Five

The Bone Lady interrupted our dinner with a plateful of cookies.

The knocking came as a sandpapery-soft whisper at the front door. Mom put down her soupspoon and stepped away to investigate. She returned a moment later with our elderly neighbor in tow.

"Oh, please, don't let me disturb your meal!" Lenora Bones exclaimed, shuffling into the dining room, bringing with her a cloud of scrumptious-cookie aroma. She clutched a tinfoil-wrapped plate in her spidery hands. The emaciated old lady couldn't have been more aptly named; she was nothing but thin skin stretched over a tiny skeleton. She stood slightly stooped, barely rising to the height of my mother's shoulder.

Mom introduced Dad and me.

"Oh, yes, I've seen you playing with that energetic dog of yours, young lady," Lenora Bones said brightly. Her eyes, wet and shiny, were as gray as storm clouds.

"Please join us for dinner," Mom invited.

"Oh, no, I couldn't. But thank you. I wanted to stop by sooner and say hello, but with cleaning and unpacking and settling in—so much work—I just haven't found time until now. I finally got around to baking cookies and thought it might provide a good excuse to drop by and introduce myself." She set the covered plate on the table. Her knotted fingers were like thin twigs; the skin on her hands was veined and spotted. "It's only a few sugar cookies."

Mother pulled a chair from the table and insisted Ms. Bones take a seat.

"Well, I feel just awful intruding...." The older woman looked around, embarrassed, but let herself be seated.

"Don't be silly," Mom assured, snapping her fingers and pointing me to the kitchen. "I've been meaning to knock on your door and say hello."

I went into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a bowl of soup.

"Tomato soup! My favorite!" Our wrinkled neighbor clapped her hands with pleasure. "Thank you so much, Svetlana, it's wonderful. And such a beautiful name!" She reached out quickly and grabbed my hand. She squeezed with more strength than I would have thought her capable of.

"Well," Dad began, clearing his throat. "Stephanie has only recently become fixated on the name Svetlana. She's actually named after my mother, who—"

"Oh, Svetlana is an excellent name!" Ms. Bones interrupted, nodding with vigor. "Very exotic—very mysterious ... and strong! I believe that everyone should choose his or her own name. Of course, Bones is the perfect name for me!" The old woman chuckled, unfolding a paper napkin and stuffing a corner of it into the high neck of her black dress. "Would you believe my father actually named me Sheila? Oh, I'm not a Sheila at all!" She winked at me and tapped the brim of her bowl with her silver spoon. She ladled up a spoonful of steaming soup and blew across it. "This looks lovely."

"Where have you recently moved from, Ms. Bones?" Mom asked.

"Anyone who feeds me dinner must call me Lenora, am I right? And London, England, was my previous address." Slurp. Slurp. "Such wonderful soup! But I've been a bit of a tramp since retiring. I've lived here and there and everywhere: Australia and China and the lower parts of Peru—I can no longer take the thin air in the mountains, unfortunately. I've lived in almost every corner of Africa—quite a place that is. Nice and hot."

"And you're retired?" Dad wondered.

"From teaching," she answered, blowing and slurping. "Delicious."

"I've just returned to teaching myself," Mom explained. "Substituting—until a permanent position opens."

"That's wonderful," Ms. Bones said. "I never did tire of teaching, you know. Or of the children. Or learning. Which might be something Svetlana could lend me a hand with." The old lady swiveled her thin-skinned skull around, fixing me with shiny eyes. "Do you enjoy reading, Svetlana?"

"She reads more than anyone in this house," Mom announced with pride.

"I do like to read," I boasted.

"Of course you do," Lenora Bones agreed. "What intelligent person doesn't? But these tired eyes of mine can't keep up with my appetite! I simply cannot read like I used to—or wish to still. I've got a proposition for you—if you're interested and if your kind parents will allow it." She wrapped her skeletal fingers around my mother's hand. "I had a lovely neighbor girl in London whom I employed to read to me—only a small wage and a few hours a week. It would be so nice if I could continue to do that here." She threw up her hands. "So now I'm discovered! I thought I'd break in with a plate of cookies and see if I couldn't sway you!" Lenora Bones went wide-eyed at her confession, smiling from face to face around the table.

What was she saying? She wanted to pay me to read to her? That sounded too good to be true. What books would she have me read? Charles Dickens or Emily Bronte, I'd bet.

"Well, that would be fine with me," I said, looking from Mom to Dad, shrugging and grinning. Should I ask how much she wanted to pay me? Would that be rude? What if it was something ridiculous, like fifty cents an hour? She had to be at least seventy years old, maybe even eighty. Old people had funny ideas about money. Like Dad's mom, the grandma I was named after. She was a little daffy, always going on about how much everything costs nowadays. Who knew what this old woman was thinking?

"I think that would be fine, Ms. Bones—" Mom started.

"Lenora!" the old woman insisted.

"Lenora. But I don't know if Svetlana needs to be paid."

What? I swung my leg under the table to kick Mom but missed.

"If it's only a couple of hours a week, I'm sure she'd enjoy doing it for fun. Right, honey?" Mom was nodding at me, smiling.

Was Mom out of her mind? The old lady wanted to pay me! It would probably make her feel better if she did.

"Oh, no, I would have to pay a little something for her efforts," Ms. Bones insisted. "It'd make me feel better if I did." The old woman winked and reached over to pat the top of my hand.

Dad cleared his throat. "I think that would be a good thing, don't you, Svetlana?" He was solid on the Svetlana.

"Sure..."

"Terrific." Lenora Bones scraped a last spoonful of soup from her bowl and swallowed it with a wet slurp. "I'm already looking forward to it."

We decided on Saturday afternoon. Ms. Bones thanked Mom and Dad profusely for dinner and rose shakily from the table. As the joints in her knees and hips popped like splintering wood, she let her mouth fall open into a shocked "O." "Ouch," she joked, widening her eyes in mock surprise. "A body at rest tends to remain at rest—especially this old body of mine." She winked.

When Mom returned to the table after seeing Ms. Bones out the door, she said, "That old gal's got a lot of personality."

"Uh-huh," Dad agreed.

"I believe you'll have a terrific time reading to her," Mom told me. "You're sweet to do it, and I'm very proud of you." She stooped and gave me a squeeze. "Shall we try milk and cookies for dessert?"

It sounded like a good idea to me. The fresh-baked aroma escaping from the old woman's plate filled every corner of the room. Mom peeled the foil covering from the serving dish, revealing a mound of circle-shaped red cookies.

"Well, take a look at that," Dad said, reaching and grabbing one. "Just the way you like them, Steph—Svetlana."