Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World

by Ashley Herring Blake

  “I get that now,” Taryn said. “I promise, I get it.”

  Ivy nodded. “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  And it was. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. Ivy knew that Taryn loved her just as she was. That was one good thing that Keeper had given them both.

  “This is so good, Ivy,” Taryn said after a few seconds, motioning toward My Letter to the World.

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean, it really captures the whole surviving-a-storm thing, you know? With the messy paper and the ripped corners, and you standing in your empty yard looking all tough and confident. It’s awesome.”

  Ivy widened her eyes at her best friend.

  “What?” Taryn said, laughing. “I can be artistic. I get it.”

  “I’ll never doubt you again.”

  Taryn smiled, but then her expression grew serious. “So… have you talked to June?”

  Ivy turned back to her piece, sighing.

  Then, without warning, Taryn curled Ivy into a hug. “You should talk to June,” she whispered. “She’s your friend, and you mean a lot to her. She told me so.” And then she squeezed Ivy close one more time and wandered away. Ivy watched her join Drew at his piece. It was a collage of shredded roof tiles surrounding a red heart covered in barbed wire. But the heart was whole, no cracks in sight. Ivy had heard that his parents officially separated, but Drew seemed to be doing okay.

  Funny, Ivy thought, all the things people could survive that they never imagined they could.

  Her eyes took on a life of their own, drifting through the room. Ivy saw kids from her school, kids from her sister’s school. She saw Layla standing with Gigi, who was holding hands with a tall blond girl. That must be Bryn. Next to her, Gigi beamed, practically glowing. If Ivy drew them right now, she’d use all primary watercolors, bright blues and yellows, but softly blended and with delicate lines.

  Gigi caught Ivy’s eye and smiled. She waved her free hand at Ivy, her nails painted to match a rainbow—red thumb, orange forefinger, yellow middle finger, green ring finger, blue pinkie. Ivy wiggled her matching rainbow nails back, and Gigi gave her a red thumbs-up.

  But something in Ivy still hurt, and she couldn’t help looking around for June. She looked for her everywhere. Yesterday, she shared a turkey sandwich in the inn’s office with Robin and Jessa, who was visiting for the next couple of weeks, and told them the whole story. They exchanged one of those smiles grown-ups use when they think a kid is really cute but also really clueless.

  “Definitely a crush,” Jessa had said, crunching on a baby carrot. Her glossy hair fell into her eyes and she brushed it away.

  “Oh yeah,” Robin said, and Ivy huffed a lot of air through her nose.

  “I know,” Ivy said. “Now what do I do about it?”

  Robin’s smile turned serious, and she took Ivy’s hand. “Honestly? Nothing. It’ll hurt for a while, and then it will get better.”

  Robin said it would be okay.

  And Ivy believed her.

  “You just focus on you,” Robin said, ripping off an edge of crust from her sandwich and popping it into her mouth. “Focus on friendship and feeling okay with yourself and proud of yourself. That’s what’s important right now.”

  Ivy knew Robin was right, so that was what she was doing. Still, when she saw June near Annie Demetrios’s drippy neon painting of a ballet dancer in a leg cast, her stomach flipped and flopped and then started running a marathon around her body.

  Then Ivy noticed June’s own Resilient piece.

  It was the glass girl. A big painting on a canvas, actually, but clearly a glass girl was at the center. She was just like the one June had drawn in Ivy’s hotel room, but bigger and more beautiful. The girl was made of all the blues, and little sparks shot out from all her edges, shards of glass falling off and away. Ivy stepped closer and saw words spread out all over the canvas. Ivy couldn’t see it clearly, but she was sure it was June’s glass girl poem, cut up and pasted here and there. There were photos too, of ice skates and soccer balls, tubes of lipstick and red high-heeled shoes.

  It was beautiful. It was June’s perfect letter to the world. And Ivy wasn’t the only one who thought so. Dr. Somerset stood right in front of the piece, one hand pressed to her mouth, the other on June’s shoulder. June leaned into her mom, one arm wrapped around Dr. Somerset’s waist. They stood like that for a long time, and Ivy was glad. She was glad June’s letter finally found its recipient.

  But then June turned her head, catching Ivy staring at her, and Ivy felt her whole body flame up in a wash of embarrassment. She turned away so fast that she made herself dizzy and disturbed one of the drawings near the bottom of her piece. She busied herself with sticking the thumbtack a little tighter into the wall.

  “Hey, Ivy.”

  Ivy swallowed and took a deep breath before turning around. “Hey, June.”

  June ran her eyes over Ivy’s piece, a little smile on her face. “Wow, Ivy. It’s so perfect. Really perfect. I can’t imagine how it could be more perfect. I mean, I knew if you ever decided to do something for the art show, it would be great, but wow, this blows me away. So pretty. So totally you. I can’t get over it. It’s so—”

  “Breathe, June.”

  She did, inhaling deeply. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry, just don’t pass out. And thanks.”

  June nodded, folding her arms and keeping her eyes glued to the wall.

  “I saw your piece too,” Ivy said. “It’s really amazing. It looked like your mom liked it.”

  June smiled, but didn’t look at her. “Yeah, thanks. She did like it. And we talked about it too. A little bit. I think we’ll talk more. She said we would.”

  “That’s great.”

  June nodded and they fell silent.

  “Listen, Ivy, I’m sorry,” June said after a few weird seconds. “About that night at my house. Your picture was so pretty, but I didn’t know what to say and I—”

  “It’s okay,” Ivy said. “You don’t have to explain. You don’t have to like the drawing.” Her throat felt tight as she got the words out, but they were the right words. It wasn’t June’s fault that she didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t Ivy’s either. It just was what it was.

  “No, but I did like it,” June said. “It was really beautiful, and the colors were perfect, and I really loved the way you drew me. It actually looked like me, and I looked happy and like I was really living my life. I loved it.”

  Ivy blinked at her. “Okay…”

  June looked down at the floor and her lip trembled. “I don’t want you to hate me.”

  “Me hate you?”

  June nodded.

  “June… I don’t want you to hate me.”

  June’s eyes found Ivy’s. “I don’t. Ivy, I swear, I don’t. I’m just sorry that I can’t… that right now, I don’t…”

  “No, no, don’t be sorry.” Ivy wanted to hold June’s hand, hug her, something. Not because she had a crush on her, but because June was her friend.

  “I just…” June took a deep breath. “I got sick when I was eight, you know? I never got to think about any of the normal stuff kids did. I never got to do the normal things. Sometimes, I feel like I’m still eight, still stuck in elementary school, like I’m always trying to catch up. There’s so much I haven’t figured out or done or even thought about, not like you and Taryn and everyone else has.”

  “I totally get that.”

  “I didn’t even want to dance with a boy the other night. I wanted to keep dancing with you and Taryn and just be with my friends. I just thought I should want to dance with a boy, you know?”

  Ivy nodded.

  “But that’s silly,” June went on. “The only thing we should do is be ourselves, right?”

  Ivy nodded again, but this time, she added a smile.

  “You’re my friend,” June said. “My best friend. I love you, Ivy. I really do.”

  Ivy’s heart exploded, a lightning bolt through
her middle, a thunderclap in her chest. It was a beautiful storm.

  “Even though…” Ivy swallowed hard to keep the lightning inside, because it really wanted to spill out of her mouth and ears and nose right now. “Even though I am the way that I am?”

  June’s eyes widened. “Totally. But, no that’s not right either. Not even though. Because. Because that’s you, right? At least, it’s a part of you, and you are who I want as my friend.” Then June reached out and took Ivy’s hand, wrapping her fingers around Ivy’s palm. She squeezed.

  Ivy squeezed back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Home

  One year later

  The room smelled like fresh paint and the lilacs Mom had set on Ivy’s brand-new desk underneath the tiny circular window. The ceiling was slanted, with dark wood beams cutting through the white.

  Ivy stood in the doorway and smiled.

  “What do you think, Ives?” Layla asked.

  She scooted around Ivy and dropped a box labeled IVY’S WINTER CLOTHES onto a twin bed covered in a quilt decorated to look like splattered paint. Mom was right behind her, Aaron in her arms. Mom set him down, and he toddled over to the bed, grabbing the quilt and then cruising around to the footboard.

  “It’s perfect,” Ivy said.

  And it was.

  Her little attic room, all her own again.

  “This room is seriously cool,” Layla said, walking around. “You have to let me crash here sometime.” She ran her hand over the exposed brick wall. During the rebuild, Dad wanted to include pieces of the house they’d lost, so he insisted on using all the intact bricks he’d managed to save when they cleared the rubble. Now every room had part of their old life in it, part of their family history.

  “No way, this room is mine!” Ivy said. Layla pulled her into a headlock and dug her knuckles into Ivy’s hair. “Ow, quit it!”

  Mom just smiled and wiped her eyes. She’d been pretty teary this whole week while they were moving stuff into the new house. It had been a tough year, but there had been a lot of good stuff too. They lived in Jasper’s mom’s guesthouse for a while, but then finally rented a bigger apartment just outside of town. Still, none of it was home. They belonged here. The walls might be new, but it felt the same. It felt like home.

  Mom pulled Layla and Ivy to her and kissed the tops of both of their heads. They wrapped their arms around her back, and Ivy’s fingers tangled with Layla’s. Aaron got curious and waddled over to them, yanking on the leg of Ivy’s jeans. Downstairs, Dad was unpacking the kitchen, plates and glasses clinking together. Ivy heard Evan babbling from where she knew he was set up in his high chair, stuffing his face with Cheerios.

  They were all here. They made it and they did it together.

  Still, Ivy couldn’t help but glance at her bed, her messenger bag resting on her pillow. Her fingers itched and tingled.

  “Okay, Layla, time to let Ivy get settled,” Mom said, reading Ivy’s mind. “You’re still meeting June and Taryn at the ice rink, Ivy?”

  “Yeah, in about an hour,” Ivy said. “June is totally obsessed with learning a sit spin.”

  Mom laughed. “That is one busy girl. What was it last month? Swing dancing?”

  “Square dancing. I never want to hear a mandolin again.”

  Mom and Layla both laughed and Ivy joined in. In the past year, June had dragged Ivy and Taryn through a myriad of activities, everything from synchronized swimming to knitting classes at the rec center. Last summer, when Ivy decided she really did want to go to soccer camp with Taryn, June went with them.

  “We’ll leave you alone until then,” Mom said. She smoothed her fingers down the braid she had plaited into Ivy’s hair that morning and winked.

  “Ugh, fine, go hermit away in your little notebook world,” Layla said, but Ivy knew she was kidding. Layla smacked a kiss on Ivy’s cheek, and Mom swooped Aaron into her arms, and then Ivy was alone.

  She looked around her new room. Late-spring sunlight streamed in through the window by her bed, covering everything in a citrusy glow. She plopped down on the mattress and unpacked her messenger bag.

  She placed both her purple and yellow notebooks on the bedside table. They were full, the pages covered in drawings of Ivy and girls she didn’t know, girls she did, friends and treehouses and oceans, baby brothers and sisters and dreams, but she still liked to keep them close.

  Digging around in her bag, she found a brand-new notebook. This one was green and white, flowers swirling over the cover.

  On its first pages were the beginnings of a comic, the pages divided into squares and rectangles. The story was about a lonely girl named Ivy whose house got destroyed by a tornado. It was about how she and her family sort of fell apart, but came back together again. It was about a girl who was figuring out that she got crushes on girls instead of boys, who was figuring out how to love her friends and how to let her friends love her.

  How to love herself.

  When Ivy told her about the idea, Mom had called it a graphic memoir.

  Ivy just called it a letter to the world.

  Acknowledgments

  I love all the characters I have had the privilege of creating, but Ivy holds a very special place in my heart. I’m so grateful to the team who helped me bring her to life.

  Endless thanks to my agent, Rebecca Podos, who believed in my ability to not only write a middle-grade novel, but to write the kind of middle-grade novel we didn’t see sitting on too many shelves. Ivy would not exist without you.

  Thanks to my editor, Kheryn Callender, and the whole team at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Kheryn, your passion and love for Ivy, as well as the readers who need Ivy’s story, was inspiring and life-giving. I’m so proud to work with you and can’t thank you enough for helping me to make Ivy the best book it could be.

  Thanks to the designers at Good Wives and Warriors for the absolutely amazing cover. I could not have asked for a more perfect representation of this book’s heart.

  To my critique partners, Lauren Thoman, Paige Crutcher, Sarah Brown, and Alisha Klapheke, thank you for the laughs, the wine, the queso, the friendship. Writing with you is twice as good and half as hard.

  Thanks to Kathryn Ormsbee for the early read and voice insight.

  To Parnassus Books and Stephanie Appell, thank you, as always, for your tireless work in getting books into the right hands, especially the right kids’ hands.

  To Craig, Benjamin, and William, thank you once again for seeing me through, holding me up, and being patient with the worlds I create in my head.

  And finally, to you, dear reader. Thank you for reading, for being brave, for being you. I can’t wait to read your amazing letter to the world.

  Keep reading with Little, Brown.

  Get activities, videos, reading guides, and more!

  LittleBrownYoungReaders.com

  Facebook.com/LittleBrownYoungReaders

  Instagram.com/LittleBrownYoungReaders

  Twitter.com/LittleBrownYR

  Youtube.com/LittleBrownBooks

  Pinterest.com/LittleBrownYoungReaders