Once upon a time, there was a little bunny. His ears were blue, his paws were blue, his tail was blue … he was blue all over, and his name was Bluebell. He lived with a little boy named Josiah, and he was very, very happy.

Gwen paused and tapped the pen against her teeth. That, she thought, was a very good opening. She looked out her window at the lowering sun, reflecting red and gold against the stone wall of the garden. The late poppies glowed in the warm dimming light. She smiled dreamily and bent her head again to her task, thinking with a bit of surprise that she actually was enjoying the writing of this. She wondered if Mother felt this way about writing her column … like magic was just waiting to pour from her fingertips.

Without realizing it, Gwen wrote straight through the night. Dawn was just starting to peek over the horizon when she rose stiffly from her desk, took the sheaf of paper containing a story of a blue bunny and his grand adventures with the fairies from her desk, and crept downstairs to lay it on the doorstep, weighted down with a white stone she had found earlier in the day.

In the end, she had decided not to ask Leigh to draw any pictures to go with the story. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. Jo was imaginative, yes, but he was also smart, and he listened to everything happening around him.

The story properly placed, Gwen wearily climbed the stairs again and into bed. She pulled the covers up over her head and hoped no one would notice that for once, she was not the first of her siblings downstairs in the morning. She needed her sleep.

Alas, she was not destined to get it. Scarcely two hours after falling asleep, Gwen was awakened by Jo bursting through her door and leaping on her bed.

"Oof!" she gasped, feeling the full weight of his sturdy body landing on her stomach.

"Look, Gwennie! Look!" he demanded, flourishing the story she'd written last night under her nose. "Look what the fairies left for me! Bluebell was kidnapped, but they came and kept him company until you and Phil found him, and he wasn't scared a bit because he knew I'd send you after him!"

"That's wonderful, Jo-Jo," Gwen managed. "Now may I go back to sleep, please?"

He leaned back and stared at her suspiciously. "Why're you still in bed? You're always up first, you and Phil."

Gwen groaned to herself and sat up. She couldn't hope to stay in bed any longer, not with Jo's quick mind. "I didn't sleep very well last night, that's all, Jo."

"Oh." He nodded understandingly. "You were upset about Bluebell, too."

"I sure was." Gwen ruffled his hair absently, forgetting how much he hated that now that he was a big boy of twelve.

He pulled away, but it was a mark of how happy he was about Bluebell's story that he didn't glare at her. Instead, he patted her head condescendingly.

"Well, if you don't come down soon, Phil is going to eat all your breakfast. Lynde is threatening to give it to him since you're so lazy. And she made pancakes."

That did it. Gwen flung back her covers and leapt for her clothes, sending Jo tumbling to the floor in a giggling heap. "Phil's not eating my pancakes, the greedy pig!"

She dressed in record time and raced downstairs, only to find Phil nowhere in sight. "Where are my pancakes?" she demanded.

"Right here," Lynde said calmly.

Jo was still giggling as he came into the dining room behind Gwen. "Phil's not even here, Gwen. Lynde just told me to tell you that to get you up."

Gwen glared at both of them, but when she saw the pitcher of maple syrup that Lynde placed beside the pancakes, she decided to forgive them.

After all, pancakes were nowhere near as good when they were cold.

After breakfast, Gwen strolled down to Rainbow Valley, feeling tired but satisfied. It was mid-July—they still had half the summer ahead of them, which they now could enjoy, now this nonsense with the Fords was done. Jo was perfectly satisfied with the story about Bluebell and the fairies. Lee had escaped any torment at all, safe in Avonlea with Grandmother, Grandfather, and Leigh. She would learn how to make bread from Aunt Ruth tomorrow. Today, she would rest and just be.

"Morning, Gwen."

Gwen spun around, eyes narrowing in immediate suspicion. "What do you want?" she asked coldly, her good mood dissipated.

Isaiah Ford uncurled from his seat at the base of the White Lady. He stood up to meet Gwen's hostile gaze squarely. "I wanted to say I'm sorry."

Her jaw dropped. Those words were the last she'd ever expected to hear from her surly cousin. Looking at him more closely now, she saw that for once his gaze was open and honest, his face unmarred by a scowl. Why, he really was quite handsome!

As though he sensed her thoughts, he grinned, and was even more handsome then. "Not what you were expecting, eh?"

"No," she said frankly. "Not exactly."

He shrugged. "Let's just say I had a long talk with myself yesterday, and found that I didn't, in fact, like myself very much. I'd never really thought about it before, but you sort of made me think."

"Well, good," Gwen said without thinking. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth.

Isaiah laughed. "It is good. No one's ever showed me exactly what they thought of me before. Everyone was always too scared."

Gwen shook her head. "Why are you always so angry?"

He shrugged. "It's just always seemed like everyone's out to get me. Ever since I was little, I remember thinking that everyone liked Isaac better, so I would just hate them before they hated me."

"That's really sad, Isaiah," Gwen said slowly.

"Is it?" He looked surprised. "I never thought about it before. It was just the way it was."

"Well, it shouldn't be. People would like you if you gave them a chance, and weren't always doing such awful things to them," Gwen said firmly.

"Do you like me, now?"

She thought about it. "I don't hate you. I don't know if I like you, though. I don't really know you, you see."

"Plus, I did some awful things to you and your brothers." Isaiah's face was glum. "I'm the one who destroyed Uncle Carl's specimens, you know. I … I enjoyed smashing them, and thinking that Phil was going to take the blame. I don't suppose you'll ever forgive me now."

Gwen didn't want to, but looking at his face, shy and hopeful and resigned, and thinking how awful it would be to go through life thinking nobody liked you, or even would like you if you gave them a chance …

"I'll forgive you," she said, deciding that she would, even though she didn't want to. Dad always said forgiveness was a choice, not a feeling.

When Isaiah's face lit up like she (and probably no one) had ever seen, she knew it was the right choice. "And … can we be friends?"

"I'm willing to try if you are," Gwen said.

"I've never had a friend before," Isaiah said. "Even Isaac's more just around to help me think up things to do to people. We're not really friends, not like Jack and Oliver, or you and Phil. I'm not sure I know how to even be a friend."

"It's not that hard," Gwen smiled.

"Maybe not for you, but you're nice." Now Isaiah was starting to look worried, and Gwen remembered that he was, after all, only thirteen. "I don't know, Gwen. Maybe I can't be your friend. Maybe I'm just mean down to the bone."

"Nonsense," Gwen said firmly. She made up her mind. "Isaiah, I am going to be your friend whether you are mine or not. No matter what you do, you won't be able to shake me. I'll be honest with you, and tell you what I think if you're doing something mean, but I'll still be your friend. You're stuck with me now, boyo."

That seemed to do the trick. That odd, shy grin spread across his face again. "OK," he said. "So, friend. What are we doing today?"

Gwen had been hoping to spend the day alone, but she changed her plans in a flash. Her cousin—her new friend—needed her. "Let's go exploring," she said. "I know the shore this side of the lighthouse quite well, but I've never gone too far in the other direction. Shall we see what lies beyond?"

"Sounds great," he said. "Just us?"

"Unless you'd like some of the others to come along."

"Nope," he decided. "None of them like me, still."

"That will change," Gwen told him. "Once you start to change, and people see it's real, they'll want to be your friend, too."

He looked alarmed. "I don't want too many friends!"

Gwen had to laugh. "Isaiah, you are the strangest boy I ever met!"

He started to get angry, but caught himself. "I suppose I am," he said gloomily, instead.

"That's all right," Gwen reassured him. "It's strange people who are the most fun. Just between you and me? Ordinary people are boring. You wait here, then, and I'll go ask Lynde to pack us a picnic lunch."

"OK."

Lynde couldn't quite understand why Gwen would want to be doing anything with one of "those Ford scoundrels," especially after they took Bluebell like that, but when Gwen persisted, she agreed to pack them a picnic.

"Don't blame me, though, if he ends up throwing all this food all over you and running off," she warned. "He's likely only being nice to you so he can play another trick on you, only you're too good-hearted to see it!"

Gwen wondered about that. Was Isaiah just pretending, so he could get back at her for humiliating him and Isaac at the pond? For a moment, she regretted ever agreeing to forgive him and be his friend.

Then she remembered the look on his face when he told her how nobody had ever liked him, and the hope he'd shown when she promised to be his friend, and she knew it couldn't be a trick.

He just wasn't that good of an actor.

As it turned out, they actually had a grand time. True, Isaiah's temper flared up a few (or several) times, causing Gwen to remind him that he didn't really need to be mad; and true, there were times when Gwen wished she could just be alone; but for two cousins who were enemies only a day ago, it wasn't bad at all.

Isaiah even offered to go to Jo and apologize for taking Bluebell, and confess to Uncle Carl that he was the one who damaged the specimens. Gwen was touched, but refused both offers.

"The story that Jo got from the fairies has set him at peace about Bluebell," she said. "Anything now would just stir him up again. As for Uncle Carl—well, if you told him you did it, he would want to know why, and then everything would come out to everyone, and it would just be a mess. I'd much rather keep it between us cousins, as it is. Things are settled now; there's no need to drag the adults into it."

Isaiah shrugged, "Whatever you want," but Gwen thought he looked relieved. Apologizing to Jo couldn't have been too frightening a thought, but confessing to Uncle Carl … well, she wouldn't have wanted to do it, and that was a fact!

"That was pretty clever of you, writing a story like that for Jo," Isaiah said. "How'd you think of it?"

"I just wondered what Mother would do," Gwen explained. "And since she's a writer, that seemed like the thing she would have done."

"Wasn't it awfully hard?"

Gwen shook her head. Her fair hair caught the sun and reflected it back out to sea, almost blinding Isaiah. "Actually, it was kind of fun. I've never written anything but school assignments before, and this was much more enjoyable. I think I'd like writing stories more often, just for myself or the kids to read."

"I hate reading," Isaiah said. "And I hate writing."

"Is there anything you don't hate?" Gwen asked in mild exasperation.

He considered it. "Well, I suppose there's some things I'm just indifferent to."

"Oh, Isaiah," Gwen sighed. "Life is so full of people and things to love. How can you not see it?"

"I just don't, that's all."

She took his shoulders and turned him to face out to sea. "There," she said. "Look."

The water was a blinding blue that day, sparkling in the sunlight. Overhead, the gulls dipped and swirled, keening their cries to the wind. Further out, white sails of fishing boats dotted the horizon.

On either side of the young pair, the shore stretched out, a combination of sand and stone. Red cliffs rose further down the way, towering against the bleached blue sky. The lighthouse stood in sturdy solitude back the way they had come, a beacon to all who wandered.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Gwen said.

"It's just a bunch of rocks and water," Isaiah said, looking at her strangely. "What's so swell about it?"

"It's lovely," Gwen said. "And just think, Isaiah, God created all this just for us, just to satisfy us with beauty. Isn't that a tremendous thought?"

"Oh—God," he sneered. "I know you're a minister's daughter, so you have to believe that stuff, but don't expect me to."

"Why, Isaiah! Don't tell me you don't believe in God?" Gwen grabbed his arm. "Look at everything around us—really look at it. Do you honestly think all this just happened? How else could the world be so beautiful if God didn't create it so?"

"Darwin says …" Isaiah began, but he was cut off by Gwen's snort.

"That old fraud," she said scornfully. "He just wanted to prove he was smarter than everyone else. I don't think even he believed half the nonsense he spouted. Who in their right mind could believe that we are descended from apes. Apes, of all things!"

"Science proves it," Isaiah said sturdily. "Face it, Gwen, religion is a thing of the past. It's … Victorian, something only people like Grandmother and Grandfather believe."

"Mother and Dad believe it," Gwen said. "And so do I."

He shrugged. "Fine. Just don't ask me to."

"Oh, but—"

Isaiah's eyes flashed with his dangerous look. "Tell you what, Gwen. I won't criticize you for believing something so stupid, and you won't try to convince me you're right. Deal?"

Dad always said you couldn't convince someone who didn't even want to believe. "Deal," Gwen said sadly. No wonder Isaiah hated everyone and everything! Why, if he couldn't even love God, how could he love anyone?

She resolved right then and there to pray faithfully for Isaiah to come to love God, even though she couldn't talk to him about it.

"Well," she said. "Even if you think all this only happened, you still have to admit it is amazing."

Isaiah looked around again, trying to see it through her eyes. "Maybe," he conceded.

And with that, Gwen had to be content.