Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World

by Ashley Herring Blake

  “Wait,” Ivy said. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  June went up another step and glanced down at Ivy. “My mom is overreacting, as usual. This treehouse is totally fine. The people who owned this house before us built it, and I heard the real estate agent tell Mom it was barely a year old. Plus, Mom always takes a thirty-minute shower when she gets home, and her room is at the front of the house. We’re good to go.”

  “But—”

  “Come on, Ivy, I want to show you the inside.”

  Ivy’s stomach flickered some more, but she ignored it. The treehouse did look pretty sturdy. The ladder didn’t even creak when she started climbing. By the time Ivy reached the top, June had the door open and Ivy spilled inside. The floor was smooth, and a sweet, woodsy scent filled the entire space.

  But what really grabbed Ivy’s attention was all the stuff.

  Clearly, this was not June’s first trip into the treehouse. There was a camping chair in one corner and a nest of blankets in another, and several books stacked in a neat pile next to an actual lantern. Granola bars and fruit snacks and juice boxes overflowed from a little basket near the door.

  “Wow,” Ivy said.

  June held out her arms. “Behold, my hideaway. Isn’t it glorious?”

  Ivy had to admit that it was glorious. Through the windows, she could see the first stars just starting to peek into the sky.

  “Your mom has no clue you come up here?” Ivy asked.

  “Nope. And she never will if I can help it.” June flipped a switch on the lantern and a golden glow filled the room. Then she plopped into the camping chair and stretched out her legs, her hands folded behind her head. “She’d probably have the thing torn down.”

  “But… why?”

  June shrugged, but Ivy could tell there was more to Dr. Somerset’s rules about the treehouse. Way more.

  Ivy sat in the corner with all the books and blankets. It was a perfect reading nook. She tucked her legs under her and tilted her head at June.

  “Are you the glass girl from your poem?” Ivy asked.

  June shrugged again, but in a way that Ivy knew the answer was yes. “I don’t want to be. That’s the point.”

  Night noises closed in all around them, crickets and a gentle breeze, leaves bumping into each other on their branches.

  “My parents got divorced last year,” June said. “Mom and I left California to come here. Start fresh, she said. She’s just really protective.”

  “Your dad’s still there?”

  “Yeah. I barely see him. And it costs too much to fly out there very often.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  June nodded. “A lot. I miss my mom too. I mean, yeah, she’s always there. Major helicopter parent, but it’s like I miss the way we used—”

  June sucked in a breath and shook her head. “She’s just changed a lot.”

  Ivy didn’t know what to say to that, but she knew exactly how to feel. It wasn’t a good feeling, but it was bright and familiar, and it flowed down her arms and into her fingers.

  “My mom’s changed a lot too,” she said. “Since she’s had the twins. I feel like I barely see her. And now our house is gone, and everything is awful. We haven’t worked on a Harriet story in almost a year.”

  June started to nod, but then she froze, her eyes widening. “What do you mean, a Harriet story?”

  “Oh.” Ivy laughed. “Um. My mom is Elise Hart.”

  June sprang forward in her camping chair and grabbed Ivy’s hand. “What?”

  Ivy laughed again. “It’s true.”

  “That is the coolest thing I’ve ever heard! How did I not know this? I thought your last name was Aberdeen.”

  “It is. Hart was her name before she married my dad. That’s the name she uses to write.”

  “I can’t believe my mom never told me. She’s your mom’s doctor! I feel so betrayed!”

  This girl was so funny. “Well, they probably weren’t talking about Harriet at her pregnancy appointments.”

  “No, I guess not, but oh my gosh! This is amazing!”

  “I guess—”

  “Do you get to help her when she writes?”

  “Um, sometimes—”

  “Oh my gosh, this is you!” She reached over the edge of the chair and pawed at a stack of books, grabbing a thin, tattered paperback. Ivy recognized it immediately. June opened Harriet Honeywell and the Mermaids of Hurricane Cove one-handed and pointed to the dedication: To my brilliant girls, without whom Harriet would never have been born.

  “Um, yeah,” Ivy said.

  “Do you write too? I know you draw like her! You’re so good!”

  “Take a breath, June!”

  June sucked in some air and let it out really slowly. “Sorry. I’ve just never met a real author before. I never thought I would.”

  “It’s fine. I get it.” But fine wasn’t really the right word. Ivy would probably be excited if she met Shannon Hale or Jacqueline Woodson or someone like that, but she just felt so weird about Harriet and her mom lately. She fell silent and pulled her eyes away from the Harriet book. It hurt to see it, like looking at a picture of a friend you don’t talk to anymore.

  June seemed to get that Ivy felt sad about it. She squeezed Ivy’s hand, and Ivy squeezed back. Her belly fluttered and flashed. The feeling was wild and sort of unpredictable, just like a good summer storm. She’d never felt this kind of thing with Taryn or any other friend from school. She wasn’t sure what made June so different, but at the moment, she didn’t care. This was exactly what Ivy had wanted when she drew her first treehouse picture. Someplace that was all her own, where secrets were safe. Of course, this place was all June’s own. But Ivy had a feeling that was exactly what the treehouse was for June too, and she was sharing it with Ivy.

  Then Ivy remembered that her secrets weren’t safe. That was the whole reason Ivy was there. She’d been so distracted by being happy that she’d totally forgotten.

  That bright, fluttery feeling went dark and still. She pulled her hand away from June. “We should probably draw your glass girl,” she said.

  “Right,” June said, her back snapping straight.

  “Maybe you should check on your mom. Just in case.” Ivy’s face burned red as an idea came together, but she hoped it was too dark for June to notice.

  “Good idea. Knowing my mother, she’s probably disinfecting the bottoms of all my shoes right about now.” June sighed and stood up, brushing her hands on her pants. At the ladder, she turned and smiled at Ivy. “Hey. Thanks for coming over tonight. I’ve never shown anyone my treehouse. Or my poems. It… Well, just thanks.” Then she was gone in a flash, climbing down the ladder. Ivy peered over the ledge, inhaling the piney scent of the wood, and watched June disappear into her house.

  Ivy’s fingertips tingled and her breath came fast and hard, but she pushed June’s thanks out of her mind and went to work. She kneeled next to the lantern and unzipped her backpack, dumping out all June’s stuff. Most of the papers were just drawings, but the journal was what interested Ivy the most.

  Ivy started in the back, flipping until she came to the most recent entries. She felt worse and worse with every page turn. She hunted for her name, for any hint that June was the keeper of her secrets, but nothing dated since the storm said anything about Ivy.

  It did say a lot about June, though. Ivy’s attention snagged on certain words over and over again. Words like lonely and wish and want.

  One poem in particular, written before the storm, intrigued Ivy so much that she read it twice.

  They don’t know I watch them.

  I am a spy, a lonely girl with a mission,

  trying to see what I missed.

  They laugh and I want to know the joke.

  Their eyes widen and I want to know the gossip.

  But they’re too far away, happy without me.

  They see me, but they don’t see me,

  and I am no longer a spy.

  I
am a girl tucked in bed,

  hidden away in her cage forever.

  It was so pretty and sad. It didn’t rhyme, but Ivy knew not all poems did. Free verse is what her language arts teacher called it. She remembered that Emily Dickinson’s poems hardly ever rhymed. Or made any sense, for that matter. But they made Ivy feel something. And June’s poem did the same thing. Maybe that was what poetry was. Feeling.

  Ivy scanned the poem again, noticing the date scribbled at the top. It was barely two weeks old. She had so many questions. Who were they? Why did June feel like a spy, and why was she tucked in bed when all she wanted was a friend?

  She was so busy rereading and wondering, her curiosity speeding up her heart, she didn’t hear the soft footfalls climbing the ladder.

  “What’re you doing?”

  Ivy jumped nearly a foot in the air, and June’s journal slipped out of her lap. It knocked over the lantern, which spun and spun on its side so that the whole treehouse seemed lit by a disco ball.

  “Oh. Um… nothing,” Ivy said, scrambling to her feet and righting the lantern. “I was just looking for that glass girl poem.”

  June frowned and bent down to pick up her journal. It was still open to the poem June never showed Ivy, the poem Ivy never should have read. June’s eyes flitted over the words, her frown growing deeper and heavier.

  “I’m sorry,” Ivy said. “I didn’t mean to see it. I just—”

  But she couldn’t go on because that was a lie too.

  June closed the book and hugged it to her chest. Her lower lip trembled, and Ivy didn’t know what to do. June’s expression was horrible. Not horrible in an ugly way, but horrible in a sad, lonely way. Ivy never wanted to see that expression again. She wanted to make June smile like she had when they’d first drawn whales in the school library. June had been so happy, and it was such a simple thing, those little cartoon whales. At that very moment, Ivy didn’t even care about her own notebook or who had it or who didn’t.

  “I’m really sorry,” Ivy said again.

  June nodded. “I think I can manage my glass girl on my own now. Thanks.”

  “June—”

  “My mom’s almost done with her shower. I better get inside.”

  June gathered up all her loose papers into a neat little stack and tucked them inside the journal while Ivy watched. She felt helpless, her cheeks hot with shame.

  Without another word, June climbed down the ladder, leaving Ivy all alone in the treehouse.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  A Real Girl

  That night, Ivy couldn’t sleep. When she was sure she wouldn’t wake anyone up, she slipped out of the bed she shared with Layla and crept into the bathroom. The only decent place she could stretch out comfortably was in the tub, so she climbed in and pulled the curtain closed around her. She balanced the yellow notebook Robin had given her on her lap, pencil poised.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about June and what happened in the treehouse. She wanted to make it up to June somehow, even though she knew nothing would ever make up for what she did. A lump stuck in Ivy’s throat. She thought about her notebook and how awful Ivy felt that it was out there, being looked at and inspected without her permission.

  And she had done the exact same thing to June.

  One thing she was sure about: June was not the keeper of her biggest secret. She couldn’t be. No one who looked as sad and embarrassed as June had could have left that note in Ivy’s locker.

  But if it wasn’t June, then who was it?

  Ivy shook off the thought for now, determined to make things right with June. She let her pencil move on its own. She didn’t think. She just drew. She didn’t want to draw June’s glass girl—that was for June to create—but she did want June to see how Ivy saw her.

  As a real girl, no glass in sight.

  The lines formed, the curves swooped over the paper, eyes and face and mouth and body. Ivy used the pencils she got from Robin to fill in the color. When she was finished, Ivy was out of breath and her stomach was full of lightning bolts again, but she was smiling too.

  She sat back, the cold porcelain of the tub seeping through her borrowed T-shirt, and took in her drawing.

  A girl, pixie haired and smiling, was floating above the ocean, rays arrowing out from behind her, where a brilliant red-orange sun was rising. The water was a beautiful turquoise, a color it took Ivy at least thirty minutes to get right, mixing the blues and greens until it was perfect. The girl had her arms and fingers spread, like she was about to hug the whole world. Her legs dangled in the air, bare feet relaxed, a simple white dress flowing around her calves. Despite the rising sun, stars sparkled in the sky next to a crescent moon.

  It was June’s world. And Ivy wanted anything to be possible inside of it… even a girl who flew above a turquoise sea.

  The next morning, after she’d choked down yet another granola bar, Ivy left early for school while Mom was busy wiping Aaron’s leaky nose. Dad had already left for work, and Layla was grumbling over the chemistry homework she’d left undone.

  Ivy stole down the quiet streets, newly washed in the morning sun. It had rained during the night, a gentle and safe sprinkle that Ivy let lull her to sleep after she’d stayed awake for hours drawing, and now the pavement shined like polished silver.

  When she reached Cherry Street, she slowed down. This morning, June’s house looked a little different. For one thing, it was sage green with a raspberry-red trim. Ivy was so focused on her mission when she got there yesterday, she could’ve sworn it was a dull beige trimmed with a slightly darker dull beige like all the other houses. But of course June’s house would never be beige.

  Ivy tiptoed up the front steps. Everything was quiet. It was early enough that June might not even be awake yet, but Ivy certainly didn’t want to get caught. Before she could back out, Ivy took the picture she drew last night out of her backpack and slid it through the mail slot in June’s front door.

  For a split second, she wished she could take it back. Her stomach felt funny again, like it did yesterday in the treehouse before Ivy had gone and ruined everything. What if she’d ruined everything forever and June never talked to her again? What if June hated the picture? Ivy couldn’t remember ever wanting someone to love a picture as much as she wanted June to love this one.

  What if… what if… what if…

  “Breakfast, June!” Dr. Somerset called from somewhere inside. Ivy stumbled backward. Her feet tangled, and she grabbed the arm of a rocking chair so she wouldn’t fall down the stairs. When she righted herself, she didn’t waste any time turning around and running to school as fast as her still-sore ankle would carry her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Crush

  June ignored Ivy in homeroom. Or maybe she was just so focused on whatever she was drawing that she didn’t notice Ivy. Or maybe she despised Ivy now and hated the picture Ivy drew for her, and their friendship was over and done with forever and ever.

  When the bell rang, Ivy didn’t stick around to see if June might talk to her. Not knowing was better. Not knowing still meant possibility. Ivy didn’t think she could handle June walking right past her and not even saying hi. Ivy made a beeline out the door and sat in her first-period class by herself while everyone else chattered in the hallway for five minutes.

  By lunchtime, Ivy still hadn’t spoken to June, but there was a note in her locker. As soon as Ivy saw it, her palms started to sweat.

  It was another one of her stormy drawings. In this one, she was with a girl who had white-blond hair, inside a treehouse that was made completely of jewels. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and sapphires—the scene sparkled around the two girls. Clipped to one corner of the drawing was a small square of paper. Ivy thought about the question she’d left in her locker the day before—Talk about what?—and her hands shook as she reached for the answer. She pressed against her locker as much as she could without actually crawling inside and read the message.

  You know what.


  Here, an arrow angled down toward the two girls. Except instead of a point on the end of the arrow, there was a heart. A heart. It was even colored red. Ivy felt sure she was going to throw up right there. She swallowed it down enough to finish reading the message.

  You don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s okay. You can have your notebook back when you talk to someone about it. I think it will help.

  Ivy blinked and read it again. Her drawings didn’t embarrass her; they confused her. They scared her. Because she never wanted to draw a boy in those treehouses and she didn’t really understand why. Because she did want to talk to someone about it—she had tried, that night when she went to Layla’s room with her stormy drawing and Layla had broken her best friend’s heart because Gigi didn’t think about boys either.

  She glanced around the hallway, looking for someone who might be watching her read. Drew was across the hall, but his back was to her, and he was digging in his locker. Then again, maybe he was just playing it cool—he was in the gym that day.

  You’re really good. If you do a drawing of the tornado, will you show me?

  That’s what he’d said to her, barely minutes before she found the first picture in her locker yesterday. He’d been so interested in seeing Ivy’s drawings. She narrowed her eyes at him, wondering why he would care so much.

  As though he knew she was thinking about him, he turned around and waved at her, smiling. Ivy didn’t smile back. In fact, she scowled. Drew’s smile dimmed, and he shook his head before walking down the hall with Miles Brecker toward Mr. Santorini’s math classroom.

  Seething, Ivy put the drawing back in her locker before she ripped out a piece of paper from her science folder. She scribbled a reply.

  Help what? I’m fine. Give me my notebook back.

  “Hey, did you see Drew today?” Taryn asked from behind Ivy. Ivy startled and dropped her pencil. What’s worse, she dropped the note she’d just written, and Taryn stooped to pick it up.