Flickering Hope (4 page)

O
n Monday morning, Frankie’s desk was empty. The old radiator clanked and spewed hot, dusty air into the classroom. Bright light shone through the paned windows, but still I felt shut in, itchy. Andrew and I hadn’t talked since Friday’s phone conversation. The little girl’s face haunted my thoughts. Why did she want me to promise not to tell anyone about her if her family hadn’t done anything wrong? If I could just hike to the cabin, convince the girl to keep Patch’s den a secret. How much does she really know?

Ruth shot me a silent question, looking meaningfully at Frankie’s empty desk —
Where is she?
I shrugged. Who knew?

Ms. Murphy was more flustered than ever. Her hair frizzed out of her messy bun, and her glasses hung lopsided on their beaded chain. She flipped through one file after another, taking out one paper here, another there. She made me feel nervous just looking at her. I stacked and restacked my textbooks.

“See the rock on her finger?” Abby whispered to Erin, loud enough for the class to hear.

Abby and Erin each shared an earphone from their iPod, like they did every morning. The music was so loud I could hear it three rows over.

For the first time that year, the class fell dead silent, all eyes front. Ms. Murphy looked down at her hand.

“Welcome back from the long weekend.” She cleared her throat. “As Abby and Erin have noticed, I had a surprise over Thanksgiving break.”

Ms. Murphy held up her hand to show off the sapphire on her ring finger, and then smiled, a very shy, strange smile for a teacher. “I’m engaged.”

Everyone started talking, and a few boys wolf-whistled. Ms. Murphy’s smile didn’t fade. Finally, she held up both hands for quiet.

“Okay. It’s out in the open and over. That’s enough. We’re starting a new project today with partners, and I need your attention.”

Chairs scraped across the scratched linoleum as students stood and scrambled toward the partner of their choice. The door banged open, interrupting the process, and Frankie walked in, her face stony. She looked way different. Though she tried to disguise her haircut with loads of gel and a ponytail, no one could miss the pierced ears or designer jeans — even with rips in the knees.

“Look who decided to show up,” Ty said. He had to make his presence known, having just returned from a prolonged suspension. He smirked at his cronies, Mario, Dmitri, and Nick. “Miss New York fashion herself.”

I caught Ruth’s eye. She looked surprised, too. Frankie flushed. Ty’s harsh tone towards Frankie was quite different than his usual flirty sappiness. And what did he mean about New York? Nicole and Tess, Frankie’s friends, both stared at their fingernails. Frankie didn’t have an ounce of Saturday’s sadness. Now, her perfectly shaped eyebrows lifted, daring anyone and everyone. She held Ty’s gaze for a long moment. Ms. Murphy watched their exchange, but didn’t give the traditional tardy speech.

“Everyone take a seat. You will not choose your own partners. Write your name and toss it in the basket.” Groans filled the room, Frankie and Ty forgotten, and Ms. Murphy ignored our grumbling as she collected our assorted slips of paper. When that was done, she started the picking process, row by row, Abby first.

Abby drew Ty’s name and her cheeks flamed. The back-row boys made kissing sounds. Unfortunately for Abby, everyone knew she had a crush on Ty. I watched Frankie for signs of irritation, but other than one raised eyebrow, Frankie didn’t flinch. Nicole drew Tess. Ruth got Mario. Then me. I opened my slip. Not possible. Frankie.

“Since it’s December, we’ll combine our survey of world religions with the study of holiday traditions. Each group will fully research their topic, write a paper, and make a presentation to the class.”

More grumbling.

“Our purpose in this project is to explore how religion affects culture. Pair up.”

Ms. Murphy passed out envelopes as we dragged our desks next to our partners. I carried my books to the desk next to Frankie’s. Obviously, she had no intention of moving.

“You want to open the envelope?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Whatever. You do it.”

I was so unsure with Frankie. Had our talk at the library changed things between us? I waited until Ms. Murphy distributed all the other packets.

“I said open it,” Frankie said.

I sighed, ripped it open, and took out our assignment. “St. Lucia Day, Sweden.” Never heard of it.

Ms. Murphy glanced at our assignment and placed a thick packet on my desk. Back at the board, she said, “Both partners are responsible for equal amounts of research. Your packet’s first page lists the research categories. Divide the categories between you and your partner, label your topics with your name, and turn the page in before you leave for PE.”

Perfect. Now Frankie and I had to have a discussion.

Frankie dug her pen into her desktop. “I’ll do food, activities, and cultural importance of the tradition. And the overview of current Sweden. You do the religious stuff. You’re all churchy with Ruth, aren’t you?”

Was I? I rolled the word around in my mind. Churchy. A word that wrinkles your nose and feels like it should be hidden in your most private drawer. Before I met Ruth, before
I visited her youth group, before I found myself looking for answers in an empty church on a stormy night, I would have cringed to hear anyone describe me this way. But now, the word bothered me for different reasons. After I curled up in that quiet sanctuary, when the warmth of something unimaginable and yet undeniably real wrapped around me, I could no longer doubt that God existed, and more importantly, that he cared. Churchy was such a small word, the absolute wrong word. My experience had nothing to do with buildings, whatever churchy was.

But I didn’t feel like arguing with Frankie. I wrote her name next to the topics she’d chosen and my name next to the others. I pried the staple off the packet, ripping my fingernail in the process, but freed the cover sheet and took it up to Ms. Murphy.

“You and Frankie decided quickly.” Ms. Murphy squinted at me over the top of her glasses. “Will you two work together all right?”

Translation: Frankie frequently insults you and has hated you since she moved here until she unexpectedly disappeared for two weeks, had some kind of makeover that she’s trying to hide, and now she doesn’t seem to be talking to anyone, including her friends, so please make this work, Sadie.

“Sure. No problem.” I said. I smiled and returned to my desk.

I flipped through
Masters of Deception,
silently rehearsing what I might say to the girl in the woods. Would seeing me again make her more angry?

Finally the bell rang. Ruth was deep in argument with Mario. I walked to PE without her, but she barreled into me by my locker.

“Mario hates me, Sadie. And he won’t do anything. He wrote his name down for food. Food. He refuses to do anything else. Ms. Murphy finally told us to give her our choices tomorrow. We got Hanukkah.”

I told her about Frankie as we swiveled our padlocks and opened our lockers. Stale gym clothes smell wafted out. I fished out my gym shirt. “Gross. I need to wash these clothes. How can I sweat when it’s like ten degrees outside?”

“Weather says that it actually
will
be ten degrees. An arctic chill is on the way.”

“Perfect. How do people survive this cold?” How did the family in the woods manage in a house with no electricity or heat?

Girls hurried past on their way outside, their hats pulled low over their ears. Ruth and I were the last girls left. As Ruth finished pulling on her thermal pants, I said, “I want to snowshoe to the shack again to talk to that girl. I want to convince her not to tell about Patch.”

Ruth stopped. “What if the family is dangerous?”

“Helen and Dad didn’t think so. They met the family. They’re convinced the man’s safe. They aren’t worried.”

“But you’re worried.” Ruth finished tying her boot.

“About Patch. Please, Ruth. Will you come with me?”

“Ladies?” Mr. Tyree thumped on the locker room door and called loudly. “We’re waiting.”

Ruth slipped her ear warmers over her ears. “Okay. I’ll go with you.” She shook her head. “How do you get me into these situations?”

I grinned at her, grabbed my gloves and hat, and we hurried outside to freeze.

S
and caked my bare feet. Pips and I smoothed the sides of our ten-story sandcastle, complete with turrets and moat, when horses covered with jingle bells pulled a sleigh onto the beach. The driver, a woman in a poison green velvet coat, waved us over. I caught Pippa’s eye — should we trust this woman? The moment faded, the way dreams do, dissolving into cold morning air, colder than usual. Bells jingled outside my open window. Wait a minute … I sat up. The jingling bells didn’t go away. Who had opened my window? I shivered and pulled the covers tight.

Higgins, asleep at the end of the bed, groaned and rolled over. I slipped on my fuzzy purple slippers and brought the comforter with me as I peeked out the window.

Nothing. The bells faded into the woods on the far side of the house. I flipped my trailing comforter over my arm like
the train of an enormous wedding dress and stumbled downstairs. Higgins bounced close at my heels, awake now, ready to be part of the fun.

“Strange sounds outside this morning, Sadie,” Dad called from the kitchen.

Pancakes sizzled, and the vanilla-sweet smell of baking batter wafted into the living room.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. You’d better go look.”

I rolled my eyes. Dad loved to play this game. He absolutely knew what was happening outside. I ran my fingers through my hair, just in case, and threw open the door. Higgins burst outside and stopped to sniff, instantly entering his hunting mode.

He circled the rectangular box on the porch, sniffing every angle of the shiny red and green striped paper, the red velvet bow on top, and the tag labeled
Sadie.
He cocked his head at me. I looked out toward the forest but couldn’t see anyone.

“What is this?” I called to Dad.

“What?” he asked, innocently, as if he was clueless.

“Come on, Higgy.” I gritted my teeth against the cold, tossed the comforter back into the living room and shivered in my pajamas as I picked up the heavier-than-expected box. I kicked the door shut behind me and carried the box to the kitchen table.

“You’re telling me this isn’t from you?” I asked Dad.

He shrugged, but didn’t turn from the stove.

“Should I open it?”

“It’s got your name on it.”

“See! How did you know that? You didn’t even look.” Still, after Pips had told me about her bigger-than-spectacular present for me this year, I knew this must be from her.

Dad grinned. He wore the ruffled pink apron he had worn on the first day in our new house. It said
Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice.
Someone had given the apron to Mom back in California, and it had been the only apron Dad could find when we unpacked. Now he wore it every time he cooked. I had tried everything, ignoring the apron, teasing him about the apron, looking pointedly at the apron. Nothing worked. The joke was funnier to him every single time.

Holding my breath, I ripped into the paper. The box was big enough to hold almost anything. Bigger than a book. Bigger than a sweater. Higgins put his paws up on the table and nosed my hand as I pulled tissue out of the box.

“No, Higgins, this isn’t for you.”

I lifted the painted wooden tree out and set it on the table. Small drawers, each painted with a picture of a bright ornament, numbered from one to twenty four. The tree was painted dark green and textured with lighter and darker greens, giving it a three-dimensional look.

“Dad, I didn’t know you painted. Or made stuff with wood. When did you …”

“Who says I built this?” Dad came over to look more closely. “Excellent woodsmanship.”

He hurried back to the stove to flip pancakes onto plates.

“Oh, come on, Dad.”

I hadn’t had an advent calendar since I was very young, maybe four or five, and then only the paper kind where you open a door to a new picture each day.

“Are you going to open number one?” Dad asked.

Today was December first. I pulled open the drawer.

Inside sat a yellow origami star. A label along one edge read
Open Me.

I turned the star over in my hands. “It’s so cute. I don’t want to pull it apart.”

“Choices,” Dad said. “Why don’t you take your box upstairs and call Mom for breakfast.”

I closed the star back in the drawer. Maybe I would open the star later today. If the advent calendar was from Pips, who had rung the bells? I didn’t recognize the handwriting— carefully neutral block letters. As far as I knew, neither Mom nor Dad knew how to paint or fold origami. Pips knew that I’d love not knowing, too.

I tossed my comforter over the box and headed for the stairs. Higgins did his best to try to trip me all the way upstairs. After depositing my comforter and the box in my bedroom, I went to wake Mom.

“Breakfast!” I called, not daring to open the door. Even before she got sick, Mom had never been a morning person. She needed large amounts of coffee and an ocean of personal space to move from the land of sleep into the land of the awake.

I took the stairs two at a time, skidded back into the kitchen, and sat across from Dad. Higgins put his chin on my lap and looked up with huge, pathetic eyes. Maple syrup already dripped off the edges of Dad’s pancakes.

“Oh, fine, Higgy. Breakfast for you first.”

As I filled Higgins’ bowl, I watched snow fall outside the window, filling the disappearing footprints that led out toward the trees. Footprints. Dad had stood a foot from this window, flipping pancakes, so he had to have seen the bell ringer.

I sat back down and doused my pancakes with syrup. “So, who rang those bells?”

“Beats me,” Dad shoved a big bite into his mouth.

“Right.” I couldn’t fight the lure of the pancakes. Dad would eventually crack, admit he had asked someone to ring the bells for Pippa. Or could she be here? But that wasn’t possible. If Pips were here, she’d be here at our house with us. No present or grand scheme would keep her from actually coming to see me after three months of being apart.

After a few minutes of pure pancake bliss, Dad nodded at the thermometer outside the kitchen window, which read one degree. “Cold this morning. The roads are icy, so we need to leave a little early. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

“Sure.” I’d perfected the art of getting ready quickly.

“And take some coffee up to Mom, will you? I’ll wash up.”

I poured a mug of coffee and took it upstairs. “Mom?”

“Mmmm.” She rolled over in bed and reached out for the mug, her eyes still closed.

I put the mug in her hands. “Love you.”

Part of getting ready quickly was planning ahead. While I ran down the hall to my bedroom, I chose my outfit. Soft, red sweater. Jeans. Fur-lined boots. I quickly made my bed and closed the window. No way was I changing with icy air blowing in. Other than Dad, who could have opened my window? Even if the tree was from Pips, Dad was in on it too. No question.

After I dressed, I grabbed my backpack. On the way out the door, I opened drawer number one and slipped the star into my pocket.

The heater blasted in the Jeep. I climbed in, and gradually my body temperature climbed higher and higher.

“Okay. Heat off.” In coat, hat, and gloves, too much heat made the Jeep feel like a sauna.

When we pulled up to school, I kissed Dad’s cheek.

“Happy first of December, Sadie,” he said.

“You too, Dad. Thanks for the surprise this morning.”

“I’m telling you — ”

“It’s not from you.” I finished with him.