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“What’s your name?” Gilly blurted out the question, half expecting the girl to refuse to answer.
“Agnes Stokes”—she lowered her voice conspiratorily—“You can call me Ag.”
Big deal. She was glad when the bell rang, and she could leave Agnes Stokes behind. But when she left school that afternoon, Agnes slipped out from the corner of the building and fell in step with her.
“Wanta come over?” she asked. “My grandma won’t care.”
“Can’t.” Gilly had no intention of going into Agnes Stokes’s house until she found out what Agnes Stokes was up to. People like Agnes Stokes didn’t try to make friends without a reason.
She walked faster, but Agnes kept up with funny, little skip steps. When they got all the way up the hill to Trotter’s house, Agnes actually started up the walk after Gilly.
Gilly turned around fiercely. “You can’t come in today!”
“How come?”
“Because,” said Gilly. “I live with a terrible ogre that eats up little redheaded girls in one gulp.”
Agnes stepped back, with a startled look on her face. “Oh,” she said. Then she giggled nervously. “I get it. You’re teasing.”
“Arum golly goshee labooooooo!” screamed Gilly, bearing down on the smaller girl like a child-eating giant.
Agnes backed away. “Wha—?”
Good. She had succeeded in unsettling Rumpelstiltskin. “Maybe tomorrow,” said Gilly calmly and marched into the house without turning around.
“That you, William Ernest, honey?”
It made her want to puke the way Trotter carried on over that little weirdo.
Trotter came into the hall. “Oh, Gilly,” she said. “You got home so quick today I thought it was William Ernest.”
“Yeah.” Gilly started past her up the stairs.
“Wait a minute, honey. You got some mail.”
Mail! It could only be from—and it was. She snatched it out of Trotter’s puffy fingers and raced up the stairs, slamming the door and falling upon the bed in one motion. It was a postcard showing sunset on the ocean. Slowly she turned it over.
My dearest Galadriel,
The agency wrote me that you had moved.
I wish it were to here. I miss you.
All my love, Courtney
That was all. Gilly read it again. And then a third time. No. That was not all. Up on the address side, in the left-hand corner. The letters were squeezed together so you could hardly read them. An address. Her mother’s address.
She could go there. She could hitchhike across the country to California. She would knock on the door, and her mother would open it. And Courtney would throw her arms around her and kiss her all over her face and never let her go. “I wish it were to here. I miss you.” See, Courtney wanted her to come. “All my love.”
Inside her head, Gilly packed the brown suitcase and crept down the stairs. It was the middle of the night. Out into the darkness. No. She shivered a little. She would pick a time when Trotter was fussing over W.E. or Mr. Randolph. She’d steal some food. Maybe a little money. People picked up hitchhikers all the time. She’d get to California in a few days. Probably less than a week. People were always picking up hitchhikers. And beating them up. And killing them. And pitching their dead bodies into the woods. All because she didn’t have any money to buy a plane ticket or even a bus ticket.
Oh, why did it have to be so hard? Other kids could be with their mothers all the time. Dumb, stupid kids who didn’t even like their mothers much. While she—
She put her head down and began to cry. She didn’t mean to, but it was so unfair. She hadn’t even seen her mother since she was three years old. Her beautiful mother who missed her so much and sent her all her love.
“You all right, honey?” Tap, tap, tap. “You all right?”
Gilly sat up straight. Couldn’t anyone have any privacy around this dump? She stuffed the postcard under her pillow and then smoothed the covers that she’d refused to straighten before school. She stood up at the end of the bed like a soldier on inspection. But the door didn’t open.
