Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls

by Lynne Jonell

“I think not,” said an authoritative voice.

  Abruptly Mrs. B was pulled away, and the familiar form of Mr. Peebles took her place. He dusted off the children and looked at them grimly. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll deal with this in my office.”

  The attic door shut with a bang. Mrs. B turned the key in the lock with a snick. “We’ve been careless and trusting, Mr. B,” she said, dropping the brass key into her pocket. “We won’t make that mistake again.”

  “No, dear,” said Mr. B. “Certainly not.”

  Mr. Peebles’s grip on Emmy’s shoulder was firm as he hustled the children down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk. Suddenly the hair on Emmy’s head lifted as something swooshed past. There was a shattering sound of crockery and she spun, startled, to see the smashed remains of a flowerpot on the sidewalk.

  “Oops!” said Mrs. B, leaning out of the window over their heads. “Must have slipped. How clumsy of me.”

  Peter Peebles’s face was grim. “Do that again and I’ll sue.”

  “For what?”

  “Reckless endangerment,” he said coldly. “Illegal discharge of a flowerpot in a residential area. Come along, children.”

  He marched them up the steps to his wide front porch. “Sit,” he commanded, pointing to the porch swing. “Whatever possessed you to go into that attic? Don’t you know better than to poke around in people’s houses without permission?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Emmy, nodding fervently. If she was polite enough, maybe he wouldn’t tell her parents.

  “It was my fault,” said Thomas, clutching the soccer ball he had snatched up on their way out. “I ran upstairs, and then Emmy had to come after me.” He opened his blue eyes wide, his round face angelic. “I always wanted to play in an attic.”

  Peter Peebles snorted. “If you want to play in an attic, you’re welcome to visit mine—but stay out of other people’s!” He fished a phone out of his pocket.

  Emmy stiffened. Was he going to call her parents after all?

  “Hello, Jack? Listen, I’ve got Thomas here—”

  Emmy’s shoulders slumped in relief.

  There was a pause. “No, no problems—well, just one. He kicked a soccer ball through a neighbor’s window, and they’re upset. But I’ve talked to them, and—”

  This time the pause was longer. “Yes, a soccer ball—yes, quite a long way. He’s got a powerful kick, you know.”

  Mr. Benson’s excited voice could be heard over the cell phone. Thomas swung his legs placidly.

  Out on the green, the professor was sitting up groggily on the park bench, and Brian was bending over him. Emmy glanced at Mr. Peebles. He was still on the phone—now he was asking about Joe’s ankle. She stood up, walked casually to the top of the porch steps, and looked back. Mr. Peebles frowned and shook his head.

  Emmy sighed. She would have to wait to tell the professor about the tiny girls, but she hoped she didn’t have to wait too long.

  “He did break his ankle? I see … So what about the California soccer camp?”

  Mr. Peebles’s voice faded into a background drone as Emmy edged over to the railing and looked up at the house next door. She couldn’t see much of the attic window from this angle.

  The afternoon sun slanted over the tops of the trees. It was hours before sunset, on this longest day of the year. Emmy remembered that she had a pool party to go to, and Meg had said they were planning pizza. At the thought, her stomach growled lightly.

  There was another growl, and then a series of noises that sounded like the clash of small cymbals mixed with the high-pitched squeal of an amplifier. The sounds were coming from somewhere beneath Emmy’s feet. Improbably, she heard a familiar voice singing something that sounded like “a hunk, a hunka rodent love.”

  “Will you stop with the Elvis tunes?” shouted an enraged voice.

  “But that’s a great song!” pleaded another. “One of the all-time classics, and it works so well with my vocal range!”

  Emmy scanned the lawn. The grass was beautifully thick and green—Mr. Peebles must have a lawn service—but there, just a yard away, was an opening in the ground the size of a large cookie.

  As she watched, there was another shriek, and a confused scrabbling at the mouth of the tunnel. In a flurry of gray, a small rodent-shaped body flew out as if forcibly propelled from behind, and landed, tumbling, on the lawn.

  “And stay out!” A rodent in a black T-shirt poked his head out from the tunnel’s mouth and shook his fist. “We’re a swing band, not a burnt-out Vegas act!”

  “You’re just jealous because I know all the words to ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Rodent’!” shouted Raston Rat, picking himself up from the grass.

  Mocking laughter came from farther down the tunnel, and dwindled into silence.

  Emmy leaned over the railing. “What was that all about?”

  “Artistic differences,” said the Rat. His whiskers bristled with indignation. “I had vision! I had theme! I could have taken them in a whole new direction!”

  Emmy took a quick look over her shoulder. Mr. Peebles had gone inside and taken Thomas. “How are things in Rodent City?” she asked, changing the subject.

  “Terrible.” The Rat scampered onto the porch and up Emmy’s leg into her pocket.

  “Ow!” said Emmy, wincing.

  “Beauty-contest this, beauty-contest that,” said Raston, his voice muffled, “and Miss Barmy everywhere you look. She’s even got Mrs. Bunjee and Chippy on her side now. Sissy gave you my message, so you know all about Chippy—”

  Emmy caught her breath. If Ratty knew that Sissy had delivered the message, she must have gotten back then, and not been too badly hurt, or Ratty would have mentioned it. And she must not have told how Emmy had failed to protect her.

  A feeling of warm gratitude seeped through Emmy. It came to her that she had never properly appreciated Sissy’s tactful, loving heart.

  But what had the message been about Chippy? Cecilia had never finished it. Emmy didn’t want to ask straight out, or Ratty would want to know why the full message hadn’t been delivered.

  Emmy avoided looking down into her pocket at the Rat. She glanced out at the green and saw the professor and Brian walking slowly toward her. At last. Now she could tell them about the little girls. The professor would figure out some way to rescue them, and she could go to her pool party tonight with a clear conscience.

  The Rat was still talking. “—and so I said to Chippy, ‘If you believe that piebald princess, then I’ve got some land in Rabbitville I’d like to sell you—’”

  Beep! Beep-beep!

  A jaunty yellow car pulled up to the curb. Mr. Benson waved from the driver’s seat, and as Mrs. Benson opened her door, the rear window rolled down and Joe’s thatch of pale hair poked out.

  Thomas slammed the screen door and pounded down the steps of the porch, followed by Mr. Peebles and Emmy. Professor Capybara and Brian angled toward the car, beaming.

  “We can’t stay long,” called Mr. Benson. “We’ve got packing to do.”

  “Are you and Joe still going to California?” panted Thomas, running up with the soccer ball clasped to his chest.

  “Half right,” said Mr. Benson. “I’m going to California, and I’m taking your mother.”

  Thomas stared. “Mom’s going to soccer camp?”

  There were chuckles all around from the grown-ups. Emmy thought this was not fair, because it was a perfectly reasonable question.

  “No, the soccer camp let us cancel because of Joe’s ankle. But the airlines didn’t.” Mr. Benson ruffled Thomas’s smooth blond hair. “They did let us switch the tickets, though—”

  “So we decided, why not take a couple of days off?” Mrs. Benson finished happily.

  “But who’s going to take care of us?” Thomas looked at Joe.

  The Rat moved restlessly in Emmy’s pocket. She stepped back behind the professor, where the bulge on the side of her shorts couldn’t be seen.

  “You’ll stay with C
ousin Peter,” answered Mrs. Benson. “It’s all arranged.”

  Cousin Peter? thought Emmy, confused, and then she remembered. Of course. Peter Peebles was Mrs. Benson’s cousin. Sometimes Emmy thought that half the people in Grayson Lake must be related.

  “The attic room has the spare bed,” said Peter Peebles. “They can make as much noise as they want up there—it’s two floors above my office. Besides,” he added with the ghost of a wink, “I understand Thomas has always wanted to play in an attic.”

  “Can I see it now?” Thomas begged.

  Emmy edged closer to the open car window. Joe’s ankle, elevated on a folded blanket, was thickly wrapped with some kind of cloth around wide metal strips. On the floor lay two padded crutches.

  “It’s not that bad,” said Joe, shrugging. “It turned out to be the smallest bone in the ankle. See, he didn’t even put a cast on it—just a splint.”

  “How long will it take to heal?”

  “The doctor said six weeks or so. But I can’t play soccer—not hard, anyway—for the rest of the summer.” Joe gave Emmy a small grin.

  Emmy wanted to tell him about the wishing mouse and the tiny girls, but there were too many people around. She didn’t mind not telling about Sissy. Even though all had turned out well, Emmy still felt terrible every time she thought of what had happened.

  She looked up at Mr. Peebles’s house, and then at the shoe shop next door. Suddenly she saw that the attic windows faced each other. She stared, a thought forming.

  There was a sudden whirring of bike pedals and a skid of brakes. Five girls stopped on the other side of the car. “Come on, Emmy! We’re going to order pizza!”

  Emmy glanced at the sun, appalled. Was it that late already? She hadn’t even gone home to pack an overnight bag.

  “Did I hear someone say ‘pizza’?” The Rat poked his nose out.

  Emmy covered his head with her hand and shoved him down into her pocket again. He made an awfully big bulge. She had to get rid of him.

  “Thomas!” called Mrs. Benson, shading her eyes as she looked up to the attic window. “Come down, we have to go home and pack!”

  Emmy grabbed her chance. “I’ll get him!” she cried, and ran into the house and up the narrow stairs.

  The attic room had a double bed and a bathroom, books in a bookshelf, and fishing rods stacked in a corner. The Rat leaped joyfully from Emmy’s pocket to join Thomas, who was playing with bobbers in a tackle box.

  “Hurry down, Thomas,” Emmy said. “Your parents have to pack and catch their plane. Ratty will be here when you get back.”

  Thomas thundered down the stairs. Emmy paused at the window.

  Outside, the roof stuck out in a little ledge, ending in a gutter. From one corner of the house, an insulated phone line was stretched to a telephone pole in the alley, and another phone line stretched to the house next door.

  Emmy stared. Through the glass she could see across the alley to the shoe shop, right into its third-floor attic room. And there, on the windowsill, stood a tiny girl.

  “RAT! RATTY! COME AND LOOK!” Emmy said in a low voice.

  No answer. There was a scratching sound somewhere behind the far wall—the Rat must have found a hole to investigate.

  Emmy wrestled with the window sash and dragged it half open with a screech. She put her head out.

  “I see you!” she shouted impulsively, hoping the little girl could hear her through the glass. “I’m coming!”

  “Well, hurry up, then!” called a voice from below, and Emmy glanced down, startled. Meg and the rest of the girls looked up, their faces oval blurs against the green grass. Mr. Benson started his engine with a roar.

  Emmy gave a last, anxious look across the alley. The little girl on the sill was standing perfectly still, her tiny palms pressed against the window glass.

  Slowly Emmy backed away. What on earth had made her shout that she was coming? She couldn’t go in the shoe shop again without getting into horrible trouble—and even if she did, there was no way into the attic, not with the key in Mrs. B’s pocket.

  But there had to be a way to rescue the little girls. She would tell the others. Together they’d figure something out. She’d start with Joe.

  She rattled down the wooden stairs and burst out onto the porch. But the Bensons’ car was already pulling away from the curb.

  “Come on, Emmy!” Meg ran up and took her arm.

  “Yeah, let’s go, I’m starving,” added Kate, and the girls surrounded Emmy, chattering all at once.

  “But I haven’t packed my pajamas and toothbrush,” said Emmy, holding back. “And a swimsuit. You go on—I’ll be there soon.” She glanced at the professor and Brian, who were deep in conversation with Peter Peebles about rodentology and the law. Someone should know she had found the tiny girls.

  “We’ll help you pack!” said Sara, tugging at her other arm. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride on my handlebars.”

  Emmy glanced up at the third-floor window of the shoe shop. She couldn’t see anything from this angle. Had the girl gone away? She turned back in time to see the professor and Brian follow Mr. Peebles into his office, still talking. The door shut.

  How was Emmy supposed to go off and have fun at a pool party while the troubled girls were still captive? And yet there didn’t seem to be anything else she could do. Something in her quailed at the idea of marching into Mr. Peebles’s law office and demanding to speak to the professor and Brian alone, while Mr. Peebles frowned and the girls outside got mad at the delay.

  After all, she thought gloomily, settling herself on Sara’s handlebars, the little girls had been prisoners for years. One more day probably wouldn’t kill them.

  She tried to laugh and talk with the girls as they tore along on their bikes, planning the evening and arguing about pizza toppings, but it was hard to keep up the pretense that she was having fun. Still, she put a smile on her face. And by the time they skidded to a stop on her own driveway, the smile was almost real.

  “Who wants to—” Emmy began, looking up at her bedroom window. She had been about to say “come up to my room,” but she stopped at the sight of a familiar-looking chipmunk with a large sack on his back. As she watched, he leaped from a tree branch to her windowsill and lifted the flap on her screen.

  “Who wants to what?” said Kate, letting her bike fall on the lawn.

  Emmy turned, anxiously trying to think of a way to keep the girls from looking up. Her eyes fell on the woods behind the lawn, and she had an inspiration. “Who wants to play in my tree fort?” She pointed to the rope ladder dangling from the tallest oak.

  “Me!” “Me!” came the cries, and “Last one up’s a rotten egg!” called Kate.

  Relieved, Emmy trudged inside, gave her mother a hug, and went to her room. It didn’t take long to pack an overnight bag.

  She stood at her playroom door and watched Chippy fill his sack from a pile of doll clothes. The pile was much smaller than it had been. He must have been going back and forth for hours.

  Emmy scuffled her feet, and Chippy glanced up.

  “Emmy!” he cried happily. “I’ve been here ten times without seeing you!”

  “You’re seeing me now,” said Emmy, coldly polite.

  Chippy sat up on his haunches, rubbing the back of his neck as if it ached. “I want to thank you,” he said earnestly. “Janie—I mean, Miss Barmy—” His ears pinkened, and he cleared his throat. “She said you offered all your doll clothes for the beauty pageant. You’ve been very generous,” he added, clasping his paws, “and it will mean so much to our contestants. And to Rodent City.”

  Emmy looked at him without expression.

  “Don’t you think so?” he added, a trifle uncertain.

  “Oh, I’m sure of it,” said Emmy.

  The chipmunk brightened. “And Mother is getting so much sewing! Her paws are almost worn to nubs, she says, but it’s worth it. This beauty pageant will bring in business from miles around. And Jane—I mean, Miss Barmy�
�has even more plans for our community. She’s got ideas for a beauty salon, and a spa, and a tanning parlor, and she’s already asked me to draw up plans for a tail-straightener and a whisker-curler, too.”

  Emmy felt a little sick. That Chippy, who had designed so many important things for Rodent City, should be reduced to creating a whisker-curler! It was too much. She wondered dully if this had been what Ratty had tried to warn her about when he sent the message through Sissy. Well, Chippy could have the doll clothes, and welcome. She didn’t have time for an argument, and she didn’t want to burst his bubble. Miss Barmy would do that herself, soon enough.

  Emmy wheeled her bike out of the shed and rode off with her new friends through the streets of Grayson Lake, skidding through sand, jumping potholes, laughing and talking all the way to Meg’s house. But the shine had gone out of the day. And later, after they’d splashed in the pool, and eaten pizza, and baked cookies, and told ghost stories, and giggled back and forth in their pajamas, Emmy found she couldn’t sleep.

  She lay wide-eyed on an air mattress in the lower level of Meg’s house. The moon shone brightly through the sliding glass door that led out to the pool, and laid a pale oblong of light along the carpeted floor.

  The pool party hadn’t been quite as much fun as she had hoped. Emmy had tried hard to put the missing girls out of her mind. But every so often the image of a tiny girl with her palms outstretched would intrude on Emmy’s thoughts, and then she would have to splash harder, or laugh louder, or eat faster, just to make it go away. Now that all was quiet, and everyone was sleeping, the memory returned, stronger than ever.

  How could she have left the tiny girls to their fate, just for a sleepover? Emmy cringed at the question. She tried to convince herself there was no way she could have rescued them tonight.

  Even if she had managed to tell the professor, he wouldn’t have been able to force his way into the Home for Troubled Girls—not without the police and a search warrant. And what would he have said to the police? “We’ve found the missing girls, only they’re four inches tall”?

  Emmy moved irritably under the covers. Well, then, what was wrong with letting people know that there was such a thing as a rat who could shrink people? The police would believe it soon enough, once they watched Sissy kiss the tiny girls and make them grow again.