“Please, Callie. You swore on the Bible.”
“That was about the photograph. Not such a thing as this.”
“Please, Callie. You can have my Underwood.”
I sighed, knowing that I would probably regret my decision forever. “All right. I won’t tell until breakfast.”
“You promise?”
“I promise, Aggie.”
“You know, you’re not such a bad kid after all.”
“You don’t have to leave your Underwood. I won’t tell anyway.”
“It’s too heavy to carry. I’ll have to get another one. You keep it. It’s yours. Good-bye.”
“Bye, Aggie, and good luck.”
But these words struck me as insufficient to the moment. Now that she was leaving, I wanted her to stay, or at least offer some reassurance that we were not parting ways forever.
“Will you write to me?” I whispered.
But she gave no reply. She merely stepped through the door, closing it behind her with the faintest click, and just like that, she was gone. How easily she slipped loose of us, of our house, our family, of me.
If you think I lay awake staring at the ceiling all night, scratching my eyelid and trembling in awe of her actions and fear of the consequences, you would be right. You think there wasn’t H_ll to pay in the morning? Oh yes indeedy.
I entered the dining room feeling queasy, straining to look nonchalant. Mother, sipping coffee out of her favorite Wedgwood cup, looked up and said, “Is Aggie coming down to breakfast? Is she not well?”
“I don’t know,” I said, fighting to control the quiver in my voice. “She’s not there.”
Mother frowned. “What do you mean, ‘not there’?”
“I found this on my dresser,” I said, handing over the letter. Then I took my place at the table and pretended to my usual appetite, a difficult piece of acting if ever there was one. I forked up my eggs with a shaking hand.
Coffee slopped over the side of Mother’s cup and stained the white damask tablecloth. “Alfred!” she cried. “She’s gone!”
A hue and cry went up. Father and Harry and Alberto each took a horse and galloped off to San Marcos, to Lockhart, to Luling. Telegrams were sent to the sheriffs of adjoining counties. And I was threatened with various gruesome punishments to spill the story but stuck hard and fast to my claim of waking to find her gone.
A thundercloud of fear mixed with fury hung over the house for days. The only good thing (besides the Underwood, of course) was that I got my bed back. For a few days, it felt much too soft, and I actually missed my lumpy cotton pallet on the floor. But that soon passed.
Uncle Gus and Aunt Sophronia were apoplectic and blamed my parents for everything, despite Aggie writing them and begging their forgiveness and absolving my parents of any blame. We later found out that Aggie and Lafayette had made it to Austin, married there, and then boarded the train to Beaumont, where they rented a cottage and set Lafayette up in business as a landman with Aggie’s carefully hoarded money. Then came the news that they were expecting their first child and were happy as clams at high tide.
And speaking of clams, Aggie never did write to me, but a few months later, a wooden crate arrived with my name on it. It contained no note but was packed with a fine collection of strange and wonderful seashells nestled carefully in the excelsior. I spent many happy hours cataloguing them with Granddaddy, learning about the angel wing, the sailor’s ear, the cat’s paw, the lightning whelk. There was even a dried Diodon, a puffer fish of my very own. I tied a long slender blue ribbon around its midriff and thumbtacked it to the ceiling, where it swam in currents of air, swaying gently in the breeze from the open window. I loved my puffer fish. I also loved my magnificent horse conch. Not only was it almost a foot long, but when you held it to your ear, you could hear the distant shoosh-shoosh of the waves.
So I did not go to the beach. But the beach came to me.
In the end, I let my newt go, except that he wasn’t really “mine”—he was just on loan from Mother Nature, and I had learned all I could from him. He deserved to go back to his drainage ditch and live out the rest of his newt life in peace.
And as for that old snake? Well, he comes and goes. He’s around here somewhere, but we don’t mind each other. Granddaddy reminds me that he will one day grow too big to make it through the gap in the corner, and then we’ll have to make other arrangements. But that’s all right with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, a warning to young readers: Do not pick up or touch any wild animal, especially one that looks hurt or is out during the day when it is usually out only at night. This especially applies to bats. Such an animal is likely to be diseased.
My endless thanks to my husband, Rob Duncan, and to my writing group, the Fabs of Austin: Billy Cotter, Pansy Flick, Nancy Gore, Gaylon Greer, Kim Kronzer, Delaine Mueller, and Diane Owens Prettyman. Thanks also to Trevor Nance, Lee Ann Urban, Nancy Mason, Ana Deboo, and Julia Sooy.
I consulted various experts for help with this book, but any errors, omissions, distortions, or general screwups contained herein are strictly my fault and no one else’s. Thanks to Special Agent Byron San Marco of the Austin Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Byron Stone, MD; and veterinarians Doug Thal, DVM, and Andy Cameron, DVM, both of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Thanks to Diana Weihs, MD, and James Tai, MD; Lynne Roberts and Laurie Sandman; Robin Allen (Master Knitter); and George Pazdral, MD, JD.
A big woof of gratitude goes to the real-life Scruffy for providing inspiration for much of this book. She is our very own coydog, supposedly half Chow and half coyote. We found her running wild and living off handouts near the river in Fentress, starving, scrawny, and—let’s face it—not the world’s most attractive creature. But we adopted her into our pack, and now she is a beloved member and very cute in our eyes. Thanks, Scruffy!
The Galveston hurricane of 1900 remains, to this day, the largest natural disaster in US history. As many as ten thousand lives were lost. For those readers interested in further information about the storm and its tragic aftermath, go to Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson. (Another warning: This book is not for young readers.)
The following also aided me in the writing of this tale: The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, 1839; A Special Kind of Doctor: A History of Veterinary Medicine in Texas by Henry C. Dethloff and Donald H. Dyal; William B. E. Miller and Lloyd V. Tellor’s The Diseases of Livestock and Their Most Efficient Remedies, published in 1884, which I stumbled across in a used-book store; and The Handbook of Texas Online, at tshaonline.org/handbook/online.
For more information on children abducted and raised by the Comanche, see The Captured by Scott Zesch and Comanches: The Destruction of a People by T. R. Fehrenbach. Many of the abductees who were eventually returned to their white parents had a difficult time fitting back into society. Some even returned to their adoptive Comanche families. And, yes, some people do claim that it is possible to predict the weather with a jar of bear grease. (See the MountainMonthly.com entry on G. Gordon Wimsatt.) I have not seen this in action—although I would dearly love to—and cannot vouch for its veracity.
Finally, the biggest thanks of all go to my wonderful agent, Marcy Posner, and my equally wonderful publisher, Laura Godwin.
For information regarding upcoming appearances, please go to jacquelinekelly.com.
The writing of this book was fueled by Haribo gummi bears.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacqueline Kelly won the Newbery Honor for her first book, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate. She was born in New Zealand and raised in Canada, in the dense rainforests of Vancouver Island. Her family then moved to El Paso, Texas, and Kelly attended college in El Paso, then went on to medical school in Galveston. After practicing medicine for many years, she went to law school at the University of Texas, and after several years of law practice, realized she wanted to write fiction. Her first story was published in the Mississippi Review in 2001. She
now makes her home with her husband and various cats and dogs in Austin and Fentress, Texas. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1: Armand Versus Dilly
Chapter 2: The Armadillo Crisis
Chapter 3: The Barometer Speaks
Chapter 4: Devil Birds
Chapter 5: Rara Avis
Chapter 6: A City Drowned
Chapter 7: Amphibia and Reptilia in Residence
Chapter 8: A Birthday Controversy
Chapter 9: The Mystery Animal
Chapter 10: Family Reunion
Chapter 11: Aggie’s Ordeal
Chapter 12: The Bandit Saga
Chapter 13: Dr. Pritzker in Action
Chapter 14: Money Troubles
Chapter 15: Thanksgiving
Chapter 16: The Scruffiest Dog in the World
Chapter 17: The Travails of Idabelle and Other Creatures
Chapter 18: Grasshopper Guts
Chapter 19: Navigating the Inner and Outer Worlds
Chapter 20: An Astonishing Sum of Money
Chapter 21: Secrets and Shame
Chapter 22: The Value of Learning New Skills
Chapter 23: My First Surgery
Chapter 24: Dogs, Lucky and Not
Chapter 25: A Puffer Fish of One’s Own
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline Kelly
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publishers since 1866
Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
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All rights reserved.
The epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter are from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin.
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Kelly, Jacqueline.
The curious world of Calpurnia Tate / Jacqueline Kelly.—First edition.
pages cm
Sequel to: The evolution of Calpurnia Tate.
Summary: “In rural Texas in 1900, when a storm blows change into town in the form of a visiting veterinarian, twelve-year-old Callie discovers a life and a vocation she desperately wants. But with societal expectations as they are, she will need all her wits and courage to realize her dreams”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-8050-9744-3 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-1-62779-511-1 (e-book) [1. Family life—Texas—Fiction. 2. Sex role—Fiction. 3. Veterinarians—Fiction. 4. Texas—History—20th century—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K296184Cu 2015 [Fic]—dc23 2015000920
First hardcover edition 2015
eBook edition July 2015
eISBN 9781627795111
The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate Page 24