Bad News/Good News

by Annie Bryant

  Miss Pierce had an old, soft sofa at one end of her kitchen, and Charlotte sank into it gratefully, taking the teacup her landlady offered her.

  “This smells great—what is it?”

  “Green tea. Calms the nerves and quiets the senses,” Miss Pierce said, sitting down beside Charlotte with a smile. “Tea and yoga—those are my two favorite antidotes to the modern world.”

  Charlotte took a sip. The tea was delicious. She closed her eyes as she breathed in the aroma.

  “It’s nice to have you visit, Charlotte.” Miss Pierce looked at her with affection. “How are things going with those lovely friends of yours? Spending much time up in the Tower these days?”

  Charlotte shook her head. “To be honest, we’ve all been too busy. Maeve’s got this big blanket project she’s trying to pull together. Everyone’s busy with school and afterschool stuff, and then…” She set her tea down on the table. “Well, there’s this stuff about me and my Dad, and the whole move to England.”

  Miss Pierce nodded. “I was wondering about that,” she said gently. “But I didn’t want to pry.”

  That was one of the things that Charlotte loved about Miss Pierce. She always let you say what was on your mind, instead of firing questions at you the way some grown-ups might.

  “I’ve tried talking to my dad,” she said unhappily. “But it’s like he’s got this big wall up. I’m so confused,” she added, “because Dad was the one who talked so much about how great it was going to be for us being back in Boston. Last spring, when we started talking about moving here, Dad showed me all these pictures of the Public Gardens, and the magnolia trees blooming on Commonwealth Avenue downtown…and sailboats on the river…. He was the one who kept talking about how important it was for us to be coming back here.” Charlotte fought back tears. “Now that we’re here, and I love it, he’s…I don’t know…it’s like he doesn’t want to be here. I just don’t understand.”

  “Charlotte,” Miss Pierce said softly, “I have a hunch. I may be wrong about this, but I think it may be that the way your father’s behaving now has everything to do with just how much he wanted to come back.”

  “What do you mean?” Charlotte asked, confused.

  Miss Pierce cleared her throat. “Tell me a little bit about what you remember about being here,” she said. “Before.”

  “You mean, before my mom died?” Charlotte pushed her hair back, concentrating. “I don’t remember that much. I was only four when she died. I remember…there was a day…well, I’m not even sure I remember this, or if it’s just because I have this picture that I love so much, and I’ve looked at it so many times…do you know how sometimes you can’t tell if you’re remembering the thing that happened or the picture of it?”

  Miss Pierce nodded. “I know just what you mean,” she said.

  “Well, in my favorite picture, my mom is reading me a story. We’re in this room—I guess it was in our old apartment, downtown. There’s a big flowered chair, and a blue lamp next to it, and a cozy soft quilt. And in the picture I’m snuggled up with my mom and she’s reading to me from Charlotte’s Web.” Charlotte paused. “That’s my all-time favorite book,” she added.

  “It’s one of my favorites too,” Miss Pierce said.

  “Anyway, that’s one thing I remember. And another thing is walking with my mom and dad somewhere—I think we were near the swan boats,” Charlotte said. “My mom was holding one of my hands and my dad was holding the other.” She swallowed. “And they were swinging me. You know…I’d jump up a little, and they’d swing me back and forth…” Her eyes filled with tears. “It felt so good, holding onto both of them at once.”

  “Charlotte.” Miss Pierce covered Charlotte’s hand with hers. “Can you imagine how hard it might be for your father, coming back here and reliving all these memories? Maybe he didn’t realize before you two moved back here how difficult it might be for him.”

  “But what’s the answer? We can’t just keep moving,” Charlotte burst out. “He can’t run away forever.”

  “I agree.” Miss Pierce took a deep breath. “Charlotte, grown-ups don’t have all the answers—just because they’re older. Sometimes we need to be taught, too. Do you think you might be able to help your father?”

  “How? I’ve tried,” Charlotte began.

  “I know you have. But you have to try again.” Miss Pierce set her teacup down, thinking. “How about spending a day with your father—just the two of you? How about asking him to show you some of the places that were most important to you as a family when you lived here?”

  Charlotte didn’t want to hurt Miss Pierce’s feelings, but she really couldn’t see how that would help. “Wouldn’t that just make it worse?” she asked.

  “It’s worth a try,” Miss Pierce continued. “It may be that your father needs to confront exactly how difficult it is for him to be back in Boston, and why, before he’s able to move on.”

  “OK,” Charlotte said quietly. “I’ve tried reverse psychology, and that sure didn’t work. And I tried telling him just how I felt, and that didn’t work either! So maybe this will.” She gave Miss Pierce a quick hug. “Thank you so much for talking with me. You have no idea how much better I feel. I hate just bottling stuff up…and even though Marty is good company, he doesn’t always have the best suggestions!”

  Miss Pierce’s eyes misted over. “Charlotte Ramsey,” she whispered, as Charlotte got up and set her teacup on the counter. “You have no idea what a joy it is for ME.”

  “I’ve got my fingers crossed!” she called out as Charlotte let herself out.

  “Thanks!” Charlotte called back. It was funny to think that she used to be afraid of her landlady. Now it almost felt like Miss Pierce was like her adopted grandmother!

  “So, we need an idea. An all-out, show-stopping, this-is-it kind of idea,” Maeve said, pacing around her bedroom with a frown.

  Isabel was lying on the carpet, doodling in her notebook. “Think,” she instructed herself. “Think, think, think.”

  Katani had her head in her hands, tapping her fingers.

  “The only way to get a good idea is to get the blood flowing to your head,” Avery announced, pushing aside a box marked “Extra Fabric” so she could do a handstand against Maeve’s bedroom wall.

  “Avery, you’re weird,” Maeve said affectionately.

  The four girls had been trying for the past half-hour to think of some grand finale to finish up their “Keep the Ramseys in Boston” scheme. So far, no great ideas were forthcoming.

  “I’ve got it!” Avery said, rolling down from the headstand. Her face was pink from being upside-down. “Why don’t we send a letter from Oxford apologizing to Mr. Ramsey and explaining that someone else took the job instead of him?”

  “I don’t know, Avery. I think that’s a little…”

  “Illegal,” Katani finished for Maeve. “And definitely not right.”

  Avery sighed. “Technicalities,” she objected. “Come on, guys. Can you do any better?”

  “I feel like we need to do something dramatic,” Maeve said.

  Katani nodded. “Something different. Not a letter this time.”

  “Maybe,” Isabel said slowly, looking at the doodle she’d finished, which was looking more and more like a chair, “we could try to do something to the Tower. Transform it, somehow. And then invite Charlotte and her father to come up there…”

  “You know,” Katani said, looking at Isabel with interest. “That’s actually kind of a good idea, Isabel.”

  Isabel’s cheeks pinkened. It was the first time that Katani had actually said something really nice to her. “You think so?” she asked.

  Maeve snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it!” she cried. “Transform the Tower room into a memory! A place that Charlotte and her dad used to love, right here in Boston!”

  “How do we do that?” Avery demanded. “How on earth do we know what kind of memories Charlotte and her dad have?”

  “Pictures, silly
,” Maeve told her. “We find a picture, and we make the Tower room look just the way the place in the picture looks. That way when Mr. Ramsey sees it, he’ll feel really at home!”

  “This is good. I think this is really good,” Katani breathed.

  “OK, Isabel. You’re new,” Maeve said, getting excited. “So you have the perfect excuse. You go over to Charlotte’s house and figure out a way to get her to show you some old pictures. Say…I don’t know, you’ll think of something. Then all you have to do is sneak one out.”

  “And we’ll use it as our blueprint! The Tower Makeover! I love this—our very own Trading Spaces!” Katani cried.

  Avery grinned. “And if it doesn’t work, I’ll write to Mr. Ramsey and tell him Oxford is shutting down,” she said cheerfully.

  The four girls looked at each other. They had a plan. Now all they needed was the perfect photograph to use as a model.

  By the next afternoon, the girls had a color copy of Charlotte’s photograph—and Isabel had safely returned the picture to Charlotte, assuring her that her scrapbook was coming along beautifully. She had told Charlotte that she was making her a collage scrapbook with memories of her friends and experiences in Boston as a farewell present. “I can’t wait to show it to you—as soon as it’s done!” she added.

  The girls grabbed each other in the corner across from their lockers to pore over the picture.

  “We can use the Lime Swivel. It’s already up there, and we’ll cover it with material,” Katani whispered.

  “You love that chair, don’t you?” Maeve said sympathetically. Katani nodded. The Lime Swivel had belonged to her great-grandfather, who had given it to Miss Pierce and her Grandma Ruby when they were little. Every time she saw it in the Tower, Katani felt a connection to her family’s past.

  “I have a lamp that looks a little bit like that. It’s up in our attic. My mom would never miss it,” Avery said.

  “We can ‘borrow’ Charlotte’s copy of Charlotte’s Web the next time we go over there,” Maeve added.

  They were really getting into the idea now. “I think this could really work,” Isabel said excitedly. “We’ll set the whole thing up…make it look exactly like it does in the picture.”

  “Uh…minus Charlotte. And her mom,” Katani pointed out.

  Isabel nodded. “Right. I know. But I mean, we’ll have the whole scene set just right. And then we’ll invite Charlotte and her Dad up, and we can have a big sign over the door that says ‘Welcome Home,’ and—”

  “Sshhh. She’s coming!” Avery hissed.

  Operation Tower Room Makeover was going to have to wait—for now.

  “Do you realize,” Maeve said the next afternoon, “that thanks to all of you, we are actually going to be able to deliver our first batch of blankets to the shelter next week?”

  Room 206 had been renamed the “Project Thread” room—at least by Avery. It wasn’t clear if anyone else had an actual name for it. But it had become the place to come during study hall.

  Ms. Rodriguez had helped to get the word out. Jennifer had also helped by posting an ad outside The Sentinel office. “Interested in helping a group of seventh graders make blankets for kids in need? Drop by room 206 during study hall and join the fun!”

  And it really was fun by this point. Katani was an amazing force when it came to organizing people. She had one group working on cutting out fleece blankets in every color imaginable—pastels for babies, bright colors for toddlers, and wonderful, unusual shades for older kids. Teal, purple, and cranberry were Katani’s personal favorites. This girl was born to rule a corporate empire!

  Maeve had a row of boxes filled with custom decorations—stripes, appliqués, badges, and even buttons—so kids could customize their blankets. Then the edges needed to be finished—one whir of Katani’s sewing machine did the trick. The finished blanket needed to be folded and sorted into one of the waiting bins—one marked “infants and babies,” one marked “toddlers,” and one marked “big kids!”

  “I like this one,” Avery said, picking up a red and navy blue blanket from the big kids’ box that had a Red Sox badge sewn on it. “Can you guess who made it?”

  “That couldn’t possibly be yours now, could it?” Katani said dryly.

  Maeve’s personal best was a soft pink baby blanket that she had decorated with bright pink hearts all around the border. “I call this one baby love,” she sighed, wrapping herself up in it.

  “I can’t believe how many we’ve got already,” Isabel said, looking with amazement at the stacked bins. “Maeve, have you guys talked to the shelter about dropping these off?”

  “Next Friday,” Maeve said proudly. “My dad said he’d take us over in his van. So we can all go.”

  She looked at Katani, suddenly feeling shy. “The director of the shelter wants to meet all of us. She’s really excited. Katani, I told her that we couldn’t have done it without you setting up all of this…”

  “Maeve,” Katani said firmly, “this is a team project, OK? We’re all in it—and we’ve all worked hard. But you were the one who got it started.”

  Maeve was completely choked up. She didn’t know why the blanket project had come to mean so much to her—but she knew it had. She also knew she hadn’t been putting as much time as she should have lately into studying. And for the second time, she’d had to cancel a session with her tutor—just to get the blankets done. She hoped this wasn’t going to be a disaster…especially with another big math test coming up.

  But, the blankets mattered to Maeve—more than she’d ever realized. What she was feeling, she realized suddenly, was pride.

  She had started the blanket project thinking that it would be great to help other people. And she had. But the funny thing was that she really felt like she had helped herself the most. It felt good, having done something useful. Something she could be proud of. And the best part was sharing it with her best friends.

  CHAPTER 19

  A Day of Memories

  Charlotte’s Journal

  I was kind of surprised by dad’s reaction when I suggested that we spend the day together on Saturday. I’m not sure what I was expecting. I guess since he and I have been getting mad at each other lately, I was half afraid that he might make an excuse to get out of it. And I know he has a lot of papers to grade, but he actually seems really excited about it. I told him that I wanted to see the house where I was born, and places that he and mom used to go. And the swan boats—he always used to tell me about the swan boats when we were on our houseboat last year.

  At first he seemed surprised. Then he started to warm up to the idea. He said that he hadn’t been back to any of those places since we moved here. And this seems like a great time.

  So we made a date. Saturday morning, we’ll get up early. We’ll catch the trolley and go all the way down Beacon Street together into Boston. We’ll have breakfast at a café on Newbury Street where he and my mom used to have coffee all the time. We’ll walk around the garden and go see the swan boats—and even ride one if they haven’t shut down for the winter. And then my dad says he’ll take me to 170 Arlington Street, where he and mom were living when I was born.

  It’s too cold out tonight to sit on the balcony. I have to look for the stars from inside.

  I’ve been reading up on Orion. There are different stories about him, but in most he is a hunter who was punished because he made the gods jealous. The Greeks thought that it was Apollo who was jealous because Artemis, Apollo’s sister, loved Orion. After he died, Artemis put him up in the sky so she could always see him.

  I’ve always loved Orion. I like the fact that he gets brighter as the days get shorter. And I love the names of the stars that make up his belt: Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. Miss Pierce told me all about them—she used to study them when she worked at Hubble. I think if Marty could have puppies we should name them after Orion’s stars. What’s amazing is that it turns out that the third star isn’t a star at all, but a nebula. That’s a kind of va
por filled with lots of stars. Some of them may even be forming their own solar systems, but from this far away we can’t see that.

  Lots of things are like that. They look one way from far away, and another way up close. For some reason, looking at the stars in Orion’s belt makes me think about dad and what it’s been like for him moving back to Boston. He’s like one of those stars in a nebula—trying to make a whole new solar system of his own…sort of.

  I feel like kissing dad goodnight. When I pull my shade down I realize something. I’m not mad at him anymore. Even if we have to move back to England, I think I kind of understand.

  Saturday turned out to be one of those golden, Indian summer days that come sometimes in New England in the late fall. On the Weather Channel everyone was saying that it was a record 68 degrees! Charlotte needed only a light jacket. Newbury Street was filled with people outside enjoying the weather—couples walking with their arms around each other, college kids shopping. It was nice sitting with her father outside. “This almost reminds me of Le Deux Garçons in Paris,” she told her father. That had been their favorite café. Sometimes they managed to spend all morning there—Charlotte with a novel to read, and her father with Le Monde, the French newspaper he loved so much.

  He laughed, putting aside his menu. “Paris prices, too!” Then he looked at Charlotte with a smile. “Your mom and I came here with you when you were a baby. We used to push you back and forth in your stroller to help you fall asleep. And your mom always ordered the same thing—an almond croissant and a café au lait. And,” he added, remembering, “she always insisted on pulling the almond filling out from the middle of the croissant and eating that first!”

  “That’s what I do!” Charlotte cried. “I do that with any kind of food that has something gooey in the middle!”

  “So there you go,” her dad grinned. “Must be genetic.”