Main Street #1: Welcome to Camden Falls (12 page)

“Don’t worry,” said Mr. Pennington. “Robby’s there. Margaret is sitting for him.”

“Okay.” Ruby skipped out of the store, her mood improved. She liked both Margaret and Robby. Margaret, she thought, was nothing like Lydia. She was sweet and patient, thought up good games to play, and liked to hug. And Robby — well, Robby was the most enthusiastic person Ruby had ever met.

When Ruby rang the bell at the Edwardses’ house, she was greeted by a shout from inside. “I’LL GET IT!” cried Robby’s voice.

“Remember to find out who’s there
before
you open the door,” Ruby could hear Margaret say.

There was a thump from in the hallway, and then Robby called out, “Tell me who’s there because I can’t let a stranger in!”

“Robby, it’s me, Ruby Northrop. I have a package from the store for your mom.”

“Margaret, it’s Ruby, who is not a stranger!”

“Okay. Open the door.”

The door was flung open and Robby cried, “Hi, Ruby! It stopped raining, but Margaret Malone and I are playing Go Fish anyway.”

“As soon as we finish this game, though,” said Margaret, joining Robby in the hallway, “we’re going outside. We thought we’d take a walk into town,” she added, turning to Ruby.

Ruby held out the bag. “This is for Mrs. Edwards,” she said. “It’s some fabric she ordered. Min said it’s already paid for.”

“Thank you, Ruby,” said Robby solemnly. “I will put it right here in the kitchen — Hey! This is the material for my pajamas. Mom is going to make me Batman pajamas! Oh, boy! Batman pajamas! Okay, let’s go into town!” Robby jumped up and down, hands flapping.

“Robby, don’t you want to finish our game?” asked Margaret.

“No, I’m too excited! Let’s go now. Right now. Oh, boy! Batman pajamas!”

So Ruby walked back to Main Street with Robby and Margaret.

Robby was quiet as they passed the Row Houses, then said suddenly, “Ruby, do you like living here? Mom and Dad said it might take a while. But do you like it? Do you like Camden Falls? I like living here.”

Ruby smiled. “I guess I’m still getting used to it. But I like it.”

“Good,” said Robby. He paused. “Do you miss your mom and dad?”

“Robby,” said Margaret, and she put her arm around his shoulder, “remember when we talked about sensitive subjects? This would be a sensitive subject. And it might be better for you to wait and see if Ruby brings it up herself.”

Robby hung his head. “Okay,” he mumbled.

Ruby looked from Robby to Margaret. “It’s all right,” she said. “I do miss my mom and dad, but every day it gets just a teensy bit better.”

“That’s what I found out after my mother died,” spoke up Margaret.

Ruby looked at her with interest. She knew that Margaret and Lydia’s mother had died — she didn’t remember a visit to the Row Houses when there had been a Mrs. Malone — but she didn’t know what had happened or when. She was just wondering if this might be some sort of secret, when Robby said, “Margaret, can you tell Ruby what happened to your mother?” He paused, then gave Margaret a sly smile. “You brought up the sensitive subject yourself.”

Margaret smiled back at him. “Yes, I did. Ruby, my mother died five and a half years ago.”

Ruby did some mental arithmetic. Margaret and Lydia must have lost their mother when they were about the same ages as Ruby and Flora were now.

“She had something called a brain aneurysm,” Margaret was saying. “She died very suddenly.”

“I’m sorry,” said Ruby as they turned the corner onto Main Street. “Margaret, can I ask you something? If it’s too sensitive, you don’t have to answer.”

“You can ask me anything,” said Margaret.

“Do you still remember what your mother looked like?”

Margaret’s smile faded slightly, and when she began speaking again, her voice was softer. “Yes. But I can’t see her in my mind as easily as I could at first. That’s why I keep lots of photos of her in my room.”

Ruby was going to ask Margaret another question, but then she heard Robby say, “Two whole dollars.” He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out two one-dollar bills. “Ruby, I have two dollars to spend today! Dad gave me money this morning. I want to spend it right here. In Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. I can get
lots
of things for two dollars. Someday I’m going to
work
in Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. That would be a very good job.”

“All right then,” said Margaret as they stood outside the store. “In we go. Would you like to come with us, Ruby?”

Ruby nodded and followed Robby and Margaret through the door.

“Wow,” said Robby. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.” He waved his hands in front of his face as he looked around the store.

“Robby, settle down,” said Margaret quietly, glancing at Mrs. Grindle, who was standing by the checkout counter, her hand on her hip.

“Remember that many of the items in the store are fragile,” Mrs. Grindle said, her lips pursed.

Ruby had been about to pick up a china dolphin that she thought would look nice in her collection (I could name her Delphine, she thought), but now she withdrew her hand.

Mrs. Grindle stood before her new customers, eyeing them suspiciously. Ruby eyed her back. Mrs. Grindle was tall and skinny as a rake, her hair pulled severely back from her face, spectacles perched on her pointy nose. She looked, Ruby realized, like the illustration of the witch from
Hansel and Gretel
in an old storybook of Ruby and Flora’s. Ruby wondered why Mrs. Grindle, who apparently didn’t like children any more than the witch did, owned a store that sold so many toys.

Robby, calmer now, made his way to a wall of stickers and surveyed them, his hands clasped behind his back. “Do you know why stickers are good, Ruby?” he asked. “Because you can get so many and still have money left over to spend on” (he glanced at Mrs. Grindle) “other
fragile items
.”

Robby walked around and around the store, studying small objects and their price tags, muttering to himself, adding figures in his head, and sometimes counting on his fingers.

“The challenge for Robby,” Margaret told Ruby, “is to see how
many
things he can get for his money. This could take a while.”

Ruby followed Robby for a few moments, then lost interest, especially since she didn’t have any of her own money to spend. She thought about returning to Needle and Thread but remembered that the embroidery class would be in progress, which meant that Nikki Sherman would be across the street, and Ruby didn’t feel like spending another hour in Nikki’s unpleasant company.

Ruby watched Mrs. Grindle scowl as she unpacked a carton of newly arrived toys. She examined a display of necklaces by the door. Then she started down an aisle crammed with candles and ornaments and little ruffled pillows but stopped when she noticed someone standing at the other end of the aisle. Nikki Sherman. She was looking intently at a row of dog figurines.

Nikki? What was she doing here? She was supposed to be at Needle and Thread. Maybe, thought Ruby, Nikki didn’t want to hang around with Ruby and Flora and Olivia any more than they wanted to hang around with her. Ruby tiptoed to the front of the store just in time to see Lydia Malone come giggling through the door with another girl.

“Hey, Brandi,” said Lydia to her friend, “remember when we used to collect china horses? How dumb was that?” Lydia leaned against the jewelry counter.

“Speaking of dumb,” replied Brandi. She cocked her head in the direction of Robby.

Robby had paused in front of a basket of polished stones. “‘Good-luck stones,’” he was saying slowly, reading a card attached to the basket. “‘Fifty cents each.’ Fifty cents! Uh-oh. That’s too much. Margaret! I’m almost out of money!” Robby bounced on his toes.

At the front of the store, Brandi dissolved in laughter. “What a retard!” she exclaimed, and bounced up and down.

“Shh!”
hissed Lydia. “Shut up! My sister’s here. Get out of the store.”

Lydia pushed Brandi through the door. Ruby, wincing, turned to look at Robby.

Robby’s gaze remained on the basket of stones. He dropped the blue one he’d been examining back into the basket, and then, eyes still on the stones, he dissolved into loud tears. He cried the way Ruby used to cry when she was very little and very tired. He drew in a deep breath and sobbed.

“Good heavens. What on earth is the matter here?” asked Mrs. Grindle, hurrying down the aisle to Robby. Ruby thought she looked supremely irritated.

“Sorry, Mrs. Grindle,” said Margaret. “Robby’s just a little upset. Robby, are you ready to pay for your things?”

“No, I am not ready!”

“Hey, Robby, want a piece of gum?” asked Ruby, pulling a stick of Juicy Fruit out of her pocket.

“No! And I am not a retard!”

“Look, Robby,” said Margaret. “How about this little whale? I’ll get it for you. You —”

“I AM NOT A RETARD!”

Margaret put her arms around Robby. “That was a horrible thing to say,” she agreed.

“It is a
sensitive subject
and that person ought to know better,” wailed Robby.

Ruby found herself backing away, backing down the aisle toward the door. When she reached the checkout counter, she noticed Nikki, now engrossed in a display of colored pencils. She seemed unaware of Robby, and Ruby felt an unexpected pang of jealousy. Nikki wasn’t bothered by Robby’s crying and shouting. But Ruby was. She couldn’t help herself. And so she hurried out of the store, without saying good-bye to Margaret or Robby.

Nikki Sherman picked up a box of pencils from the shelf in Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. She looked through the little window in the box to see what colors were inside. Tropical shades, she thought. Very nice. But Nikki had not one penny with her. She set the box back.

The store had grown quiet. The big boy who had cried so loudly was gone. Nikki hadn’t wanted to appear too curious about what was going on. She felt bad for the boy. Robby, she thought his name was. That horrible, tacky girl had come into the store with the other girl, whose father was a dentist, and she had called him a retard and of course Robby had gotten upset. What had the girl
thought
would happen?

Nikki had heard a third girl, a nice one, offer to buy Robby a toy of some sort, and a few minutes later, she and Robby had stood in front of the checkout counter, not far from Nikki.

“All right,” the store owner had said with a fierce glance at Robby. “What have you got here?”

Robby spread his items on the counter. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand (which made the store owner cringe and look pointedly at a box of Kleenex) and said, “I added and added and I know I have enough.”

“Well, let me ring you up,” said the lady impatiently. Her fingers clacked away at the register and she said, “That comes to one dollar and seventy-nine cents.”

“With tax?” asked Robby.

“With tax.”

“I did it! I did it, Margaret. Look. All those stickers and two tattoos and the little parachute man. All those
fragile
things and I still have some money left over. I did a good job today.”

“You certainly did,” replied Margaret.

Nikki marveled that Robby seemed to have forgotten the cruel words that had upset him so — although she had been called many cruel words herself and remembered how quickly she could sweep them to the back of her brain when she needed to.

Robby pushed his money across the counter and the lady handed him his change and a paper bag, his purchases tucked inside. Then, hand in hand, Robby and Margaret left Stuff ’n’ Nonsense.

Nikki abandoned the pencils and charcoals and edged to the jewelry counter. She let out a small sigh and looked at the clock over the door. Another half an hour before the old bat’s class would end. What was Nikki supposed to do? She didn’t want to sit around with Olivia and Flora and Ruby again, but she had no money and didn’t feel like looking in stores any longer.

Nikki let out a larger sigh, left Stuff ’n’ Nonsense, and crossed the street to Needle and Thread. She opened the door, the bell jangling above her. Sure enough, Mrs. DuVane’s class was still in progress. Nikki could see eight heads bent over embroidery hoops and a basket of silk ribbon in the center of the table. Sitting at another table, all alone, was the old lady who was often working away at a pile of mending. On the couch, huddled over some large pieces of brightly colored fabric, were Olivia and Flora. They didn’t look up from their work, but Ruby, who was watching them, did glance at her. And Nikki, tired of always arguing with the girls (feeling contrary used up a lot of energy, she realized), smiled at Ruby. Ruby offered a small smile in return.

Nikki was about to settle on the couch next to Ruby when the door to Needle and Thread blasted open behind her, and in charged the lady who owned Stuff ’n’ Nonsense. The look on her face was angry — so angry that Nikki, surprised, lost her balance and stumbled onto the couch, nearly landing in Ruby’s lap.

What on earth was the matter with the lady? Nikki and Ruby looked at each other, and Nikki could read fear on Ruby’s face.

Flora and Olivia looked up, too, and Olivia said, “Mrs. Grindle? What’s wrong?”

Mrs. Grindle ignored Olivia. She stepped toward Nikki, held out her hand, and said loudly, “Give it back, please.”