Laurie Morrison - Saint Ivy: Kind at All Costs

Cover page titled "Saint Ivy: kind at all costs" by Laurie Morrison is shown. The photo shows a girl dressed in a t-shirt over a shorts worn over leggings stand with one hand on her hip and the thumb of her other hand hooked into the pocket of her shorts. She is surrounded by images of an ultrasound showing a baby, a folder with a scale, pencils, a protractor, and a compass placed on top, cupcakes, an open pencil purse, a laptop, a thumbs-up icon, a baking tray with cookies, a plastic spatula, doughnuts, and a blender whisking up a mixture in a bowl.

Title page of the book is decorated with images of a blender whisking up a mixture in a bowl, cup cakes, messages of love at the click of a button, an open pencil purse, and a folder with a scale, pencils, a protractor, and a compass placed on top.

The title of the book "Saint Ivy: kind at all costs" by Laurie Morrison is shown. The title is surrounded by images of doughnuts, a heart-shape, a broken heart, a laptop, and a heart-eyes emoji.

For everyone who
struggles to be as kind
to themselves as they
are to other people

PUBLISHERS NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 978-1-4197-4125-8

eISBN 978-1-68335-750-6

Text copyright 2021 Laurie Morrison

Cover illustrations copyright 2021 Jason Ford

Book design by Marcie J. Lawrence

Published in 2021 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialsales@abramsbooks.com or the address below.

Amulet Books is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

ABRAMS The Art of Books 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007abramsbooks.com

The first anonymous email wasnt that big a deal. Not right away, at least.

Ivy was on the bus, heading home from school, when she saw it on her phone. The subject line said, Thank you, and the sender came up as downby thebay5@mailme.com: no name. For a second she thought it was spam, but the preview text started with the words Dear Saint Ivy.

Saint Ivy. Thats what her best friend, Kyra, called her sometimes, and how would a random spammer know that? So she opened the email and read.

To: Ivy Campbell

From:

Subject: Thank you

Dear Saint Ivy,

Somebody really smart used to tell me that there should be two different kinds of thank-yous. A basic, throwaway kind for when somebody holds a door open or says bless you when we sneeze or something. And then a special version that tells a person, What you just did for me mattered. It gave me hope when I didnt have any. It turned a really awful day into an almost-okay one. Because if we just mumble a quick thanks either way, people dont know when theyve really made an impact, and thats a shame.

So, here goes. My day today was really awful, and you made it almost okay. It probably wasnt a big thing for you, what you did. But it was a big thing for me. So I want to let you know that. I want to say the special kind of thank-you.

From, your friendly anonymous good-deed appreciator

Huh.

The bus turned left, rumbling past the used book-store, the Italian restaurant Ivys family used to love, and the CVS.

Was this a joke? It didnt seem like a joke.

If she really improved somebodys day this much, she was happy. But she was confused, too. Why did this person want to be anonymous? Who was it? She scanned the email again, searching for clues, but she came up empty.

Kyra was the one who started calling her Saint Ivy, but now some other kids said it, too, and anybody could have heard. And Ivy had done nice things for a lot of people that day.

Maybe the email was from Sydney DelMonte, a junior in high school who lived next door to Ivys dad and had been crying on a bench outside the middle school that morning. Or Lila Britton, whod borrowed Ivys math textbook so she wouldnt get in trouble for forgetting hers for the third time in a week. Although... Lila wasnt exactly Ivys number one fan. Or maybe Josh Miller, the boy Ivys other best friend, Peytonand pretty much everybody elsehad a crush on. Hed been hobbling around on crutches after he hurt his knee so badly at soccer, and Ivy had picked up his things when they spilled out of his backpack and then carried his bag to his next class.

Actually, the email could have been from Peyton herself. Shed been extra quiet today, and extra appreciative when Ivy went with her to the music room and played along on the piano while she practiced her solo for chorus. But Ivy did stuff like that for Peyton all the time, and Peyton had already thanked her plenty. Plus, Peyton had told Kyra that Saint Ivy was kind of a strange nickname since Ivy was Jewish on her moms side and Jewish people dont even have saints.

The bus pulled up to Ivys stop, so she put her phone away and let the mystery go, mostly. Maybe shed figure it out later, once she loosened up her mind and stopped actively wondering, the way she could sometimes remember a word in Spanish class as soon as she moved on to something else. For now, she and Nana had some pastries to bake.

Nana used to live in the suburbs just outside Philadelphia, but shed moved into the city last year. Now she lived five blocks away from Ivy, down the hill in a one-bedroom rental on the twenty-first floor of a big apartment building.

Every Friday afternoon, Ivy went to Nanas after school. Today, Nana was waiting in the hallway, wearing an impressively bright pink apron that said F.A.B. in black cursive letters.

Ta-da! Nana said, doing a little twirl. I got us aprons. Do you love them?

Um, wow! Ivy replied. Theyre

I know! Nana pointed at the letters one by one. Friday Afternoon Baking. F.A.B. Fab-ulous, right?

Definitely fabulous, Ivy agreed.

Nana kissed her cheek. I knew youd love them.

She handed Ivy a matching apron in bright purple. It was stiff and scratchy and completely ridiculous, but Nanas whole face lit up when Ivy put it on.

Now, dont just stand there, Nana said. This hallways sweltering and our time is limited.

Ivy wasnt sure if Nana meant our time in a literal sense, as in the two and a half hours before Ivy went home and Nana went to her neighbors apartment for Shabbat dinner, or in a more philosophical sense, as in their time on this planet as mortal beings. It could have been either, because Nana said tons of super-morbid things. Mom said it was because she had too much time to think, now that shed retired from her job as an elementary school principal.