Mavis rang the “Ode to Joy” doorbell.
Mrs. Tully opened the door and looked surprised to see Mavis.
“Is Rose here?” Mavis asked.
“She is.”
“I need to talk to her.”
Mrs. Tully lifted an eyebrow and opened the screen door. Mavis fought the urge to hopscotch across the gleaming marble tiles and take the stairs two at a time. Instead, she hurried up to Rose’s room, her bare feet sinking into the soft, thick carpet.
But Rose’s room was empty.
So Mavis went down to Grace’s room, and there was Rose, sitting on the window seat, hugging her knees and looking pitiful with a capital P.
Mavis sat down beside her and said, “I heard about Mr. Duffy.”
Rose’s chin quivered, and she said, “I heard about your mother’s new job.”
“And we have to move,” Mavis said.
Then she told Rose about Garden View Apartments.
“But we can still be best friends,” Mavis said. “We can do everything together at school.”
Rose’s mouth dropped open a little, and she stared at Mavis. “What school are you going to?” she asked.
Mavis jerked her head in the direction of the highway. “Landry Elementary.”
“But I don’t go to that school.”
Disappointment crashed down on top of Mavis so hard she nearly fell right off the window seat. “You don’t?” she said, even though in her heart she had known that all along.
Rose shook her head. Then she explained that she went to a school called Grove Road Academy in the next town over. A lot of kids in Magnolia Estates went there.
“Oh,” Mavis said in a voice so tiny she hardly recognized it as her own.
Rose rested her chin on her knees and stared glumly out the window.
“What’s that?” Mavis said, pointing to something on the windowsill next to Rose.
“A silver dollar.”
Rose told Mavis how Grace had found it on the beach, and it was special.
“She gave it to me when she left for college,” Rose said, putting the coin in the palm of her hand and drawing little circles on it with her finger.
Then Rose told Mavis about Mr. Duffy’s new job. How he would be helping to find homes for the greyhounds at Wonderland because it was closing.
“Why’s it closing?” Mavis asked.
“I guess people don’t go to the racetrack as much anymore. And the dogs need to have better lives instead of just racing all the time.”
“I know you’re going to miss Mr. Duffy,” Mavis said. “I will, too.”
Rose nodded. “And I’m going to miss you.”
“You are?”
Rose nodded again.
Mavis felt a little tingle inside. She was pretty sure no one had ever missed her before. When she’d moved away from all those places, had anybody ever said, “Whatever happened to that girl Mavis? I sure do miss her.”
Probably not.
But here was Rose, a real best friend, who was going to miss her when she moved out of the little apartment over the garage.
Then Mavis said something she had never said before. “I’m going to miss you, too.”