She was helpful. Pouring him a glass of water. Pulling out his chair for him. Was she seriously trying to replace me? I wondered if that’s how Melanie and Olivia saw themselves: Dad’s Replacement Family—for the one that had broken apart. The only problem was, I was still around and they couldn’t ship me off to the Goodwill with all the rest of Dad’s things they hadn’t wanted to keep.
“Hey, Champ,” Dad said, “let’s get a move on, okay?”
“Okay.” I turned away and grabbed a plate. Since I’m a vegetarian, I filled my taco shell with beans, cheese, and veggies. When I turned to join everyone, my mouth got a little dry, because they were all sitting around the table, looking like the perfect family of four. But I didn’t see a fifth chair.
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat.
“Violet, come join us,” Melanie said, glancing up briefly. She seemed distracted. They all did. The chicken was runny and dripping out of the taco shells and all over everyone’s plate.
I stood there another moment, but no one noticed there wasn’t anywhere for me to sit. “I can’t,” I said finally.
“What?” Dad asked, wiping his hands with a napkin.
“I can’t join you. There’s no fifth chair.”
Dad and Melanie looked up and stared at each other. They wore the surprised, frustrated expression adults get when they realize they’ve forgotten something important.
Melanie’s brow furrowed. “I thought you were going to buy another chair last night?” she said to Dad.
“I couldn’t find a matching one,” Dad said, sighing. “I’m so sorry, Champ—I completely forgot about it today.” He looked back at Melanie. “I think we should just buy a new dining set, altogether.”
“But this was my grandmother’s table,” Melanie said. “It’s an antique.”
“Exactly. Which is why we won’t be able to find a matching chair.”
While they talked, Olivia shot me an annoyed glance. “What?” I mouthed at her. How was any of this my fault? Dad and Mom’s table-and-chair set had six chairs—but of course, the Hammer didn’t like it, so off it went to the Goodwill. Meanwhile, my plate of tacos was starting to feel heavy.
“We can use one of the folding chairs for the time being,” Melanie said. “I’m sure we’ll find a match soon. This table has been in my family for ages.”
“It hasn’t been in my family,” Dad said sharply.
Everyone was silent after that. Dad and Melanie stared at each other. Joey looked like he was going to start crying. Suddenly, I was seized with a pang in my stomach so strong I thought I’d split in two—it was the Terrible Beautiful Ache, no doubt about it.
I didn’t want to be here, surrounded by Melanie’s things and Melanie’s family. I wanted my things. My family. I wanted to be somewhere I didn’t have to hold my tongue or worry about tracking mud into the house.
I wanted Mom.
Melanie started to get up. “Violet, I’m so sorry. You can have my—”
I set my plate on the counter. “I’m fine,” I said as I turned to head back to my room. “The tacos don’t look that great, anyway.”
CHAPTER
5
ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER
Mom used to say, when you don’t know where you’re going, just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually, you’ll get where you need to be. I always thought it was a strange saying—after all, if you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve reached wherever it is you need to be?
I thought about that as Dad, Melanie, Joey, Olivia, and I all grabbed our coats and headed out the door and into the night. We were walking to the tree-lighting, which was being held in Dandelion Square. None of us were used to a crowded house, and for the last day and a half, we’d all been tiptoeing around one another, being real polite and saying “please” and “thank you” a lot. It felt like we were all walking on glass: You press just a tiny bit too hard, and everything could shatter and break apart.
Joey raced ahead looking for houses already decorated with Christmas lights—Melanie and Olivia following along behind him—and Dad dropped back to talk to me.
“Here,” he said, handing me my cell phone. “You are officially off grounding—but no texting until we actually get there tonight.”
“Oh, thank you!” I said, hugging it to myself like it was a long-lost friend.
Dad laughed. “You were a good sport about not having it.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. I felt slightly guilty about my nightly chats with Izzy. Even though Dad never actually said I couldn’t use the walkie-talkie, I was pretty sure, if I’d asked him, he’d have said that it violated the spirit of the law of my grounding, if not the letter.
We walked in silence, until Dad said, “Did you open it?”
I made my eyes go real wide, and said, “Open what?”
He sighed. “Violet, come on.”
I felt at my jacket pocket, where I’d stashed Mom’s letter. I probably had it memorized by now. Dad had pretty much left me alone for the last day, and I’d been glad for a little space.
“Yeah, I opened it,” I said.
“And?”
“And . . . she left me a list.”
“A list?” Dad frowned. “What kind of a list?”
“Dad . . . do we have to talk about this now?”
“I guess not . . . not if you don’t want to. I know you’re getting older, Champ. I know sometimes you’d rather talk to someone else other than me—a woman, I guess. Maybe sometime Melanie could . . .”
I looked over at him. “Seriously? You want me to talk to Melanie about Mom’s letter?”
Dad put his arm around me. “As long as you talk to someone, Champ. I worry about you, you know.”
“Well, you don’t have to,” I said. “Because I’m fine.”
Just then, Joey doubled back and slipped his hand into mine. “I’m getting tired of walking,” he complained.
“Me too,” I answered. “But we’re not that far away. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and eventually, we’ll get there.”
CHAPTER
6
BACK IN BUSINESS!
Dandelion Square is a large village green in the middle of downtown Dandelion Hollow, complete with park benches, a fountain, a gazebo, and a small playground. When we arrived, the square was crowded and already decorated for Christmas. White twinkle lights were strung between the old-fashioned lampposts, each of which was adorned with a large green wreath. More lights framed the windows of the shops lining the square, and the air smelled cold and crisp.
“Violet, where are you going?” Melanie asked, after I turned to head for the Kaleidoscope Café.
“To find my friends,” I said. “We’re supposed to meet up tonight.”
“No, we’re—” Melanie began, just as Dad said, “Have fun, Champ.”
The Kaleidoscope Café is one of my favorite places in Dandelion Hollow. The menu is always changing, and Ms. Zubov, the owner, usually gives me free slices of pie.
Inside, the café smelled like cinnamon and sugar, and jazzy Christmas carols were playing on the old jukebox. Aunt Mildred, Izzy, and Daisy were already there, sitting at a booth in the back. Aunt Mildred had four small boxes wrapped in pale pink wrapping paper on the table in front of her.
“Hey,” I said, sliding into the booth next to Daisy, who was scribbling away in a small notebook. “What are you writing?”
“An article for the Grapevine about tonight,” she said. Her short blond hair bobbed as she wrote even faster. “I’m almost finished.”
I frowned. “I thought Olivia was writing that article?” Olivia was the sixth-grade editor of the Grapevine, the school newspaper—a position that Daisy had wanted.
“It wasn’t assigned to me. I was just going to surprise everyone with it tomorrow. But if Olivia’s already writing about it . . .” She scowled and flipped her notebook closed. Then she looked at me, and said, “How was your weekend with the H
ammer?”
I didn’t like the look in her eyes—sort of a mixture of pity and hesitation, like she didn’t exactly know what to say. It was a look I’d seen a lot the last couple years, and I was sick of it. So I just shrugged, and said, “It was fine.”
Sophia came bursting into the café, her face flushed from the cold. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, sliding into the booth.
“How was your Thanksgiving?” I asked her.
“Busy,” she answered, yawning as she tucked a strand of long brown hair behind her ear. “The shop’s been packed all weekend.” Sophia’s mother, Mrs. Ramos, owns Charming Trinkets, the jewelry shop just around the corner, where Aunt Mildred buys our charms. A lot of times Sophia helps her mom out by working at the store or by watching her younger twin brothers.
Izzy clapped her hands together. “Finally, we’re all here—the charm girls are back in business!” She reached for a box, but Aunt Mildred swept it out of her way.
“You’re back in business, provided you don’t get in trouble earning these charms,” she said. “I need a promise from all of you that you’ll stay out of trouble this time.”
“I promise,” Sophia said quickly.
“Me too,” I said.
“Define ‘trouble,’ ” Izzy said, and Daisy nodded seriously.
“Izzy,” Aunt Mildred warned.
“Just kidding!” Izzy said. “I promise.”
“Yeah, me too,” Daisy said, although both she and Izzy looked a little reluctant.
“Okay, now that that’s settled.” Aunt Mildred passed out the boxes.
We ripped them open. Inside were two charms. The first was a tiny clock charm and the second, a small candy cane. The clock charm was golden and vintage-looking with hour hands that actually moved. The candy-cane charm was red and white and looked so real I could swear I smelled peppermint.
Once we finished examining the charms, we all looked up expectantly at Aunt Mildred.
“How do we earn these?” Sophia asked.
“I’ve been talking with the Caulfields,” Aunt Mildred said. “Turns out, they need a little extra help on the weekends with their Christmas-tree lot. So I’ve volunteered you four for this Saturday—you’re going to give them the gift of your time, hence the clock charm.”
“Awesome!” Sophia said. “I’ve always wanted to work on a tree lot!”
“Volunteer?” Daisy said, wrinkling her nose. “Are you kidding? I thought we were going to be doing something fun—like hot-air-ballooning last weekend. You always make us do—”
“I don’t always make you do anything, Daisy Caulfield,” Aunt Mildred said, looking perturbed. “You’re free to give back the charms, if you wish—but for your information, your grandma told me you were going to be working on the farm this month, no matter what, so you might want to pipe down.”
Daisy and her mom had moved back to Dandelion Hollow last summer and were living on her grandparents’ farm, and I knew she got pretty sick of farm work.
“What about the candy-cane charm?” I asked.
“The rotary club purchased a ton of candy canes to give away tonight,” Aunt Mildred said. “They need people to pass them out.”
“What, you mean now?” Izzy said.
“No, I mean two hours from now, after everyone’s gone home,” Aunt Mildred said. “Yes, I mean now.” She took a sip of coffee. “Don’t look so disappointed,” she said to Daisy. “Next time, I promise not to make you do something for the common good.”
“Are you passing out candy canes with us?” Sophia asked.
Aunt Mildred shook her head. “I’m helping Scooter. He’s playing Santa tonight, and he needs an assistant.”
“Is Scooter your boyfriend now?” Daisy asked.
It was something the four of us had been wondering all month. Scooter McGee owns the Dusty Shelf—a used bookstore a few shops away from the café—and he and Aunt Mildred had a lunch date at Pumpkin Palooza, Dandelion Hollow’s annual fall festival, last month, and they’d been spending a lot of time together ever since. Izzy told me that Scooter had had a crush on Aunt Mildred back when they were in high school together, and now, forty years later, he still liked her.
Forty years—I couldn’t even imagine liking the same boy for forty days.
“I am entirely too old to be having boyfriends.” Aunt Mildred sniffed.
“If you don’t like the word ‘boyfriend,’ ” Izzy said, “we could always go with ‘beau’ or ‘gentleman caller’ or ‘hot—’ ”
“Izzy,” Aunt Mildred said in a warning voice, “you’re about to get on my last nerve.”
“You mean you’ve got more than one?” Izzy teased.
Everyone laughed; then we gathered our charms and left the café to go find the rotary club.
We don’t get snow in Dandelion Hollow—in our part of northern California, we’re lucky if we get rain—so instead of snowflakes, machines were spraying multicolored bubbles into the air, making it hard to see. Tyler Jones and a couple other boys from school were easily visible, though; they had gotten ahold of some jingle bells and were running around and ringing them in people’s ears. Over at the gazebo, there was a line of people waiting to get a picture taken with Santa. Just beyond stood a large spruce tree, unlit, but already laden with Christmas ornaments.
“Laden”—it means, “heavily loaded or weighed down.” That’s how I felt as the four of us pushed through the crowd. Like I carried a hundred-pound weight on my chest as I watched all the happy families laughing and smiling at one another.
“Isn’t this awesome?” Sophia said excitedly.
“Amazing,” I lied.
Sophia turned to me, looking worried. “Are you sure? You look like something’s wrong?”
I thought about telling her about Mom’s letter or about the Terrible Beautiful Ache that was pressing on me or how this was the first tree-lighting I’d been to since Mom died because Dad and I skipped it last year. But everyone looked so happy, and I didn’t want to spoil things.
Trust me, you mention a dead parent and people—even your closest friends—get real uncomfortable, real fast.
“It’s nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.”
We found the president of the rotary club, who gave us each a box of candy canes and told us to fan out into the square. I passed mine out one by one, watching all the happy families as shiny soap bubbles from the “snow” machine danced across the air. I wished there was real snow tonight. Mom and Dad used to take me up to Lake Tahoe every winter to go sledding, but the first thing when we arrived, Mom and I would flop onto our backs and make snow angels. Then we’d make a big deal of showing them to Dad.
“Snow angels from my two angels,” Dad would say every year.
It was our tradition, and it was corny and mushy and totally not cool—but I loved it, anyway.
I was down to my last two candy canes when I heard a loud voice behind me say, “No, it’s not okay. You should have told me.”
I turned around and saw Austin Jackson, one of my classmates, standing next to his parents. “Told you what?” I asked.
“None of your business!” he snapped. “I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Austin!” Mr. Jackson said. “You’re being rude.”
“I’m being rude?” Austin said, whirling back around to face his dad. “You’re being rude. You could’ve told me—”
“Austin!” Mrs. Jackson gave him a stern look. “Not here.”
“Fine, whatever,” Austin said, and stalked away.
“I’m sorry, Violet,” Mrs. Jackson said as we watched Austin push into the crowd. “I don’t know what’s come over him tonight.”
“It’s fine,” I said, handing Mr. and Mrs. Jackson each a candy cane. Sophia appeared next to me, her box empty.
“What was that about?” she asked, glancing over at the Jacksons once we’d walked away from them.
“No idea,” I said. “Typical boy weirdness.”
Except Austin wasn’t just any bo
y. He was Izzy’s next-door neighbor, and she used to have a crush on him. I could understand why she’d liked him. He was cute and usually pretty nice—when he wasn’t acting like a total tool.
We ran into Izzy and Daisy; they’d also just finished passing out their candy canes. Together, the four of us removed our charm bracelets and began hooking our candy-cane charms onto the golden chains.
“We have earned our charm,” Izzy said, raising her voice over all the commotion in the square. I guess to someone else, it could sound a little corny, but it made me feel warm inside, to be staring at Izzy, Daisy, and Sophia and see them smiling back at me, wearing their identical bracelets.
It made the night feel a little bit easier.
Just then Tyler Jones came running up to Izzy and rang a pair of jingle bells right next to her ear. “Merry Christmas, Toad Girl!” he yelled. “Toad Girl” is what people sometimes call Izzy; they used to call her that all the time, but it’s gotten a lot better in the last month.
“That’s it,” Daisy said as Tyler ran off. “That’s the second time tonight he’s done that to you, Izzy. I say we get a hold of him and—”
“Forget about it,” Izzy said, rubbing her ear. “I’m on a strict diet of forgiveness and good behavior. I am not spending another month grounded.” She smiled at Daisy and added, “But if you want to get some revenge on my behalf, there’s really nothing I could do about it, right?”
“Right,” Daisy said. “I could use a little Christmas revenge right about now.” Daisy ran off in Tyler’s direction, Sophia following behind, and Izzy went to find her sister, Carolyn, who was going to be singing Christmas carols with the Dandelion High choir tonight.
I wandered away from everyone, and sat down on a park bench. I pulled Mom’s letter from my jeans pocket. She was right that I loved making lists, and normally, I’d already be reaching for my pen and checking off “Attend Dandelion Hollow’s Tree-Lighting.”
“Well, will you look at that?” said a stuffy voice nearby. “Honestly, the nerve of some people.”
I turned; Edith Binchy, a longtime resident of Dandelion Hollow, was sitting with a few ladies from her knitting circle on the park bench behind me. “Over at the gazebo,” she added.
The Wondrous World of Violet Barnaby Page 3
