School of Charm (19 page)

And somehow that was enough.

I sat on the bank and waited. I knew Karen and Dana would show up eventually. We had a job to finish.

 

W
E PULLED THE LAST BATCH OF CATTAILS OUT JUST
before the sun started slipping past the trees. Only this time, I swapped spots with Dana because of my sprain. I stood on shore and hauled them out the best I could, a plastic bag wrapped around my foot.

As I walked home from Miss Vernie's school for the very last time, it finally started to rain after weeks and weeks of that hot, dry weather. When I stepped into Grandma's house, the smell of beef and onions filled my nose. It felt like home.

“I'm going upstairs to change!” I hollered. “I'll be right down.”

“Hurry up, Chip! Our feast fit for a queen is almost ready to start!” Ruthie hollered back to me.

I dashed into my room and stripped off my dirty shorts. Something sitting on the bed caught my eye. It was a tiny wooden turtle right on the middle of my quilt. I picked it up and smoothed my finger over the shiny wood. It was almost the same size as Earl. I'd seen this turtle before. It was from the cabinet in Grandma's off-limits room.

I grinned. “How about that, Daddy?”

I set the turtle down next to Deady Freddy and pulled on the cherry-sundae dress Grandma had given me and rushed for the stairs. Then I paused in front of the off-limits room. Knowing no one could see me, I twisted the knob on the door. It turned. The off-limits room wasn't locked.

“You coming, Chip?” Mama called.

I stepped back from the door, smiling. “I sure am.”

 

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I
DIDN'T SNEAK OUT OF THE HOUSE
like I had for most of the summer. I didn't feel like being alone out in the woods. I wanted to be with my family. I sat down at breakfast with a smile. “Since I'm done with pageants, do you think we could start on a new project, Grandma?”

She looked up like she was surprised I was talking to her. Her mouth parted, but she didn't say anything.

“We've got to do something about your gardens. What do you say we plant a dogwood tree out back so we can all enjoy the blossoms next spring?”

Grandma was silent, but Mama stood up and placed her hands on my cheeks. “I think that would be a wonderful thing for all of us to do together. We could plant it in memory of your daddy. It would be a real nice way to remember someone who enjoyed nature just as much as his little Chip.”

Grandma looked up at me. There was a speck of softness opening up in her eyes. “Yes, that would be just fine . . . Chip.”

“Look at this,” Mama said, handing me the newspaper.

I took it from her and saw the big picture she had pointed to. It was a picture of all the Miss Dogwood winners. Sure, my eyes were closed. But I was in the newspaper! “This is the Coolest Thing Ever!” I cried. “Can I have it?”

“Sure,” Mama said. “Grandma bought ten copies in town this morning before you girls got up.”

I hurried to my room and pulled a pair of scissors from Grandma's sewing kit. Then I bounced onto the bed and took out my stationery. “Would you just look at this, Deady Freddy! I'm in the newspaper.” I knew he would have hooted his approval if he could have.

I cut out the picture and folded it up in an envelope. Then I got out a sheet of paper.

 

Dear Billy,

I know you'll think this is the Stupidest Thing Ever, but look! I came in second in a beauty pageant down here. Or maybe you'll think it's the Funniest Thing Ever, but really, the way it all worked out was the Coolest Thing Ever. Really.

Things are getting better, and I think I might end up liking it here. But I'll never forget all the fun we had. And I hope you'll keep writing to your new North Carolina friend.

 

I paused, unsure how to sign it. I wasn't a brand-new Brenda, but I wasn't the old Chip either. I smiled, figuring out what to write.

 

Your pal,

A brand-new Chip

september 1983

G
RANDMA CLICKED OFF THE
TV. S
HE DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING
for a while. None of us did. “At least she made the top ten.”

“Yeah. But Charlene won't see it that way,” I said.

Grandma nodded and stretched. “I best be getting to bed so I can get up early and make one of my peach pies. Maybe two. She'll be looking for some consolation when she and your mama get home, and my peach pie usually does the trick.” Grandma headed up the stairs to her room.

“Good night, Grandma,” I said.

“Night, Grandma,” Ruthie called. Then she turned to me. “I thought the winner really was the prettiest. But don't tell Charlene.”

“Don't worry. I'm not going to say anything about the Miss America pageant unless she does.”

“I, like, can't believe I was ever in a pageant,” Ruthie said, twirling a ringlet of hair round her finger.

“You were in a few of them, Ruthie,” I said. “And you won them all.”

She shrugged, and then retied her curly dark hair into a ponytail. “Yeah, well, gag me with a spoon. That's all I have to say. Want to go exploring in the morning? Look for the Coolest Thing Ever? Who's winning now?”

“Billy. He sent me a picture of the two-headed snake he caught in the woods.”

She snapped her fingers. “Dang. We'll have to look real hard.”

“Maybe tomorrow afternoon. I've got something to do in the morning.”

I headed up to my room and crawled into bed, after patting the owl first, like I always did. “You missed it, Deady Freddy. A black girl won Miss America.”

That night I dreamed about Dana and Miss Vernie and a pond full of muck.

 

I
GOT UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING AND HEADED DOWN
the road. In the six years since that summer, I hadn't been back to Miss Vernie's, though I'd chatted with her in town a few times. Grandma and I seemed to add a new garden bed to our backyard every year. Ruthie liked to help us too. And we planted something new every year that we thought Daddy would've liked. We even sold all Grandma's dead animals—except for Deady Freddy—and set up tables with growing lights downstairs in the basement so we could raise our own petunias and marigolds and prize-winning roses.

Oftentimes I'd think,
I have to stop by Miss Vernie's.
But somehow I never made it there. I was sure she was busy with the new students who had found her. But that morning I needed to see her.

I put on my charm bracelet and fingered the dogwood blossom as I walked to her house. I touched the others I'd added along the years: a cattail, a rose, a tree, and a turtle. When I peeked behind Miss Vernie's house, she looked up like I had just been there yesterday. And I wasn't at all surprised to see Dana there too. I'd only seen her and Karen a few times since our summer with Miss Vernie, since we all attended different schools.

“Were you watching last night?” I asked her.

Dana nodded and smiled. “Yeah, wow. A black Miss America.” Her hair was cropped and dyed a bright burgundy color. But I would have spotted her anywhere.

“That could have been you,” I said. “You should have kept competing after the Miss Dogwood Festival.”

Dana picked a flower off one of Miss Vernie's bushes, which were bigger than ever. “Nah, I didn't want to compete anymore. Miss Dogwood wasn't about winning the crown.”

I nodded. It hadn't been. Not for any one of us three.

“I thought about you last June when Sally Ride went up in the shuttle. Did you see that?” asked Dana.

“Yes. Amazing! Remember Miss Vernie told us we'd see a woman fly a rocket?”

“The first female astronaut,” Miss Vernie said, shaking her head. “You know, she answered that ad they put in the newspapers that summer of ours.” Miss Vernie didn't look any older than I had remembered. But she did walk a little more slowly as we headed down to the pond.

We were quiet for a while, lost in our thoughts as we walked down that shady path I remembered so well. “Can I bring you some plants from our greenhouse at school, Miss Vernie? I've got some that would be real nice in your garden.”

“I didn't know the school had a greenhouse,” she said.

“No, ma'am, it didn't. Not until I started the garden club.” I grinned at her.

She stopped and put her hand on my shoulder. “That's just lovely. How wonderful. I always thought you were good with my plants. And Dana, reading all my magazines. It's no surprise you're going to be a history professor.”

“Has anyone heard from Karen?” I asked.

Miss Vernie nodded. “Why, yes. She writes me time and again. She's busy with the drum corps at school. She's the head batonist, you know. Her stepfather goes to all her games.”

“People sure can change,” I said.

We stepped out of the shady woods into the bright clearing. The pond looked golden that day under the early morning sun.

Dana gazed across the water. “Or sometimes, you're the one who changes. And everything and every person looks different.” Then she looked over at me and smiled the biggest, most beautiful smile I'd ever seen.

A thin ribbon of cattails was back around the rim of the pond. I noticed a man pulling at them. “Who's that?” I asked.

But Miss Vernie's smile told me who it was. “My Charlie came back.”

“Did you give him a charm bracelet too?” Dana laughed.

“As a matter of fact, he's got one in his pocket.” Miss Vernie clapped her hands and laughed.

“He's never going to get that done by himself,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “I've just been waiting for him to ask for some help.”

“We can help him. Can't we, Dana?”

She took off her jacket and tossed it to the ground. “Absolutely!”

“I'll go get some more shovels,” Miss Vernie said.

We rolled up our jeans and waded into the pond. “Cold!” I said, drawing in a sharp breath.

Charlie looked up at us.
“Shh,”
he said. “Look over there.” He pointed to the shore.

But it was too late. A turtle, the size of a cereal bowl, slid off the bank into the water.

Dana gasped and then laughed. “I see you've met Earl.” She picked up a handful of mud and tossed it at me.

I hurled a hunk of it back at her.

And soon we were sloshing through the muck, our laughs echoing across the pond, skipping above the trees and the water and the flowers, then settling right into the ground next to all the heartache and healing and magic that was all mixed up in there too.

About the Author

Lisa Ann Scott
is a former TV news anchor who now enjoys making up stories instead of sticking to the facts. She also works as a voice actor in upstate New York, where she lives with her husband, two kids, dog, cats, and koi fish. This is her first middle-grade novel.

 

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Credits

Cover art © 2014 by Brandon Dorman

Cover design by Carla Weise and Joel Tippie

Copyright

Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

School of Charm

Copyright © 2014 by Lisa Ann Scott

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Scott, Lisa Ann.

    School of Charm / Lisa Ann Scott. — First edition.

        pages    cm

    Summary: After her beloved father's death in 1977, eleven-year-old tomboy Chip tries to fit with her family of beauty queens, making unlikely new friends at Miss Vernie's unusual charm school in Mt. Airy, North Carolina.

    ISBN 978-0-06-220758-6 (hardcover bdg.)

    EPUB Edition DECEMBER 2013 ISBN 9780062207609

    [1. Individuality—Fiction. 2. Self-perception—Fiction. 3. Family life—North Carolina—Fiction. 4. Beauty contests—Fiction. 5. Tomboys—Fiction. 6. Race relations—Fiction. 7. North Carolina—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.S42673Sch 2014

2013014341

[Fic]—dc23

CIP

AC

14    15    16    17    18        CG/RRDH        10    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1

FIRST EDITION