Educational leaders were thrown a curveball last night when local students fought back against censorship at the Dogwood school board meeting. Seventh grader June Harper said, “You can let us make reasonable choices about what we read, or you can wrap us in Bubble Wrap and watch us find a way around it.”
School board members have not returned—
Footsteps thud from the next room. I quickly stuff the paper back in the trash and swipe a bran muffin from the stove. The phone rings again.
“Do you realize that every single search engine is going to have your name in it now because of this?” Mom sips coffee in the living room with her back to the kitchen. “Not because of music awards or being accepted to an Ivy League school. Because of this.” But not every adult is like my parents. Ms. Bradshaw taught me that. Some people might even like what I did.
“I know.” The phone rings half a ring, then stops.
“This is who you’re always going to be now.” Sadness laces Mom’s voice.
“This is who I am.” I’m not Kate, and Kate isn’t even who they wanted her to be. I’m me. It’s about time I figured it out.
Mom brings the mug to her lips and blows across the surface. “I hope you don’t regret it, honey.”
“No. It’s worth it.”
She tilts her face over her shoulder and reveals dark, puffy rings under her eyes. “Does Ms. Bradshaw think it’s worth it?”
My pulse quickens. Try to stay calm. Try to stay calm.
The phone rings again.
“That’s not fair.”
“Oh, it’s plenty fair. How was it you put it last night? ‘If it’s not me, it will be three more kids just like me. It’s not going to go away.’ ” She shrugs a shoulder. “Same rule applies to the parents. If it’s not us, it’ll be three more just like us.”
I’d hoped somehow that I’d get through to her, but she still doesn’t get it. I have to make her understand. “Maybe you’re right, Mom. But those three other parents didn’t do it. You did. And now you have to live with it.”
She faces away again.
Could it be she’s actually sorry about Ms. Bradshaw? I have to know. “Was it worth it?” I ask.
She crosses her legs and settles into the couch. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
My shoulders fall. I think about how hard it was to figure out how to be myself when it wasn’t allowed. How the thought of breaking my parents’ hearts kept me awake at night. I couldn’t stop asking myself if it was the right thing to do. And then one day, I knew the answer. I sigh. “It’s okay, Mom. Neither would I.”
I run upstairs with the phone and dial Kate’s number.
She answers on the first ring. “June?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh my gosh! They just played your speech on the Today show.”
“Seriously? The Today show?” I saw all the cameras there, but I never dreamed it would get this big.
“You’re on every show. It’s like the whole country picked up the story.”
“You’re kidding!” They put a password on the remote control after my performance last night, so I can’t check.
“No, and now it’s turned into some kind of national debate. You’ve got everyone talking. The ladies on The View, and Ellen—oh my gosh, Ellen! She opened her show dancing up and down the aisles and giving banned books to audience members. She called the dance the Junebug and dedicated it to you!”
“She what?” My brain can’t keep up with this. It’s all happening so fast. Ellen DeGeneres? It’s more than I could’ve hoped for in a million years. “I had no idea. Dad’s screening all the calls, and I’ve been under lock and key. Feel free to call with info from the outside.”
“I will. How are Mom and Dad doing with all this?”
I shrug. “Mom is pretty upset. Dad won’t even look at me.”
She laughs. “That’s because you won this round.”
If this is winning, I’d hate to see what losing looks like. “I didn’t win. I’m still grounded, we lost Ms. Bradshaw, and everything is still the same.”
“Trust me,” Kate says, a hint of a wry smile in her voice. “You won.”
Everything is gray and cold just before dusk. The trees, the dying grass, the sky. Emma sits at the end of my driveway just like she used to on school mornings.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hey.”
“I’ve been calling all day, but I couldn’t get through.” Her eyes are puffy and red. There’s no makeup on her face. She looks a lot like my best friend, before the last month made her a different person.
I say nothing.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
I sit down next to her. “Why are you here, Emma?”
She presses her lips together and looks up at the old oak tree we used to play under. “I was wrong. Okay? I screwed up, and I can’t take it back.” She wipes her face on her coat sleeve and looks at me. “I wish I could, June. I’d take it all back.”
“He dumped you, didn’t he?”
She sobs. “Yes.” She shakes her head. “But I’m more upset about losing my best friend.”
I hug my knees. “Me too.”
“All I wanted the last two days was to call and tell you how sorry I am.” She looks me right in the eye. “And I am. Sorry.”
“I know.”
We sit in silence under the deepening gray sky, our breath creating a fog around us.
“Do you think it will ever be the same between us?” Emma asks.
I turn to her. “I don’t think it can be.”
Her lower lip trembles. “I know. And I get it.”
I reach out and squeeze her arm. “But maybe we can try.”
She squeezes back. “I’d love that.” She sighs. “For what it’s worth, I’ll always wish I’d been a part of all this.”
I rest my chin in my hand and smile. “You kind of were.”
She looks at me blankly. “What?”
“Remember how you gave me The Graveyard Book?”
“Yeah.”
I shrug. “It was part of my library.”
She shakes her head and grins. “Good. I’m glad.”
We rise to our feet.
“So, I’ll see you in band?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says with a wistful smile. “I’ll see you.”
When she heads home, I dart a look back at the house. I’m grounded, but right now there’s somewhere I need to go.
I shiver in my down coat and walk toward Maple Lane. The first thing I notice is the U-Haul in the driveway of the house with the Little Free Library. The front door is cracked open, even though it’s freezing outside.
For the first time ever, I bypass the Little Free Library and hike up the driveway. I can’t help but peek inside the fogged windowpane. Boxes stand in neat rows, with a roll of packing tape and markers stacked on top.
“Hello?” I call.
There’s no answer. I’ve seen enough movies to know better than to walk into someone’s house uninvited, so I ring the doorbell.
“Just a minute!” a deep voice yells.
I can’t believe I’m just ringing the doorbell, but I have to. If I do nothing else today, I need to meet them.
Someone in jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt walks around the corner with a stack of boxes labeled FRAGILE hiding his face. He drops them to the floor with a clatter. “Can I help you?” His dark eyes blaze under his short black hair, and the faintest bit of stubble traces his jaw.
“Hi, um. I wanted to ask about your library.”
“Oh, that’s not mine. Hang on.” He walks around the corner and hollers, “Honey! I need you a minute!”
Footsteps creak on the old wooden floors.
And there’s Ms. Bradshaw in jeans and a ponytail, l
ooking years younger than I remember her. Her T-shirt reads I LIKE BIG BOOKS (AND I CANNOT LIE). She’s glowing.
I struggle to make my mouth work. “It was you? The whole time?”
She grins. “You found me.”
“I wanted it to be you!” My eyes fill with tears, and I quickly wipe them away.
The incredibly good-looking guy glances from her to me and clears his throat.
“Oh, sorry,” she says. “June, this is Brendan. Brendan, June.”
“Brendan,” I say, my voice traveling up an octave.
“Nice to meet you. Although I have to say I already knew who you were. From the news.” Brendan winks.
Of course he did. Who didn’t see June Harper twirling in the national spotlight?
“Hon, June and I are going to catch up. Would you finish packing the books?”
“I’m on it,” he says, ducking to kiss her on the cheek. “Nice meeting you, June.”
“You too.”
“Come on in,” she says. “How about some hot chocolate?”
“I’d love some.” I could say something else, like I’m sorry; please forgive me or It wasn’t your fault; it was mine. Instead, I trail after her to the kitchen and try to find the words I need to say.
She produces two mugs, fills them with water, and starts the microwave. I take the seat next to her at the table.
“You’re moving.” I feel ridiculous the moment the words are out of my mouth. Of course she’s moving. No one rents a U-Haul unless they’re going somewhere with a lot of stuff. “I didn’t think it would be so soon.”
“They didn’t give me a lot of choice,” she said.
“I feel so bad about it. All of it.” That does nothing to fill the hole in my bleeding conscience.
The microwave beeps.
“I know you do, and you shouldn’t. I knew exactly what I was doing.”
“You’d still have your job if it weren’t for me.”
“For a while, anyway. But there are things I wouldn’t have.” She stirs a cocoa packet into each mug and hands one to me. The heat warms my palms.
“I wouldn’t have an amazing job waiting for me in Boston. And get this—they say I can fill my library with all the banned books I want.” She blows on her mug.
I guess I look surprised, because she says, “June, millions of people saw us on the news this week. Especially you and your message after the meeting ended. My phone has been ringing off the hook with job offers! It’s surreal. One TV show even asked me for an exclusive.”
“I’m really happy for you,” I say. “I just wish it hadn’t happened that way.”
“But it did, and it’s done.” She sips her hot chocolate.
I wish I could be like her and quit dwelling on my part in this. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you give away all of Brendan’s books?”
She puts down her mug. “Ah, groupie. You go straight for the heart, don’t you?”
“I guess. Sorry, I just—I couldn’t figure it out.”
She tilts her head. “I suppose I can tell you now.” She smiles. “I met Brendan in college, and we were so in love we couldn’t see straight. I thought everything would line up neat and pretty after we graduated, but sometimes things don’t work out that way. And sometimes—if you focus on the wrong things—you let a great love slip away.”
“I knew it was a love story!” I can’t wait to tell Matt I was right.
“So when I landed the job here, I told him it would be too hard to stay together long-distance. I just couldn’t do that to him.”
“Um, have you seen him? What were you thinking?”
She laughs. “Yeah, I know. Genius move. So when I finally figured out I’d made the biggest mistake of my life, I sent him a heartbook.”
“A what?”
“A book that touched my heart—there are so many of those. And then I sent another. And another. For three months, I sent him a book every single day. And every single package came back unopened. ‘Return to sender.’ ”
“Oh no!”
“It turns out he had moved. His old roommate didn’t bother to tell him about the packages, either, because Brendan had been so upset when I left.”
“That’s awful!”
“I guess I deserved it, though. So the day I left Dogwood Middle, I came home and put together the Little Free Library. I’d ordered it over the summer and gotten so busy with school that I hadn’t taken the time to put it together. I had all these books, and I hoped maybe they’d find someone who needed them. I waited each morning and afternoon, but no one really checked it out except for the little ones down the street. And then I was drinking coffee by the window one morning, and there you were.”
“I saw you.”
She laughs. “I know. I tried so hard to sneak. I couldn’t let you know it was me.”
“I wish you had.”
“June, because you shared those books, my sending them to Brendan meant something, even though he never received them. And then it got so much better. The Dogwood reporter did a segment before the PTSA meeting about the mysterious books found in a locker, all addressed to ‘Brendan.’ ”
I remember Mr. Beeler waving a book around and talking to the reporter.
She places her hand on my arm and beams at me. “He saw it. Of course, he didn’t think much of it at the time. Just that I lived here and there were a bunch of books addressed to a Brendan. But then he saw the headlines from the national news, and there was no doubt in his mind. He got in the car and drove straight through the night. I found him on my doorstep yesterday morning with coffee and doughnuts.”
“No way.”
“I don’t kid about books. Ever.”
I laugh. “Yeah, you mentioned that.” I trace the edge of the table with my thumb. “I’m glad it worked out for you. I just—I feel like everything was pointless. Look at what happened. Look at what you lost. Don’t you worry it was all for nothing?”
“It wasn’t for nothing, June. Nothing ever is.”
“They’re not going to change.”
“Not today. But they will. I don’t think anyone’s ever told them they’re wrong before, do you?” Her face is full of mischief.
My parents? I laugh. “Definitely not.”
“That takes a while to settle in. It’ll take even longer before they do something about it.”
I sigh. “Meanwhile, you’re escaping and I’m stuck here.”
“Dogwood needs you, June.”
I shake my head. “I wish I could believe that.”
“Give it time. Change happens slowly, but what you have to remember is that it happens. Even when you can’t see it. And then one day, there it is.”
I think about my watercolor painting of the leaves.
“Someday you’ll get to go away to college. Maybe you’ll end up in Boston.”
“Maybe.” It’s more than a maybe. It’s the thought of walls upon walls of books, and Ms. Bradshaw handing me a stack of novels. I see it, and the little flame in my chest flares.
“I heard you were going out with the Whitmore kid. If you are, promise me you won’t give up who you are to make him happy.” Looking at my shocked face, she says, “I’ve been dying to say it, and I wasn’t about to miss the chance to set you straight.”
“I ended it. He wanted me to choose between books and him.”
“And good riddance.” She takes a sip from her mug.
I half grin. “There’s someone else, actually.”
“Do tell.”
“He tried to speak at the meeting, but they cut him off—”
“Oh, the Brownlee kid! I saw that on the news.”
“Yeah.”
“Does he have a problem with you being awesome,
or does he actually let you shine?”
“He helped me run the library.”
“Hmm. He risked it all for books?” She grins. “Or for you?”
“He actually gave me a book from his own collection as a gift. Like you did with Brendan.”
She raises an eyebrow. “And did it work?”
I blush.
She cackles. “Every time! Oh, he’s good. Watch out for that one. He’s making a play straight for your sentimental heart. Trust me.”
I do trust her. So much.
If life were perfect, I’d be able to spend the evening in this cozy little kitchen, but I know I can’t stay. “I should probably get going,” I say. “You have tons of packing left to do.” And I’m eternally grounded.
“Hang on a sec—I have something for you,” she says. She disappears into another room. When she returns, she carries a manila envelope with June written on it. “I was going to put this in the Little Free Library, but now that you’re here, I’ll leave it with you.”
“Thanks.” I wish I had something for her, but it’s not like this was planned.
Before I can rip into it, she says, “Open it later, okay?”
I nod. This is the moment I’ve been dreading since I saw her walk around the corner. I shake my head. “I don’t want to say goodbye.”
“Then we won’t.” She hugs me, and I squeeze back. I think she believes in me more than anyone else on the planet, and she’s leaving me. I don’t want to let her go. I need her to talk to me about books, to show me how to leave the past behind me. Most of all, I need her to teach me how to survive Dogwood without her in it.
“I’m so proud of you, June. If you ever think it was for nothing, it wasn’t. You were reason enough for all of this. The rest of it was just gravy.”
I laugh. Tears sting my eyes and brim at the edges. “Stop it. You’re going to make me cry.”
She pulls away and smiles. Her eyes glisten, and her face is splotchy. “My email is in the package. Keep in touch and let me know what you’re reading, okay? I’ll see you later, groupie.”
I press my lips and try to hold it together. “See you later,” I squeak. And then I force my legs to carry me out the door and down the driveway.
As soon as I’m out of sight of her house, I rip into the package. I flip it over in my hands and suck in my breath. The Makings of a Witch. I sit on the curb and flip to the inside page. There, in the same blue ink as all the inscriptions to Brendan, it reads:
Property of the Rebel Librarian Page 16
