As soon as her father had disappeared into the kitchen, Eleanor wiggled her finger at me, like she does when she wants me to follow her, and we went into her bedroom. I couldn’t believe how much her room reminded me of her, from the pale green walls to the pretty white desk in the corner.
“I thought it would be easier to talk in here for a while and let Thaththa finish making the dinner,” she said as we plopped down on her bed.
“Maybe someday we can have a sleepover,” I suggested.
Eleanor stared down at her lacy bedspread and picked at loose threads.
“Maybe.”
She seemed kind of glum.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “You’re awfully quiet, and you keep coughing, and squeezing your hands.”
She glanced away. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Is it about your mother? Is she coming home?”
“Not yet. Nenda Soma isn’t any better.”
“Are you sad because your amma couldn’t see me tonight? Because you don’t have to be sad—I’ll come back anytime.”
Eleanor didn’t say anything, so I guessed that was part of what was bothering her. But I didn’t know how to cheer her up, so I scanned the room, searching for something special to compliment. That’s when I noticed a large, round cardboard box on the floor near the desk. I jumped off the bed and picked it up.
“This is interesting. Where did you get it?”
“Put it down, Ruby!”
I hadn’t expected that reaction at all. In fact, I had never seen Eleanor so upset. I slowly placed it back on the floor like it was booby-trapped.
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just . . . it’s just that”—she was stumbling over her words like she was nervous again—“I keep important things in there. I didn’t mean to leave it out.”
“Oh, is it where you hide all your yarn and needles and stuff? Or the new rainbow chokers?”
She shook her head. “No, I keep all my knitting supplies in the bottom drawers of my bureau.”
Something fishy was going on. My birthday wasn’t until the summer, so it couldn’t be that. What would she be hiding from me, her best friend?
“By important, do you mean top-secret?”
“It’s nothing interesting—really.”
Eleanor slid off her bed, pushed the box into the closet, and closed the door.
“Ruby,” she said, changing the subject, “the reason I don’t have people over to my house is—well, it’s complicated.”
“Complicated? What’s so complicated about your house?” I asked. “I adore your house. And your bedroom is a lot bigger than mine.”
“What I’m talking about is . . . it’s . . . well, it’s more about protocol and traditional customs and appropriate topics of conversation with adults. The ways in which my family interacts are very different from yours. And from everyone else’s in Paris.”
“What do you mean? Like Christmas and holidays? I know you’re Buddish and don’t do Christmas. I don’t care.”
“No, not that exactly. And it’s Buddhist. Not Buddish.”
I had never seen Eleanor act like this. She could normally explain anything; even when she used all sorts of big words to do it, I eventually got what she was trying to say.
“Are you worried about the Monster Chunk cookies? Because I know you only eat vegetables and fish, but there isn’t any meat in them. I promise.”
“Meat in cookies?”
All at once, Eleanor’s eyes widened and she burst out laughing. Eleanor had the best laugh in the whole world when you got her going, and once she started, she had a hard time stopping.
“Who would put meat in cookies?!” she squealed, gasping between each word as she collapsed onto the floor, laughing and clutching her stomach.
“Pardon me, girls?”
Her father had entered the room and stared at Eleanor like she had lost her marbles.
“Is everything all right in here?”
“Don’t worry about us, Mr. B! Sometimes all this silliness builds up in Eleanor until she completely cracks up, and then you just have to wait until she gets it out of her system.”
Well, you would have thought I’d just said Eleanor won Best Daughter of the Year or something, because her father grinned so hard, I thought he was going to burst too. He swung his arm around me like I was his long-lost cousin.
“Ruby LaRue, you enlighten our world!” he said. “I am so glad you came to dinner. You must come and visit us often.”