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  I looked up the word kindred in the dictionary. At first, I was disappointed. It just meant “family” or “having the same blood.” I have lots of family that I don’t want to be kindred spirits with, let me tell you! But I kept reading down the definition and it said kindred was the same as the word congenial. So I looked up congenial and it means, “being the same in spirit.” So I guess what I was looking for were spirits to be spirits with. Sometimes the dictionary is confusing.

  I was still looking at the stars when my mother started calling for me to come in and I had to leave my secret place. Only from then on I called it my Sanctuary.

  Chapter 4

  The next day, I told Miss Gowdy all about Cassandra Jovanovich.

  “And she’s an orphan, just like Anne Shirley and Jane Eyre and she’s going to be my best friend, I just know it!” I said.

  Miss Gowdy smiled at me and said, “Sit down Leanna.” (Miss Gowdy always called me Leanna after I asked her to.) Then she leaned forward and said, “You will have to be especially kind to Cassandra. And thoughtful.”

  “I am always full of thoughts,” I said.

  Miss Gowdy put her hand over her mouth, but I could see the smile behind it. I don’t mind it when Miss Gowdy smiles at me. (Sorry Miss Gowdy, because I know you’re reading this.) Because you, I mean she, isn’t laughing at me the way most adults do.

  “You certainly are full of thoughts,” she agreed. “So what I should have said was you’ll have to be considerate. Being an orphan in real life might not be quite as … as romantic as it is in books.”

  Miss Gowdy is still quite new at our school. She is the librarian because Mrs. Humprey was old and quit. Miss Gowdy is young and pretty and smells like lily of the valley. She is just like Anne Shirley’s Miss Muriel Stacy, the new teacher who was so much nicer than the old grumpy teacher. Mrs. Humprey was always kind of rumpled-up looking and smelled like the humbug mints my Uncle Bill gives me sometimes. I pretend to eat them, but I don’t because they always have lint on them from being loose in his pocket.

  I don’t like my Uncle Bill. He always tries to give me a charley horse on my leg. He pushes my skirt out of the way and grabs my thigh high up and squeezes, and then he laughs – but I don’t. A charley horse hurts. And I don’t think Uncle Bill should go near my underpants. One day in kindergarten, I showed everyone my new underpants. They were really pretty, white and lacy with colored balloons on them. Miss Swora got mad at me. She said I did a bad thing. She said it was inappropriate. I looked up the word inappropriate in the dictionary. Not when I was in kindergarten, but just this year. It means “not proper, not the right thing to do.” So the last time Uncle Bill tried to give me a charley horse up near my underpants, I told him it was inappropriate and smacked his hand. Everyone laughed at me. I thought that was inappropriate of everyone, and I stood up and said so. I got sent to my room. I don’t know why.

  Anyway, everyone likes Miss Gowdy, even the boys, and especially David. She reads to us every time our class has library day, and she says she reads books that we might not be able to read ourselves. She wants to stretch our minds, she says. The first book she read was called The Pearl and it was wonderful and sad and made me feel hurt inside when I listened. I wish I could write like that.

  One day I told Kathy I wanted to be a writer.

  “I’m going to be a model,” she said. Then she talked all about what models do and who her favorite model is, and we didn’t talk about me at all.

  Kathy could be a model. She could be a model for Seventeen magazine. She is the most beautiful girl in our grade. Or even in our whole school. And I don’t mind saying so because I am a writer and writers want to get at the truth, Miss Gowdy says. (My mother always says, “Tell the truth and shame the devil,” but I don’t know what that means.) So even though Kathy makes fun of me all the time, and isn’t a friend at all, I will tell the truth. She’s taller than anyone, even the boys, and she has brown hair that curls and big brown eyes and a small nose and, well, she just is pretty. All the boys think so, too. And she already wears a brassiere. She laughs at all the rest of us girls because we still wear undershirts.

  “Kathy wears a brassiere,” I told my mother one day. “Can I have one?”

  My mother went all red. “Don’t be silly,” she said.

  I persevered. “But why? Why is it silly? Why can’t I have a brassiere?”

  “That’s enough, Lee.”

  And that was it. Perseverance means “to continue on despite difficulties,” but when my mother says “That’s enough,” she means it. My mother refused to talk about it anymore. But maybe I didn’t really mind because the boys pull on Kathy’s brassiere strap and call it an over-the-shoulder boulder-holder. Kathy just laughs, but I think I’d die.

  I think I just digressed. (And from now on, I won’t talk about you-know-who anymore.)

  Miss Gowdy started a Writing Club last year when I was in grade five because lots of us wanted to write books like the ones she reads to us. The club met twice a week after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for one hour. And David was in it. I could be with David two hours a week talking about books in earnest, and not just the way we do in class with people who don’t care. (Earnest means “seriously zealous” and zealous means “passionate ardor” and ardor means “heat in the affections” and so it all works out because I have seriously zealous ardor about David and books.)

  But my mother wouldn’t let me join the Writing Club. She said reading fairy tales was a waste of time and writing them was even worse. She called all books fairy tales, even when they weren’t about fairies. If they were madeup stories like Anne of Green Gables she called them fairy tales. She said I should just read my Bible instead. Or the Presbyterian Register, which is all about good religious Presbyterians doing good works, like going far away to be missionaries. My father said I always have my nose in a book. This is true because if I’m not wearing my glasses, I have to have my nose in the book to see. But that isn’t what he meant. He always said “your nose in a book” as if I was doing something wrong. I don’t know why.

  I told my mother I wanted to be a writer, but she wanted me to be a teacher or a nurse. “That’s what good girls do,” she said.

  “What do bad girls do?” I asked.

  “That’s enough, Lee.”

  “Why?”

  “Mind your manners, Lee.”

  “But I want to know. Why is it enough? What do bad girls do?”

  “Do you want to go to your room? That’s what happens to bad girls.”

  “No.”

  “That’s better. Then, after you work for a year or two, you can get married,” my mother said.

  “But I don’t like anybody,” I said. (This was a lie because I am going to marry David, but I don’t want my mother to know.)

  One day I tried something different.

  “I want to be a famous writer when I grow up,” I explained. “I’ll be a millionairer!”

  “And just who do you think you are?” she asked.

  This stumped me. I had a pretty good idea of who I was, but from her tone of voice I didn’t think she meant Leanna Mets of Westlawn Avenue.

  “Miss Gowdy says I’m a good writer. Miss Gowdy says that I –”

  “Oh, ‘Miss Gowdy says.’ And what makes Miss Gowdy so smart?”

  But I knew the answer to that one.

  “She’s a teacher!” I exclaimed. “She’s a good girl! So there!”

  I got sent to my room. And while I was sitting in my room, something occurred to me. When my mother asked who I thought I was, maybe she was hinting that I was really adopted! Maybe I was an orphan and didn’t know it!

  I made up a really good story that night, let me tell you!

  Chapter 5

  Cassandra Jovanovich moved here in July. Everybody knew she was coming, even though I didn’t breathe a word to anyone – cross my heart and hope to die – and lots of girls showed up on her porch the night she came. Even Kathy. Everyone wanted to
see what an orphan looked like up close and everyone was hoping that if she was any good she’d end up liking them best. (I thought I would just die if she ended up liking Kathy best because I needed a new best friend to replace Kathy, who didn’t work out so good, as I said before. And Kathy was probably there just to spite me.)

  So on this most important night of my life, I was babysitting Mrs. Carol’s baby. For ten cents I had to take her for a walk in her buggy to get her to sleep. But she kept crying, so I picked her up and she let out a big burp and stuff came out all over my shoulder.

  All the girls saw it. I don’t know how a tiny baby can burp so loud but she did, and everyone turned to look from way up there on the porch, and they all saw what happened.

  Including Cassandra Jovanovich!

  She had red hair!

  An orphan with red hair moved in beside me and I was so mortified I’d never be able to talk to her ever! I looked up the word mortified in the dictionary and it means “to be ashamed,” but it comes from really old words meaning “to make dead.” I wanted to make dead right there on the sidewalk, let me tell you! It was the most tragical disappointment of my life! That’s what Anne Shirley said when she thought Diana might not like her.

  I shoved Mrs. Carol’s baby back in the carriage. That’s the truth. I shoved her and I hope I don’t go to jail. Of course, I’ve seen Mrs. Butterfield shove her kids lots of times and she isn’t in jail and I think she should be. I ran up the street pushing the carriage. I thought about just going and going and running away from home, but then I’d really have to go to jail. If I took Mrs. Carol’s baby with me, or if I just left Mrs. Carol’s baby on the side of the road. Either way, I’d go to jail.

  So I walked around the block and snuck into Mrs. Carol’s house from the other way and gave them back their baby. Then I snuck in my back door to change my shirt. Then I wondered how I could live the rest of my life never going outside again. I decided I’d better make a trip to the bookmobile and get lots of books to read before I became a hermit.

  But before I left, I snuck a peek at Mrs. Fergus’s porch. Cassandra Jovanovich was there all by herself. Maybe the other girls all had to go home. Maybe they didn’t like the orphan up close. Cassandra looked very orphan-like, sitting there all alone, with her red hair hanging over her face, and suddenly I thought maybe baby burp-up wasn’t so bad. I walked over to Mrs. Fergus’s.

  “Where did everybody go?” I asked her.

  “I told them to go away.”

  “Don’t you want friends?”

  “Not nosy ones.”

  I wondered if she meant me, too, because I had just asked two questions. I waited, but she didn’t tell me to go away.

  “My name is Lee.”

  Then I made a face, the one I make when my mother says to be careful my face doesn’t freeze like that. “I meant to say my name is Leanna, but nobody calls me that so I keep forgetting myself.”

  “I’ll call you Leanna if you call me Cassandra.”

  “Isn’t Cassandra your name?”

  “Yes, but I get Cass all the time. The people I was with two before this said that Cassandra was too fancy a name for me.”

  “Just like Anne Shirley!”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You know, Anne of Green Gables. She wanted to be Cordelia Fitzgerald and everybody laughed at her.”

  Cassandra didn’t know what I was talking about. “You’re an orphan,” I explained to her. “There are lots of books about orphans. You have to read them. Especially Anne of Green Gables. It’s the best.”

  I had high hopes Cassandra would look tremendously excited and ask to read the book right now, this very minute, so that we could start being best friends immediately.

  “That girl Kathy doesn’t like you,” Cassandra said.

  I think I must have looked very stupid.

  “She told you that? Already?”

  Cassandra nodded. “She says you’re a little … you know …” She put her finger up to her head and twirled it around. “… Nuts. She says you talk about orphans all the time and I should watch out. She said she felt sorry for me living next door to you.”

  Kathy! I hated her! She’d already ruined Cassandra for me! I knew I was going to cry. I stood up. I had to go home. I had to get away and be by myself. I started down the steps.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m an orphan?”

  I stopped. Of course, I wanted to ask.

  “All the others wanted to know. They wanted to know how my mother and father died.”

  In my heart of hearts I wanted to know, too. But she pushed her hair off her face for a second and I could see her eyes get sort of squinty and I suddenly knew if I asked, she’d send me away.

  Then I got really considerate all of a sudden. I thought about being an orphan myself and always having to answer questions. So I just said, “Do you want to tell me why you’re an orphan?”

  Cassandra shoved her hair back over her face.

  “Maybe.”

  So I waited but she didn’t say anything more, so I figured that maybe her maybe meant some day, but not now. Then I got tired of saying nothing.

  “Do you want to come to the bookmobile with me?” Even though it didn’t look like I’d have to be a hermit, I still needed some books. Because right now, it didn’t look like I’d have anyone to play with this whole summer.

  I looked up hermit in the dictionary. It means “someone who lives in seclusion.” And seclusion means “to shut yourself off from others.” Cassandra Jovanovich was doing a pretty good job of that. But maybe she was like me. I didn’t really want to be a hermit. Sometimes, I just wanted to be alone.

  Chapter 6

  Cassandra went inside to ask Mrs. Fergus if she could go to the library with me. And when she came out, she was wearing go-go boots and a John Lennon hat pulled down low over her eyes. I wanted go-go boots for Christmas last year, but my mother said no. She said white boots were ridiculous. And I couldn’t get a John Lennon hat because my mother doesn’t like The Beatles. I felt just like Anne Shirley wanting a dress with puffed sleeves. I even said the same thing to my mother that Anne said to Marilla.

  “Oh, but Mother,” I said, “it would give me such a thrill to have go-go boots or a John Lennon hat.”

  And my mother said the same thing back to me that Marilla said to Anne.

  Sniff. “You will have to do without your thrill.” Sniff.

  My favorite Beatle is Ringo or sometimes George. Everybody else loves Paul or John, so I thought I should be considerate and show ardor to the other two. I have one Beatles record. I bought it with my babysitting money, but I only play it when my parents are out. They say it isn’t music. That’s just silly because I dance to it, so it must be music. After The Beatles were on TV on The Ed Sullivan Show, some of us decided to put on a Beatles show at school. We wore pants and we got white shirts and ties from our dads and we wore our hair combed over our eyes. Then we put on the record and pretended to sing. I looked at David the whole time we sang “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

  Way back then I thought he liked me as much as I liked him. He gave me a Valentine and on it he wrote a Beatles song except he changed the words. David wrote: “She was just nine-ein, and she didn’t look fine-ein, cause the way she looked was way beyond repair, oh she’ll never dance with another, because she was smothered by her mother,” so I thought maybe he loved me. I also thought I’m a better ‘writer than he is and that’s why I always get the highest mark on composition.

  “You look so … (I wanted to say groovy, but Kathy says I’m not cool enough to say groovy) … so neat.”

  “Try it on.” Cassandra gave me her John Lennon hat. Then she frowned. “It doesn’t look so good on you.”

  “It’s my glasses. And my ponytail.” I took off my glasses and pulled out my hair. I pulled my hair over my eyes and down my face like Cassandra. “How’s that?” I asked.

  Cassandra nodded. “You should get one.”

  “M
y mom won’t let me. And besides, without my glasses, I cant see.

  On our way to the bookmobile, I showed Cassandra where everybody lived.

  First I pointed out where four of the Debbies live.

  “Can you believe it? We have six Debbies on our street. Most of them are nice, but you have to watch out for Debbie Oldman. She cries whenever she loses games and tells her mother on us and then her mother comes out and calls us brats and says she’s going to phone our mothers. My mother says Mrs. Oldman thinks she’s special because her sister’s husband’s brother is a mayor somewhere. Then my mother sniffs. My mother doesn’t like people who think they’re special. I don’t know why. I want to be special when I grow up. Don’t you?”

  Cassandra looked down at the sidewalk. “I guess so,” she said. “I’m sure not special right now.”

  I remembered to be considerate. “Yes you are. You’ve got red hair and I’d die for those boots!”

  I showed her where the twins Ronnie and Donnie live.

  “They’re a grade younger than me and they like to beat people up. I stay out of their way but there are some kids who will pay Ronnie and Donnie a dime to beat someone up for them. One time Donnie pushed me down and pulled my hair because Paula asked him to. He said it would have been worse, but Paula only had a nickel.”

  I explained that Paula is fat and picks her nose and lives in the corner house. Nobody likes her because she’s a showoff and smells like dirty underwear.

  I showed Cassandra where Nancy lives. Her father drives a taxi and sometimes, if it’s raining, he’ll load all the kids he can fit into his cab. So you have to know where Nancy lives because if it’s raining, you have to get there early enough to get a ride to school.

  “Once I got there first, and I never did that again because I got stuck with Paula sitting on my lap. She caught me making a face and the next day is when Donnie half beat me up.”