Hello There, We've Been Waiting for You! by Laurie B. Arnold

Author:Laurie B. Arnold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Easton Studio Press, LLC
Published: 2013-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ralph Edwards Park was at the far end of town. When we got to the pond, we sat in the shadiest spot under a cottonwood tree.

Rosalie Claire shivered.

How could anybody be cold in this weather? By now I realized I could probably ask her anything. So I did.

“I’ve always got a chill,” she told me. “You know what they say: cold hands, warm heart. Well, I figure I must be warm down to my soul since I’m always freezing.”

So that’s why she wore so many layers of clothes.

“My mom would have taken me to the doctor if I was putting on that many sweaters.”

“I suppose she would have,” she said. “Duly noted.”

Then Rosalie Claire unzipped her fanny pack.

“Let me see. …” She rummaged around and pulled out two hooks with yellow feathers attached and a big jar of wriggling worms. As always, her pack contained just what was needed.

“I’m not too good at this,” I told her. “I only caught two things when I went fishing with my best friend Violet on Bainbridge Island—a plastic vegetable bag and an old sneaker.”

Rosalie Claire laughed. “It just takes patience. And the right-colored fly. Yellow feathers for sunny weather and red feathers when it’s cloudy.”

She showed me how to thread the worm on my hook, and then she helped me cast my fishing line way out into the middle of the shimmering pond.

We hadn’t been fishing for more than two minutes when something tugged my line.

“Well, it appears that you have much better fishing luck than my Thomas.”

Rosalie Claire helped me reel in a twelve-inch trout, which was way more exciting than catching a plastic bag or an old shoe.

The fish flopped like mad as I carefully worked it off the hook. I was trying not to hurt it since we planned on throwing it back. I poked my finger on the sharp tip of the hook.

Blood spurted out. “Ouch!”

Rosalie Claire had me press on the puncture to seal the wound. She released the fish back into the water, unzipped her fanny pack, and pulled out a Band-Aid and a tube of Neosporin.

“It’s like you have everything in the world in there.”

“Not everything. Just the things I need.” She spread ointment on the inside of the bandage and wrapped it tight around my finger.

“But how do you know what to bring? Or is it … magic?”

“You tell me. My Grandma Daisy gave me this fanny pack for my eighteenth birthday. I’ve collected all sorts of things and stuffed them in there. Whenever I look inside, there are things I’ve put in and things that have just shown up. Every time I have to help somebody out, I find just what I need.”

“Sounds like magic to me,” I told her.

“Me too,” she agreed.

“Between your pouch and the MegaPix, I think your grandma was right about there being magic in the air.”

“You know, every single day I wish she was still around so I could ask her more about it. She knew more about magic than I ever will.

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