“Here, let me see that.” Sick of being left out of things all the time, I snapped my fingers at the paper, which I began to read for myself.
“Yes,” I muttered, “Beth’s ‘History of a Squash’ does have something sweetly simple about it.”
“In here,” Jo said, sitting up straighter in her chair, “we address Beth as Mr. Tupman.”
“Fine, fine.” I read some more. “Oh, come on, Jo!”
“That’s Mr. Snodgrass to you,” she said.
“Fine. Mr. Snodgrass. But come on. Did you really write an ode to a dead cat?”
“Well, the cat did die.” Jo sniffed haughtily. “It’s good to have poetry in a paper, and odes do have to be about something.”
“And what about these advertisements in the back? ‘Hannah is to give a cooking lesson’? By all means, alert TMZ!”
“What?” Amy said, puzzled, but the others ignored her.
“Well, Hannah is going to give a cooking lesson.” Jo reddened. “Or, at least, she’s going to make us dinner.”
“And these hints and the weekly report? Meg using less soap on her hands would keep her from being late for breakfast? And while you accurately grade yourself as bad, Meg as good, and Beth as very good, you only give poor Amy middling?”
“Middling?” Amy echoed. “Not again, Jo! I swear you only do that because you’re still mad at me for burning your book that time!”
“The middling person is to be called Mr. Winkle,” Jo said heatedly. Then she turned on Amy. “And don’t forget to call me Mr. Snodgrass!”
Freak.
“I don’t care what any of you call yourselves,” I said, tossing The Pickwick Portfolio aside, disgusted. “This paper of yours is rubbish.”
“I suppose you think you can do better?” Jo said.
“Yes,” I said coolly. “I believe I can.”
“Fine.” Jo crossed her arms. “Prove it.”
I got up from my chair and went to stand beside Meg. “Do you mind?” I looked down at her, gesturing at her seat.
With reluctance, she relinquished the seat of power, assuming the less important one I’d vacated.
I sat down behind the table and surveyed the four journalists.
“And take those silly badges off your heads!” I directed.
Looking sheepish, they complied.
“Now then, I should like to call to order this meeting of”—and here inspiration struck me—“the Twist Club!”
“The Twist Club?” Jo echoed.
“Yes,” I said. “And our new paper will be called The Twist Times.”
“But I don’t understand,” Jo said. “Why would we call our club and our paper that?”
“For Oliver Twist, of course. You seem to have this obsession with Dickens, so I just figured—”
“It made sense with The Pickwick Papers,” Jo said. “But what does Oliver Twist have to do with newspapers or any papers at all?”
Huh. She had me there.
“It’s the only Dickens I know,” I admitted, not adding that I’d only ever seen the movie musical version. “Now then,” I barreled on, ignoring Jo’s snort, “what I really think we need to do is liven up this dreadful rag you’ve been producing. We need punchier headlines, and more timely stories—”
“And we’ll also need new names,” Beth cut in, although I must point out, she cut in as timidly as possible.
“New names?” I echoed.
“Well, yes,” Beth said. “It doesn’t make sense for me to be Mr. Tupman if I’m writing for The Twist Times now.”
“Anyway,” Amy said, “I was growing tired of being Mr. Winkle.”
Jo glared at her.
“Okay,” I said. “What new names would you like to have?”
“You pick, Emily,” Beth said. “I don’t know anything about Oliver Twist.”
“How about the Artful Dodger?” I suggested.
Beth smiled at this. “Oh, I like the sound of that very much: Mr. Artful Dodger.”
“What about me?” Amy asked eagerly.
I studied her. “Fagin, I think. You know—the nose.”
She didn’t look quite as pleased as Beth.
“And me?” Meg asked.
“Nancy would suit you,” I said. “She dies horribly; but before that, she’s terribly and tragically romantic.”
“Mr. Nancy,” Meg said, pleased.
“And what about me?” Jo asked.
“How about Bull’s-eye?” I suggested.
“The dog?” Jo was aghast. “I have read the book, you know.”
“Fine then,” I said, “you can be Bill Sikes.”
“But he—”
“And I’ll be Oliver Twist, of course. I guess now that we all have our names, the next thing to do would be to start writing.”
“But what should we write?” Beth asked. “I always do better if there’s a specific assignment.”
“Er, write what you know!” I said, remembering a phrase Mr. Ochocinco used to use. “But punchier! More timely! More lively!” I shooed them with my hands. “Get to it now!”
Jo regarded me. “And what will you be doing while we’re doing all the work?”
“Why, I’ll be editing your work as you hand it in,” I said, “just like you used to do.”
“This ought to be good,” Jo said.
The following Saturday night, the first edition of The Twist Times was presented, which I read aloud to the others.
THE TWIST TIMES
A HAPPY DEATH
by Nancy
It is a tragedy that Nancy died
But a triumph that she loved Bill,
Even while he was killing her.
OF CATS AND DOLLS
by the Artful Dodger
Cats and dolls have more in
common than people think. For
you can love them all even when
they have no limbs, or even a head,
and they make messes on the furniture.
Oh, and pianos are very nice too.
And squash.
THE TRAGEDY OF HER NOSE
by Fagin
She would have had such a good life,
but her nose got in the way of everything.
Whenever she tried to drink something,
her nose banged against the lip of the cup.
When she slept at night, her nose was so
large that the snores from it kept waking
her. People her own age shunned her.
Small children ran screaming from her
path. So she died.
ON WRITING
by Bill Sikes
When one first makes the decision
to be a writer, she must.
ADVERTISEMENTS
Hannah will once again be
offering a cooking lesson—
“Wait a second!” Jo interrupted me. “What’s going on here?”
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “It’s just that with all the confusion—you know, the friendly takeover at the newspaper and all—there simply wasn’t any time to seek out new advertisers, but I promise that next week—”
“I’m not talking about Hannah!” Jo was clearly exasperated.
“What else could be wrong?” I asked.
“I’m talking about my piece!” Jo said. “All you read was, ‘When one first makes the decision to be a writer, she must,’ and then you stopped reading without finishing the rest.”
“But I did finish,” I said, holding up the newspaper so she could see her piece with its two lines.
“What happened to the rest?” she demanded. “The piece I gave you was ten pages long!”
“Well, see, that was the problem,” I said. “Your piece was simply too long, so I had to cut it.”
“You cut it from ten pages to two lines?”
“Why, yes,” I said. “Space considerations, you know.” I held up the newspaper, pointed to the item about Hannah. “I had to leave room for our advertisers, didn’t I?”
Tw
o things happened then.
Jo lunged for my throat and Laurie came out of the closet. “What are you doing here?” I could only gasp out the words because I was still busy trying to pry Jo’s fingers off my throat.
Seeing him there, Jo instantly let go of me.
“I invited him,” Jo said.
The others gasped.
“I just thought he might like to write for the newspaper,” Jo said.
“But he’s a … boy!” Beth said.
“No, he’s not,” said Jo. “He’s Teddy.” Teddy was Jo’s special name for him. Figured.
“But we’ve never had a boy write for the newspaper before,” Amy said.
“Yes, but wouldn’t it be nice to get a fresh perspective?” Jo said. “And as I say, it is only Laurie …” She picked up the paper, handed it to him. “What do you think?”
Why, you little rat! That’s what I thought. She wanted him to write for the paper? HA! I’d bet anything she’d hidden him away in that closet hoping that when he saw my first issue of the paper, he’d think it lame. I’d bet anything that was it because it was certainly the kind of thing I’d do to her.
And it was lame, I saw that now as I looked over his shoulder: “A Happy Death,” “Of Cats and Dolls,” “The Tragedy of Her Nose”—it was as lousy as Jo’s paper had been.
“The Twist Times.” He chuckled over the title. “Very clever.”
Well, maybe it wasn’t so bad …
“I do think there could maybe be more local news,” he continued, “you know, since it is a newspaper. And that piece on writing does seem to be a bit, er, truncated … hmm … Do you think Hannah might be willing to teach me to cook?” He folded the paper, not waiting for an answer, and turned to me with an admiring smile. “Nice work.” Then he added, surveying my dowdy dress, “I’d think, though, as editor you’d get to dress better.”
Was there no pleasing him fashionwise?
“I hope you’ll let me write for your paper,” he addressed me as though we were the only two there.
Why had his attitude toward me changed? I wondered. Oh, well. He was probably only being overly nice to me so he could get published. Everyone wants to see their names in print—fifteen minutes of fame and all that.
Still, might as well take advantage of the situation …
“Of course you can,” I said.
“But it’s not up to just you,” Jo said testily. “There has to be a vote.”
What was this? Now that it turned out that Laurie admired my paper, she no longer wanted him involved?
“Well,” I said sweetly to her, “it was your idea to invite him.” I turned to the group at large. “All those in favor?”
“Aye!” Amy said.
“Aye!” Meg said.
“Aye!” Beth said, adding, “even if he is a boy.”
“Aye!” I thrust my hand up in the air in Jo’s direction. “Aye!” I waved that hand insistently.
“Fine,” she said sourly, raising a limp hand. “Aye.”
“But he’s going to need a male name to write under,” Beth said. “I mean, I realize he’s already got one. But you know, like the rest of us use from the book?”
But I’d exhausted all the names I could remember from Oliver Twist.
“Bull’s-eye okay with you?” I asked Laurie with a doubtful smile.
“It’s perfect.” Laurie’s eyes sparkled as he smiled back at me. “I don’t mind being the dog.”
Then Laurie informed us about how, in anticipation of being invited to join our merry journalistic group, he’d set up a makeshift post office in the hedge between our properties. The box had a roof that opened so that messages and books and things might circulate more freely among us.
The others thought this was a capital idea—that was Jo’s word for it: “capital”—but I could see trouble down the road.
What if one sister intercepted a letter from another sister to Laurie? What if one sister stole a letter from Laurie to another sister?
A post office between our two houses?
How reckless!
Eleven
Poor Pip was dead!
Who the heck was Pip?
Turn back the clock five days, to June 1…
The Kings had gone to the seashore, leaving Meg with three weeks free. Aunt March was off to Plumfield, and while Jo had feared right up to the last minute that the old woman would either decide not to go after all or would insist on Jo coming with her, the carriage that took her away only contained one Aunt March, one driver, and about twenty-two trunks. Then, since Meg and Jo both had a vacation of sorts at home, Beth and Amy begged Marmee to let them take a break from their studies too.
And Marmee agreed to all of it, saying that while three weeks might be too long, she would allow her girls to experiment with one week of leisure, a life with all play and no work.
Funny, no one asked what I thought of all this, what I wanted to do.
The truth was, much as I might have grumbled about my duties, I’d grown used to my round of regular responsibilities. But now, with no King children or Aunt March to go to, no Beth and Amy to help with their lessons, I was out of a job. Or jobs.
The jack-of-all-trades had nothing to do.
They say that idle time is the devil’s hands.
Isn’t that what they say?
Well, something like that.
The others settled into their first day of leisure. Meg said she would just laze around the whole time. Jo intended to read in the old apple tree and go on “larks” with Laurie—well, we’d see about that! Who was violating the pact now? Amy was going to spend her time drawing, while Beth had her dolls to attend to.
That left me.
The Pickwick Portfolio/Twist Times having renewed my energy for writing, I spent my time working on the story I’d started about a girl who time travels to an earlier era. With no other distractions, I figured I could make real headway on it in a week.
Of course, I was finding there were problems with writing in this world. For one thing, there were no computers. Everything had to be done in daylight or by candlelight and by hand. It was all write, write, write with my right, right, right—I swear, my right wrist was getting muscular, at least two times larger than my left! If this kept up, my right wrist would be the equivalent of Amy’s nose: something to be self-conscious about and laughed over.
Okay, maybe I was getting carried away.
But it was awful not having a computer. I couldn’t move text around easily and the sheets of paper I worked on got muddled-looking with all the strikeouts and arrows indicating something should be moved here or there; never mind that there was no Internet for me to procrastinate with.
Then there was the added problem of finding a safe place to hide my increasingly large stack of pages. I didn’t want the others to see what I was writing. I mean, it wasn’t like I was giving away the secret recipe for Snapple, but some people around here might be … offended if they, oh, I don’t know … recognized themselves in any of my characters.
I snuck up to the garret, used a stick to pry loose a floorboard, and shoved the day’s pages inside, on top of pages I’d hastily stuffed in there on previous occasions.
There!
It was a good story, I thought. I wondered if, if and when I returned to my real life, I’d be able to take it with me.
Everyone was bored.
Of course, no one would admit it. But when Marmee asked at day’s end, “How was your first day of leisure, girls?” after a moment of silence Meg responded, “Wonderful! Although for some reason, the day did seem extraordinarily long.”
“Interesting,” was all Marmee said, but her smile struck me as smug.
I studied her. What a shrewd … Marmee she is! I thought. When she’d said we could try this “experiment” for a week, I hadn’t seen right away that she was the one conducting the experiment … and that it was on us! It was like she was some sort of mad scientist. “If I do X and allow the girls to do Y, I predic
t that I will wind up with Z result … and then I can have the pleasure of pontificating on it all!”
That would be a fun speech to endure!
I hadn’t realized, all those times I’d read Little Women when I was younger, how pompous Marmee could be.
Of course, unlike the others, I hadn’t been bored at all that day. I’d liked having so many hours to work on my short story that was really turning into more of a book. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d want to do all day long every day.
If I did, my right wrist would fall off!
It really was boring, I thought to myself the next day with a yawn, having no specific duties to fill my day with. When I was back home, I’d loved free time because there was so much that I could do for fun. But here? In the 1800s? There was no TV, no computers, no phones to talk or text on all day long if I wanted to. There was definitely no Twitter. There was just sitting around the house. For short periods of time, it wasn’t bad. But like this? It was too much quiet.
Marmee and her wretched experiments!
That’s probably why I felt so much excitement and relief when on the second day of the experiment, Jo walked in with a letter that Laurie had left in our post office.
“He says it’s going to be a perfect day for rowing on the river!” she announced, looking as relieved and excited as I felt.
I quickly hurried to get a bonnet, finally settling on Hannah’s because it was the largest by far.
The sun—I hated it as much as I hated winter, I thought as I tied a bow beneath my chin. With my auburn hair and fair skin, I burned easily, and I’d left my SPF90 back in the real world somewhere.
“Emily, what are you doing?” Jo demanded irritably. “Where do you think you’re going and why on earth are you wearing Hannah’s bonnet? You look ridiculous.”
I ignored the last part. “I’m getting ready to go rowing with Laurie,” I said brightly, sailing out the door before she had the chance to say anything else.
I knew what she’d say if I let her: that the invitation had been for her and I wasn’t invited.
But I wouldn’t give her the chance. I didn’t care what she said or thought about my going because: 1) as far as I was concerned, she and Laurie had already spent way too much time alone together—I’d lost one guy to an older sister and then a younger sister, back in my real life, and I wasn’t about to let that happen to me again, pact or no pact; 2) there was no way I’d spend a whole day in that house, unable to write because my wrist was sore, watching Meg laze on the sofa, Amy draw, and Beth play with her dolls.
Little Women and Me Page 11