Welcome to Camden Falls Read online

  This book is for Valerie Portolano

  The author would like to thank Samuel Nagler for his suggestions and his sensitive evaluation of the manuscript.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Map

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 Main Street

  Chapter 2 Mary Woolsey

  Chapter 3 Aiken Avenue

  Chapter 4 King’s Adventure

  Chapter 5 A Peek in the Windows

  Chapter 6 Needle and Thread

  Chapter 7 On the Edge

  Chapter 8 Trouble at the Row Houses

  Chapter 9 The Box in the Attic

  Chapter 10 The Accident

  Chapter 11 Sew What?

  Chapter 12 Olivia’s Secret

  Chapter 13 Stitches

  Chapter 14 Pocket Money

  Chapter 15 Stuff ’n’ Nonsense

  Chapter 16 The Missing Necklace

  Chapter 17 The Barbecue

  Chapter 18 What Ruby Sees

  Chapter 19 The Truth Comes Out

  Chapter 20 Wheels

  Chapter 21 The Photo

  Chapter 22 Nighttime

  About the Author

  Sneak Peek

  Copyright

  Flora, curled in the backseat of Min’s car, thought of all the orphaned children she’d read about in books — boys and girls without any parents, starting new lives in new places — and now she, Flora Marie Northrop, was one of them. Outside the window of Min’s Toyota, the scenery flew by, a blur of branches and green leaves, bits of clouds, patches of clear New England sky. Flora turned and poked her sister, hoping for a game, a joke, anything to relieve the monotony of this seemingly endless trip. But Ruby remained stubbornly asleep, one hand resting on a carrier that held their cat, King Comma, who was also asleep.

  Flora sighed, sat up, and peered into the front seat. Her grandmother drove steadily, humming along to “An American in Paris,” the first selection on her Gershwin Favorites CD. Next to her dozed Daisy Dear, her plume of a tail sweeping back and forth across the seat as she dreamed a doggy dream.

  Flora resumed her position between King and the window. She was nothing, she thought, like the orphans she had read about. For starters, most of them were British. And when they began their new lives, horrible things happened to them: They were sent to freezing, nasty orphanages where they lived in long rooms lined with flea-infested beds and were served only water and gruel for each meal. Either that or they had to go on grand quests for truth or power or lost family treasures, trekking through mist and mountains and muck, facing dragons and giants.

  Flora and Ruby were not pale waifs shivering under threadbare blankets. Nor were they off on a glorious, romantic adventure. They were just Flora and Ruby Northrop, whose parents had died in a car accident and who were now going to live with their grandmother Min in Camden Falls, Massachusetts.

  In the five months since the accident, Flora had discovered something that was fascinating and horrible at the same time: If she willed herself not to think about the accident, then she truly could put it out of her mind. This was harder than it sounded. It was like telling yourself not to poke a loose tooth with your tongue. But Flora could do it; she could put the accident right out of her mind if she gave herself the order. On the other hand — and this was what was most horrible and fascinating — when she wanted to remember the accident, as she did on certain days, then she could transport herself back to that awful, unforgettable night and recall it detail for detail.

  It had been early on a frosty January evening, a Friday. Not quite dinnertime yet, but already night had fallen.

  “Everyone hop in the car,” her father had said. “We’ll go out for pizza.”

  Flora hadn’t wanted to go. Instead, she’d wanted to finish all of her homework then, right then, so she could have the entire weekend free.

  “Oh, come on, Florrie Dorrie,” her father had said, which had made Flora cross because Florrie Dorrie was such a babyish nickname, and she was about to turn eleven. She had hopped into the car, but she was grumbling, which was unusual for her, and her bad mood did not improve when she heard her mother say quietly to her father, a smile in her voice, that Flora must be turning into a teenager already.

  They drove slowly down their street, past the familiar houses, a soft snow falling that you could really only see in the headlights or streetlights. When they drove by Annika’s house, Flora had tried to look in the living room window, hoping for a glimpse of her best friend.

  Then they had turned onto Maverick Way, a busier road than their own, and Flora’s mother had said, “Come on, let’s sing. Last chance for Christmas carols.”

  Ruby, who was eight then, had thought this was a wonderful idea. Of course she had. Ruby loved to sing, loved to dance, loved to be onstage. “‘Winter Wonderland’!” she had cried, but before she could get the first word out, before anybody could say or do anything more, a truck traveling toward them, traveling too fast for a snowy evening, crossed over the centerline and thundered into their car. The next few moments were bright lights and crunching glass and tearing metal, but no screams — only Ruby’s startled “Oh!”

  The rescue workers arrived quickly. They pulled Flora and Ruby from the backseat, dazed but unhurt, still buckled into their seat belts. The girls were taken to the hospital in an ambulance, just to be on the safe side. Their parents were taken in a second ambulance.

  It wasn’t until later that evening that a police officer led Flora and Ruby to a small room in the hospital, handed each of them a teddy bear, and asked Flora if she knew the name of a person to call in an emergency. “Annika’s mother,” Flora had said, and discovered that her teeth were chattering even though she wasn’t cold. “Mrs. Lindgren.” When the officer asked about a relative, Flora had said, “Min. I mean, Mindy Read. That’s our grandmother.” And she had even been able to recall Min’s phone number, including the area code.

  At this point, Flora’s precise memories became hazy. Who had collected her and Ruby from the hospital? And who had told them that their parents had died? Min? When had she arrived? Very late that night, Flora thought, but she wasn’t sure. All she truly remembered about the rest of the evening was that after she had learned her parents were gone, her mind turned numb the way her foot sometimes did in the middle of the night, and so a lot of things after that were unclear to her, even now.

  There had been a funeral, of course, and Flora and Ruby had stayed out of school for a while, but eventually Min said they must try to get their lives back in order, which seemed impossible. There they were, Flora and Ruby, living in their own house, but with their grandmother and her golden retriever instead of with their parents. And nothing was the same, no matter how Min tried to make it so.

  From the very start, Min, who was the girls’ legal guardian — it said so in the Northrops’ will — had told Flora and Ruby that she was going to stay with them in their house while they finished out the school year. “You’ll be right here on your old street with your old friends,” she had said. But she had also said that when summer came, they would be moving to Camden Falls. The town was Min’s home, after all. Her house, which had been in her family since long before she was born, was plenty big enough to accommodate Flora and Ruby and King Comma. It was the house in which Min and her husband had raised the girls’ mother and her younger sister. Needle and Thread, the sewing store on Main Street that Min owned and ran with her friend Mrs. Walter, was in Camden Falls, too. In other words, Min’s life was there. And as much as she loved her granddaughters, she couldn’t see leaving her home and moving to a strange town where she had, among other things, no friends and no work. Better to bring Ruby and Flora back to Camden Falls with her.
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br />   Flora had protested this decision quietly. Ruby had protested it loudly.

  “You don’t want to leave your friends and your home, but you’re making us leave our friends and our home,” Ruby had exclaimed more than once in her most dramatic voice. “And you’re the grown-up.”

  Min was patient. “I understand, Ruby,” she had said. “And I know you’re sad. I’m sad, too. We’ve all lost people we care about. I never dreamed I’d outlive my daughter. But we do have to move on. We have to make a life for ourselves, and I need to support you and Flora. That’s why I have to go back to Needle and Thread.”

  Min was nothing if not practical. And busy. She was always busy. Which was why Flora, when she was very small, had started calling her not Gran or Granny or Grandma, but Min. Min wasn’t short for Mindy — it was short for “In a minute.”

  “Come see my new hat,” Flora would say when Min was visiting.

  “In a minute,” her grandmother would reply.

  “Can you read to me?”

  “In a minute.”

  Flora’s name for her had stuck, and soon everyone called her Min. Now busy, practical Min was trying to settle down with her granddaughters. Since January, she had lived in their home with them and King Comma. She had mended their school clothes and gone to parent-teacher conferences and fixed meals and helped with homework. As often as she could, though, she had piled the girls and King Comma and Daisy Dear into the car and made the long trip back to Camden Falls. They would spend the weekend there while Min checked on her house and the store, and the girls selected the rooms that would be their bedrooms and talked to Mrs. Walter’s granddaughter Olivia, who lived next door.

  Time had passed, and suddenly it was June. Amazing, Flora thought. A little over five months had gone by since the night of the accident. School had ended, Min had sold their house and most of their things, Flora and Ruby had said good-bye to Annika and the rest of their friends, and now they were making a final, one-way trip to Camden Falls.

  So here was Flora, curled in the backseat with the sleeping Ruby and King Comma, while in the front, Min drove purposefully on, Daisy Dear at her side. A U-Haul lurched along behind the car, loaded with the girls’ clothes and bedroom furniture, their toys and books and games, Ruby’s tap shoes, and Flora’s art supplies.

  Flora and Ruby, orphans, were on the way to their new lives.

  “Ah! Here we go!” Min called gaily from the front seat. “The Mass Pike. We’re almost there.”

  Ruby stirred and opened her eyes. “The turnpike?” she mumbled. “How many more hours?”

  “Just a couple,” Min replied.

  “I’m bored,” said Ruby.

  “You’ve been asleep,” Flora pointed out. “How can you be bored?”

  “I just am.”

  “Let’s sing songs,” said Min, and she pushed the button to turn off her CD. “How about a round? How about ‘Tender Shepherd’? I’ll start.”

  Ruby and Flora joined in listlessly.

  Finally, Ruby announced that she was bored again.

  “Want to play the license plate game?” Flora asked.

  Ruby shook her head.

  “Anyone need a bathroom break?” asked Min. “Wait. I have an idea.”

  “What?” asked Ruby.

  “You’ll see.”

  A few minutes later, Min pulled off the turnpike. “I think we need ice cream,” she said. She drove around a small town until she came to a weathered wooden building sitting alone at the end of a narrow lane. A sign by the door read:

  “Well, this looks like the place for us,” said Min.

  “I guess I could use some worms,” said Flora, which made Ruby and Min laugh.

  Min parked the car and everyone rolled down the windows so King and Daisy would have plenty of air. Flora and Ruby climbed stiffly out of the car and stretched their legs, while Min said, “You be good, Daisy Dear. No barking while we’re gone.”

  Ruby opened the door to the Snack Shack. Inside was one big room crowded with shelves of souvenirs. Along the back wall was a counter with eight red stools lined in front of it. Behind the counter stood a man with silver hair wearing a greasy apron that might have been white or gray or brown. It was hard to tell.

  “Greetings, folks!” said the man. “I’m Phil. Welcome to the Snack Shack. What can I get for you?”

  “Ice-cream sundaes,” said Min firmly, “all around.”

  “Ice-cream sundaes?” repeated Ruby.

  “Really?” said Flora.

  “It’s a special occasion,” replied Min.

  Phil made three sundaes and said that Min and the girls were welcome to eat them outside at the picnic table.

  So they did. Flora kept an eye on the car. She suspected that King was hissing in his carrier. Ruby looked at the sky, at the pine trees, and breathed in deeply. “It smells different here than at home,” she said.

  “This is New England,” said Min proudly.

  Back in the Snack Shack, after Min and Ruby and Flora had scraped every last bit of ice cream from their dishes and returned them to Phil, Min said, “Why don’t you each choose a souvenir? Something to remember this trip by.”

  Flora could feel her lower lip tremble. She wasn’t sure she wanted something to remember this trip by. But she didn’t want to hurt Min’s feelings. She turned away, wandered up and down the aisles, fingered pine pillows and tallow candles, and looked at a display of maple syrup jugs. Ruby eyed the penny candy.

  In the end, Flora chose a small box containing a single piece of maple sugar candy and Ruby chose a bag of Mary Janes and jawbreakers. The souvenirs would be gone by the next day. Flora saw that Min knew this, but nobody said anything. They thanked Phil and returned to the car.

  Min drove on. Flora and Ruby sat silently, gazing out the windows. After a while, Ruby sighed hugely and said, “How much longer is this trip going to take?”

  “No whining,” said Min. “And the answer to your question is about fifteen minutes. Look. There’s our exit.”

  Min steered the car off the turnpike. The U-Haul rumbling behind, they drove along a smaller highway, then along Route 6A, with the ponds and beaver dams on one side, the thick maple trees on the other.

  At last, Ruby said softly, “There it is.”

  Flora saw the sign that read WELCOME TO CAMDEN FALLS. She felt her lip start to tremble again, felt her stomach drop. This was it. This was the very end of her old life — and the very beginning of her new life.

  She willed herself not to cry. And then she felt Ruby’s hand in hers and gripped it.

  Min glanced in the rearview mirror at her granddaughters. “Ready?” she asked.

  She pulled up to an intersection. A green sign ahead of them read LAWRENCE with an arrow pointing to the left, and CAMDEN FALLS with an arrow pointing to the right. Min turned right, then right again, and Main Street stretched ahead.

  Old Mary Woolsey sat on a bench in front of Needle and Thread. It was a fine, warm Saturday in June, and she had no customers in the store at the moment. Sometimes when things were slow, she liked to sit outside, even in cold weather. Evelyn Walter and Min Read, the owners of the store, didn’t mind. Often, one of them would bring her coffee or tea while she sat.

  Mary knew that lots of people in Camden Falls, especially the children, thought she was strange. They rarely spoke to her unless something needed mending or altering. That was all right with Mary. She liked to sit quietly and watch. She had learned an awful lot about Camden Falls and its people just by watching.

  For instance, over there was Lydia Malone, who lived next door to Min Read in the Row Houses. Lydia was a teenager now, thirteen or fourteen maybe, and Mary had a strong suspicion that she was going to get into some kind of trouble this summer. It was those kids she’d been hanging around with. And over there was sad Nikki Sherman, who lived way out in the country with that bad-news family of hers. Who had brought Nikki into town today? She seemed to be alone. Crossing the street now was kind Mr. Pennington, who
also lived in one of the Row Houses. He tipped his hat to Mary as he walked by. And here came Sonny Sutphin, steering himself awkwardly along the sidewalk, one gloved hand pushing the right wheel on his chair, his left foot dragging on the pavement for reasons Mary didn’t understand, since there was nothing wrong with the footrest on the wheelchair.

  Mary’s gaze shifted to the right. She watched as a car turned onto Main Street. The car was towing a U-Haul. Mary recognized the car as Min’s. Ah. Well, then. Mary knew what was happening. Today was the day Min returned to Camden Falls with her two granddaughters. Mary shook her head. Sad, those little girls. Losing their parents at such a young age. Hard on Min, too. She had lost her daughter. And now, long after raising her own two girls, she had two more to raise.

  Mary stood, straightened her skirt, which was really much too heavy for this warm day, and resettled herself on the bench. She fingered the gold necklace she always wore and let her eyes wander up and down Main Street. It was a quiet afternoon in town, not many people about. Mary’s gaze took in Cover to Cover, one of the bookstores, and Zack’s, the hardware store with the old wooden floor full of knotholes that the smaller children in town liked to peer through, hoping to see into the basement below. There was Fig Tree, the best restaurant in Camden Falls. Mary had never eaten there, but sometimes on her way to Needle and Thread she paused to read the menu that was displayed in the glass case outside the door. There was Frank’s Beans, the new coffee shop. There were the library, the post office, the real estate agency, and Dr. Malone’s dental office. Mary considered Sonny’s slow progress along the sidewalk as he passed Camden Falls Art Supply, then College Pizza, then Verbeyst’s, the dry cleaner (which everyone except the Verbeysts mispronounced as Very Best), and finally Dutch Haus, the ice-cream parlor.

  Camden Falls, population 14,672, was an old New England town. Not old by, say, European standards, but old for a town in the United States. It was about to celebrate its 350th birthday. Signs announcing the celebration, which would take place the next spring, had already been posted up and down Main Street. There were to be exhibits, a play, a parade, a carnival, fireworks. It all sounded very grand and exciting. Mary knew she would probably not be part of any of it.