"Okay," I said.
She lifted herself to continue talking to me before I walked away.
"Why don't you come back tomorrow and we'll have a picnic on the beach?"
"I have to go to my grandma Olivia's for a Sunday brunch," I said with a grimace.
"You don't look too anxious to go."
"I'm not I hate going to her house. We have to tiptoe around and remember not to speak unless we're spoken to. My aunt is constantly, on pins and needles, afraid one of us will do something to irritate my grandma Olivia."
"Oh. Sounds dreadful," she said, "but I guess we have to put up with family sometimes."
"She's not really my grandma. My real grandma is in a rest home," I said.
"Really? You'll have to tell me about it all," she said. "Maybe at our picnic. Couldn't you skip the brunch?"
"They'll have heart attacks," I said. "Especially my uncle Jacob." She laughed. Then she shrugged.
"So, wake up under the weather."
"What?"
"You know, use the old reliable," she suggested. "What's that?"
"Female problems," she said. "Your uncle Jacob's not going to challenge that, is he?" I shook my head, laughing at the thought of it and amazed that she would join me in a conspiracy so quickly.
"Hardly," I said.
"So there. come pick you up around eleven."
"But what will I say when they come home and find me gone?"
She shrugged.
"You felt better, thought you should get some air, and went to town or something and met me. What would you rather do, be out here with Kenneth and me or go to your stuffy brunch?"
"Be out here, definitely," I replied without hesitation. _
"So? Do what makes you feel good. You have to be honest with yourself and then and only then, can you be honest with others," she said, smiling as she gave me another drop of her wisdom. "If you come, do your chart," she threatened with a laugh.
I had to smile. Despite the conflicts raging within me, I couldn't help liking her. I started away, still undecided about her suggestion.
"Eleven o'clock?" she called. I walked a little farther and then I turned impulsively and yelled back into the wind.
"Okay. Come get me."
I ran down the small hill to the studio, clutching the discarded doll in my arms, feeling more confused and more excited than ever, but, strangely, more hopeful, too. It was as if I had finally found an adult who could be completely honest with me. An adult I could truly trust as my friend.
"I see Holly's begun to convert you," Kenneth said when I entered the studio. I had gone through the house, leaving the battered doll in the kitchen until I was ready to leave for home.
"What? What do you mean?"
"She gave you one of her crystals," he said, nodding at the necklace. Even Ulysses looked up with new interest.
"Oh. Yes. It's fifteen million years old and from a meteorite."
"Is that so? Did she show you the warranty?" "What?"