by Cari Best
Anna kissed Shirley on top of her head before asking if she had remembered her Ivory soap, bathing cap, and insect repellent.
Shirley took the seat by the window next to Laurel, who along with Ruthie had been walked over by Grandma, and stuffed her duffel bag under her legs. Uncle Rod wore his Bermuda shorts, summer driving cap, and big grin as he told Anna he would take good care of Shirley. Shirley waved goodbye to Anna and then to Grandma.
“Be okay,” Grandma said in Russian, using the plural form of the verb to include everyone in the car.
* * *
Shirley felt nothing at first. Then she felt everything. She felt free. Free to be on her own in the big, big world. And she felt enclosed. Enclosed in the best way, when you belong somewhere. Somewhere like in the middle of the happy chaos that was the Barrett family.
No one was wearing the shirts that said all their names, Ruthie volunteered, because they’d been in the washing machine when the fire occurred. Shirley felt guilty, but she had to admit that she wasn’t very sorry for that particular loss. When Aunt Rosalie said, “Who asked you?” in answer to Ruthie’s announcement, Shirley found herself asking Ruthie the same.
Shirley tore napkins in half when they ate lunch and counted out ten M&M’s for dessert so no one would get any more than anyone else. She felt like a kid. And she felt like a grown-up to be away from home and to love it so much. At first Shirley didn’t think she mattered in such a big family of which she wasn’t an immediate part. And then she felt like she did matter when Uncle Rod asked what radio station was her favorite (the rock-and-roll one, of course).
Here I am, mountains! Shirley thought when she first saw them from the car window, looking exactly like the little florets of broccoli that Aunt Rosalie described in last year’s postcard. And the lake! The size of it: three hundred miles! The color was azure! Everything was azure! Every ounce of Shirley’s being was filled with wonder.
“I never thought that I, Shirley Alice Burns, that mousy girl who keeps a mouse in the freezer in her apartment in Queens, would ever be lucky enough to be here! Can you see me, Mouse?” Shirley asked, mouthing the words.
There was cold, clean water to jump into from a wooden dock! A blue canoe to row with Phillie! And pretty blue-shuttered cabins around the lake to sleep in! You can hear crickets all night like in the movies! And you don’t even need a fan to keep cool because it is always cool here at night! Shirley thought.
* * *
One day, Uncle Rod rented a motorboat and let Shirley hold the steering wheel. She loved the misty wind in her face, which made her curly hair even curlier. Shirley squealed with the other Barretts when they got splashed from the big waves the boat made.
When Uncle Rod killed the motor, Scott shouted: “Go jump in the lake!” And Shirley did.
They took pictures! And made a family movie! Shirley went camping for the first time and peed in the woods. You’re not the only one to do it outside, Monica Callahan! Shirley thought.
Eating Cheerios in their pretty cabin with the blue shutters on the blue lake in her blue bathing suit, Shirley warned Phillie in a loud whisper, “Don’t drink the milk.”
“Why?” he asked, a wide grin breaking out all over his face.
“It’s spoiled,” said Shirley, as happy as she had ever been in her entire life.
She and Phillie laughed like two silly hyenas when Uncle Rod asked: “Why shouldn’t I drink the milk?”
And Aunt Rosalie answered, “Who asked you?”
* * *
Another day they rode a real train up the mountain. The only train Shirley had ever been on was the New York City subway—the E and F trains from Queens Boulevard were both underground. Now she and Phillie sat side by side in a small red flatcar for two that chugged along, slowly but steadily, up the steep mountainside.
“Look down!” said Phillie.
And Shirley did. But she was only half as scared as she had been when she went on Tony’s Death-Defying Sky Ride with all the neighborhood kids—too chicken to sit in the top row and have her feet swinging in midair.
* * *
Shirley tried waterskiing. She couldn’t stand up on the skis the first time.
“Try again!” said Uncle Rod.
And fishing: “Blech!” said Shirley at the thought of fooling a fish to bite onto a sharp hook.
“It’s good to know what you don’t like,” said Uncle Rod.
“Do I have to do it?” Phillie asked, no doubt thinking of poor Harry.
“Do you think you have to?” asked Uncle Rod.
And Phillie said quietly, “No.”
Shirley thought Anna would have made Phillie go fishing. At least the old Anna would have. Who knew about the new Anna?
But Steve and Scott and Laurel loved fishing. And so did Uncle Rod.
Shirley thought of Grandma’s five fingers: See them! They are all different! Smart Grandma.
Perhaps Shirley’s favorite thing of all was floating on Lake Winnipesaukee under the sun, under the sky, in the water, on the earth; feeling the Smile of the Great Spirit; and smiling back. The Smile of the Great Spirit is enormous like the lake, Shirley thought. She was surprised she didn’t have to look as hard to find it as she had at first imagined: under a boulder, at the bottom of the lake, in the fog, in the smoke coming from a special pipe. The Spirit was everywhere. You are okay as you are in the world today, it told Shirley; you will be okay for as long as you are alive. There is a reason for you.
Without intending to, Shirley felt the father whom she hadn’t been allowed to feel, whom she hadn’t been allowed to call anything—not even Dad: he was in the whistle she made with a blade of grass held tightly between her thumbs, in the beads of water on her knees, in the moving clouds that hovered above her head, in the sparrow that thought he was hidden in a sugar maple tree. “I see you,” said Shirley. She felt her father’s breath in a breeze; she smelled his aftershave when she walked past an evergreen.
One night she saw a bat circling in a field of foxtails and thought her father might have something to do with that bat; she heard her father laugh, like he did when she used to muss his hair, when she saw a misspelled word on a sign at a restaurant: DINNERS WELCOME! instead of DINERS WELCOME! Her father must have been a good speller, too, decided Shirley. She got his message when there was lightning during a storm over their cabin one afternoon: be strong, Shirley Burns.
* * *
Shirley sent postcards.
Hi Maury,
I went into the water on the front of this postcard and I got all wet! I think this place is better than heaven, since no one knows exactly what heaven is. How’s that for science?
I put everything they had at Kellerhaus on my huge strawberry sundae (they didn’t have pistachio) and ate every bit—until I had to drink the ice cream at the end. And it all only cost a dollar! I hope you like your camp. I LOVE LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE!
See you soon,
Shirley Alice Burns (in case you didn’t know!)
Dear Edie,
Greetings from moi! (Remember our French?) I’m having the best time ever at Lake Winnipesaukee! I’ll call you when I get home so we can meet halfway on Queens Boulevard.
S. A. B.
Dear Mom,
I’ve been swimming, canoeing, waterskiing, and camping. I even rode a train up a giant mountain. It is nicer here than in the picture! Miss you.
Love,
Shirley
Shirley didn’t write Wish you were here on Anna’s postcard, because she didn’t.
Dear Grandma,
Everything is blue here, except me. I am soooooo happy! You have to come next year!
Love and kisses,
Your sunny child, Shirley
And the last one to Luke in his basement apartment next to the laundry room:
Dear Luke,
I hope you are having a good summer so far. I am. I will tell you all about it when I get home. And by the way, I need to talk to you. It’s about a funeral for a mouse.
Yours truly,
Shirley Burns
Apartment 6961A
Chapter 21
LUKE TO THE RESCUE
It wasn’t that Anna got a sudden urge for spinach. “I avoid spinach like the plague,” she always said. It was more that the refrigerator stopped refrigerating and Anna smelled something putrid when she opened the freezer door to investigate—and followed her nose to the souris (French for “mouse”—say: “soo-ree”) in the checkbook box in the defrosted freezer.
“Shirley! Get this monster out of here!” Anna shrieked, as she was in the habit of doing in a frightful situation. But Shirley wasn’t there this time to drop everything and race into the kitchen at breakneck speed to remove the monster because she was far away at Lake Winnipesaukee. Having the vacation of her dreams.
When Shirley got back (Phillie would join them later after checking on the progress of his house with his family), Anna and Grandma were there to greet her with lots of lingering kisses and unbreakable hugs, as if Shirley had been away for a year.
Then Anna demanded an explanation for the mouse in the freezer.
First Shirley said: “You didn’t throw him away, did you?”
“No,” Anna said. “I learned my lesson with your trains.”
“I found him on Father’s Day lying in the grass,” Shirley said. “I picked him up, brought him home, and put him in the freezer so he would be there for as long as I needed him to be there—until I could understand about my father. Who happens to be as dead as that mouse. I wanted to know what dead was, and about some other things besides. And now I know. I’m glad you didn’t take my mouse to the garbage house or flush him down the toilet.”
“You’re welcome,” said Anna.
“So where is he?” asked Shirley.
“He’s in the freezer of the new refrigerator that Luke brought over,” said Anna.
“It isn’t good to refreeze vhat has already been defrosted,” said Grandma.
Anna glared at Grandma because she had, of course, refrozen the mouse.
“And, by the vay, I made some hamburgers and buttermilk biscuits vith American cheese to velcome you home, Shirley! You made Vinnipesaukee sound so good, my sunny child!” said Grandma.
Some things will always remain the same, like arguing over silly things like defrosting and refreezing, Shirley thought, when there are more important things in the world to concern yourself with.
On the way home in the Barretts’ car, Shirley had planned a funeral for Mouse. For her father. A proper send-off to wherever the mouse body would be going next. She told Phillie there would be a funeral, but she didn’t know when it would be.
* * *
Late in the day on Sunday, Shirley found Luke in the playground replacing the rusted chains on the swings.
“I can help with the funeral for yer mouse now, missy,” Luke said. “I saw him so peaceful in yer old freezer with yer writin’ on the inside of that box. I knew right away that he must be important to ye.”
“Can you think of something poignant to say to an important dead mouse?” asked Shirley.
“Of course I can, missy,” said Luke. “Are you ready?”
“I think so,” said Shirley.
Luke remembered the Scottish prayer his mother recited when his father died.
Shirley sat in the grass next to Mouse—in the shade, under the sun, amid the cicadas, in the world—and bowed her head while Luke spoke.
“Deep peace of the running wave to ye
Deep peace of the flowing air to ye
Deep peace of the quiet earth to ye
Deep peace of the shining stars to ye
Deep peace of the infinite peace to ye:
To Shirley’s dear little important Mouse.”
“And to Harry,” said a voice sniffling into a handkerchief.
It was Phillie. Phillie, who once again showed up when you least expected him.
“Do ye have anything to add to that, missy?” Luke asked. “And do you, Phillie?”
“I have something to add,” said Phillie. “I heard that it’s easier to get up to heaven if you have no shoes on. Harry didn’t have any feet, so he’s probably already there.”
“All I have to add is thank you,” said Shirley when Phillie had finished, “to Luke, to Phillie, and to Mouse.” There wasn’t much more to say that Shirley wanted anyone to hear.
To herself Shirley said: I will not bury Mouse in the dirt. I will not burn him with the House of Wing matches. I will not toss him into Flushing Bay. I will let him gently roll out of the box and I will cover him with last year’s leaves from the apricot tree that Grandma planted. Right here. And when Mouse disappears, he will become one with nature like Grandma says she will do one day. Mouse belongs here. And he will always belong to me. Like my father. Who always did and always will belong to me, too.
EPILOGUE
Late one Saturday afternoon when Anna was at a class for once-aspiring ballerinas at Madame Makarova’s Royal Academy of Ballet, Shirley sat at the dinette table with her very own copy of Pippi Longstocking, studying Astrid Lindgren’s blowy cursive in a letter she had just picked up at the library. The envelope was addressed to Miss Chin, Children’s Librarian, Main Street Library, Queens, USA. Shirley opened it and read:
Dear Shirley Alice Burns,
Do not despair! I am sure that by now you have discovered that your father, like Pippi’s, is everywhere: in the toes in your shoes, in the dandelions in the field, in the crows in the trees, in the sweetness of the cream puff inside your mouth, in the moon at night when you are in your bed. Even in the words you wrote to me. I can tell you are a writer from your letter. Then you must write. The world needs more people like you. Don’t ever forget that.
With every good wish,
Astrid Lindgren
6 July 1961
P.S. I happen to think that “Shirley Alice Burns” is a fine name for a writer.
The book was a gift from Miss Chin. So was the letter, written on Shirley’s birthday.
Shirley didn’t hear the telephone when it rang, she was that enthralled by the words and the handwriting in front of her—so free and so feathery and so not perfect. The words had skipped off the pen, off the desk—off the dinette table, perhaps—of Astrid Lindgren. All the way to Queens from Sweden.
When Shirley finally realized the phone was ringing, she answered it. It was Anna, calling from a pay phone, saying she would be home late, that she had stopped to do some shopping on Austin Street for a new lipstick or a new nail polish. Anna had been much better with her money and was now contributing five dollars every two weeks to their ever-growing Attached House Fund, which Shirley had told her about. After Shirley had revealed her own stash of cash, ever growing from her various jobs. Anna’s ship had still not come in.
* * *
Some impossible wishes do come true. Anna, in a moment of weakness, said yes when Shirley asked for a dog. Natalie and Porky, at Aunt Claire’s house in close quarters for two months, had made four distinguished-looking puppies! Some were black, some brown. Some were a little of each. You never can tell with genes.
And some impossible things can be fixed. Shirley skillfully scissored the one picture she had of herself and her father to fit the heart-shaped picture frame that Grandma had found in the trash. There was some space left over, so she put a picture of Anna in there, too. It was perfect.
* * *
And Shirley wrote.
Sometimes at Anna’s desk, sometimes in her bed, sometimes outside on the stoop or at the Main Street Library. Some writers can write anywhere, using the voice that best suits what they are writing.
Once and Future Queens
By Shirley Alice Burns
Chapter 1
The very un-proper Princess Prunella rests upon her majestic throne with her royal dog, Sweet William, on an extraordinary morning in the Palace of Peace, where she practices her français (French for “French”—say: “frahn-say”) while one Queen take
s driving lessons on the royal driveway below and the other Queen sits regally sewing pin-striped baseball pants with pockets for the Princess. Sir Luke attends to the perfect emerald-green lawn outside, waiting patiently for Prunella to change out of her royal robe and help him fix the washing machine in the Attached Palace’s laundry room.
Shirley smiled. She put down her pencil and got ready to meet Edie, who would be waiting for her exactly halfway from where each of them lived on Queens Boulevard. At six.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cari Best has written many award-winning picture books, including Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and My Three Best Friends and Me, described by the New York Times as “refreshing” and “exciting.” Her picture book If I Could Drive, Mama was described by Publishers Weekly as “a wonderful tribute to an imagination in perpetual motion.” In the Country of Queens is her first novel. Ms. Best lives in Connecticut. You can sign up for email updates here.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
1. A Lucky Day
2. At Least Now I Know
3. In the Palace of Light
4. Dance, Ballerina, Dance
5. The Difference Between Rich and Poor
6. Pardon My French
7. Minding Everybody’s Business
8. Shirley’s Winning Smile