Author's Note: All right people, this is my first fanfiction, and it was pretty darn hard to write, so please review! I want to hear everything you think, even if you want to tell me it was bad. I don't care. Please review!

Chapter One: June, 1936

Kit and Ruthie were slung across Kit's front porch, licking chunks of ice with a pile of library books for their annual Read-A-Thon. It was noon on a lazy summer day, and there were no chores underfoot, so the girls were taking advantage of a rare opportunity to relax. Their goal was to finish 20 books, ranging from "A Little Princess" to "Treasure Island." Kit was the more prolific reader, having already read four books since they started at 8 o'clock that morning. Ruthie was close behind, having almost finished her third. Kit, midway through her fifth book, "Death of a Salesman", laid it down and groaned.

"That book is depressing," Kit moaned. "Story of my life."

"I told you not to pick that one," Ruthie looked up from Little Women," for exactly those reasons."

Kit growled, fell back on the porch and rubbed her eyes. "I'll endure it a few pages more."

Ruthie laughed. "Attagirl, Kit."

She sighed and buckled down to attack the Loman family once again. After this, she should read something lighter and more to her taste like Little Men. Yes, Little Men would be the perfect choice.

Just as she was making headway in Death of A Salesman, the story was interrupted by Mr. Smithens' car pulling up into the roundabout. Mrs. Howard stepped out, Stirling in tow.

"Thank you for the ride, Mr. Smithens!" Mrs. Howard waved.

"Anytime, Ms. Howard," he smiled and waved back. He was about to pull off when he saw Ruthie sitting on the porch.

"When do I pick you up, Ruth?"

Ruthie glanced at Kit in a bewildered fashion.

"About 5 o'clock. We're having our 9 hour Read-A-Thon."

Mr. Smithens laughed. "All right then. You girls have fun. I'll pick you up then, all right, Ruthie?" His car pulled out and drove down the path. The girls turned their attention to the Howards.

"Where have you been?" Ruthie asked.

"Oh, we were just going to one of the free clinics to see if Stirling here is underweight."

"I'm not," Stirling mumbled.

"But it turns out he's just naturally skinny, and he's not underweight. Yet," Mrs. Howard pursed her lips and wrinkled her brow. "I'm not sure that's true. I'd feel better if Stirling had been examined by a professional doctor. He's done a lot of growing lately. He's almost at five feet. How tall are you, Kit?"

"I'm five foot one."

"And when Stirling arrived he was only 4 feet. That's a whole foot in two years. Can't be healthy," Mrs. Howard continued her rant and shook her head. Kit could see it was partly true though. When Stirling had moved in 2 years ago, Kit had been almost double his size. Now he was just about her height, and a little shorter than Ruthie, who was practically a tower.

"You'd better get some rest, lamby. You've got a Zoo Guides tour tomorrow."

"Would Stirling like to join us for the 9 hour Read-A-Thon? We could use his help, and it's very relaxing," Ruthie said. She knew that the one thing Stirling hated more than anything in the world was Mrs. Howard's version of "rest:" lying in a bed with five covers on a beautiful sunny day. It was more torture than "rest."

"I suppose so," Mrs. Howard said. "Come inside if there are any bees. Stirling is allergic to bees."

"Thanks, Mrs. Howard," Kit said. Mrs. Howard teetered inside and Stirling took a seat beside Kit.

"What should I read?"

"Whatever you want to," Kit said. "But you have to read the whole thing, so nothing that will bore you," she paused, "or, in my case, cause me to recollect the miseries of childhood." She held up Death of A Salesman. Stirling smiled and selected A Christmas Carol.

By 5 o'clock the children had finished all 20 of the books and were relaxing on the porch with a jug of lemonade.

"What was your favorite, Stirling?" Kit asked.

"The Raven, because it was creepy. And relatively short."

"I liked The Secret Garden best. I've read it before, but there were such beautiful illustrations in it," Ruthie chimed in. "And you, Kit?"

Kit pondered. "Probably The Hound of the Baskervilles. And I hated Death of A Salesman the most."

Ruthie groaned. "Oh, get over it."

"But I can't! It's burned in my mind." Her head fell forward and she banged it against her fist. "Get it out, get it out!"

Ruthie ignored her and turned to Stirling so they could discuss The Raven.

"I'll probably dress up as Edger Allen Poe for the poetry night. Isn't that a good idea? I could use my dad's shabby suits," Ruthie yammered.

"I might recite something from A Children's Garden of Verses. I know them all off by heart, Mother has made me read them so many times."

Kit and Ruthie exchanged giggles and Stirling rolled his eyes. "No, I'd do some Shakespeare. All the worlds a-" Stirling's voice cracked and fell several octaves- "stage."

Kit and Ruthie were laughing their poor little butts off while Stirling turned several shades of red. "Look, I can't help it," he muttered.

"Sorry, Stirling. We didn't mean it," Kit said. "

"Fine, fine," Stirling blushed. "Don't worry about it."

"Hey, do you remember that time Aunt Millie was over? You'd just met her," Kit reminisced.

"Um, yes, of course," replied Stirling.

"She said something, I think, about how you were so short and squeaky and scrawny but someday you'd grow into your ears and elbows." Kit remembered that very well. Millie had also said that someday Stirling would be a handsome fellow. At the time Kit had thought that was ridiculous. Now as she looked at his blue-gray eyes and freckled, smiling face- Kit turned pink and shook the thought from her mind.

"I think I remember," said Stirling. "She was really nice."

"The chickens!" Ruthie giggled. "And the bloomers and the garden! Oh, the memories!" she chortled.

Over the next few days Stirling's appetite grew larger and larger. He couldn't seem to help himself. He would finish his meager portion of dinner, carry his dish to the kitchen, then walk back in and his stomach would start growling and gurgling, so everyone gave Stirling a bit of their meal. Before long Stirling was noticeably pudgier. In a few months, he shot up like a weed and was skinny again. Kit was five feet one and a half, Stirling was pushing five three! It all seemed remarkable to Kit, this growing up business. Mr. and Mrs. Kittredge and Mrs. Howard seemed to notice these changes in the children and one day after supper pulled them into the drawing room to talk.

"Stirling, Kit, you're almost finished grade seven," Mrs. Howard began.

"Next year would be the year you begin high school. But, as you know, the situation we're in here doesn't allow us to spend much money on education," Mr. Kittredge stated.

Kit's heart was rapidly sinking. No high school? Mrs. Kittredge noticed.

"Don't worry, love. We'll definitely send you to high school. But that would involve you earning the $20 you need to pay for high school over the summer. Not by egg-selling or having a newspaper route, that money will still go to the family."

"You'll have to be creative and work hard. We know you can do this, okay, dears?" Mrs. Howard nodded.

"Yes," Kit and Stirling said. Then they retreated to their individual rooms. Kit was pounding out ideas on a typewriter.

"Let's see. I could sell lemonade; take family portraits with my camera- oh! and the newspaper pays for editorials, that too." Kit looked over her ideas. They were pretty good, but where would she get the money to buy lemons? She crossed off the lemonade. And developing the film would cost money too… she crossed off that idea. And to earn enough money from the newspaper she would have to write 20 articles a week. That was way too much. She sighed and chucked the paper in the garbage can.

Thump! Thump! There came a noise from the stairs. Kit twirled her chair around to see Stirling making his way up the stairs. "Oh, hey."

"I've got some moneymaker ideas," Stirling said.

"Good," Kit said. "Because I don't."

"OK. One- we hold a series of dog washes near the dog park downtown. We charge 50 cents a dog if it's small, and really big ones are 75 cents."

"That's a really good idea," Kit nodded. "Any others?"

"This one sort of came from your attic. We go door to door with some cleaning supplies and ask people if they have any cluttered spaces that we could clean up. So if people have an attic like this one before you, um, cleaned it, we'll make it neat like yours is now. And we could get a lot of money from that."

"Wow!" Kit laughed. "You're good at this. Come on, let's make a business plan."

In the duration of the eight weeks of summer holidays, Kit and Stirling worked harder than they ever had. In addition to chores, egg selling, and delivering newspapers, they cleaned four cluttered attics at $5 each, washed twenty small dogs, thirty really big ones, and made $37.50.

All the money spread out on the coffee table looked like a lot, but they were $2.50 short with only five days to go. Kit bit her lip. All that hard work for nothing! At least there was enough for one of them to go. She looked at Stirling, whose eyes were more watery than usual.

"Oh, lamby, don't cry," Mrs. Howard clucked and rushed to Stirling's side.

"We worked so hard though!" Kit cried and stomped her foot.

"Tell you what; we'll let the extra $2.50 come out of the egg money, how's that?"

"Really?" Kit squealed. "Oh my gosh! Thank you so much!"

"We're going to high school, Kit!" Stirling grinned and threw his arms around Kit, who stiffened and turned several shades of pink. Stirling backed away and dropped down on the couch. His face was very red. The adults in the room were laughing their heads off. Kit couldn't bring herself to look at Stirling, and just stared at the ground. She was so happy, but yet- why did Stirling have to do that? And yet- she shot a fleeting glance at Stirling, who raised an eyebrow at her- she had kind of liked the hug.