Lizzie's War by Tim Farrington

Author:Tim Farrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

DEB-DEB’S SIXTH birthday fell three days before Thanksgiving. Liz worried that Deb-Deb hadn’t made any new friends yet in kindergarten; her youngest daughter was not so much antisocial as socially oblivious, in her benign way, impervious to the usual dance of forming relationships. Most often she moved happily enough in a world of her own. But Deb-Deb had come up with a substantial guest list of half a dozen names, and Liz had duly sent her daughter off to school with a pile of pink invitations to an after-school tea party to be held at the O’Reilly house. On the afternoon of Deb-Deb’s birthday, however, no other children arrived. Instead, the dining room table, cleared for the occasion, had seven exquisite place settings of tiny teaware, and at each place but one, a stuffed animal sat with an invitation propped neatly on its lap. The empty place was for Linkalink, Deb-Deb’s very special friend, who was invisible.

Deb-Deb, apparently content with the gathering, took her place at the head of the table, just to Linkalink’s left, and poured chocolate milk from the teapot for all the guests. Liz stood in the doorway, trying to decide how freaked out she should be. She’d long understood that her youngest child was a special case, but she’d hoped that the stringencies of kindergarten would have a moderating influence. It would have been nice to have at least one other actual human child present.

The party proceeded happily. Deb-Deb swam otter-style into the kitchen to refill the chocolate milk, blew out the candles after making God-knew-what sort of wish, and served the cake graciously to everyone present. She opened her presents, several from Liz, one from each set of grandparents, and one from Maria Petroski, her godmother. Danny had given her a sketchbook and a set of colored pencils; Kathie had cut out a huge pink heart and written “I love You” in the center of it, and Angus had given Deb-Deb a pine cone, for reasons of his own. There had been nothing from Mike, not even a card, which was understandable enough, Liz thought, given that her husband had a war to fight, but still upsetting. She’d bought a card and signed it with Mike’s name, but Deb-Deb had recognized her handwriting. For a child hopelessly lost in a fantasy world of her own, she was remarkably acute.

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