The Education of Ivy Blake (3 page)

Ivy scuffed
toward the house that her mom had rented on O'Reilly Street, thinking how much she wanted what she'd told Prairie before she moved to be true. In some ways things did seem better. This morning, when her mom asked her to run to the drugstore around the corner and pick up a box of Nicorette to help her quit smoking, she'd made a friendly, grimacey face, like they both knew it was pretty much hopeless but nevertheless she was going to give it a go—

Things
were
okay. Ivy lifted her chin and walked faster.

The Everses' station wagon glided up to her house as Ivy rounded the corner, and the old pickup loaded with Dad Evers's chairs eased in behind it. Ivy broke into a jog. Prairie jumped out of the car the moment it stopped and she and Ivy flung their arms around each other. Then Mom and Dad Evers and Grammy were all on the sidewalk and there was a confusion of
Hello
s and
How are you
s and
So this is your house
—

They all turned to look. The house was a small rectangular box covered with graying siding that had popped apart at some of its seams. But with a few nails or some glue, Ivy thought, it could be fixed. With paint—dark green, with cream trim, is what she pictured—and planter boxes spilling out flowers, it would look sweet. Ivy could see it in her head as clear as anything.

But now, with the Everses beside her, she saw something different. The house wasn't sweet. It was just a small, plain carton, the bargain-brand box for storing people in. There were no nails or glue; there would be no paint or planter boxes, at least not while Ivy and her mom lived here. The row of prickly shrubbery that lined the drive—the only outside decoration—had a plastic shopping bag and a paper drink cup caught in it.

Ivy gripped the pharmacy sack harder. “Come on, come in, I have to grab my backpack.”

She headed up the walk and the Everses followed. She climbed the shaky wooden steps and went through the front door and everyone came in after her.

“Very nice.” Mom Evers rubbed her stomach, smiling.

But it wasn't nice. The inside was as plain as the outside, and maybe a little worse. The white-painted walls were grubby and nicked; the carpeting was a swirl of gray and beige that had probably been designed specifically to hide spills; the couch and chair that came with the place looked stiff and uncomfortable. Also the coffee table was lined with empty beer cans. Last night Lindsey and her boyfriend, Dave, had been visiting and Ivy hadn't had time to clean up before her mom sent her out for the gum.

Ivy glanced at Prairie. Prairie was gazing around unhappily.

“How's your mother?” Mom Evers asked.

“She's, um. She's good, she's fine, she's in the kitchen.” Ivy pointed that way and everyone trooped in.

“Hi, Tracy,” Mom Evers said.

“Hi.”

Ivy handed her mom the bag of Nicorette and her mom stuffed it into her purse. Then she dumped the rest of her coffee down the drain and stubbed out her cigarette in one of Dave's empty beer cans. “Sorry I can't stick around, I have to get to work. I got that job with Lindsey.”

“Oh, fine, fine,” Mom Evers said in a perky voice. “We can't stay long either, we have to get to the market. Try to sell some things, you know. Hope people are in a buying mood . . .”

Ivy's mother raised her brows. “Good luck.” She gave a sketchy wave and headed for the door.

• • •

At the market, Ivy and Prairie lugged their folding table to their stall. Ivy breathed in deep as they clumped along. She smelled baked things and food cooking and flowers and plants, fresh air and dampness and wild spring leeks. She started to smile. She already knew what the best part of her day was going to be: this moment, right here, right now.

They set the table up and Ivy snapped their checkered cloth out. Prairie dug in their banana box of supplies for their signs.
FRESH FARM EGGS
, the biggest one said.
SPE
CIAL
! $5.00/
DOZEN
another announced. They'd had to raise their prices this spring, with the cost of chicken feed going up.

Prairie opened a carton of eggs and put a sign that said
EGGS BY P
RISCILLA
on top of it. Ivy opened another and propped up the
EGGS BY SIS
TER
tag. Really, they usually didn't know which hens laid what eggs, but people liked thinking they did.

“Sneaky's getting out again,” Prairie said as she set the
EGGS BY SNEAKY
sign up. “She laid her eggs under the wheelbarrow yesterday. I was lucky to find them. And
muddy
—”

“I'm sorry you have to gather them all yourself.” Some of the air hissed out of Ivy's good mood.

Prairie shrugged, busy counting the money they'd open their cash box with. “I don't mind.” She tucked the bills into their slots and pushed her hair behind her ears. Then their first customer appeared.

• • •

They ate out afterward at the Really Fine Diner. The owner had bought one of Mom Evers's quilts at the market one time, and ever since, she'd bought most of whatever produce they had left at the end of the day, if they brought it around. Their waitress today, Zoe, had curly black hair, blue eyes, and a crooked nose. Ivy always thought Zoe'd be the plucky underdog if she starred in a movie. She grinned at Ivy when it was Ivy's turn to order. “Greek salad? Or is it a cheeseburger kind of a day?”

“Greek salad, please.” Ivy smiled shyly.

“Extra banana peppers and olives?”

Ivy nodded.

“Did you get one of those new magnets we have yet?”

“Yes, on the way in. We both did.”

“Your home away from home!” Zoe quoted. She tapped Ivy's head with her pen.

• • •

Back at the farm, Prairie stuck her magnet on the fridge. She poked Ivy's ribs with one finger. “You've got a couple of homes away from home now. Nice, huh?”

Ivy nodded, even though that wasn't as simple as it sounded. She sat down on the floor and rubbed Pup's belly. He started to purr and Grammy began picking out a soft tune on her banjo. Ivy's shoulders relaxed; she hummed along quietly. Then Dad Evers called for her and Prairie to help him unload, and Ivy scrambled to her feet again. Mom Evers pulled her into a hug as she passed. “It's great to have you here. We
miss
you.”

Ivy hugged her gently back, careful of the baby. She let her head rest for a moment against Mom Evers's shoulder and breathed in her familiar smell, of honey and sweat and spices. She smelled like home; the whole house did. It always welcomed Ivy the moment she walked in.

“I-vee!” Prairie yelled from outside. “Help! Can you get the door? I'm dropping stuff all over the place.”

Ivy trotted to the door with a choked feeling in her throat. She wondered if the rental in Kingston—and her own mom—would ever feel like home this way.

• • •

No lights shone through the front windows when the Everses took Ivy back to Kingston Sunday night.

Mom Evers turned in her seat, worry creased into her forehead.

“My mom's probably asleep already,” Ivy said before she could say anything. “She's been working a lot at her new job.”

“Sure, but I'll just walk in with you—”

“It's all right,” Ivy interrupted in her most cheerful voice. “I've got a lot of work to do. I should've studied more for my spelling test. My new teacher's really tough. I like her though. I like her a lot.” This was true; maybe the honesty in her voice was why the worry eased some from Mom Evers's face.

“Okay, then, I guess. Just call if you need anything. I bought you another minutes card.” Mom Evers dug the card out of her bag.

Ivy took it and promised she'd call and told Prairie good-bye, but Prairie didn't answer. She was poking the buttons on her cell phone. Ivy had a matching one in her pocket. Mom Evers had bought them when Ivy moved, and while it wasn't fancy—each one had only cost ten dollars—it was precious. It was a small rectangle of connection to the Everses that she kept with her at all times.

“Good luck on your social studies test,” Ivy told Prairie.

Prairie kept jabbing at the phone's keypad. “Yeah, thanks. You too.”

Ivy frowned. She didn't have a social studies test.

Then Prairie tossed the phone onto the seat beside her and grinned, and Ivy felt her world flip right-side up again. “I'll see you next weekend,” Prairie said.

“Bright and early!”

An uncomfortable look flicked across Prairie's face. “Oh, I forgot to tell you—I have a thing on Saturday morning. A 4-H meeting. We're going to Acorn Hill, to see their creamery. So I can't go to the market.”

Ivy felt like she'd been punched. She did not belong to the 4-H. Over the winter when Prairie first started talking about goats and goat milk and goat cheese and goat breeds, Ivy hadn't paid much attention. They had chickens, and as far as she could see, they did not need goats. But Prairie disagreed. She disagreed, and then she found a goat club to join.

She'd wanted Ivy to join too but Ivy didn't want to. At the time it hadn't seemed important. She'd been content to stay home and read or draw or just hang out with Mom and Dad Evers and Grammy. The stove had been hot and the wind had been cold and staying home those nights had been nice. It had seemed right then. It did not seem right at all now.

“Oh,” Ivy said when she could. “Okay. Right. Yeah, sure, I get it.”

“But you should go. You totally should. I mean, somebody has to sell our eggs, right?”

Ivy's face went pink. “Our” eggs. They weren't really “our” eggs now that Ivy lived in Kingston and did virtually nothing but collect on the profits.

“Mom and Dad will pick you up and I'll be home by the time you get there, or pretty soon after, anyway.”

Ivy wanted to say she was busy next weekend too, that she'd forgotten she also had a big important thing to do—

But she couldn't do it. She needed the weekends at the farm. The time was a dose of powerful medicine that would protect her against the rest of the week. “Yeah, okay,” she told Prairie. “Saturday afternoon'll be great. I'll see you then.” She strode up the walk.

In the kitchen, the same dishes were in the sink as when Ivy left and the same bag of bread sat untouched on the counter. Ivy walked slowly down the hall to her mom's room, letting her fingers trail along the wall the way she did whenever she was in the deep end of a swimming pool.

Her mom was in bed, curled up like a little sea horse. There was a bottle on the nightstand. Half empty, which wasn't so bad. She grumbled in her sleep and curled herself tighter. Ivy tucked the sheet around her shoulders. Then she went and got the box of Nicorette (White Ice Mint, which had sounded like the most refreshing of all the flavors) out of her mom's purse. She tiptoed back in and set it on the nightstand so that it'd be the first thing her mom saw when she woke up.

The most
interesting thing about Ivy's second Monday in her new school was that her teacher made them breathe. It was almost time for the bell to ring and a bunch of the boys were throwing spit wads and bouncing up and down in their seats. Ivy was drawing a flower in her notebook. Not just any flower, but the lone tulip that had the guts to come up in their lawn.

You never knew where a flower was going to spring up, she guessed, or what it was going to look like. This one had yellow petals—really yellow, like the color you always made the sun when you were little—and Ivy felt compelled to make a picture of it. Because it was so brave, for one thing. Also because using the pencils Prairie had given her brought Prairie herself right along with them, a little.

She was absorbed in drawing the tulip's leaves when Ms. Mackenzie thwacked her dictionary down on her desk. Everyone jumped. Ms. Mackenzie stood up and loomed over her desk—she was almost six feet tall—and smiled gently. It was funny, once Ivy's heart stopped banging: the
smack
of the dictionary, and then Ms. Mackenzie's tender, pleased smile.

“Dear children. To ensure that you cease this infernal racket, we shall now breathe. For the next seven minutes.”

“Breathe?” a girl named Tate asked. She was heavy and had long wavy red hair she always wore loose so it trailed out behind her.

Ivy's own hair was thick and wheat colored, and today she'd done it in one long braid, a braid she pulled over her shoulder and tugged on when she was deep in thought. She tugged on it now. If she ever did make a movie, she'd have a character who looked like Tate. Her hair would stand for her independent nature and fiery spirit. She hadn't really watched Tate long enough to be one hundred percent sure what her nature and spirit were like, but the fact that she was questioning big, bold Ms. Mackenzie made independent seem likely.

“Breathe,” Ms. Mackenzie confirmed.

Tate shoved her black-rimmed glasses up with one finger. “Like just—in and out?”

Ms. Mackenzie nodded. “Right. In so your belly inflates like a balloon. Out so it goes flat.”

“Oooh, sounds exciting,” a boy named Billy Wells said.

Ms. Mackenzie beamed her gaze on him. “It is. It's the most interesting thing ever. And hard too. Most people can't do it.”

“Can't breathe.”

“That's right. Can't breathe. Not for long, anyway. Not
just
breathe. And certainly not quietly.” She made a circle in the air with her pen, like she was circling Billy's face, and gave the center a little poke. Then she pulled the projector screen down and hit a couple of keys on her computer. The stopwatch appeared, set for five minutes. “We've wasted two minutes of all our precious lives.
NO MORE!
” Everybody jumped again.

Ms. Mackenzie smiled the pleased smile. “We have no time to waste. Remember that. When I start this watch, you all start to breathe.”

She hit the timer. Everyone started to breathe, out and in, and a great peacefulness swelled up inside Ivy. It was like the time-release film of a seed growing into a tree they'd watched for their science section last week.