Keeping Secrets

by Ann M. Martin

  Harriet laughed. “If we have it!” she said. “Nikki, come take a look in the van.”

  Nikki peered through the back doors. She counted eleven enormous bags of chow.

  “You’re my sixth stop today, and I have two more to go. Believe me, we’re grateful to people like you who help strays.”

  Nikki smiled.

  Harriet heaved a bag of food out of the van. “Oof.” She straightened up. “So, is Paw-Paw going to walk in the dog parade?”

  “Definitely. I promised Mae we’d make his costume soon.”

  “The newspaper ad is going to run at the end of the week,” said Harriet. “Five dollars to enter the parade, and everyone who comes to watch will be encouraged to contribute. We’ll have volunteers up and down Main Street with canisters for donations. Did you see the posters? We put them up on October first. Nikki, you had a wonderful idea.”

  “Thank you,” said Nikki, patting Paw-Paw and looking at the ground.

  Harriet gazed across the Shermans’ yard. “Are you concerned about any of the dogs that are coming by?” she asked.

  “Well,” said Nikki thoughtfully, “three of them look okay. You know, scruffy and they probably have some fleas, but basically okay. The fourth one is limping, though. And I think she has a tick on her neck.”

  “Will she let you get close to her?”

  Nikki shook her head. “Nope. And I’ve tried lots of times.”

  “Do you think she’s feral?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe not exactly feral. She doesn’t run away from me. I think she might just be hand shy.”

  Harriet paused. Then she said, “I guess I should try to trap her.”

  “Okay.” Nikki and Harriet both knew what that meant. Trapping a specific dog, even with a humane trap, wasn’t as straightforward as it sounded. Any kind of animal could wind up in the trap, including one of the other dogs. Once, Harriet had set a trap, and later that day Nikki found Paw-Paw sitting grouchily in it.

  “Will you be able to check the trap tonight and again tomorrow before you leave for school?” asked Harriet. “I’ll want to come pick up the dog as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll make time,” said Nikki.

  Harriet grinned. “I can’t ask for more.”

  Nikki and Harriet set the trap, placing a dog biscuit at the back and carefully setting the door so that it would shut — and lock — behind the dog when she nosed inside for the treat. Then Nikki called good-bye to Harriet, returned to the house, and sat down at the kitchen table, her schoolbooks stacked beside her, Paw-Paw dozing at her feet. She was reading an amazingly dull paragraph about the French Revolution for what she estimated was the seventh time when the phone rang, startling her and causing Paw-Paw to leap to his feet, barking mightily.

  “Thank you for protecting me from the telephone,” Nikki said to him as she pressed the TALK button. “Hello?”

  “Hello, little sis.”

  “Tobias!”

  “How’s everything?”

  “Great. But I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. Is Mom there?”

  “Nope. No one else is home yet.”

  “Oh.” Tobias sounded disappointed. “I didn’t look at the time before I called.”

  “Is something going on?”

  “Something good.”

  “What? What?”

  “What are you guys doing the first weekend in November?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “I just found out that the first Saturday in November is family visiting day at Leavitt. I was hoping you and Mom and Mae could come.”

  Nikki let out a small shriek. “Yes! Yes, oh, yes, oh, yes! Come visit you at college? I’ve been waiting for this! I want to see everything! I want to see your dorm and the science center — didn’t you say there’s a greenhouse? — and the library and the theatre —” Nikki could hear Tobias laughing. “I want to see everything!” she exclaimed again.

  “Do you think Mom has to work that day?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s a month away. I’m sure she can figure something out. Then it’ll just be …” Nikki’s voice trailed off.

  “I know,” said Tobias.

  Nikki sighed. “For starters, she’ll have to drive to a strange place.”

  “I’ll give you directions.”

  “And I’ll get maps,” said Nikki. “But also … Mom will feel out of place at Leavitt.” Nikki thought of her mother, whose parents had barely allowed her to graduate from high school. For her, college had been out of the question, not even a consideration. Nikki knew Mrs. Sherman was proud of Tobias. She also knew her mother felt he had entered a world that was as foreign to her as Greece (a country Nikki hoped to visit one day). “She’ll be afraid she won’t fit in with the other college parents.”

  “I know. I mean, I know that’s how she’ll feel. We’ll have to handle this very delicately.”

  “With finesse,” said Nikki.

  “With tact,” said Tobias.

  “Maybe I could bribe her,” said Nikki, and Tobias laughed again.

  “I’ll call back tonight and talk to her,” said Tobias. “I want to show you all around the campus, and we could have lunch in the student center.”

  Nikki closed her eyes and imagined visiting a college town and touring an actual college campus. She imagined meeting Tobias’s roommates and walking under a wrought iron archway that read LEAVITT COLLEGE. She didn’t know how she and Tobias were going to convince their mother to make the trip, but she knew they had to make it happen somehow.

  Camden Falls, Massachusetts, puts on appropriate finery for every season of the year. In winter, icicles glisten from under the eaves and green wreaths appear on red doors. In spring, the trees are tinged with a breathtaking pale green, the exact shade as young grasshoppers. In summer, hydrangeas puff out, fat as cotton candy, lavender and blue and white. And in autumn, Main Street is lined with grinning orange jack-o’-lanterns, and Mr. Freedly comes by to fasten sheaves of bristling cornstalks to the lampposts.

  If you were to walk down Main Street on an afternoon in early October, you would see signs of autumn and Halloween and Thanksgiving on the sidewalks and in the stores and even on some of the people who pass by. There’s Alyssa Morris, a proud kindergartner, walking hand in hand with her mother. On her head, Alyssa wears a paper crown decorated with ghosts and black cats that she made with her beloved art teacher at Camden Falls Elementary earlier today.

  Peek in the shop windows and you’ll see candy corn and strings of pumpkin lights and mechanical monsters (one of which terrified Alyssa last autumn, but she won’t fall for that now). In the window of Sincerely Yours, the shop owned by Olivia’s family, is a tray of candy apple witches. In the window of Needle and Thread is an array of Halloween costumes (some for dogs), the supplies for which can be purchased inside. The windows of Frank’s Beans, the coffee shop, are draped with orange and brown crepe paper, and in each corner sits a cardboard turkey.

  This is Main Street in Camden Falls at the start of another October. The days are noticeably shorter now, and as Alyssa and her mother pass College Pizza, Mrs. Morris says, “Goodness, it’s starting to get dark. Time to go home.”

  If you were to walk with the Morrises now, you would find that their home is just a few minutes away. At the end of the block, turn left on Dodds Lane, then turn right on Aiken Avenue, and ahead on your left you’ll see the Row Houses. Alyssa has lived in the Row Houses for her entire life, but she’s just five and the Row Houses were built more than one hundred and twenty years before she was born. The huge granite structure is unlike anything else in Camden Falls. The eight three-story homes were once owned by wealthy families with maids and chauffeurs, and are now owned by a variety of families, some with children, some with pets, some with children and pets, but absolutely no one with a maid or a chauffeur.

  Darkness is falling fast now, and Alyssa and her mother hurry into their house. Lights are blinking on in the Row Houses and in windows up an
d down Aiken Avenue and beyond. Behind the windows, in rooms of all sizes and colors and shapes, the people of Camden Falls are living their lives. When the Morrises enter their home, Mrs. Morris turns on the lights in the living room and then the ones in the kitchen. The three older Morris children are at after-school activities and Mr. Morris is still at work. “Come help me fix dinner,” Mrs. Morris says to Alyssa, and Alyssa carefully removes her crown. She wants it to stay fresh and clean, since she plans to keep it her entire life.

  Next door to the Morrises, the Willets’ old house sits in darkness, awaiting its new owners. In the house next to that, the Malones’, one window on the second floor glows softly. Behind this window sits Margaret Malone, busily working away at her college applications and wondering where her younger sister is. Lydia has been grounded by Dr. Malone and was supposed to come home directly after school.

  On the other side of the Malones’ house is the one belonging to Min, Flora, and Ruby. In this house, lights are on everywhere. Min is still working at Needle and Thread, but Ruby and Flora are at home, and Ruby turned on the light in the kitchen when she got a snack, and then the light in the living room when she was looking for her socks, and then the light in the dining room when she stooped to pat her cat, King Comma (who was napping under the table), and then the light in the bathroom, which she forgot to turn off on her way out, and finally the light in her bedroom, where she is now practicing for tomorrow’s rehearsal of the Camden Falls Children’s Chorus. “Every honeybee … fills with jealousy!” sings Ruby. She’s very excited about the next performance by the chorus, which will be a revue of songs by Fats Waller.

  Across the hall from Ruby, Flora is sitting on her floor. Her schoolbooks are stacked on her desk and she supposes she should be doing her homework, but her mind is on a few other things. Spread around her on the floor are several pieces of fabric recently purchased at Needle and Thread (Min gives Flora a discount on N & T merchandise but will not allow her to bring things home for free) — three patterns, all for vests; several cards of buttons; and two patterns for making costumes for medium-size dogs. Flora is trying to concentrate, both on the vests and on Daisy’s daisy costume, but her thoughts keep wandering, mostly to Min and Mr. Pennington. What would you call them? Girlfriend and boyfriend? Speaking of which, is Jacob really Olivia’s boyfriend now? Are Min and Mr. Pennington young enough to be considered girlfriend and boyfriend? Are Olivia and Jacob old enough to be considered girlfriend and boyfriend? Why doesn’t Flora have a boyfriend yet? Does she want one?

  Flora makes a face. She reaches for the vest patterns and places them in a row in front of her. Then she holds one above a length of plaid fabric. Usually, this is Flora’s favorite part of any project — the planning stage. But right now she just can’t concentrate.

  “Ruby?” Flora calls.

  “Two sleepy people by dawn’s early light!” sings Ruby.

  Flora tries to focus on the vests.

  Next door to Flora, Olivia’s house is busy. Her mother has just returned from Sincerely Yours, and Olivia and her brothers are beginning their homework. Olivia is patiently working through a math problem when she hears the phone ring. Seconds later, Jack calls, “Olivia, it’s your boyfriend!”

  Leave the Row Houses now and walk through Camden Falls to the house purchased earlier this year by Flora and Ruby’s aunt Allie, a writer. Allie is something of a mystery to Flora and Ruby. She’s a bit hard to get to know (although she tries hard where her nieces are concerned), and just a few weeks earlier Flora and Ruby came across a closet full of brand-new baby clothes in her house. They found that particularly interesting since Allie is single. Here she is now, sitting in her study in front of her computer. She saves the changes she made to her new novel and turns to her e-mail. Her eyes widen when she sees the screen address pmaulden. Paul. She hasn’t heard from Paul since she left New York City to return to Camden Falls. She can actually feel her chest tighten as she clicks on his name.

  If you were to leave town now and travel several miles out on the county road, you’d come to the home of Nikki Sherman. She and her mother and Mae are sitting together on the couch, unwinding in front of the television for a few minutes before it’s time for supper and homework and baths and stories. “Mom?” says Nikki tentatively. “Did you have a chance to think about the trip to Leavitt yet?”

  Several miles from Camden Falls in a different direction lies Three Oaks, the retirement community where Mr. and Mrs. Willet now live. They live separately, since Mrs. Willet resides in the wing for people with Alzheimer’s, and Mr. Willet has his own apartment. But Mr. Willet is relieved and happy to be just minutes from his wife instead of miles. It’s almost dinnertime now, and Mr. Willet is getting ready to go downstairs to the dining room. He likes the dining room, but he can’t help thinking longingly of his old house on Aiken Avenue.

  Sixty-four miles from Camden Falls, in another small town, this one in New Hampshire, Willow Hamilton, who recently turned twelve, looks around her bedroom. For two days she has been methodically packing up the things in her room. She has insisted on doing this by herself. She doesn’t want help, particularly not her mother’s. It’s bad enough that downstairs in the kitchen her mother has insisted on washing absolutely every item before she places it in a packing carton. She will, Willow knows, wash each item again before it can be put away in the new house. There’s a hollow feeling in Willow’s stomach, as if something bad is on the horizon. She closes her eyes and tries to picture her new home on Aiken Avenue.

  Olivia Walter rolled out of bed, crossed her room, and looked at the calendar over her desk. Olivia was able to go from sound asleep to wide-awake in a matter of seconds — when she felt like it. Sometimes, especially on a weekend morning, Olivia would wake briefly, then curl into a ball and slip farther down toward the end of her bed, her entire body under the covers. But often, Olivia heard her alarm go off, and — bing! — she was awake. That had happened on this October morning, and the moment her eyes were open, she thought about her birthday and the fact that in a little under a month she would finally turn eleven. True, some of her classmates had already turned thirteen, but at least Olivia (who had skipped second grade) would be able to stop saying she was ten.

  Olivia released a massive sigh as she remembered the year before, when she couldn’t wait to turn ten — to have two numbers in her age and to celebrate her big one-oh. Now all she wanted was to be another year older.

  Olivia was moving so fast that by the time she finished letting out her sigh she was already standing in front of her desk, looking at the November page on her wall calendar. She counted the days until her eleventh birthday. Just under thirty. Not bad. She decided she didn’t even care about a party this year. Simply turning eleven would be exciting enough.

  If she could have a birthday wish, just a single little wish — one that was guaranteed to come true, of course — she knew what it would be. She would wish that Melody Becker and Tanya Rhodes had never been born. Wait a minute. That sounded a bit harsh. Maybe she should rephrase her wish. She considered this as she opened her wardrobe and scanned her sweaters. Perhaps what she meant was that she would wish Melody and Tanya weren’t mean to her. That sounded better, although a bit flimsy. Didn’t she really wish that they were, in fact, nice to her? No, not necessarily. Well, maybe.

  What she wished for was no trouble at school.

  Olivia selected a sweater, a shirt, and a pair of jeans. Her thoughts were a jumble. In the same moment that she was thinking about a world in which Melody and Tanya were nice to her, she was also wondering if they would see her outfit today and make fun of it. It wouldn’t be the first time. Didn’t they understand how difficult it was to find sophisticated-looking clothes when she was forced to shop in the children’s department? (Not only was Olivia still ten, she was small for her age.)

  “A pox on Melody and Tanya,” said Olivia aloud. “Especially on Melody.”

  Melody was Olivia’s nemesis, a word she had discovered re
cently in a mystery story.

  “A pox!” said Olivia more loudly.

  “Olivia?” called her mother from the hallway. “Everything all right in there?”

  “Yes,” answered Olivia, and she could feel herself blushing.

  She saw her sneakers by the bed, jammed them onto her feet, and headed for the bathroom, grateful that Melody and Tanya could be balanced — outweighed, actually — by all the good things in her life, especially Nikki, Flora, and Ruby, her true friends.

  The year before, back when Olivia still went to Camden Falls Elementary, she and Flora and Ruby had walked to school together every day and waited outside to meet Nikki’s bus. This year, Olivia, Flora, and Ruby could walk together only one block, to the point at which Aiken Avenue intersected with Dodds Lane. There, Ruby turned right, heading for the elementary school, usually side by side with Lacey Morris, while Olivia and Flora turned left to continue their walk to the central school on the other side of town, where once again they would meet Nikki’s bus.

  “There she is,” said Flora that morning, as a line of students, some of them looking very sleepy, was disgorged from a Camden Falls Central School District bus.

  “Hi!” Nikki called as she ran to her friends. “Guess what.”

  “What?” said Olivia. “Something good?”

  “Yup. My mom said we can visit Tobias next month.”

  “Really? That’s great!” said Flora.

  “I know.” Nikki grinned. “She’s nervous about it, but she’s going to do it. And I’ll get to see a real college.”

  The girls joined the students streaming through the front entrance of their school. Olivia never ceased to be impressed by some of the oldest students, the ones in eleventh and twelfth grades. Would she ever — ever — be as tall or as, well, shapely as they were? She glanced down at her perfectly flat chest and stick-straight body. It didn’t seem likely.

  “Hey!” said Flora. “Look at that.”

  Olivia and Nikki turned in the direction in which Flora was pointing, and along one wall of the main hallway saw an enormous hand-lettered sign announcing …