Free Coming Apart (9780545356152) by Ann M Martin Page A

the study.
    â€œShe’s up!” exclaimed Flora. “I’ll take care of her! You go back to work, Allie. I have everything under control.”
    Flora dashed upstairs again and made a beeline for Janie’s crib. “There you are, sleepyhead!” she said softly. “Did you have a good nap? I’d better check your diaper again.”
    Flora spent the next few minutes once again changing Janie’s diaper and then unnecessarily changing her outfit, too.
    â€œYou are the cutest, cutest, cutest girl in all of Camden Falls!” announced Flora, hoisting her cousin in the air. “Let me get you a bottle, and then maybe we can go for a walk outside, since it’s so warm.”
    After Janie had been fed (expertly, in Flora’s opinion), Flora poked her head into Allie’s study. “Here she is, all dressed and fed and ready to go outside. It’s pretty warm today. We could take a nice long walk.”
    â€œThat’s a good idea,” replied Allie, and she helped Flora settle Janie in a nest of blankets in her fancy new stroller.
    â€œWe’ll see you later,” called Flora as she wheeled Janie down the driveway to the sidewalk.
    Allie’s neighborhood was bustling. The streets here were lined not with the large and aging homes of Flora’s neighborhood but with smaller, newer houses, and in the yards of most of them were bicycles and tricycles and ride-on toys, basketball nets and skateboards and plastic slides. Flora saw kids playing and dogs being walked and a group of boys heading somewhere with a bat and ball.
    â€œMaybe,” said Flora to Janie, “there are other babies in these houses, and one day they’ll be your friends. You and your friends will grow up together and go to Camden Falls Elementary, just like Ruby and I did. And you —”
    Flora stopped talking when she heard someone call her name.
    â€œFlora? Is that you?”
    Flora had wheeled Janie two blocks in one direction, turned around and gone three blocks back in the other direction, and now had turned around a second time and was approaching Allie’s driveway. She looked over her shoulder.
    Climbing out of his car in the driveway of the house across the street was her English teacher, Mr. Barnes. He waved to her.
    Flora waved back. Then, feeling both proud and shy, she wheeled Janie up her teacher’s driveway. “Have you met my new cousin?” she asked.
    â€œNot officially,” replied Mr. Barnes. He set his briefcase at his feet.
    â€œThis is Janie,” Flora told him. “Jane Marie Read. She’s named for my sister and me. Those are our middle names. My aunt adopted her last month. I mean, that’s when it became official. But Janie was born on Thanksgiving Day.”
    Mr. Barnes peeked into the stroller and Janie waved her arms at him. He smiled. Then he cleared his throat. “So … your aunt adopted her?”
    â€œAll by herself,” said Flora proudly.
    Mr. Barnes glanced thoughtfully across the street. “That was very brave of her.”
    â€œShe really, really wanted a baby. And,” Flora continued, inspired, “there was no —” She paused, searching for the right phrase. “There was no man on the horizon.”
    Mr. Barnes reddened. And in a flash, Flora saw it all: Her teacher had a crush on her aunt. He had barely spoken two words to her since he’d moved in at the beginning of the school year, but he was in luv with Aunt Allie.
    What if, Flora wondered with a rush of excitement, Mr. Barnes and Aunt Allie got married? It would be perfect. The English teacher married to the writer. Aunt Allie would get a husband, Janie would get a father, and Mr. Barnes would get a whole family.

Ruby stood outside the window of Heaven, the jewelry store. Well, the old jewelry store, thought Ruby. A newer and much fancier one had opened in Camden Falls recently, but Ruby was desperately hoping that she might find