Charlie and Frog

by Karen Kane

  She touched the fingertips of her hand to her chin, and then brought her hand forward.

  Sign language! She was using sign language. He bet that sign meant “thank you.”

  Charlie pointed to himself. CHARLIE, he fingerspelled.

  The woman put down her knitting needles. Her small hands flurried with signs.

  Charlie shook his head. I DON’T UNDERSTAND, he fingerspelled again.

  The woman sighed. She pointed to herself and fingerspelled her name. AGGIE. Then she picked up her knitting and continued her watchful waiting.

  Knit, crane, look.

  Knit, crane, look.

  Aggie wasn’t just watching and waiting. Aggie was watching, waiting, and worrying. Aggie was on the verge of tears.

  Charlie tapped her shoulder. ARE YOU OKAY? he asked.

  Aggie shook her head and opened her watery eyes wide. Charlie knew that trick. It didn’t always work to keep the tears from falling, though. Before Charlie could ask another question, a lady with a bun of bubble-gum-pink hair that perfectly matched the bubble-gum-pink library marched up the sidewalk. Aggie shoved her knitting into her canvas bag and stood. She was only a little taller than Charlie.

  The pink-haired lady held a pitcher of iced tea with floating slices of peach. She wore a name tag—MISS TWEEDY, ACTING LIBRARIAN.

  “Lovely day for knitting,” Miss Tweedy said to Aggie. Then she looked down through her pointy glasses at Charlie. “Are you Charlie Tickler, Irma and Irving’s grandson?”

  Charlie nodded. How did she know that?

  “If you are wondering how I knew that, the answer is simple,” Miss Tweedy said. “You have Irving’s nose.” She gazed up at the library as Charlie felt his nose.

  “It’s time you were opened, wouldn’t you agree?” Miss Tweedy asked the library. “Well, you’ll have to wait a few minutes longer.” She sat down next to Charlie.

  Aggie stamped her foot. Miss Tweedy looked up. Aggie tapped her wrist and pointed to the library door.

  Miss Tweedy nodded. “I completely agree—punctuality is so important. However, I dropped my library keys in Herman’s taxi yesterday. Herman promised to meet me here at ten and return them.”

  “Aggie is Deaf,” Charlie said. “She uses sign language.”

  “Is that so? It just so happens I’m fluent in sign language!” Miss Tweedy said. “But I’m also extremely forgetful. Give me a moment—it’ll come back to me.”

  Aggie pulled a pencil and paper from her bag. She gestured for Miss Tweedy to write. Miss Tweedy explained about waiting for the library keys. Aggie shook her head and sat back down. The open-eye trick hadn’t worked. A tear slid down her cheek.

  “It’s awful when a patron is upset when the library doesn’t open on time,” Miss Tweedy said. “I wish I had glasses out here to serve peach iced tea. Everything is better with peach iced tea.”

  “I think it’s more than that,” Charlie said. “I think Aggie is worried about something.”

  Miss Tweedy took Aggie’s pencil again and wrote: What’s wrong? Can we help you?

  Aggie rubbed the tear away with the back of her hand and wrote: I need to get into the library—now.

  “See?” Miss Tweedy said. “It is about the library.”

  “Ask her why,” Charlie said. “Why does she need to get in?”

  Miss Tweedy did. Aggie read her question and gave a ragged sigh. Finally she wrote: I did something awful. Really awful.

  “Oh dear,” Miss Tweedy said. “I wasn’t expecting that. Whatever could it be?”

  “Ask her,” Charlie said.

  Miss Tweedy wrote down the question for Aggie.

  I told a secret, Aggie replied. I have to fix it before something happens.

  Before something happens? Miss Tweedy didn’t need Charlie’s urging to write: Like what?

  Theft! Aggie wrote. Or destruction! Or worse!

  “How horrendous!” Miss Tweedy said.

  A car honked.

  “Oh, there’s Herman. Get the keys for me, would you, Charlie?”

  Charlie hurried to the curb. The taxi slowed but did not stop. Herman flung the keys through the open passenger window.

  Aggie’s leg quivered as she waited for Miss Tweedy to unlock the door. Once the library was open, Aggie hurried in and disappeared into the library stacks. Charlie hoped Aggie could right her wrong—whatever it was.

  The inside of the library, like the outside of the library, did not look at all like a library.

  It was more like a house with too many books and no place to put them. Books that did not fit onto the shelves were piled on tables and on the floor next to big, squishy chairs. A grandfather clock ticktocked in a corner. A portrait of a stern man in a pink suit hung above the fireplace.

  Charlie stumbled over a cat that had wandered from between the stacks. The cat eyed Charlie with irritation.

  Miss Tweedy hurried to the circulation desk, where she pulled white cards from the backs of books, dabbed a rubber stamp with ink, and stamped the cards.

  Thwack!

  “Miss Tweedy?” Charlie said.

  Thwack!

  “I’d like to—”

  Thwack!

  “Get-a-library-card-please,” Charlie finished in a rush, before the next thwack.

  Miss Tweedy paused her thwacking long enough to peer at Charlie through her pointy glasses.

  “Peach iced tea?”

  “What?”

  “Would you care for some peach iced tea?” Miss Tweedy gestured to the iced tea pitcher sitting on the counter. “Enid makes the best peach iced tea. Everything is better with peach iced tea, don’t you think?” Pink lipstick covered Miss Tweedy’s front teeth.

  “No, thank you,” Charlie said. “Just a library card, please.” He casually rubbed a finger over his own front teeth, hoping Miss Tweedy would get the hint. Miss Tweedy did not.

  “My offer of peach iced tea was my way of stalling for time,” Miss Tweedy said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Visitors typically aren’t allowed library cards.”

  She bit her bottom lip with a look of tender sympathy.

  “But I’m not a visitor,” Charlie said. “I’m living here with my grandparents.”

  That was true—he did live here. At least for now.

  “Oh, that makes me feel better,” Miss Tweedy said. “I need an ID and a reference.”

  “A reference?”

  “Yes, a reference. Someone who will vouch that you will take proper care of library books. I can’t just be handing out books to anyone! What would Mr. Woo say?” Miss Tweedy pointed. Charlie’s eyes followed the angle of her finger to the portrait of the pink-suited man hanging over the fireplace.

  “I don’t have a reference or an ID,” Charlie said.

  Miss Tweedy clucked her tongue. “We shall deal with that when I return. For now, please take over the circulation desk for me while I”—Miss Tweedy tapped her collarbone—“visit Mrs. Murphy.”

  “What do you mean, take over?” Charlie asked.

  “If a patron comes in, show him or her how to use the Dewey decimal system. If a book is returned”—thwack—“stamp the card in the back. That sort of thing. Mr. Dickens will help you.” Miss Tweedy went through a door behind the circulation desk and closed it firmly behind her.

  “Mr. Dickens will help me? Who is Mr. Dickens?”

  Charlie stood awkwardly next to the circulation desk. He hoped Miss Tweedy’s visit with Mrs. Murphy, whomever Mrs. Murphy was, wouldn’t take long.

  Charlie heard Aggie somewhere in the library, making a low, frustrated sound. Before Charlie could go check on her, she rushed out of the library stacks. Aggie pointed toward the circulation desk and gestured with her arms wide, palms up, frantically looking for Miss Tweedy.

  Charlie shrugged his shoulders and fingerspelled BACK SOON.

  Aggie paced. Suddenly her eyes darted to the front windows. She stood on her tiptoes and stared outside. She spun back around, eyes wide with fright.

 
Aggie slung large, hard signs at Charlie.

  She was desperately trying to tell Charlie something.

  I DON’T UNDERSTAND.

  Aggie fumbled to pull the pencil from her knitting bag. The pencil fell to the floor and rolled under a bookshelf. Aggie’s hands were shaking. Charlie hurried around the circulation desk to find another pencil. Aggie signed to Charlie once more, a pleading look in her eyes. Then she threw up her hands and disappeared.

  What was Aggie trying to tell him? And what had she seen through the front windows? Charlie was about to go over and look when two men walked into the library.

  The cozy library suddenly did not feel so cozy anymore.

  The cat peered around a bookshelf and hissed at the two men.

  “You sure you saw her, Dex?” the taller man asked the shorter man with the huge neck.

  “How do I know?” said Dex with the huge neck. “I’ve only seen her once before—on Tony’s phone.”

  The men noticed Charlie standing behind the circulation desk, staring at them.

  “You the librarian?” Dex asked. His voice was easy, but his eyes were not.

  “Um, I guess,” Charlie said. “Temporarily.”

  “Did a little old woman come in here?” the tall man asked. “She has this thing on her cheek—”

  “A mole, Ray. For the thousandth time it’s called a mole.”

  “Yeah, a mole,” Ray said. “Is she here?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Ray asked.

  “Forget it,” Dex said. “I’ll look upstairs. You look down here.”

  Charlie stood frozen. He couldn’t yell for Aggie to run—she couldn’t hear him. He could yell for Miss Tweedy and Mrs. Murphy—but why did he feel the need to yell at all? It was a public library. The two men weren’t doing anything. They were just looking.

  Then why was Aggie so afraid? Charlie wondered. And why was he so afraid, too?

  Dex came back downstairs. Ray came out of the stacks.

  “No one’s here except the kid,” Ray said. He handed Dex a stick of gum. “Where next?”

  “We look everywhere.” Dex opened the gum. “We find her, we find it,” he continued as he gave the wrapper back to Ray.

  “What exactly are we looking for?”

  “Not sure.” Dex opened the library door. “But we’ll know it when we see it.”

  “Right. ‘It.’ Whatever ‘it’ is.” Ray folded a stick of gum into his mouth. He turned over his hand and opened his fist. Two gum wrappers fluttered to the floor. Ray grinned at Charlie before following Dex out the door.

  When he was sure they were gone, Charlie started his own search for Aggie. Upstairs, downstairs, around shelves, under the tables—Aggie was nowhere to be found.

  Charlie had searched the downstairs twice before he noticed a window open in the back. He leaned out. Aggie’s knitting bag sat beneath the windowsill in a heap. How did Aggie’s knitting bag get there? Did Aggie leave the library through the window? Charlie climbed out the window, hopped to the ground, and picked up the knitting bag. He walked around the library. Aggie was still nowhere to be found.

  Two sugar-free cinnamon gum wrappers greeted Charlie in the library doorway. He picked them up and returned to the circulation desk.

  “Did everything go well?” Miss Tweedy asked as she whipped open the door.

  “No,” Charlie said. “I think Aggie left the library through a window.”

  “We shouldn’t judge patrons by how they choose to leave a library,” Miss Tweedy said. “And who is Aggie?”

  “Aggie. The woman who came into the library with us. She was really upset, Miss Tweedy. Two men came looking for her—but she disappeared out the back and dropped her bag.” Charlie held up the knitting bag.

  “She was probably upset because a book she wanted wasn’t on the shelf,” Miss Tweedy said. “That always upsets me terribly.”

  “I don’t know why she was upset,” Charlie said. “She used sign language. Maybe it had something to do with her secret. Remember she said she told a secret?”

  “Well, do you remember anything she signed?”

  Charlie pictured what Aggie’s hands were doing just before she disappeared. He showed Miss Tweedy the one thing he remembered.

  Miss Tweedy shook her head. “You must be remembering wrong,” Miss Tweedy said, “because I have never seen that sign before in my life. And I happen to be fluent in sign language! But here’s a sign for you to learn.”

  Miss Tweedy signed the letter Y, and then touched the Y to her chin with her palm facing inward. “This is the sign for ‘wrong.’ You must be remembering wrong!” Miss Tweedy signed “wrong” several times to make sure Charlie understood how wrong he was.

  “I am pretty sure what I showed you was right,” Charlie said. Nonetheless, his hand practiced the sign Miss Tweedy had just shown him. “Wrong.”

  “And I am pretty sure you’re wrong,” Miss Tweedy said. “However, if you insist on being disagreeable, you should consult an expert. Go into the Flying Hands Café up at the castle. Ask for my sign language teacher—Frog Castle. You can ride the gondola there. Mr. Simple is the gondola operator. It costs one dollar to ride and the schedule changes daily.”

  “Um, okay,” Charlie said.

  “Frog will help you figure out what Aggie said. And when you find Aggie, you can return her bag.”

  “Can you come—I mean, don’t you want to come with me?” Charlie asked.

  Miss Tweedy gestured around the empty library. “You can see I am extremely busy! I not only run the Castle-on-the-Hudson Library, but I also curate the Castle-on-the-Hudson Museum. What do you do?”

  Good point. Charlie did not do anything.

  “All right,” Charlie said. He remembered Aggie’s frightened eyes. He needed to make sure she was okay. Hopefully he could just walk around the village and find her.

  “Now,” Miss Tweedy said. “It’s time to issue you a library card.” She gave a happy clap of her hands. “This is my favorite part of librarian work!” Miss Tweedy lugged an old typewriter out from under the desk.

  “Frog Castle,” Charlie repeated. “Castle is his last name?”

  “Her last name. Yes, it is. The Castle family is an old and venerable family. They have been in the Hudson Valley for hundreds of years. They built the castle in honor of their family name. And our village named itself Castle-on-the-Hudson in honor of them. Your name, please?”

  “Charlie Tickler.”

  “I have a feeling,” Miss Tweedy said, “that you’ve told me that before. I’m horrid with names. Numbers, however, I always remember. If your name had a number attached to it, then I would definitely remember it, wouldn’t I, Mr. Dickens?” Miss Tweedy cooed at the cat that had jumped up onto the circulation desk. So this was Mr. Dickens. Mr. Dickens eyed Charlie with regal regard.

  Miss Tweedy seemed to have forgotten about IDs and references, and typed up Charlie’s library card. She insisted she had the perfect book for Charlie to read. She found it, checked it out to him, and then ushered Charlie out of the library with the book and the knitting bag stuffed in his arms.

  “Remember!” Miss Tweedy called after him. “Gondola over to the castle, Flying Hands Café, ask for Frog.”

  Charlie stood for a moment outside the library and thought. Perhaps there was something in Aggie’s knitting bag, some kind of clue. He rummaged through it to find the paper Aggie and Miss Tweedy had written on, and knitting needles stuck in a long knitted piece wrapped around a ball of red yarn.

  Okay. So he would walk around the village and look for Aggie, Charlie reasoned. But what if he ran into Dex and Ray? So what? What was the big deal? They were just two men who had come into the library. Even if they had seemed scary. Even if Aggie had been frightened enough to climb out the library window. Criminals didn’t come to villages like Castle-on-the-Hudson, did they?

  No, they did not.

  As he walked around the villag
e, Charlie practiced fingerspelling in case he found Aggie. WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO TELL ME?

  Charlie did not find Aggie or run into Dex and Ray.

  Charlie’s next option was to cross the river and find Frog Castle. A gondola ride seemed like something he should ask permission from Grandma and Grandpa Tickler to do. Charlie was certain grandparents would want to know their grandson was dangling from a wire hundreds of feet above a wide, deep rushing river. They might even say they would worry if he went alone. They might even want to come along to make sure he was all right.

  • • •

  “Just take your key,” Grandma Tickler said, after Charlie had arrived home and asked about riding the gondola. “For the criminals, you know.”

  “Ayuh,” Grandpa Tickler said.

  “The gondola crosses the river,” Charlie said. “Don’t you want to—”

  “Hush, Charlie,” Grandma Tickler said. “Our show is back on.”

  If no one was going to worry about Charlie, then Charlie would have to worry for himself. Was it safe to cross the river? And even if he made it across the river, what could he really do? Charlie was just a kid. Besides, Charlie tried to reassure himself, Aggie was probably fine.

  For the rest of the afternoon Charlie worried and read the book Miss Tweedy had insisted he check out: Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl. The afternoon turned into evening. Yvette had left meat loaf in the oven for him and his grandparents. Charlie took a cautious bite. It looked like a gray brick but tasted like gravy and beef.

  Vince Vinelli’s Worst Criminals Ever! blared from the television once again. Charlie couldn’t help but get pulled into the show. He wrapped himself in a blanket and watched from the sofa while Grandma and Grandpa Tickler watched from their E-Z chair recliners.

  Grandpa Tickler hung on Vince Vinelli’s every word. Charlie, on the other hand, was hung up staring at Grandpa Tickler’s large, bulbous nose. What was Miss Tweedy talking about? His nose wasn’t anything like Grandpa Tickler’s.

  “What was the hardest part of your ordeal?” Vince Vinelli asked a crime victim.

  “The hardest part,” the woman said, “was people saw I needed help, but no one helped me.”

  Vince Vinelli patted the woman’s hand. Then he turned to the camera and pointed his finger directly at Charlie.