Mr. Santos called on me when the bell rang. I dared a quick peek in Rider’s direction as I gathered up my stuff and walked to the front of the class.
Mr. Santos smiled as he clamped his hand on my shoulder. “You did really good, Mallory.”
My heart was pounding. “I...I did.”
He nodded. “I just want to let you know that I know how hard that was for you, especially with such personal subject matter. I’m proud of you.”
I swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
“Now I expect you to be up here for every speech,” he said. “Do you think you can handle that?”
Could I? I didn’t know, but I did know I would try. I nodded.
“Good.” He patted my shoulder. “Have a good evening.”
I murmured something along the lines of “You, too” as I turned around. Rider was already gone, and despite everything that had gone down between us, that surprised me. A lot. I’d thought he would’ve hung around to congratulate me, because he, of all people, knew what a big deal this was. But he was nowhere in sight.
Walking out of the class, I told myself I wasn’t going to let his disappearance burst my happy bubble of accomplishment. It sucked that he wasn’t there, but...but what I’d done today was more important, and I knew just how I wanted to celebrate it.
As soon as I got home from school that day, I went straight up to my room and dropped my bag on the floor by my bed. I opened the drawer on my desk, pulling out the supplies. I picked up the half-complete butterfly and took it over to the window seat. Sitting down, I finally finished the carving.
It was fully transformed with delicate wings spanning out on either side of its small body. I’d even added a tiny smile below the indents for eyes.
I placed it back on my desk, just below the last sketch Rider had done of me, and then picked up my history text. I had an exam to study for.
*
“Mallory?” Carl called. “Can you come downstairs?”
Shoving the index card into my history text to mark my spot, I flipped the book closed and scooted off the bed. My sock-covered feet hit the floor. It was too early for dinner that night, so I had no idea why I was being summoned.
I tucked a loose strand of hair back behind my ear as I went down the steps. Carl was standing just inside the living room. Rosa was standing beside him, but my gaze was glued to what he held in his hands. It was a small, rectangular package wrapped in brown paper.
My steps slowed. “What is that?”
“It’s for you.” He held out the package.
I stared at it for a moment before reaching out to take it. “Um, why?”
Rosa leaned into Carl. “It’s not from us, honey.”
“Oh.” I turned the light package over. There was no writing on it, and the brown paper reminded me of a shopping bag. “Who’s it from?”
“Why don’t you just open the package?” Carl advised.
Huh. Good idea. I slipped my finger under the edges and peeled off the tape. The paper came right off and the moment I saw what was underneath, my heart leaped into my throat.
It was a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit.
Not the old copy Rider used to read to me, but a shiny new one. A blue hardcover edition with the rabbit standing up on a small, grassy mound.
The brown packaging slipped from my fingers and fell noiselessly to the floor. There was a piece of paper sticking out of the pages. With trembling hands, I carefully opened the book. The thin slip of paper was nothing more than a torn sheet of notebook paper, but a large section of print was highlighted in blue.
“What is REAL?” the Velveteen Rabbit asked the Skin Horse one day. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Velveteen Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. But once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
Rider had drawn a line from the last sentence to the margin, where he had written, It lasts for forever.
“Oh my God,” I whispered hoarsely. Squeezing my eyes shut, I held the book to my chest. Those highlighted lines were everything. They summed up how I felt, how I’d changed. None of it happened all at once, but once it happened, it couldn’t be undone. And it happened because I was loved. By Carl and Rosa, by Ainsley and even Rider, but most important, by myself.