There are times when words can’t do what you want them to do, no matter how much you wish they could.
Meryl Lee knew that.
They sat there for a long time, but not alone. First Jennifer, and then Marian and Heidi and Charlotte were there too, holding Alethea’s hands, rubbing her shoulders. They were mostly crying too. And Meryl Lee thought, I wonder how this happens. You live side by side for a while, and suddenly you realize you like living side by side, and you can’t imagine not living side by side because you’ve become friends. And then your friends become friends with one another, and they sit beside one another and cry. How does that happen?
But isn’t it good that it does?
Alethea said her brother was a painter. He liked to paint storm clouds—really wicked dark ones with lightning bolts flickering and throwing themselves over the landscape and everything beneath them huddling and waiting to be smothered by the thunder and rain and wind. She said he was a soccer goalie too, so he and Meryl Lee had something in common—“Not really,” said Meryl Lee. And he liked to fish, and he said nothing could compare to eating a fresh trout you’ve just caught and cleaned and fried in butter and salt and pepper on the shore of a river. And he liked checkers and won all the time, except with her—he always let their games end up in a tie. Her parents could hardly speak these days. They had sent Alethea back to work at St. Elene’s for a new start, they’d said.
She’s not going to have a new start, thought Meryl Lee. There is no new start. There’s only what’s next.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” said Alethea.
“Yes you can,” said Meryl Lee.
“How do you know?”
And Meryl Lee thought of the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, and the Lion, and Dorothy, and said, “Because all of us have to.”
* * *
On Monday, Meryl Lee dissected a gross gross gross leech with Matt, while Marian dissected a gross gross gross leech with Charlotte—and Charlotte did the best she could. Matt too. Neither would cut into the leech, but they were standing by the lab table when Marian and Meryl Lee did. So Charlotte might have squealed when a drop of formaldehyde squirted onto her lab coat, but she didn’t pass out and she even laughed a little when Mrs. Bellamy said that squirting formaldehyde was an occupational hazard and by the time the class was finished, they’d all smell like dead leeches. Really. Charlotte laughed at that.
But afterward, she took a shower that used up most of Margaret B. Netley Dormitory’s hot water.
On Monday, in Famous Women of History, Mrs. Saunders announced that they had all done so well on their reports the previous week that they would all now be writing a report on a famous female artist and creating a work of art in her style.
“Will we have to have partners again?” Ashley asked, and she looked at Meryl Lee.
Mrs. Saunders said these might or might not be individual projects.
“Thank goodness,” said Ashley, and she rubbed her pearls slowly against her chin.
Marian partnered with Meryl Lee.
Mrs. Saunders took her class to Putnam, where Mrs. Hibbard had already laid big-paged art books on all the long tables, and Meryl Lee looked for female artists—of whom there are fewer than you might think. Finally Meryl Lee opened a little book called The Drawings of Kate Greenaway, and she thought, This is it. It was sort of dark in Putnam, but even so, Kate Greenaway’s pictures were full of sun. Everything was lovely and delicate. Children in perfect clothes, running around on perfect lawns—and you knew they were never going to get a grass stain on anything they were wearing. Milkmaids with pretty red lips, and white fences, and ivy-covered cottages, and flowers everywhere—mostly roses.
It looked like a gentle world where Vietnam could never happen.
Meryl Lee and Marian decided that Kate Greenaway would be their project.
On Monday afternoon, during an extra soccer practice because, Coach Rowlandson said, they needed it, Coach Rowlandson told Meryl Lee that playing goalie could possibly be Meryl Lee’s Accomplishment. “Certainly you’re moving your hands a whole lot more quickly”—which, Meryl Lee figured, was true, since you want to move your hands very quickly whenever a soccer ball is hurtling toward your face.
But Meryl Lee said, “Coach Rowlandson, Heidi’s back.”
“I’ve spoken with Heidi,” said Coach Rowlandson. “You’ve done well as the backup goalie. Heidi thinks so too.”
Meryl Lee felt suspicion cloak her.
“And Heidi has never had an opportunity to play forward and score goals—which would be very nice for the Lasses to do now and then.”
“If you’re saying that . . .”
“So I’d like you to play first-string goalie for the season.”
Meryl Lee looked at her. “I am not happy about this,” she said.
“You’re doing fine,” said Coach Rowlandson.
“I’m not doing fine.”
“Kowalski,” said Coach Rowlandson, “one week from tomorrow—eight days, or one hundred and ninety-two hours—St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls has its first soccer match of the spring season. We need you in the goal.”
What Coach Rowlandson did not say was “Kowalski, one week from tomorrow, St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls is playing St. Scholastica’s Academy for Girls, which has won at least the regional championship every year since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States. It is rumored that their shots on goal are cannonballs. It is rumored that they always fire their first cannonballs directly at the goalie’s face to intimidate her. Last season, three goalies from other teams who played St. Scholastica’s Academy lost teeth. And their school mascot is a dragon rampant.”
That is what Coach Rowlandson was really saying.
Meryl Lee told Coach Rowlandson she was going to be deathly sick next Tuesday.
“What are you coming down with?” she said.
“Something as yet unknown to modern science. Something not even Florence Nightingale would be able to cure.”
“You would still be goalie,” said Coach Rowlandson.
“I might die in front of the net,” said Meryl Lee.
“I’ll take my chances,” said Coach Rowlandson.
“Coach Rowlandson, I really do want to keep all my teeth through eighth grade.”
Coach Rowlandson said, “I’ll take my chances with that, too. Sticks down, Kowalski.”
The game wasn’t for one hundred and ninety-two hours. Perhaps, Meryl Lee thought, something would happen by then so she wouldn’t have to play first-string goalie.
Maybe the Apocalypse, which is not something Kate Greenaway would ever have painted.
And on Monday, after soccer practice and before Evening Meal, Meryl Lee and Charlotte and Marian and Jennifer and Heidi walked down to the docks with Alethea and Bettye and together they squeezed onto the bench by the bait house, where the sun was shining and it was warm—though sort of fishy. They watched the waves come in as the tide rose. Together, they held on to Jonathan’s scarf, draped across their knees.
That was Monday, when Alethea did what she had to.
* * *
On Monday night, Matt also did what he had to—because it was too late to do anything else.
That night, while Mrs. MacKnockater slept with the afghan on her lap, and while the fire in the wood stove fell to embers, and while the sound of a low wind in the pines mingled with the sound of the rising tide and the buoys out on the bay rolled their bells and Captain Hornblower blew up the French supply train heading toward Napoleon’s army to bloody bits, Matt—half asleep himself—heard the sound of the porch creaking beneath what sounded like slowly moving, stealthy feet.
Everything in Matt rose to attention. He knew he should run.
He knew he should run.
But he looked over at Bagheera. Asleep.
He looked across to the door. Unlocked.
He looked back at Bagheera.
He got up slowly and yawned, and stretched
his arms, and looked around for a place to set the book down, and stretched again, as if he were just sort of tired and logy. He moved toward the front door and, as if nothing at all was wrong, he turned the lock quietly. He reached for the light switch and turned off the overhead. Then he moved to the lamps in the room and turned them off one by one, listening—all the time listening.
Bagheera woke up when he turned off the last one.
“Why is it so dark in here?” she said.
“Bagheera,” whispered Matt, “shut up.”
It was probably the first time in her life that Dr. Nora MacKnockater had ever been told to shut up—and it didn’t matter that it was only a whisper.
“I will most certainly not shut up in my own house.”
Matt knelt beside her.
“I think we’re in trouble,” he said. “Go back to the kitchen and make sure the door is locked.”
She looked at him.
“Move like you’re getting ready to go to bed.”
“How do I do that?”
“Bagheera, just do it.”
Mrs. MacKnockater pulled the afghan off her lap, stood slowly, and walked into the kitchen. Matt heard her turn the lock in the back door, then lift the receiver off the hook and begin to dial.
Now the only light in the front room came from the wood stove—and there wasn’t much. Little enough that Matt could look out through the windows and see the silhouettes of pines and—if there was anyone—the shadow of someone on the porch.
He listened to everything: the sigh of the wind through branches, the way it stroked its palms across the clapboards, the low thrash of the waves below the ridge, the dull bells of the buoys, the footsteps of Bagheera as she came back in and sat down.
“I’ve made some phone calls,” she whispered.
Matt nodded, even though she probably couldn’t see him.
He knelt by the bay window and watched.
Nothing.
Nothing for five minutes.
For eight minutes.
And nothing until Lieutenant Minot’s black-and-white rolled across the gravel and into the front yard—a few minutes before Captain Hurd showed up.
And Matt could not be sure if he really had seen something—someone—rush away into the dark woods at the sound of the siren.
But that night, after Lieutenant Minot had checked the outside and found nothing, and after Mrs. MacKnockater had finally gone to bed, and after Matt had gone upstairs and then snuck back downstairs with his hatchet, he did not fall asleep, thinking about how some things only God can see—but he wished he could too.
However, he did see Captain Hurd walk past the house three times that night, holding his gleaming lantern high to shove back the darkness.
Thirty-Four
During announcements at dinner in the second week of April, Mrs. Mott invited the students of St. Elene’s to join the newly constituted St. Elene’s Literary Society, which was now open to anyone connected to St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls. This was an initiative that Mrs. Connolly would be leading in anticipation of her new role at the school, and it was replacing the traditional Tea and Biscuit Conversations. All a student needed to do to show interest and commitment was to submit a Shakespearean sonnet for the first meeting.
Meryl Lee, unfortunately, laughed out loud at the thought of spending more time with Mrs. Connolly than she absolutely had to.
She should not have laughed out loud.
When she did, Mrs. Connolly turned and left Greater Hoxne Dining Hall, and Meryl Lee could see that Mrs. Mott was disappointed in her.
After dinner, Mrs. Mott told Meryl Lee that she had something she needed to see to.
Meryl Lee knew she did.
For a little while she wondered if she should volunteer to be the office assistant for Mrs. Connolly—but she couldn’t go that far. So she went to Mrs. Connolly’s office to apologize—but Mrs. Connolly wasn’t there. Either that, or she would not open her door.
That afternoon, Meryl Lee went to Putnam Library to read about Kate Greenaway.
Dr. MacKnockater was sitting at the table right by the door.
She held out the book she was reading: The Grapes of Wrath. “Have you read Mr. Steinbeck, Miss Kowalski?” she said.
Meryl Lee nodded.
“I’m told that this novel is lewd, but I fail to see it. A reader such as yourself might be interested to know that Mrs. Connolly is forming a literary society at St. Elene’s.”
“I heard about the literary society,” said Meryl Lee.
“It would be too bad if not enough girls attended Friday’s first meeting, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” said Meryl Lee.
“Will you be going?”
“Mrs. Connolly is really angry with me right now,” said Meryl Lee.
“All the more reason to attend,” said Dr. MacKnockater.
“But . . .”
“Would you have her hold the meeting alone?”
Meryl Lee thought about Mrs. Connolly—how whenever she saw her, she was alone.
Life is a lot easier when all you have to do is snatch the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of the West. There’s only the one thing you have to do. And the Wicked Witch of the West is wicked, so she deserves to have her broomstick snatched.
But suppose the Wicked Witch of the West isn’t just wicked.
Suppose, deep inside her dark castle, the Wicked Witch of the West is lonely.
Or hurt.
Or maybe wanting to be your friend, even if she doesn’t know how.
It’s after you’ve snatched the broomstick that things get complicated.
“All right,” said Meryl Lee.
“Good,” said Dr. MacKnockater. She closed her book.
“Dr. MacKnockater,” said Meryl Lee.
“Yes, Miss Kowalski.”
“You weren’t sitting here waiting for me, were you?”
Dr. MacKnockater handed The Grapes of Wrath to Meryl Lee. “If there is a flaw in this splendid book,” she said, “it’s that Tom leaves the narrative action before he should. I don’t think it’s lewd, but one should never leave the narrative action before she should.”
* * *
Matt Coffin did not feel obliged to join the St. Elene’s Literary Society—though Mrs. MacKnockater asked if he would be interested.
He just looked at her.
“I’m not insisting,” she said.
“Good,” said Matt.
“Still and all, it might be enlightening for you to . . .”
“Because if you were insisting, Bagheera, then . . .”
“I think I see Captain Hurd at the door.”
And that was the end of their conversation about the St. Elene’s Literary Society.
* * *
These spring days, Matt was doing his best—his very, very best—to not get up at first light, eat quickly, and head down to the docks. The stars were fading earlier and earlier, and the days were warmer and warmer, and the sea was blue blue blue—and Captain Hurd never suggested that he might go to the St. Elene’s Literary Society instead of going out with him on the ocean.
During breakfast, Mrs. MacKnockater watched him when he wasn’t looking. It was so good to have him in the house. All those rooms, and so little life—until now. She watched him as he looked out at the sea, and she knew how much of his heart was already on the water. She wondered how he got himself to classes at all.
Maybe because he knew that Mrs. Bellamy and Mr. Wheelock would give him heck if he missed.
Or maybe Matt’s decision to go to classes was actually about a certain Miss Kowalski.
And Mrs. MacKnockater wondered if she really did want to take him away to Edinburgh.
Some afternoons, after classes, Matt went down to the shore and skipped stones and thought about Pastor Darius and Sophia Malcolm, about Mr. Tush and the Myrnas. About Georgie. Sometimes he’d go to old Captain Cobb’s shack and sweep out the cigarette butts left by the St. Giles’s boys and rem
ember those cold months alone. That felt like a lifetime ago, as though it had been taken out by a tide that had never come back in.
And when he came back home, he would open the windows to let in the sea breeze, and it rushed indoors, twisting and frolicking, rustling the papers that Mrs. MacKnockater had laid out for Matt’s language arts assignments and baffling them to the floor, and he would gather them and—usually with a sigh—sit beside the wood stove and begin.
But he had not forgotten the sounds on the porch, and more than one night, he lay awake in his bed, listening. Sometimes he stood at his window, watching. Sometimes he stayed downstairs after they turned out all the lights and Mrs. MacKnockater had gone up to her bedroom, and in the darkness, Matt watched the porch windows for passing shadows, his hatchet at the ready. But as time went by, he wondered more and more if he had been mistaken, if he had really heard anything at all.
Though he was pretty sure he hadn’t been mistaken.
* * *
After the afternoon at Putnam, Meryl Lee was beginning to rethink her project choice for Mrs. Saunders. Marian was writing the report, but Meryl Lee was composing a painting in the style of Kate Greenaway—who was probably a very nice person and a lovely artist, but Meryl Lee was getting tired of all those roses.
And Alethea’s brother had died in Vietnam.
And Holling was—
And Bettye’s brother was still over there.
And her parents were—
And suppose Matt went to Vietnam? Suppose he had to go too?
Meryl Lee decided she did not want to draw anything like Kate Greenaway right now. She asked Mrs. Saunders if she and Marian could switch to a different artist.
Mrs. Saunders said no.
So that second week of April—except for a little time off for Jonathan’s scarf, which was now sixty-five inches—Meryl Lee worked on a painting in the style of Kate Greenaway.
After a few days, she hated Kate Greenaway.
Just Like That Page 26