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And then the next day, my father went to the nursery. And the day after that, a big truck came and a huge cedar hedge went up.

  Chapter 9

  Anyway, I sat in the tree branch that was the best for spying and as soon as I saw Mrs. Fergus at the sink doing the breakfast dishes, I went and called on Cassandra Jovanovich again. I had something to ask her.

  “Do you have a best friend?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m never anywhere long enough.”

  But I had already figured this out. I explained it to her. “I don’t think you have to know somebody a long time to be best friends. I think sometimes you just know. I think it’s like the princess who falls in love with the prince at first sight in fairy tales. I liked you right away and I think we should be best friends.”

  Cassandra shoved her hair out of her face.

  “Why? Why do you like me so much? You don’t know anything about me. You like me because I’m an orphan and I have red hair like your stupid Anne Shirley.” Then she shoved her hair back over her eyes.

  Well! This was not what I would put in a book if I were writing it. That’s what I like about writing. Anything can happen just the way I want if I’m the writer. But in real life, people say things I don’t like. Of course, I could have embellished this part, but I didn’t. I could have embellished it so it was more like when Anne Shirley met Diana Barry. They spoke very fancy language, and said “Wilt thou be my bosom friend?” and “I love thee, o faithful friend of my heart,” and stuff like that. But maybe Cassandra Jovanovich will read this some day, and so I couldn’t embellish.

  So I said, “I want to like you. I wanted to like you as soon as I heard about you. I like reading about orphans. I couldn’t believe I was going to get an orphan for a next-door neighbor.”

  Then she went all red and yelled. “What is so special about being an orphan?”

  So I yelled back. “Well I want to be an orphan, so there!” I couldn’t believe I said it, and I clapped my hand over my mouth.

  She got that look like she wanted to spit something out. Then she said, “Kathy was right. You are cuckoo.”

  Kathy!

  “You only like me because I’m an orphan? Well thanks a lot! And you want to be an orphan so we can start a stupid club or something?”

  Then she jumped up and ran out of the room. I heard a door slam. I heard something being thrown.

  Mrs. Fergus came running up from the basement. “What happened? What did you do, Lee?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t do noth … anything.”

  Mrs. Fergus just glared at me. “Well something has upset Cassie. I think you’d better go home.”

  So I went home.

  Chapter 10

  I went straight to my bedroom and slammed my door. (Of course I only did this because I knew my mother was at the store. Otherwise I’d get in trouble. Little ladies don’t slam doors.)

  This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t the way it was all supposed to work out. Cassandra Jovanovich was supposed to be my best friend. I knew it in my bones.

  I tried to read a book – I’m halfway through Little House on the Prairie and Pa just brought home a cow and was trying to milk her – but I couldn’t concentrate. I know things are really bad when I can’t concentrate on a book. So I went to the kitchen and made a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich. And out of the kitchen window, I saw Cassandra open her front door and let Kathy in. Kathy was wearing a John Lennon hat and go-go boots!

  The peanut butter and banana stuck in my throat.

  This was terrible. This was worse than terrible. This was a calamity. (A calamity is “a disaster accompanied by extensive evils.”) If Kathy and Cassandra became best friends, I would have to run away from home. I knew that in my bones, too. I couldn’t stand to see them together every day.

  So I got my book and sat in the kitchen where I could keep watch on Cassandra’s house. I mean, I didn’t want to see them every day, but I had to know what was going on. And sure enough, in about ten minutes, they came out and turned the way to Kathy’s house.

  Cassandra would see the beer mugs. She’d probably tell Kathy I had told her about them. They’d laugh at me and Kathy would tell her why I was stupid. Why we weren’t friends anymore.

  This book is going ALL the WRONG way! I don’t want to write about you-know-who, and now she’s ALL I’m writing about.

  I forced myself to read. I forced myself to read for one whole hour.

  And then, I saw her. Cassandra Jovanovich. She came marching down the street and up her steps and into her house and slammed the front door!

  I ran out into the backyard and up onto my tree branch so I could see into the Fergus kitchen. And I could see Mrs. Fergus saying something to Cassandra and she had her hands on her hips and was pointing at the front door. Then I saw Cassandra stamp her foot and shake her head. Then Mrs. Fergus said something else (Why, oh why, wasn’t their kitchen window open?!?) and finally I saw Cassandra turn and leave the kitchen. So I scrambled down the tree, ran across the yard and back inside my house. And from the kitchen I saw her open her front door and close it slowly and quietly. Then she sat down on the bottom step and scrunched herself up into a little ball.

  She looked very sorrowful.

  I wondered if I should go to her.

  But maybe she’d yell at me again.

  But maybe she had a fight with Kat… you-know-who.

  Maybe I was just being nosy if I went over.

  What would Anne Shirley do?

  And then I knew. I knew I had to give it another try. This was just one more trial and tribulation for my soul to bear. I would live through it.

  I didn’t slam any doors or make any noise. I just tiptoed across the driveway and went and sat down beside her.

  Chapter 11

  I was afraid to say anything.

  But she said, “Why?”

  I knew it! Kathy had told her everything!

  “She told you?! Did she tell you what happened that day?”

  She looked at me like I had two heads.

  “What are you talking about? I want to know why you said you wanted to be an orphan.”

  I wanted to tell her. I wanted tell her about all the book orphans who have wonderful adventures. Anne and Mary and Jane. But Cassandra didn’t look like she was having a wonderful time just this minute.

  But then it came to me. “If you’re an orphan, you can be whoever you want to be. Nobody owns you.”

  “Well, for sure nobody owns me,” Cassandra said. “So what?”

  “So you can do what you want. Nobody tells you you’re stupid or asks who you think you are or tells you you can’t do something when you grow up.”

  Cassandra put her head down and talked from behind her hair. “Oh what do you know? People tell me that stuff all the time.”

  “But it doesn’t mean anything. You don’t have to listen.”

  “Of course I do. I’m a kid.”

  I didn’t say anything. And Cassandra Jovanovich just sat there looking at her boots. Then she said, “But maybe you’re right. I have to listen to them, I mean, I have to do what I’m told, but … I don’t have to … accept what they say. It’s like I do what they tell me to do, but on the inside … I don’t care.”

  I remembered all the times my mother said I couldn’t be a writer. I started crying.

  “What? What did I say? Why are you crying?”

  And I just cried some more.

  “Do your parents tell you you’re stupid?” Cassandra asked.

  I was shocked! My mother would never use the word stupid. Ladies don’t.

  “Because people tell me I’m stupid all the time. They think just because my mother … just because … I’m not owned … that they can say any nasty mean spiteful thing that pops into their stupid heads.”

  I pulled up my shirt and wiped my nose. “My mother says I’m silly when I talk about being a writer and she says I can’t do some things and she says who do I think I a
m.” And then I pretended I was my mother.

  “Sniff. And just who do you think you are? Sniff” And I said it in a voice like I was sucking a lemon.

  Cassandra laughed and said, “Sniff sniff. Who farted?”

  I was shocked again! “My mother said ladies don’t say fart. It’s inappropriate.”

  “Oh fart. Fart fart FART! So there!”

  This time I laughed at the shock of it. And then I remembered something.

  “Want to hear a joke? Debbie Walker’s mom told me. There was a woman who had lots of children and one day she thought maybe she was having another baby. So she went to the doctor, but he said don’t be silly, you’re too old to have another baby. All you’ve got is a little gas, said the doctor. So the woman went home but a few weeks later she went back to the doctor and said maybe she was getting ready to have another baby. The doctor said the same thing. Don’t be silly. You’re too old to have another baby. It’s just a little gas. And then one day the woman went into the hospital and had twins! And then one day she was walking the twins in the baby buggy and she saw the doctor and he said what have we here? And she said oh nothing doctor. Just a couple of farts with bonnets on.”

  Cassandra and I laughed until we both had to run inside to the bathroom.

  “So you get the joke?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah. The doctor didn’t know she was pregnant.” I looked at the floor.

  “What?” Cassandra asked.

  “My mother says not to say pregnant. Ladies say expecting.”

  Cassandra pushed her hair back and looked at me. “Do you know where babies come from?” she asked.

  I know I blushed. “Of course. I mean … yes. I didn’t before, but I do now. That’s sort of what Kath …”

  And when I was sitting on the toilet, Cassandra said, “Do you care what your mother says?”

  “Well, yes … I mean …” I stopped talking and thought a bit. “Sometimes I just don’t want to get in trouble. But sometimes I don’t understand why she says what she says.”

  “So you think it’s easier if you’re an orphan?”

  “Well, you can just make up your own mind about things. If you want to be a doctor or a singer or a movie star you can do it.”

  “What do you want to be?”

  “I want to be a writer.” I got up from the toilet and Cassandra took her turn.

  “So? Do your parents hide the paper and pens?” she asked.

  “No. But …”

  “But what? Tell you you’re no good? So what? Do you have to listen to them?”

  “If I say I want to be famous and special, they say I’m bragging. Why is it bragging?”

  Cassandra didn’t answer right away. She flushed the toilet and washed her hands, and then she said, “Maybe it’s like the ugly duckling. You’re really a swan and they don’t know it and so they’re trying real hard to keep you a duck like them.”

  I suddenly felt all warm because Cassandra had done it. She had used a story to explain something, like when I said Kathy is my Josie Pye. So she was a book person! Even if she didn’t know it. I was sure now. She was going to be my kindred spirit! So now I wanted to be very considerate.

  “But you’re not like me. You can be what you want. No one is trying to keep you a duck.”

  “Yes, but how can I be an actress if I don’t stay anywhere long enough to take drama lessons? I can’t even be in a school play because I keep changing schools.”

  Cassandra opened a bathroom drawer and we got out Mrs. Fergus’s pinkberry meringue lipstick and put it on. Then Cassandra found the Maybelline eye pencil and we drew dark lines around our eyes and filled in our eyebrows and then we sprayed ourselves with Mrs. Fergus’s perfume, Evening in Paris. I don’t know what I looked like but Cassandra looked really good. She looked like a real actress.

  I suddenly got an idea.

  “Do you want to be an actress?”

  “More than anything in the world.”

  “I’ve written a play. It’s about a prince and a princess who fall in love, but an evil witch separates them and then the flower fairy gets them together again. We can put it on in the backyard. We can sell tickets and everything.”

  For the first time Cassandra looked happy. She pushed back her hair and smiled. I told her she could be the beautiful princess. I thought she’d like that.

  But Cassandra Jovanovich said she wanted to be the evil witch.

  Chapter 12

  We hurried over to my house and I got out my play. Cassandra read it and I tried to read it over her shoulder.

  “Well? Well? What do you think?”

  “Sh!” But then she said, “Go away till I’m finished.”

  So I went and got Little House on the Prairie and I tried to pay attention to Mary and Laura finding all the beads, but for the second time in my life I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts kept going to Cassandra Jovanovich. What if she hated my play? That would be tragical!

  Finally she looked up.

  “It’s pretty good.”

  I felt all electric inside. Then I tried again to convince her to be the princess.

  “SILENCE! How DARE you question ME you stupid TOAD?! I’LL teach you to open your mouth in MY presence! I’LL cut you up into little pieces and eat YOU for SUPPER!”

  I stared at Cassandra.

  “See? I’d be a great evil witch,” she said.

  I thought about her yelling like that at Paula or Susan or Debbie Oldman and I agreed she could be the evil witch.

  “Why don’t you be the beautiful princess?” she asked.

  I remembered the time Mr. Morgan suddenly decided that we all had to recite a poem in front of the whole class instead of just to him privately and how I got hot and sweaty and heard this buzzing in my ears and how I forgot the very first line and everyone just stared at me.

  “Oh, I couldn’t. I … I just like writing.”

  “Then you’re the director. You have to tell everybody what to do.”

  I liked that.

  So we went outside to my trees in the backyard, and we talked about what to do next. Cassandra knew a lot.

  “First we figure out who gets to be in the play.”

  So we went calling on other kids to ask them to join the play. Linda said she’d be the handsome prince, but only if Nancy was the beautiful princess. We said that was okay because Nancy is very pretty and has long black hair just like Snow White, and Linda is tall and thin with hardly any hair at all. Nancy said okay, too, but she wasn’t going to play doctor if Linda tried that again.

  By the time we got to Paula she’d heard about our play from Linda already and said she didn’t want to be in our stupid play if she couldn’t be the beautiful princess. How presumptuous!

  Cassandra smiled at her.

  “But we want you to be the witch’s pet toad. You’d be just right.”

  Paula shrieked. “Do you know who I am, you stupid orphan? I can have you killed!”

  “I know all about you, Paula. And I’m going to pay Ronnie and Donnie a whole dollar to beat you up once and for all!”

  Paula ran away.

  Cassandra laughed. “Let’s ask Ronnie and Donnie to be my pet spider and toad. I bet they’d like that. Then they’d be our friends.”

  On the way to their house, we saw Laura Butterfield. She was sitting outside by herself and I showed her Cassandra Jovanovich.

  Cassandra sat down. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and smiled at Laura.

  “I want you to be in our play. I want you to be the beautiful flower fairy who helps the beautiful princess,” Cassandra told her.

  I’d never thought of this. But now I looked at Laura and knew this was just right. Very appropriate. She was tiny and pale with long skinny arms and legs and lots of long blond hair that was almost white. She looked just like a fairy in a picture book.

  Laura smiled and I could see where the new tooth was growing in. We asked her to come with us.

  We all went to Debbie Walker’s hou
se and she said she’d be the beautiful princess’s best friend and she said her dog, Tinkerbell, should be the fire-breathing dragon in one scene and the magic horse at the end.

  Then we all went to Ronnie and Donnie’s house. I couldn’t believe Cassandra was doing this, but she did. She went right up to the door and banged. Both of them came outside.

  “Paula wants you to beat me up, but I want you to be in our play. I’m going to be the evil witch and I need a toad and a spider.”

  Ronnie and Donnie didn’t say anything. They just stood staring at Cassandra, which wasn’t very considerate or appropriate, considering Cassandra was new.

  And then Laura Butterfield stepped forward.

  “Please,” she whispered. And she looked so fairy-like that I could tell Cassandra had picked the right person. And just like that, Ronnie and Donnie agreed to be in the play.

  Everyone said they’d come to my backyard as soon as they told their moms.

  And on the way home, I remembered something.

  “What happened at Kathy’s? I mean, I saw her call on you this morning. So I know you went out with her. But then you came home. Did you …” (Oh, hope against hope!) “Did you have a fight?”

  “I don’t like her,” said Cassandra Jovanovich. (Yes!)

  “She’s bossy,” said Cassandra. (Yes!)

  “She wanted to play go-go dancers. She put on some music and we pretended to be go-go-dancers, but she wanted to be in front and she told me to stay behind her and just follow her. So I told her she was a dumb dancer.”

  (Oh, be still my beating heart!)

  “Then she said I was a dumb orphan. So I left.”

  I knew I shouldn’t feel happy that Kathy hurt Cassandra’s feelings, but I couldn’t help feeling a little bit of a thrill. But I said, “I’m sorry she said that. She’s mean now. She didn’t used to be. She was always bossy. She always told me I was wrong about everything. Like the time I told her Julie Andrews is my favorite actress, but she said Mary Poppins was a movie for babies.”

  Cassandra Jovanovich stopped walking and I banged into her. “I love Mary Poppinsl” she said. “I’ve seen it three times!”