Rose Larkin

Rose Larkin

Twelve-year-old Rose Larkin is Ms. Know-It-All with a cold tone and haughty attitude to match. She has short red hair, a long nose and a pointy face which gave her a slight elfish look. Her appearance often led strangers to expect wisecracks and mischief until they looked closely and noticed her set chin, her mouth so firmly shut, and the guarded expression that was too often in her gray eyes. Unlike her Aunt Nan who is selfless and kind to everyone she meets, Rose is uppity and aloof to people she believes are beneath her on the social scale. Her feelings for her new home with the Henrys are entirely negative at the beginning of the book in contrast to the world in the Root Cellar where she feels completely welcomed.

Rose’s main problem with her family is that she doesn’t feel like she belongs in their home. Now that her parents are deceased, her grandmother has died and she has nowhere else to go, she is sent away to the Henry’s where for most of the time in the book she is miserable. Sam Henry especially found Rose to be selfish, egotistic and ungrateful.

“I don’t care,” Sam rumbled (not as deeply but in almost the same voice as Uncle Bob) “She doesn’t do anything to make us feel good either. She’s snooty. She’s a snob. ‘I’m used to Paris, they know me in that hotel.’” Sam imitated perfectly Rose’s icy tones. “She goes around in her stupid fur coat glaring at people. She looks like a stuffed owl with pink hair!” (p. 38)

Later in the book, Sam and Rose bond a little and Rose, feeling closer to her new found friend, tells him about the Root Cellar and how she went back in time and met Susan and Will. Sam, who seems to be good with reading music, helps her learn the notes to Wills song, which Susan gave her, to keep the time the same between their worlds. Although Rose has shown a little of her soft side in the beginning of the book, she seems to still have the nagging feeling that she does not belong in the present, but in the past. This question of where she belongs, causes a conflict within herself to discover where she really belongs.

Though Rose has a rude demeanor on one side of her, she also has a insecure side. As a young child she found child play to be rough and their loud jokes to be crude. She longed to play with children, but was taught by her grandmother to learn the customs of an adult and later in her childhood she mainly associated with adults making her an alien to child play. The death of her parents also played a role in her noiseless character. Afraid that if she misbehaved even once and would lose her grandmother as well she became a stiff, self-possessed child.

“Without other children, an alien among adults, Rose came to the conclusion when she was eight that she didn’t belong in the world. She believed she was a creature from somewhere else.” (p. 3)

In any case, Rose’s surly and impertinent behaviour, causes the Henrys to wonder if she really is a courteous and favourable young woman. Near middle of the book, she learns the importance of friendship, family and be appreciative of others. Like the layers of an onion, she shed her outside layers and revealed her true and cordial aspects.

...