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CHAPTER ONE: Rosalind Bakes a Cake
Four years and four months later
Rosalind was happy. Not the kind of passionate, thrilling happy that can quickly turn into disappointment, but the calm happy that comes when life is steadily going along just the way it should. Three weeks earlier she'd started seventh grade at the middle school, which was turning out not to be as overwhelming as rumored, mostly because she and her best friend, Anna, shared all the same classes. And it was late September, and the leaves were on the verge of bursting into wild colors--Rosalind adored autumn. And it was a Friday afternoon, and although school was all right, who doesn't like weekends better?
On top of all that, Aunt Claire was coming to visit for the weekend. Beloved Aunt Claire, whose only flaw was that she lived two hours away from the Penderwicks' home in Cameron, Massachusetts. But she tried to make up for it by visiting often, and now she was arriving this evening. Rosalind had so many things to tell her, mostly about the family's summer vacation, three wonderful weeks at a place called Arundel in the Berkshires. There had been many adventures with a boy named Jeffrey, and for a while Rosalind had thought that she might be in love with another boy--an older one--named Cagney, but that had come to nothing. Now Rosalind was determined to stay away from love and its confusions for many years, but still she wanted to talk it all over with her aunt.
There was lots to get done before Aunt Claire arrived--clean sheets on the bed, clean towels in the bathroom, and Rosalind wanted to bake a cake--but first she had to pick up her little sister Batty at Goldie's Day Care. She did so every day on the walk home from school, and even that was part of her happiness. For this was the first year her father had given her the responsibility for her sisters after school and until he came home. Before now, there had always been a babysitter, one or another of the beautiful Bosna sisters, who lived down the street from the Penderwicks. And though the Bosnas had been good babysitters as well as beautiful, Rosalind considered herself much too old now--twelve years and eight months--for a babysitter.
The walk from Cameron Middle School to Goldie's took ten minutes, and Rosalind was on her last minute now. She could see on the corner ahead of her the gray clapboard house, with its wide porch full of toys. And now she could see--she picked up her pace--a small girl alone on the steps. She had dark curls and was wearing a red sweater, and Rosalind ran the last several yards, scolding as she went.
"Batty, you're supposed to stay inside until I get here," she said. "You know that's the rule."
Batty threw her arms around Rosalind. "It's okay, because Goldie's watching me through the window."
Rosalind looked up, and it was true. Goldie was at the window, waving and smiling. "Even so, I want you to stay inside from now on."
"All right. But--" Batty held up a finger swathed in Band-Aids. "I just was dying to show you this. I cut myself during crafts."
Rosalind caught up the finger and kissed it. "Did it hurt terribly?"
"Yes," said Batty proudly. "I bled all over the clay and the other kids screamed."
"That sounds exciting." Rosalind helped Batty into her little blue backpack. "Now let's go home and get ready for Aunt Claire."
Most days the two sisters would linger on their walk home from Goldie's--at the sassafras tree, with leaves shaped like mittens, and at the storm drain that flooded just the right amount when it rained, so you could splash through without getting water in your boots. Then there was the spotted dog who barked...
