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Authors: Barbara O'Connor

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BOOK: Greetings from Nowhere
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Willow's life wasn't almost perfect anymore.
It wasn't even close to perfect.
In fact, it was far, far from perfect.
Her worries were piling up, one on top of the other, like bricks on a wall.
First, her father had bought a new life and their old life was history. They weren't going back to their little brick house in Hailey ever again.
Willow's next worry was Dorothy.
Dorothy was with her sister down in Savannah, Georgia.
Savannah, Georgia, was a long way from Shawnee Gap, North Carolina.
And then there was Aggie.
The Sleepy Time Motel had belonged to Aggie and Harold. The ten little rooms. The sign and the swimming pool. The bird feeders, the flagpole, the garden.
All of those things had been theirs.
But now Harold was gone and Willow's father had “closed the deal,” so all that stuff belonged to him. Willow could see happiness all over her father and sadness all over Aggie.
Something about that seemed just plain wrong to Willow.
And now here she was, sitting on a stool behind the counter in the motel office, waiting for guests to come and check in. That would be her job, checking the guests in. At least until school started in a few weeks, her father had said. She would ask the guests to sign the big leather guest book. Give them a map. Sell them some postcards. Give them a room key.
The screen door squeaked open and Kirby stepped in. He looked surprised when he saw Willow.
“Oh, hey,” he said.
“Hey.”
“My mom told me to see if we got any mail.” Kirby shifted from one foot to the other. He cracked his knuckles. He popped his bubble gum. He pushed his greasy red hair out of his eyes.
“I'll check,” Willow said.
She pulled a cardboard box out from under the counter and looked through the pile of mail.
Kirby paced around the room, touching things, moving things. He gave the postcard rack a spin.
Willow pushed the cardboard box back up under the counter. “No mail,” she said.
“Okay.” Kirby darted out the door, letting it bang shut behind him.
Willow went out on the sidewalk and watched Kirby running in a zigzag path back to his room. A few minutes later, he came out again, with that shoebox of his tucked under his arm. He ran over to the swimming pool and sat on the diving board. Then he took a pen and paper out of the box and began to write.
Willow went back inside and sat on the stool behind the counter again. She wished Aggie would come out of her room and talk to her. She wished Loretta weren't packing for a picnic over in Maggie Valley. She wished Dorothy would leave Savannah and come be with her. She wished she could go back to one of those days on the kitchen calendar that had Dorothy's loopy handwriting on it.
Willow's school play.
That would be a good day to go back to. Willow would be on the stage dressed like Betsy Ross, sewing a flag, and Dorothy would be sitting out there in the auditorium smiling up at her.
But none of those wishes came true.
Instead, Willow's father came into the office and said, “Those sign guys are coming tomorrow afternoon.”
“What sign guys?”
“The guys who are bringing the new sign.”
“What new sign?”
Willow's father ran his hand over his hair. “Well, the new motel sign.”
“What's wrong with the old sign?” Willow said.
Her father fiddled with papers on the counter. “Well, actually,” he said, “I was thinking we'd spruce things up a bit, you know?”
Her father moved the stack of maps from one end of the counter to the other. “This place looks, too, well, you know, old-fashioned,” he said. “If we're going to attract tourists we've got to—”
“I think the sign looks nice,” Willow said. She glanced back at the curtain over the doorway to Aggie's room.
Her father went on and on about all the plans he had for the motel.
The new sign.
The color of the paint in Room 3.
The king-sized bed in Room 8.
The ad in the newspaper.
The billboard down by the main highway.
But Willow wasn't really paying attention. She was thinking maybe she'd give Aggie another china horse.
“No, Virgil, the money did
not
get here.”
Kirby watched the back of his mother's head as she talked on the phone. Ringlets of damp hair stuck to her neck.
“I've been living on bread and peanut butter for three days, Virgil!” she hollered. “I feel like just taking the bus home and leaving that junk heap by the side of the road.”
“What about me?” Kirby whispered.
His mother slammed the receiver down. She rubbed her temples in little circles.
Kirby traced a tepee on the bedspread with his finger. He glanced over at his duffel bag by the door.
“So, I guess we ain't leaving for a while, right?” he said.
His mother flopped back on the bed and put her arm over her face.
“I got no money. I got no car,” she said.
Kirby smiled.
“Good,” he whispered.
His mother shot up and glared at him.
“What'd you say?” she snapped.
“Nothing.” Kirby traced a galloping horse on the bedspread.
His mother flopped back down on the bed and Kirby went outside. A soft, misty rain had begun falling, already leaving little puddles scattered over the muddy gravel parking lot. Kirby jumped from puddle to puddle, swinging the purple yo-yo Burla had given him over his head like a lasso.
“That's dangerous.”
Kirby looked over at Loretta, sitting in her bathing suit at the picnic table out by the flagpole. She was putting the box of things from her other mother into a plastic grocery bag on her lap.
Kirby swung the yo-yo harder. It made a buzzing sound as it whipped through the air.
“We can't go to Maggie Valley 'cause of the rain,” Loretta said.
Kirby swung the yo-yo harder, sending drops of rain flying in every direction.
“O-say at-whay,” he said.
“What?” Loretta said, jiggling that bracelet of hers on her skinny arm.
“Othing-nay.”
“Did your car get fixed?” Loretta said.
“Ope-nay.”
Kirby did a few of those yo-yo tricks his Uncle Lester had taught him.
Around the Corner.
The Creeper.
Dizzy Baby.
“Show me how to do that,” Loretta said.
“Naw.”
Loretta put her hands together like she was praying. “Please,” she said.
Kirby put the yo-yo in the pocket of his shorts.
“Maybe later,” he said.
Loretta squeezed her lips together and glared at him. Then she jumped off the picnic table and stormed off with her box tucked under her arm.
Kirby hopped over a puddle, landing in the mud with a splat. He picked up a stick and hurled it clear across the parking lot and into the ditch on the other side of the road. He practiced a few more yo-yo tricks.
Runaway Dog.
Drop in the Bucket.
He put the yo-yo back in his pocket and jumped over puddles in big, giant leaps, counting out loud.
One. Two. Three.
When he got to the swimming pool, he hopped down the cement steps on one foot and back up them on the other. He bounced on the diving board.
And then he stopped.
What was that?
Something shiny out there in the grass by the flagpole.
He ran over to see what it was.
A sparkly poodle dog pin with shiny green eyes.
Loretta's pin.
Kirby wiped the mud off it with his shirttail and put it in his pocket with the yo-yo.
Loretta studied the silver pocket watch.
“W, K, L,”
she whispered, tracing the letters engraved on the back.
Her father had said the watch probably once belonged to a man. Loretta had thought and thought about who the man could have been. Her other mother's father? Her uncle? Maybe her grandfather?
“Mama?” Loretta said.
Her mother looked up from her crossword puzzle and said, “Hmmm?”
“I bet this watch belonged to her father,” Loretta said.
Her mother nodded. “You could be right, Lulu,” she said.
“And so that means her last name started with an
L
.” Loretta pointed to the
L
on the back of the pocket watch.
Her mother adjusted her glasses and studied the watch. “Could be,” she said.
“Pam Lawrence,” Loretta said. “Maybe
that
was her name.”
Her mother smiled. “Maybe,” she said.
Loretta put the watch back in the box. She looked at the hummingbird picture. She rubbed the soft leather cover of the Bible.
Suddenly she jumped up and dumped everything out of the box onto the bed. Frantically, she searched through the things.
“Mama!” she hollered. “Something's missing!”
Her mother set her crossword puzzle aside. “What's missing?” she said.
“I don't know,” Loretta said. “Something …”
Loretta tapped each thing on the bed. The fan. The scissors. The heart-shaped box.
“The dog!” she said. “The poodle dog pin.”
Loretta dropped to her knees and searched the floor, patting the thick green carpet. Under the bed. Under the dresser. Beside the desk.
Her mother looked in drawers. She emptied their suitcases. She searched the bathroom, all the while saying, “We'll find it, Lulu … Don't cry, Lulu.”
But Loretta did cry. She ran around the little motel room, searching for the poodle dog pin and sobbing.
And then she remembered she had taken the box of stuff outside.
She dashed out of the room and looked everywhere for the sparkly pin. In the parking lot. Up and down the sidewalk. Under the picnic table. Out by the diving board.
Finally, she sat on the wet grass by the flagpole and put her head on her knees.
“What's wrong, Loretta?”
Loretta looked up. Aggie was bending over her. She was wearing a clear plastic rain hat tied under her chin with a red ribbon.
“I lost my other mother's poodle dog pin,” Loretta said in a trembly voice.
“Oh, dear,” Aggie said.
Loretta had never felt so miserable. Those things had been all of her other mother's earthly possessions and now one of them was gone.
And it was all her fault.
Why, why, why
had she brought that box outside?
Loretta felt Aggie's warm hand on her shoulder.
“I hate losing things, too,” Aggie said. “But you know what?”
“What?”
“I have a real knack for finding lost things.”
“You do?”
Aggie nodded. “If I had a nickel for every time Harold lost his glasses, well, shoot, I'd be richer than the Queen of England. And don't you know it was me that found 'em every time.”
“Really?”
“That's right.” Aggie stroked Loretta's hair. “And one time some folks from way up in New York lost their car keys and like to gone crazy till I found 'em. And guess where they were.”
“Where?
“In one of my flowerpots.” Aggie chuckled. “Right down in there with the begonias.”
Loretta stood up and brushed the wet grass from the backs of her legs.
“Aren't you smart wearing your bathing suit in this wet weather?” Aggie said.
Loretta looked down at her mud-splattered bathing suit and shrugged. She didn't tell Aggie that she had put on her bathing suit so she could pose in front of the mirror, pretending like she was on a rock in the middle of a creek, holding a towel—just like her other mother in that photo in the box.
“I'll help you look for that pin, okay?” Aggie said.
Loretta nodded, brushing strands of wet hair out of her eyes.
 
 
Loretta and Aggie looked for the poodle dog pin all afternoon. Under Clyde Dover's pickup truck. All around the sign out by the road. Even in Aggie's begonias.
Loretta's mother joined them, telling Loretta over and over not to worry. They would find it.
When Loretta's father finished helping Clyde Dover fix the clogged drain in Room 4, he joined them, too. Even Ugly ambled along beside them as they searched, stopping every now and then to lick the rain off his scruffy black coat.
But no one found the sparkly poodle dog pin.
Not even Aggie, who had always been so good at finding things.
BOOK: Greetings from Nowhere
5.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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