ALL THINGS LOUISA MAY

It’s 1975, the doors on the school bus open with the familiar “swish swish.” I climb up the stairs, muttering the perfunctory, “Good morning” to the smiling bus driver. I plop down on the empty green leather seat. The bus groans as the bus driver shifts gears. I pitch forward. The high back of the seat in front of me stops my fall. Our street leads to a dead end, One Point Fosdick. It literally is a cliff overlooking the Narrows Bridge and Tacoma. The bus driver never drives down to the dead end. Instead, he backs up a side road and cranks the big steering wheel around and around to make the turn to head back up Point Fosdick Drive.

On the way to Artondale Elementary School, we stop to pick up Jennifer. She always has two things: neatly braided long blond hair and a book to drop in my lap. The doors open, swish swish. She climbs the steps effortlessly. She is tall. In fact, she is one of the back row kids featured in school pictures. I am short. I am always in the front. She sits down next to me and leans in as if sharing some fanciful secret, “I finished a new one. Eight Cousins. Here, read it. It’s so good. You’ll love it. I’m going to check out the next one, Rose in Bloom. I’ll give it to you when I finish.”

I page through Eight Cousins. Louisa May Alcott is the author of Little Women, Little Men and Jo’s Boys. I read them all. I read them after Jennifer does. She is always right; I love them.