going to stay in Alpine. Telling them she wasn’t coming back at least a month to six weeks before the new school year started would be the right thing to do. That Saturday afternoon, she was busy making peanut butter cookies when Tiffany came into the kitchen and taped a new picture up on the wall.
Jayden glanced at the drawing of a butterfly sitting on the top of a cupcake with pretty white clouds floating in a blue sky in the background. “Well, that’s sure different from your other work.”
“I’m not the same person that I was when I drew the first pictures, and, besides, we have clouds on our caps to show everyone here that we’re from the Daydream Cabin.” Tiffany got out a second cookie sheet for Jayden. “I need to talk,” she said with bluntness.
“About?” Jayden scooped up cookie dough, rolled it into a ball, and placed it on the cookie sheet.
“I’m afraid to leave.” Tiffany sighed. “We all are. It’s scary going back to our old environment. What if we mess up again? Every one of us is a three-time loser, and the judge told me if I came up before her again, I’d be in juvie until I’m eighteen. At first, I thought I’d never get in trouble again. All I’d have to do is remember having to take the scrap bucket to the hogs, or shovel out the stalls, and I’d put on a halo and angel wings, but now I feel like I’ll be homesick for Piney Wood.”
Using a fork, Jayden began making crisscross lines on the four dozen balls of dough that were lined up on the cookie sheet. “What you’ll be homesick for is the companionship you’ve found here. Real friends that don’t demand that you bully other girls by taking ugly pictures of them or shoplift to stay in their little club or . . . what did you girls call those other ones at the fireworks show?”
“Posse.” Tiffany smiled.
“That’s right. You don’t need a posse. Find true friends or stay in touch with the ones you’ve met here. Call one of us, and that includes me, if you feel like you’re slipping back into your old ways. Find something to do that keeps you out of trouble. Maybe find a part-time job or volunteer at a nursing home or a hospital.”
“Hey, I like that idea about working at a hospital.” Tiffany stuck her hand into an oven mitt and pulled the first batch of cookies from the convection oven. “Mama wouldn’t mind me doing that, but she’d probably throw a hissy fit if I went to work flipping burgers. That would ruin her image. Will you make a copy of all our phone numbers for each of us to take home so we can stay in touch?”
“I can do that if you’ll be in charge of getting them all written down for me,” Jayden agreed.
“Yes, ma’am.” Tiffany picked up a cookie and bit off a piece. “I love these right out of the oven when they’re still warm. Are you ever scared of anything?”
“Wh-what?” Jayden stammered. “Why would you ask that?”
“You took care of that spider under the bed. You weren’t afraid to stand up for us and believe that we could dig a hole for Dynamite. Even when your sister was mean to you, you got up and didn’t whine around for a week about it. I could go on and on,” Tiffany answered.
“I’m terrified of making decisions.” Jayden put the second sheet of cookies into the oversize oven. “I’m always afraid I’ll make the wrong one and then regret it.”
Tiffany flashed a brilliant smile. “Listen to your heart. Seems like those are the words you said once when we were having a talk during group session.”
“Did I?” Jayden couldn’t remember, but then she’d had a lot on her mind the past couple of weeks. To stay at Piney Wood or to go back to teaching? The decision had to be made without thinking of a relationship with Elijah.
“You might not have said it in those exact words, but that’s what’s been going through my mind. What if I can’t trust my heart? What if it tells me wrong?” Tiffany asked.
“The heart never tells you wrong,” Jayden said. “You might not want to do what it says, and you might argue with it, but when you do, that’s when you’re about to mess up. Think back to when you were doing those mean things. Did you feel any