Page 35 of Mad Mabel

I cleared my throat. “Fine.”

She dropped the chart into the pigeonhole at the end of the bed. “In that case, I’ll leave you to it.”

And she left.

“The funeral will be on Thursday at St. Mary’s,” my father said, once the nurse was gone. “Obviously, you won’t be able to attend in your condition.” He put on his trilby. “I’ve had to delay my trip for it, but I’ll be leaving on Friday for London. I’m not sure when I’ll be back, but you’ll be in safe hands with your aunt.”

He slid his arms into his jacket and, without so much as a goodbye, strode to the door.

“Who unlocked the door?”

He stopped mid-stride, but his gaze remained forward.

“To the porch?” I continued. “Mum said the door to the porch was locked the day Kitty came outside and started playing with me. She said she didn’t know how it became unlocked.”

Still he didn’t look at me, but from the side view I thought he might have smiled slightly.

“Dad?” This time my voice sounded pleading. I hated myself for that. But with my mother gone, he was the only one I could get an answer from. And I needed answers.

“Goodbye, Mabel,” he said. And just like that, the last person who could tell me the truth walked out the door.

I didn’t consider myself to be a particularly dramatic person. To the contrary, I’d always believed myself to be calm, unflappable. And yet, that day in the hospital, after my father left, I threw my copy ofAnne of Green Gablesagainst the wall hard enough that it left a dent in the plaster.

“Whoa,” someone said.

I froze. “Who said that?”

“I did.” A girl appeared in the doorway. Like me, she was dressed in a hospital gown, but she wore a hot-pink, fluffy cardigan over the top and had matching hot pink slippers. Unlike me, she was smiling. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. She pulled an IV behind her, on a trolley. “They told me there was another kid in this ward!”

She grinned to reveal small, bucked front teeth. Her face was long and oddly narrow, like someone had pressed it between two encyclopedias. Her hair, the color of milky tea, floated around her ears in wisps that gave her the overall effect of a mushroom. Her eyes were a pale, watery blue.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it was Mabel Waller.”

She came farther into the room, and I searched her face for recognition.

“No way!” I said.

“Way.”

“No way! Daphne Barton? The Daphne Barton from kindergarten?”

“The one and only.” She grinned.

“I thought you moved back to England.”

“You thought correct,” she said, perching herself in the visitor’s chair beside my bed. “I moved back a few weeks ago. Doc said I needed the warmer weather and the sea air. For my TB.”

“You have tuberculosis?”

She nodded with delight. “Top shelf case. Could barely inhale when I got here. But I’m on the mend. They say I’ll be starting school any day now. St. Mary’s.”

“You’re going to St. Mary’s Brighton?” I asked, stunned.

“Darn tootin’. I’m boarding. Is that where you go?”

I nodded slowly, trying to keep up.

“Talk about fate,” Daphne said. “Course, I’m not a bright spark. My dad says I’m thick as two planks. But if you can overlook that, I think we should be friends.”