And, out of the mist, a voice answered—
“Are you reading?” Dad bellowed from below. Ollie popped her head out of the covers with a jerk. “Put it down. I want to hear footsteps! Clothes! Boots! Coat! Now!” And then he added, in a coaxing sort of bellow, “I made bacon and oatmeal! Iknowyou’re hungry.”
She was. She had skipped both dinner and snacks the night before. The smell of bacon drifted deliciously up the stairs. What shereallywanted was to eat bacon and oatmeal in bed, and to finishSmall Spaces. Putting a quiver in her voice, Ollie called, “I think I have a fever.” She pressed an experimental hand to her forehead. Definitely warm. “I shouldn’t go out in the rain,” she added. “I might catch pneumonia.”
Ollie heard her dad’s footsteps. She managed to shove her book under the covers, huddle down into the blankets, and assume a pathetic expression a second before he walked in.
Ollie’s dad wore blue plaid. He looked as though he hadn’t slept at all; he was rumpled, and a splotch of oatmeal was stuck to his shirt. His fingers fidgeted, as though looking for something to do. At first he seemed worried, then his look turned to exasperation.
“Yep, you do look sick,” her dad said. “Very sick.Nothing to do but to stay here with some tea and dry toast.” He pounced on the book, which was just peeking out from under her blanket. Ollie winced. “No books, of course,” he added. “Too much excitement might give you the flu.”
Ollie looked from her dad to the book. A day alone in bed with dry toast? At least she could read on the bus.
She coughed once, bravely. “I am feeling a little better.” She tried out a noble expression. “I don’t want to get behind in school.”
“How brave of you,” said her dad.
Ollie got out of her bed, with dignity.
“Five minutes,” said her father, bounding back down to the kitchen, from which drifted the smell of now-burning bacon.
Ollie looked up at her skylight. The rain slanted across the glass. It was like looking into an aquarium. Maybe, Ollie thought, they all really lived underwater, like merpeople, but didn’t know it, because to them water was just like air.
No, that was silly. The cool air of her room was punishment after her warm covers. She shoved her feet into fuzzy slippers and stumbled, shivering, to her dresser.
After some consideration, Ollie put on faded jeans, a long green sweater, and woolly socks her dad had knitted with a fish on one and a fisherman on the other. Her yellow rain boots were waiting for her downstairs by the back door.She reached under her pillow for a big black wristwatch with a cracked face and put this on carefully. She didn’t bother to comb her hair. Combs just made her curls frizz. Finally, she stepped back, scowled at her reflection, went to the bathroom, hastily brushed her teeth, shovedSmall Spacesinto her backpack, and padded down the stairs.
Ollie didn’t make a lot of noise in her socks, but when she stepped into the kitchen, her dad still turned around right away. In some ways, he hadn’t changed much since last year. He told jokes and knitted socks just like he always had. But his thick, dark hair had silver threads that hadn’t been there before, and sometimes Ollie would catch him staring blankly into space when he thought she wasn’t looking.
“Look at your dad’s eyes,” her mom had said once, when all three of them were paddling down the Connecticut River. Ollie was sitting in the middle of the canoe and her dad was behind her in the stern. From the bow, Ollie’s mom looked back and smiled, her nose sunburned red. “Aren’t your dad’s eyes the loveliest in the whole world?” They were: big and velvety. So dark that you couldn’t see where the colored part ended and the pupil began. “You have just the same eyes, Olivia, my heartbreaker.”
Ollie had smiled and her dad had laughed and said, “You’ve got my eyes, maybe, Ollie-pop, but you’re as brave as your mother.”
Standing in the kitchen, Ollie shook the memory away. Her dad had gotten Bernie, the woodstove, going. The fire crackled and pinged behind the stove’s glass door. The hallway and the stairs had been cold, but the kitchen was warm.
A big pot of oatmeal steamed on the stove and three nice crackly-brown loaves sat on the counter. Dad must have kept on baking after the garlic bread. Maybe he’d baked all night, waiting for Ollie to come down.
Ollie decided not to think about that. She wasn’t going to feelbadabout that. Think about breakfast. Toast? Ollie decided on oatmeal. She got herself a bowl, crumbled bacon into the oatmeal, then dumped a lot of cream and maple syrup on top. Ollie had helped tap the trees for syrup herself, the winter before. This was the last batch of syrup they had all made together: Mom and her tapping and her dad keeping the big pot boiling for days on end.
Don’t think about that either.Ollie put her oatmeal on the kitchen island and went to pour herself some coffee.
“You’re too young for coffee,” said her dad, not looking up. He was sitting at the kitchen table and scrolling through the news.
“I’m not too young to go out in the rain and catch pneumonia,” said Ollie, pouring herself a cup anyway and stirring in sugar.
Her dad looked up. He wasn’t eating his own oatmeal.“Take more oatmeal, then,” he said, catching sight of her bowl. “There are raisins and walnuts in the jars on the spice shelf. You must be starving. You didn’t come down last night.”
Hehadwaited up.
Ollie definitely felt bad now. Guiltily—and also because shewasreally hungry—Ollie added some raisins and a pat of butter to her oatmeal, and gave the whole mess a stir.
“Ready for the farm today?” her dad said. Just yesterday, “I was talking about Misty Valley with Mr. Brewster. Linda Webster’s only been in business for five years, but she’s really doing well for herself. The farm’s revitalized the county. I’m a bit jealous you get to see it all firsthand. Think I could join the sixth grade and come along?”
“Only if you’ve been practicing your drowned-rat impressions,” said Ollie, with a dark look at the streaming window. She added warm milk to her coffee and brought her mug and her refreshed bowl of oatmeal back to the table.
Her dad snorted and glanced at the rain sluicing down the windows. “There is that. Bring a hat. I’ll have the stove going when you get back.”
“Hot chocolate?” Ollie suggested.
