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  Julie shrugged, trying to steel herself against inevitable disappointment, but as she stood up, she couldn’t quite douse the flare of hope in her heart. “Don’t count on that Dr. Wilmer.”

  Dr. Wilmer smiled softly. “I’m counting on you. You’re an extremely intelligent and intuitive girl who’ll know a good thing when she finds it.”

  “You must be really good at your job,” Julie said with a sigh that was part hope, part dread of the future. “You almost make me believe all that stuff.”

  “I am extremely good at my job,” Dr. Wilmer agreed. “And it was very intelligent and intuitive of you to realize that.” Smiling, she touched Julie’s chin and said with gentle solemnity, “Will you write to me once in a while and let me know how you’re doing?”

  “Sure,” Julie said with another shrug.

  “The Mathisons don’t care what you’ve done in the past—they trust you to be honest with them from now on. Will you be willing to forget the past, too, and give them a chance to help you become the wonderful person you can be?”

  All the unprecedented flattery wrung a self-conscious giggle from Julie who rolled her eyes. “Yep. Sure thing.”

  Refusing to let Julie dismiss the importance of her new future, Theresa continued somberly, “Think of it, Julie. Mary Mathison has always wanted a daughter, but you’re the only little girl she’s ever invited to come live with her. As of this moment, you get to start all over with a clean slate and your own family. You’re all shiny and brand new, just like you were as a baby. Do you understand?”

  Julie opened her mouth to say she did, but she seemed to have a funny lump in her throat, so she nodded instead.

  Theresa Wilmer gazed into the huge blue eyes looking back at her from that enchanting gamin face, and she felt a constriction in her own throat as she reached out and brushed her fingers through Julie’s tousled brown curls. “Maybe someday you’ll decide to let your hair grow,” she murmured, smiling. “It’s going to be beautiful and thick.”

  Julie found her voice at last and her forehead furrowed into a worried frown. “The lady—Mrs. Mathison, I mean— you don’t think she’ll try to curl it and put ribbons in it or anything dopey like that, do you?”

  “Not unless you want to wear it that way.”

  Theresa’s sentimental mood lingered as she watched Julie leave. Noticing that she’d left the office door slightly ajar and knowing her receptionist was at lunch, Theresa straightened and walked over to close it herself. She was reaching for the knob when she saw Julie go out of her way to pass by the coffee table without actually stopping and then step out of her way again in order to pass the receptionist’s vacant desk.

  Lying on the coffee table after she left was a large fistful of purloined candy. On the receptionist’s cleared desk, there was one red pencil and one ballpoint pen.

  A feeling of joy, pride, and accomplishment made Theresa’s voice husky as she whispered to the departed child, “You didn’t want anything to spoil your nice clean slate, did you, sweetheart? That’s my girl!”

  3

  THE SCHOOL BUS PULLED TO a stop in front of the cozy Victorian house that Julie had let herself think of as her home during the three months she’d lived with the Mathisons. “Here you are, Julie,” the kindly bus driver said, but as Julie stepped off the bus, none of her new friends called good-bye to her like they usually did. Their cold, suspicious silence compounded the static terror that was already making her stomach churn as she trudged up the snow-covered sidewalk. Money that had been collected from Julie’s class for the week’s lunches at school had been stolen from the teacher’s desk. All of the kids in her room had been questioned about the theft, but it was Julie who had stayed in at recess that day to put the finishing touches on her geography project. It was Julie who was the main suspect, not only because she’d had the perfect opportunity to steal the money, but also because she was the newcomer, the outsider, the kid from the big bad city, and since nothing like this had happened in her class before, she was already guilty in everyone’s eyes. This afternoon, while waiting outside the principal’s office, she’d heard Mr. Duncan tell his secretary that he was going to have to call Reverend and Mrs. Mathison and tell them about the stolen money. Obviously, Mr. Duncan had done so because Reverend Mathison’s car was in the driveway, and he was rarely home this early.

  When she reached the gate in the white picket fence that surrounded the yard, she stood there, looking at the house, her knees shaking so hard that they banged together at the thought of being banished from this place. The Mathisons had given her a room of her very own, with a canopy bed and a flowered bedspread, but she wasn’t going to miss all that nearly so much as she was going to miss the hugs. And the laughter. And their beautiful voices. Oh, they all had such soft, kind, laughing voices. Just thinking of never hearing James Mathison say “Good night, Julie. Don’t forget your prayers, honey,” made Julie long to fling herself into the snow and weep like a baby. And how would she go on living if she could never again hear Carl and Ted, who she already thought of as her very own big brothers, calling to her to play a game with them or go to the movies with them. Never again would she get to go to church with her new family and sit in the front pew with them and listen to Reverend Mathison talking gently about “the Lord” while the entire congregation listened in respectful silence to everything he said. She hadn’t liked that part at first; church services seemed to go on for days, not hours, and the pews were hard as rock, but then she’d started really listening to what Reverend Mathison said. After a couple of weeks, she’d almost started believing that there was really a kind, loving God who actually watched out for everybody, even trashy kids like Julie Smith. As she stood in the snow, Julie mumbled, “Please” to Reverend Mathison’s God, but she knew it was no use.

  She should have known all this was too good to last, Julie realized bitterly, and the tears she’d been fighting not to shed blurred her vision. For a moment, she allowed herself to hope that she’d merely be given a whipping instead of being sent back to Chicago, but she knew better than that. In the first place, her foster parents didn’t believe in whippings, but they did believe that lying and stealing were grievous offenses that were totally unacceptable to “the Lord” and to them. Julie had promised not to do either one and they’d trusted her completely.

  The strap of her new nylon book bag slipped off her left shoulder and the bag slid to the snow, but Julie was too miserable to care. Dragging it by the remaining strap, she walked with numb dread toward the house and up the porch steps.

  Chocolate chip cookies, Julie’s favorites, were cooling in trays on the kitchen counter as she closed the back door. Normally the delicious aroma of freshly baked cookies made Julie’s mouth water, today it made her feel like throwing up because Mary Mathison would never again make them especially for her. The kitchen was strangely deserted, and a glance into the living room confirmed that it, too, was empty, but she could hear her foster brothers’ voices coming from their bedroom down the hall. With shaking hands, Julie looped the strap of her book bag over one of the pegs beside the kitchen door, then she pulled off her quilted winter jacket, hung it there, and headed down the hall in the direction of the boys’ bedroom.

  Carl, her sixteen-year-old foster brother, saw her standing in their doorway and looped his arm around her shoulders. “Hi, Julie-Bob,” he teased, “What do you think of our new poster?” Ordinarily, Carl’s nickname for her made her smile; now it made her feel like bawling because she wouldn’t hear that again either. Ted, who was two years younger than Carl, grinned at her and pointed toward the poster of their latest movie idol, Zack Benedict. “What do you think, Julie, isn’t he great? I’m going to have a motorcycle just like Zack Benedict’s someday.”

  Julie glanced through tear-glazed eyes at the life-sized picture of a tall, broad-shouldered, unsmiling male who was standing beside a motorcycle, his arms crossed against a broad, deeply tanned chest with dark hair on it. “He’s the greatest,” she ag
reed numbly. “Where’s your mother and father?” she added dully. Although her foster parents had originally invited her to call them Mom and Dad, and she’d eagerly accepted, Julie knew that privilege was about to be revoked. “I need to talk to them.” Her voice was already thick with unshed tears, but she was determined to get the inevitable confrontation over with as soon as possible because she honestly couldn’t endure the dread another moment.

  “They’re in their bedroom having some sort of private powwow,” Ted said, his admiring gaze fastened on the poster. “Carl and I are going to see Zack Benedict’s new movie tomorrow tonight. We wanted to take you with us, but it’s rated PG-13 because of violence, and Mom said we couldn’t.” He tore his eyes from his idol and looked at Julie’s woebegone face. “Hey, kiddo, don’t look so glum. We’ll take you to the first movie that—”

  The door across the hall opened and Julie’s foster parents walked out of their bedroom, their expressions grim. “I thought I heard your voice, Julie,” Mary Mathison said. “Would you like a snack before we start on your homework?” Reverend Mathison looked at Julie’s taut face and said, “I think Julie’s too upset to concentrate on homework.” To her he said, “Would you like to talk about what’s bothering you now or after dinner?”

  “Now,” she whispered. Carl and Ted exchanged puzzled, worried glances and started to leave their room, but Julie shook her head so they would stay. Better to get it all over with in front of everyone, all at once, she felt. When her foster parents were seated on Carl’s bed, she began in a quavering voice, “Some money was stolen at school today.”

  “We know that,” Reverend Mathison said dispassionately. “Your principal has already called us. Mr. Duncan seems to believe, as does your teacher, that you are the guilty party.”

  Julie had already decided on the way home from school that no matter how painful or unjust the things they said to her might be, she wouldn’t beg or plead or humiliate herself in any way. Unfortunately, she hadn’t figured on the incredible agony she would feel at this moment when she was losing her new family. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans in an unconsciously defiant stance, but to her horror, her shoulders started to shake violently and she had to wipe away hated tears from her face with her sleeve.

  “Did you steal the money, Julie?”

  “No!” The word exploded from her in an anguished cry.

  “Then that’s that.” Reverend Mathison and Mrs. Mathison both stood up as if they’d just decided she was a liar as well as a thief, and Julie started begging and pleading despite her resolve not to do that. “I s-swear I didn’t take the lunch money,” she wept fiercely, twisting the hem of her sweater in her hands. “I prom-promised you I wouldn’t lie or steal again, and I haven’t. I haven’t! Please! Please believe me—”

  “We do believe you, Julie.”

  “I’ve changed, really, I have, and—” She broke off and gaped at them in blank disbelief. “You . . . what?” she whispered.

  “Julie,” her foster father said, laying his hand against her cheek, “when you came to live with us, we asked you to give us your word that there would be no more lying or stealing. When you gave us your word, we gave you our trust, remember?”

  Julie nodded, remembering that moment in the living room three months ago with crystal clarity, then she glanced at her foster mother’s smile and flung herself into Mary Mathison’s arms. They closed around her, wrapping Julie in the scent of carnations and the silent promise of a whole lifetime filled with good-night kisses and shared laughter.

  Julie’s tears fell in torrents.

  “There now, you’ll make yourself ill,” James Mathison said, smiling over Julie’s head into his wife’s shimmering eyes. “Let your mother take care of dinner, and trust the good Lord to take care of the matter of the stolen money.”

  At the mention of “the good Lord,” Julie suddenly stiffened, then she dashed from the room, calling over her shoulder that she’d be back to set the table for dinner.

  In the stunned silence that followed her abrupt, peculiar departure, Reverend Mathison said worriedly, “She shouldn’t be going anywhere right now. She’s still very upset, and it’ll be dark in a bit. Carl,” he added, “follow her and see what on earth she’s up to.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Ted said, already yanking his jacket from the closet.

  Two blocks from the house, Julie grabbed the freezing brass door handles and managed to drag open the heavy doors of the church where her foster father was pastor. Pale winter light shone through the high windows as she walked down the center aisle and stopped at the front. Awkwardly uncertain of exactly how to proceed in these circumstances, she raised her shining eyes to the wooden cross. After a moment, she said in a shy little voice, “Thanks a million for making the Mathisons believe me. I mean, I know You’re the One who made them do it, because it’s a real-life miracle. You won’t be sorry,” she promised. “I’m going to be so perfect that I’ll make everybody proud.” She turned, then turned back again. “Oh, and if You have the time, could you make sure Mr. Duncan finds out who really stole that money? Otherwise, I’m going to take the rap for it anyway, and that’s not fair.”

  That night, after dinner, Julie cleaned her bedroom, which she already kept neat as a pin, from top to bottom; when she took her bath, she washed behind her ears twice. She was so determined to be perfect that when Ted and Carl invited her to join them in a game of Scrabble before bedtime—a game they played at her level in order to help her practice her reading skills—she did not even consider peeking at the bottom of the tiles so she could choose letters she was most able to use.

  * * *

  On Monday of the following week, Billy Nesbitt, a seventh grader, was caught with a six-pack of beer that he was generously sharing with several friends under the school bleachers during the noon hour. Stuffed in the empty six-pack carton was a distinctive tan envelope with the words “Lunch Money—Miss Abbott’s Class” written on it in Julie’s teacher’s handwriting.

  Julie received a formal apology in front of her classmates from her teacher and a more grudging private one from the dour-faced Mr. Duncan.

  That afternoon, Julie got off the school bus in front of the church and spent fifteen minutes inside it, then she ran the rest of the way home to share her news. Bursting into the house, red-faced from the icy weather, desperately eager to offer the hard proof that would completely exonerate her from theft, she raced into the kitchen where Mary Mathison was preparing dinner. “I can prove I didn’t take the lunch money!” she panted, looking expectantly from her mother to her brothers.

  Mary Mathison glanced at her with a puzzled smile, then continued peeling carrots at the sink; Carl scarcely looked up from the floor plan of a house he was drawing for his Future Architects of America project at school; and Ted gave her an absentminded grin and continued reading the movie magazine with Zack Benedict on the cover of it. “We know you didn’t take their money, honey,” Mrs. Mathison finally replied. “You said you didn’t.”

  “That’s right. You told us you didn’t,” Ted reminded her, turning the page of his magazine.

  “Yes, but—but I can make you really believe it. I mean I can prove it!” she cried, looking from one bland face to another.

  Mrs. Mathison laid the carrots aside and began to unfasten Julie’s jacket. With a gentle smile, she said, “You already did prove it—you gave us your word, remember?”

  “Yes, but my word isn’t like real proof. It isn’t good enough.”

  Mrs. Mathison looked straight into Julie’s eyes. “Yes, Julie,” she said with gentle firmness, “it is. Absolutely.” Unfastening the first button on Julie’s quilted jacket, she added, “If you’re always as honest with everyone as you are with us, your word will soon be proof enough for the entire world.”

  “Billy Nesbitt swiped the money to buy beer for his friends,” Julie said in obstinate protest to this anticlimax. And then, because she couldn’t stop herself, she said, “How do y
ou know I’ll always tell you the truth and not swipe stuff anymore either?”

  “We know that because we know you,” her foster mother said emphatically. “We know you and we trust you and we love you.”

  “Yes, brat, we do,” Ted put in with a grin.

  “Yep, we do,” Carl echoed, looking up from his project and nodding.

  To her horror, Julie felt tears sting her eyes, and she hastily turned aside, but that day marked an irrevocable turning point in her life. The Mathisons had offered their home and trust and love to her, not to some other lucky child. This wondrous, warm family was hers forever, not just awhile. They knew all about her, and they still loved her.

  Julie basked in that newfound knowledge; she blossomed in its warmth like a tender bloom opening its petals to the sunlight. She threw herself into her schoolwork with even more determination and surprised herself with how easily she was able to learn. When summer came, she asked to go to summer school so she could make up more missed classwork.

  The following winter, Julie was summoned into the living room where she opened her very first gift-wrapped birthday presents while her beaming family looked on. When the last package had been opened and the last piece of torn gift wrap picked up, James and Mary Mathison and Ted and Carl gave her the most exquisite gift of all.

  It came in a large, inauspicious-looking brown envelope. Inside was a long sheet of paper with elaborate black printing on the top that read, PETITION FOR ADOPTION.

  Julie looked at them through eyes swimming with tears, the paper clutched against her chest. “Me?” she breathed.