When Rose had jumped off the log and stormed away up the street, not even stopping when Mavis called her name, Amanda had laughed.
She told Mavis that Rose acted like a baby and wouldn’t go to sleepovers. She told her that Mr. Duffy couldn’t remember anybody’s name and fell asleep in the gatehouse, and lots of people in Magnolia Estates were not very happy about that. Then Amanda had disappeared up the side of the road, leaving Mavis sitting alone on the tree trunk.
That night, Mavis sat in the little apartment over the garage feeling sorry for herself while her mother complained about having to wash and iron curtains.
“Who in the world even does that?” her mother said, rummaging through her purse for another piece of gum.
Mavis wanted to tell her mother how bad she was feeling about Rose, but she didn’t. Her mother was liable to say something mean about Rose. So she just sat there, feeling sorrier by the minute. She’d only been in Landry for three days, and already her new best friend was mad at her.
* * *
The next day, Mavis fixed herself half a peanut butter sandwich and ran down the apartment steps and around front, where Rose was sitting on the porch between those concrete lions.
“Hey,” she called to Rose.
Rose stared at the ground and mumbled a very quiet “Hey.”
Mavis ran over and sat on the porch next to her. “Want some of my sandwich?” she asked.
Rose looked a little surprised and shrugged.
“What’s the matter?” Mavis said. “How come you left the club meeting?”
Rose brushed something invisible off her shorts and shrugged again.
“Because of Amanda, right?” Mavis said.
“Maybe.”
Mavis flapped a hand at her. “She can’t be in our club.”
Rose’s head shot up. “She can’t?”
“Nope.”
“How come?”
“Because she’s mean.”
Rose perked up. “Really?”
Mavis nodded. “She said mean things about you and Mr. Duffy after you left.”
“She did?” Rose’s shoulders slumped.
Mavis’s mind raced. Maybe she shouldn’t have said that.
“Let’s go fix some lunch for Mr. Duffy,” she said. “Come on.”
Then she ran off up the flagstone path along the side of the house, through the hydrangea garden, up the Tullys’ back steps, and right on into their kitchen, with Rose running behind her.
When Mavis burst into the kitchen, her mother looked up from the butcher-block island with shiny copper pots hanging above it.
“Mavis!” she said. “What in the world?”
She had been chopping boiled eggs, and now she began to rant at Mavis about the rules she had already forgotten while she waved the knife around in the air, sending pieces of egg flying in every direction.
“We’re going to take lunch up to Mr. Duffy,” Mavis said.
“No, ma’am,” her mother said. “You are not.”
Mavis stomped her foot and was preparing to go on a tirade when Mrs. Tully walked into the kitchen. When she saw Mavis, she said, “Oh, my, well…”
“She was just leaving,” Miss Jeeter said, glaring at Mavis.
“When will the egg salad be ready?” Mrs. Tully asked. “I have guests coming any minute now.” Then she turned to Mavis and said, “Rose needs to have her lunch now.”
Then a most surprising thing happened.
Rose lifted her chin and said, “Mavis and I are taking lunch up to Mr. Duffy.”
But then she added a quick “Okay?”
Mavis watched in delight as Rose didn’t wait for an answer. She scurried around the kitchen grabbing bread and cheese and chips while her mother’s face turned red with disapproval.
Mavis’s mother went back to chopping egg salad, slamming the knife hard against the butcher block.
Bang
Bang
Bang
Then Rose and Mavis gathered everything into a grocery bag and hurried out the door.