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It was a perfectly normal Saturday in the Penderwick household, or about as normal as things ever got there on Gardam Street, when Jeffrey Tifton decided to throw everything into flux by finally confessing his years-long passion for Skye Penderwick.
Jeffrey was staying over for a long weekend before Rosalind’s eighteenth birthday. He spent nights on the living room couch, where he’d been gently but firmly banished by Mr. Penderwick during visits ever since he and Skye had hit puberty, to the great embarrassment of all involved. Hound, overjoyed to have a guest, no matter how familiar of one, woke Jeffrey up early that morning by jumping onto the couch to cuddle with him. Jeffrey, however much he appreciated the intent, found the physical experience a bit suffocating, and so decided that that was as good a time as any to wake up and start the day.
Precious little had changed in the Penderwick house since Jeffrey’s first visit, with the significant exception of the house’s residents themselves. The sun rose on the same brick and wrought-iron front porch, surrounded on either side by Mr. Penderwick’s greatest pride and joy other than his daughters; his garden. The cut-off from Cagney’s Frimbriata rosebush was much bigger than it had once been, having thrived under careful care from both Mr. Penderwick and Rosalind once it had been planted, but the rest of the plants were much the same. The house had gotten older, of course, and slightly more ragged with time. The mailbox hung precariously onto the front wall, having been hit by a poorly aimed soccer ball during one of Jane’s fits of athletic fervor, and there was still a patch of grass that refused to grow ever since the fateful day Skye had attempted to help Ben make a chemistry set he’d gotten for Christmas “more interesting”. But other than that, it looked almost exactly the same as it had six years ago.
The habits of those within the house remained familiar as well. Once the rest of the family was awake, Mr. Penderwick still made waffles for breakfast, and Skye still drowned hers in syrup until Rosalind glared at her to stop. The girls still all helped with clean-up afterwards, Rosalind washing, Skye rinsing, and Jane drying, although Batty had since graduated from just putting away the silverware drawer to putting away everything, which she took in stride. Jeffrey tried to help, but the girls insisted that they had their four-person method down to a science.
After breakfast, the day was spent in a variety of familiar pursuits. First, Batty pulled Jeffrey into the living room for a “jam session” with her on piano and him on clarinet. She was in a musical theater mood that day, so they played songs from Into The Woods, Wicked, and Hairspray, among others. They were just about to start on The Little Mermaid when Jane and Skye both came downstairs to beg them to stop (Jane, because she was working on a comedic play, a new genre for her that required the utmost focus, and Skye because she simply couldn’t stand Batty’s renditions of show tunes for more than an hour at a time). So they had a tea party with Rosalind, Ben, Hound, and all the stuffed animals instead. Batty felt that perhaps she was getting too old for such things, but Rosalind and Jeffrey both insisted that there was no upper age limit on tea parties. Once that was done, and all the tea that Hound had spilled was cleaned up, Jane claimed Jeffrey to help with a read-through of the scenes she’d finished so far, and then Skye wanted him to run some soccer drills.
One of Jeffrey’s favorite things about visiting the Penderwicks was that he always felt in demand, and that weekend was no different. Usually, he was perfectly happy to be dragged in whatever direction the sisters pulled him, and to engage in whatever activity they wanted. Today, though, he had a specific plan of his own that took precedence.
In the late afternoon, once they’d finished with soccer, Jeffrey asked Skye to go on a walk through the woods with him, which she agreed to. She’d missed him so much over the past few weeks, and spent so much time cooped up in her room working on AP Calculus problem sets instead of enjoying the early spring weather, that she didn’t even think to be suspicious when he insisted it be just them.
Even Skye, however, couldn’t ignore that he’d ducked into the house to put on his nicest polo and smelled suspiciously like cologne before they set off. She gave him a confused look, but said nothing.
They chatted casually as they walked, about all manner of things; Skye’s capstone project for her Advanced Astronomy class, Jeffrey’s work pulling together the pit orchestra for his school’s big spring musical, their hopes for the next year’s Summer Olympics, the newest episodes of Adventure Time, which Batty had gotten them both into, whether Jane’s new play would actually be any good (Jeffrey said yes, and Skye said no, having a deep bias against Jane’s theatrical experiments), what they thought Rosalind’s freshman year of college would be like.
When the conversation turned to whether or not Rosalind and Tommy’s relationship would survive the transition, Jeffrey thought his moment had arrived.
“Everyone at school thinks that you’re my girlfriend,” he said, trying very hard to make it sound like an off-the-cuff thought that had just occurred to him, rather than a thought-out and rehearsed lead-in to further conversation. He was not nearly a convincing enough actor to succeed. “And they always say that they think it’s really impressive how we manage long distance.”
“That’s stupid,” said Skye sharply, not looking at him, “I hope you set them all straight.”
Jeffrey ignored her, an act that demonstrated both more bravery and more stupidity than the average person displayed in an entire day. “It would make sense, wouldn’t it?” he asked, “You and me? Even if only because, well, I’ve always known…that I was meant to be a Penderwick.”
“Oh no, Jeffrey, don’t. Please,” Skye begged, knowing exactly what he meant to say next and that she would hate to hear it.
“Please, Skye. Just let me say it. And then we can go back to ignoring it forever, if that’s what you want.”
“No we can’t,” she snapped. “We can’t ever go back to ignoring something once you’ve said it and we both know.”
“Don’t we both already know?” he asked softly, eyes shining with desperation.
“No. No we don’t,” she insisted, but her voice trembled guiltily, as if implying that she’d always understood a bit more than she’d let on.
“Then let me explain. Please.”
Skye crossed her arms stubbornly but said nothing, which Jeffrey took as an invitation to continue.
“I love you,” he said, “I think you’re the smartest, funniest, bravest, most stubborn, most beautiful girl I’ve ever met.” At that, Skye rolled her eyes, scoffing, but Jeffrey continued anyway. “I miss you such much when we’re apart that it almost hurts. Whenever I’m having a happy moment, there’s a part of me, a big part, that wishes you could be there too because then it would be perfect. The happiest moments of my life have all happened with you–because of you. And every time someone asks if I’m your boyfriend, which happens a lot, by the way, I wish more than anything in the whole world that I could say yes and have it be the truth. There’s more I’d planned to say, but you clearly don’t want to hear it, so, yeah. I just thought…I just thought you should know.”
Skye nodded, slowly, hoping that she looked calmer on the outside than she felt on the inside. She wasn’t really listening, hadn’t been listening since she’d realized what Jeffrey was saying. Her mind was instead filled with a loud buzzing noise, like TV static, or a hundred bees, preventing any and all rational thought. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to punch Jeffrey and tell him to shut up. She wanted to kiss him and beg him to never shut up again. She wanted to do a lot of things, none of which went together at all. But mostly, she wanted to leave. She wanted to get out of this situation right now, to stop having to look at Jeffrey Tifton and his big, sad, hopeful eyes. So that was what she did.
“I’m gonna go back to the house now,” she said, as soon as she found her brain and mouth capable of working together long enough to create a full sentence again, “You can…”
“I’ll stay here,” Jeffrey said, anticipating Skye’s order, “Until the sun sets, at least. And then tomorrow you can tell me to go home and I’ll go, or you can tell me to never talk about this again and I won’t, or you can ask to talk about it again and I will, I’ll talk about it forever. I’ll do whatever you ask of me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. You sound like Jane,” said Skye, because it was the only thing she could think of to say. And with that, she turned and walked back down the path towards the house.
Once she was out of sight, Jeffrey leaned back against a tree, slid down it, ignoring how the bark scraped against his skin, and buried his head in his hands, equal parts despairing and relieved.
Skye took the long way home through the woods, thinking hard and kicking up gusts of leaves as she went. It wasn’t that she hadn’t expected this. It was more that she’d expected and feared it for so long, and had none of those expectations and fears come to fruition, that she’d eventually been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that Jeffrey would never say the words that force her to reevaluate their entire relationship. But now he had, which made her very angry indeed.
Skye liked the way things were, with Jeffrey as her best friend and best friend only, and she didn’t want them to change. Rosalind was already going to be going away to college in the fall – why throw another huge wrench in the mix along with that when they could just…not? Couldn’t they just keep going how they were? Well, she supposed they couldn’t now, now that Jeffrey had dropped the ‘love’ bomb. But they could have. They could have kept tiptoeing around the subject, carefully avoiding Jeffrey’s feelings for Skye until he realized she wouldn’t be any good for him and let them fade. She was sure he would have gotten over it eventually; it wasn’t as if she was some sort of ideal girlfriend who would haunt him forever as ‘the one that got away’. She was just a girl, and not even a particularly good one most of the time. A rude, stubborn, sarcastic, overly-cerebral, egotistical girl, with a tendency to lock herself in her room to do math problems and refuse to talk to anyone for long periods of time. She couldn’t possibly be anyone’s idea of an ideal, or even good, girlfriend.
And besides all her personal faults that made romance highly unlikely, there was also its sheer undesirability. Boyfriends caused all sorts of problems that best friends didn’t, Skye knew that much from just watching Rosalind and Jane. She supposed Tommy Geiger hadn’t ended up too bad, in the end, once he’d gotten past all the middle-school drama and pining. Maybe their relationship had worked out because Rosalind and Tommy had been good friends first, just like…Skye shook the thought away. Instead, she focused on Jane’s parade of generally disappointing male companions, a pattern that she blamed both on Jane’s overly romantic nature and desire to ‘research’ material for her books, as well as the lasting influence of stupid Donovan from all those years ago. Yes, she decided, boyfriends were nothing but trouble. Even if she had liked Jeffrey (the possibility of which she was resolutely refusing to even think about), she certainly didn’t want him to be her boyfriend. Such a thing would ruin him, and them, forever.
When Skye got home, she wanted to slam the back door, just for the catharsis, but knew that doing so would alert all her family to her presence, which was something she wanted to avoid. So instead she tiptoed inside quietly, and ducked into the bathroom when she thought she heard someone coming down the hall. This hiding spot put her face to face with her own reflection. Usually, Skye passed by the mirror without a second glance, but today she stopped. She looked at herself, really looked, closer than she might ever have before, to try and see what there was in her face that Jeffrey found attractive. She’d already decided it made no sense for him to like her for her personality, so maybe there was something…simpler happening. Her hair wasn’t bad, she supposed, but it wasn’t anything all that interesting either. It had gotten a few shades darker over the years, settling into what Rosalind called a honey blonde, which Skye thought was just a nicer way of saying sandy. Upon starting high school, she’d finally done what she’d wanted to do ever since she was little, chopping it all off right below her ears into a shaggy pixie cut that often got her mistaken for a boy at first glance. She liked the style, mostly because it took very little managing and didn’t get messed up when squashed under baseball caps all day, but she wasn’t sure that it screamed ‘girlfriend material’. Her crystal blue eyes were exactly the same as they’d always been, by far her favorite part of her face, but you couldn’t love someone on eyes alone, could you?
The problem, she decided, with looking so different from the rest of your family, was that you grew up with a skewed idea of your own beauty. The two most beautiful people in the world, Skye thought, were her mother and Rosalind, although she’d certainly never tell the latter that. The confusing part was that she looked exactly like one of them and about as opposite as she could get from the other. She could never figure out quite where that left her, except in a confusing middle ground, where she looked just like her mother but with none of her charm or grace, and nothing like her sisters except with all of their faults; knobbly knees, skinny arms, pale skin that sunburned after a few minutes outside but refused to tan, and freckles in plenty of odd places, all of which had been pointed out to them by a rotating series of mean girls over the years.
No, she couldn’t possibly understand what Jeffery saw there that was worth liking, so she gave up the exercise with a huff, left the bathroom once she was sure no one was outside waiting to ambush her, and then continued stomping (quietly) upstairs.
When she’d reached the second floor, after trying and failing to not make a great deal of angry noise on the stairs, Skye stormed into her bedroom. She had a brief moment of enjoyment at the sound of the door slamming shut, now that she could lock herself away and refuse to be bothered. But when she turned around, she was irritated to find the room currently occupied by Jane, who was trying to read Much Ado About Nothing for inspiration at the same time as she sewed an old pair of curtains into a new dress, and therefore was making very little actual progress on either.
Skye took a deep breath, as she practiced whenever her temper threatened to overwhelm her, and reminded herself that Jane had done nothing to incur her wrath. So far today, at least.
“Jeffery’s in love with me,” she reported dully as she crossed the room and let herself fall face forward onto her bed.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve finally noticed,” said Jane casually, not looking up from either of her pursuits.
“I didn’t. He told me,” Skye mumbled into her pillow, feeling grumpier by the second.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” With that, Skye turned around to face the wall, clearly trying to indicate the end of that particular conversation.
Jane, for her part, was not at all willing to let the conversation end when it had hardly begun. True, she was a bit disappointed at her sister’s lack of observational ability, but supposed that a dramatic confession on Jeffery’s part was more romantic than a slow realization on Skye’s. Just how romantic it had been, however, she would have to wait to find out. She desperately wanted to pester Skye into retelling every little detail, no matter how small, but could tell just by listening to her sister’s irritated grumblings that it was probably not a good time to poke that particular bear.
She frowned across at the pages of Beatrice and Benedict’s bickering as she continued stitching. The script was propped haphazardly on her desk and held open by two coffee mugs, both overflowing with colorful pens, which made the task of looking to it for romantic guidance more difficult than it might have been otherwise. Still, she knew instinctively that she couldn’t just let the conversation end where it had, otherwise, once she was done pouting, Skye would pretend nothing had ever happened, and the issue would remain permanently unresolved. She couldn’t let that happen, either to Jeffrey or to Skye, who she was sure would regret shutting down the potential of any romantic involvement with Jeffrey without a second thought. Maybe not tomorrow, or the next day, or even the next week or next month, but eventually she’d regret it, certainly.
“Please at least tell me you didn’t yell at him. Or threaten to…” she checked the text, “Eat his heart in the marketplace.”
“Gross.”
“Poor, poor Jeffrey,” Jane sighed dramatically, switching tactics to try and annoy Skye into sharing.
“Poor Jeffrey?” Skye repeated angrily, although she still didn’t turn around or sit up, “What about poor me?”
“Poor you? You got a love confession!”
“You know I’ve never wanted one of those! And I’ve certainly never wanted one from Jeffrey,” Skye sighed, frustrated, “I’m not a sap like you are.”
Jane, who was admittedly very sappy indeed, finally broke. “How did he do it? Come on Skye, tell me what he said, please, I’m just dying to know! You can complain about it all you want, just give me details, for God’s sake!”
Skye remained stoically silent.
“It will make great fodder for the biography I’ll write of you one day. You know, when you’re a world-famous astrophysicist.”
It was unclear whether it was the flattery or the irrepressible human need to gossip with one’s sisters that won Skye over, but she did eventually turn over in bed to face Jane.
“Fine, I’ll tell you. But only because I want to complain.”
Jane beamed, and pulled her feet up under her into a criss-cross applesauce position even as she continued to sew, ready for storytime. Skye rolled her eyes, but continued anyway; “Well, first he said some nonsense about ‘always knowing he was meant to be a Penderwick.’”
Internally, Jane squealed with joy to hear Jeffrey confirm a feeling that she’d always had herself. But externally, she did her best to remain calm and collected. “That works out perfectly. I’ve always wanted an older brother.”
“No you haven’t,” snapped Skye, who still never missed an opportunity to correct others, “And anyway, I’m not marrying Jeffery.”
“Oh.” Feeling a great disappointment on the imminent horizon, Jane finally set down her needle. “Why not?”
“We’re still teenagers, for starters.”
“That’s a cop-out answer,” said Jane, “It’s a problem with marriage, not a problem with Jeffrey specifically.”
Skye rolled her eyes. “The problem with Jeffery is that…” she seemed to struggle for a moment to find the right combination of words to express her thoughts to her bright-eyed, romantic younger sister before giving up and settling for; “The problem is that he’s Jeffery, that’s what.”
“There can’t be that many problems with him,” Jane wheedled, “Otherwise he wouldn’t be your best friend.”
Skye thought about that for a moment. “Best friends and boyfriends are very different things,” she said, voicing the eventual conclusion she’d come to on her walk home.
“Oooh, he wants to be your boyfriend!” Jane squealed. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!”
“Was that not implied by him saying he’s in love with me?”
“You hadn’t specified. This is why I asked for the details of what he’s said; so we could be on the same page.”
“We’re not even in the same book,” Skye muttered darkly, “You probably think I should run back there, jump into his arms, and start planning our wedding, don’t you?”
“Of course! Well, maybe not those things exactly, but the same sentiment, certainly.”
“Have you met me? Fat chance I do anything but tell him to shut up and stop being stupid.”
“If you would actually tell me what Jeffrey said to you,” Jane insisted, ignoring Skye’s words, “then I could tell you exactly what I think you should do about it.”
“I’m not doing anything that you think I should do,” said Skye stubbornly.
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Jane repeated incredulously, “Nothing at all? A deeply romantic, handsome musician who also happens to be your best and dearest friend, threw himself at you-”
“He didn’t throw himself.”
“And practically begged you to even consider thinking about him in a romantic way,” Jane continued, undeterred, “and you’re going to do nothing?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
The situation was even more desperate than Jane had thought. This called for drastic action. “We need to talk to Rosalind,” she decided, springing up out of her chair, throwing down her sewing, and nearly upsetting her precarious reading setup. “She’ll talk some sense into you, I’m sure.”
“There is nothing I want to do less right now than talk to Rosalind,” said Skye firmly, not budging from her spot on the bed, “Except maybe talk to Jeffrey.”
“That’s exactly the problem!” Jane insisted. “You’re acting all standoffish and angry to try and avoid talking about hard things, the things that scare you, just like you always do.” She let out a long breath, then softened a bit. “You at least have to let him down gently. It’s Jeffery, for goodness sakes. He’s an honorary Penderwick, practically our brother. Well, maybe not your brother. That would be gross. But he’s mine and Rosalind and Batty’s.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” said Skye, “And I deeply resent the insinuation that my sisters get any say at all over my private life.”
Jane paused, frustrated, and bit her lip, thinking something over.
“That’s it, I’m calling a MOPS!” she announced dramatically, “We’re going to talk about this all together, to make sure you’re not allowed to avoid handling it any longer. And you can’t refuse to come, or else you’ll soil the Penderwick family honor!” With that she swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her. Even through the thick wood, Skye could hear her running down the hallway, pausing only to bang on Rosalind and Batty’s bedroom doors. “Emergency MOPS, right now, people! Meet me outside!”
Skye groaned, and buried her head in the pillows again.
“That means you too, Skye!” Jane shouted up the stairs, before also slamming the back door on her way out.
Skye had just made up her mind to stay right where she was, Penderwick family honor be damned, when her bedroom door swung back open and Rosalind’s head poked inside. “What’s going on? Is everything alright?” she asked, clearly worried that Skye was having an overwhelming, life-threatening crisis (which, to be fair, she sort of was) and trying to be gentle.
“Jane’s just being the worst ,” Skye reported, pushing herself up into a sitting position, “Remind me to never tell her anything, ever again.”
Rosalind frowned sympathetically, but seemed heartened to discover that Skye wasn’t actually in any physical mortal peril. “You’ve asked me to remind you that at least a dozen times, and it never seems to stick.”
Before Skye could dignify that with a response, Batty came stumbling in through the door as well, holding her hands over her ears. “Jane’s being loud,” she said, as though it were both the beginning and end of a conversation.
“What else is new?” Skye grumbled in agreement.
“She’s going to keep being loud until you agree to attend the emergency MOPS,” Rosalind said pointedly.
Skye shook her head firmly. “Nope, not going.”
Batty gasped so dramatically that she had to take her hands off her ears to hold her cheeks. “You can’t just decide not to go to a MOPS!” she insisted with the same childish certainty with which someone might have observed that the grass was green or that the sun rose every morning. “You’ll…tarnish the family honor.”
“You don’t even know what that means,” said Skye, “you’re just repeating something you’ve heard Jane say.” Batty scowled, but didn’t dispute the claim. “And anyway, I’m not going because Jane’s trying to call a meeting about something that’s my business and my business only, which I distinctly do not want to talk about.”
Rosalind narrowed her eyes, and Skye could tell that she was trying to guess all the possible problems Skye might have told Jane about that could have warranted such a desperate call for MOPS.
“Skye! Rosalind! Batty! Come on!” came a shout up the stairs, causing Batty to clamp her hands over her ears again, “I’m not getting any younger down here!” Jane seemed to have decided that her sisters weren’t being quick enough, and had come back inside to see what was holding them up.
“If you won’t come for family honor, or to talk about your problems, then at least come so stop Jane from yelling. You know, for the sake of Batty’s ears,” Rosalind said, pushing Batty forward like she was some sort of sad puppy in an animal shelter ad, meant to convince you to donate money.
“Please, Skye? For the sake of my ears?” Batty asked, blinking her eyes slowly and sadly. Even the most stoic, hard-hearted villain in the world couldn’t have resisted. Briefly, Skye thought of Mrs. Tifton, wondering what her response would be to Batty’s nearly perfected puppy dog eyes, before she remembered that she was trying very hard not to think about any of the Tiftons at that particular moment.
“Rosalind, you’re turning our innocent angel of a baby sister into a master manipulator,” Skye griped, even as she was climbing out of bed and pulling on a jacket. “Fine, alright, I’ll go to the MOPS,” she groaned, and Rosalind and Batty both cheered, “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it doesn’t mean I have to tell you all my business.”
“That’s okay,” said Batty brightly as they trooped downstairs, “We’ll just get Jane to tell us.”
Skye briefly considered throwing herself down the staircase, but was stopped short of following through by Rosalind grabbing her hand and squeezing it, in what she clearly thought was a comforting, older sisterly way. “You don’t have to tell, if you really don’t want to,” she whispered solemnly, “It wouldn’t be the first time someone in the family’s kept a secret, and it won’t be the last. I mean, remember Jane’s Aztec play?”
Skye had to work very hard to pretend that she was not genuinely soothed by Rosalind’s words, or by feeling the soft touch of her probably recently moisturized hand. “This might be bigger than Jane’s Aztec play,” was all she said, before forcing herself to let Rosalind go and follow her younger sister into the living room.
“C’mon, Hound,” Batty called, and the very good, very old dog complied immediately, only taking a few moments to yawn and negotiate his way off the couch before loping contentedly across the room towards Batty, who he greeted with a slobbery kiss on the cheek.
While Batty and Hound shared a heartfelt reunion after their few minutes apart, Rosalind knocked lightly on the door to Mr. Penderwick’s study, and poked her head in. “We’re going outside for a minute, Dad. We’ll be back soon, so please don’t get worried if you can’t find us!” The oldest sister was, as always, demonstrating her keen skill of worrying about making their father worry.
Skye only understood half of Mr. Penderwick’s reply, both because it was muffled by the wall and because it had been in Latin. She thought she’d picked up the words ‘fresh air’ and ‘health’, and so assumed that they’d received their father’s blessing to leave the house. Not that they particularly needed it, as old as they were now, but it was still nice to have.
Together, the three girls trooped outside to meet Jane, who was standing by the backyard gate with her arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently.
“Has the word ‘emergency’ lost all meaning in this house?” she asked.
“We came as quickly as we could,” said Rosalind patiently.
Jane made a disbelieving noise, but said nothing else. Seeing that no argument was imminent, Batty pushed open the gate and led the way to the meeting spot. She skipped down the path, Hound following loyally a few steps behind, looking for any tree roots or wild animals that could prove dangerous. Rosalind walked side by side with Jane, glancing at her from time to time, seemingly trying to gather clues on why they were meeting. Skye brought up the rear, trudging along reluctantly through the leaves.
The old log where the Penderwicks used to hold their meetings had long since rotted away into nothing. But still, traditions were traditions, and so the sisters continued to meet in the same spot, sitting in a circle on the ground in the same spot the log had once stood. It was a special hope of Jane’s, often shared, that the soil in that place would grow so rich and fertile from the nutrients of the log and all the secrets of the sisters that one day it would grow over with wildflowers and then sprout a huge, beautiful tree of its own, the roots of which could hold the secret meetings of a new generation of little girls. Skye thought that this was unlikely to happen, given that the woods were well into the mature forest stage of succession, and the tree canopy was too thick to let enough light through for a sapling to grow on. But she also knew after years upon years of being Jane’s sister that scientific facts would never prove powerful enough to dampen her hopes, and so had given up trying.
“MOPS, come to order,” began Rosalind formally once they were all settled in their spots, and then all eyes swung to Skye, waiting for her approval.
“Second the motion,” she signed, ignoring both Jane’s self-satisfied giggle and Rosalind’s sigh of relief.
“Third it,” said Jane, excitement making her a tad less dignified than normal.
“Fourth it,” said Batty, glancing quickly from older sister to older sister, as if hoping for some answers about why they were there. When none came, she yielded her turn, but not before whispering;
“And fifth it for Hound.” Hound, always pleased to be included in such things, gave an appreciative woof and nuzzled into her side.
Skye rolled her eyes, but still said nothing.
“All swear to keep secret what is said here, even from Dad, unless you think someone might do something truly bad,” Rosalind continued, with exactly the same gravitas in her nearly adult voice that there had been in the voice of the child who’d originally helped come up with the words. Then she held out her fist, waiting for Skye, then Jane, then finally Batty, to stack theirs on top.
“This I swear, by the Penderwick Family Honor,” they all chanted, Skye in a dejected monotone.
After that, there was a long, awkward silence in which Rosalind glanced back and forth between Skye and Jane, evidently trying to decide which sister to cede the floor to; the one who had called the meeting, or that one who was actually having the problem the meeting had been called for. Hound, sensing that they would be there for a while, laid down at Batty’s feet and resumed his previously interrupted nap.
Eventually Jane answered the question for her; “Either you tell them, or I do, Skye,” she threatened, “It affects the whole family.”
Skye had come to the MOPS fully intending to stay silent and refuse to share any details about that morning’s incident, but under the combined gaze of her three sisters; Rosalind’s sympathetic and soft, Jane’s sharp and insistent, and Batty’s curious and slightly confused, her resolution crumbled. She needed them to understand that it wasn’t their fault, it was almost never their fault, that Skye was angry and irritable. She needed to tell someone else what had happened and know that they were listening, that they understood how she felt. And maybe even more than that, she needed to finally share, with the people who cared most, the secret she’d been holding deep, deep down inside in a place not even she could reach. The secret that had been brewing for months, maybe years, but was just coming to a head and making itself known to its holder right this minute.
“Fine, fine, fine, I’ll talk, okay? It’s about Jeffrey,” Skye began. Then, struck by a sudden thought, she turned to Batty. “You don’t still want to marry him, do you?” she asked, slightly concerned.
Batty shook her head solemnly. “Keiko says our star signs aren’t compatible. Also, he’s much too old for me.”
Skye allowed herself a momentary sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to break her little sister’s heart before continuing. “Today, when we went for our walk, he told me…he told me that he’s in love with me.”
Rosalind let out an overjoyed gasp. “Oh, Skye, but that’s wonderful! Why have you been acting like something bad’s happened?”
“Because she told him she didn’t love him back and to shut up and never talk to her about romance again,” huffed Jane, clearly still irritated by her sister’s refusal to engage with what she saw as a perfect fairy-tale, childhood friends to lovers story arc.
“Oh, Skye, you didn’t,” sighed Rosalind, disappointed.
“So what if I did? It’s my life anyway, why do you all care so much?”
“Probably because we want you to be happy,” said Batty, who was the most observant of all the family despite being the youngest, and knew one thing if she knew anything; that Jeffrey Tifton made her sister happy.
Skye’s expression softened a bit. “But what if that’s not what makes me happy? What if I don’t want Jeffrey to be in love with me?”
“Then that’s fine,” said Rosalind, “But it’s not his fault that he is. And he certainly doesn’t deserve to be yelled at or kicked out of the house. He’s friends with all of us, not just you, so we should all get a say in things like that.”
“I didn’t yell at him or kick him out. It wasn’t nearly as bad as Jane thinks it was. She wasn’t even there,” said Skye, but her retort lacked the usual fire, and her mouth was sinking deeper into a frown by the moment.
“I can’t help that I embellish in my head when you refuse to give me any details! It’s part of who I am!”
“Not the point, Jane,” Rosalind scolded gently. Once she’d realized that Skye hadn’t actually said anything terrible to Jeffrey or told him to leave them all alone, her sympathies had switched sides. “This is about Skye. It’s her problem, so we let her decide how to handle it.” Jane opened her mouth to protest again, but Rosalind cut her off; “So long as the way she decides to handle it doesn’t involve completely alienating Jeffrey.” Jane nodded, mollified.
“I don’t want to alienate him at all,” said Skye, “I just want things to stay the way they’ve always been between us; best friends, nothing else complicated or confusing.”
“But if he’s been in love with you this whole time, has it ever really been not complicated?” asked Batty, once again sounding wise beyond her years, even as she threw handfuls of leaves into the air for Hound to catch. Hound woofed, either in agreement, or in delight at this new diversion.
Rosalind reached out to pluck a leaf out of where it had gotten caught in Batty’s long, messy hair. “Very good point, Batty,” she said, and Batty grinned. “Did you really never notice, Skye? Years of the two of you arguing like an old married couple, going to visit each other for every holiday you could, writing letters when you couldn’t visit, keeping pictures of each other on your desks, talking on the phone every other night and sometimes just sitting there in silence to do homework together, and you never once thought there was something deeper there for him than friendship?”
“I dunno. I guess I just thought he’d get over it sooner or later,” Skye shrugged rather pathetically, “And to be fair, the pictures are of both of us together. It’s not like he keeps a portrait of me in a locket.”
“And it’s not just him,” Rosalind continued, ignoring that last statement, “You’ve always been…protective of him, in a way the rest of us aren’t. He’s all of ours, of course, has been since that first summer, but he’s always been yours first and foremost. You found him for us, brought him into the fold. You two have always been Jeffrey and Skye, inseparable in a way the rest of us could never really understand.”
Skye nodded, slowly, recognizing the truth when it was told to her.
“So…” Rosalind paused, looking across at her little sister with overwhelming love and care, “if you can look me in my eyes right now, and swear that you don’t love him back even a little bit, then we’ll all drop the subject forever and never bring it up again. But if you can’t do that, if you’re just pretending not to have emotions, the way you always do when you’re scared of something, then it’s our job as your sisters not to let you self-sabotage something that could really, truly make you happy.”
Skye swallowed deeply, looked up at Rosalind, opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. She thought about the question, really thought about it, which meant thinking about Jeffrey, something she’d been resolutely refusing to do for the past hour, ever since he’d said he loved her. She thought about the way his eyes had shined as he’d said it. She thought about how he’d called her beautiful. She thought about the deep, abiding, brotherly care he had for Rosalind, Jane, and Batty. She thought about why he’d become her best friend in the first place. She thought about the long, lazy summer afternoons at Arundel and Point Mouette. She thought about playing soccer in the dorm room hallways in Boston. She thought about the way he played piano. She thought about long phone calls full of stories and laughter and comforting silence. She thought about how she’d been willing to run away with him within a few short weeks of knowing him. She thought about what it meant to love.
For a long moment, nothing came out of her mouth. Then, suddenly, as if the truth had bubbled up inside her and could no longer be contained: “I can’t. I can’t swear that.” And with that, her entire facade crumbled, all her anger vanished, and she collapsed desperately into Rosalind’s comforting embrace.
It took all of Jane’s inner strength and respect for her sister’s dignity not to squeal and say “I knew it!”, but she did exchange delighted grins with Batty, who then momentarily stopped throwing leaves for Hound to make sure he was following all the very important developments. Skye, meanwhile, had begun to sob softly into Rosalind’s sweater. Rosalind was used to crying little sisters, even if Skye had always cried least of all, and knew exactly what to do.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered, stroking comforting fingers through Skye’s hair, “Just let it all out.”
Skye, who had clearly been holding all of these tears inside for a very long time, did so. It wasn’t until several long minutes had passed and a large wet stain had spread its way across Rosalind’s chest that Skye was able to sit back up and speak in words that weren’t unintelligible sobs.
“I’m sorry. I’m being so stupid,” Skye sniffled, embarrassed.
“You’re not being stupid,” Rosalind promised.
“Not stupid at all,” agreed Batty.
“You’ve never been stupid in your life,” said Jane, “Well, maybe that time when-” Batty stepped on Jane’s foot and cut her off.
Skye let out a wet chuckle. “I always told myself that I’d never cry over a boy,” she complained, sitting up and wiping her eyes, “But here I am.”
“He’s not really a boy,” said Batty, “He’s Jeffrey.”
“A boy who loves me,” Skye groaned, as if the truth had just set in. “And he said all these beautiful things, and I said nothing back and then I just left and told him not to come back to the house, because I knew that if I had to look at his sad face any longer I wouldn’t be able to keep on pretending that I didn’t care. Oh, God, he’s probably still out there.”
“You left him in the woods!?” exclaimed Rosalind, suddenly frantic, and pushing slightly away from Skye like she was about to take it upon herself to head a rescue mission.
“He’s sixteen, Rosy, not six. He’ll be fine,” Skye grumbled, even as tears continued to leak slowly out of the corners of her eyes.
“Unless he meets a bear,” said Batty darkly, dropping her newest handful of leaves without tossing them.
“He’s not going to meet a bear,” said Skye.
“He might. And if he does…” Batty trailed off before finishing her sentence, and Skye knew she probably meant nothing bad by it, but she could still hear the unsaid ‘it will be your fault’ echoing in her ears.
“Why didn’t you say anything back to him, Skye?” Jane asked, attempting to move on from the bear as much as she was attempting to satiate her own curiosity, “Why did you just leave?”
“I dunno,” Skye sniffled. “I guess…I guess I was scared that if I said something back that would make it all real. That it would make it something we actually had to deal with, instead of something we could keep avoiding. ”
“Oh, Skye,” Rosalind sighed, resuming her comforting hair stroking, “You can’t just avoid these sorts of things forever.”
“I can sure as hell try,” Skye mumbled. Rosalind paused to glare down at her, loving but firm. “Alright, Rosy, alright, maybe I can’t. But I’ve avoided for so long that I have no idea how to stop avoiding. ”
“Avoided what?” asked Batty, trying to keep up even though she was missing every other sentence while playing with Hound.
“Talking about her emotions,” Jane answered for Skye, “Because she actually does love Jeffrey back but doesn’t want him to know because…actually I don’t know why she doesn’t want him to know.”
“Because it will change things between us,” Skye sighed, “We won’t be able to just be best friends anymore. Didn’t I say that already?”
“You’ve barely said anything!” protested Jane. It was indicative of Skye’s current dejected mood that she didn’t immediately respond with a snappy retort.
“Just because you love him doesn’t mean you have to date him,” said Rosalind wisely. “But you should at least let him know.”
“So that he doesn’t mope for the rest of his life,” added Jane.
“He wouldn’t mope for the rest of his life,” said Skye, “It’s just a…a silly teenage crush.”
Rosalind shook her head slowly. “You really have no idea, do you?” she realized softly, “The way he looks at you? The way he talks about you? You’ve really never noticed.”
Skye just blinked, saying nothing.
“Maybe not the whole rest of his life,” said Jane, trying to fill the silence. “But it would almost be worse if he stopped moping and moved on, wouldn’t it? You’d have to see him with someone else, looking at them the way he used to look at you and that would be the exact moment that you realized you loved and wanted him but you’d lost your chance forever and-”
Batty stepped on Jane’s foot again, harder this time.
“Sorry,” Jane muttered, leaning down to rub her foot in pain, “I guess I’m still in-”
“Writer brain,” said Rosalind, Skye, and Batty all together. They caught each other’s eyes and all laughed, breaking the tension.
“So. Back to the matter at hand. If you want help with not avoiding, why don’t you tell us what you’d actually like to say to him, and we’ll figure out a way to help you say it?” suggested Rosalind.
“Just like that first Jeffrey-related MOPS all those years ago,” cried Jane, delighted by the thematic symmetry, “When we helped you apologize for running into him and insulting Ms. Tifton.”
“That was before we knew how much Ms. Tifton really deserved to be insulted. And how Jeffrey deserves to be knocked into sometimes,” said Skye, and all her sisters were cheered to see that she’d retained her ability to joke as well as laugh.
“Was I there for that one?” asked Batty, who always liked to mine Arundel stories for every detail about herself that she could.
“I don’t think so,” said Rosalind, “You were probably in bed.”
Batty pouted. In her opinion, nothing could really be that important to reminisce about if she hadn’t been there. Once she’d been mollified, Rosalind and Jane both promising that from what they could remember it had really been a very boring meeting, and that Batty wouldn’t have wanted to be there anyway, the MOPS was able to get back on topic. Hound, seeing that everything was likely to work out without needing his help, went back to napping on the forest floor.
It was first decided that it was already too late in the day for it to be salvaged to any meaningful extent, so the bulk of the Penderwicks’ plans would have to be carried out the next day, Sunday. Jane thought this a fortuitous string of events. “If you take the traditional European calendars into account,” she said, “Sunday is actually the first day of the week. So you’re starting a new week and a new relationship on the same day! Sounds lucky, doesn’t it?” Skye didn’t particularly think so, but she was also grateful enough for her sister’s support that she kept her doubts to herself.
Then it was discussed, in great detail, how Skye should go about trying to talk to Jeffrey, where she should do it, the kind of things she should say, and the questions she should ask. Skye put her foot down when Rosalind tried to bring up her choice of wardrobe, as if that mattered at all under the circumstances. They eventually, after tens of minutes of deliberation and several small disagreements, reached a series of conclusions.
Jane volunteered to retrieve Jeffrey from the woods, which she was allowed to do only after being pulled aside by Skye and explicitly forbidden from discussing anything even close to romance with him. It was a rather painful experience for poor Jane, to have to see the hopeful expression on Jeffrey’s face when he first heard her tramping down the path, and then the disappointed slump when he realized which sister had come for him. The walk back to the house was almost equally awful, as Jane, usually such a shimmering conversationalist, could think of nothing at all to say that would not give away all that she had learned or all that the Penderwicks had decided. She picked nervously at her hair as they walked, until about halfway through when she realized that she’d pulled nearly all of her curls out of the braided buns they’d been in before. Then she occupied her hands and mind with the task of rebraiding, which unfortunately was not quite difficult enough to entirely take her mind off the Skye and Jeffrey situation. After what felt like hours, but was probably more like fifteen minutes, they arrived back at the house, where Rosalind and Jane combined forces to ensure that Jeffrey at least ate a little bit of dinner and drank a little bit of water before retiring to bed on the couch.
Skye, safely sequestered up in her room, pretended to herself that she had not waited up, listening for the creaking of the back door and soft voices downstairs to confirm that Jeffrey was home safe and sound. She lay in bed, refusing to let herself get up and leave the room, pretending she had to use the bathroom, just to peer downstairs and try to catch a glimpse of Jeffrey, to see how he looked. Instead, she lay very still, steeling herself for what she had to do the next day.
That next morning, Jeffrey rose as late as he could manage without being an inconvenience to his hosts. Mr. Penderwick and Iantha, seemingly oblivious to any tensions between their daughters and their guest, had worked with Rosalind to prepare a truly incredible breakfast spread before trooping outside to do some weeding in the flower beds. Luckily, this meant that they didn’t notice the way the rest of the household drifted in and out of the kitchen, stacking their plates with food and then returning up to their rooms, rather than sitting at the dining table and talking, as they usually did.
Rosalind prepared Jeffrey a plate that he thought probably would have kept him full the whole day; overflowing with scrambled eggs, buttered toast, sausages, bacon, and hashbrowns with ketchup. He picked at it just enough to make her happy, and then fed the rest to Hound once she’d left the room.
After breakfast, Jeffrey was faced with a confusing feeling. One that was intimately familiar to him, but had never before occurred in the Penderwick household; loneliness. He hadn’t expected Skye to want to see him, of course, not after how she’d reacted the day before, but the other three Penderwicks had all become suddenly and inexplicably busy as well; Rosalind with an important assignment for English class that she’d only just remembered, Jane with divine inspiration that she claimed had struck for a difficult scene in her play, that had to be harnessed right then or else lost forever, and Batty with a desperate need to take Hound for a walk. “He’s got to work off all that breakfast. Otherwise, he might throw up on your bed later,” she said, and Hound, playing his part to perfection, whined on cue. While Jeffrey had known the girls long enough that he probably should have suspected that something was afoot, his mind was not exactly working at full capacity that day.
Assuming that Skye was still trying to avoid him, and unwilling to disturb anyone else while they were busy, Jeffrey settled himself in the living room with a copy of Pride and Prejudice that he’d scavenged from one of the many haphazard piles of books covering Jane’s floor.
Only a few chapters in, however, his hypothesis about Skye was proven wrong when she ducked her head in the door and spoke to him, in a forcibly casual way.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” she asked, without preamble.
Jeffrey raised his eyebrows slightly, as if to say; A walk, really? Don’t you remember what happened the last time we went for a walk? But then he nodded agreeably, marked his place in his book, and stood up from the couch.
“Lead on,” he said, holding the back door for her as they tramped outside from the kitchen.
For a while they walked in, if not companionable, then at least not as awkward as it could have been, silence. Eventually, a few minutes after they’d crossed the bridge, Skye sat down on a large rock that lay beside the path, and gestured for Jeffrey to join her.
“I didn’t let you finish…yesterday,” she began.
“No, you didn’t,” agreed Jeffrey, sounding relatively unbothered.
“But I’d like to let you finish now.”
“I’d like that too,” he agreed, but when didn’t immediately start speaking, Skye understood that it was up to her to reignite yesterday’s conversation from where it had left off.
“So. When did you first decide that you were…in love with me?” Skye stumbled over the words, like they were physically difficult to get out of her mouth.
“When you crashed into me in our hedge tunnel, nearly gave me a concussion, and then, instead of apologizing, decided to insult my mother.”
Skye’s nervousness dropped away, replaced by a scowl. “Be serious!”
“I am being serious. But if you want a more profound answer, then fine. I was a lonely child-”
“I know that already.”
“Listen. You asked a question and I’m giving you the answer.”
“Fine.”
“I was a lonely child. Lonely in ways that people like you, who grew up surrounded by a big, loving family, can never really understand. I had my mother, and she loved me, or at least tried to, but she certainly almost never showed it. I didn’t have brothers or sisters or neighbors to play with and I hated everyone stuck up heir and heiress that I was forced to go to school with. So, love was something I never really experienced. I read about it in books, and saw it in movies, sure, but I never really felt it, you know? And when you’ve never felt something before, how can you even learn to recognize it that first time? Turns out, the best way for me to really understand that I loved someone was to understand that they loved me first.”
“I never-”
“Would you just listen? It was at Point Mouette, right after I’d found out that Alec was my father. Big day for me, I know. I was sitting there, by the ocean, just thinking. There was my father, not dead, not lost at sea, not even across the world. Right there, a few hundred miles away in Maine, and he’d never once tried to look for me, never wanted to meet his son. Well, I know that’s not true now, but it was what I was thinking at the time. I sat on the beach wondering if I was the worst, most unwanted child in the whole world. And I might have believed it too, if you hadn’t been there watching over me. You’re probably the most impatient person I know, and you hate dealing with emotions, especially other people’s, but you sat there with me for hours anyway. Not talking, not skipping rocks on the water, not doing anything else, just sitting, watching me, making sure I was safe, and waiting for the moment that I was okay enough to eat and speak again. I think you would have stayed there all night, even once the tide came in and soaked your shoes, if I’d needed it.”
Skye nodded subconsciously. Of course she would have.
“I didn’t realize at the time, of course, I had a bit too much going on emotionally already. But when I looked back on it later I thought; That’s love. To sit in a wet, sandy, uncomfortable place for hours on end just in case someone else needs you. Plain and simple, there’s nothing else that could be but love. And once it had occurred to me that you loved me, no matter which way, well, then I couldn’t stop myself from realizing just how much I loved you.”
They sat with that for a moment.
“I do,” Skye whispered eventually.
“Do what?” Jeffery asked slowly, such obvious hope for a certain answer radiating off his face that it was almost painful to look at.
“Love you. I do love you. I just…I don’t know if it’s the right way. That’s why it scares me so bad, I think.”
“Why what scares you so bad?”
“You. Us. Love,” Skye admitted, each answer a bit more truthful than the last. “Because what if we do it? What if we try dating and it all goes wrong and falls apart and I’m awful at being a girlfriend and then you hate me and we break up and never talk again and I lose my best friend and my family loses a brother and my sisters will resent me forever for driving you away and they’ll be right because it will all be my fault and-”
“Skye,” Jeffrey cut in, speaking her name slowly, deliberately, like it was a revelation, “You don’t have to be scared about all that stuff.”
“But I am! I’m scared that I can’t be what you want me to be. I’m scared that if…when things change between us you’ll realize that I’m a…difficult person to care about. I’m rude, and abrasive, and stubborn, and I’m scared that if we try to date you’ll stop tolerating all those things and start being seriously annoyed by them. I’m scared that I can’t be a girlfriend. I’m especially scared because even if I can be a girlfriend, I still don’t think I can ever be the girlfriend you deserve. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever.”
“I understand that you’re scared,” said Jeffery quickly, “But you don’ t have to be, you know? Because I don’t want you to change. I don’t want things between us to change, not really. Just a little change, you know, a shared understanding. And no matter what happens between us, nothing could ever make me hate you or stop talking to you or stop being your best friend, and certainly nothing on earth could ever make your sisters resent you.” He paused to take a breath, and then continued; “And besides, who cares what I ‘deserve’? I care about what I want, and what I want is you. I want you for exactly who you are, exactly as you are. I want you as Skye Penderwick; soccer star, tutor who helped me pass calculus, reluctant but responsible OAP, future Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist, member of the world’s most interesting family, and my best friend.”
When the weight of that statement and everything that had come before it truly sunk in, Skye only had two options; she could either burst into tears for the second time in two days, or she could suck it up and kiss the beautiful, sincere boy sitting right in front of her, who, for some reason she still didn’t entirely understand, loved her right down to the core.
Being a woman of action, and one who hated crying in front of other people at that, she chose option two.
Jeffrey reacted immediately, his hands leaping up to hold the sides of Skye’s face and twirling one of his fingers through her hair, which she could admit to herself felt kind of nice. It was the longest kiss Skye had ever had, and inarguably the best one. So obviously the best one that she decided none of the others had ever counted, and that this kiss with Jeffrey right now was her first ever.
When they finally broke apart, Jeffrey’s eyes were sparkling in a way that made Skye wonder why she’d never noticed just how green they were before. Like emeralds, maybe, or oxidized copper. God, she was getting sentimental already.
“Wow,” Jeffrey whispered, “Amazing.”
“Worth waiting almost six years for?” Skye asked, her tone a strange mixture of quip and self-deprecation.
“Definitely.”
Seeing that Skye still looked somewhat anxious, Jeffrey gently placed his hands back on either side of her face, and stared meaningfully into her eyes.
“Hey,” he whispered, “Nothing’s going to change between us. Or, maybe I shouldn’t say that. Nothing’s going to change in a way that ruins it. Is that better?”
“Nothing’s going to change in a way that ruins it,” Skye repeated, slightly incredulously. She pulled out of Jeffrey’s grip, not in a dismissive way, but just because she needed space to think over what he was saying.
“Exactly. Because some things are going to change-”
“Like the kissing,” she smirked, teasing eyes aglint once again.
“Well, you know, hopefully. But, following on that theme, things are going to change for the better, not the worse. The same way things always change when you grow up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, like, Batty might not wear her wings anymore, but she gave them to me and I took them to school to hang on my wall, so they’re still around. Jane used to just have one special blue notebook, and now she has a whole shelf, but the first one’s still there, all beat-up and loved and full of Sabrina Starr. You still have Dexter the soccer ball, and I still have our rubber-covered arrows, even if we don’t use them as much as we used to. Rosalind’s always kept that picture of her and your mom on her bedside table, and it's lightened up from years of sitting in the sun, but it’s still beautiful and important. Things have changed, now that we’re older, but that doesn’t mean they’re worse.”
Skye couldn’t help herself; she kissed him again. “You think beautiful thoughts,” she said after a few moments, too caught up in Jeffrey and his sparkling eyes to realize how stupid that would sound later in her memories.
“I get rewarded for my thoughts now?” he grinned. “Do I get another kiss if I tell you that I have a whole binder of songs I wrote for you?”
He did, but only after also promising that he’d play some of them for her when they got back to the house.
“I can’t promise to always understand the music stuff you tell me about,” Skye warned him once they’d broken apart again, “Or that I won’t get distracted in my own head sometimes and only pretend to listen.”
Jeffery laughed, feeling lighter than he had in months. “You want to know something? Sometimes, when you start talking about math stuff, I totally zone out and just wait for your mouth to stop moving to tell you you’re a genius.”
Skye frowned, but then let out a light amused snort. “And here I was, thinking I was alone in being a terrible friend. I must admit that you’re more convincing than me though, you always look so focused.”
“That’s because I play Liszt’s La Campanella in my head,” he admitted, and the guilty expression on his face finally made Skye laugh out loud.
“You are such a music dork,” she said affectionately, “That’s another thing that will never change.”
“And you’re such a math nerd,” he retorted, “That won’t change either. Maybe you should start factoring polynomials in your head or something to look focused when I talk.”
Skye laughed again, and it was such a beautiful noise to Jeffrey that he couldn’t help but join in.
“Speaking of things that will never change, are you up for a game of two-on-one slaughter?” she asked, pushing herself up off the rock and into a standing position, “I’m sure we can drag Jane away from her writing long enough for at least a couple rounds.”
“Sure. But I call being on your team to start,” he said, grabbing her outstretched hand to pull himself up as well.
“That’s highly unfair.” Skye paused deliberately before continuing; “And also completely obvious.”
As they walked back through the woods, Jeffery decided to push his luck one final time.
“You know…” he said slowly, “I’ve always thought that Jeffery Penderwick had an awfully nice ring to it.”
Skye kicked him in the shin.
Yep, nothing’s changed at all , he thought brightly to himself as his leg collapsed under him, sending him toppling into a pile of dry, crunchy, leaves.
But then Skye hung back to make sure he wasn’t really hurt, brushed some leaves out of his hair, and didn’t seem to mind that he hadn’t let go of her hand after she’d reached out to pull him up off the forest floor.
“What are you so happy about?” she asked suspiciously, noticing Jeffrey’s wide grin.
“Oh, just being here with you.”
Skye blushed and grumbled something about sappiness under her breath, but still didn’t take her hand back.
Well, maybe there’s been a little change, he amended, but it’s the good kind. Just like I promised.
And indeed, there had been a change between them, as everyone from Iantha to Hound noticed once they’d returned to the house. Skye and Jeffrey dominated the game of slaughter, in-sync in a way it seemed they’d never been before. Under different circumstances, Jane might have been upset to be so thoroughly outclassed at what she considered her game, but that day she was just so glad to see Jeffrey and her sister back the way they always should have been that she couldn’t bring herself to mind.
Batty couldn’t keep her eyes off Skye and Jeffrey, evidently searching for visual signs of romance. This continued to the point where, at dinner, Rosalind had to verbally scold her to focus on finishing her chicken and dumplings rather than staring across the table without blinking. But Rosalind too, couldn’t stop herself from looking up every so often and smiling softly at what yesterday’s MOPS had been able to accomplish.
If Skye couldn’t help humming a song no one else recognized as she got ready for bed that night, that was no one’s business but her own. And if Jane woke up to the soft tink of pebbles hitting her and Skye’s bedroom window, she just turned over, plugged her headphones in, and forced herself to go back to sleep instead of eavesdropping on any conversation happening on the roof. And if Mr. Penderwick noticed that Skye and Jeffrey both looked exhausted at breakfast that next morning, kept blushing when their hands brushed over the salt and shooting each other secret smiles, he decided that he was just glad to see his second daughter looking so happy for a change.