another, a tether-ball pole, a basketball net, and in between the rolling, leaf-scattered grass to leap about in, to roll in, to chase each other through. She heard Felicity’s voice, and maybe Carol’s. The sounds were a little foreign, but beckoning, full of resonance.
Alice sat at the kitchen table across from her father. He read the sports section, she read the funnies and did the word games. He lowered the paper and she noticed he hadn’t shaved this morning. “Sounds like a pack of coyotes out there,” he said.
“It’s a terrible noise,” said her mother, who was at the stove browning meat for tonight’s stew. The kitchen smelled of oregano and fat and pepper. “Alice’s friends,” Andrew said.
“Oh, I don’t think that’s her crowd,” said Cynthia.
“I know them. I think that’s Felicity.”
“Why don’t you go see?” said her father. “You’ve been cooped-up in here far too long.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Drew. She’s still convalescing.”
“I, I think I might like to.”
“Don’t feel pressured just because your father says things,”
“Cynthia, she looks like a little ghost. She needs some sun. A good run round will do her the world of good.”
“I’m going to go out. Just for a little while,” said Alice.
“I was going to make you some cinnamon toast,” said her mother. “And some tea.”
The voices were louder now and she could practically smell the sunshine. Her feet tingled. “I won’t be out for long and I can have it when I come back.”
“Well…”
“Please, please?”
“Go on, Alice. Go on,” said her father.
She was up and out of her chair in a flash. Quicker, really, than she’d thought possible. Suddenly she wanted movement, wanted to flex things. She twitched with it.
“Are you sure you’re up to it? Wear your jacket and scarf,” Cynthia called.
Alice rounded the corner of the house and caught sight of them – red and blue and green coats flashing against the dark leaf-tattered tree trunks at the back of the MacKay’s house, where the street, and the yards, dead-ended into forest.
“Hey,” she called, but of course, they couldn’t hear her. “It’s me, Alice.”
She set out at a trot, but in less than a minute she was winded, her legs tired. She wondered if maybe her mother was right, perhaps she wasn’t ready to be out yet, but her heart clenched at the thought of missing Kathy and Carol and even Felicity, whose voice she could clearly hear, louder than the rest, yelling out from between the trees. Things would be different now, she was sure. They would be interested in her since she had suffered this Terrible Illness, and come through it so bravely.
The air was rich with the scent of autumn, of burning leaves and the crisp freshness that foretells oncoming winter. It gave her energy and she walked a little, and ran a little, until she reached the edge of the woods.
“Hey,” she called.
The girls were by the streambed, which was low at this time of year. It was dappled with fallen leaves, gold and red against the slate-gray water and the stones. It was Kathy in the red coat, Carol in the blue. They looked like two painted boulders, hunkered down by the edge of the water. Felicity and the other girls were farther along into the woods, whooping and running, chasing each other with sticks.
“Hi,” said Alice again.
Kathy looked over her shoulder and nudged Carol. “Look who it is,” she said.
“What are you doing out?” said Carol. She brushed her long hair back over her shoulder, tucking it behind her ear.
“I’m all better.”
“No,” said Kathy.
The two girls stood up. Kathy was taller than Carol, but both their noses were perfectly pert and their teeth were straight. Kathy had red hair, as wavy as Carol’s was silken and straight. Even Kathy’s freckles were perfect.
“What are you doing?” said Alice. She smiled with every muscle in her face. She wanted to beam at them, to glow with them. She wondered what she had been doing in the house with her mother all these weeks, when here, right at the end of her street was this magic forest of possibilities. She felt like an elf, maybe, yes – like the three of them, even Felicity and the wild girls, were fairies in this wood, and that anything could happen.
“You can’t be around us,” said Carol, and she linked her arm through Kathy’s.
“What?” The smile on Alice’s face was heavy then, and so she let it droop. “Why?”
“Because you carry germs.” Carol giggled.
“Typhoid Mary, that’s what my mother calls you,” and Kathy giggled as well. “It means you aren’t safe to be around.”
The other girls, the wild girls, had stopped their whooping and hollering and come closer. Alice looked over her shoulder. They formed an unsmiling half circle behind her.
“I don’t carry germs. I’m better,” said Alice.
“We don’t want you here,” said Felicity, coming forward. She had a smear on her cheek and it looked like war paint to Alice. “I’m lucky I didn’t die, being around you, letting you in my house.”
“That’s stupid.” This wasn’t what was supposed to happen at all. Alice’s lower lip began to tremble. She imagined the conversations that had gone on at school these last three weeks. The whispering between Carol and Kathy.
Kathy took a few steps forward. “Go home, Alice. No one wants you around.”
“No.”
“I mean it, go home.” Kathy’s face flushed. She folded her arms across her chest and glared.
“I threw your homework in the garbage,” said Carol, and Alice couldn’t believe how proud of herself she sounded. “As if I’d bring it to your house! My mother said if Mrs. Sergeant wanted you to get your homework she could jolly well bring it to you herself.”
It was strange, and frightening, the way the other girls had gone quiet, as if they were waiting for something to happen, as if they were waiting to pounce. Alice’s heart was a rabbit in her chest, scrunched down and frozen, beating at twelve times normal.
“You’ll fail this year, you’ve missed so much. You’ll get held back and we won’t have to have you in our class again.”
A gust of wind swirled through the trees, and all around them, the golden leaves fluttered and danced. One struck Alice in the face and stuck there. It was cold and a little sharp. She brushed if off while the girls laughed. She would not cry, no matter what they said, she vowed she would not cry. She looked down at her mud-covered shoes. She had stepped into a boggy patch without noticing.
Someone poked her between the shoulder blades. She spun around. Felicity had come up behind her and now pointed her finger. “Scram,” she said.
Alice took a couple of steps back. She hadn’t meant to, she just did, out of shock. Were they actually going to beat her up, like boys? She turned around again, frightened now, of being surrounded. Carol, in her coat as blue as the coldest ice, stepped forward. She pushed Alice in the chest with both hands.
She had been so excited to see them. So pleased. So hopeful.
She’d been such an idiot, thinking they’d be happy to see her. When were they ever truly happy to see her? So smug in their stupid little groups.
Before Alice realized she was going to do it, she grabbed a hank of Carol’s hair. She wrapped it around in her fist and yanked. Carol