Best Friends

by Ann M. Martin

  “Hi, Nikki,” replied the teacher on playground duty. “Your mother called this morning and said you and Tobias would be picking up Mae today. She’s all ready to go. There’s her backpack.”

  “Nikki! Nikki!” cried Mae then, righting herself before throwing her arms around her big sister.

  Later, as Tobias drove them along the country roads outside of Camden Falls, Mae reported cheerfully from her spot in the backseat, “In school we learned about fish today, and then at day care we learned a song about fish. I don’t know if I remember all the words, but here, listen: ‘Down in the meadow in an itty-bitty poo fam fee itty fitties and their mama fitty, too. “Fim!” said the mama fitty. “Fim if you can —”’”

  “Excuse me, what?” said Tobias.

  “I’m not sure what it means, either,” Mae admitted, “but our teacher said it’s about fish, and it’s really fun to sing. Later you get to say, ‘Boop, boop, dittum, dattum, wattum, CHOO!’ a lot of times.”

  Tobias turned off the road and onto the lane that led to the Shermans’ house. Nikki opened her window. “Ahh,” she said. “Smells good. Flora got caught daydreaming in school this afternoon because our door was open and it was practically summer out.”

  “It’s summer?” said Mae.

  “Not really. It’s still early spring,” Nikki replied. “But it smells like summer today.”

  “Can we walk to the Shaws’ farm?” asked Mae.

  “Maybe this weekend,” said Tobias.

  Nikki breathed in the smells of damp earth and new green shoots, of things growing and changing and emerging. She wished her yard looked like Flora and Ruby’s or Olivia’s, wished it looked like most of the yards in town. She imagined green lawns and flower beds and rambling rock walls. She imagined wide front porches, some with swings. She looked at her house. The wooden steps had recently grown crooked. The paint was peeling faster than ever. And the yard — well, there wasn’t really a yard at all. Just packed earth and small ramshackle buildings and the burning pit. Nikki sighed.

  Her father had left home four months earlier, soon after Thanksgiving, supposedly to take a job somewhere in the South. He left with grudging promises to write and send money. Neither letters nor cash had arrived, although Mr. Sherman himself had returned briefly at Christmastime. He’d stayed just long enough to horrify and frighten all the Shermans, and then Tobias, enraged, had thrown his father out of the house.

  “He won’t come back now,” Mrs. Sherman had said that night. “He’s humiliated.”

  Nikki hoped that was true — but with her father, you never knew.

  Tobias parked the car and Nikki stepped out, then helped Mae with her backpack.

  “This weighs a ton,” she said. “What’s in here? Rocks?”

  “No,” said Mae, giggling. “We cleaned out our desks.”

  Nikki peeked in the backpack. “You had sneakers in your desk? And … where did all these books come from?”

  “From my teacher,” Mae replied. “She let me borrow them. I have to — hey, Nikki! Tobias! Look!”

  Nikki turned her head in the direction Mae was pointing. At the edge of the property, where the shrubs and bushes formed a sloppy divider between their yard and the south side of the Shaws’ land, sat two skinny dogs.

  Nikki considered them. “Well …” she said.

  “Can we feed them?” asked Mae. “Can we keep them?”

  “We definitely can’t keep them,” said Tobias.

  “But we can feed them until the people from Sheltering Arms come out here again,” said Nikki.

  Stray dogs were always showing up in the Shermans’ yard. Nikki supposed they roamed the countryside, dogs that were lost or abandoned or feral. She and Mae used to feed them, but eventually so many came by for meals that Nikki could no longer afford their food. Finally, Tobias had taken her to the animal shelter, and the people there had started coming by to trap the stray dogs (humanely) and find homes for them.

  “Maybe we could keep just one of them,” said Mae, turning hopeful eyes to her brother and sister.

  “Nope. Can’t afford it,” said Tobias.

  “Besides, what would Paw-Paw think?” asked Nikki.

  “That he had a new friend?” said Mae, but she didn’t press the point. She ran ahead of Tobias and Nikki and threw her arms around Paw-Paw, the Shermans’ only pet, who himself had once been one of the stray dogs.

  By the time Mrs. Sherman returned from work, Tobias had started supper and Nikki had started her homework, having first listened to Mae do her fifteen minutes of reading aloud.

  “I’m exhausted!” exclaimed Mrs. Sherman, tossing her coat and handbag on the couch, then flopping onto a chair at the kitchen table.

  Nikki regarded her mother seriously. “How long do you think you can keep this up?”

  “Keep what up?”

  “Two jobs.”

  “I don’t know.”

  For two months now, Mrs. Sherman had been working both as a cashier at the new grocery store in Camden Falls and as a waitress at Fig Tree, the fancy restaurant on Main Street. Tobias worked, too, after school and on weekends. The Shermans were getting by, but just barely.

  “I’m trying to find a new job,” said Mrs. Sherman, and by this she meant a full-time job with better pay and better hours, “but it’s hard to job hunt when I’m working.”

  “Well,” said Tobias, who by now had called Mae to the table and filled everyone’s plates, “when school ends and I graduate, I can help by getting a full-time job.”

  Nikki eyed her mother and wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Sherman said, “That’s very nice, honey. I really appreciate the thought. We all do. But you have your own life to live. I don’t want you to feel you have to help support us. Not after you graduate. Speaking of which, what about college?”

  Tobias looked up with his mouth full. “What?”

  “College,” his mother repeated. “I know we should have been thinking about this, um, years ago, actually, but there were always so many other …” Her voice trailed off.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” said Tobias.

  “No, it isn’t. And now that I’m in charge around here” (Mrs. Sherman glanced at Mr. Sherman’s empty chair), “I intend to do things differently. I have different goals for you kids. I always have.” She paused. “Anyway, you graduate in June, and then wouldn’t you like to go to college?”

  “How would that be possible?” asked Tobias. “We can’t afford it. I haven’t even applied anywhere.”

  Mrs. Sherman put her fork down. “There are ways to do everything.”

  “You wanted to go to college, didn’t you, Mom?” asked Nikki, who very much wanted to go to college herself one day.

  “Yes. And I’ve always regretted not going.”

  “Maybe you could go to college now,” said Tobias, inspired. “Really, Mom. You always read stories about old people — I mean, people your age — who go back to school and get their college degrees.”

  “Let’s concentrate on you first,” said his mother.

  After the dishes had been washed and dried, Tobias went outside to one of the sheds in which he tinkered with complicated mechanical and electrical things that mystified Nikki, while Mrs. Sherman and Mae emptied Mae’s backpack and looked through the books her teacher had lent her. This gave Nikki the bedroom, the one she shared with her sister, all to herself for a solid hour. She sat at the scarred desk (bought three years ago at a garage sale) with Paw-Paw at her feet.

  Nikki, one of the best students in Mr. Donaldson’s class, pulled out her battered notebook. She had every intention of writing the essay about summer before doing anything else, but when she opened her drawer to look for a pencil, her eyes fell on a sheaf of papers, and she pulled them out and smoothed them flat. Here were some of Nikki’s drawings from the previous summer — a sketch of a dragonfly, which now struck her as embarrassingly amateurish, but also a more finished drawing of a grasshopper, which she thought was quite good. Nikki planned to enter some of
her best drawings in the art exhibit that was to be a part of the Camden Falls birthday festivities. She threw away the dragonfly sketch but decided to add the grasshopper to her exhibit folder.

  The exhibit folder sat on top of the desk, right out in the open. Nikki still marveled at this. Her father had frowned on her interest in art. In fact, he had not had very nice things to say about artists or about art as a profession. At the beginning of the school year, before Mr. Sherman had left, Nikki was still drawing in secret and had been able only to dream about the exhibit. Now she could draw whenever she felt the urge, and she could leave her work lying around the house without worrying about what her father might do to it. She had told Mr. Donaldson that she planned to enter three finished pieces in the exhibit in May. Still, sometimes when Nikki looked through the folder, a small part of her worried that her mother had been wrong; that maybe her father hadn’t been humiliated enough to leave for good. What if he came back again unexpectedly — for Mae’s birthday or Tobias’s high school graduation or for no reason at all?

  Nikki considered hiding the folder, but the fact that thinking of her father made her want to do this angered her. She left the folder where it was and began her composition for Mr. Donaldson.

  There was nothing, Olivia thought, like stepping through her front door and seeing the yards of the Row Houses spreading away in either direction up and down Aiken Avenue. The sight was especially good on a bright morning in the early spring. To her left were the yards belonging to the Fongs and the Edwardses and Mr. Pennington. The Fongs’ yard had recently been transformed from the traditional flower beds and grass to islands of stones, a reflecting pool, and some empty gardens that Mrs. Fong had told Olivia would soon be filled with nonflowering greens. Did Olivia know what ornamental grasses were? Olivia didn’t, but she liked the Fongs’ new look very much, so she thought she would like ornamental grasses as well.

  The Fongs’ yard was empty of people on this early morning, as was the Edwardses’, but Mr. Pennington was sweeping his walk while Jacques dozed in the sun on the front stoop. Farther along, to Olivia’s right, old Mr. Willet was climbing into his car, and Olivia thought perhaps he was on his way to visit Mrs. Willet, who had Alzheimer’s and had recently moved to a nursing facility. At the far end of the row, the four Morris children were taking advantage of this unusually warm March Saturday to play noisily and vigorously in the grass, which was just beginning to lose its winter brown.

  Olivia now leaned back into her house and called, “Henry! Jack! Come on! I want to go. Flora and Ruby are waiting for me.”

  Presently, Olivia’s brothers, ages eight and six, thundered down the stairs and out the door. “All right,” said Olivia. “Now remember: Mom and Dad are going to be at the store all morning, so you’re going to stay with the Morrises. I’m going into town with Flora and Ruby.”

  “Okay!” said Jack.

  “Bye!” said Henry.

  They ran across the lawns to the Morris kids, while at Min’s house, Flora fumbled for her key and Ruby called admonitions to Daisy Dear and King Comma, their cat, who, Olivia presumed, were standing on the other side of the front door.

  “No fighting while we’re gone,” Ruby said. “Daisy, you’re in charge. King, no clawing the furniture.”

  Olivia ran to her friends and soon they were walking toward Main Street.

  “Do you think,” said Ruby, “that after Sincerely Yours opens you’ll get free candy anytime you want it?”

  Olivia wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. Anyway, I’m a little tired of candy. I like it, but Mom’s been making it at home for so long that it’s not exactly special anymore.”

  Ruby sighed. “It would be for me. I wish I lived in Candyland.”

  Olivia and Flora and Ruby passed Needle and Thread, waving vaguely toward the windows as they did so. A moment later, Flora exclaimed, “Hey, the sign is up!”

  Sure enough, a long white sign with staid black letters spelling out SINCERELY YOURS had appeared over the door to the Walters’ store.

  “Sweet,” said Ruby.

  “It looks busy inside,” commented Flora.

  Olivia opened the door. The store was still a mess, but perhaps not as messy as it had been a few weeks earlier. Plywood was stacked here and there, with paint cans, rags, rollers, toolboxes, sawhorses, ladders, and drop cloths arranged tidily along the walls.

  Olivia’s parents were smiling.

  “What do you think, girls?” Mr. Walter asked Flora and Ruby.

  “It’s going to be beautiful,” said Flora politely.

  “Where will the candy be?” asked Ruby, and Flora gave her a tiny pinch. When Ruby had an idea in her head, it was hard to get it out.

  “We’ll be making it in the kitchen,” replied Mrs. Walter. “The kitchen is in the back, through that doorway. And we’ll be selling it here at the counter. The counter should be completed in about three weeks.”

  “Guess what,” said Mr. Walter. “We think we might be able to have the grand opening just before the three hundred and fiftieth birthday party.”

  “Really?” exclaimed Olivia. “Excellent!”

  “What will you do for the grand opening?” asked Flora.

  “We’re not sure yet,” said Mrs. Walter. “Some kind of party.”

  “With free candy?” asked Ruby.

  “Ruby!” said Flora in a loud whisper. “Stop!”

  “It’s a fair question,” said Ruby.

  “Yes, I believe there will be free candy,” said Mr. Walter.

  The door to Sincerely Yours stood open on this warm day, and several people who were passing paused to peek inside. Then a voice called, “Hello, neighbors!” and Sheila from Heaven entered the store.

  “I guess we are your neighbors, aren’t we?” said Mrs. Walter.

  Min was the next to stop in. “It’s really coming along,” she said approvingly, surveying the space.

  Three more visitors arrived, and Olivia heard Robby Edwards call cheerfully, “Hello! Hello, everyone! Hi, Olivia! Hi, Flora! Hi, Ruby! Hi —”

  Mrs. Edwards took her son by the elbow and said gently, “I know this is exciting, Robby, but try to calm down.”

  “But it’s a new store, Mom! Olivia’s store! A candy store! And more!”

  “Robby.”

  “Okay.” Robby Edwards, eighteen years old, stepped back through the door and stood outside for a few moments, breathing deeply. Olivia watched him through a clean spot on the window. Robby had Down syndrome and sometimes became overexcited. Now he entered the store again and whispered to Olivia, “It’s time for appropriate behavior.”

  Mr. Walter was showing Mr. Edwards around the store. “We had to start all over with an entirely new kitchen,” he explained.

  Robby waited patiently until Mr. Walter had finished the tour. Then he said, “Mr. and Mrs. Walter, I have to ask you a question. May I please apply for a job here? I graduate in June. Then I’m going to go to work. We’ve talked about it,” he added, glancing at his parents. “This is a serious decision.”

  “It is indeed,” Mrs. Walter started to reply, but she was interrupted by Mrs. Edwards.

  “We talked about your finding a job,” said Robby’s mother, “but not about applying for work here. You didn’t discuss that with us.”

  “But I’m an adult now,” said Robby. “I have to start doing things on my own.”

  Olivia looked at Mrs. Edwards, who was watching Robby with a mixture of fondness and sadness. “Robby, this is not the place for such a discussion,” she said gently.

  “Excuse me,” was Robby’s reply. “Mrs. Walter, I’ve been learning about making change and stocking shelves and being polite to the customers and not shouting at people or crying if they say something I don’t like. Oh, and using my quiet voice. And I’m good at memorizing things. And also I can use a calculator.”

  “That’s very impressive,” said Mr. Walter, who had joined Olivia’s mother. “The thing is, we haven’t thought much about who we’re going to
hire.”

  “We were concentrating on finishing the renovations and planning the opening,” added Mrs. Walter.

  “But it’s good to think ahead,” said Robby.

  “You’re right,” agreed Mr. Walter. “I’ll tell you what — we’ll start doing that, and we’ll have an answer for you in a few weeks. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” replied Robby, and he strode out of the store ahead of his parents, hands in his pockets, face to the sun.

  Olivia, Ruby, and Flora pulled three paint cans into a circle near the door and sat down on them.

  “Isn’t it funny,” said Olivia, “how something that seems so bad can turn out to be so good?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Ruby.

  “When my dad lost his job it seemed — well, not like the end of the world, but pretty bad. I didn’t know what was going to happen — whether we might have to move or something — and then Dad couldn’t decide what he wanted to do. Now he and Mom are opening their own store, and they seem so excited. Dad never looked excited when he left for the office in the morning. And I’m going to get to help out in the store, and now maybe Robby will get a job here. I don’t know if that will actually happen, but still.”

  “And you’ll have the grand opening in just two months,” said Flora.

  “Hey, Annika will be here then!” exclaimed Ruby. “She’ll get to see the store.”

  And just like that, Olivia felt her mood darken.

  “You guys are going to like each other so, so much,” Flora promised.

  Olivia said nothing.

  “Remember the time Annika made the treasure hunt in her attic?” Ruby asked, and Flora grinned. “She was always thinking up good ideas like that,” Ruby continued. “Her birthday is in July, and two years ago she had a summertime Christmas party. We sang Christmas carols and made Christmas decorations.”

  “It was ninety-five degrees outside,” said Flora.

  “And once,” Ruby went on, “she set up a fortune-telling stand in her front yard. I played Madame Zaroka, her helper.”

  “I took in the money,” Flora told Olivia. “We made eleven dollars.”