Letters from the Heart

by Annie Bryant

  Maeve grinned at Charlotte, who was sitting two desks away. Charlotte, who was new to Brookline and to Abigail Adams this year, had lived all over the world with her father, who was a travel writer. It was all so exotic. Last year they’d lived on a houseboat on the Seine in Paris. The year before that, it was Port Douglas, Australia—and before that, the Serengeti desert in Africa. But Maeve suddenly realized that she really didn’t know much about Charlotte’s mother and where she came from. Finally, an assignment that was actually going to be fun! Who knows? Maybe Charlotte’s mother was a princess or something and maybe somebody, somebody like herself, had an actress somewhere deep in their background. That would be so outrageous!

  Ms. O’Reilly’s voice brought Maeve back to reality. “Each of you,” she continued, “needs to find three objects that you can bring in to class to create your own display. Each object should reveal something important about your family. Something that represents what kind of history your family has lived through and what interesting things might have happened to them along the way. Ms. Rodriguez and I are teaming up, so she’ll be working with you on this project in English class as well. You’ll each write a brief report on what you’ve learned and give a presentation to the class in three weeks.”

  Betsy Fitzgerald cleared her throat, her hand up in the air—again. “What if you’re not really from anywhere?” she asked plaintively. “What if your family has always lived in America?”

  “Well,” Ms. O’Reilly said with a smile, “we all come from somewhere, Betsy. I’ll help you do some research and find out more about your family. But remember, history doesn’t necessarily have to be about immigration. Some of you may have grandparents who served in a war. Or who started a company. Or who did something else that you’re very proud of. Find out all you can about your family’s history by talking to your relatives. Your first task is to think. What are you curious about? Which members of your family do you want to talk to? After you’ve learned more, choose three objects that represent that history to share with the rest of us.” The bell rang, and Ms. O’Reilly gave them a parting wave as she gathered up her materials and left the room.

  Anna snapped her notebook shut, rolled her eyes, and gave Joline “the look.” Anna ALWAYS looked scornful. Maeve couldn’t remember the last assignment Anna hadn’t groaned about. And talk about acting as though she didn’t have any history! Anna and Joline were way too cool to acknowledge anything that had happened more than five minutes ago. They acted like they’d always been in seventh grade. The mere mention of being younger seemed to humiliate them. Maeve had a sudden recollection of Anna years earlier, in first grade. She hadn’t always been super-cool. As Maeve grinned at the memory of Anna, front teeth missing, lopsided grin, Anna looked at her as if to say, “What’s so funny, not-cool person?” Maeve still had a snapshot of Anna from that grade, back when they used to trade class photos. She had one of Joline, too. She bet neither of them would be eager for anyone to see those photos now. Maybe she should bring the pictures to school, Maeve mused. But her better self won out. Even if it was Anna and Joline, it would be so mean to embarrass them that way.

  “Don’t worry, Anna,” Dillon said with a grin. “Just bring in a few shopping bags from the mall. That ought to cover it. Anna and Joline’s history—in the bag!” Maeve giggled. So funny. Dillon was definitely one cool guy.

  Anna flipped her hair back with a scowl. “What a lame assignment,” she retorted. “Who cares about the past? Hasn’t Ms. O’Reilly ever heard the phrase ‘that’s history’? It means over. Done with. THROUGH.”

  “I think the assignment sounds awesome,” Avery piped up. Avery, who’d been adopted from Korea when she was a baby, loved the idea of finding out more about her own history, and she wasn’t going to keep quiet just because Anna and Joline were trying to act too cool for words. “Are you actually afraid you might learn something new, Anna?” she asked. One of the few people in their class who was not intimidated by the Queens of Mean, Avery just grinned broadly when Anna glared at her.

  “I know what I’m bringing in,” Pete Wexler announced. “A football, a baseball, and a hockey stick.”

  “I think this is actually supposed to be about your family, dude,” Dillon said, grabbing his books. “And not just about YOU. Plus it’s supposed to be about the past, not about the present.”

  “What about an OLD football?” Pete asked.

  Everyone was talking about the assignment as they gathered up their things. “I don’t even know where my dad’s family comes from,” Abby Ross was saying to Katani as the girls headed out the door.

  “I think this assignment could be really interesting,” Isabel said, her dark eyes shining. “I would really like to learn more about my grandparents’ life in Mexico. I mean, I love to visit them and eat my abuelita’s cooking, but I never really asked them a lot of questions about their past. My grandfather loves to tell stories, so I know he’ll really like this assignment. I might even draw some cartoons or something,” Isabel enthused.

  Katani nodded. “I bet you could do a really great project, Isabel. You are such a good artist, your display will be fantastic. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve wanted to know about my family background too, but you know how it is…you just never get around to asking. I think I’ll interview my grandmother.”

  Katani’s grandmother, Mrs. Fields, was the principal of Abigail Adams Junior High. Everybody in Brookline thought she was the greatest. All the kids liked her because she was so calm, nice, and fair. There were so many things that weren’t fair, Maeve mused, like having to go to school on sunny days, having to go to bed before nine thirty during the week even if there was a great movie on, and having to put up with an annoying little brother. It was very reassuring to know that the principal of your school was fair.

  Katani said her grandmother had lived in Brookline all of her life. Katani knew a few things about her grandmother’s life in the 1950s and 1960s, but she was eager to learn more. Mrs. Fields had lived through the civil rights movement and often talked about the time she saw Martin Luther King, Jr. come to preach at her family’s church. She also thought that her grandmother had been part of some bus ride or protest march. Katani said she was going to interview her grand -mother like they were on NBC News or something. Maeve could just see Katani preparing for the interview. “Katani, I bet you’ll even dress up in a suit like a newscaster.”

  Katani gave Maeve a huge grin. “You know I will, girl. Looking professional goes hand in hand with being professional.” Maeve, Avery, Charlotte, and Isabel all laughed in unison. Katani was so going to have her own business some day.

  As Maeve slid her laptop into her book bag, she started thinking about her mom and dad and what different worlds they came from. Her father’s family, like Ms. O’Reilly’s, had come from Ireland. His parents had come to America after World War II when they were only sixteen years old. They met on the boat coming over. Nana Mary and Grandpa Tom still had their Irish accents. Maeve loved to listen to them talk.

  Her mother’s family had come from Eastern Europe—Maeve wasn’t exactly sure which country. She knew her parents used to tease each other about how different their backgrounds were. It went along with the differences in their temperaments. Maeve’s father was a cheerful, relaxed man who loved taking life easy. He always joked that he was well suited for running the Movie House, because he loved nothing better than enjoying himself and watching other people have a good time. He had a favorite motto: “Art is the key to understanding life.” Maeve’s mother was more the driven type. She’d gone to New York University and majored in English. She’d taught high school for a few years before she got married. Once she had kids, she stayed home and never had a job, outside of helping in the cinema. She was an organizer fiend. Maeve’s mom could be really fun, but she was much stricter than her dad. Maybe some of this had to do with her background, Maeve thought. Well, she was going to have a lot of learning to do for this project.

  “Hey! What if I
discover a famous actress in my family’s past?” she said, grabbing her things as she followed her friends to the cafeteria. “Wouldn’t that be cool? Maybe I’m actually related to some awesome old celebrity. Like Audrey Hepburn or Greta Garbo!”

  All the Beacon Street Girls laughed. It was clear that Maeve had Hollywood in her veins. She knew the words to every song in every movie ever made. And whenever they were in a jam, Maeve could recite the perfect movie line to fit the occasion. Her personal favorite was “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get,” from Forrest Gump. When she wasn’t watching movies, Maeve loved reading about them. Every time she passed a magazine stand she had to grab the latest celebrity magazine. This meant that she knew every bit of Hollywood gossip…much to Avery’s amazement and occasional disgust. “How can you read that stuff, Maeve? It’s so ridiculous. I mean who cares about who’s marrying who for twelve minutes?” ranted Avery.

  Katani came to Maeve’s defense. “It’s research, Avery. Maeve has to learn about the field she wants to succeed in. I read fashion and business magazines. It would be kind of silly if Maeve read all about fruit flies and how they multiply.” Katani was the only one who could get Avery to calm down sometimes.

  If it were up to her, Maeve would gladly spend every afternoon taking voice lessons or working on dance moves. But her mom had different ideas. Her mom’s plan for Maeve was Hebrew class two days a week and tutoring with Matt Kierney. And to Maeve’s disappointment, hip-hop dance class had been dropped until she brought her grades back up. But Maeve was an optimist. She was sure she’d be back to dance in a matter of weeks.

  “It’s funny. Dad and I have traveled so much, but I don’t think I know that much about where his family comes from,” Charlotte wondered out loud. “I mean, I know they were from England a long time ago. But I don’t even know exactly where.”

  “I hope it wasn’t Oxford,” Avery said with a grin. Everyone giggled. The memory of the girls’ last adventure was still fresh in their minds. Charlotte’s father had been offered a teaching position in Oxford, England, and it had taken all five of the Beacon Street Girls to convince him to stay put and to give Charlotte a chance at her dream—to spend her junior high and high school years in the U.S.

  Charlotte was really looking forward to the Heritage Museum project. She loved research and writing, and she was curious about her family and its past. Her mother had died when she was young, leaving Charlotte with lots of unanswered questions about her background. Maybe, like Maeve, she would learn more about herself in the process. “Who knows?” she mused. “There might even have been an astronomer in our family.” Charlotte loved science almost as much as writing. Stars and books, she liked to say…those were her two best friends.

  “I’ve got a triple-header research project,” Avery added thoughtfully. “I’ve got my mom’s history and my dad’s. But I’ve also got my own.” She grinned. “It’s going to be cool, finding out more about where I really came from.” Avery loved challenges, and with her usual blunt, go-for-it manner, she was looking forward to this one.

  It was clear this assignment was going to give all of the Beacon Street Girls a lot to think about in the coming weeks. There was a great deal they were all going to learn about themselves and about each other.

  CHAPTER 2

  Up for Grabs

  The menu for school lunch was posted on a small board at the beginning of the lunch line. Today’s special was something called “mystery subs.”

  “Lunch,” Avery announced, peering at the sandwiches wrapped in plastic on top of the cafeteria counter, “is NOT a place where anyone wants mystery.” She took a sandwich, but she didn’t look happy about it. “My mom usually makes me a super protein wrap, but she had a meeting this morning and left Scott and me to fend for ourselves. And you should have seen Scott. He was acting like he was the president, ordering me around. I bolted out of there fast.” Avery and her brother Scott, who was sixteen, lived with their mom about a mile away from school. Her older brother Tim was off at college in Vermont. Avery’s parents were divorced, and her dad lived in Colorado. Avery got to see a lot of her father over vacations, but during the school year they had to rely on e-mail and the telephone to keep in touch.

  Charlotte grinned. Avery was definitely not the cooking maestro. “Fending for herself” clearly meant scooping some money out of an emergency stash and standing in the cafeteria lunch line. Charlotte, on the other hand, had made lunch for herself today. She was just in line to keep her friends company and to buy a drink. “Avery, have you ever thought about actually making your own lunch?” she asked, helping herself to a bottle of juice. “Or thought about learning to cook? It’s kind of fun!”

  Avery shuddered. “No thank you. Lunch is something to pick up from the kitchen counter and put in my backpack,” she said cheerfully. “My mom knows exactly what I like. A turkey wrap sandwich, popcorn, granola bars…She’s got it down to a science. Why mess with perfection?” She looked uneasily at the “mystery sub” on her tray. “I need power food at lunch, remember?”

  Of the five Beacon Street Girls, Avery was by far the most athletic. There wasn’t a ball Avery didn’t like. And, although soccer was her current obsession, she was good in pretty much every sport she tried, even basketball. Though Avery was one of the shortest girls in the seventh grade, she was consistently the high scorer on the basketball team. It just proved that being tall wasn’t the only advantage on the court—Avery was super-speedy and could dribble past anybody. Given all the energy she put into her games, Avery needed a lot of fuel. And, she loved eating—but cooking was another story. “Cook away, Charlotte,” she said now, helping herself to a granola bar. “I’m always happy to sample whatever you make!”

  Charlotte grinned. “I just signed up for some cooking classes with my dad,” she told her friends. “The Community Center is running a six-week class on Saturday mornings, and it looks really fun. I want to expand my repertoire beyond Croque-Monsieurs, brownies, and eggs à la Charlotte.”

  “I don’t know,” Maeve said. “I’m kind of with you, Avery, on this one. Doesn’t cooking take tons of time?” Maeve’s idea of the perfect snack was picking up a cupcake from Party Favors on her way home from school. Or a bagful of Swedish Fish from Irving’s Toy and Card Shop. Of course, best of all was getting a frozen hot chocolate at Montoya’s, the bakery on Harvard Street that was the seventh-grade hangout after school.

  Charlotte shook her head. “The class looks great,” she told them. “Guess what our first recipe is going to be?” When no one answered, she told them. Chocolate fondue. “It looks unbelievable,” Charlotte said. “And it’s totally delicious. You just chop up all your favorites—bananas, strawberries, marshmallows, pretzels—and dip them in hot fudge.”

  “Now that sounds like something worth learning,” Avery admitted.

  Everyone looked impressed, and Maeve had to concede that melting chocolate might be a worthy cooking exercise in its own right. By the time the girls had claimed their favorite table near the lunchroom window, the conversation had turned back to the social studies project.

  “I bet someone in my past was an animal lover. Maybe they ran a zoo or something,” Avery said, finishing off her granola bar. “If I find out that’s true, can I bring Marty in for part of my Heritage Museum?”

  The girls groaned. Avery was so crazy about animals. She was the one who had first discovered Marty, the adorable dog that the girls collectively adopted. Half-hidden in the bushes in the park across from Charlotte’s house, Marty had managed to capture all the girls’ hearts. And while Avery had begged and begged her mother to let her keep him, Avery’s mom refused. Dogs made her eyes run and her skin break out in hives. So, Marty lived with Charlotte.

  “Poor Avery,” chimed in Katani. “Settling for reptiles as pets…Have some of my animal crackers—they’ll make you’ll feel better.”

  Never one to turn down food, Avery snatched the animal crackers out of Katani
’s hand and popped them in her mouth. “Thanks, Katani. Someday I hope you will grow to love Walter and Frogster as much as I do. Think of it this way. Walter eats rodents and Frogster eats bugs, both of which you detest!”

  “Avery,” piped in Maeve. “I don’t think Katani is ever going to change her mind about snakes and frogs. And I kind of agree with her. Furry pets are so much cuter and cuddlier.”

  Charlotte gave Maeve a look from across the table. Suddenly, Maeve realized what she had said. “Avery, I am so sorry. I know you want a furry pet really badly. I just forget sometimes and things pop out of my mouth.”

  “That’s all right, Maeve. It’s just so unfair,” Avery complained. “You know, they’ve done RESEARCH on this kind of thing. Furry pets are really good for your blood pressure and stuff like that. Maybe if I told my mother I would be better adjusted if I had a REAL pet to take care of, that would change things…”

  DON’T FORGET THE DOG!

  Suddenly, Charlotte clapped her hand to her forehead. “I almost forgot, you guys. My dad wants to take me to New York this weekend. He’s got a writing conference to go to at NYU, and he said I can come with him. We might even get to see a play together.”

  “Broadway!” Maeve swooned. “Char, you are SO lucky.” She started ticking off the plays she wanted to see—and it was a long list. “And you’ve GOT to go to the Radio and TV Museum. I love that place. Nana Mary and Grandpa Tom took Sam and me there once. It was awesome. You get to be on TV and everything.”

  “No—go to Wall Street! You can get a tour of the stock exchange, then hop over to Soho and check out all the street vendors. My cousin says you can find the best designer bags for really cheap!” Katani exclaimed. Fashion queen that she was, Katani had just become interested in the stock market. It had started as a game with her mother. The two of them had been scouring the stock pages for the past few months to see if they could find some winners.