by Cynthia Lord
Maybe they’d be too different. The whole point was to make money. Salma was being really nice helping me, though, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “Are they hard to make?” I asked, buying myself some time to think about it.
“Easy as pie!” She laughed at her joke. “Actually they’re easier than pie! I could show you. We can make a test batch. Can we use your kitchen?”
“Of course,” I said, and immediately felt bad because she had to share a kitchen with a bunch of families. “That’s no problem. Are you sure you want to help, though? You’re already helping me with the bee houses.”
“I’d do anything for Lucky.” Salma pushed off and started swinging. “And that’s what star friends do.”
“Right!” I pushed off, too.
Pumping with my legs, I went higher and higher. Up, up, and whoosh back down. My hair rushed behind me and then in front of me.
“I’m flying!” Salma said.
“Me too!” I tried to look over at her, but my hair immediately got in the way. The ground sped past. Up I went until my toes appeared to touch the roofs of those little blue houses. Then even higher! They reached toward the far-off barrens.
Free-falling down, down. My hair streamed out in front as the ground rushed toward me, and then the swing grabbed and threw me up the other side.
I clenched my teeth. Blood rushed in my head, making my ears pound. Higher! This time, my toes seemed to skim the mountaintop above the barrens.
It was breathtaking to go so high. Scary, but I didn’t care. I’d always thought of being brave as a big thing. Fighting aliens or sailing across the ocean or singing in front of a whole church full of people all by myself. Maybe bravery didn’t have to be that big, though. Today, I’d only felt a little bit braver than I was scared. Just enough to tip the scales.
But that was all I needed. I’d done brave and big-thinking things. I’d rented a booth. I’d gone to the camp by myself. I’d made a star friend, and I was swinging like I could fly. I imagined that little bit of extra brave as a beach stone, small and hard and smooth-worn. I wrapped my hand around that pretend stone to hold it tight and swung up again and again.
Until my toes touched the sky.
It’s always weird when I invite a friend to our apartment for the first time. Most kids don’t live above a store with their grandparents.
But I had promised Salma we’d cook a test batch of blueberry enchiladas. So I brought her upstairs with me the next day. As soon as I opened the door to our kitchen, Lucky ran right over, so happy that he blocked her way, jumping and wagging.
“Let Salma come in!” I said, pulling him back.
Standing in our kitchen, Salma looked left and right, taking everything in. “There’s not much to see,” I said. “But I’ll give you the tour.”
Her face broke into a big smile when I showed her my room. “I wish I had my own room! Even at home in Florida, I have to share a room with Emilia, my cousin who lives with us. I don’t see her much, because she has a job. But her stuff is always there. You’re really lucky.”
Lucky’s head snapped up, and Salma laughed. “No, you’re Lucky, aren’t you?”
“Living above a store can be kind of noisy,” I said, so it all wouldn’t seem too perfect. “Sometimes the lobstermen wake me up when they come into the store really early and talk to Pépère. I can hear them through the heating vent.”
Salma sighed as we walked back to the kitchen. “When I want to be by myself, I have to go sit in our truck. But I have to tell someone where I’m going, because once I fell asleep out there, and my dad had the whole camp out looking for me. He thought I’d been eaten by a bear!”
I laughed. “When I first started walking to Hannah’s house by myself, Mémère used to call people along the route and ask them to watch and make sure I went past. I was so mad when I found out.”
I showed her Mémère and Pépère’s room, the living room, the bathroom, and then we went back to the kitchen.
“Okay, what do we need?” I opened the pantry door.
Salma looked at the recipe. “The filling takes white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, a pinch of salt, butter, and blueberries. Then, for the tortillas, Mamá says we could buy them or make them.”
“For today, let’s buy them to make it easier,” I said. “And we don’t have any blueberries upstairs. Come on, we’ll go down to the store and get some.”
She grinned. “It must be great to just go downstairs anytime you need something.”
“It is great—especially during a snowstorm. I don’t even have to put my boots on!” I giggled. “I’ll tell you a secret, though. We still buy some things from the supermarket in Machias when it’s cheaper! But if we do that, we sneak the bags in the back door so nobody sees us.”
As we came downstairs, I could see the store was busy. There were people in the aisles buying things, but my eyes skipped right over them to Mémère standing at the cash register. She was talking to Hannah.
My smile froze.
“Hannah was just asking for you. I told her you and Salma were upstairs cooking,” Mémère said.
Hannah looked at Salma like she was sizing her up a little. It felt weird to have Salma and Hannah together, like I didn’t know exactly who to be—the person I was with Salma or the one I was with Hannah.
“We’re making a test batch of blueberry enchiladas,” I said. “Salma and I decided to have a booth at the blueberry festival.”
Hannah’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re having a booth at the blueberry festival?”
It felt good to surprise her, like maybe I had changed a bit, too. “Yup.” I lifted my chin as I plucked a box of blueberries from the display near the register. “Are these enough, Salma?”
She nodded. “Now we just need tortillas.”
“Those are in the seasonal section,” I said.
Mémère and Pépère bring in a bunch of Mexican and Canadian and Central American foods every June to go with the picnic stuff, s’more fixings, and propane that mostly sell in the summertime. Mid-September, that section gets switched out with Halloween candy.
“I’ve never heard of blueberry enchiladas,” Hannah said, following us down the aisle. “I’ve only ever had beef or chicken.”
Hannah’s usually first to do new things, so it was nice to be first for once. “They’re really good.” I took the blueberries and tortillas to Mémère. “Go ahead and take these out of my bee house money.”
Mémère pulled the ledger out from under the counter. “Now, you three don’t go making a mess of my kitchen. Be sure you clean up afterward.”
Three? I touched my tongue to my top teeth. I didn’t really want to be in the middle.
“I can stay awhile,” Hannah said.
As we climbed the stairs back to our apartment, Salma turned to her. “I saw your picture in the festival brochure. Your dress was really pretty.”
“Oh, is there a photo of me in there?” Hannah sounded innocent, but I was fairly sure she knew. “I’m always telling Lily that she should enter the pageant. It’s fun, and if you win, you get a $5,000 savings bond for college. In fact, Downeast Blueberry Queen is one of the best pageants for money. Strawberry Queen at the Hillsborough Fair only gets $1,000. But since I’d already won the blueberry pageant last year, I didn’t even enter the strawberry one this year.”
I grinned. “If you’d won both, you’d be the Mixed Berry Queen!”
Hannah didn’t seem to find that as funny as I did.
“Do you have to live here to enter?” Salma asked.
Why’d she ask that? I tried to catch Salma’s eye, but she was looking at Hannah.
“No, last year there was a girl from New Hampshire in the pageant,” Hannah said. “It’s easy to enter. You just have to copy the form off the festival website and bring it to Mrs. LaRue at the Congregational Church. Then, the night of the pageant, you wear a fancy dress, answer some questions onstage, and do a talent.”
“Oh,” Salma said. “I don’t have a fancy
dress with me.”
Whew. That solves that. Salma was pretty enough to win a pageant. But the Downeast Blueberry Queen was usually blonde, like Hannah and Mama. And white. But I couldn’t say that. It would sound like we were prejudiced.
And maybe there was some of that? Or maybe the judges simply thought blondes were prettier. But either way, there was something shameful in saying that, and I didn’t want Salma to think I thought that way.
“I’m getting a new dress for this year,” Hannah said. “So I could loan you my dress from last year.”
I stared at Hannah. Being Downeast Blueberry Queen was a huge deal to her. Why was she doing this? Was she trying to take Salma away from me? Or was she jealous and trying to make room for herself in the middle of our friendship? Or was she so sure that Salma didn’t have a chance to win that it was safe to be kind to her?
“Tomorrow is supposed to be windy and rainy,” Hannah said. “So I won’t have to go fishing with my dad. If you want to, you and Lily can come over to my house to try on the dress to see if it fits.”
I felt like when you’re swimming and a big wave comes and just carries you along in a direction you don’t want to go. A girl didn’t just come into town and win the pageant. Downeast Blueberry Queen was more than having your hair done and wearing a blue dress. The winner represented our local towns—and us. The judges would never pick Salma. Plus, she wouldn’t be able to do the events after the festival. She wouldn’t be here.
“Would that be okay, Lily?” Salma asked. “Can we go over tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” I felt pulled in two directions. I thought this was a bad idea, but Salma wanted to do it. Star friends always help each other. “Okay,” I said.
Salma insisted I try the first enchilada we made. I took a bite, even though I wasn’t hungry.
“So what do you think?” Salma asked. “Should we make these for our booth at the festival? Bee houses and blueberry enchiladas?”
“They’re good,” I said slowly. “I just have to decide if they’ll sell well enough. Because that’s the whole point, right? To make money for Lucky?”
“I think they’d be great,” Hannah said. “They’re different. A nice change from pie.”
Enchiladas would be a little change to the festival, but Salma entering the pageant would be a big one. One thing I’ve learned from all the conversations I’ve overheard sitting next to the coffee station:
Some people don’t like changes.
Hannah’s old pageant dress was blueberry blue with silvery sparkles, puff sleeves, and a huge skirt covered in swirly fabric roses. Pépère would call it razzle-bee-dazzled.
Maybe even razzle-bee-double-dazzled.
Secretly, I hoped the dress wouldn’t fit. But Hannah was already in pageant mode, explaining how the whole thing worked. “The first questions the judges ask are about blueberries,” she said. “Those are just facts, like ‘Name the growing season for Maine’s wild blueberries.’ At the end of the blueberry round, the judges choose the girls who gave the best answers to go to the next round, where you do a talent and the questions are more personal. Last year, I got ‘If you could meet a famous woman from history, who would it be?’ ”
Salma grimaced. “What if you don’t know?”
“Then you smile and say the question back to the judges slowly,” Hannah said.
I could tell she liked explaining it all to Salma. I’d never been much interested in the pageant.
“That gives you a few extra seconds to think about an answer. Like this—” Hannah stood up straight and took a deep breath before smiling brightly. “If I could meet a famous woman from history, who would it be? Oh, that’s a hard one, because there are so many! But if I could meet a famous woman from history, I would love to meet Eleanor Roosevelt because she was kind and smart and brave and she did many wonderful things to make the world a better place.”
“Wow,” Salma said, impressed.
I nodded. Hannah was good at this, for sure. “That’s why she’s Downeast Blueberry Queen,” I said.
Hannah smiled a real smile. “Last year, I also got ‘What’s your favorite zoo animal?’ ”
“Favorite zoo animal?” Salma asked.
“No, don’t repeat the question like it doesn’t make sense,” Hannah said. “They’ll take off points for that. If you can’t think of anything, just smile and make up something that sounds like it could be true. As long as you’re confident, no one will know the difference. Try it again. What is your favorite zoo animal?”
“What is my favorite zoo animal?” Salma said slowly. “I like elephants. They’re beautiful, and, they, um, live in families and take care of one another.”
“Great!” Hannah said. “See? It’s not so hard. Just try not to say ‘um’ next time. Another question I remember was ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ ”
“I want to be an artist,” Salma said.
“And?” Hannah prompted. “The more you tell them, the more they’ll remember you.”
“I want to be an artist and live in a house that’s all my own,” Salma said. “I would paint my house lots of pretty colors and live there, just me and my dog, Luna.”
“Great,” Hannah said. “Adding in your dog is a nice touch.”
Salma and I looked at each other, and I felt the secret sizzle between us. When you imagine, you can make the world be whatever way you want it to be. You can find a lost dog and keep her with you forever.
Hannah took the dress off the hanger. “Are you ready to try this on to see if it fits? The bathroom is down the hall. You can change there.”
“Wow. It’s heavy,” Salma said, taking the dress from her.
“All pageant dresses are heavy—at least the good ones are. The crystals weigh them down.”
Salma carried the dress wrapped around her arm so it wouldn’t touch the floor on the way down the hallway.
Sitting on Hannah’s bed, I said, “Thank you. It’s nice of you to help Salma.”
Hannah looked up toward the ceiling. “It kind of hurt my feelings that you left the boat landing so fast the other day. It seemed like you didn’t want to be there.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” I said. “I just had to get back.”
“Because you were doing something with Salma?” Hannah asked.
I felt my face flush, like I’d been caught in a lie. “She’s helping me make money for Lucky to have an operation on his eyes.”
My friendship with Salma was much bigger than that, but Hannah might say that being star friends was silly. Or she might take it over and then it wouldn’t be fun anymore. Some things are magic between two people, but they fizzle when anyone else gets involved.
I looked around Hannah’s room for something else to talk about. Her room had always been as familiar as my own. On her bureau was her stuffed animal collection that we used to play with; her bookshelf was full of books I’ve read. We’ve traded books so much that it feels like we own them together.
But some things had changed. Now her bulletin board was covered with magazine photos. One was a beach with blue-green water and tall palm trees. There were glossy pictures of girls wearing clothes that no one would wear around here. And a few close-ups of boys who were probably famous, but I didn’t know who they were. “Are you excited for school?” I finally asked, just to say something.
“Kind of,” Hannah said. “I’m tired of fishing, but my dad needs me to help.”
Talking to her felt uncomfortable, like talking to people I don’t know very well. I was relieved when I finally heard the bathroom door open and Salma’s footsteps in the hall.
The dress was so fancy that she didn’t even look like herself, except for her face and ponytail and her feet in her flip-flops. “It’s a little loose, but not bad,” she said.
“It looks good on you.” Hannah sounded surprised.
“Would it be okay if I left it here until the pageant?” Salma said. “I don’t have anywhere to hang
it up. And I’ll have to figure out something for shoes. I have some pretty sandals at home in Florida, but I didn’t think I’d need them here.”
“Yeah, I don’t suppose they’d work raking blueberries,” Hannah said.
Was she being mean? No, Hannah looked confused. Like maybe it had been easy to offer Salma the dress when she thought Salma wasn’t any real competition.
But now she wasn’t so sure.
Mrs. LaRue’s eyebrows shot upward when Salma and I walked into her office a few days later. “Back so soon, Lily? I hope you haven’t changed your mind about the booth at the festival. I’m not supposed to give refunds.”
“No, Mrs. LaRue. We’re dropping off an application for the pageant. This is my friend Salma.”
“How nice!” Mrs. LaRue smiled, holding out her hand for the paper. “Lily, you’ve never entered the pageant before. Your mom would be so proud! Danielle was as pretty as a picture and had such a lovely singing voice. She still holds the record for most wins in a row.”
I blushed. “No, Mrs. LaRue. I’m not entering. Just Salma.”
“Oh!” Mrs. LaRue looked over the application. “Well, yes. There’s no rule you have to be a resident to enter.”
“I live here now,” Salma pointed out.
“Yes, though not—”Mrs. LaRue sucked on her bottom lip, like there were words she was holding back.
I felt anger lifting up my chest. I would never want to be in the pageant, but Salma wanted to. And if a girl from New Hampshire could be in it, so could Salma! I gave Mrs. LaRue a steely look that surprised even me. “Salma’s probably handled more blueberries than all the other girls combined. And we wouldn’t have any blueberries for the festival if we didn’t have people to rake them.”
“Of course.” Mrs. LaRue took a breath and turned all businesslike. “The application looks all here.” She pointed at each line with her pencil to check that everything was filled in. “Name, birthdate, Social Security number for the savings bond, grade level, parents’ names. Okay, I’ll make you a copy of the application. I need to keep the original.”
