Eleven by Patricia Reilly Giff Page A

called after Caroline, trying to make her smile.
    “Pease porridge hot,” she said over her shoulder. Marcy Albert said that twenty times a day.
    They were the last ones in the schoolyard. Mr. Ramon was coming across the yard and waved at them to hurry.
    They followed the rest of the class up the stairs and into the classroom. “I have something for you,” Caroline said. “I made it myself. Not so great, but anyway—you'll see when you get home.”
    The day went by in a blur. They sat together at lunch, and when it was time for him to go to Mrs. Waring's room, he whispered, “Don't leave before I come back.”
    But she was gone by the time Mrs. Waring finally let them go; the room was empty, except for the small package on his desk.
    One day left.

18
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    In the workroom, Sam unwrapped the package. It was a horse, with one leg a little shorter than the others, the face goofy. He held it up; it was just the kind of thing Caroline would make. He patted its clay back and leaned it against the plane so it would stay upright.
    He took the cloth off the castle. It still needed the roofs for the towers; the pie-shaped pieces were spread out next to it.
    He looked inside at the room he'd made for Caroline. Why should he finish it now? But how could he not?
    Mack had sample cans of paint on a shelf under the window near the front door. Some of them were metallic: gold and silver, and a tangerine color almost like Caroline's hair. He opened that one and painted the room with a smallbrush, bending over, angling his head to see into the corners.
“The brush you use is so important,”
Mack always said,
“the size, the shape.”
Sam tried to concentrate on that, the brush, the strokes, the look of the hidden room, instead of Caroline's leaving.
    The bell jangled over the door behind him, and a woman came in holding a small oval table in her arms.
    Sam might have called Mack to come down. He was just upstairs in the kitchen having a cup of tea. He'd been here working all day while Sam was in school. “Tired feet,” he'd said as he went up the stairs. “Bone tired.”
    Instead Sam took the table from the woman. She showed him a cut on the top. “The dog chased the cat through the living room, the lamp went over. I was so furious—”
    “Pine,” Sam said. “Soft wood. Easy to cut into. Too easy.”
    “But the dog's more important than the table, after all. Can you fix it?”
    He ran his thumb over it. Deep. It would take layers of filler, days of sanding, staining. “We can do it.”
    The phone rang.
    “Just a second.” He went to the window table and picked it up. “Mack's Woodworking.”
    “Sam?”
    It was Caroline. He felt himself smile. “Yes.”
    “Listen.”
    The woman with the table cleared her throat.
    “There's something we have to do tomorrow.”
    “I'm in a bit of a hurry,” the woman said. “Who knows what the dog is doing now?”
    “Can you hold on?” he asked Caroline. “Just for a second?” He put the phone down and gave Mack's work pad to the woman. “Just your name and a phone number.”
    “I don't have my glasses.” The woman pushed the pad back at him.
    There was always something to remind him about the reading. But Mack had taught him to ask customers to spell their names. And if there was something special that needed to be done, something that wasn't obvious, he just had to remember.
    “Your name?” He tried not to sound impatient.
    “Marie Judson,” the woman said absently as she went around him and walked toward the castle. She reached out.
    He didn't want her to touch it. “The paint is wet.” He could spell
Judson
, two pieces to it. He didn't have to bother with the first name, but hurry, he told himself, Caroline was waiting.
    “That's a beautiful model,” the woman said. “I've seen a castle like that.”
    He looked back at the phone.
    “Is it the one on Heart Island?”
    He spread out his hands. “It's just—” He shook his head. “We'll call you as soon