The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  “I can’t tell who that is,” her dad said.

  Trina finally looked up and when she recognized their visitor, her heart skipped way more than a beat. “It’s Miss Dale,” she said under her breath.

  “Miss Dale?” His eyebrows pulled together, trying to remember. “Miss Dale . . . You mean your teacher? Why is she—? Oh, Trina, we’ve really done it this time.”

  Citrine, she wanted to correct him as he jumped to his feet, but she could feel him getting anxious and she didn’t want to make it any worse. Miss Dale walked toward them with an armload of books and papers and a small white box.

  “Hello, Citrine,” she said kindly as she came up the steps of the porch.

  “Hi, Miss Dale,” Trina said, slipping her postcard into her back pocket. And then, thinking good manners might help her out in this awkward situation, she said, “I’m sure you remember my father, Mr. Michael Maxwell.”

  “Mike,” he said. “I mean, you can call me Mike.” He held out his hand to shake Miss Dale’s but dropped it when he saw her hands were full.

  “Carrie,” Miss Dale said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Of course, I can carry this.” He took the stack of books and papers and the box labeled Cat’s Meow Diner from her arms.

  Trina thought she might die of embarrassment right then and there. “Carrie, Poppo,” Trina whispered. “Miss Dale’s name is Carrie.”

  His face flushed pinker than the sky. “Of course. Carrie. I knew that. And what brings you way out here on this fine evening?”

  “Mr. Kinghorn said he saw Citrine at the library several days ago and then Mr. Hank and Mr. Al said you had been in town, so I assured Miss Lincoln that if Citrine wasn’t in school today, I’d pay you a visit.” Miss Dale smiled. “Miss Lincoln is kind of the boss, you know,” which made Trina smile too, despite her own nervousness.

  “C’mon, tell the truth,” Trina’s dad said. “You all thought the house got us. WOO-HA-HA,” he added in his scary voice just before he laughed.

  Trina cringed as she saw Miss Dale’s green eyes flash with fear. She knew her dad was trying to lighten the mood, but it wasn’t working. “Don’t, Poppo. Don’t scare her.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s okay,” Miss Dale said. “Although I’ll admit we were a little worried about the two of you way out here.”

  “We’re getting along just fine. Come on in and see for yourself.” He motioned her toward the front door, which was standing wide open. “Even Citrine has decided the house isn’t haunted.”

  “Poppo,” Trina said again, embarrassed for both of them this time.

  Her dad hurried ahead and put the books and bakery box on the dining room table and disappeared into the kitchen while Trina showed Miss Dale the main floor. “This is the parlor,” she said, watching the look of amazement on Miss Dale’s face. Then she guided her across the foyer into the library and pointed out its four books from Mr. Kinghorn and told her all about the delivery of the rocking chair.

  Next, she led Miss Dale through the smoking room. “The funny smell is from the tobacco,” Trina said. “And this is the best part. Follow me.” She opened the door to the secret passageway and led Miss Dale into the dining room. Trina wrapped up by explaining how they would repaint the entire exterior before winter came, then plaster the walls and the ceilings and order custom wallpapers to match the originals.

  “Wow,” Miss Dale said. “This is a really big project.”

  “And that’s just the stuff you can see,” Trina’s dad said, walking into the dining room, drying his freshly washed hands on a paper towel. “Please, have a seat. Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” Miss Dale said as the downstairs toilet decided to flush itself with a great gush of water.

  Miss Dale’s head whipped around.

  “Just one of our ghosts,” Trina’s dad said.

  Trina wanted to sink under the table. “It’s really a leaky valve,” she said.

  An awkward silence followed until Miss Dale pointed at the bakery box. “How about we eat the cupcakes I brought?” she said. “While we talk.”

  Trina jumped up and grabbed the box, glad to leave the room. She put the cupcakes on the new blue china platter from Al’s Antiques and brought it into the dining room. Then she got three little matching plates. She even folded three paper towels to look like napkins. The table was nearly as welcoming as Augustine’s—except for the folding chairs.

  After they had enjoyed the cupcakes for a few moments in silence, Miss Dale got really serious and started talking about school and state laws, and Trina got more and more uneasy as she listened. “The bottom line is,” Miss Dale concluded, “Citrine needs to return to school.”

  Trina shook her head.

  “C’mon, Trina. I mean, Citrine.” Her dad’s face flushed again. “You know we talked about this. We agreed you would take a couple days off and then go back.”

  “But I changed my mind, Poppo. I can learn more from home than I can at school.” Trina looked at Miss Dale, hoping she wasn’t offending her. “Look at everything we’ve done. All the measuring and the planning and all the work. It’s like math and art and gym all at once. Everything I need to know, you can teach me.”

  “We both know that’s not true, Princess.”

  Trina hooked her feet on the rungs of the chair and wrapped her arms around herself. She would have curled into a ball if she could have. “I didn’t go to school at all in Portland, and everything was fine.”

  Her dad looked to Miss Dale. “We weren’t there very long.” Then he turned back to Trina. “And you were a lot younger then. Now you have to go to school.”

  Trina knew this was an argument she couldn’t win, not now that Miss Dale was there. If Goldenrod wasn’t such a big house, they wouldn’t have to stay for a whole year. She could look forward to moving soon and school wouldn’t matter. Or if her mother would just come home and rescue her, but her mother seemed to be getting farther and farther away.

  Trina looked down at her still-bruised thumb. On the verge of tears, she tried one last time. “But we’re a team. Remember, Poppo?”

  “Citrine,” he said softly, and Trina looked up, right into his eyes, surprised he got her name right. Suddenly everything felt more serious. She was afraid she might cry, but if she cried she’d look like the baby she didn’t want to be.

  “What happened at school?” he said. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been the new kid. Something must have happened.”

  Trina shifted in her chair. “I already told you, Poppo. The kids all know each other.”

  Miss Dale nodded. “That’s true. It’s a pretty close group.”

  “And they don’t want anyone new,” Trina continued. And then she couldn’t help herself. “And they’re mean.”

  “All of them?” her dad asked.

  Trina looked down. She didn’t want to say anything more. Tattling was worse than crying if you were trying to be grown-up.

  “Are you talking about Charlotte?” Miss Dale asked.

  Trina’s head jerked up, her eyes alert.

  “Who’s Charlotte?” her dad asked, frowning.

  “She’s Miss Kitty’s granddaughter, and a cousin of mine,” Miss Dale said. “She’s a bit of a handful. For everybody.”

  “Miss Kitty’s granddaughter!” he repeated. “Huh.” The frown on his face turned into a grin. “I guess that explains everything.”

  Trina snorted, a laugh mixed with almost crying. “Poppo,” she said, trying to hush him, but then she noticed Miss Dale had her hand over her mouth, trying to hide her own smile.

  “So it wasn’t enough that I put her up front by me?” Miss Dale said, pulling her chair closer to Trina’s.

  Trina shook her head. Miss Dale didn’t know about the name calling. Or how Charlotte had squeezed her hand so tightly she thought it might break after the dodgeball game. Or how she held up her big fist at the water fount
ain.

  “Listen,” Miss Dale said. “Let’s start over tomorrow. It’s Friday, so it will be just one day before the weekend. And it’s the last of our ‘One-Minute Me’ days.”

  One-Minute Me? Really? Fifth grade still sounded like kindergarten. Trina shook her head slowly and looked at her dad, who was nodding along with Miss Dale’s idea. How could he do this to her? How could he side with the teacher?

  “I brought all your homework, but don’t worry about catching up right now. Just come prepared to tell the class about someone, or something, that is special in your life and why. For one minute. You can bring pictures or souvenirs. Anything that will help you tell your story.” Miss Dale looked around at the blank walls and the empty rooms. “Or you don’t have to bring anything. You can just talk. And leave Charlotte up to me.” She reached for Trina’s hands and held them gently. “Are you willing to give it one day?”

  Trina could feel her anger slipping away. Miss Dale not only had the kindest eyes she had ever seen, but the gentlest hands. And no matter what she hoped, Trina knew they would be living out the year at Goldenrod and that her mother wouldn’t be rescuing her anytime soon.

  “Okay,” she said quietly, thinking everything would be easier if she could hang onto Miss Dale’s hands forever. “I’ll go for one day and see.”

  One more horrible day.

  One more terrible woe to tell Augustine.

  Augustine. She had to tell Augustine. Maybe Augustine would make her feel better.

  Trina looked out the dining room window at the darkening sky. She needed to hurry if she was going to tell Augustine the news before the little doll fell asleep. “Can I please be excused?”

  Her dad nodded. Trina raced out of the room, turned around to say a quick good-bye to Miss Dale, and then ran upstairs. Augustine was in bed, her eyes already half-closed.

  “Augustine,” Trina said. “Stay awake!”

  Augustine sat right up. “Have you come to read us a story?”

  Trina shook her head. She didn’t have time to read a story and talk to Augustine before it got dark out. “No, I have a problem.”

  “Oh, dear, another woe.” Augustine pulled up her knees and rested her chin in her hands, ready to listen.

  “I have to go back to school, but I don’t want to go.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember. The witch lives in the Land of School. You have stayed away many days, safe in the Land of Goldenrod. Are you afraid to return?”

  Trina nodded, blinking away tears.

  Augustine held out a little hand to her. “I understand. Still, I believe you must return. I know of no good story where the maiden gives up. You must simply be brave and valiant.”

  Augustine made it sound easy, but Trina knew it would be hard. “That’s not all. My teacher says I’m supposed to tell a story about someone or bring something that is very important in my life and tell why, but I can’t think of anything. I don’t want to talk about Goldenrod because they all think it’s haunted, and I don’t want to talk about working on the house . . .”

  Trina broke off, her voice wobbling.

  “Can you not read the story of Briar Rose?”

  Trina slouched against her bed. “That’s not the kind of story she means. It has to be a story about me.”

  Augustine reached for her silver hairbrush and brushed her fine blonde hair as she stared toward the fireplace in Trina’s room. Then she clasped the hairbrush in her other hand. “I have an idea!” she cried.

  Trina followed Augustine’s gaze to the fireplace mantel. “You’re brilliant!” she said, standing up. “Why didn’t I think of that? My mother’s postcards! I can tell the class all about her adventures.” Trina reached for the stack of postcards. “I’ll take New Zealand and the one I just got from Antarctica,” she said, pulling the new one from her pocket. When Trina turned around, Augustine was standing outside her house with her hands on her hips.

  “Citrine, could it be that you are forgetting something?”

  “What?” Trina could tell Augustine was mad, but she didn’t know why. And then it hit her: Augustine expected to go to school with her. But just the thought of Augustine dropped on the playground or taken away by Miss Lincoln made Trina feel queasy. Trina shook her head firmly. “Augustine, I can’t take you to school with me.”

  “Then tell me how you plan to push the witch into the oven all by yourself?”

  Augustine’s reply was such a surprise Trina couldn’t help smiling. But her problem was a real problem, not a fairy-tale dilemma, and Augustine’s plan of action would be of no use to her at school. “We’re not allowed to push witches into ovens anymore, Augustine. The Land of School has new laws that say we can’t hurt anybody.”

  “Must everyone follow these new laws?”

  What a relief. For once Augustine understood what she was telling her about the human world. “Yes,” Trina sighed. “Everyone.”

  “But you said the witch wants to eat you up.”

  “Beat me up. She wants to beat me up, Augustine.”

  “Would that not hurt you?”

  Trina bit her lower lip. “Yes, it would.”

  “Citrine, I do not understand. Are you saying she may hurt you, but you may not hurt her?”

  Trina sat down on the edge of her bed. “I guess so.”

  Augustine stomped her little foot. “Then she must be revenged upon.”

  Revenged upon? For a second the idea of getting revenge sounded good to Trina. Maybe there was a way to stop Charlotte. Give her a taste of her own medicine. But what would Miss Dale think of Trina then? Revenge wasn’t part of their agreement. “No,” Trina finally said. “Revenge is mean.”

  Augustine tapped her tiny chin, thinking. “Then we must teach her a lesson. Books are full of lessons, are they not? And the Land of School is full of books?”

  Trina felt herself filling with hope despite Augustine’s crazy idea. “Yes, it is.”

  “Because I have promised to help you, I will accompany you to the Land of School. There we will use one of the many books to find a lesson to free you from the perils of the evil witch. And that is that.”

  Augustine crawled back into her bed, put her head on her pillow, and yawned. “Now, if you please, put my mother to bed. She is quite stiff from sitting at the table day in and day out. I have explained that you have been very busy, but she feels terribly forgotten.”

  “I’m sorry,” Trina said guiltily as she laid the mother doll in the four-poster bed in the room next to Augustine’s. It was hard enough to feel bad about Augustine, but now she had to feel bad about her mother too. She should have been taking better care of Augustine’s mother, especially since she had spent a hundred years in a disgusting drainpipe. She pulled the quilt over the mother doll and whispered, “I promise I’ll take good care of your daughter in the Land of School. I won’t let her out of my sight for a second.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Trina hardly slept a wink, worrying about school, and she woke up at sunrise just as Augustine stirred in her little bed. She dressed in her good shorts and her red T-shirt—the one with the extra-big pocket—and brushed her teeth.

  “Good morning, Citrine,” Augustine called as Trina returned to her room. The little doll had already changed into her dress and brushed her hair and was standing in a ray of sunshine. “I am ready for our great adventure in the Land of School.”

  “Me too, Augustine. And I’m glad you’re coming with me. I don’t like talking in front of a group. I get stage fright.” Trina filled her backpack with her new schoolbooks, a couple notebooks, and a few pens and pencils, and she zipped the two postcards from her mother into the front pouch. Then she picked up Augustine. “I’m going to put you in my pocket.”

  Augustine gasped. “Please, Citrine, not your pocket!”

  “This pocket, see?” She lowered the little doll into her shirt pocket. “You can still peek out if you stand on your tiptoes, but you can’t say a word.”

  “I understand very
well the dangers of speaking, Citrine.”

  Augustine stayed low and quiet at breakfast as Trina ate her oatmeal. In the truck, too, on the way into town.

  “Think you can manage?” Trina’s dad said as they pulled up in front of the New Royal Public School.

  “Yeah,” she said, but she couldn’t tell him why. She couldn’t say she and Augustine had a plan, so instead she said, “It’s just really weird. They still write on chalkboards and they don’t have any computers.”

  “Sounds normal to me,” he said.

  “That’s because you went to school in the Middle Ages.” Trina hopped out of the truck. “Three thirty and not a second later, Poppo.”

  “Your lunch!” he hollered, handing Trina the paper bag stuffed with a PB&J sandwich, cookies, and potato chips through his window. Moments later she was walking cautiously into room 216. The kids were already there, but Miss Dale was nowhere in sight.

  Nobody said a word. She took her seat behind Prissy Missy, who was wearing a green dress with puffy sleeves, and in front of Charlotte, who had her thick hair pulled into a ponytail. Her long bangs were held in place by a pink angel barrette.

  “Ee-ew. Do I smell Latrine?”

  An angel. Right. Where was Miss Dale when she needed her? Trina ignored Charlotte, faced the board, and read the agenda in a whisper, directing her voice at her pocket. “Math, Geography, Art Masterpiece, One-Minute Me, Lunch, Recess—”

  “When do we read stories?” asked Augustine, doing her best to whisper.

  “I don’t see reading,” Trina whispered to her pocket, which made Prissy Missy turn around.

  “Do you always talk to yourself?” Missy asked, making an extra-prissy face.

  Trina shook her head. “No. I mean, yes. I mean . . . sometimes.”

  Missy put her nose in the air. “We have Silent Reading in the afternoon. Right after Spelling. It says so on the board.”