Someone looking at the favorite-color category might think that white is a boring color to choose.
That person would have no idea that Sally’s favorite color is white because it’s all the colors of the spectrum in one. If you choose white, you’re choosing every single color that exists in the entire world. Sally knows that, but how many other people do?
Someone looking at the family part of the Sally list might think it unusual to list “Grandmother” before “Mother” and not to list “Father” at all.
That person would not know that Jill doesn’t talk and that Sally has never lived with her. That person would not know about Willie and her green pail and her keep-away-the-dogs stick. That person would not know that Willie was an anti-sugarist or that Sally has vowed never again to eat another chocolate-covered sprinkle doughnut.
Looking at the list, no one would be able to tell that Willie is sick, that Willie will die soon.
I went outside, to where Sally was sitting beside the meander. I knelt beside her and combed my fingers through her hair, trying to bring some order to the tangles, trying to smooth some of the snarls.
“Sal, where does Nine Mile Creek go after it hits the Utica floodplain?” I said. “Have you ever found out?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think it might flow into the ocean eventually?”
No answer. I pictured the meander, flowing into Nine Mile Creek and then into the Utica floodplain and from there into a nameless river that grows bigger and bigger until it joins the Atlantic.
“The ocean refuses no river,” Mr. Tyler told us in earth science.
“Sally,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
I closed my eyes and laid my cheek against Sally’s hair, her soft hair.
Her shoulders shook then, and I knew she was crying.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” I whispered. “It’s so hard, sometimes.”
It was quiet.
The last of the sun slipped behind the hills.
Darkness was nigh upon us and the Cabin started to become a dark shape, the way it always does at twilight, a shape without form, unrecognizable unless you had been camping there for many years and were used to it.
I closed my eyes and thought of the sound of Jill’s voice.
To braid a braid:
1. Brush hair until smooth and snarl free.
2. Separate into three strands of equal size.
3. Hold all three strands loosely in both hands.
4. Draw one of the side strands over the middle strand, then draw the other side strand over the middle strand.
5. Pull tight for a tight braid, loose for a loose braid.
6. Keep drawing the sides over the middle until you have braided the length of the hair.
A slender pointed twig lay on the ground, and I used it to section Sally’s hair. I made six braids, long ones that curved down her head and lay against the nape of her neck.
It took me a long time. I’m not used to braiding. I tied them with long strips of dried grass. Dried-grass bows.
When I was finished braiding Sally’s hair, the braids I had made weren’t even, not one exactly the same size and length as the others, nor were they made with clean parts, the kind you make with a comb. They were long and straggly. I saw that they wouldn’t last. Already one of the dried-grass bows had slipped off. Tiny strands of hair were slipping away from the other strands. They were still braids, but they were braids unbraiding, turning into loose strands of hair.
I took the red rubber band off my wrist and wrapped it around the end of the longest braid. Then I took off the blue one, and the yellow, the white, and the pink.
The directions for how to braid make it seem as if there is one stationary middle strand, while the side strands are in constant motion, crossing over and over. But the reality is that there is no middle strand, nor are there side strands. The sides become the middle become the sides again in a braid. Each has equal weight. Each is always in motion. At any given moment, a side or a middle is in the process of becoming what it used to be and will be again.
The day will come that Sally and I will be all grown-up. Someday the Cabin will be fallen into the ground, taking with it our curtains, and the salt and pepper shakers that Sophie gave us that day. The meander will finally tire of its curves, and each curve will break through its wall of earth so that it is no longer a meander but a single straight thread of creek.
I have been growing my hair out since last Thanksgiving, and still no one has noticed. Maybe the day will come when I will be able to toss my head in exasperation, and someone will say, “Oh, you’re growing out your bangs?” and I will sigh and say, “Yes.” I believe that the day will come when Jill will say something for all to hear. I believe that there will come a day when Jill will know how to do Sally’s hair, and Sally will get on the bus with her hair in a French braid that wraps itself around her head.
But for now, there was one more braid still undone.
I looked at my wrist and the single rubber band that remained.
If you are afraid, here’s something you can try. Put a purple rubber band around your wrist, a rubber band that means “Be of strong heart.” Snap it every day, whenever you are afraid, whenever you sense the world around you changing and you are scared of what may happen, and maybe someday you will have a glimpse of what it means to be brave.
Sally’s head was still bent, and her shoulders curved with tiredness. Her eyes were closed. With a single finger I plucked the purple rubber band on my wrist as if it were a guitar string, so gently that it made no sound.
I slipped it off.
Then I wrapped it around Sally’s shining hair, so that the last braid was held firmly in place.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Kara “editor extraordinaire” LaReau, for your encouragement and your keen eye.
Thank you, Mike Finley, for the blue bicycle, and thank you, Susan Andress, for the doughnut holes.
To the members of the Lake Harriet Community School Rope Power team and their teachers, a big can-can to you all!
And to Kate DiCamillo and Holly McGhee, first readers and editors, my love and thanks.
Alison McGhee is the author of three critically acclaimed novels for adults, Shadow Baby, Rainlight, and Was It Beautiful? She is also the author of two picture books, Countdown to Kindergarten and Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth, illustrated by Harry Bliss, and the young adult novel All Rivers Flow to the Sea. She says,“Recently I went through a rubber band phase, in which I wore several on my wrist at all times and snapped them in an effort to retrain myself out of a couple of bad habits. Sadly, the bad habits remained — but happily, Snap was born.” Alison McGhee lives in Minnesota.
www.candlewick.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2004 by Alison McGhee
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2013
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
McGhee, Alison, date.
Snap : a novel / Alison McGhee. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Eleven-year-old Edwina confronts old and new challenges when her longtime best friend Sally faces the inevitable death of the grandmother who raised her.
ISBN 978-0-7636-2002-8 (hardcover)
[1. Best friends — Fiction. 2. Friendship — Fiction. 3. Grandmother — Fiction. 4. Grief — Fiction. 5. Change — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.M4784675 Sn 2004
[Fic] — dc21 2002034998
ISBN 978-0-7636-2617-4 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7636-6774-0 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
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Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
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