Penelope Crumb

by Shawn K. Stout

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, girlie?” says a man with long sideburns that point like arrows to his mouth.

  “Looking for someone,” I say, pressing the tape on the corner of the poster.

  “Look, you can’t put that there,” he says. “You’re going to have to take that off right now.”

  “How come?”

  “This here mailbox is government property,” he says, “and you ain’t allowed to put stuff on it.”

  “Says who?” I say. “There’s no sign that says no posters allowed.”

  “Says me,” he says. “I work here, so I should know something about it.”

  “You work here?” I say. “You’re a mailman?”

  “Not today, I’m not. It’s Sunday.” He nods at my poster. “You gonna take that off of there or what?”

  I pull at the tape on the top of the poster. “Hey, if you’re a mailman, I bet you know the names of all kinds of people in town.”

  “Some,” he says.

  “Did you ever deliver mail to a Felix Crumb?”

  “Nope.”

  “Now, you answered way too fast. Why don’t you think about it for a minute?” I hold the poster right in front of his face. “Felix Crumb, and here’s what he looks like. Only his nose might be a little bigger now.”

  The man pushes the poster away. “I said nope.”

  Well then. I roll up the poster and shove it under my armpit. After he drops some letters into the mailbox, I follow him down the street. I keep close so I don’t lose him if he decides to make a sharp turn down an alley or dive into a manhole. But all of a sudden when my eyeballs wander over to a giant sock monkey in the window of a toy store, the man stops to tie his shoelaces. And I run right into the back of him, dropping my poster.

  “Are you still here?” he says.

  “Yep.” I pick up my poster. “Do you want to see his picture again?”

  “Girlie, don’t you have something better to do than trail me?”

  “Nope,” I say.

  He sighs. “What’s the name you’re looking for again?”

  “Felix Crumb.” I say it slow so that it has a chance to really sink into his brains.

  “And what makes you think he lives around here?” he asks.

  “Because my mom said he used to.”

  “When?”

  I shrug. “The other day.”

  He gives me a big eyeball roll. “I mean, when did he live here?”

  “Oh, right. A long time ago.”

  “And you don’t know where.”

  “No,” I say.

  “No address?”

  “No.”

  “No phone number?”

  “No.”

  “Girlie, a whole lot of nothing is what you have,” he says, shaking his head. “Why do you want to find him?”

  “Because he’s my grandpa,” I say.

  The man scratches the pointy part of his sideburn. “How can you be so sure that this grandpa of yours wants to be found?”

  “Because I am,” I tell him. “He’s a great adventurer, and…and…”

  “And what?”

  “And he just doesn’t know I’m looking for him is all. If he knew, he’d try to find me, too.”

  The man rests on his knees and leans in close. He smells like bacon and cigarettes. “Tell you what. You leave me alone, and if I see a letter with Felix Crumb’s name on it, I’ll give you a call. Deal?”

  I stick my hand out for shaking. “Deal.”

  13.

  Somehow I know I’m in trouble even before I open the door to our apartment.

  “Where in blazes have you been?” says Mom. She’s standing next to Terrible, who looks proud like he just invented cotton candy or started a war. I can’t tell which.

  The secret tucked inside me feels heavy and wants to come out. I put my hand over my chest to keep it in. Then I search my brains about where I said I was going today, but it doesn’t much matter because Mom has a lot more to say. “And be very careful about your answer because apparently I have a serious case of the flu and could take a turn for the worse at any moment.”

  “Patsy Cline,” I say. I hadn’t counted on this happening.

  “Her mother, actually.”

  “Oh.” Ten times worse.

  “Imagine my surprise when I learned how sick I am.”

  “You are looking much better,” I say.

  “Penelope.” (Diseased Stomach.) Mom folds her arms across her chest. “And how you had to miss Patsy’s audition to stay home and take care of me.”

  It’s hard to look at my mom when she’s angry. Her eyes, nose, and mouth get all scrunched up together in the middle of her face like they’re telling ghost stories at a tea party. I look at Terrible, which is a big mistake because he’s pinching his nose with his fingers in a way that says I’m Pinocchio.

  “Well,” says Mom. “I’m waiting.”

  My secret starts knocking.

  “Where were you today, missy?”

  I know from experience it’s best to give up, especially when she calls me missy. Which makes me glad that I’ve got the name Penelope for most of the time.

  Finally, I blurt out, “I went looking for Grandpa Felix.”

  Not one single balloon or streamer falls from the ceiling. No confetti and no horns. Terrible goes all quiet, and Mom’s face gets blotchy.

  “I haven’t found him yet,” I say. “But I know I will soon.”

  Terrible is looking at me like I just opened a casket and out fell a dead body. “What?” I say. But he just shakes his head and then looks away.

  Mom picks up her sketch pad of insides drawings from the coffee table and shuffles through the pages, like she’s telling them what she’s thinking. Things she doesn’t tell us. Then she looks right at me. “Penelope, I want you to pay attention to what I’m about to say.”

  I set my eyeballs on her scrunched-up tea-party face.

  “Felix Crumb is not a part of our life anymore,” she says.

  “But that’s why I’m trying to find him,” I say. “So he can be.”

  Mom shakes her head. “No. Don’t you understand?”

  I don’t. Not even a little. And I don’t think Grandpa Felix would understand this either. Even with my secret out, my chest feels heavy again. But I nod anyway and then cover my nose with my hand, just in case.

  I make up a speech for Patsy Cline in my brains on the walk to school that says how very sorry I am. But when I see Patsy Cline in Miss Stunkel’s classroom, she acts like I’ve got tails sprouting out all over.

  “Patsy Cline Roberta Watson,” I say, “you are my only best friend and I am sorry you’re mad at me. I’m sorry for erasing my nose in the drawing that you did of me, even though the nose you drew didn’t look anything like mine. And I’m sorry for drawing my nose over again, even though I made it look how my nose really does look even bigger-sized. And I’m also sorry for telling you that my mom was sick and almost dead so that I didn’t have to go hear you sing.”

  When I’m done, Patsy Cline blinks her eyes about a million times like she’s having an allergic reaction. And when she starts to turn away and doesn’t say, “I could never stay mad at you, Penelope Crumb,” I grab her arm and tell her that she can come over after school and sing like she did at her audition so it will be just like I was there.

  Only, Patsy Cline says no and then nothing else.

  The bell rings then, and Miss Stunkel says, “I’m allowing you some time today to work on your coat of arms. Not only will the winner’s coat of arms be on display at the Portwaller-in-Bloom Spring Festival, but the winner will have a chance to make a speech and explain his or her work.”

  Angus Meeker raises his hand. “Can we do two coats of arms if we want?”

  I look at him and roll my eyes. I’m an excellent eye roller.

  “These are due on Friday, Angus,” she says. “But I suppose, if you’re that ambitious.”

  Angus Meeker says, “Ambitious,” and t
hen smiles at me, who knows what for. Then he pulls out a poster board from his desk and unrolls it. His coat of arms is in the shape of a shield made up of different colors of felt. And he’s got glitter and pictures of all kinds of things on it.

  Patsy Cline’s got a purple cowboy hat on her coat of arms along with some music notes.

  Miss Stunkel says, “Penelope, you’re supposed to be working. This is no time for wandering eyes.”

  I take out my drawing pad and stare at an empty page. I shut my eyeballs tight and try to think about my family and what to put on my coat of arms, but all I can see is what’s not there. And I know that drawing pictures of what used to be won’t bring them back.

  “Poor dear Penelope,” Mister Leonardo da Vinci would say. “She knows nothing of her family, and therefore, she sits alone in the dark. An artist cannot draw in the dark, after all. No, an artist must have light to see.”

  “I’m trying to turn on the light,” I whisper to Leonardo. “But I can’t find him.”

  14.

  Littie Maple has got something to say. She’s waiting for me in our living room when I get home from school with a face that says, This Is Important. She follows me into my room, and as soon as my door is closed, she spills it. “I’ve been asking Momma for months if I could go to the Homeschooler’s Craft Fair they have at the library on Tuesdays.”

  I nod and try to pretend like I know what she’s talking about.

  “And she’s finally letting me go!” Littie’s practically shaking when she says this, and her smile is so big, it could sprout legs and walk off.

  I fall face-first on my bed because Littie might as well be talking upside down and backward about her grandpa’s nose hairs. She sits on my legs and says, “Tomorrow is Tuesday. And Momma is going to drop me off at the library BY MYSELF for the whole day.”

  “So?” I say into my pillow.

  “Your brain is as thick as mud.” She pulls at my hair. “So, we can go on another adventure tomorrow.”

  “I have school,” I remind her. “And besides, I’m all out of adventures.”

  “Well, I’m not,” she says. “My adventures are just getting going.” Littie gets up and opens the door. “Real detectives don’t give up on a case, you know. I’m just saying.”

  I pull my pillow over my head to shut out all the light.

  A long while later, when Littie’s gone and the apartment is quiet, I take the picture of Grandpa Felix and my dad out of my toolbox and return it to the family album. The faces in the pictures ask, “What are you doing up so late? A girl your age should be in bed by now.” But I tell them all to be quiet and turn the pages quick.

  When I slide the book back onto the shelf, a thin piece of paper sticks out of one of the pages. It’s a page torn out of a magazine, and when I unfold it, a dog’s face stares back at me. The dog gets my attention right away, but not because he looks more like a cow than a dog on account of the fact that he has brown and black spots all over his face. This dog has got one thing that makes me stop: bushy eyebrows. (Not the kind that are all caterpillary like Patsy Cline’s Marge, but eyebrows all the same.)

  If ever I was sure about a look on a face, it would be this one. This dog, who I’ve decided should be called Winston, is gazing off to the side somewhere, like he just heard somebody say, Winston, come here, boy! It’s time to play Chinese checkers! Because that’s what dogs with eyebrows do in their spare time.

  When I look across the page to see who might be calling him, I see a name typed sideways along the picture in tiny letters that only mice could read: Mortimer Felix Crumb.

  “Mortimer?” I say out loud. “Who’s Mortimer?” Winston looks back at me as if he might just know the answer. “Could Grandpa Felix also be a Mortimer?” Winston won’t say for sure, but his eyebrows tell me that if he could get out of that magazine page, he might be able to help track him down.

  I fold up the page, take back the picture of Grandpa Felix and my dad, and decide to be a detective once more.

  Terrible has got his alien eyeballs on me all morning. I take ant-size bites of my peanut butter toast and chew without making any noise and hope he won’t notice me. “What’s going on?” he says, leaning across the table at me.

  I shrug and say, “Nothing.”

  He pokes his finger into my shoulder. “It better be nothing.”

  “Ow. You can only do that because Mom is at work.” Then I shove the rest of the toast into my mouth and rub my arm.

  “Wish I had a sister who was at least half normal,” he says, shaking his head. Like he’s so normal or regular. He pokes my shoulder again, and this time it hurts so much that a piece of chewed-up toast falls out of my mouth.

  I’m out the door with my toolbox and jacket before I can swallow the toast all the way down. Instead of going left on Washington Street to school, I go right and walk eight blocks to the library.

  The Portwaller Public Library is full of homeschoolers. I find Littie off by herself, reading a book called Everything You Need to Know about Skateboarding. “Ready for an adventure?” I say.

  Littie stuffs the book into her backpack and says, “What took you so long?” like she knew I was coming.

  I take out the magazine page of Winston and point to Grandpa Felix’s possibly new name. I tell Littie about how Grandpa Felix may also be Mortimer.

  “Mortimer?” she says. “I guess if I had a name like that, I’d go by Felix, too.”

  “We need to do another search.” At a library computer, we type in “Mortimer Crumb” and to my surprise we find one M. Crumb in Portwaller.

  “He lives in the same town as we do!” says Littie.

  I shake my head. “That can’t be right. Why wouldn’t he see us if he lived that close? Maybe that’s not the right M. Crumb.” But I write down his number and address just in case.

  Littie says, “Come on, let’s find out,” and she leads me to the information desk where there’s a phone on the counter.

  “May I help you?” asks the man behind the desk.

  “We need to make a local call,” Littie tells him.

  “Two, actually,” I say.

  “Two?” Littie whispers. I nod, and she tells the man, “That’s right, two calls.”

  The man puts his hand on the phone and looks us over like he’s trying to decide if we’re bad eggs. Then Littie puts her arm around my shoulder and says, “Don’t worry, I’m homeschooled. I mean, we both are. Homeschooled.”

  The man must decide that we aren’t bad eggs because he takes his hand off the phone and says, “Make it short.”

  As Littie reads off the phone number, I dial and wait. Halfway through the first ring, I notice the man eyeballing us, so I give him a quick smile and then turn my back to him. Three rings later, a man with a gruff voice says, “What is it?” on the other end of the phone. Not hello, not good morning, not Crumb residence, Mr. Mortimer Felix speaking. How can I help you? This man says, “What is it?” like the sound of the ring grumped him up. And right away I know this man is my grandpa.

  “Hi. Is this Mr. Crumb?”

  “You called me,” the man says. “Shouldn’t you know who you called?”

  Good gravy. “There are more than one or two Crumbs out there,” I say. “So I want to be sure I’ve got the right one. Are you Mr. Mortimer Felix Crumb?”

  “Depends on who’s asking,” he barks. “I don’t give to charities, if that’s what you’re after. You sound too young to be asking for money. How old are you?”

  “I’m nine. Going on ten.”

  “Is it him?” Littie whispers.

  I whisper back, “I think so.”

  “Who else are you talking to?” he asks.

  “Nobody.”

  “I distinctly heard you say ‘I think so,’ so don’t lie to me and say you didn’t,” he says. “I may be up in years, but my wits and hearing are front and center and I don’t like to be taken advantage of by shysters calling me up and looking for money.”

  I give Lit
tie a face that says, I Think He Might Have Been Raised by Wolves.

  “You’ve got five seconds to state your business, missy, or I’m hanging up.”

  “He called me ‘missy,’” I whisper to Littie.

  “I heard that.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “Are you one of those prank callers?”

  “No. This is no prank.”

  “Then what are you selling?” he says.

  “What am I selling?” I repeat. I cover the phone with my hand and say to Littie, “He thinks I’m selling something.”

  She scratches her head. “Tell him you’re selling marshmallows. No, wait. Tell him you’re selling vacuum cleaners.” I shake my head. “No, wait. Life insurance,” she says.

  The man on the phone is counting down fast. “Three…two…”

  So I blurt out, without really thinking, “Do you have a dead son named Theodore Crumb because if you do, I am your granddaughter. I’m Penelope Rae…”

  And before I can even say Crumb, that man, that Grandpa Felix, hangs up on me.

  15.

  That was him,” I say, after telling Littie all the parts of our conversation that she didn’t hear. “That was Grandpa Felix, or Mortimer, I mean, that I just talked to.” My nose tingles and all of a sudden I feel like my heart doubled in size.

  “How do you know for sure?” she says.

  “I just do.” Then I put my hands on Littie’s shoulders and look her square in the eyeballs. “I need you to do me a favor and call my school and pretend you’re my mom.”

  Littie raises her eyebrows at me and then looks at the man behind the information desk. After a moment, she whispers, “What do you want me to say?”

  I tell her to say that I’m sick with a very scary and contagious flu bug and won’t be coming to school. “It’s not flu season,” she says.

  I roll my eyes at her. “Then just say that it’s not the flu but just some terrible disease that only lasts a day.”

  “What are your symptoms?” she says. “In case they ask.”

  “Nose and eyes that are stuffed full of green snot. A cough. Upchucking. And the runs. Fever of two hundred and five. Red bumps on my arms and cheeks. What’s the thing called when you can’t talk?”