make a whole day out of.”
“No.” He looked depressed. “It was only fun for about five minutes. Then all the screaming just became boring.”
“Yeah, I could see where that might happen. Maybe we could—”
“What are your sisters up to?” he cut me off.
“Nothing interesting.” I snorted. “I can tell you that much!”
“Yes, but what are they doing today?” he persisted.
“Oh,” I answered vaguely, “I think they were headed up the hill to do some … thing…”
His eyes brightened immediately. “I’ll bet they are going boating. But they’ll need the key, of course, which of course they won’t have, so I suppose I should get it and then bring it to—”
“No, I don’t think anyone said anything about boating,” I said, feeling exasperated as I had to race after him to get the key and then hurried to keep up as he traipsed up the hill. “I’m sure I would have noticed if they’d said they were going boating, so I don’t think anyone—”
“Oh,” he said, looking dejected, when we’d at last climbed the hill, reached the river, and found the boat bobbing on the water, unused. “I guess not.”
Honestly. Why couldn’t he be content to just spend some time alone with me?
“We’re here now,” I suggested, “and you have the key right there. Maybe we could go boating? It’ll rock.”
“Rock?” he echoed. “Is that another new word when used in that fashion?”
I shrugged.
Suddenly he looked appalled. “Boating? Just the two of us?”
“Hey, I wasn’t planning on trying to k—”
He cut me off before I could even say the whole word, never mind finish my sentence. “No.” He blushed. “I wasn’t worried about that.”
“Anyway, I thought we agreed I was suffering from a fever that day,” I said, still certain he was worried about that.
“No, really,” he said. “It’s just that …”
“It’s just that what?” I demanded, hands on hips.
“Do you know you look just like Jo when you stand there like that? Well, except for the hair and the height and just about everything else being all wrong.”
All wrong? I was all wrong?
“But other than that?” he went on. “You look just like her.” He shook his head abruptly, as though trying to rid his mind of an image. “No, all I meant was, you’re not exactly the best person to go boating with, are you? I mean, you do have a tendency to overturn the boat.”
“Oh, thanks a lot. I make just one little mistake, just one time and—”
“But if they’re not here,” Laurie spoke as if I wasn’t even there anymore, “where could they be?”
We found them in a pine grove.
If they didn’t annoy me so much, I’d think they looked cool there in their floppy hats, their skirts spread all around them on the ground so it was like an ocean of colorful fabric connecting each girl to all the others. They looked like, oh, I don’t know, something out of a painting of the 1800s or something.
Before we’d been able to see them, we’d heard their voices chattering, which was when Laurie had put a finger to my lips, cautioning me to keep silent. I was tempted to bite that finger, or kiss it, but then it occurred to me that it might be fun to sneak up on them and scare them—almost as much fun as scaring maids by implying one of the dogs was going mad.
Laurie and I had crept up behind a tree and were silently watching, Laurie enchanted, me less so, until I revealed our presence with a sneeze.
What? I shot him a defensive look. Was it my fault I suffered from seasonal allergies no matter what century I found myself in?
“Who goes there?” Jo said in a voice full of challenge.
What sort of person says “Who goes there?”
“It’s just us,” Laurie said with a nervous laugh, leading me out from behind the tree.
I didn’t know why his laugh should be nervous, but then I noticed that, in order to lead me into view, he’d grabbed my hand. I liked that. And I really liked it when I saw that Jo had noticed too.
“Oh,” Jo said, going red in the face. “Well, you can’t be here.”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” Beth said sorrowfully. “Only those who are working are allowed to be here.”
“There’s a rule against being idle here,” Amy said.
“That’s why we call it the Busy Bee Society,” Meg said primly.
The Busy what? Seriously. Where did they come up with these things?
I looked around at the evidence of what they’d been doing