Meet the Austins

by Madeleine L'engle

  “That’s quite a story,” John said. “What do you think is best, Dad?”

  “I don’t know, John,” Daddy said slowly. “As I said, the only thing to do right now is to take things simply, from day to day.”

  “Well, I do feel sorry for her now,” John said. “I guess that will help.”

  Well, sure it helped, but it seemed to John and me it needed a lot more than that, or maybe we didn’t have the strong personalities Daddy thought we did. Oh, it wasn’t all as wild as it was right there in the beginning; things kind of got into a groove; and, as Mother and Daddy said, it certainly was a challenge; but it seemed that no matter where you turned in the house, Maggy was always there. There seemed to be more of Maggy than the rest of us put together. If Mother wanted to play the piano or her guitar, Maggy wanted to play them, too. When Daddy came home at dinnertime and swung Rob, Maggy had to be swung, too, though even Suzy knows she’s much too big and heavy for that sort of thing. One thing John made very clear right from the start was that Maggy was not to go out to the barn and touch his space suit, and I think he scared her into realizing that that was one thing she’d better not do. I didn’t blame John for being ferocious with her about it, because Maggy couldn’t seem to keep her hands off things, just picking them up and touching them, things off Mother’s dressing table, Rob’s toys, my books.

  One rainy November afternoon after school I was doing homework, John wasn’t home yet, and Rob was sitting on the kitchen stool playing records on his little player. Mother was making Spanish rice and Rob kept asking her what he should play for her next, and none of us thought much about Suzy and Maggy. We thought they were up in their room playing dolls or hospital. I have to admit they played awfully well together, much better than Suzy and I ever did. Maggy would decide what kind of game she wanted to play, but Suzy could always be the doctor, and as long as she was boss in that part of the game it was okay for Maggy to be boss in the rest of it. Of course, Suzy got to the point where she wouldn’t let Maggy break any more of her toys, but a great enormous box of Maggy’s own toys came up from New York and Maggy didn’t mind breaking them a bit. She said she could always just write and ask her grandfather for more. Naturally, Mother and Daddy tried to discourage this, but some doll or other always seemed to be battered up “by accident.”

  When John got home that afternoon he made himself a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, and then said he was going up to his room to do his homework.

  “Just look in Suzy and Maggy’s room and check on what they’re doing,” Mother said. “They’re being unnaturally quiet.”

  After a moment or two John called down that they weren’t in their room.

  “Well, where are they, then?” Mother demanded. “See if you can round them up for me, Vicky.”

  I went upstairs and looked all around but they weren’t anywhere. They weren’t anywhere downstairs, either. I thought they must be playing a game and hiding on us just to scare us, so I looked under all the beds and in all the closets, but I couldn’t find them.

  “If they’ve gone out in all this rain I’ll beat them to a pulp and spread them on my toast like strawberry jam,” Mother said crossly. “Stir this for me, Vicky, and see that it doesn’t burn. I’d better go out and look.”

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “No, honey, you just stir for me.”

  Mother put on a raincoat and a scarf around her head, took the dogs, and went out. From the windows I could see her walking about outside in the drenching downpour and calling. She came back in and stood by the closet, stamping and shaking off rain, so that before she had hung up her things she was standing in a little puddle of water that had dripped from her. “Get a towel and dry Colette,” she said, as she gave Rochester a rub until he was dry enough to come in before the kitchen fire to dry the rest of the way.

  John came down, saying, “Those girls still missing?”

  “Yes,” Mother said, and I could see that she was worried.

  “I’ll look,” John said. “Did you go into the barn, Mother?”

  “No.”

  “If they’ve gone in there and are at my space suit—” John started, and shoved into his jacket.

  But they weren’t in the barn. “I’ve got an idea,” John said, and went into Daddy’s office.

  Daddy’s main office is down in Clovenford, which is a much bigger place than Thornhill, and where the hospital is; but he has a small office here at the house.

  John went through the waiting room and into the office, and Maggy and Suzy were there, playing. They had Maggy’s biggest doll down on Daddy’s examining table, and they were in the middle of an operation, and Suzy was using Daddy’s instruments from the sterilizer.

  I don’t think I’ve ever, ever, seen Mother so angry. We’re never allowed to play in Daddy’s office, or even to go in it without permission. Suzy knows that. Maggy knew it, too, because I’d heard Daddy telling her so. Well, it was obvious they both knew it, because they’d put on their raincoats and gone in from the outside entrance so nobody would see them, and their things lay in wet puddles on the floor.

  Mother said, “I’m too angry to spank you, or even to think of spanking you. Your father will do that when he gets home. Go upstairs, both of you, and get into your pajamas. Maggy, get into your own bed and stay there until I tell you to get out of it. Suzy, you will please come back downstairs and you may lie on the couch in the waiting room with a blanket. I don’t want you to be near each other, and I want you to think, both of you, think seriously.”

  They started to pick up their wet things.

  “No,” Mother said. “Leave everything where it is. I want your father to see everything just as you’ve left it. Go in through the house and do as I say. At once.”

  They did. At once. I’ve never seen Maggy hop so fast.

  When they were in bed Maggy began to howl—loud dramatic sobs. In the office waiting room Suzy lay on the couch with her face to the wall and didn’t move or make a sound. Mother completely ignored Maggy’s howls. John brought his books down to the study.

  “I’m sorry, John,” Mother said. “You’ll just have to concentrate as best you can.”

  “It’s okay, Mother,” John said rather grimly. “As long as it isn’t driving you crazy, it doesn’t bother me one bit.”

  After she’d howled for about half an hour Maggy came down the back stairs, pouting prettily to Mother. “I’m awfully sorry, Aunt Victoria. We didn’t know we were being bad.”

  “Get back upstairs and into bed,” Mother said.

  “But I said I was sorry, Aunt Victoria!”

  “I’m glad you’re sorry, Maggy, but get back upstairs and into bed, anyhow. I will tell you when I think it’s time for you to come down.”

  Mother spoke very quietly, very coldly, and Maggy obeyed. Up in bed she started to yowl again, but this time it didn’t last as long.

  Rob had stopped playing records and suddenly we noticed that his lip was trembling.

  “Rob, darling, what is it?” Mother asked.

  “I want to go in to Suzy,” Rob said.

  “I’m sorry, Rob, but you must leave Suzy alone.”

  Rob got down from his stool, ran to Mother, flung his arms around her legs, and butted his head against her. “But I want to go to Suzy!”

  Mother untangled him. “No, Rob. Suzy has to stay by herself. Come on, let’s go to the piano, Rob, and we’ll play some songs till Daddy gets back. Want to come, Vic?”

  I knew we were singing the songs for Suzy and Maggy as well as to amuse Rob and keep him from being upset. Daddy was home earlier than usual that evening, but it seemed as though it was ever so much later. John came in and sang with us, Cockles and Mussels, and The Eddystone Light, and You Take the High Road, all the old favorites, and when Daddy came in he said, “Well, this is a nice family picture! Where’re the two little girls?”

  So Mother told him.

  I was awfully glad I wasn’t Suzy or Maggy. It wasn’t so much the sp
anking. It was the talking-to.

  “Those were not toys you were playing with,” I heard Daddy say as he went into the office with them. “People’s lives depend on those instruments. When I made a rule that you were not to play in the office, I made it for that reason. You knew this, Suzy, and it was up to you to explain it to Maggy.”

  Then the door shut firmly behind them.

  But that wasn’t quite the end, either of the spankings or of the screaming.

  For the first time that evening we could tell that Maggy felt bad about something. Suzy wasn’t the only subdued one with red-rimmed eyes at dinner. For once, instead of trying to monopolize the conversation, Maggy just sat there and ate.

  And then what she did next was something none of the rest of us could or would have done. Only Maggy would do something like that.

  Daddy had office hours at home that night; he does twice a week. He started right after dinner. The office lights shine onto the catalpa tree outside Rob and John’s—only now it was Rob’s and my—room. I lay in bed and listened to Rob snore and looked at the light from the office as it splashed yellow on the big leaves of the catalpa tree. I felt cozy and sleepy, and I was getting used to being in John’s big bed instead of my own. The big bed and Rob’s little one are a soft, goldeny pine, and two of the walls are pine, too, satin-smooth old boards almost two feet wide. The other two walls are papered with blue paper with a white snowflake pattern. On the wall opposite the bed there’s a big picture of a sailing ship with full white sails and blue water and skies and white clouds scudding.

  Anyhow, I lay there in the big bed when suddenly there was a scream, a piercing scream, not a Maggy scream, but a scream that wasn’t like anything I’d ever heard before. I sat up, wide awake, and the scream came again. It came from the direction of Daddy’s office and I didn’t know what could have happened. Nobody’d ever screamed that way before, even little kids with shots. I heard feet running and I knew Mother was dashing to see what was the matter. And John went thudding downstairs. Rob didn’t move and for a moment I was too scared to. Then I got out of bed and hurried downstairs after John and almost bumped into Mother and she said, very sharply, “Vicky, get back into bed. At once.”

  “But what’s happened? What is it?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Get upstairs to bed.” It was the quiet voice, so I turned around to go back up, and just then Daddy came through the living room, pushing Maggy in front of him.

  “John, Vicky, get upstairs at once,” Daddy said, and we turned and ran. John came in and sat on his bed with me. We’d peeped into Suzy’s room and she was asleep. Once Suzy goes to sleep she’s like Rob; nothing wakes her.

  John said, “Hold it while I get my glasses. I was so scared I forgot them.”

  I knew then he’d been good and scared. John is so nearsighted he can’t see two feet without them, and putting them on as he gets out of bed is a reflex. I could hear him bumping into something and then he came back in, pushing his glasses up his nose with one hand and rubbing his shin with the other. “What on earth—” he started, and then we heard Maggy yelling. It was a good solid yell this time, nothing imaginary or hysterical about it.

  “I bet Daddy’s giving her Hades,” John said.

  “But why … what do you suppose she did—”

  Mother came up then and looked in and said automatically, “Whisper so you won’t wake Rob,” and sat by John on the foot of the bed.

  “What happened?” we both asked.

  In the light from the bathroom and the light from Daddy’s office windows I couldn’t tell whether Mother was trying not to smile or not. She said, “Daddy’s speaking to Maggy.”

  “What’d she do?”

  “She said she wanted to be near Daddy to show him she was sorry, so she sneaked into the waiting room and crawled under the couch, and Mrs. Elliott was sitting on it waiting to see Daddy, and Maggy bit her on the ankle. Twice.”

  John and I both giggled. We couldn’t help it. Mrs. Elliott weighs over two hundred pounds. She teaches singing at school and she’s always going on about how she loves little children and none of us likes her. As a matter of fact, we can’t stand her.

  “Did she draw blood?” John asked.

  “Really, John!” Mother exclaimed. “Maggy has frightened Mrs. Elliott into hysterics. You mustn’t laugh, it’s very rude. I’ve got to go back downstairs now and help Daddy cope with Mrs. Elliott, but I knew you two wouldn’t go to sleep until you knew what had happened. John, go get back into bed. Vicky, lie down and go to sleep. I might as well take Rob to the bathroom now.”

  She sat Rob up in bed and in his sleep he put his arms around her and gave her a big kiss; he can be very sweet as well as perfectly awful. Then she stood him up and walked him, still in his sleep, to the bathroom, and the minute he got back into bed he started snoring loudly. “I’d better get Daddy to give him an antihistamine tomorrow night,” Mother said absently, and bent down and kissed Rob. Then she kissed me, and as she left I could hear Daddy bringing Maggy up to bed.

  “I meant to hurt her,” I heard Maggy saying.

  “I know,” Daddy said. “But no matter what Mrs. Elliott said, there was no excuse for your behavior, Maggy. She’s going to have a bad bruise where you bit her.”

  “She said my father’s plane couldn’t have gone to another star. I was telling the kids about it at recess, and she was listening and said it couldn’t be true and I hate her.” Now Maggy started to cry, really to cry, in a different way than we’d ever heard her cry, not shrieking and yelling, but crying as though it came all the way up from her stomach, and Daddy didn’t say anything, and I knew he was just sitting there with his arms around her. After a while the crying stopped and I heard her saying to Daddy, “I love you,” and Daddy said, “I love you, too, Maggy.” And then there was silence, and after a while I heard Daddy get up and leave the room. John came out to meet him at the head of the stairs.

  “Dad, it was my fault,” John said.

  “What was your fault, John?”

  “About the stars. You know what I told you last year—how I’d figured out that after we died we maybe went to different stars to kind of go on learning?”

  “You told Maggy this?”

  “She asked me,” John said. “She wanted to know, if her father’s plane had exploded in the middle of the sky, what had happened to him and where he had gone, and I said maybe he’d gone to live on another star. And I guess she thought the plane had gone on to another star. I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s all right, John,” Daddy said. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow. It was good for Maggy to cry it out the way she did just now. I’ve got to get back down to Mrs. Elliott.”

  “Mother’s with her.”

  “Yes, I know. Good night, John.”

  John came back in to me and sat on the foot of the bed again. “That blasted Elliott,” he muttered. “She never could keep her mouth shut. No matter what she thinks, she didn’t have any right to upset Maggy about her father. I don’t blame her for biting.” Then he began to giggle again, and I began to giggle, too, and we were both holding each other and rocking back and forth in a fit of laughter.

  The Terrible Week

  There’s a family story about me when I was Rob’s age or younger. I’d done something I shouldn’t have done, and I’d been spanked, and I climbed up into Daddy’s lap that evening and twined my arms around his neck and said, “Daddy, why is it I’m so much nicer after I’ve been spanked?”

  Well, Maggy was ever so much nicer for a long time after that. She stopped grumbling over making her own bed, and she did her share of setting the table, and she didn’t break nearly as many things.

  Then we had a terrible week. It all began with Suzy. We were reading E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web aloud, and one evening early in January we came to the part about Charlotte’s death. And Suzy cried. She didn’t cry when Uncle Hal died, but she cried, hard, about the spider. And this
is not like Suzy. She never cries over books. But she always seems to care more about animals than she does about people, anyhow. She’s the one who feeds the cats every night, and she’s the reason we have so many cats, because each time Mother and Daddy threaten to get rid of any of them she carries on so. She wouldn’t even let them get rid of Prunewhip, and everybody had to admit Prunewhip’s about the ugliest cat anybody’s ever seen.

  So she carried on over Charlotte.

  Mother tried to explain to her that according to the spider calendar Charlotte had lived to be a very old lady and had had a fine life and lived to be as old as any spider does and older than many. But that only partly comforted her.

  Then we came to the problem of Charlotte’s friend, Wilbur, the pig.

  All teary, Suzy asked, “Mother, why did Mr. Zuckerman want to kill Wilbur?”

  “Well, Mr. Zuckerman was a farmer, and farmers do kill pigs and sell them for meat.”

  “Have we ever eaten pig?”

  “Yes. Often.”

  “When?”

  “Well, whenever we have ham, that’s pig. Or bacon. Or pork chops. Or sausage.”

  “I hate sausage.”

  Sausage is one of Suzy’s favorite things.

  But after everybody had gone to bed and Rob was asleep, John came back in. “Vicky?”

  “Hello.”

  “Not asleep?”

  “Nope.”

  John climbed onto the foot of the bed and pulled the quilt over him. “I know how Suzy feels about sausage,” he said.

  I’d been almost asleep, so it took me a minute to tumble to what he meant. Then I said, “Me, too. But it doesn’t stop me from eating it. Or steak, even though I get terribly fond of the cows we see in the north field every summer.”

  “You know,” John said, “there are lots of people in the world who are vegetarians. They don’t eat meat or anything but vegetables at all. And there are people who eat chicken and fish but no red meat. And there are people who can’t eat pig. Suzy would like that. But I don’t think that’s any answer. You can’t just not eat some things and eat other things.”