Libby on Wednesday

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “Yes,” everybody said. “Yes, yes. Ironic. But what happened? What exactly happened, Libby?” They were all listening carefully now. All four of them had pushed aside their plates and were leaning forward across the table.

  Libby considered for a moment. How much could she tell without including the part that would give everything away? Tucking her hair behind her ears with both hands, she took a deep breath and began. “It all happened because of the Literary Festival. I didn’t tell you about the Literary Festival because—well, just because. But anyway, that was why Arnold Axminster was asked to come to the school.”

  “Libby!” Cordelia broke in. “What happened? Don’t drag it out so. What did that man do? Tell us!”

  “AUNT Cordelia,” Libby said, which was an ironical way of pointing out that nobody else in the McCall household cared about titles. Certainly Christopher never insisted on being called Father, and Gillian said that grandmother was a generic label instead of an individual’s name and she preferred to be an individual. But Cordelia thought titles were important, so Libby called her AUNT, or even GREAT-AUNT, when she was being particularly Cordeliaish. “AUNT Cordelia,” she said again. “I am telling you. I didn’t want to tell anybody, but if I must go into it, I have to tell it right—the way it all happened.”

  “Leave the child alone, Cordelia,” Gillian said. “She’s a McCall, and she has to tell a story in the proper order. It’s in her blood.”

  “So,” Libby went on, “the other part of the Literary Festival was the writing contest and—”

  “A writing contest?” they said. “Why didn’t you tell us? Did you enter something? You won, didn’t you? You must have won.”

  She knew that would be their reaction—the family would take it for granted that the granddaughter of Graham and the daughter of Christopher McCall would write a hundred times better than anyone else at Morrison Middle School. She waited patiently for the uproar to die down. “That,” she told them, “is exactly why I didn’t tell you. You would have insisted that I enter one of my stories, and I didn’t want to. At least I didn’t want to at first. Well, actually I never wanted to, but Ms. Ostrowski kept after me and after me until I finally said I would. So at the last minute I entered a chapter of Rainbow in the Dust.”

  “I quite understand,” Elliott said. “I understand why you didn’t want to tell us. I suppose that you were afraid that you might not win and that we might be disappointed. I imagine that—”

  “No,” Libby interrupted. “That wasn’t it. What I was afraid of was that I might win.” She looked at her father.

  Christopher was nodding. Libby watched him as she went on. Her father was an extremely private person and a poet besides. If anyone could understand how she felt, it would be he. “I might win, and if I did, I might have to get up on the stage in front of everyone, and maybe I’d even have to read some of my story out loud and …” Christopher shuddered. Libby had known he would understand.

  “You see how it was?” she said. “But then Ms. Ostrowski kept asking me, and finally I decided I would enter something. What I was thinking was that if I did win, I could always pretend I was sick on the day of the festival so I wouldn’t have to do all the …” She shrugged. “You know. All the ribbons and prizes and …” A grin oozed out through her tragic mask. Jumping up onto her chair, she bowed grandly to right and left. “Thank you, thank you, ladies and gentlemen and boys and girls, for this great honor. I don’t know why I’m thanking you because you didn’t have anything to do with it, and you probably hate me because I won a prize and you didn’t, but winners are always supposed to get up in front of everybody and say stupid things, so thanks again, and—help! Let me out of here!” Making a terror-stricken face, she bowed again hastily, jumped down, and dashed toward the door.

  They all laughed and they were still smiling when Libby came back to her chair. For a moment she smiled back—ruefully. A rueful smile was the best she could do under the circumstances. Their laughter certainly didn’t change anything. She’d always acted things out for them—a tendency she’d no doubt inherited from her actress mother—and they were always an enthusiastic audience. But at the moment even a standing ovation on their part wouldn’t have made her feel much better.

  “So,” she said, “that was that! Except for deciding whether to have food poisoning or just a terrible headache on the big day. But then, when I hadn’t heard anything by yesterday, I asked Ms. Ostrowski and she said she wasn’t on the judging committee but she’d heard that the winners had been chosen and notified already. So I was sure I hadn’t won. And so, since I really did want to see what Arnold Axminster looked like, I decided not to be sick today after all and—”

  “What did he look like?” Gillian asked.

  “Look like?” Libby had to think for a moment. “Tall. Tall, with a wide face and shaggy eyebrows. And lots of wavy white hair.”

  “Umm,” Gillian nodded approvingly. “A handsome man. Writers are always beautiful men.”

  “And he gave a talk during assembly,” Libby went on, “a talk about writing and his books, and then Mr. Shoe-maker asked him to read the names of the winners of the writers’ contest, and I was sure it would be all right because I thought all the winners had been notified. And then …” Libby paused dramatically and they all leaned forward. “And then Arnold Axminster read, ‘First prize—Rainbow in the Dust, by Elizabeth McCall.’ ”

  Gillian and Elliott looked delighted, and Christopher smiled cautiously, holding back until he knew how it all turned out. But Cordelia was angry. “Well,” she said, “Elizabeth Portia McCall, you should be ashamed of yourself, worrying us all for no reason.” She lifted her chin high and began rearranging her hairdo, pulling pins out of the long braids coiled at the back of her neck and stabbing them back in fiercely. “You’re telling us that your life was ruined by having to stand up in front of your classmates to accept a prize. Just another example of McCall artistic temperament, I suppose. Well, what I think is—”

  “No, Aunt Cordelia, that isn’t it at all,” Libby said. “In fact, that part of it, in the assembly, really wasn’t so bad after all. All I had to do was walk up on stage and shake Arnold Axminster’s hand and accept a certificate. I didn’t have to say anything, and no one read any of the winning stories or anything embarrassing like that. But then Mr. Shoemaker announced that as part of their prize all the winners were going to have a private meeting with Mr. Axminster, to talk about writing and get his advice on their writing careers.”

  Cordelia stopped stabbing her hairdo and leaned forward. “A private meeting!” she said. “I knew it. What did that man do?”

  “No! Aunt Cordelia. It wasn’t anything like that. All of the prizewinners together met with Arnold Axminster in the reading lab, and Ms. Ostrowski was there, too.”

  Cordelia relaxed, and watching her, Libby had to smile—an ironic, inward smile. Of course Cordelia would think that made it all right. That having a meeting with all the other winners made everything just wonderful. “There were five winners,” she said. “A first and second and third and two honorable mentions.” She winced, remembering. Remembering particularly the honorable mentions.

  They were all staring at her, confused and worried, not understanding at all. Libby sighed. “One of the winners was a boy named Gary Greene,” she blurted out stupidly. Stupid because the name Gary Greene meant nothing to them. She’d never mentioned him before. She hadn’t ever told them anything about him and she wasn’t about to now.

  “Gary Greene?” Christopher asked, his puzzled frown saying that he sensed that the name had some special meaning.

  Libby shrugged in what she hoped was an offhand manner. “He’s in my homeroom. He’s—well, he’s someone I know. I’d seen the others but I really didn’t know them. There was a girl named Wendy or something like that. And then there was a very large girl with pink hair.”

  “Pink?” they all said in perfect unison.

  Libby grinned, and Gillian laughed out lo
ud. “I know, dear,” she said. “Sometimes we sound like a Greek chorus. But pink? Really?”

  “Yes, really. But not naturally, of course,” Libby said. “It’s dyed pink. And cut so it stands straight up. It’s called punk, or something like that.”

  Elliott knew about punk, so he explained briefly while the others listened and said, “How odd” and “Really?” and when he had finished, Libby went on.

  “And the other winner, the one who won second prize, is a boy who goes to special education classes. You know, the classes for kids who have trouble learning.”

  “Hmmm!” they said and “Really, Libby?” She could guess the kinds of things they were wondering. Things such as what kind of a contest this had been and who had done the judging. The kinds of things Libby might have wondered herself if something hadn’t happened that made questions of that sort seem unimportant.

  “And then,” she interrupted their musing, making her tone of voice tell them that the most important part was about to come. “And then when we were all sitting there, in this little group, Ms. Ostrowski told Arnold Axminster that I was Graham McCall’s granddaughter.” She paused, searching their faces to see if they understood. If any of them even remotely understood the way she had felt.

  They didn’t. It was obvious that none of them did, not even Christopher. Taking a deep breath to relax the tension that was making her voice go high and quivery, she went on. “And Arnold Axminster said Graham McCall was a fine writer and that he was honored to meet his grand-daughter.”

  “Were the other students all properly impressed?” Elliott asked, smiling innocently. Elliott could be very dense at times.

  “Oh, Elliott,” Libby said angrily. “Impressed! You can’t impress people at Morrison Middle School with things like that. You impress people at Morrison Middle School by …” She stopped herself just in time. What she had been about to say would only have confused them even more, as well as giving away her secret and ruining her long-term plan. Instead she bit her tongue and then, after a moment, went on. “Well, anyway, then Mr. Axminster gave suggestions about how to prepare for a writing career. And one of his suggestions, the one he said was the most important, was that we should form a writers’ workshop group that would meet regularly and criticize each other’s work.” Libby could hear her voice getting higher and shriller again. “And Ms. Ostrowski got all excited and said that we could use our Creative Choice time. You know, that’s the hour on Wednesday afternoons when everyone goes to clubs or special lessons. She said that she’d see to it that the five of us could meet once a week and—” Her voice went higher still. “—And help each other with our writing.”

  They were beginning to understand now, at least a little. They were silent, their eyes full of concern. “But couldn’t you tell Ms. Ostrowski that you’d rather not, if you feel so strongly about it?” Christopher asked finally. “I can certainly understand why you might not want to read your stories in public that way. But couldn’t you say that you’d rather stay in your other club. Great Books, wasn’t it?”

  Libby shook her head. “No,” she almost wailed. “I can’t. Ms. Ostrowski had us vote, and all the others voted for it. I didn’t think they would, but they did. Even Gary Greene. And Ms. Ostrowski promised Arnold Axminster. She promised him that she’d personally see to it that the five of us meet once a week for the rest of the school year.”

  Silence fell. Libby looked from face to face, trying to read their thoughts. Trying to guess if they were going to agree that it was impossible for her to continue to go to Morrison Middle School.

  Christopher looked promising—worried and sympathetic. He was, she was pretty sure, on her side and since he was her father, that certainly should count for a lot. But, on the other hand, Christopher was not at all good at making decisions. Sighing, Libby turned to the others.

  Cordelia spoke first. “I, for one, am quite relieved,” she said. “I really don’t see what you’re so concerned about. It’s not as if you have to worry about not being up to the mark. I’m sure the whole group will be delighted with your stories. Delighted and astounded.”

  It was Libby who was astounded—that anyone, even Aunt Cordelia, could be so blind. Trying not to show her exasperation, Libby turned to Gillian. Surely her grandmother, who never agreed with Cordelia, would set Cordelia straight. “Gilly?” she prompted.

  Gillian, who had curled herself up in her chair with her knees pulled up against her chest, in one of her typically ungrandmotherly poses, was grinning devilishly, showing her famous dimples. “You could write limericks about them. If they give you trouble, and it sounds to me as if you’re afraid they might, you can give them back as good as you get. You write such clever limericks. Let’s see. What does pink rhyme with? Stink comes to mind, but I’m sure you’ll think of something more subtle. Yes, limericks. That’s what I’d do if I were you.”

  Libby only shook her head, thinking that for once Gillian’s advice was worse than Cordelia’s. In desperation she turned to Elliott. He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said briskly. “I must admit that I don’t quite understand your anxiety about this writing group, but since you’re obviously sincerely distressed, it seems to me that what we must do is to get you removed from the group. Perhaps your father could go to the school …” Elliott paused and looked at Christopher, who was obviously not agreeing. “Or else I could go, and talk to this Ms. Ostrowski and—”

  “No!” Libby said. “No! No! No! You don’t understand. None of you understands anything.” She was fighting back tears now, tears of anger and frustration. Pushing back her chair so violently that it nearly tipped over, she ran from the room.

  3

  Libby ran out of the dining room, leaving them all still sitting around the table. All of them just sitting there—so certain that there was some better way of solving the problem than the simple one of no more Morrison Middle School. Skidding to a stop in the center of the Great Hall—the enormous McCall House living room with its rough stone walls, soaring windows, and high vaulted ceiling—she found that she was panting, not from exhaustion but from anger. For a moment she considered running on—and on and on—doing what the family used to call her “exasperation run.”

  When she was younger, she had used running as a kind of safety valve. In those days, in fact even now in some circumstances, she had a quick temper, sudden and explosive, and when something she was working on just wouldn’t turn out right—when an important experiment fizzled or a painting smeared, or when her legs and arms just wouldn’t cooperate during ballet practice—she’d found she could race off her frustration and anger. And while Graham McCall’s immense old house might not make much sense in many ways, it did make an excellent racetrack.

  From the Great Hall she would burst out across the wide entry area and into the library. Gathering speed in the straightaway between the high bookshelves and the refectory table, she would careen into Graham’s study, a round room formed by the lowest floor of the tower. There, a quick spin around the huge old desk put her on the track to race down the window side of the library and out into the hall again.

  The stairs came next, where a great deal of angry energy could be consumed by jumping up the wide, curving stairway two steps at a time. The poolroom and upstairs sitting room went by at full speed, but skillful cornering was needed to negotiate the long, narrow balconies that overhung the parlor.

  Up on the third floor she would shoot down the narrow hall between small rooms that had once been servants’ quarters but now held only Libby’s private collections. The temporary ones (at the moment ancient Greece, the pioneers, and the British Empire) and the best and biggest and most permanent, her America in the 1930s collection.

  The home stretch was a daring plunge down two flights of back stairs, to shoot out across the dining room and back to the starting point of the race. And it was a race, even though the only prize was an exhausted truce with herself, or with the cruel fate that sometimes seemed to spoil things just to make
her angry.

  Sometimes it was necessary to go over the course several times, and the family, sitting in the Great Hall or library, would look up each time she flashed by—curious but not particularly concerned. At least not since Mercedes consulted her psychiatrist and was told it was probably a healthy form of therapy, as long the runner was reasonably surefooted—which Libby certainly was. So they all went on calmly reading or talking, although now and then as she skidded around a corner or rocketed through a doorway, someone would call after her, “What went wrong this time, dear?” But she seldom stopped to answer, or at least not until she was forced to, paralyzed and calmed by exhaustion.

  For a moment the urge was there, the old familiar need to do something headlong and full-tilt, but her feet refused to begin. Perhaps she was too old now. Or maybe it was because an “exasperation run” about the writers’-workshop catastrophe would be like admitting that it was no worse than those other unimportant little frustrations of her childhood. Instead she turned and with a slow, measured tread—a funeral procession or the march of the doomed to the gallows—went out into the hall and up the grand, curving stairway. On the landing, halfway up the stairs, she stopped long enough to tell her grandfather that she blamed him too.

  Of course Graham McCall, who had been dead for over ten years, wasn’t really there to be told in person. But his portrait hung above the landing, a life-size oil painting of the famous writer and world traveler, dramatically posed in khakis, jodhpurs, and pith helmet. When she was very young, Libby had held frequent conversations with Graham’s portrait, long, involved discussions on every kind of subject. That was another habit she had more or less outgrown, except on rare occasions such as this, when she still had a few special comments to make to Graham McCall.