Lucy Maud and Me
a novel by
Mary Frances Coady
Copyright © 1999 by Mary Frances Coady
First Edition.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage, retrieval and transmission systems now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This book is published by Beach Holme Publishing, #226—2040 West 12th Ave., Vancouver, BC, V6J 2G2. This is a Sandcastle Book. Teacher’s guide available from Beach Holme Publishing, call toll-free 1-888-551-6655.
| The publisher and author acknowledge the generous assistance of The Canada Council and the BC Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture. |
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The text of this book was inspired by the writings of L.M. Montgomery, including The Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery, volumes I - IV, Oxford University Press, 1985,1987,1992,1998.
Editor: Joy Gugeler
Cover Illustration: Janet Wilson
Production and Design: Teresa Bubela
Printed in Canada
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Coady, Mary Frances.
Lucy Maud and me
(A Sandcastle Book.)
ISBN 0-88878-398-1
1. Montgomery, L. M. (Lucy Maud), 1874-1942-Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8555.0232L82 1999 jC813’.54 C99-910310-5
PZ7.C6278Lu 1999
For the Holubowich family and especially for Stefania
Chapter One
A man’s voice echoed just above Laura’s head. She half-opened her eyes and then closed them again, clinging to the jumbled faces in her dream. She stretched her legs and rubbed the stiff spots in her shoulder and arm. As she did, her book slid off her lap and onto the floor. Beneath her feet, the wheels of the train slowed to a rumble.
The train conductor smiled down at her, his pink cheeks shining. “Just about there,” he said. He stooped, picked up the book and handed it back to her.
Laura blinked and looked out the window. The last time she had looked out, she’d seen mile after mile of trees, broken only by the occasional lakeshore and rough beach. Now she saw street after street of houses, red brick and strung together in lines. The train must be entering Toronto.
What had happened to the people in her dream—her father in his air force uniform, her mother’s tear-stained face? Where were Jennifer and Wendy? They had seemed so close, playing hopscotch on the dirt road and giggling. And Peter?
Loneliness welled up inside her; it was as if everyone familiar to her had suddenly disappeared. She considered asking the conductor if she might stay on the train until it headed north to Rocky Falls again. But the spring flood warnings had begun and the whole town had been put on evacuation notice. Her father was gone for now; he had enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force over a year ago. A call had gone out for surgeons and he had answered. Now that he was working in a military hospital in England, thousands of miles away, he wasn’t even able to come home on leave. Her mother was still working full time in a munitions factory and in the evening often helped package up parcels for Canadian soldiers. She intended to continue unless she was forced out by the flood. Because her mother would be working both day and night, she had insisted Laura visit her grandfather while school was out, rather than risk her staying home alone.
She’d never been away from home before, and although it was exciting to be travelling three hours by train to a big city, she felt afraid. What if she got lost? How would she get along without her mother?
“But I can look after myself here, at home,” she had pleaded. “I don’t have to go anywhere. Or—I know—we can go to Toronto together. Or maybe Grandpa can come here.” She stopped, reluctant to admit what was coming next, but then blurted it out. “I just don’t want to go by myself!”
No amount of arguing had changed her mother’s mind. Staring out as the train passed block after block of unfamiliar houses, she wished her mother had relented and come too. She looked down at the book in her lap, The Story Girl. On the cover was the picture of a young girl looking toward a field of daisies. In the distance stood an orchard. The girl’s hair flowed onto her shoulders and she was sitting with her head thrown back, smiling, carefree. Laura picked up the book and leafed through the pages. She had lost her place. She remembered now what the book was about: a group of young people were spending a golden summer together on Prince Edward Island. Sara was the Story Girl, fourteen years of age, who told spell-binding stories about the old folk in the village and their long-dead relatives. The others gathered around her whenever she spoke, caught up in her web of magic.
Prince Edward Island. That was where Grandpa had come from. She stretched and smiled, for the moment forgetting her gloomy mood. She’d soon be seeing him again. For as long as she could remember, he’d come up to Rocky Falls to spend the month of July with her and her parents. “Ah, the fresh air of the country,” he always said, taking in deep breaths as he stood in their back yard. “The city’s no place to spend the summer,” he grumbled. “Especially Toronto. It’s hot as Hades this time of year.”
He spent day after day, sitting and talking on the front verandah. Often in the evenings, Laura sat on the top step while her father worked in the garden and her mother knitted. The knitting needles clicked in rhythm with Grandpa’s voice as he told tales of his childhood on the Island. She loved hearing him tell of how he walked miles over frozen fields to a one-room school and dried his mittens on the black pot-bellied stove under the picture of Queen Victoria, which hung on the wall beside the Union Jack.
“We looked at that picture every morning, the Queen with her white veil and grumpy-looking face, and by jeepers if we didn’t settle down after singing ‘God Save the Queen’. We were afraid she’d reach down from the wall and clip us one if we didn’t behave.” He told her about the slates they’d used instead of notebooks, and about the chestnut tree not far from the school where older girls and boys sometimes carved their initials. He had left as a young man to work in the harvest on the prairies before becoming a doctor in Toronto, but his heart remained in the Prince Edward Island of his boyhood.
Laura smiled to herself. It would be nice to see Grandpa again.
The chugging of the train engine had slowed, and the wheels were moving at a crawl. From the windows across the aisle, Lake Ontario stretched clear to the horizon. Then the train passed into an enclosed area, with steel rafters rising up to a high dome, gave a final shudder, and jerked to a stop. The door at the end of the railway car opened and once again the conductor appeared.
“Union Station, Toronto,” he called out. “End of the line. Everyone out here.”
All around her, passengers rose from their seats and pulled boxes and suitcases from overhead racks. Laura picked up her book and placed it in her knapsack. The conductor stopped beside her, reached up and pulled down a small brown suitcase. “There you are, miss,” he said. “Enjoy your stay in Toronto. Is someone meeting you?”
“My grandfather,” said Laura in a small voice, wondering for a second if indeed Grandpa would be there to