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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Copyright

  For my great(terrific!)-nieces:

  Francesca

  Elizabeth

  Lucy

  Isabel

  and

  Anita Jane

  One

  “HENRY SPORONI says I look like a monkey,” said Nita.

  Her mother lay on the bed facing the wall. The wall was made of wood strips painted with shiny varnish. Nita’s mother had picked the varnish off the part of the wall she stared at as she lay there under the white chenille bedspread.

  “I told Henry Sporoni he looked like a rat.” Nita wriggled her nose like a rat, hoping her mother would turn over and look.

  Nothing happened. Nita went into the living room and pressed her face against the cold window. Frost decorated the window in feathery stars of ice. It was a dark morning, and the lighthouse flashed even though it was day. Flash! And then dark. Flash! And then dark. Nita loved living in the Coast Guard house right next to the big light, but now even the steady pulse of the beam was no comfort. I wish I had told Henry Sporoni he looked like a rat, thought Nita.

  “Nita, I packed your lunch,” said Dad, coming out of the kitchen. “It’s on the counter.” He took his parka off the coatrack and put it over his Coast Guard uniform. “I’ve got to run now, but I’ll be back here at lunchtime.”

  As if everything were just fine, thought Nita. “But what about Mom?” she asked him. “Won’t she get up?” Mom, who usually watered her orchids and sang and cooked spicy noodles, lay on her bed in the other room and had hardly talked at all for two whole days.

  Dad opened the door and a freezing draft of air rushed in. He looked at his watch. “Eight bells! I’ll be back in a few hours, and I’ll figure out … something. Try not to worry, Nita.” His blue eyes crinkled in a smile.

  “Aye, aye, sir!” Nita said, and tried to smile back. The door slammed behind Dad, and Nita heard his car start up.

  The house seemed so empty. Nita tiptoed over to the bedroom door and peeked in. Mom’s small form humped up the white bedspread and lay perfectly still. It was almost as if Nita were alone in the house.

  When Mom first came back from her trip to Thailand last month, she was fine. Even though she’d had to travel quickly for her grandmother’s funeral, she’d seen all of her family, and she told Nita about her cousins and brought her a beautiful shirt with elephants on it to wear. Then she got quieter and quieter and stayed in bed more and more. Nita knew Mom had been to the doctor and had some pills to take. “For depression,” Dad said. That was the first time Nita knew you could take pills for being sad. But now it seemed like Mom was sadder.

  Nita went back to the window. She looked out at the snowy world etched in white and gray. Only the waves moved this morning, clawing at the shore. The rest of the world was a black-and-white photograph, frozen in place. There weren’t even any birds on the feeder.

  It’s different from Thailand, that’s for sure, thought Nita. I remember palm trees and rice fields and dark wood buildings, and it was warm. But the faces of people who must have been Mom’s family are blurry. I guess I don’t remember much about Thailand. I positively don’t remember when Mom and Dad got married. How could I? I wasn’t even born.

  I remember some of the other Coast Guard bases we’ve lived on, but Maushope’s Landing is the farthest north we’ve ever been. This is the first place we’ve ever had snow.

  “I have to go to school, Mom,” called Nita to the still figure in the other room. There was no answer, but maybe Mom was asleep. Nita picked up the pot of yellow dancing lady orchids and put it on the table just inside the bedroom door.

  Then she put on her jacket, her mittens, and her bunny fur earmuffs. She got her lunch from the kitchen. “Bye, Mom,” she called again, as if by doing everything exactly the way she always did, it would somehow make Mom the way she used to be.

  Then Nita was out in the frosty air. She picked her way down the icy path and headed along the beach road toward town. The waves lapped at the narrow beach. Just as Nita tucked her chin down in her collar, she thought she saw a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. What was it? A piece of sand dune seemed to fly up, and a white flash of something big caught Nita’s glance. Was it a bird? If that was a bird, it was sure a big one, she thought. It was gone before she could really tell what she had seen, but the surprise of the dazzling whiteness stayed with her all the way to the end of the road.

  Nita took the shortcut through the ferry parking lot, up behind the post office, and across the street to School Street. In Maushope’s Landing, the school was on School Street, the church was on Church Street, and the main street was Water Street because it ran along the water.

  The old wooden school came into view, and Nita ran a few steps because she was so glad to be there. School is safe, school is always the same, thought Nita. Even the desks have been there for about a hundred years. “Good morning,” Nita heard someone say.

  Nita whirled around. There was her teacher. Mrs. Sommers’ arms were full. Her grayish-brown hair wisped out from under a shapeless brown hat. As she spoke, a folder of math papers slipped to the ground. Nita rushed to pick it up.

  “Hi,” she said softly. When Mrs. Sommers went up to the classroom, Nita was alone again, but it was nice to be the very first person on the playground. A seagull flew over. The sky was lighter now, and this morning’s few snowflakes hadn’t covered the Run, Sheep, Run tracks in what was left of last week’s snow on the playground.

  A yellow school bus roared up School Street, its brakes screeching as it stopped by the gate. Noise and color burst into the gray and white world and a wave of kids flowed onto the playground. For a second Nita wanted to run inside and hide in the closet, but then she was swept up in the wave.

  “The Sporoni bus is here,” shouted Henry. He hopped up on the low stone wall at the edge of the playground and pretended to play a trumpet fanfare to celebrate his arrival. “Ta-da! Ta-da-da-da-a!”

  Nita edged away from Henry and her eyes searched the crowd for Anne, her best friend since the second day of the fourth grade, the year Nita had arrived in Maushope’s Landing. They both had dark brown, almost black, eyes, and they laughed at the same jokes. And they were quiet, not like some noisy people—for instance, someone with the initials H.S.

  The first bell had already rung when Anne ran down the sidewalk and through the gate into the school yard. She squeezed into line with Nita, ignoring the glares of Brenda, who knew perfectly well that Nita always saved a place for Anne. “I don’t want to miss the tryouts,” she said breathlessly. Anne’s socks were two different shades of blue and the sweatshirt that sho
wed under her yellow jacket was on backward, but Nita always thought Anne looked great. She almost danced when she walked. Now she smiled at Nita.

  “Oh, I forgot about Snow White,” said Nita. “But … I don’t think I could be in a play.”

  Brenda had overheard them. “I’m going to be in the play. I love acting.” She tossed her long red hair back and posed with her arms out and her mouth open.

  Nita wanted to be in the play if Anne was in it, but what if she opened her mouth and no words came out? What if she tripped? What if …

  The second bell rang, and the fifth- and sixth-grade class trampled up the stairs.

  “Let’s go skating after school,” said Pete.

  “I’d rather try out for Amy’s play,” said Anne, putting her books on her desk.

  Henry stood on his desk. “Too many girls,” said Henry, as he surveyed the class from on high. “That’s the only trouble with the fifth grade. Too many girls. Now they want to have some baby play.”

  “Henry, get off your desk, please,” said Mrs. Sommers. Honestly, thought Nita, she would say “please” if Henry were about to light a string of firecrackers right there in the classroom. “And Anne, you can try out for the play after school the day after tomorrow,” the teacher went on, “though I’m not sure some people in this class are mature enough to manage a whole play on their own.”

  “Amy will manage them,” said Anne, frowning at Henry. “It’s going to be the Maushope’s Landing fifth-grade play, and it’s not a baby play, it’s a ‘timeless classic,’ that’s what Amy says, and it’ll be the best play we’ve ever had!”

  Nita knew Amy Bradley a little bit because her house was near the lighthouse, but Amy was in the eighth grade. She took a bus up to Maushop to the junior high instead of coming to the Landing school.

  “Well, right now I want to hear about your reports,” said Mrs. Sommers. “They’ve got to be done, too, play or no play.”

  Oh no, thought Nita. I still don’t know what to do my report on.

  “I’m going to do my report on stones,” said Anne.

  “I’m going to do my report on bones,” said Pete. Everyone laughed, but his father was an archaeologist, when he wasn’t a fisherman.

  Even though she was still worried about her report, Nita sank into her school mood at last. She savored the neat writing on the blackboard, the tick of the clock, and doing the same things every day—that you could count on. Now she watched Mrs. Sommers writing her report list on the blackboard in her beautiful cursive writing.

  Nita leaned sideways to see what Anne was writing in her notebook. It wasn’t her report. She wrote: Snow White sleeps a long time. Maybe frozen? Like winter? Then Anne drew in her notebook. It was winter. The sun set behind a sort of box with a girl inside. “Snow White in the glass coffin,” Anne whispered when she saw Nita watching.

  This sounded like a sad play. Nita wasn’t sure she wanted anything to do with it.

  “Nita?” said Mrs. Sommers.

  “What?” Nita answered, startled.

  “Your report? Have you decided?”

  “Uh, not yet.”

  “Well, please decide today, so we can talk it over,” said Mrs. Sommers. She pushed a loose hairpin back into her bun. Sometimes she seemed distracted, but she always remembered to ask about things like this darn report.

  “It doesn’t matter what you decide,” said Mrs. Sommers. “This is your library report, to prove you can look up absolutely anything in the library.”

  “Even outer space aliens from the planet Sporoni?”

  “Even tuna fish sandwiches?”

  “All right, class,” said their teacher. “It’s a little early, but you sound like you need your recess. Slowly on the stairs now.”

  The class pounded down the stairs to the front door, not running exactly, but letting their feet thud extra hard. Henry stepped on his sneaker laces and fell down the two outside steps onto the playground.

  It was cold on the playground, almost too cold to snow. Nita put on her earmuffs and shivered.

  “Come on, Nita,” said Anne and ran into the Run, Sheep, Run circle. Nita just couldn’t step inside that running pack. Instead she climbed to the top of the monkey bars and watched Henry finish tying his sneaker laces.

  As he finished, she looked away, but not before he saw her watching. Henry stayed crouched on the ground, scratched under his arms, and cried, “Chee, chee, chee.” He bounced sideways and scraped the backs of his hands along the ground in an apelike way. Nita was afraid to eat the banana she had brought for her snack, because then Henry would really go crazy. I never should have climbed these monkey bars, either, she thought.

  She wriggled her nose at Henry, but she was so far away, he probably didn’t notice. “Rat,” she said softly. Henry’s nose was kind of pointed, and he did stick it into everything. Maybe he could find some rat bars to climb.

  She looked at the sun. The sun was white and shiny in the gray winter sky. It looks like my hard-boiled egg when I peel it at lunchtime, thought Nita. It doesn’t feel warm at all. She was getting hungry. Was Henry gone? He was in the sheep circle now. Nita turned her back on the game and sneaked her banana out of her pocket.

  Across the pond she could see the back of the laboratory where Anne’s parents were busy in their geology lab. Nita wished her mother would go to an office or a lab, or water her orchids or something. Everyone is busy with something, except Mom. She thought of her mother lying on her bed. Even though we’ve moved around a lot, she argued to herself, we were always the Orson family, we were always fine, and now … now we’re not fine.

  She turned back and looked down from the monkey bars at Anne and Henry, Pete and Brenda, in the snowy circle. Brenda was the fastest sheep, with her long, red hair streaming behind her. Henry was the wolf, of course. The rat-wolf.

  They all seemed far away from Nita’s perch high up on the monkey bars. When she was in school, she liked to be in school; when she was at home, she liked to be there with her Mom and Dad, the way things had always been.

  “Time to go,” shouted the bell monitor. He swung the big hand bell. Kids jostled toward the door and pushed into line. Nita made her way slowly to the lineup, but she felt as though she were invisible, because Henry trampled right over her foot and Anne was talking with Brenda. They were talking about the play.

  Two

  “NITA!” Back in the classroom, Anne leaned over the back of Nita’s seat and looked at her as if a question needed to be answered. “Please be in the play! It will be so fun if we’re both in it.”

  “What could I be?” asked Nita cautiously. After all, the tryouts weren’t until day after tomorrow. It wouldn’t hurt to ask about the play a little bit.

  “We could both be dwarfs. They wear red hats and sing and dance!” Anne’s eyes sparkled at Nita.

  “I can’t dance.”

  “Also, the dwarfs take care of Snow White,” said Anne.

  “I can do that,” said Nita, thinking of her mother.

  “Also, dwarfs are boys,” said Henry, bursting in on the conversation from his seat across the aisle.

  “Well, there must be some girl dwarfs,” said Anne.

  “There aren’t,” said Henry. “Dwarfs are miners.”

  “Well, what about baby dwarfs? There must be some mothers.”

  Henry’s face turned red and he pulled his head down into his shirt so he looked like a shirt with hair. He was quiet for one whole minute. Then he gradually sat up, coming out of his shirt like a turtle. When he saw Nita watching him, he made little claws with his hands. “I’m a dwarf,” he said menacingly. “Now I’m coming to gobble you up!”

  He must mean a troll, Nita thought. Even though she knew it was stupid, his claws made her shiver.

  “Boys and girls,” said Mrs. Sommers. “I want to give you back these math tests. What a debacle!”

  Somebody started to say, “What does…?”

  “Look it up in your dictionaries,” chorused at least twenty v
oices. Mrs. Sommers always said this, and today the class beat her to it.

  The day sped on. Math, lunch, it seemed to Nita to go faster as it got toward the end and she knew she would have to go home. Pete got some people to go skating, but Nita didn’t have her skates. The Sporoni bus picked up its passengers and left, with Henry sitting quietly in a front seat. His mother was the bus driver, and the only known human who was able to control Henry.

  Nita dragged her feet as she went down School Street. She didn’t feel like going home. It would be too quiet and scary.

  Water Street was nice, and she slowed down to enjoy it. The post office had evergreen wreaths and fake candles in the windows, and she knew she could go in and have a gumdrop. Even grownups ate them, so they could joke around with John the Postmaster. But Nita didn’t feel up to joking.

  The bookstore was bright with the shiny covers of new books, and the other store in the bookstore building had a golden sun right in its window. Nita looked at the real sky, with only a pale gray glare where the sun should be. The one in the store window was much better. Up close, Nita could see it was made of little bits of fabric, a quilted sun. She smiled back at the glowing window.

  Suddenly, Brenda came flying around the corner. “Race you to the bike path,” she shouted. Nita started running without thinking, and she almost caught her. “Last one there is a rotten egg!” shouted Brenda. Nita sped up and just managed to tag the back of Brenda’s jacket as she ran through the ferry parking lot gate and took off up the bike path. Not too rotten, Nita said to herself.

  Now she was farther toward home. She walked slowly under the railroad bridge, staying on the side that had no pigeons cooing in the beams.

  It will be fine, it will be okay, Dad will be home soon, but why is Mom so sad? Nita walked and worried up the shortcut, down the street and all the way down the beach, up the driveway, and into the white house by the lighthouse whose light was flashing out over the bay.

  Warning! Rocks and shoals! Warning! flashed the big light.

  Three