Rose’s feet felt like cement as she trudged up the street toward her house.
What was the matter with her, leaving Mavis alone in the woods like that? Why was she being such a scaredy-cat?
When she got home, she lifted her cement feet up the stairs to her room.
Clomp
Clomp
Clomp
Then she sat on her canopy bed and felt so heavy with shame that she was surprised she didn’t sink right through the mattress and onto the floor.
Mavis was out there in the woods looking for Henry so that things would get right with Mr. Duffy.
Mavis knew how important Mr. Duffy was to her.
She was trying to make things better.
But here Rose sat, feeling so heavy. Acting like the baby that Amanda seemed to think she was.
Rose got up and went to her dresser. She opened the pink jewelry box with ROSE engraved in silver letters on the top. Nestled inside among the beaded necklaces and sparkly bracelets was Grace’s silver dollar.
Rose held it in the palm of her hand and heard Grace say, “Just go for it, Rosie.”
So she slipped the silver dollar into the pocket of her shorts and ran downstairs, out the door, down the driveway, and up the street to Amanda’s house. Then she kept running along the wrought-iron fence and into the woods, calling Mavis’s name.