by Lynne Jonell
Emmy found she was gripping Ana’s and Joe’s hands tightly. Would it ever stop? Had they killed her in the end? The teenage Aunt Gussie shrank, dwindled, and turned into a slender child with brown curly hair and an impish grin, smaller than any of them.
The children held their breath, but Gussie seemed to have stopped the youthening process. Aunt Melly sat back on her heels, looking stunned.
There was a skittering of claws at the doorway and Ratmom slid into sight. “Hi, all!” She scampered across the wood floor, swarmed up the bedpost, and gave a wide, toothy smile. “Looks like someone took her medicine!”
“You?” Emmy stared at Ratmom. “You put tears in Aunt Gussie’s medicine? How many?”
“Oh, seven or so. I had to calculate for the extra body mass of a human, you understand.” Ratmom shook her head, looking puzzled. “But I guess the size doesn’t matter, because she looks about—”
“Six!” shouted Gussie, beaming. “I’m six! Let’s go out and play!”
“I feel … a little faint,” said Aunt Melly, fumbling with the tray. “Perhaps … a drink of water …”
22
“NO!” CRIED EMMY, but it was too late. Aunt Melly took a final swallow and set down the empty glass with a bemused expression.
“Do you know, I feel remarkably well,” she began, but stopped as she caught sight of her hands.
She held them out before her, openmouthed, watching as the ropy veins subsided, the age spots disappeared, and the knobby knuckles slimmed. The delicate, long-fingered hand grew smaller, plump and dimpled—and a very young Aunt Melly looked up at her sister on the bed.
“I want to play, too!” She leaped onto the pillows, screaming with laughter. “Look, Gussie, I’m littler than you! I always wanted to be the youngest!”
Emmy, Joe, and Ana conferred by the window while the little girls jumped merrily on the bed.
“It’s weird how they don’t seem to worry about any of this,” Joe said. “Aunt Melly would have—when she was old, I mean.”
Emmy nodded. “Maybe little kids don’t worry that much.”
“I’m worried enough for both of them,” said Ana, gnawing on a fingernail.
“I’m not!” said Ratmom from her perch on the bedpost. She leaped to the nightstand, knocking over the bottle of tears in the process—“Oops!”—and from there to the windowsill, where she sat with her tail dangling, looking pleased with herself.
“You don’t have to look so happy,” said Joe. “You messed up everything.”
“Gussie’s alive, isn’t she?” Ratmom put her paws on her hips. “So she’s a little younger. She has longer to enjoy life, that’s all! And besides, you were going to do the same thing. You put the drops in the water.”
“We weren’t going to use it,” snapped Ana. “From now on, let people know when you’re going to take seventy or eighty years off their lives, will you?”
Ratmom looked from one disapproving face to the next, and her whiskers drooped. “But don’t you think it’s kind of fun to have it be a surprise?”
“No,” said all three at once.
“But you wanted to use the teardrops! I heard you!”
“Sure,” said Emmy, “but only one or two. We wanted her to get well, not get youthenized!”
Thump! Thump! Melly and Gussie tumbled off the bed and began to chase each other around the room, shrieking.
Ana shook her head at Ratmom. “What were you thinking?” she demanded, jumping back as Melly ran past. “Two little girls can’t live on their own. And two old ladies can’t just disappear. The police will search for them, the judge will ask questions, and everybody’s going to get in trouble.”
“I was only trying to help.” Della’s furry shoulders slumped. “Humans make things too complicated. It’s simpler to be a rat.”
“I might have to turn rat myself,” Ana said gloomily. “It would be simpler. I could use seeds for money—there are plenty in Aunt Melly’s spice cabinet. I could hop on the train, jump off at Grayson Lake, live in Rodent City, and never worry again.”
“You can’t turn rat,” said Emmy. “You promised Aunt Melly you wouldn’t.”
“Sure, because she promised to speak to the judge for me! But who’s going to listen to a five-year-old Aunt Melly? Nobody, that’s who.”
“Do you need someone older to help?” Della looked up hopefully. “I could talk to the judge—”
“No,” said Ana. “You’ve helped enough already.”
“Oh.” Della reached wearily for the window-blind cord and slid down to the floor. “I guess I’ll just be going, then … since nobody needs me.”
“Ratty needs you,” said Joe. “He’s a baby, remember? You’d better make sure he’s still okay.”
Ratmom shuffled off toward the door, her tail dragging.
Emmy sighed. Ratmom’s feelings didn’t seem important compared to the very real problem of what to do with Melly and Gussie. What on earth could she tell her parents? She gazed moodily at the little girls, who had dragged the blanket off the bed to make a tent. “They sure have a lot of energy, don’t they?”
Joe grinned. “I bet they’ll calm down after a while. They’ve been old and stiff for so long—no wonder they want to run around.”
“They’re awfully cute,” said Ana, watching the two curly heads bob up and down as the little girls shut one end of the sheet in a dresser drawer and tried to find a way to hold down the other end. “I wonder if they remember being grown-up?”
The five-year-old Aunt Melly looked up and wrinkled her nose. “Course we remember—but it’s no fun!”
Gussie nodded vigorously, her brown curls bouncing. “It’s booooring! Taxes and dusting and everything stupid!”
“We want to play tent,” said Melly, flapping a corner of the blanket at Gussie’s head.
“And horse,” said Gussie, dropping to all fours with a whinny and a toss of her mane. She pawed the floor and pranced up to Joe. “Do you give horsey rides?”
“No,” said Joe.
“I will,” said Ana. “I’m the biggest, anyway. Come on, Gussie, climb on my back.”
Emmy leaned on the windowsill. The sun had set long ago, and the sky was dark, with a narrow band of deep blue lingering in the west. Out of habit, she scanned the sky for bats, but she hardly knew what she would do if she saw one. She felt as if her brain had been stunned.
The wooden floor creaked beside her as Joe shifted from one foot to the other. “Now what?” he said simply.
“I have no idea.” Emmy stared out into the night again, gazing at the dark expanse of the Mohawk River. “Maybe Ana has the right plan. We could all become rats and then we’d never have to explain anything.”
“Giddyap! Go, go!”
Joe glanced at the far side of the room, where Ana had collapsed under the weight of the two giggling girls. “Don’t you think we should tell them to go to sleep, or something? It’s got to be past their bedtime.”
Emmy leaned her forehead against the window sash. “But they’ve been grown-ups for sixty years or more. And this is their house. How can we start telling them what to do?” She shut her eyes. If only she could just shut her eyes and let someone else figure everything out. She could wake up in the morning, and it would all be fixed—Melly and Gussie would be old but healthy, Sissy would be found safe, Miss Barmy and Cheswick would be captured or gone away forever, and there would be no more misunderstandings with her parents. Oh, and Ana would have a home that she actually wanted to go to … Emmy rubbed her eyes tiredly. It was a long list already, but it seemed as though she was forgetting something.
“They act like little kids, though,” Joe argued. “I mean, you wouldn’t want to let them run around on their own, would you? It wouldn’t be safe.” He looked over his shoulder at Melly and Gussie, who were now playing leapfrog over Ana’s back. “They might remember grown-up stuff, but they don’t seem interested in anything but playing.”
Emmy stared at the little girls as a thought s
lowly emerged through the fog in her brain. “Maybe they know about the grown-up stuff, but they feel like kids. So they’ll act the way they feel.”
Joe looked interested. “Do you think it’s that way for Ratty, too?”
Emmy clapped a hand to her forehead. “I knew I’d forgotten something! Ratty’s still a baby!”
“That’s the least of our worries,” muttered Joe as the little girls pounded out into the hall and down the stairs, with Ana staggering behind.
Emmy and Joe caught up to Ana at the front door. “I can’t go outside after them,” she said worriedly. “The police are still looking for me.”
“Gussie! Melly!” Emmy opened the front door and called out into the night. “Come back! It’s too late for you to be out!”
Two little girls streaked past, laughing as they tagged each other. “We’re going to the river park!” called Melly.
“I haven’t been on a teeter-totter for sixty-five years!” cried Gussie.
Emmy looked at Joe. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll take Melly. You get Gussie.”
“Oh, my aching back,” muttered Joe, but he jumped off the front steps and broke into a sprint.
Emmy and Joe were more than a match for five-and six-year-old runners, and they caught up to the little girls at a low fountain with a bronze Indian in the middle.
“Come home, Gussie,” Joe coaxed. “We’ll take you to the riverside park in the morning, okay? You’ll have more fun when you can see where you’re going.”
Gussie sat on the edge of the fountain and swung her legs. “But I want to be out at night.” She grinned up at Joe, and the light from a streetlamp edged the dimple in one cheek. “Mama and Papa never let me play outside after dark. But I’m old enough now! I’m seventy-six!”
“Still, it’s important to be safe,” Joe began, knowing his words were lame, but feeling he had to say them anyway.
Gussie threw back her curls and laughed, showing a mouthful of baby teeth. “I’ve been safe my whole life. It’s boring. I want to run fast and climb high and go out after dark—”
“And have all the fun we ever missed,” finished Melly. She snuggled up to Emmy on the fountain’s stone rim. “Come and play?”
“Joe and I shouldn’t be out this late, either,” said Emmy, feeling like a hypocrite.
Gussie jumped up on the fountain and edged along the rim, her arms outstretched for balance. “You were out late when you got Ratmom.”
“Er—” said Joe. He looked at Emmy for help. “It wasn’t that late.”
“Later than it is right now,” said Gussie. “And you went on the river.”
“How did you know about that?” Emmy asked curiously.
Gussie shrugged. “You talked over my bed all the time. You thought I was asleep, but I heard you.” She cocked her head. “Old people aren’t dumb, you know. They’re just old.”
“I’m starting to figure that out,” said Joe, catching her as she began to teeter. “Listen, why don’t we go back home and talk about it? I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”
“Yay!” cried Gussie, leaping on his back and drumming his sides with her heels. “Hi-ho, Silver!”
“Me, too!” begged Melly, tugging at Emmy’s hand.
Emmy and Joe staggered on toward the house under the weight of the little aunts. But as they paused to rest for the third time, something darted past in the soft night air.
“Hey!” Emmy whispered, letting Melly slide off her back. “It’s a bat!”
Joe set Gussie down and got a firm grip on her hand. “Let’s go!”
The children ran, Joe and Emmy half dragging the little girls, catching glimpses of the bat as it swooped in and out of the shadows. It headed toward Cucumber Alley, and as the children turned the corner, they saw it clearly for a half second, etched plain against the streetlamp’s glow. It seemed to be carrying some kind of paper in its claws. As they watched, the bat fluttered down to the brick face of Melly and Gussie’s home and pushed the envelope into the mail slot.
“Catch it!” Emmy whispered, and Joe started forward, but stopped, confused, suddenly bathed in the circling blue and red lights from a patrol car.
“Now, kids,” said Officer Crumlett, “you know it’s too late for you to be out. Where are your parents?” He heaved his bulk out of the car and stood looking sternly down at Emmy. “Say, aren’t you the Addison ladies’ niece? Where are your aunts? Who are these kids?”
Emmy’s heart was beating hard and fast. “Um—this is my friend Joe, who is visiting. And”—she hesitated. “These are Melly and Gussie, my … relatives.” She watched, her fingers itching to grab, as the bat detached itself from the brick wall and fluttered up to the porch roof.
“Melly and Gussie, eh?” Officer Crumlett frowned. “Are you all staying with the old ladies?”
The children nodded. Emmy kept an eye on the bat.
“They’re not that old,” said Melly.
“You’re only as old as you feel!” Gussie tipped her head back and shook her curls, smiling adorably.
Officer Crumlett’s expression softened. Emmy took advantage of the moment to march the little girls up the steps to the front door. “We’re really very sorry, sir. Melly and Gussie wanted to play tag in the dark.” She ushered the little girls inside and wagged her finger at them. “Go put on your pajamas right this minute, and I’ll be up to tuck you in. Try not to wake the aunts!”
Officer Crumlett cleared his throat. “I really should talk to your aunts, but if they’re asleep—”
“They’ve gone to bed,” said Emmy firmly, eyeing the little girls as they skipped up the stairs. “I think maybe we wore them out. But I’ll be sure to tell them tomorrow what you said about staying inside after dark.”
“Well … all right. But you kids turn on the porch light now, and go in and lock the door. Come on, I don’t have all night.”
Emmy cast an anguished glance at the bat hanging upside down from a corner of the porch roof, but there was nothing she could do. She reached inside and flicked the light switch. The bat, startled, released its perch, and flew off into the night sky as she closed the front door behind her.
The letter was typewritten, addressed to both aunts, with claw marks on the corner where the bat had gripped it. When they were sure the policeman had gone away, Gussie and Melly came down again, and the five children crowded around the letter in the front room.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Joe asked Gussie.
She leaned against him on the couch and yawned into his sleeve. “You read it, Joe. I’m sleepy.”
Ratmom scurried down from the dollhouse and up onto the back of the couch, where she leaned over Joe’s shoulder as he read aloud.
My Dear Misses Addison,
I feel it is my duty to inform you that your niece Emmaline is not all she pretends to be. She may look like a nice girl, but she is nas$ty and obnoxious, as I have reason to know. She sneaks out of your house at night and steals your boat to go on the river at an hour when good children are in their beds. I wonder what she is hiding from you?
It is painful to write, but she has been seen at low riverfront bars with disrip disreputable characters. Personally, I would not want my niece hanging about with sleazy drunks, but of course you may not mind it. Everyone to her own taste.
Very Truly Yours,
A Fiend Friend
No one spoke as Joe folded up the paper and put it back in the envelope.
“What does sleazy mean?” asked Ratmom.
Emmy stroked Ratmom gently between the ears. “Somebody mean wrote that,” she said. “It’s not true.”
“It’s a poison-pen letter,” said Gussie. “Don’t read it again.”
“Do you think it was one of our nosy neighbors?” Melly asked.
Ratmom climbed down from the couch and crept along the baseboards to the bookshelf, where she pulled out something that looked like a dictionary.
Emmy shook her head. “Your neighbors wouldn’t know anything about
a rodent bar on an island. This has to be from Miss Barmy. She’s hired postal bats before, too, remember?”
She wrinkled her forehead again, trying to think. What had she forgotten? Something about the letter was nagging at the corner of her mind—
“Seedy,” said Ratmom in a hollow voice. “Sordid. Squalid.”
Emmy looked up. Ratmom was hunched over a book, running a single claw along a line of type. “Grubby,” Della went on, in tones of increasing disbelief. “Dodgy. Shady.”
“I guess she found the thesaurus,” Gussie murmured.
“Untrustworthy?” Della’s voice rose. “Slimy? That’s what they’re calling me, now—a slimy drunk?”
“Don’t take it personally,” Ana said, but the thesaurus slammed shut, and soon after, the sound of sobs came from the interior of the dollhouse.
Emmy opened her mouth to remind Ratmom to cry into the bottle, but then she remembered that it was upstairs where it had been knocked over. Oh, well, Della’s tears wouldn’t hurt the dollhouse carpet, and Ratty was at a safe distance, sleeping under a blanket on the terrace.
Emmy looked at the letter again. There was a certain amount of truth to it—she had gone out at night in the canoe to visit The Surly Rat. And though Emmy wouldn’t have called her a sleazy drunk, Ratmom did have a root beer problem.
Still, there was a tone of malice to the letter that made it awful to read. At least it had been sent only to the great-aunts, who knew all about Ratmom anyway and understood. It would have been much worse if a letter like that had been sent to her parents …
Emmy felt suddenly chilled. That was just the sort of thing Miss Barmy would do. What if her parents opened such a letter? Would they come to get her and find the escaped Ana living there? If they did, they would never trust their daughter again. And Emmy didn’t even want to think about trying to explain the little aunts to them.
They just had to find Sissy and stop Miss Barmy. “If only we could have followed that bat,” Emmy muttered.
Joe’s eyes strayed to the front window and the streetlamp beyond. “I bet that was one of the bats who carried Sissy off. It might have told us where they took her.”