The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane

by Polly Horvath

  “Yes, leave us alone,” I echoed, wondering how much more alone we could possibly be.

  MELINE

  “GET DRESSED!” I barked again at Jocelyn. Her eyes had gone back to someplace where she looked as if she were walking into a closet that went into another dimension. When she did that, it gave me the willies and I barked at her because it scared me to think she could go off like that and I was the only one seeing it. That the only thing keeping her from disappearing was me ordering her not to.

  Jocelyn put on layers of shirts and sweaters because downstairs her coat was still soaking from the night before.

  “What are we going to do for coats?” she said to me, looking like the abominable snowman as she came downstairs. “Peel off layers as they get drenched? The weight alone will pin us to the ground.”

  “Let’s take these two,” I said, pulling two rain parkas randomly off hooks in the mudroom. “No one will notice they’re gone.”

  “We can’t,” said Jocelyn in horrified tones. “They aren’t ours.”

  “They’re bone-dry, though,” I said. “You don’t want to get pneumonia, too, do you?”

  Jocelyn threw one on hastily and we went across the meadow, Jocelyn moving like a crab in a half scurry, looking back over her shoulder, afraid that the jacket owner would see us, I guess. It was only when we got to the cover of the woods that she slowed down. We moved logs and investigated mounds until we were exhausted and exasperated and wet through despite the parkas. I lay down on the ground under some trees and stared up into the gray clouds. I kind of liked being this tired. It made quitting for the day easier.

  “Get up,” said Jocelyn. “You can’t lie in the muck like that. You’re ruining someone’s jacket.”

  “It’ll wash,” I began and then gasped and pointed overhead. We had never thought to look in the maze of branches overhead, but wedged in a treetop was the nose of a plane. We were on a roll.

  Jocelyn gasped, too, and ran for the house. I followed her. By the time I had gotten in and hidden all my wet things behind the freezer, Jocelyn was already changed into dry clothes.

  “What happened to you?” I asked, collapsing on the wing chair opposite her.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, sitting by the fire with a book and refusing to look up. “I was unnerved. Seeing it that way. Stuck up there all those years. The way it was in the treetop, it just seemed more crashed than the other plane, and then I thought some pilot died up there probably. In that treetop. It seemed so grotesque. So much more grotesque than dying on the ground. It seemed deader.”

  I went upstairs to take a bath. You can never tell how anyone is going to react to anything.

  From the top of the stairs I saw Humdinger creeping up to the fire, offering Jocelyn a mint.

  MARTEN KNOCKERS

  “OOOO, MORE PLUM-COLORED EPHEMERA,” I cried, getting up from my chair and rubbing my hands together, gleefully anticipating unwrapping the big sodden box that Humdinger brought into my office.

  “By the way, Humdinger, have you seen my rain parka? Every time I look for it, it’s gone.”

  “Do you only have one?”

  “Hmm, yes. Doesn’t seem likely I would need two. Or it didn’t before it started to disappear. I don’t know what to do about missing things.”

  “Perhaps you should have a spare.”

  “Perhaps we all should. How many rain parkas do the girls have?”

  “I believe they just have their winter coats.”

  “Yes?”

  “Wool.”

  “Odd choice. No rain parkas?”

  “I’ve never seen them wear any. Of their own.”

  “Then I’ll order everyone some. How many do you think? Three apiece? If things are going missing, then three seems safe. Better make it four. And four for you and Mrs. Mendelbaum, too, I suppose. Don’t want you dripping on the carpets.”

  “Thank you, but I have a rain parka and I suspect I won’t need another when the girls get theirs.”

  What in the world did he mean? Most mysterious fellow, Humdinger. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but watch for Sam to drop them, will you?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Ahem, well…” It hardly seemed like the time to ask Humdinger not to call me sir. The truth was, Humdinger didn’t irritate me nearly as much as Mrs. Mendelbaum did. I hated being called sir but didn’t want to embarrass Humdinger. You couldn’t embarrass Mrs. Mendelbaum.

  “I just saw the helicopter drop this box and so was able to rescue it before it became too sodden or got trampled by the bull. But it’s almost time for dinner; perhaps you’d rather wait.”

  “Not at all, we’re all eating too much anyway,” I said with sudden inspiration. “I’m getting fat.” I had put on a considerable pot belly since giving up my diet of hot dogs and mac and cheese. It turned out that one could develop quite an appetite given a certain variety in one’s diet. It surprised me. Even though I ate absentmindedly, at some level I did indeed seem to be enjoying my meals more. I knew this because I caught myself sneaking down for more midnight snacks and going after the last little breast of veal nugget and a hunk of whatever cake Mrs. Mendelbaum had been mucking about with that day. I would probably swell to the size of a boulder and have to be rolled to conferences. But a box! Another Christmas box! I couldn’t be happier. I really couldn’t! I ran my hands through the two rows of curly hair that stuck up on either side of my bald pate, pushing aside my papers, motioning for Humdinger to bring the box over. What could it be? Something good, no doubt.

  MELINE

  BOXES ARRIVED REGULARLY and Humdinger would bring them in. We were finishing dinner when the rain parkas arrived. Jocelyn put her knife and fork down politely, and I started to cough again. I hadn’t felt like eating for a couple of days. Jocelyn kept trying to get me to go to bed, but I told her we should get the airplane nose out of the tree and into the barn before I let myself be sick. We should have at least two pieces of plane before we took a break. Three would be better, but two at the very least.

  “You can’t let yourself be sick, you just are sick,” Jocelyn had said as I coughed and clutched my ribs. I had not told anyone yet that I was having sharp pains in my ribs because it frightened me, and somehow telling people would make it more real and therefore more frightening.

  Humdinger hesitated as usual to put the muddy box on the table. I guess, since he had started doing the laundry and the boxes had started arriving, he was spending a lot of unnecessary time washing tablecloths, but this was not the type of thing that would have occurred to Uncle Marten.

  “Don’t stand on ceremony, put it down, put it down,” said Uncle Marten. Then he opened it with his steak knife and began to pull out rain parka after rain parka. He tossed four each to Jocelyn and me. We looked at each other and the same thought crossed both our minds: How much did they know?

  “Do you mind if I take a tray up now to Mrs. Mendelbaum?” asked Humdinger, who had been watching our reactions to the rain parkas.

  “Mendelbaum? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, if Mrs. Mendelbaum’s in bed ill, then who’s been making dinner?”

  “I have,” said Humdinger. “I hope it has sufficed.”

  “Well, we’re none of us starving, you can see that, can’t you? But yes, very nice indeed. It’s an amazing thing, a man who can cook. And find boxes! Oh, perhaps you’d find one who could do one. Or the other. But both? What are the odds? And if it were up to me we’d all be having mac and cheese. Well, in fact, it was up to me and we did have mac and cheese.

  “But I could never do anything like this complicated business you keep serving for dessert that the girls seem to like so much,” said Uncle as Humdinger brought in a bowl for each of us. “What is this stuff anyway? And how do you get the top all like that?”

  “Crème brûlée,” said Jocelyn, her face twitching with, I could see, the effort to force her eyebrows back down where they belonged. “Humdinger takes a kind of blowtorch to the top of the
custard.”

  “Lots of imagination that,” said Uncle Marten. “I, myself, would never think of taking a blowtorch deliberately to the top of a dessert. That it would result in anything nice. Might do it accidentally. Many great discoveries were accidents, of course. Although it’s hard to imagine the kind of accident involving any dinner course and a blowtorch. So to do it on purpose, suspecting good things would result, acting on a hunch … well, it seems to me it takes a kind of genius.”

  “I used a recipe, actually,” said Humdinger.

  “Right. Well, it was still a very good idea,” muttered Uncle Marten, who was drifting off, his crème brûlée spoon stuck in his mouth, as he pawed through the rest of the contents of the box. Humdinger slipped out.

  * * *

  “How can he say ‘It’s an amazing thing, a man who can cook’?” Jocelyn whispered to me, but my head had fallen on the table and it was too heavy to lift again. I’d been feeling hot and sleepy during dinner but now, ridiculous, felt suddenly much worse. “He can’t be that out of touch.”

  I wanted to say something sarcastic about Uncle and not knowing men could cook, but I couldn’t think of anything. Instead, to my surprise what came out was, “I think I have rocks in my head.” I don’t think anyone heard me, I was too far down at the end of the table. I wondered if I would lie there forever. All in all, it didn’t seem such a bad prospect.

  “Well, well, you look all done in, you pair, what say I just take my little treatsies with me?” And Uncle Marten swept up the other things that had come in the parka box and walked upstairs muttering away.

  “It’s dark out, less go,” I said. It was difficult to speak articulately with my mouth pressed against the table by the weight of my suddenly too-heavy head. I noticed I seemed to have a little pool of drool forming under my right cheek. It was itchy but oddly comforting.

  “It’s too early to go out, and besides, you can’t go out. You’ve gone beyond being a little sick.” Jocelyn got up and put a hand against my forehead. “You’ve got a fever,” she said accusingly. Not Florence Nightingale.

  “Obvious,” I said. So sleepy but have to explain. Jocelyn not smart. Can’t put pieces together. “That’s why so hot. But don’t worry, drool cooling me off. Body is amazing thing. Gets too hot, sends drool.”

  “Well, you can’t go out with a fever,” said Jocelyn and pulled up a chair next to me. Sits down. Thinking about situation? Prim. Head still stuck to table. Ask for help? Doesn’t seem in helpful mood.

  “Can,” say finally. Show spirit. Always rally in face of, what was in face of ? Face of drool. Mustn’t let Jocelyn get big ideas. Not idea person. Type ideas Jocelyn have? Ugh.

  “I’m … telling…” said Jocelyn. Going to leave now. Guess. Bye, Jocelyn.

  “Don’t,” call weakly after. Who going to tell anyway? All parents dead. No one to tattle to. Any other time, interesting question, but right now thing am going to die. Think am going to die. Join crowd. Jocelyn keep going. Want to call her bad name. Can’t thing of any. Think of any. Always eating bread-and-butter sandwiches at four, that one. “Sandwich eater,” call weakly. Best can do. Try not to be hard on self. Sick. Sudden sick. Whew. Didn’t see comin’. Try not to be hard on self. Sick. Oh yeah, already said that. Said or thought? Thought. Doesn’t matter. Nap would be good.

  JOCELYN

  I FOUND NO ONE in the kitchen and headed upstairs. I had no intention of telling Uncle Marten. He just wasn’t practical. And Mrs. Mendelbaum was sick in bed and hadn’t been seen for days. She would be no help. I would have to tell Humdinger. I wanted to tell Humdinger. I wanted to cry and tell Humdinger, and this made no sense to me. He looked like a corpse, he had feet like boats, he crept around offering mints at inappropriate times, and he was a Canadian, and yet, of everyone here, he was the one most likely to act in a rational manner, so I marched up to his sitting room, where he was reading a paper and eating his dinner, and said, “Humdinger, I think there’s something wrong with Meline. She has a fever. I think she may need medicine. And a doctor. She’s really much too hot!” And then to my great embarrassment I burst into tears and couldn’t stop the flow.

  Humdinger didn’t waste words or give my tears a second look but got up from the table, his napkin still stuck in his collar, and went downstairs to the dining room, where he found Meline, who had somehow managed to unstick her cheek, blissfully passed out on the floor, looking very peaceful. I trailed behind him as he carried her upstairs, deposited her on her bed, and then found Uncle Marten.

  “One of the girls needs a doctor,” he said, without knocking or his usual polite preamble.

  “Which one?” asked Uncle Marten distractedly from his books.

  “Meline.”

  “Well, we must get her one. You know where the phone book is, and the helicopter service number? Here, let’s see, Sam.” Marten Knockers wrote Sam’s name and phone number on a Post-it and handed it and the radio phone to Humdinger. Humdinger nodded. “Call the hospital in Vancouver and tell whichever doctor they send to come supplied with medicine in case she needs it. What do you think she has?”

  “She has a cough and fever.”

  “Antibiotics, most likely. Tell them to bring antibiotics and Tylenol. And whatever they think she might require that we don’t have. Tell them we’ll make a large hospital donation. Or whatever they want. Do we have any chicken soup about? I was just reading not long ago that that’s not the old wives’ tale they used to think. It really works.”

  “We have chickens in the freezer. I’ll make some.”

  “You’re an amazing creature, Humdinger. Blowtorches and chicken soup. Well, off you go. Let me know as things unfold. I’m sure it’s nothing. People are always getting terrible fevers that turn out to be nothing. But how in the world could she have caught something on the island? No one lives here. Of course, Mendelbaum managed it. Very resourceful of her.”

  Humdinger moved swiftly and in no time a doctor was dropped off in the dark. Humdinger ran outside from where she dangled from the helicopter ladder.

  “You put me down,” the doctor yelled to Sam, shaking her fist, but Humdinger grabbed the ladder and held it steady for her so she could get off.

  “Well, this is certainly nuts,” she said. “Where’s the sick girl?”

  “Come on inside,” Humdinger said and swept her into the house and out of the rain and up immediately to Meline’s room.

  MELINE

  I HEARD PEOPLE COME IN, and when I opened my eyes and saw a woman’s face suddenly looming kindly over me, I thought it was my mother’s and said, “ARSHK!” in that moment thinking all my hopes had materialized and my parents had never been dead after all. When the woman startled I saw it wasn’t my mother at all and thought how lucky I was to be on the island where I had fewer opportunities to see my mother’s face in every kind stranger that came my way. Then I realized “arshk” didn’t mean anything, and although I was thinking a little more clearly since my nap, I was still hot and cold and mixed up.

  “I’m Dr. Houseman, Meline,” she said. I closed my eyes for the rest of the exam and she began methodically poking me and pressing her stethoscope on me and I tried not to mind. They thought I was weak with illness, but I was trying to figure out how to put together the nose of one plane with an aileron from another. But I kept seeing it like a cartoon movie, the parts of airplanes rearranging themselves and forming new and strange machines.

  “Meline, can you hear me?” asked Dr. Houseman more loudly than necessary and yet, oddly, it did sound as if her voice was coming from down a tunnel, a long way away. I nodded. “I don’t know for sure and I can’t be sure without a chest X-ray, but it sounds as if you have pneumonia.”

  I opened my eyes and just looked at her. I wondered if you could get it from being constantly warned about it. When I didn’t say anything Dr. Houseman turned to Humdinger and said, “I’d feel better if you’d let me take her back to the hospital.”

  At this I sat bolt upright and said, “N
O. NO hospital. NO.”

  “Now, now,” said the doctor and then turned to Humdinger again. “So her parents are?”

  “Dead,” said Jocelyn, who was lurking in the doorway. “She lost them both a few months ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Dr. Houseman.

  “Mine died, too,” said Jocelyn, which seemed to me to be extraneous attention-seeking information, and if it occurred to the doctor she only repeated “I’m sorry,” and then turned to Humdinger yet again.

  “Well, I’ve heard worse chests but I’ve heard better. If she won’t go to a hospital I want you to watch her, don’t let her leave the bed, lots of fluids, make sure she takes the full course of antibiotics I’m going to leave for her, and if the fever spikes I don’t care what she says, you bring her in.”

  “Right,” said Humdinger. “Anything else?”

  “This is a very strange place to live,” said Dr. Houseman, seemingly taking note of her surroundings for the first time and looking around my massive bedroom with its four-poster bed and high arched wood-carved ceiling. I could see her point. “You know the air force used to crash planes here? There was some kind of a scandal—some captain or something gone mad who was sending all these young men to their deaths for no reason.”

  “Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane,” I said.