The words echoed in Maddie’s ears.
You’re not coming with us.
Her emotions
bounced between shocked and fearful to giddy and excited. Mom and Dad are going to leave us somewhere. The fact that where was still a mystery calmed her
somehow. A hundred different possibilities flashed through her mind. Perhaps Jo and I will be taken back to Paris
by Henri to attend the finest ballet academy. Or maybe we’ll stay in Morocco,
and live in a beautiful hotel while we’re taught by a fancy governess. Or
maybe—
“What?!” Jo wailed, bursting into tears and interrupting Maddie’s
daydreams. “What do you mean we’re not
coming, Dad? What are we supposed
to do? Where are we going when you and Mom go to Siberia? Why can’t we go
there, too?”
Martha and
Tom stayed calm. As much as they wanted to abandon their plans for Siberia,
scoop up their daughters, and return to Boston the next day, they knew this
would only sting for a little while more. The work they were about to begin,
and the new adventures for Maddie and Jo, were worth the initial sadness.
“It’s not
that you can’t come to Siberia,
girls,” Tom explained, pausing for a moment to consider another option. “If you
like, you can come. But you won’t be
able to go outside and play, you won’t have any friends, and you won’t be able
to go to school. Siberia is freezing cold, and no one lives in the region we’re
going to. Even your mom and I aren’t looking forward to the icy weather, the
snowsuits, and the isolation. But if you insist, well!” He tossed his hands up
and smiled at his wife. “Honey, I think we should let them come—Ow!”
Martha
elbowed him in the side. “Uh . . . thanks, Tom,” she said as her husband rubbed
his ribs. “Or,” Martha said, a smile
forming at the corners of her mouth, “you could go to Europe, just like you
asked to do earlier.”
The girls’
expressions changed. Jo’s chin lifted as she waited for her mother to tell her
more, and the wheels in Maddie’s head stopped spinning for a moment.
“Henri knows
of a boarding school,” Martha said quietly. “It’s a marvelous place, just for
girls. He assured us it would be perfect for you. They’re expecting you soon.”
By now,
Martha was crouched down on the ground. Maddie and Jo, temporarily forgetting
their sadness about being left behind, sat cross-legged in the sand so they
could put their heads on their mother’s shoulders.
“Boarding
school?” Jo asked. “Does that mean we would live there?”
“Yes, Jo,
with lots of other girls your age,” Martha replied. “Doesn’t that sound like
fun? Like when your friends stay over, but it will happen every night.”
Jo began to
imagine nightly ghost story sessions, pillow fights, and cookie making—just
like when she and Maddie had a birthday party in Boston.
“Mom, Dad,”
Maddie asked, “where is the school?”
Tom
reentered the conversation now that Martha had pacified their daughters. “It’s
in Switzerland, in a tiny town called Saint-Marcel. Henri says that it’s
beautiful, on the banks of a sparkling blue lake, high in the mountains. It’s
called Madame Molineaux’s School for Girls.”
Jo sounded
out the name. “Madame Mo-Lee-Noe’s?” she asked, exaggerating the
syllables. “Is that a French name?”
“It sounds
like it,” Maddie said, turning to her mother with a new reason to be concerned.
“Do we have to speak French there? Do they speak English?”
Maddie and
Jo had had French lessons back in Boston and had even gotten to practice with
some of the Moroccan locals, but could only carry on light conversation.
“Not to
worry, girls,” Martha said. “Most classes are taught in English. There will be
others there who don’t speak French, and you’ll take French lessons with them.
I bet by the end of the year, you two will sound like you were born in Paris!”
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