Girl Power (3 page)

The foursome walked home together after school. No one needed to be reminded of their pact, and no one complained about waiting for Morgan while she ran back inside to pick up her gym clothes. None of them wanted to meet up with the gang alone. Especially not after Derrick’s threat this morning.

“Don’t you just hate it when they call us the ‘trailerpark kids’ as if that makes us second-class citizens?” said Carlie. “I’d just like to smack that Derrick Smith right in his big red nose!” She swung her backpack for emphasis.

“I know what you mean,” agreed Morgan. “As if living in that crummy apartment complex on Oak Street makes him better than us. I’d just like to know what makes him so mean and stupid.”

“Maybe his dog got rabies and died,” offered Carlie.

“Or maybe his mom is a really bad cook,” suggested Emily with a half smile.

Morgan laughed. “Or maybe his father hangs him by his toenails in the cellar every night.”

“Maybe he
should
,” said Amy. Then they all laughed.

Carlie was glad to see that Amy had recovered from this morning. She could tell that she’d been embarrassed, and Carlie had felt really sorry for her, but she hadn’t known what to do or say. She’d been so relieved when Emily stepped in.

“You know,” began Carlie in a serious voice, “sometimes my friends and I would get teased back where I used to live. But that was because there were only a few Latino families in our town, you know, and we were the only minority. Do you think that’s why the gang is picking on us now?”

“I thought so at first,” admitted Morgan. “But then I noticed the gang has a Hispanic guy, Enrico Valdez, who hangs out with them sometimes. Plus, yesterday they attacked Emily, and she’s not exactly a minority.”

“Not unless you count poor white trash,” Emily spoke quietly.

“Emily, that’s not true,” Carlie declared. “None of us are trash. Like my parents say, we’re all just passing through. Sometimes we come upon hard times, but that doesn’t mean things won’t change someday.
Right?
”

“Right,” agreed Morgan.

“Besides,” stated Amy, “just because you live in Harbor View Mobile-Home Court doesn’t mean you’re poor. For instance, my parents could afford a better place, but they don’t want to move. They like where we live.”

“Really?” asked Carlie in disbelief. She knew her mother wanted to move to a bigger house. They’d left a really pretty home back in Coswell, one that was twice as big as where they lived now.

“Yes.” Amy seemed to hold her head a little higher as she continued. “Our house is actually quite nice. It looks much better on the inside. In fact, why don’t you all come over to see it? How does Saturday sound?”

So they all agreed to go to Amy’s at two on the following day. Carlie was curious about what they would do there, but she was glad for the invitation. And, as strange as it seemed, the four of them had suddenly become sort of a team or something. After several weeks of not having one single friend, she now felt like she had three. And each one seemed pretty nice and interesting too. She looked down the street again, in search of the gang of bullies that had driven them together, but nothing unusual caught her eye.

“You know, this hanging together works pretty good for going to school,” she admitted to the girls. “But what’ll we do when we have to do something alone? I sure don’t want to face Derrick by myself.” Just the thought made Carlie’s stomach twist.

“Good question, Carlie,” Morgan frowned and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “I wouldn’t like to run into them on my own either. It’s almost like this whole thing is getting way out of hand. I sort of wonder if we
should tell someone—” But her words were cut short as two guys on bikes zipped up. Fortunately, Derrick was not one of them. This time it was Jeff and Enrico.

“Derrick told us to tell you to stay off our turf,” said Jeff without much enthusiasm, almost as if he were delivering a message from a teacher.

“Oh, we’re so surprised,” said Carlie sarcastically. “We just never would’ve guessed it.”

“Look, we’re not trying to start anything,” said Jeff. “We just wanted to warn you.”

“Warn us about what?” demanded Morgan. “That you big, tough seventh graders are going to beat up a bunch of girls who are younger than you? Now, that’s really tough. I’m, like, so impressed!”

Jeff looked over his shoulder. Enrico said nothing. His eyes met Carlie’s, then quickly looked away.

Carlie felt a miniature volcano bubbling up inside her, and finally it exploded. “I just do not understand you, Enrico. Where I came from we stuck together when the gringos picked on us. You are a traitor, Enrico! My father would spit on you.” She felt her cheeks grow hot. She halfway wished she could take back her fiery words.

“Come on, Jeff. Let’s get outta here,” said Enrico as he turned his bike around. “This is stupid.” Jeff just shook his head and followed.

“Wow,” said Carlie, hardly daring to believe her eyes. The bullies were actually leaving. The other girls slapped
her on the back.

“Way to go, Carlie!” Morgan gave her a high five. “You really told those two off. Maybe they’ll come to their senses now, and maybe they’ll lose dumb old Derrick completely.”

They celebrated all the way home. And while Carlie was really relieved that their persecution was over—at least for the moment—she hoped this wouldn’t be the end of these new friendships. She liked hanging with her new friends and hoped they’d find other reasons to stick together.

“You know, this place really is pretty ugly,” noticed Morgan as she stopped to look at the entrance of the mobile-home park.

“What do you mean?” asked Amy.

“Harbor View Mobile-Home Court. I mean, just look at it. It really does seem kinda slummy. See that broken-down fence over there … and there are weeds and blackberry vines all over the place. And look at all the litter everywhere.” She pointed to the sign at the entrance. It was missing the letter V. “It says Harbor
iew
,” she said, making a face. “Pretty pathetic.” All the girls stopped and stared. And for a long moment, no one said anything.

Carlie had noticed all these same things the very first day they’d moved in here, but slowly she’d sort of gotten used to them. And recently, with the help of her dad, she’d
started to create her own special place—a little getaway that helped her to forget about some of the ugliness. “Hey,” she said suddenly. “I want to show you guys something.” She started jogging toward her house. “Come with me.”

And without even asking her why, the girls came, following her right up to her house. But instead of going in through her front door, she led them around the outside of the house. For one thing, she knew that Pedro and Miguel might still be napping, but besides that, she knew this would make for a better entrance. Then she pushed back the little metal gate that her father had put up and took them into her backyard.

There in the center was the little patch of patio that she and her dad had made themselves with cement paving blocks that he’d managed to scrounge from a demolition site. Surrounding the patio were colorful clay pots of different sizes and shapes, ones that her grandmother had given her. And each one was filled with an assortment of pretty spring flowers and small shrubs. A wooden bench that they’d brought from their old yard was set off to the side. Nearby was a picnic table and chairs. But to the right stood her pride and joy—a fountain that she and Dad had put together themselves. And, as usual, it was bubbling and gurgling with water tumbling down the sides.

“This is so beautiful,” said Amy, dipping her fingertips into the water that flowed from the fountain.

“It’s like a secret paradise,” said Morgan, sitting down on the bench. Emily nodded with wide eyes, drinking it all in. Suddenly Carlie felt so pleased and proud. Papa had helped, but this whole thing had truly been her idea.

She’d hated leaving their lovely home in Coswell, but the hardest part of all was losing their beautiful backyard and garden. Papa had promised she could make another special place, but at first she thought it was hopeless. The yard was so small and overgrown with weeds. But then she’d rolled up her sleeves and started investing most of her free time out here working in the dirt. Tia Maria donated lots of flowers from her own garden, and Carlie had used her babysitting money to purchase others. She loved being outside, and working in the garden was the one time when she was allowed to get dirty and didn’t have to act like such a lady.

At first, Carlie had been worried that her new friends might think it was lame for her to enjoy working in a garden, but it truly was what she loved most of all. And someday she hoped to own her own landscaping business. But that was a secret she kept to herself, at least for now.

“I just got an idea,” exclaimed Morgan, jumping up from the bench. “Why don’t we do for the trailer park what Carlie has done for this yard?”

“Oh, that would be a lot of work,” said Carlie.

“Well, it wouldn’t have to be
this
nice,” explained Morgan. “I just mean we could clean it up some. You know,
make it look better. Improve it.”

“Yeah,” chimed in Emily. “If we all worked together, we might be able to make it look a lot nicer. Then maybe we wouldn’t get teased so much for living here.”

Amy nodded. “Maybe we could plant a couple of trees or something by the entrance. Paint that cruddy-looking fence.”

Before long they were all full of ideas. Some sounded pretty good, and others pretty impossible. But Carlie was getting excited. Maybe this would give them a way to work together—to become real friends.

“When you come to my house tomorrow,” said Amy importantly, “We can all sit down and have a real planning session about how to do these things.”

“Great idea,” said Morgan. “Maybe we should make Carlie here the leader, since she knows so much about gardens and stuff.”

Carlie felt her face grow warm, partly with pride, partly with embarrassment. She’d never been a leader of anything. “Oh, I don’t think we really need a leader. Why don’t we all just help out.”

So it was agreed. They would meet at Amy’s at ten. And for now they wouldn’t have an official leader. After the girls left, Carlie sat down on the bench. Maybe moving to this town wasn’t so bad after all. Today had been one of the best days she could remember since coming here.
She picked a bright yellow pansy and looked into its sweet, dark face. It looked so hopeful and full of promise. It was sort of how she felt. She rubbed the velvety surface against her cheek and thought about how good it was to be in a garden, and how much the green growing things reminded her of God.

Maybe putting some of these growing things around the mobile-home park would remind some other people about God too. Carlie wondered what her friends would think of
that
idea.

Morgan chattered away as she and Emily walked to Amy’s house on Saturday. “… And then I thought we could earn money to buy flowers and stuff by collecting returnable pop cans. The store will give us five cents per can. I bet we could get fifty cans just from the residents here.” She tossed her silent friend a quick sideways glance. Emily just nodded. It bugged Morgan that Emily was so quiet, but she figured that maybe she was just like that. Or maybe she was what Grandma called moody. But it didn’t matter. Not really. She liked Emily, and they were friends. That was all that mattered.

“Hey there,” called Carlie as she bounded down the steps of her porch toward them.

“What are you all dressed up for, Carlie?” asked Morgan, eyeing Carlie’s outfit: a pink T-shirt and a matching ruffled skirt.

Carlie’s face darkened. “My mother,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“My mother thought I should look nice to go to Amy’s. She thinks we’re having a party or something. I tried to explain, but I couldn’t make her understand.”
Carlie looked down at her clothes and frowned.

“Well, it’s no big deal, Carlie. I mean, you do look pretty. I just …” Morgan felt sorry that she’d made Carlie uncomfortable. “My grandma would think you look the way girls should look,” she added. “She’s always trying to get me to wear stuff like that.”

“Well, you’re lucky you get to dress the way you want to.”

“Yeah, I’d probably go nuts if I couldn’t wear what I like.” She looked down at her tie-dyed T-shirt, faded jeans, and well-worn sandals: not exactly a style statement, but comfortable. She glanced at Emily. She had remained quiet throughout their little fashion discussion, and now Morgan noticed Emily had on the same patched jeans again. In fact, as Morgan thought about it, it seemed to her that Emily wore those pants every day.

“Come on in, you guys,” called Amy, throwing open the door. The girls entered a spacious living room with dark blue carpet and some Asian-looking furniture, including low, dark coffee tables and large ceramic vases. Even the art on the wall looked Asian. Amy proudly gave them a quick tour of the whole house. As Amy had said, it was much better on the inside, very fancy. It was also very tidy—not a single thing looked out of place.

“Are you the only one home?” asked Carlie.

“No, my mother’s here. She’s fixing us something.”

“Where is she?” asked Morgan. “I didn’t see her.”

“Well, she’s probably trying to stay out of our way.”

Morgan looked curiously at Amy. It was hard to imagine the kind of mother who would want to stay out of the way. Morgan’s mother always wanted to be involved in everything.

“Why don’t we go to my room,” said Amy. “My desk is in there, and we can write down our plans for fixing up Harbor View.”

Amy’s room was lavender and white, and everything seemed to match perfectly. But Morgan didn’t like it much. She thought it lacked creativity. Naturally, she kept this to herself as she looked at the row of porcelain dolls on top of Amy’s long, white mirrored dresser. They all looked so straight and stiff, as if they belonged in some weird kind of doll army.

“Sit down,” said Amy, pointing to her bed. The three girls sat stiffly on the lavender-and-white bedspread, as if they were afraid to wrinkle it. Amy sat at her neat white desk and pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil. Of course, these items were lavender too. And for some reason this made Morgan giggle.

“What’s so funny?” asked Amy.

“Oh, nothing really.” But Morgan couldn’t stop. And soon Emily was smiling and she started to giggle too.

“What is it?
” demanded Amy, slamming the little lavender notebook down on her desk.

“I’m sorry,” said Morgan between giggles. “It’s just that everything is so … so … lavender.” She burst into full-blown laughter now, and Emily did the same, holding her hand over her mouth as if to stop herself. Carlie and Amy just stared at them like they thought the two girls were crazy.

“Is something wrong with lavender?” asked Amy. “Or are you two just losing it?”

“No, no, lavender’s fine.” Morgan took off her glasses and wiped her eyes, careful not to look at Emily lest she burst out laughing again.

“Well, I think your room is pretty, Amy,” stated Carlie.

“Thanks.” Amy frowned at Morgan. “Now let’s start thinking about what we want to do to fix up the trailer park.”

“We have to plant flowers in front by the sign… .”

“Yeah, and the sign needs to be repainted.”

“How about a couple of trees by the sign?”

“What about that old rickety fence?”

“Hold it!” yelled Amy. “I am not getting this all down. Slow down. One at a time, and wait until I call on you.”

“Okay, teacher,” joked Morgan.

Amy tossed her one of her snooty looks, but Morgan just laughed. The girls slowly told her their ideas, and before long they had a pretty good list. And when
Amy read the whole thing back to them, they were quite impressed with themselves.

“But that was the easy part,” said Morgan. “Now we need to figure out how we can raise some money. I had a couple of ideas, like collecting pop cans to turn in for money and old newspapers to sell to the recycling center.”

“We could have a huge garage sale,” offered Carlie. “My mother loves garage sales.”

“How about a lemonade stand?” suggested Amy. “We could sell cookies too. Hey, speaking of food, I bet it’s ready.”

“What’s that?” asked Carlie.

“Come on and see.” Amy led them to the dining room where a small feast was laid on the big dark table. Everything was neatly arranged with pretty plates and napkins. There were almond cookies and sesame cakes, and fresh fruit arranged prettily on a plate. There was also a pot of tea and four tiny cups.

“This looks like a tea party,” exclaimed Carlie.

“That was really nice of your mother.” Morgan looked around, but still didn’t see anyone in the kitchen.

They ate and visited and continued to plan the steps it would take to transform Harbor View Mobile-Home Court into a place where anyone would be proud to live.

“But there’s one important thing we need to do first,” said Morgan between bites. “It won’t be easy, but we need
to talk to Mr. Greeley.”

“Who’s that?” asked Emily.

“Didn’t you meet him when you moved in? He’s the manager of Harbor View. Or maybe he’s the owner. I’m not sure. Anyway, he runs this place.”

“Not very well,” added Amy as she refilled her cup with tea.

“Obviously,” agreed Morgan. “But the problem is, he’s sort of grumpy—”

“Not
sort of
,” interrupted Carlie. “He can be downright mean and nasty. When my dad wanted to put a little fence around our yard just to keep Pedro and Miguel off the street, Mr. Greeley acted like we were going to destroy the place. All we wanted to do was make it nicer.”

“And then whenever you need Mr. Greeley,” continued Amy, “he’s never around. If something’s broken or needs attention, the old geezer just totally disappears. It drives my parents crazy!”

“My grandma thinks it’s because he’s sad,” said Morgan.

“Or crazy,” said Amy. “My parents think he has mental problems.”

“Anyway, we need to figure out a way to get Mr. Greeley to listen to us,” said Morgan. “And to agree to our plan.” She thought for a moment. “My grandma always says you can get more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“What does
that
mean?” asked Amy.

“Well, it means we should be sweet to Mr. Greeley, like honey, in order to get him to agree to our ideas. I don’t know … it’s just a silly old saying. My grandma has lots of them.”

Carlie nodded. “I get you. My parents have some sayings like that too, and they don’t make any sense, but they still say them—usually in Spanish.”

Morgan held up an almond cookie. “How about if we take Mr. Greeley some of these cookies, Amy? That’s sort of like honey.”

So it was agreed, and they all marched over to Mr. Greeley’s with a bag full of the delicious almond cookies. Morgan was nominated to speak. She didn’t mind since she’d known Mr. Greeley the longest, and she wasn’t too afraid of him. Well, at least not when she had backups like today. His double-wide house was part office. It could’ve been nice looking, but it was dirty and dingy and had boxes of all kinds of stuff stacked around on the front porch. A scrawny-looking tiger cat rubbed against Morgan’s legs, and she reached over to stroke its back. The cat purred loudly and rubbed again. She doubted that Mr. Greeley ever petted the poor animal. It looked as if he hardly ever fed it.

“Wha’d’ya kids think you’re doing on my porch?” called a gruff voice from around the corner. Mr. Greeley
walked up with a sour-looking expression and a broken piece of glass in his hand. He did look pretty scary with wild wisps of uneven gray hair poking out from under a dusty old ball cap.

“We … uh … we just wanted to talk with you,” began Morgan.

“‘Bout what?” He scowled up at her.

“Well, first of all, we wanted to share some cookies with you.” She reached over the porch railing and handed him the small bag of cookies. Her smile was met with a suspicious frown.

“What for?” He set down the piece of glass and looked into the bag.

“We just want to be neighborly. And we want to talk to you about an idea we have—an idea about fixing up Harbor View.”

He scowled at her. “What are you talking about? Wha’d’ya mean by fixing it up?”

“We mean we’d just like to beautify the trailer court so that—”

“Just how d’ya kids think you’re gonna
beautify
the court?” He pulled out a cookie, sniffed it, then took a cautious bite.

“We’ve made a list of ideas … “

Amy held out their list, keeping her distance like she thought the old man might have cooties or something.

He snatched the paper from her and quickly glanced down at it. “Yeah, well, that might sound fine and good to you little girls. But who’s gonna foot the bill? I got no money for silly frills like that.”

“We thought we could raise some money,” said Carlie in a meek voice.

He rubbed his grizzly whiskered chin and grunted. “Hmm. Well, I don’t want you making no messes. You mess anything up, you break anything, and I’ll have your parents pay. And don’t think I won’t.”

Morgan wondered how they could possibly make things look any worse than they already were, but she just nodded solemnly. “No, sir, we won’t mess anything up. We only want to make it nicer.”

“What for?” He peered straight into her eyes as if he suspected they might be up to some kind of mischief.

“We just want to live in a place that looks pretty. That’s all.”

“Humph,” he grunted.
“Pretty!”
He shook his head and walked away. “Just don’t you mess nothing up, ya hear?” he called over his shoulder.

“Sure thing, Mr. Greeley.” Morgan gave the other girls a thumbs-up sign.

“You did it, Morgan!” Carlie gave her a high five.

Morgan smiled. “Yep, now we just better make sure we ‘don’t mess nothing up,’” she said in a deep Mr.
Greeley-type voice. The girls laughed.

“Should we start today?” asked Emily. “I mean, we could probably begin by pulling some weeds and picking up trash and stuff.”

“Great idea, Em,” agreed Morgan. “I’ll go get some trash bags, and we can start out front by the entrance. Maybe if some of the folks around here see what we’re up to, they’ll want to help out too.”