Rose climbed into the front seat of the Tullys’ shiny black car and listened to her mother complain about the heat and about the bad haircut that Darlene Tillman had given her and about Mr. Tully, who never put gas in her car. As they made their way through Magnolia Estates, worry hung over Rose like a thundercloud.
First there was the worry about the vacant lot across the street. In the middle of the lot was a small gold sign with magnolia blossoms around the edges and fancy black lettering that read BUILD YOUR DREAM HOME HERE. Rose wished that people would stop building their dream homes in Magnolia Estates. Before long, there would be no more blackberries to eat or wildflowers to pick or trees to climb. In their place would be big brick houses with tidy lawns kept green all summer by invisible sprinklers that came on in the wee hours of the morning.
When they drove past Amanda Simm’s house, Rose’s cloud of worry began to grow bigger and darker. Her mother and Mrs. Simm were forever trying to get Rose and Amanda to play together again. But Rose and Amanda weren’t very fond of each other anymore. They used to play together when they were in third grade, but now that they were going into fifth grade, it seemed as if they had nothing in common. Amanda didn’t like tap dancing, and Rose didn’t like shopping at the mall. Amanda didn’t like playing circus with Pete and Larry, the concrete lions, and Rose didn’t like sleepovers. But, for Rose, the icing on the cake was the fact that Amanda didn’t seem to like Mr. Duffy, the gatekeeper, anymore. She never actually said it, but Rose could tell. Amanda had started making faces when Mr. Duffy told stories about raising pigs in Vermont when he was young. She giggled in a not very nice way when he fell asleep in the gatehouse and delivery truck drivers had to honk their horns. And she rolled her eyes when he pretended to take quarters out of their ears. Now Amanda never went up to the gatehouse anymore, which was fine with Rose.
When the Tullys drove past the gatehouse of Magnolia Estates, Rose’s dark cloud of worry drifted down and settled over her like a blanket of sadness. Mr. Duffy had been the gatekeeper ever since the Tullys had moved there two years ago. He kept a log of who was allowed to come into Magnolia Estates and where they were going. A plumber for the Barkleys on Dogwood Lane. The UPS man delivering packages to somebody on Rosewood Circle. Some ladies playing bridge every other Wednesday at Mrs. Larson’s on Camellia Drive.
Mr. Duffy had a way of making Rose feel better about things. He comforted her when she didn’t want to go to sleepovers in the Magnolia Estates clubhouse. He knew just the right thing to say when she felt anxious about riding the school bus. And he never made her feel bad if she didn’t take flower-arranging classes or piano lessons like her mother wanted her to.
Rose visited him nearly every day. She would tell him about school, and he would tell her about the giant catfish that had jumped clean out of his boat and back into the lake. She would show him the tap steps she learned in dancing school, and he would teach her a magic trick involving paper cups and buttons.
And nearly every day, Mr. Duffy’s little dog, Queenie, had waited patiently for Rose to drop graham cracker crumbs or popcorn or maybe even to toss her a piece of cheese. She would bark at the Glovers’ cat and take treats from the telephone repairman and waddle out to the edge of the road to watch the trucks bringing bricks for somebody’s dream home.
But now Queenie was gone, and Mr. Duffy didn’t do magic tricks or play checkers anymore. He didn’t play the kazoo while Rose sang “Oh My Darling, Clementine.” And he didn’t say “Look out, catfish, here I come” when it was time to go home to his tiny trailer out by the lake.
So as the Tullys’ shiny black car made its way up the interstate toward the bus station, Rose thought and thought and thought about how she could cheer up Mr. Duffy.