“You can wear whatever you like, Prudence.”
Prudence’s eyes batted wildly like she was a deranged cuckoo stuck in the opening of a clock. She said, her crazy smile never tipping, “Brooke, take a walk with me. There’s something I want to show you.”
“I don’t think—”
“Wendell can handle himself just fine for one moment. Can’t you, Wendell?”
I tried to make eye contact with Wendell but Prudence yanked my arm, and before I knew it his hand was no longer in mine, and the crowd of people had swallowed us up. She pulled me past the line of circus wagons and makeshift tents. I tried to see if Dad or Wendell was following, but she moved like a greyhound. Rusty zoomed behind us, lost us for a time, then found us again as we rounded the last wagon. I tripped in a rut and worked to regain my balance, but Prudence never let go of my arm. I had a feeling she would have kept dragging me even if I’d fallen flat on my face.
We moved beyond the cooking fires, away from the crowd, and behind the schoolhouse. We climbed up the back steps and stood under the slanted roof of the small back porch. I heard a rustle and squinted into the darkness. Rusty was suddenly on the bottom step, his camera staring at us.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Prudence demanded.
“I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how. Wendell asked my dad—”
“Your father? You mean the one who smells like a barn? The one who can barely pay for his purchases at the mercantile?”
Her words were hitting way too close to home. I touched the locket. “Stop talking junk about my dad.”
“You deliberately stole Wendell from me.”
“A person can’t help who they’re attracted to.”
“I want my dress back.”
“What?”
“Give it back,” she said, pulling on the sleeve.
“You gave it to me.” I jerked away from her.
“You don’t deserve it.”
“It isn’t even the same dress. I added lace. And I’m wearing the hoop skirt Nanny made me.”
“Nanny?” she asked, her eyes bulging out. “Nanny made you a hoop?”
I lifted the dress. I clicked my heels like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. “And she made me shampoo. She’s creative.”
“Nanny did not make you that hoop. She stole it from me.”
“She did not.”
“Do you know what the punishment is for a slave stealing from its owner?”
“She’s not an it.”
“According to the law in 1861 she is. And if a slave is caught stealing, the owners can handle it any way they choose.”
“You can’t hurt another person for the sake of—” I wanted to say, For the sake of reality television, but instead, I said, “Just because you’re jealous of Wendell and me.”
“You took him away after I was kind enough to give you an imported dress. Then you aligned with my slave to steal things belonging to me. Well, neither of you will get away with this.”
In my brain, I understood this was all bull; that nothing would happen to Nanny. In Modern Land, Prudence would be tagged a bigot, and whatever she did to Nanny would be a hate crime. Even so, I found myself getting caught up in the moment. In all the recent moments. Dad’s sprouting garden, my lemony hair, the beautiful dress, the circus, Wendell…
It slipped out of me with a life of its own.
“Let’s make a trade,” I said.
She narrowed her eyes like a feral cat. “What sort of trade?”
“If you leave Nanny alone, I’ll give you back your dress.”
“I wouldn’t dress a scarecrow in that old thing.”
“You just told me you wanted it back.”
“Well, I’ve thought better of it.”
I churned other options over in my mind until Prudence’s one word cut through me.
“Wendell.”
“What about him?”
“I won’t turn in Nanny in exchange for Wendell.”
“That’s stupid,” I said, laughing nervously. “You can’t trade one person for another.”
“Yes. Nanny for Wendell.”
“Just saying you want him won’t make him like you.”
She chewed her cud. “One evening,” she said. “I get Wendell for one evening.”
“He’ll never agree to it.”
“I will invite him to dinner at my house. With his parents, of course. Then he won’t know he’s courting me.”
“He won’t be courting you.”
“Oh, yes he will. Only he won’t know it.”
I knew better than to agree to something so stupid. Nanny could take care of herself. But suddenly I wanted to prove how much Wendell liked me, not just have him say the words. I wanted Prudence, my family, the townspeople, and even the cameras to see it. “If I give you this, you won’t punish Nanny?”
“I promise with a cross against my heart,” she said, sliding a gloved finger in an “x” pattern on her chest.
“Fine. One night. I’m confident Wendell will make the right choice.”
“So am I,” Prudence said, more to the camera than to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Friday after the circus, Dad gave us girls a break from cooking, and I sat sewing on the front porch. Rebecca Lynn sat in the rocker next to me and watched me add lace to her dress. For over an hour, Rusty wandered in and out of the cabin, trying to find something interesting to film. The more my sister and I got into the routine of things, the less he found appealing, so when the sound of stomping hooves came up the hill from the direction of town, Rusty and his pet camera went zooming down the front porch steps. I jumped up, praying it was Wendell. It was odd dating in Yesterday World because there were no phone calls, no texts, no emails. I didn’t know when I would see him again, and the only time I had any guarantee was when we took our trek into town.
I patted down my apron, retied my bonnet, and waited for the wagon to pull up out front. My sister and I watched from the railing as Wendell’s wagon appeared in front of our house, but it was loaded up with Mr. and Mrs. Murphy and all four Murphy boys.
Why would the whole family be coming here? my dense brain wondered.
When they made a sharp left and headed up the Millers’ long driveway, I was momentarily dumbfounded. Rusty panned the back of the clan as they made their way up the steep hill, and then he zoomed in on my sad and puzzled face.
He had finally found something worth filming.
“Are they having a party?” my sister asked.
“Something like that.”
“Why weren’t we invited?”
“It’s not that kind of party.”
Dad called us in for dinner. I could barely eat my pork strips and rice, knowing Wendell was spending time in that mansion with Prudence.
After the dishes were washed and put away, and Dad sat by lamplight rubbing his beard and reading Harper’s Weekly, I deliberately went up to my bedroom and stayed there a while so Rusty would get bored and leave. Thirty minutes later, I motioned to Rebecca Lynn to follow me outside.
“We’re going to play with Sully,” I told Dad, who nodded absently, totally engrossed in the stories of the Civil War.
I grabbed a rag, tied it into a knot, and threw the toy to Sully when we got outside. For a few minutes, my sister and I wrestled with the dog, but my eyes kept wandering up the Millers’ hill, and my heart was growing braver by the second, though where the courage came from I have no idea.
“Wanna take a walk?” I asked my sister.
“It’s getting dark.”
In the west the sun had already set behind the trees. The sky was a darkening blue with faded stripes of orange. By the time we made it up the Millers’ drive, that orange tint would be gone. Millions of twinkles were already dotting the night sky.
“We can bring the porch lantern.”
“I’m in my slip.”
“No one will see you.”
“Should we tell Daddy?”
> “Probably not.”
For whatever reason—maybe she saw the desperate look on my face—she didn’t argue. If we’d been back at home, she would have stayed behind for the sole purpose of ratting me out. But now, wearing her slip since her dress was stuck with pins, she watched me in silence as I grabbed the lit lamp from the porch steps. We walked through the gate and out to the road. Sully tagged along at Rebecca Lynn’s heels, the knotted rag hanging from his mouth.
“Stay, Sully,” she ordered, patting his head as he stopped at the gate. “Good boy.”
We closed the gate behind us and Sully watched us through the slats as we started up the Millers’ driveway.
After walking for a minute, Rebecca Lynn asked, “Why don’t you just tell Prudence you like Wendell?”
I stopped on the driveway, the lantern light flickering in the dark. The sound of frogs and crickets engulfed us. “I did.”
“Oh.”
We hiked to the top. Slowly I pushed open the pretty white gate. Smells of jasmine and roses swirled around us as we walked up the path to the house and up the front steps of the wraparound porch. I set the lantern on the bottom step. In our tight pointy shoes, we tiptoed to the most brightly lit window. The red velvet curtains were pulled to the sides. Large Southern ferns drooped from pots in front of the seeded glass, so we had a little bit of cover. Even so, we crouched low beneath the sill.
“There he is,” Rebecca Lynn whispered.
I put a finger to my lips and nodded as we watched the scene. A bright chandelier with candles hung over the beautifully decorated dining room table, and fancy oil lamps sat on mirrored wall sconces throughout the room. The Millers and the Murphys were just finishing up dessert. Prudence wore a purple satin dress, complete with matching purple bonnet and white lace gloves. Her perfect curls looked like they were created by Katy Perry’s hairdresser. Wendell wore his Sunday best. The three youngest Murphy boys and the two little Miller brothers, also dressed to the nines, ran wildly through the room before disappearing somewhere in the back. Wendell, Mr. Murphy, and Mr. Miller stood up and moved to the doorway between the dining room and one of the parlors. Mr. Miller had a cigar in his hand, and Mr. Murphy held a pipe. The three of them were chatting, but the glass windows were so thick I could barely hear the muffled voices.
Nanny appeared in the dining room, said something to Mrs. Miller, and disappeared again. Rusty stood near a corner china hutch with his camera, and Carl stood off to the side. Watching the scene from the porch was like watching a silent play, and the anticipation of what may happen next grows when the conversation can’t be heard. Maybe that’s because without knowing what people are saying, the brain tries to fill it in with a voice. As my imagination geared up, the window to our left was illuminated. Rusty and Carl made their way into that room, and Nanny came back into the dining room. Mrs. Miller stood up, her hands resting on her pregnant belly, and moved into the parlor with the men, leaving Prudence and Nanny in the dining room.
As Nanny started collecting the dishes, she said something to Prudence, making her laugh. Still smiling, Prudence said something back to Nanny, who then left the room with a stack of dishes. Prudence made her way to the parlor and joined the rest of the group.
By the time my sister and I crawled to the next window, the two older men had taken places by the unlit fireplace, and Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Murphy sat on a sofa facing the window. The other sofa sat opposite the first, so it helped to block us. Prudence and Wendell sat in a corner of the room in two wingback chairs facing one another. Prudence asked him a question, and Wendell smiled and nodded. Was that a real smile? Or was he merely being polite? After a moment, he glanced at the window where my sister and I lay in wait on the other side. I held my breath until he turned away again.
Josiah entered the parlor with a tray of tiny glasses, the kind my parents used to sip from at Christmas time. Each of the men, including Wendell, took one. The women did not.
Nanny came back in. In her hand she held a large potato sack that looked like it contained a small body. She laid the bundle on the sofa closest to the window, but the back of the sofa blocked us from seeing what it was. We watched as Nanny knelt down and fumbled with whatever was in the bag. The men stepped forward. The women leaned in. Prudence jumped up and clapped her hands.
I was dying to see what it was, but between the giant ferns and the high-backed sofa—
Prudence’s voice shot through the glass: “Oh, yes, Wendell. Please!”
Wendell walked to the couch and bent over. He was about to pick up whatever “it” was, but glanced toward the window again. I sucked in my breath as I froze behind the fern. Shit shit shit shit shit! He lowered his head and extended his arms. When his hands came back into view, I was sure my mind was playing tricks on me. It was so beautiful, and it was the only thing besides Wendell I believed would save me from dying of boredom in the backcountry: the guitar from Mr. Murphy’s store. My guitar.
Wendell picked up the instrument and sat on the sofa with his back toward the window. Prudence clapped her hands again.
I read her lips as she sat beside him: “Play something fun.”
And Wendell did. He played a song on my guitar. The melody made its way through the closed window. It was some early American backwoods song, and it was supposed to be funny because everyone laughed as they sang along.
“Old Dan Tucker’s a fine old man, washed his face in a frying pan. / Combed his hair with a wagon wheel, died of a toothache in his heel…”
Everyone cheered him on as he played, and my anger festered. The more they laughed the more I seethed. It started in my gut, rose up to my throat, and moved to the base of my skull where it pulsated like an extra heart.
“Old Dan Tucker, he come to town, riding on a Billy goat, leading a hound. / Hound dog bark and the Billy goat jump, throwed Dan Tucker on top of a stump…”
Prudence stared at Wendell like he was a famous rocker who’d just invited her to join him on the band bus.
“Old Dan Tucker, he got drunk, fell in the fire and kicked up a chunk. / Red hot coal got in his shoe, oh my lawdy how the ashes flew!”
The anger was zooming through me now, making my ears ring in pain each time Wendell’s perfect fingers moved along the strings. When the song was over, Prudence whispered something to Wendell before stepping next to the piano. She opened the lid that protected the keys, slid out the round stool and sat, fanning out her dress like a parachute. She sang alone while her fingers sprinted over the keys, her clear singing voice sliding through the window.
“How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood, when fond recollection presents them to view. / The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood, and every loved spot which my infancy knew…”
Words as ancient as the piano fell from her pink lips. Her voice was not only loud, but beautiful.
“How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing, / and quick to the white pebbled bottom it fell. / Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, / and dripping with coolness, it rose from the well. / The old oaken bucket, the iron bound bucket, the moss covered bucket that hung in the well.”
I hated her stupid bucket song. I hated her. I wanted to run into the parlor and push her off the piano stool and scream to everyone to stop having such a grand old time.
Mom, what would you do? I asked silently, clasping the locket. But I didn’t need an answer. I knew what she would do. My mom, the woman who never argued because she thought arguing was a waste of time; life was short, she always said. Mom would have walked away fast and forgiven just as quickly.
Wendell played the guitar again, this time accompanying Prudence, as my mind analyzed the would-have’s and should-do’s. When the song ended, everyone clapped.
Something tapped my shoulder.
“Miss Brooke?”
I sprang up out of my crouched position and knocked into the fern which sat in a tall three-legged wicker basket. It rocked for a moment, but I saved it before
it crashed to the floor. But catching it didn’t matter. Nanny had caught me. I was exposed. The light from the parlor shone across my face. Mrs. Miller spotted me. She stood up and pointed. The guitar music stopped and Wendell turned in my direction, but Prudence didn’t realize anything had happened for a moment longer. When she flipped her head around to make those stupid goo-goo eyes at Wendell, her hands froze against the keys.
Rebecca Lynn whispered, “They see us.”
I was suddenly a rare specimen behind glass, and everyone inside couldn’t wait to gawk. One by one they came over to the parlor window. First Mrs. Miller, then Mrs. Murphy, then the men, except for Wendell, who stood in front of the couch with his hand wrapped around the neck of the guitar. His head was cocked to the side, and he wore a strange grin. Nanny stood next to us with her knuckles against her hips like she’d discovered us with our hands buried in her piggy bank. Carl spun around with his camera toward the window. Then Rusty appeared from nowhere, filming the scene from the porch.
But it was Prudence whose face came right up to the glass, laughing.
Nanny said, “Oh, Miss Brooke and Miss Rebecca Lynn, you be in all kindsa trouble.” She grabbed each of us by the wrist and brought us to the front door, where Prudence and her mother met us. “I find ‘em on the porch.”
“Thank you, Nanny,” Mrs. Miller said.
Nanny disappeared inside.
Mrs. Miller said, “Rebecca Lynn, why are you in your slip, dear?”
“Brooke was making my dress pretty.” Her lip trembled.
“Why don’t we find something for you to wear in the meantime?” She put an arm around my sister’s shoulders. To Prudence and me she said, “Please work out your differences like ladies.” Then she took Rebecca Lynn’s hand and led her up the dark steps.
Rusty’s and Carl’s cameras were competing to burn a hole in my cheek. But I didn’t care if they saw how angry I was. If the producers didn’t like what they saw, they could edit it.
“You stole my guitar,” I told Prudence through the doorway.
“No one stole it, Brooke. It was paid for with cash.”
“That was my guitar. You knew I wanted to buy it.”
Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town Page 19