Gloria had been quiet the whole ride to Ellie’s house. Her
mother had tried to engage her in conversation, “How was your day?”, “What is
your favorite subject?” those sorts of questions, but she had only given short
answers. Enough to be polite. Barely.
She still couldn’t believe she was going to have to go to Ellie’s
house every day for a whole week. She knew it was her own fault, but she still
hated that she was being forced to do it.
“You girls get started on your homework and I’ll make you a
snack.”
Gloria followed Ellie up to her room. “A snack? Your mom
makes you a snack after school?”
Ellie shrugged, “Yeah? Don’t you have a snack after school?”
Gloria just shook her head. “It will ruin your dinner.”
That’s always what her mother told her, but she also understood there were no
snacks to be had. They didn’t buy extras at the store; they bought what they
needed and no more. Her mother said anything more than that was wasteful. But
she knew it was also expensive.
A snack. Everyday. She just shook her head.
When Ellie opened the door to her room Gloria just stood on
the threshold and stared. It was like something out of the Sears catalog. Not
the rainbow room thank goodness, she would have never been able to handle that,
but it was amazing. She had an honest to goodness canopy bed. And a set of
dresser drawers that matched. And a desk. And… Gloria could feel her heart
starting to pound, a bookshelf filled with books.
Ellie pointed over to the other side of the room, “Mom had
Dad bring in Missy’s old desk for you so you can do your worksheets there if
you want. Or I can take it if you would rather have the window. I don’t mind.”
Ellie’s desk looked out on their backyard where Missy’s old
desk was facing a wall. But the wall had a giant mural painted on it. A mural
of The Wizard of Oz. She turned and looked, and you could see the yellow brick
road wrapping all around Ellie’s room.
“Yeah, I know, it’s from when I was a baby. Mom says I can
paint it next year, but I have to decide what color and I don’t know.”
“You want to paint over this? This is amazing.”
“Really? You don’t think it’s too babyish? I’m always afraid
people will think it’s too babyish.”
“Well, I don’t. And who’s Missy?”
“Missy is my older sister. She’s technically my half-sister
but Mom doesn’t like me to say that. She thinks it cheapens the relationship.
But we don’t really have a relationship, so I don’t care. She lives with us
sometimes. But mostly stays with her mom. They have a pool and she has two
rooms there so she says she doesn’t like to slum it with us.”
“Wow you really do just say everything don’t you?”
Ellie scowled, “I don’t like it when people keep secrets or
tell lies. I don’t understand why people don’t just say what they mean all the
time. I think the world would be better without secrets.”
“Maybe. But sometimes that’s how you know who to trust. If
they keep your business between just you and them and don’t tell everyone
else.”
“Maybe. So which desk do you want?”
“I’ll use Missy’s. I like your mural.”
Gloria finished the three worksheets they had for homework
quickly and then started to read one of her new books. When Ellie’s mother
called them downstairs to have a snack, she closed the book and wrote something
in her notebook before leaving the room.
“What was that?”
“What?”
“What did you write down?”
“I wrote down the page number I was on so I know where to
start again.”
“Why didn’t you just fold down the corner of the page?”
Gloria sighed, “I hate when people do that. It messes up the
book.”
Ellie smiled, “Me too! And when people write in books?”
Gloria shook her head, “That’s the worst! People underline
words or write notes on the pages! Why do they do that?”
“Isn’t it awful? I hate it. Missy colors in her books. Like
just draws pictures and colors them! And my mother doesn’t understand why I
don’t want her hand me down books.”
After they finished their peanut butter and apple slices,
they went back up to Ellie’s room. “Want to see what I do?”
“What you do?”
“With my books.” With that Ellie pulled a book off of her
shelf and opened the front cover. But only part way. “I never open them all the
way because it makes lines in the spine. My mother lays her books out flat,
sometimes it makes the pages loose and they fall out.” She let that horror sit
with Gloria for a moment before handing her the book and the paper. “See? Those
are things I like in the book. Words that I like the feel of in my head or
things people say that I think sound cool. I put down the page number and write
down the line. Then I use that paper as a bookmark. But I think I’m going to do
what you do and write down the page in my notebook instead. That way I don’t
have to worry about wet ink getting on the pages.”
Gloria read the notes page Ellie had kept. It was actually a book she had checked
out from the library a few weeks ago and she saw that Ellie liked a lot of the
words she had liked as well. And knew exactly what she had meant by feeling
those words in her head. Sometimes when she was reading she would find a word
that just seemed like she could touch it. Some were soft and some were rough,
but they all had texture to them. The girls spent the next hour talking about
the book they had both read and liked so much.
“You can borrow any of my books that you want. Especially if
you talk to me about them after you read them. Nobody reads the same books as I
do and sometimes, I just want to talk about the stories when I’m done.”
Gloria agreed, how could she resist? Ellie had shelves and
shelves of books she had never read before.
Years later when people would ask how they had met and
become best friends they would say there were in a Scholastic Book Fair
Clubbing together and they would laugh that laugh that longtime friends have
that says to the rest of the world, you wouldn’t get the joke, so don’t ask us
to explain.
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