Free The Education of Ivy Blake by Ellen Airgood Page B

for a housemate.
    Ivy read that one again. Maybe the room was on the top floor of a house like the one with the iron fence. Maybe it had tall windows in deep frames, a window seat to read in. Ivy pictured herself unpacking a suitcase in a room with wooden floors, throwing her quilt from Mom Evers across the bed. She set her tea on the ground and ripped the number off and slipped the paper into her phone case where it couldn’t get lost. Of course she couldn’t call—she was only eleven!—but she liked the feeling taking the number gave her.
    She was about to walk on again when she saw a flyer advertising an antique chicken feeder/waterer, complete with a picture. The feeder/waterer consisted of an old blue ball jar turned upside down into a tin tray that must’ve been made for that purpose. Once upon a time you must’ve been able to go to the general store and buy not only your flour and sugar and coffee and tea but also these little metal trays that would transform the jar you’d just emptied of spiced pears into a handy livestock feeder. Prairie would love it.
    Whoever was selling the feeder was only asking ten dollars. Two of the little tabs were ripped off and Ivy ripped off another one, and then another, and then—this was probably really bad—she took the whole ad down and put it in her pocket. Maybe she could get it for Prairie for Christmas, or maybe just as a surprise, since Christmas was so far away still. Maybe it’d make up, a little, for lying about being sick. Her fingers were still curled around the paper when a voice said, “Hey!”
    Ivy jumped and scrambled for an explanation for her theft. The nonscrambling part of her brain realized that the voice belonged to the boy from the theater.
    Today he wore a dark blue T-shirt with a picture of the White Rabbit on it. The rabbit wore a checkered jacket and carried an umbrella in the crook of his arm; he held a pocket watch in his paw and studied it anxiously. Ivy could almost hear him saying,
Oh dear, oh dear.
    The boy waved. “Hey! I keep seeing you everywhere.”
    Ivy’s heart banged. She nodded.
    He came up beside her. “What brings you way out in the boonies, anyway? Are you taking a class or something?”
    Ivy shook her head.
    â€œJust looking around?”
    Ivy nodded again.
    The boy nodded too, as if Ivy’s being here, and her muteness, made perfect sense. “That’s cool. Me, I’m here with my mom. She works here.”
    â€œOh,” Ivy managed to say.
    â€œShe’s got me helping set up for this class she does every summer. Kind of a drag in one way—I have to cook dinner on her class nights. My dad is one hundred percent hopeless in the kitchen, so there’s no counting on him to put food on the table.” The boy smiled easily. “But it’s cool. She does this intro to graphic novels every summer semester. I get to read all the books and student projects—” His smile became conspiratorial. “I only read the best ones, right? If I get bored, I just—” He sliced his hand in front of his throat.
    Ivy felt a little smile slip out, despite how nervous she was.
    â€œYou like graphic novels?” he asked.
    â€œI don’t—know,” Ivy croaked. She cleared her throat. “I like movies.”
    â€œMovies,
yeah.
But graphic novels are like movies, don’t you think? The way they’re written in frames? Or I guess they’re more like comic books. Really good comic books.”
    Ivy attempted to look smart.
    â€œI was thinking I might try to write one this summer. See how it goes.”
    â€œUhn,” Ivy said. She’d meant to say
yeah,
or
cool,
or at least
uh-huh,
but it hadn’t come out right.
    The boy pulled a heavy sheet of paper from his messenger bag, then a roll of packaging tape on a big dispenser. He held the poster up against the kiosk with one hand and applied the tape with four fast