigo bunting. What is an indigo bunting doing here?” She reaches for her binoculars to get a better view of this bird, which is most certainly not where it is supposed to be.

Leave Mary's and walk several blocks to a street that is unfamiliar to Flora and Ruby Northrop. Standing in front of a plain one-story house with about as much personality as a hen (a saying of Min's that Ruby thinks is supremely unfair to hens) is a weary family. The father looks ruefully at the
FOR RENT
sign sticking out of a clump of overgrown grass and says, “I guess we can take this down now.” These are the Nelsons, and they are definitely not where they expected to be this Friday night, or any night at all once they had moved to Camden Falls. They had planned to live in the apartment over the diner, but the apartment had been ruined along with the diner, and they have scrambled to find a house to rent while the diner is being repaired.

“Can we afford this?” asks Hilary Nelson, who's ten.

“You shouldn't be worrying about things like that,”
replies her mother, putting her arm around Hilary's shoulders.

Hilary shrugs away from her mother. “You and Dad said that the insurance would pay for the repairs, but this is extra. How can we afford it?”

Hilary knows that her parents used up almost all of their money in order to leave Boston and start their own business here in this small town, something they'd been dreaming of doing for years.

Mr. Nelson sighs. “We're not sure we can,” he says, and Hilary, looking at the shabby house, begins to cry.

“But we're going to give it the summer to see what happens,” adds Mrs. Nelson. “We'll just have to start over again.”

“We
already
started over again,” says Hilary, “but this time we don't have anything to start over again
with
.” She edges away from her little brother so he won't see her tears.

Mrs. Nelson pulls an unfamiliar key out of her pocket and inserts it in the lock on the front door of the house.

Darkness is falling now, but the air is sweet and the night is gentle, and it's a good time to take a walk in the countryside to the home of Nikki Sherman. On this Friday, Nikki and her little sister, Mae, are at home, but Nikki's brother is out, and her mother is in town having dinner with an old friend. This is so unusual that Nikki actually cannot remember another
time when her mother met a friend for dinner. In the first place, the Shermans have little money for extras and luxuries. In the second place, Mrs. Sherman doesn't have any friends.

Well, thinks Nikki, that can't be true. Her mother must have had friends at some time in her life. But while she was living with Nikki's father, friendships were not encouraged. Now things are different. Nikki's father is gone, and the rest of the Shermans are far happier than they were when he was present.

“Nikki,” says Mae, “something came in the mail for Tobias today. And I don't think it's a bill. It looks like a letter.” This is also unusual. The Shermans don't get a lot of mail apart from bills and flyers. “I wish Tobias was at home,” Mae continues. “I want to see what he got.”

Nikki examines the envelope on the kitchen table. “Huh,” she says. “The return address is for some college in Connecticut. Why would Tobias be getting a letter from a college?”

“Let's open it!” says Mae.

Nikki smiles. “Nope. Can't do that. This is Tobias's personal, private mail. He's the only one who can open it. And he's with his friends and won't be home until after you're in bed. Asleep.”

“Oh, bullfrogs,” says Mae.

Nikki smiles again. “Come on, let's take Paw-Paw out for one last walk, and then I'll read to you.”

The Shermans' porch light winks on, and Nikki and Mae, hand in hand, step outside into the last of the light.

The moon is rising and the nighttime creatures have begun their chirping and calling. If you walk down the Shermans' rutted lane to the paved road now, a breeze will ruffle your hair. Head east back to Camden Falls. When you reach town, turn onto Main Street and stroll past the stores and businesses. Their windows are dark, except for the restaurants'. Walk by Needle and Thread, which looks asleep, College Pizza (Tobias is in there with his friends), and Dutch Haus, where Robby and his parents are sitting around a tippy table with ice-cream cones.

If you make a left after Dutch Haus and then a right, you'll find yourself on Aiken Avenue, and ahead of you will loom the Row Houses. In the first one, the one on the left end, are the four Morris children. They're giddy with excitement because their parents are out for the evening, and Margaret Malone, their baby-sitter, has just suggested that they play a game of Airhead. The children don't know what Airhead is, but if Margaret has invented it, then it's sure to be wonderful.

The house next to the Morrises', the Willets', is dark. Old Mr. Willet has driven out to Three Oaks to visit his wife. He looks forward to these visits, even though Mrs. Willet is no longer certain who he is. Sometimes she recognizes him as her husband, but
sometimes she thinks he's her brother or, more often than not, just a strange man.

The Malones' house is dark, too. Dr. Malone and his daughters are scattered on this Friday night, although Margaret will return home as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Morris do.

Next to the Malones', Min's house is awash in light. In a room on the second floor, Flora has pulled out her mother's diary, the one she found nearly a year earlier when she moved into the room in which her mother grew up. “Ruby!” Flora calls. “Come look at Mom's diary with me!”

“No!” Ruby calls from across the hall. “I'm busy reading
The Saturdays
.” This is not true. Ruby is not reading or doing anything at all. But she does not want to see her mother's diary.

Downstairs, Min sits in the living room with her old friend Mr. Pennington. They are smiling at each other and listening to the skreeking of the crickets through the open windows.

Next door is another dark house. Olivia and her family have gone to the movies. Mr. Pennington's house is dark, too (only Jacques, his aged dog, is at home, snoozing on the couch), and so is Robby's house. But at the last house, the one on the right end, pale light shines from the window of a second-floor room in which Mr. Fong is trying to soothe Grace into sleep. Light also shines from the window of the kitchen below,
where Mrs. Fong is simultaneously making dinner and feeding two bouncy dogs. “Hush,” she says softly to the dogs. “Hush or you'll wake the baby.”

It's getting late now, but there's time to peek in one final window before Camden Falls starts to go to bed. Come away from Aiken Avenue and walk toward the elementary school to a fine house with a pool in the backyard. Many windows are lit in this house, and if you were to peek into the one at the west end of the second floor you would find Tanya Rhodes, a classmate of Flora, Olivia, and Nikki's. Tanya is planning a pool party and she is busily drawing up the guest list. Several names are already on the list, names of girls who were in her sixth-grade class with Mr. Donaldson. Tanya pauses, then adds Flora's name to the list, then Nikki's, and, finally, Olivia's. She puts her pen down, considers the names, and picks up the pen again.

She crosses Olivia Walter off the list.

Olivia Walter was aware that some things about her — actually, many things — had led her classmates to decide she was weird. This was not fair. After all, was it Olivia's fault that she had skipped a grade? No. It was not. Her parents and teachers had made her do that. Was it Olivia's fault that she had a late birthday, and that while most of her friends and classmates had already turned twelve, Olivia was still only ten? No. It was not. Olivia had very much enjoyed the surprise one-oh party her friends had given her the previous fall, but it had done nothing to help her catch up with the twelve-year-olds. Was it Olivia's fault that she was small for her age and that she apparently could do absolutely nothing to tame the mass of black curls that bounced around her head like springs? No. It was not. She couldn't help how she was born. Was it Olivia's
fault that what interested her most was not soccer or fashion or dances but birds of prey and weather conditions and chemical properties? Well, maybe that was Olivia's fault. Maybe this summer she could try to expand her interests a bit. But she couldn't just
make
herself interested in something that didn't actually interest her, could she?

Olivia was very grateful that she finally had friends, and that she truly did share interests with them, or at least with Flora and Nikki. Olivia and Ruby had little in common, except that (Olivia had recently realized with horror) she was actually slightly closer in age to Ruby than she was to the others. But Olivia, Flora, and Nikki shared a love of reading and of quieter pursuits. Furthermore, Nikki had set her sights on one day becoming a wildlife artist, which meant she spent a good deal of time studying the animals and insects she drew.

Olivia sighed. She had a feeling she and Nikki and Flora would never be popular kids, not like the older girls Olivia saw hanging around in front of the central school — the very school at which she would become a student in the fall.

Oh, well. Olivia was not going to ruin her summer by worrying about these things. On this cozy, rainy day, she and Flora were happily occupying one of the couches at the front of Needle and Thread. They were lying on their backs, Flora's head resting on one arm of
the couch, Olivia's on the other, their feet just far enough from each other's faces so that neither was tempted to complain about any odors. Gigi and Min were helping customers; Mary Woolsey was working at her table in the back, pinning up the hems on all the dresses for a bridal party; and two women were busily paging through the catalogs of sewing patterns. A peaceful, rainy June afternoon.

Olivia and Flora were reading
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
, having already finished
The Saturdays
. Olivia was turning pages so fast that Flora was beginning to find it annoying, when the door to the store opened and in walked Nikki, holding an envelope in one hand and appearing puzzled.

She fanned the air with the envelope and said, “Look. Look at this.”

“What is it?” asked Olivia, sitting up.

“We sure have been getting some interesting mail at our house lately,” Nikki continued.

“What
is
it?” said Flora.

Nikki sat on the couch between her friends and pulled a card out of the envelope. “It's an invitation.” Nikki paused. “To a pool party at Tanya's house.
Tanya's
.”

“Tanya
Rhodes
?” asked Olivia incredulously, and Nikki nodded.

“Wow,” said Flora.

“It must be a joke,” said Nikki.

Flora and Olivia crowded close to their friend and peered at the card.

“It looks like a regular invitation,” said Flora.

“That's what would make it such a good joke,” replied Nikki. “It doesn't look suspicious at all — so I show up at Tanya's house with last-year's swimsuit, and then Tanya and her friends all laugh at me, like who am I to think I've been invited to swim in Tanya's fancy pool?”

Olivia wrinkled her nose. “But why bother? Tanya never did anything
that
mean to us.”

“She probably
is
having a party,” said Flora, “and her mother made her invite all the girls in our class. If we went home and checked the mail, I'll bet we'd find invitations for Olivia and me, too.”

“Really?” said Nikki.

“Definitely,” Flora and Olivia both said at the same time.

“Okay. Can we go right now?”

Five minutes later, the girls, sharing a giant umbrella loaned to them by Gigi, were walking down Main Street, Olivia slurping her sandaled feet through every puddle she saw.

“Hey, Nikki,” said Olivia, “what did you mean when you said you sure have been getting some interesting mail at your house? What else came?”

“Tobias got a letter from a college. A little college in Connecticut. Leavitt College, I think he said. It turns
out that he secretly applied to a couple of colleges and was wait-listed at Leavitt. He just found out that there's a place for him there this fall
and
he's eligible for a scholarship.”

“Wow,” said Flora. “What's he going to do?”

“I don't know,” replied Nikki. “I mean, it's funny. He never thought about going to college. When my dad was living with us, we just … didn't think about things like that. College was part of some other world. But now Dad is gone, and Mom is in charge. And she's changed so much — I mean in a good way — that she's like another person, really. So anyway, Tobias applied to these colleges, not thinking he would actually get in to them, at least not so soon, and now he has this big decision to make.”

The girls had turned onto Aiken Avenue. They passed the Morrises' house, then Mr. Willet's, then the Malones', and Flora burst out from under the umbrella and ran up her walk. She reached into the mailbox, shuffled through the envelopes she pulled out, and crowed, “Ha! I got one! See?”

Nikki grinned. “Okay. I feel better. Go get yours, Olivia, and then I'll feel totally fine.”

Olivia sprinted across the wet grass to her own mailbox. “Hmm,” she said as she riffled through a stack of envelopes and catalogs. “I don't see one.”

“Look again,” said Flora. “You must have missed it. You have more mail than we do.”

Olivia looked carefully at every envelope. “There's nothing for me,” she said after a moment.

“Well, it'll probably come tomorrow,” said Nikki. “You know how the mail is.”

“I guess,” said Olivia.

Olivia made a point of being at home when the mail was delivered the next day. Her letter carrier was still striding away from the Walters' door when Olivia snatched the mail from the box. No invitation.

There was no invitation the next day, either. Olivia plunked down on her front stoop and allowed Wednesday's mail to spill across her lap. She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands.

Left out again. Only this time it was worse than not being invited to Meagan's skating party in second grade or Jilly's sleepover in fourth grade, because then she hadn't had best friends who
had
been invited.

Olivia's thoughts strayed to September and the start of school — of seventh grade in the big central school for grades seven through twelve, serving students from elementary schools in all the surrounding small towns. A huge school. With the high schoolers right there. Right there with their makeup and iPods and dances and guys who needed to shave.

Olivia buried her face in her hands.

 

“What do you mean, you weren't invited?” exclaimed Ruby shrilly, her hands on her hips.

Olivia knew Ruby was partly acting (she did indeed look convincingly indignant), but partly truly upset on Olivia's behalf.

“I mean that those guys” (Olivia indicated Nikki and Flora, who were sprawled across Olivia's bed in the direct path of an energetically whirling fan) “got invitations days ago, and I didn't get one.”

“Maybe yours got lost in the mail,” said Ruby.

Olivia made a face. “I highly doubt that.”

Ruby, who had been sitting at Olivia's desk, examining the intricate butterflies on a mobile, suddenly gasped and jumped to her feet.

“What's the matter?” asked Flora, looking alarmed.

“I just thought of something!” cried Ruby. “What if, um …” She paused. “Olivia, what if you weren't invited because of, you know … your skin color?”

Olivia gazed out the window. “There are probably a lot of reasons Tanya doesn't want me at her party, but that isn't one of them.”

Ruby looked at Flora and Nikki on the bed. They were shaking their heads.

“Nope,” said Nikki. “Olivia's right. Tanya is half African-American and half Japanese. Skin color doesn't have anything to do with it.”

“I was excluded,” said Olivia, making a face, “not because I'm black, but because I don't fit in with any of the other kids in our class. I never have. Only you guys understand me.”

“I guess it doesn't matter
why
you were left out,” said Ruby. “You were still left out. And that isn't fair.”

“Gigi would say that life isn't fair,” replied Olivia. “And I guess she should know. She
has
been excluded from things because of her skin color.”

“Well, I say that if Olivia wasn't invited to Tanya's party, then Nikki and I shouldn't go,” said Flora. “We'll RSVP that we can't come.” She sat up and folded her arms across her chest.

“Yeah!” exclaimed Ruby. “Good idea. I wish I'd been invited, so I could blow Tanya off, too.”

“No. That doesn't seem right,” said Olivia in a small voice. “I want Nikki and Flora to go. You guys will have fun. You shouldn't miss out because of me.”

“But we barely know Tanya,” said Nikki.

“There's another thing to consider,” Olivia went on. “Nikki, if you and Flora snub Tanya, it isn't going to look very good. I mean, socially. Everything's going to be different when we start seventh grade, and you don't want to have a reputation as the girls who snubbed Tanya, who, I don't have to remind you, is one of the more popular girls in our grade. There's no reason all three of us should start off on the wrong foot at our new school. Who knows what cliques and things will form there. It might be good if you're friends with Tanya and the other girls. You guys should go to the party.”

Grudgingly, Flora and Nikki agreed with Olivia.

 

That night, Olivia sat alone in her bedroom. She pictured Nikki and Flora swimming in Tanya's pool, laughing with their new friends. She pictured them in the fall, being invited to other parties, to dances, to sleepovers. In all of Olivia's fearful imaginings about going to the central school, it had never entered her mind that Flora and Nikki might be pulled away from her. What would she do without them?