“That’s not very nice,” Hildie commented. “All he wants is tobe petted.”
Amy’s little chin jutted out. “I’m not feeling very nice,” she said. “I wish Tabby would go away and leave me alone. And I wish you would, too.”
“Well, I’m not going to,” Hildie replied. “At least not until you tell me why you won’t go to the picnic. It’s a beautiful day, and I know you like to go swimming.”
“I don’t want to go swimming,” Amy shot back. “I just want to call my mother arid have her come and get me.”
“I thought we had an agreement,” Hildie said reasonably, choosing to ignore Amy’s angry tone. “You talked to your mother twice on Thursday, and again yesterday. And we agreed that you’d talk to her again tomorrow, but not today.”
Amy’s chin began to tremble, and her eyes glistened with tears. “I don’t care! I miss my room, and Kitty-Cat, and everything else. I hate it here, and I want to go home!”
“But we all agreed that you’d try it for a week. That’s only a few more days, and—”
“I want to go home
“Well, that’s just not true,” Hildie argued patiently. “Tabby likes you, and I like you, and Tina likes you —”
“She does not! She’s just being nice to me because you told her to!” “Actually, she’s worried about you. She didn’t think anyone could be more homesick than she was, but she thinks you are.”
For a split second Hildie thought she saw a flicker of uncertainty in the little girl’s eyes, but then her face settled once more into a stubborn mask.
“If I have to stay here, I’ll die,” she said.
“Now, that’s just silly, Amy. Nobody dies of homesickness. I know how much it hurts, but you’ll get over it —”
“I will not!” Amy shouted. “Why don’t you just leave me alone? I didn’t ask you to come up here. All I want is to be left alone!”
Ever since Wednesday, Amy had spent as much time as she could alone in her room, and yesterday hadn’t even gone to her classes. If it went on much longer, Hildie would have no choice but to call the Carlsons and tell them that it wasn’t working out But she wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” she said. “I’m just going to stay right here with you, and not leave you alone for a minute. I can have a bed brought up here, and then I can even sleep with you. After all, homesickness is mostly loneliness, and if we’re together all the time, how can you be lonely? We can even have our meals brought up here. I’ll just take a few days off—”
Amy was staring at her now, her eyes wide. “No,” she wailed. “I don’t want you staying with me. I want you to go away!”
“Well, that may be what you think you want, but it’s not what you’re going to get,” Hildie said placidly. “After all, I’m a lot older than you, and I think I know a lot more about it than you do.” She would have gone on talking, but Amy leaped off the bed, sending Tabby sprawling to the floor, and stormed out of the room. By the time Hildie had gotten to the hall, Amy was pounding down the stairs. Smiling, the housemother followed. When she reached the loggia, she found Tina standing there, looking even more worried than before.
“Amy just went tearing outside,” the girl told her. “She was crying like crazy, and when I tried to stop her, she just jerked away from me and kept going.”
“Which way did she go?” Hildie asked.
“Out there,” Tina said, pointing to a clump of redwoods planted in a circle near the middle of the front lawn, their massive roots completely hidden by thick shrubbery.
Hildie nodded in satisfaction. “She’ll be fine,” she told Tina. Amy hadn’t taken off for the front gate after all, but only for the hiding place the children had named the Gazebo. Yes, little Amy would be just fine.
Tina cocked her head and regarded the housemother, remembering the day five years before when she herself had wanted more than anything to go home. When the house had finally closed around her, and she hadn’t thought she could stand it anymore, she had run.
All the way out to the front lawn, where she’d burrowed through the shrubbery beneath the trees that formed the Gazebo. Within the circle of immense trees, hidden from view, she’d slowly begun to feel better. She’d sat down on the thick mat of fallen needles that blanketed the ground within the circle, and decided that it was her own secret place, a place she could retreat to when she just wanted to think, or be by herself. In the five years since, it had never occurred to her that she wasn’t the only person at the Academy who used the Gazebo for exactly that purpose. She studied Hildie. “Did you know that’s where I went, when I first came here?” Tina asked.
“Of course,” Hildie said blithely. “I know everything that goes on here. Now go along down to the beach. I’ll be along later, when Amy’s ready to come. And don’t let them eat all the potato salad before I get there!”
As Tina headed off to the beach a mile away, Hildie returned to her office, determined to finish the report she was working on. Yet even as she worked, she kept half an eye on the Gazebo. It wouldn’t do to lose Amy Carlson now.
The little girl had far too good a mind to allow it to go to waste somewhere else.
Amy crawled through the dense shrubbery, ignoring the twigs that scratched at her face and caught at her T-shirt. A few seconds later she emerged from the bushes and paused to catch her breath. Sprawling out on her back, she peered at the branches that mingled a hundred feet above her head, casting their deep shade into the clearing within the circle. It was cooler here, and the air smelled of the fallen needles that carpeted the ground and squished softly under her whenever she moved.
Then, from off to the right, she heard a sound.
Startled, she turned her head and saw a boy about her own age, staring at her. For a moment she didn’t recognize him, but then realized she’d seen him from her window, arriving with his mother that morning. But what was he doing here? If he was coming to the school, why wasn’t he down at the beach?
She thought she heard him sniffle, and saw him wiping his nose on the sleeve of his shirt.
“That’s gross,” she said. “Don’t you have a handkerchief?”
The boy shook his head. “I don’t need one. I’m okay.”
Amy rolled over and propped her chin on her hands. “You don’t look okay.”
“You don’t, either,” the boy replied. “Why don’t you blow your nose? It’s dripping snot all over your chin.”
Reaching into the pocket of her jeans, Amy pulled a wadded-up hankie out and wiped at her face. “Why don’t you go away?” she challenged.
“I was here first. Why don’t you go away?”
“Maybe I don’t want to,” Amy shot back.
“Well, maybe I don’t, either,” Josh replied, his voice turning truculent.
The two children stared at each other for a while, until Amy looked away. “Is your mom making you come here?” she asked, sure she knew why the boy was hiding in the circle of trees.
“She’s not
Amy cocked her head. “Don’t be stupid. Nobody flunks the test. It’s not that kind.”
“But I couldn’t even finish it,” Josh said, his voice catching in spite of himself. “I mean, I didn’t even come close!”
Amy, her own problems suddenly forgotten for a moment, moved closer to Josh. “How much did you get done?”
Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe three-fourths of it.”
“Three-fourths!” Amy squealed. “I didn’t even get half of it done! How’d you do so much?”
Josh stared at her. Was she lying to him, just trying to make him feel better? “What are you doing here?” he asked, instead of answering her question. “How come you’re not at the beach with everybody else?”
Amy felt herself flush. “I … didn’t want to go,” she said so quietly Josh could barely hear her.
“How come?” Josh asked. “Don’t you like the beach?”
“Do you?” Amy countered.
Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never been. I live out in the desert.”
