Rabble Starkey (18 page)

I argued. "We don't take up much room! Just the guest room is all, and we keep it tidy and picked up! And what'll Veronica say? She won't be able to
bear
it, Sweet-Ho! I'm her very best friend! Veronica and me are like sisters!"

I started to cry. But even when I was talking, arguing, crying, I knew it was decided and that it wouldn't change. And you know the strangest thing? The strangest thing was that deep down, I knew Sweet-Ho had made the right choice. The choice to move on.

It was hard to pack. Not because we had so much, but because we had so little. Each thing Sweet-Ho and I owned was special, and so with each folding, with each wrapping, with each placing in a box, came memories that we had to talk about.

I packed a going-away present Parker Condon had given me, a nice little book to write in. It had flowers on the cover and said "My Travels" in gold letters. Inside, he had written, "To Parable Starkey. From your friend, Parker Condon." I was glad he hadn't written "Love," because even though I had tried to pretend a little, I just couldn't love someone with spiky hair like his.

One night, when I was putting the things from my dresser into a cardboard box, I came upon the composition I wrote for school at the beginning of the year.
"My Home," it was called. I read it again, to myself, and laughed a little. Parts of it sounded funny now.

"Sweet-Ho," I said, and she looked over from where she was taking things from the closet.

"What?" she asked.

"I have to take some time off from packing, to write something," I told her.

"That's all right. There's no rush. We'll have it all ready by Friday."

So I took my notebook and pen and rewrote the composition. This time I didn't even need the thesaurus, and it was a good thing, too, because it was already packed away in the box marked "Books."

This time I wrote:

MY HOME

My home has many things in it that I love. It has a dictionary and a thesaurus; patchwork quilts made by my grandmother, who passed away a long time ago when I was just a little girl; a funny bear-shaped cookie jar; a pillow filled with pine needles, which remind me of the smell of the woods behind the house where I lived when I was twelve;

I stopped for a minute, holding the pen. "Sweet-Ho," I asked, "do we have to take that old toaster? It never worked right. It always burned the toast."

"I'm going to give it to the church for the rummage sale," she said. "Let someone else eat burnt toast. We'll save up and get a new one."

I wrote some more.

and a pale blue glass vase, which holds flowers all summer long.

I stopped again. "Sweet-Ho," I asked, "do you think I'll ever see Veronica again?"

She nodded. "I'm sure you will."

The best friends I have throughout my life will always be welcome in my home, even if I haven't seen them for a very long time.

At night, in my home, I can listen and hear the things outside: birds and wind and rain. Inside, at night, after I am in bed, sometimes I can hear my mother singing in a low voice. She knows a hymn from her own childhood, a hymn her own mother used to sing, and it says her name: Sweet Hosanna.

All of these things together give my home the good feelings that it has. No matter where a home might be, feelings are the vital thing.

"There," I said, and closed my notebook. "It feels good to fix something up so it's right."

On Friday morning, early, the car was packed and it was time to drive away. I cried, and so did Sweet-Ho. Veronica sobbed and sobbed, and I believe I could see some tears in Mr. Bigelow's eyes. Not Gunther, though. He just hiccuped and grinned. Good old Gunther, he always expected that things would turn out okay no matter what, and when your expectations are like Gunther's, then there's no need to cry ever.

I think that the reason he cried so much when he was first born was because his expectations were so measly then.

I hugged and kissed him goodbye and got exposed to ringworm, impetigo, and poison ivy all in one swoop, and didn't even care.

As we drove out of Highriver, along the highway, I looked up and saw the Rockwell house sitting there on its hilltop. "I'm going to write to Veronica every single day," I told Sweet-Ho. "We have lots of plans for the future so we have to keep in touch.

"What about you?" I asked her. "Are you going to write to Mr. Bigelow?"

She smiled. "I surely will let him know now and then how we're doing," she said, "because he did so much to help us along. But I expect I'll be awful busy. I won't have time to write letters much."

"I know you love him," I said suddenly, looking at her sideways as she drove.

"I loved all the Bigelows and always will," Sweet-Ho said.

That was true, I knew, but I wanted more from her. I wanted to know how you could bear to go away from someone you love. How you could
choose
it.

"But, Sweet-Ho, I know you loved him special," I said. "More special even than Gunther."

She didn't turn her head or blink her eyes, and she talked steady and strong, looking down the road that wound ahead of us all the way to Clarksburg. "There are lots of different kinds of love," she said. "You know that."

"I surely do. From my thesaurus." I started reciting some. "Affection. Passion. Regard. All sorts of kinds."

Sweet-Ho smiled. "And they get mixed up together sometimes, so you can't tell which is which. And you know what? Some of them are just pretend."

I thought about that. "For a while," I told her, "I pretended that I loved Parker Condon. But I didn't really."

"Well, you'll understand, then. For a little while I think I pretended that I loved Mr. Bigelow in a way that I didn't, not really. And maybe he pretended, too."

I nodded. "I expect the one he
really
loves is Veronica and Gunther's mother. I hope she's really all better."

"I hope so, too."

"And you know what I hope for you, Sweet-Ho? I hope you find the one
you
really love. Besides me, of course."

"I will, someday. We both will. Because we're moving on to where more things are in store."

I kept silent for a minute, thinking about what she said. Then I twisted around and looked into the back seat, at the carton filled with books where it lay under our folded quilts.

"Remember those two books, Sweet-Ho?" I asked her. "My very favorite ones—
The Red Pony
and
The Yearling
? Both of them with a boy named Jody?"

She nodded, watching the road.

"I'm just now realizing that they're both about the
same thing. About all kinds of loving, and about saying goodbye. And about moving on to where more things are in store."

"They're about growing older," Sweet-Ho said.

"And growing up."

I sighed and slouched down in my seat, fiddling with the seat belt and then leaning over to mess with the radio dial. Then I leaned back and watched the road along with Sweet-Ho. I watched the river pass by on the right, the fields all stretched out beside us, the woods here and there, and the West Virginia mountains beyond.

"You know what I'm thinking, Sweet-Ho?" I asked.

"Of course I don't," she said. "You tell me."

"I'm thinking that up ahead, up there where the road curves around by those trees, any minute now we might come around that curve, and there beside the road we might be downright amazed to see a blue pickup truck parked, waiting. And sitting there in it will be the handsomest man you ever saw, and he'll have ginger-colored hair."

Sweet-Ho threw back her head and laughed and laughed. "Parable Ann Starkey, if that happens, you just hold onto your hat and keep an eye out for the state police. Because if that happens, I'm going to press my foot down hard on this gas pedal and sail on past. You and me, Rabble, we've got too much waiting for us up ahead."

She sped up a little, driving real careful, and when we went around the curve I looked, and it was all a blur. But there was nothing there. There was only Sweet Hosanna and me, and outside the whole world, quiet in the early morning, green and strewn with brand new blossoms, like the ones on my very best dress.

Lois Lowry
divides her time between an apartment on Boston's Beacon Hill and an 1840 farmhouse in rural New Hampshire. She is the creator of the irrepressible Anastasia Krupnik and has written several other popular books for children:

Us and Uncle Fraud

"In a more serious tale than the Anastasia novels, Lowry lightens tension with her same high-grade humor and brings thoughtful perceptions to a story that is also full of drama and adventure."

—
Booklist,
starred review

Taking Care of Terrific

"Readers will respond with hearts and minds to Lowry as a writer of singular tenderness and satiric wit, and they will find her latest novel outstanding, even among her prize winners."

—Publishers Weekly

Autumn Street

"...Lowry hones her writing to a high polish through which vivid settings and textured characters gleam in high relief."

—Booklist,
starred review

Find a Stranger, Say Goodbye

"It's a pleasure to be in the company of Natalie and all the people Lowry makes so human and believable."

—
Publishers Weekly

A Summer to Die

"...Not simply another story on a subject currently in vogue, the book is memorable as a well-crafted reaffirmation of universal values."

—Horn Book