The Secret Cookie Club (18 page)

You already know the answer to that one, but I knew it was hard on my mom that she couldn't give me things, so I tried to sound casual. “Yeah, I guess. I had a good time.”

Mom sighed and said, “We'll see.” Then she gave me a squeeze and a kiss. “Good night, honey.”

Lucy

The next day at school was completely ordinary except that we had art, which is only twice a week. You already know about my bricolage. That day, I cut out pieces of the labels, the mail, and the recycling that I'd brought from home. Some I glued to my cardboard frame, and some I suspended inside the frame from clear thread. Then I painted some numbers and suspended them, too.
They were supposed to look like the ones on the microwave timer.

Emmaline was working beside me. Her bricolage was made of old coat hangers twisted into a shape like a birdcage. She had been trying to decide what to put inside.

Mrs. Coatrak stopped by and watched us work. “Wonderful! Wonderful! So creative,” she said. “Never mind the structural issues, Lucy. Those we can work out later.”

“Structural issues?” I repeated. “Are there structural issues?”

“You know,” said Mrs. Coatrak. “Like how will you get it to stand up? It isn't going to balance very well on its point.”

“It isn't?” I said.

“
Duh
, Lucy,” said Emmaline.

“Oh,” I said. “I hadn't thought of that.”

*  *  *

I don't watch the triplets on Friday, and I had all weekend for homework. So after I got home and greeted
Nana and made sure there was something to scrounge for dinner, I got out pen, stationery, and the letter from O to write her back.

Friday, May 20

Dear Equally Exalted and About-to-Be World Famous O,

It was awesome to get your letter and to think about Moonlight Ranch and you and Emma and Grace (and Hannah and Vivek). I forgot I missed you till your letter arrived.

I am fine too, because—like Nana would say—I am healthy and young. It is wrong to complain, she says, when you have food to eat and a roof over your head and not even a cold or a headache.

Even after my cat died, I did not complain. She was only a stray cat
anyway. Easy come, easy go, Nana said. I buried her in the weeds that used to be a flower bed. My mom felt bad too, and she and I stood over the grave, and she read a poem about cat names by Eliot-somebody. Then I cleared the patch of weeds and put up a rock-and-Popsicle-stick headstone and planted marigolds, so now there is a tiny square in our yard that looks loved.

Change of topic: I have to explain something and I hope you will not think I am being pathetic. I would really, really, really (!!!) like to go back to Moonlight Ranch this summer.

We must all obey Emma, right?

But also I liked being there. Even though Grace and Emma and you and I were all different, we were all the same because we did cleanup chores together and lived in Flowerpot together and ate
together and practiced for the talent show together.

Does that make sense?

Change of topic: I know how you want me to get a phone or a computer, but this is impossible because my nana does not believe in screens. She thinks they are bad for developing brains, and she thinks my brain is still developing.

A standing ovation from me for your super job playing the princess! Way to go, O! At school, I am working on an art project that my teacher says she is going to submit for a prize if I can keep it from falling on the floor and getting destroyed. I like making art like you like theater.

I guess I want flour power to help me figure out a way to go to Moonlight Ranch this summer, but I don't see how that's possible. I like most cookies, I think. I
will probably share with Arlo, Mia, and Levi, and it will be easier if I don't have to clean them up after, so maybe not messy cookies.

Love ya always, Lucy

P.S. Did you see on the last day of camp that Vivek gave Grace something? And I asked Grace about it, too, but she won't say what!

I didn't have a cookie sticker, but I had some glittery cupcake ones that had been party favors at Emmaline Woolsey's birthday, so I put two on the envelope, and then I stamped hearts and ponies on it with my green inkpad, the only one that wasn't dried up.

*  *  *

The next afternoon, Saturday, I was supposed to watch the triplets for a couple of hours. On the way down the street, I noticed a missing cat flyer posted on a stick in
the front yard of one of our neighbors:
REWARD! MUCH BELOVED PET MISSING. PLEASE CALL BRIANNA,
and the phone number.

At Kendall's house, the triplets attached themselves to my arms and legs while I told their mom about the flyer.

She shook her head. “Poor Brianna. On the news they're saying predators like raccoons and coyotes are extra bold this year because it's been so dry. They get thirsty and hungry, too, so they come into neighborhoods like ours and scout around.”

“You mean they scout around for
pets
?” I said.

Kendall shrugged. “If they find them—and also pet food if you leave it outside, and trash, and water from the garden hose. Poor things. They're just trying to live too.”

*  *  *

The next week I scored four soccer goals in gym class the next week, and in art I worked on my bricolage. Finally, on Friday, I solved the “structural problem” by hanging the whole thing from the ceiling like a mobile.

“Wonderful! Beautiful!” Mrs. Coatrak said.

“Does it have a name?” Emmaline asked me.

“It does,” I said. “ ‘The Kitchen Is the Heart of the Home.' ”

Emmaline frowned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

I shrugged. “I thought of it while I was doing dishes. Maybe because it's where families eat? So the only time they're ever together is in the kitchen. And, you know—love? Togetherness? Family?”

“You don't even like your family,” Emmaline said. “You always say your mom tries to act your sister, and your grandma is mean.”

“Do I?”

“Yes,”
said Emmaline.

“I don't mean it,” I said.

“Then why do you say it?”

“I mean it when I say it but not the rest of the time,” I clarified.

Our family history is kind of different. My dad is a lot older than my mom. She quit college to marry him when he had a big job and a lot of money, but then he did
something wrong, something called fraud, which is a kind of stealing. He had to go to prison; there wasn't any more money; my mom and I moved in with my grandmother.

I was in kindergarten when my dad got out of prison. I thought things would be like before, but my mom didn't want to be married anymore—or anyway, not to him. So they got divorced.

Now sometimes he sends me funny cards.

“It's a good thing I'm your best friend,” said Emmaline, “because otherwise I would think you're really weird.”

“I know it's good,” I said, and then I looked at Emmaline's project. “Change of topic: What are you going to put inside your birdcage?”

In the art room, we sit on tall stools to work. Emmaline's backpack was under her stool. Now she reached down, unzipped a compartment, pulled out a Lego piece, and showed me.

“Is that Princess Leia?” I asked.

“I'm going to glue her to a cork from a wine bottle, like a pedestal. Then glue the whole thing in the middle of the cage,” she said.

I thought for a minute. “So is it about how freedom suffered in the time of the empire—in the Star Wars movies, I mean?”

“Yeah, that's it,” she said. “And also she was the only Lego piece my little brother would let me borrow.”

I laughed. “And you're saying
mine
doesn't make sense?”

“Mine doesn't have to.
You're
the artist,” Emmaline said.

I looked back at my heart. “It still needs something.”

*  *  *

That night in the kitchen, I was moving the mail aside when I saw an envelope with the return address of Moonlight Ranch and red letters:
LAST CHANCE
.

Uh oh. Would Aunt Freda come through? Had she gotten the same letter?

Lucy

In my house, phone calls don't usually last longer than a grunted “No thanks” and the click of Mom or Nana hanging up. But when the phone rang the next morning, I heard Mom's singsong voice from the living room and knew she must be talking to a real person.

Maybe Aunt Freda? And if so, was she telling Mom she could pay for Moonlight Ranch again this year? I crossed my fingers.

The singsong continued and then got louder, to the point where I could understand what my mother was saying: “She's right here in her room, Freda, no doubt doing homework. You know how conscientious she is. Hold on.”

My mother knocked, and I counted to ten before opening the door. My mom mouthed, “Aunt Freda,” then rolled her eyes and opened and closed her hand in the sign that meant “yak, yak, yak.”

I took the phone from her. “Hello, Aunt Freda. How are you?”

“Lucy! How nice to hear your voice. How have you been? Tell me what's new at school. Tell me everything.”

I told her about the triplets and school and my bricolage, and she listened. As far as I could tell, she wasn't driving or cleaning the bathtub or shaving her legs either. She was giving me all her attention.

“Fantastic!” she interjected at appropriate moments, or, “Oh dear. That's not optimal.”

Finally, I realized I was going yak, yak, yak. “Oh, Aunt Freda, I'm sorry,” I said. “You probably have other things to do.”

“Nothing more important than you, Lucy. I am so glad to hear all your news. Now, listen, I have something to tell you, too, and I hope it won't be devastating.”

My heart sank . . . and so did I, right down onto my bed.

“Honey, I've had an unfortunate year in the finance department, and I just can't see my way clear to pay for Moonlight Ranch this summer.”

To keep my voice steady, I paused before I answered. “That's okay, Aunt Freda. I might be too old for summer camp anyway.”

“Oh?”

“I really liked it last year,” I reassured her. “Thank you again for sending me.”

We didn't talk much longer, and when I said good-bye I took the phone back to the living room and dropped down on the sofa. I told my brain not to think about Moonlight Ranch or Flowerpot Cabin or Grace and Emma and Olivia—so what my brain did was think about Moonlight Ranch and Flowerpot Cabin and Grace and Emma and Olivia.

Typical.

It didn't make me feel better that the sunlight filtering through the frayed old drapes revealed how dusty and shabby the room was.

It doesn't matter, I told myself. We only use the living room as a hallway. No one ever visits us, and when my mom and Nana and I are home at the same time, we hide out in our own bedrooms.

I don't know how long I sat there, but finally the
whoosh
of brakes outside told me a truck had stopped. The mail? No, it was too late for that. I turned around and looked out—a FedEx truck. That was unusual. We never order anything . . . and now the driver was coming up the walk carrying a box.

Probably a mistake.

I went to the front door and opened it at the same time the driver rang the bell.

“Lucy Ambrose?” he asked.

“Oh, that's me,” I took the box.

“Sign here,” he said, “and be careful. It says ‘fragile.' ”

I looked at the return address: Baron, Kansas City, Missouri.