Rose was pretty sure that she was the unhappiest girl in Landry, Alabama. She sat on Grace’s window seat and made a mental list of the reasons she was so unhappy.
1. Mr. Duffy, who had always been so fun and cheerful, was now sad and a little grumpy.
2. That same friend, Mr. Duffy, was getting more and more forgetful and making so many mistakes that folks in Magnolia Estates were getting more and more impatient with him.
3. She had argued with her new (and only) best friend, Mavis, and now they weren’t even talking anymore.
4. Mr. Duffy never seemed to want to play checkers with her, but then there he was, playing checkers with Mavis. So now maybe he liked Mavis more than he liked her. But then, who could blame him? Mavis was fun and adventurous and brave, which she, Rose Tully, was not.
5. That poor, sweet dog, Henry, needed a home. And Mavis was so sure that she could convince Mr. Duffy to adopt him, but Rose wasn’t so sure.
6. Her mother complained about Miss Jeeter nearly every minute of every day.
7. Her sister, Grace, was gone and Rose needed her.
Seven reasons to be unhappy.
That was a lot.
Suddenly a noise outside made Rose stop thinking about how unhappy she was.
The sound of a skateboard on the driveway.
Mavis.
It had to be Mavis.
Rose jumped up off Grace’s window seat and ran downstairs and out the back door. She hurried through the hydrangea garden to the front of the house.
Sure enough, there was Mavis riding the skateboard up and down the driveway. She glanced over briefly, but then looked away and began to whistle as she rode the skateboard up one side and down the other. Wasn’t that just so like Mavis, breaking that rule about not riding the skateboard on the driveway? And then whistling while she did it! Such a Mavis thing to do.
Rose marched out into the middle of the yard with her head high and her arms swinging. Then she took off her sandals and flung them into the air so high that one of them landed in the top of her mother’s favorite magnolia tree.
Then she, Rose Tully, scampered around in circles on the grass, not caring one little bit if she got ringworm.
Mavis had stopped riding the skateboard and was standing gape-mouthed at the edge of the yard, staring up at Rose’s sandal in the magnolia tree. Then she grinned at Rose and hollered, “That’s what I’m talking about!”
Rose grinned back.
Then the two of them headed up the street toward the gatehouse, Mavis’s skateboard whirring and Rose’s bare feet slap, slap, slapping on the asphalt road.