Work Text:
Dear Mary Anne,
I’m sorry I haven’t written recently. I know you’re all busy with high school out there, too, but I still appreciate hearing from you!
I’ve been keeping an eye out for families who might need babysitters. At this point, most of my classmates’ siblings are in middle school or high school, so they don’t really need help, or my classmates are old enough to look after the fourth- or fifth-graders even if they’re not really “working.” But I have a classmate who has some younger cousins who live across town, not too far on a bike. She says that she gets sick of them sometimes, and she’s busy with the track team, so there might be a job opportunity there. You’re not going to believe it—her name is Stacy! It’s pronounced just like our friend, but she spells it without an “E.”
Say hi to everyone for me.
Love,
Dawn
Dear Mary Anne,
I miss all of you so much, but I really appreciate getting to see my dad every day. He’s not just trying to make up for lost time and be the fun dad, he actually helps Jeff with his homework and knows what my schedule is like. (Okay, sometimes it’s a little annoying because he wants me to finish my homework before I go out and he actually knows when my assignments are due. This wasn’t an issue with Mom.) He even cooks dinner sometimes! (Considering how many bowls we have around here he might as well do something with them.)
Anyway, it makes it a real treat when we get to do something fun like get pizza delivered. I know you’re tired of hearing me say this but the pizza out east has nothing on California. We tried a new place called “Surfer Boy,” and their special topping is pineapple! It tastes fantastic! Dad was angry that the delivery van smelled bad but I think he’s just in a bad mood.
Good luck with French. Mr. Tellman sounds like a real jerk.
Love,
Dawn
Dear Mary Anne,
Thanks for your letter. It’s funny to imagine Jenny and Jamie getting along so well, but I guess we all outgrow some of our worst habits, eventually. Who knows, maybe they’ll go to the Sadie Hawkins dance someday.
It’s so frustrating that your spring break is a different week from ours! I mean, I understand why—it’s not really springtime weather yet, out there—but I wish I could come visit you, or vice versa. But my dad doesn’t want Jeff and me to miss school, and I can just imagine how your dad would feel about it. At least I’ll get to see you over the summer!
We’re doing a project about our heroes. I’m going to make a collage about Rachel Carson, who wrote “Silent Spring,” and inspired many people to help clean up the environment!
Love,
Dawn
Dear Mary Anne,
It’s been a while. I’d like to say it was because we were on an epic roadtrip, but that’s not really true. It’s just been a stressful few days.
You remember how I said at the beginning of the year that I wasn’t the only new kid at Lenora Hills? There are a couple other freshmen who also just moved in, Will and Jane. I think they’re stepbrother and stepsister or something, I’m not exactly sure how they’re related.
Anyway, at the start of the year, we sometimes hung out because we were all finding our way around. Will is smart and a good artist, but kind of shy. Jane is...weird. Like, when they were talking about their family, she said she’d moved here from Indiana, but she had a hard time drawing it on a map. And she says she has a sister, but she doesn’t look like her and doesn’t live with her and Will’s family, either. I mean, I understood all about that! I told her about how my parents got divorced and remarried but she didn’t seem interested in that either.
Well, as time went on, I started to make friends with the girls who have been living here their whole lives. Like Stacy, and her friend Angela. They’re cool! And it felt good when I fit in and wasn’t just “the girl from Connecticut.”
The last couple of days before spring break, we presented our projects in Mrs. Gracey’s class. I got an A! Will had a cool posterboard about a scientist who helped break codes in World War II. Stacy did a presentation about the First Lady.
Then there was Jane. She had a weird little shoebox with a Play-Doh sculpture of her dad at her old house in Indiana. I’m sure her dad was a nice guy and she misses him a lot. But it wasn’t really a research project, you know? It felt kind of unfair if everyone else had taken it seriously and done an actual report, and she’d made some squirrels out of Play-Doh.
As we were leaving, Angela kind of tripped Jane and stepped on her shoebox. It wasn’t a nice thing to do, but also, the project was already over. She’d gotten whatever grade she was gonna get. Then Jane did this funny thing where she stretched out her hand and stared at Angela, really angry, like she was a little kid and wanted to punch her but wasn’t allowed to. After that, Mrs. Gracey came out and looked suspicious. Jane didn’t tell on her or anything—we’re high schoolers, we can handle this ourselves. But somehow, without her saying anything, Mrs. Gracey suspected it was Angela. Either teachers all have eyes in the back of their head, or Angela had gotten in trouble like this before. I didn’t worry too much about it. It was spring break!
So the next day we went roller skating. It’s pretty fun, I bet Jessi would be great at it. There are also all kinds of arcade games where you can try to win silly prizes (Jeff likes those), and they usually rip you off. And a lot of junk food. I wasn’t interested in that part.
I was surprised to find Jane there, and she had a boyfriend who’d come to visit all the way from Indiana! His name was Matt or something. From what I could tell, he looked pretty normal—not the kind of guy who would glare at people and pretend like he had magic powers.
Nobody even knew that Jane was coming, so it wasn’t like we had plans or anything. But all of a sudden, Angela and Stacy and some of the others were calling her names and making fun of her. One boy even threw a milkshake at her. It made a mess, and I was pretty angry. I just wanted to skate. Maybe I should have said something or told them to stop right then, but I didn’t want them to make fun of me, either. It felt so good to have friends out here that I didn’t think too much about what they were doing.
Jane ran off, and I figured that was the end of it. But then as we were leaving, she came back and she threw a roller blade at Angela! Her nose broke and it started bleeding everywhere, it was really scary. An ambulance came and took her to the hospital.
I wanted to go visit her right away, but my dad said she would probably be busy with the doctors and maybe even talking to the police about what happened, so I waited a couple days. The good news is, by the time I got to see her, she was already out of the hospital and resting at home. I told her I was happy that she was getting better.
But she didn’t look too happy. She was complaining that her spring break was ruined and she’d have to go back to school after break anyway, but when I asked what her plans had been, she said she didn’t have any. And she was frustrated that she hadn’t heard how much trouble Jane was in, even though it was kind of none of her business. Like, the police have to do their job by themselves, right? Her job is just to get better. After I left, I realized that she hadn’t even said anything like “thank you” for visiting. We’d talked about her the whole time.
It’s funny. I made my collage about Rachel Carson, because she’s an important and famous person. But the whole next day, I was thinking, “What would Kristy do?” Maybe there are some heroes closer to home.
I thought about it, and I decided, it was wrong for Jane to hurt Angela like she had. But it was wrong for Angela and Stacy and all of us—even me—to make fun of her and throw milkshakes at her. I had been so worried about making friends out here, I forgot to be the kind of person I would want to be friends with. And I knew all of you wouldn’t want that for me. After all, I’d been lucky enough to make friends with you just by being myself.
I decided I should talk to Jane and try to apologize, or start over. It took me a while to find her family in the phone book—she has a different last name from Will—but I was able to bike over to her house. I thought about what I was going to say. Maybe I could help her with homework in the future, if I thought I had a better idea about what Mrs. Gracey was looking for…
But when I got to her house, there were black vans parked in front of it, and a police officer told me that I wasn’t allowed to go inside. I explained that I wanted to see my classmate, and she looked worried. “Has your friend talked to you in the last couple days? Sent you a letter, maybe?”
“She’s not really my friend,” I said. “I just wanted to apologize. I was rude to her the other day.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “But the Byers aren’t here right now. If they reach out to you, you come back and let us know, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, but I didn’t really think Jane would want to talk to me of all people.
I’m probably just being silly from reading too many of Claudia’s mysteries and investigating the “haunted houses” in Stoneybrook. But it seemed like a lot of police cars just for one high-schooler. And what about Will and his mom? And Jane’s boyfriend? Where had they disappeared to?
I hope they’re okay. I hope I get the chance to apologize, someday.
Until then, I’ll just have to tell this to you.
Love,
Dawn