The Princess Club / Family Secrets / Mountain Madness Read online

  “Neil? What’s this all about?”

  “Well, it seems our three little prospectors may just have found themselves some actual gold.”

  “So it is gold?” Clara asked. “Real, live, for-sure gold?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I can’t say absolutely, Clara. I’ve never actually held a gold nugget in my hand. But judging from the weight and color, I’d say—”

  “We’re rich!” Ruby screamed.

  “We’re a-goin’ to be princesses!” Bessie cried.

  “Who’s a princess?” called David Grantland, the young minister at the mission, as he rode up to the house on Prince.

  Ruby Mae ran over to greet the preacher and Prince. “We are,” she announced.

  Clara groaned. “Now, that does it for sure. Nobody else can know about the gold, ’ceptin’ the people right here. Understand?” She glared at Ruby Mae.

  “How come you’re lookin’ at me?” Ruby Mae demanded.

  “Could be ’cause you got the biggest mouth this side o’ Coldsprings Mountain,” Bessie suggested.

  “’Tain’t true!” Ruby Mae cried.

  Bessie rolled her eyes. “’Tis so.”

  “Ladies,” David interrupted as he dismounted. “For the moment, let’s set aside the question of Ruby Mae’s communication skills. What’s all this about?”

  “The girls have discovered some very interesting rocks,” Christy answered. “Neil thinks they might actually be gold nuggets.”

  The doctor passed the gold rock he’d been examining to David. “What do you think, Reverend?”

  “Hmm. I had an uncle who was a collector of minerals and such. This definitely isn’t ‘fool’s gold.’ Pyrite’s lighter and more brittle.”

  “I thought gold deposits were mostly out west,” Christy said, “in California or Colorado— but Tennessee?”

  “Gold has never been found in these parts before,” said Miss Alice. “That’s definitely a story I would have heard by now,” she smiled, “a hundred times.”

  “Just ’cause it ain’t been found here before don’t mean this ain’t gold,” Ruby Mae said, sounding a bit worried.

  David shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know how it got here, but this is gold, all right, Ruby Mae. As hard as it is for me to believe.”

  “Now that we know for certain, nobody more’s got to know about this,” Clara told her friends. “The preacher and the doc and Miz Christy and Miz Alice, well, they’re the kind of folks can keep their mouths shut. But that’s all can know.”

  “And Prince,” Bessie added. “And Prince Egbert.”

  Clara nodded. “And our mas and pas. But that’s it. Final. Right, Ruby Mae? That’s what we promised each other on the way here.”

  Ruby Mae shrugged. “Don’t see why we can’t tell a few folks. Lordamercy, what’s the point in bein’ rich if’n you can’t let folks know it?”

  “I think Clara’s right,” Miss Alice said. “When the word gets out about this, this mountain cove is going to change overnight.”

  “Just like us,” Bessie said dreamily. “Like plain ol’ frogs turned into beautiful princesses.”

  “I fear it won’t be anything quite that magical,” Miss Alice said.

  Christy could hear the concern in her voice. “What are you worried about, Miss Alice?”

  “The same thing these mountains have seen way too much of. Feuds. Pain. Greed. Even death.”

  Ruby Mae held out her hand. The gold nuggets glistened like a wonderful promise. “Ain’t no bad goin’ to come from these,” she said confidently. “We’re havin’ ourselves our very own fairy tale.”

  “I hope you’re right, Ruby Mae,” Christy said softly.

  Three

  That evening, Christy ran a brush through her sun-streaked hair and slipped into bed. She retrieved her diary and her fountain pen from her nightstand. Slowly she thumbed through the pages of the little leather-bound book.

  She smiled wistfully when she looked at the very first entry:

  . . . I have begun my great adventure this day, and although things have not gone exactly as I had hoped, I am still committed to my dream of teaching at the mission. . . .

  Farther down the page she read:

  The truth is, I have not been this afraid before, or felt this alone and homesick. Leaving everyone I love was harder than I thought it would be. But I must be strong. I am at the start of a great adventure. And great adventures are sometimes scary.

  She’d been right about one thing, that frosty day in January when she’d started her diary. Coming here had certainly turned out to be an adventure. Teaching at this desperately poor mission had been a challenge and a joy beyond anything she’d imagined. It had helped her discover strengths in herself she hadn’t known were there.

  She’d discovered love, too. Love for the beauty of these rugged, ageless mountains. Love for her friends and her students. And even the love of two very special men—Neil MacNeill and David Grantland.

  But tonight, as she glanced over the pages filled with her careful writing, she felt strangely troubled. Christy looked across the room to her big trunk. Tucked inside of it was a little wooden jewelry box her mother had given her. And inside the box was a handful of stones. Golden, glittering, precious stones.

  After some discussion, Ruby Mae, Bessie, and Clara had decided that their gold should stay at the mission house for safekeeping. Christy had offered to lock the stones up in her trunk until the gold could be deposited at the bank in El Pano.

  Since the mountain road leading there had been blocked by a recent rockslide, it could be awhile before anyone could get to the bank.

  In the meantime, her wooden trunk was the closest thing the mission had to a safe. After all, everyone here was poor, and that included the staff at the mission. And this wasn’t like Asheville, Christy’s former home. In Cutter Gap, nobody locked their doors. Some people didn’t even have a door.

  Christy opened her diary to a fresh page.

  I can’t help but feel uneasy tonight. In a place as needy as Cutter Gap, the discovery of gold should be a wonderful blessing. But as Miss Alice pointed out, greed and envy can make people do strange things. I keep wondering how this will affect the children. I still remember how they looked at me that first day of school. Me, in my fancy patent leather shoes, when almost all the children were barefoot! “Silly, silly shoes,” David called them. He was right, of course.

  A soft knock at the door startled Christy from her writing.

  “Come in,” she called.

  Ruby Mae, who lived at the mission, poked her head in the door. She was wearing her blue cotton nightgown. Her wild red hair was tied back with a ribbon Christy had given her. “Can I come in, Miz Christy?”

  “It’s late. You should be asleep, Ruby Mae. Tomorrow’s a school day.”

  Ruby Mae leapt onto Christy’s bed. “Can’t sleep. I’m too excited about gettin’ rich. I tried countin’ sheep, but they kept turning into gold nuggets.” She gazed at Christy’s trunk longingly. “Can I see ’em one more time?”

  “Ruby Mae . . .”

  “Just a peek, I promise. I know it’s crazy, but I keep fearin’ they’ll up and disappear. I mean, don’t get me wrong, Miz Christy, I trust you and all. But it’s like the only way I can believe in ’em is to look right at ’em with my own two eyes, you know?”

  Christy set aside her diary. “All right. Just this once. But I’m not going to have a daily show for you and your friends. Understood?”

  “Oh, no’m. Bessie and Clara won’t let me tell anyone no how. My lips is glued tighter than a bear paw to a honey hive.”

  Christy retrieved the key to the trunk from her nightstand drawer. She opened the trunk, pulled out the small cedar jewelry box, and sat down on the bed next to Ruby Mae.

  When Christy opened the box, Ruby Mae gasped. “Oh, my! They’re even more beautiful than I remembered!”

  “You just saw these gold nuggets a couple hours ago, Ruby Mae.”

  Ru
by Mae picked up one of the stones. “It’s like these tiny little rocks have magic power. More than one of Granny O’Teale’s herb potions, even. More than all the doc’s medicines. This rock can make me into anything I want to be.”

  Christy started to argue that money couldn’t buy happiness. That what mattered was that Ruby Mae be happy on the inside. That material things didn’t matter.

  But when she looked into Ruby Mae’s shining brown eyes, she couldn’t say a thing. Christy had grown up in a lovely home, with pretty dresses and fine food and loving parents and all the shoes she’d ever needed.

  Not long ago, Ruby Mae had actually visited Christy’s old home. Bessie had needed an operation at a hospital in Asheville, and Ruby Mae, Christy, David, and Doctor MacNeill had traveled there together. Christy could still remember the look on Ruby Mae’s face when she’d first stepped into Christy’s old bedroom. Seeing it through Ruby Mae’s eyes, Christy had felt ashamed at the way she’d always taken her own good fortune for granted.

  “Magic rocks,” Ruby Mae repeated in a whisper. “That’s what they is.”

  Christy touched the red ribbon in Ruby Mae’s hair. “You know, that ribbon looks pretty in your hair,” she said softly.

  “Finest present I ever got,” Ruby Mae declared, still staring at the gold. “Practically the onliest one,” she added with a smile.

  Gently Christy put the gold nugget back in the box with the others.

  “Miz Christy?” Ruby Mae asked thoughtfully. “You figure a gal from these here parts could ever make somethin’ of herself? Maybe be a doctor or a teacher or have a passel of kids in a big city mansion?”

  “I think a girl from these parts can do just about anything she sets her mind to, if she works hard at her schooling,” Christy said, “and gets enough sleep.” She placed the box back inside the trunk. “You head on to bed now.”

  “One more thing,” Ruby Mae said when she got to the door.

  “Yes, Ruby Mae?”

  “I was wonderin’ if you’d mind hidin’ that key o’ yours someplace more secret-like. I know I can trust everyone, but just in case . . .”

  Christy stared at the brass key. She’d never bothered to lock her trunk before today. She eased the key into the lock and turned it until it clicked. Then she slipped the key under her mattress.

  “How’s that?” Christy asked.

  “Much better. Now I can get me some sleep.”

  Christy sighed. “I hope I can say the same for myself.”

  Four

  Now, there are several differences between frogs and toads,” Christy said the next afternoon in the schoolhouse.

  Prince Egbert sat on her battered desk in a small wooden box Clara had borrowed from her father. It was nice, Christy realized, to have any kind of educational aid—even if it was just a disgruntled frog.

  When Christy had first come to the mission school, she’d been shocked at the lack of supplies. There’d been no paper, no books, no pencils, no chalk. In the winter, there wasn’t even enough heat.

  It still amazed her that she had sixty-seven students of all ages and abilities. Some could read and do math. Some couldn’t even hold a pencil. And no matter what their grade level, they were all crowded into one tiny schoolhouse—a school that doubled as the church on Sundays.

  On a hot, sunny day like today, it was especially hard to control so many children. It didn’t help one bit that Ruby May, Bessie, and Clara had been disrupting class all morning with giggles and whispers.

  Creed Allen, a mischievous nine-year-old, waved his hand frantically. “Teacher!” he called. “I got me a question about that there frog!”

  “Yes, Creed?”

  “How come Clara Spencer gets to bring her pet to school, but I can’t bring Scalawag?”

  Christy sighed tolerantly. Scalawag was Creed’s pet raccoon. She’d made his acquaintance on the first day of school, when Creed had hidden the animal in his desk.

  “This frog—” Christy began.

  “Prince Egbert,” Clara interjected.

  “Excuse me. Prince Egbert,” Christy continued, “is here as part of our science class, Creed. We’re learning about amphibians, and—”

  “But Scalawag’s got manners to spare compared to that slimy ol’ frog,” Creed persisted.

  “I’m sure he does, Creed. But he’s such an entertaining fellow that we’d never get any learning done with Scalawag around, don’t you think?”

  “I s’pose,” Creed said crankily. “But he’s a heap more good for learnin’ than some warty fibian.”

  “Amphibian,” Christy corrected. “And that brings me to an interesting point. Who can tell me the difference between a frog’s skin and a toad’s?”

  “Tell you this,” came a loud voice from the back of the room. “Ruby Mae’s got more warts than either of ’em!”

  “That will be enough, Lundy,” Christy said firmly. At seventeen, Lundy Taylor was the oldest boy in school. He was also the source of most trouble. He was a vicious bully, and although he’d been better behaved lately, Christy never let her guard down around Lundy.

  “Shut up, Lundy Taylor!” Ruby Mae shot back. She jutted her chin. “I’m better ’n you every which way there is. ’Specially ’cause now I’m a-goin’ to be stinkin’ r—”

  “Hush, Ruby Mae!” Clara elbowed her hard.

  “Stinkin’ is right,” Lundy crowed. “You stink like them hogs under the schoolhouse. Only they smell better!”

  Christy clapped her hands. “That will be quite enough,” she said. She was beginning to wonder if she should have let the children have a longer lunch break. The way things were turning out, it was going to be a long afternoon.

  “Lizette?” Christy said. “Can you answer my question about the difference between frogs and toads?”

  Lizette Holcombe shrugged. “Nope,” she grumbled.

  Christy was surprised at her tone of voice. Lizette was one of her best students. “Is something wrong, Lizette?”

  Lizette glared at Ruby Mae and her friends. “Nothin’s wrong.”

  “Are you sure?” Christy asked gently.

  “Why don’t you just ask the princesses to answer? They think they’re so smart. But you could take all the brains they’ve got, put them in a goose quill and blow ’em in a bedbug’s eye!”

  Christy knelt by Lizette’s side. She was a tall, pretty girl, with long brown hair. But her face was splotched and red, as if she’d been crying.

  “What’s wrong, Lizette? What do you mean, ‘princesses’?”

  Christy feared she knew all too well what the answer was going to be.

  “Ruby Mae and Clara and Bessie,” Lizette said. “They started them up a club for princesses and such.”

  “Ruby Mae?” Christy asked sternly. “What’s this about a club?”

  Ruby Mae grinned. “We started us a club during the break. We’re callin’ it ‘The Princess Club.’ Nobody but me and Bessie and Clara can get in. It’s glue-sive.”

  “I believe you mean exclusive,” Christy said. “Did it ever occur to you girls that you might be hurting other people’s feelings?”

  “It’s for their own good, Miz Christy,” Clara explained in a reasonable voice. “We have our secret, after all.” She gave Christy a knowing smile.

  “You can have your dumb old secret,” Lizette muttered. “You three have been carrying on all day like you’ve gone plumb crazy.”

  “Ain’t crazy,” Clara said. “We do have a secret. A gigantic secret.”

  “Big deal.”

  “A real big deal,” Bessie said.

  “Just ignore her,” Clara advised. “She’s just jealous.”

  “’Course, she’d be lots more jealous if’n she knew we found us some gold!” Ruby Mae cried.

  Suddenly the room went still. Ruby Mae slapped her hand to her mouth. Bessie’s jaw dropped open. Clara groaned.

  “It’s just as I said, Ruby Mae. You’ve got the biggest mouth this side of Coldsprings Mountain,” Bessie hi
ssed.

  Ruby Mae’s cheeks flared. The rest of the class stared at her in stunned disbelief.

  “Well, it don’t rightly matter if’n I told, anyhow,” she said. “As long as I don’t say where we found it or where it’s hid, what harm is there in tellin’?”

  “What do you mean, you found gold?” Lizette demanded. “There ain’t no gold in these mountains.”

  Lundy jumped to his feet. “You oughta whop her good for tellin’ lies, Teacher!”

  “If’n you found real live gold,” Creed cried, “show it to us, Ruby Mae! That’s a heap more educational than that ol’ frog!”

  Instantly, the class erupted into shouts and jeers. Christy clapped her hands to get their attention, but it was no use.

  In desperation, she climbed onto her chair. She tried yelling. She tried waving. When nothing else worked, she decided to try a trick David, who taught math and Bible study, had shown her. She put two fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle.

  At last, the room quieted. “Wow, Teacher,” Creed said in an awed voice, “you whistle better than a feller!”

  “Sit down, everybody,” Christy instructed as she climbed off her chair. “Now, I want one thing made clear. This is a place where we are all equal, and we are all here to learn.”

  “But Teacher,” asked Mountie O’Teale, a shy ten-year-old, “is it really true they’re rich?”

  Christy put her hands on her hips. Now that Ruby Mae had let the cat out of the bag, she couldn’t lie.

  “It’s true that Ruby Mae and her friends found some interesting stones that are prob- ably gold.” Her words caused a fresh gasp from the class. “But that is their business, and I do not want it to be part of the discussion in this classroom. As a matter of fact, I do not want to hear anyone uttering the words ‘gold’ or ‘rich’ or ‘club’ in this class.”

  “I thought only cows had udders, Teacher,” Creed said.

  “I meant ‘don’t talk about these things,’ Creed,” Christy said. “And while we’re at it, the only princesses I want to hear about are in fairy tales. Understood?”