Gingersnap

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  I didn’t dare say here. But I wanted to say that I belonged in her warm kitchen, staying with her while I waited for Rob.

  Instead, I told her that I broke things. I didn’t mention Celine’s vase, though. I raised my shoulders in the air. “I’m so sorry about the cake.”

  I began to cry silently. The tears slid down my cheeks and dripped onto my hands at the edge of the table, leaving dark spots in the floury wood.

  “Save your tears for something more important than a cake,” she said, smiling just a little.

  “But the eggs, the butter …”

  “This isn’t the first time I managed without enough eggs or butter,” she said, but still she looked a little worried.

  I could see that. How could you run a bakery without eggs or butter?

  “I was in another war,” she said, “in France, when I was young. We called it the Great War.”

  I nodded. Mrs. Murtha had told us about that war.

  I told her about Rob. “There are just the two of us,” I said. “And now he’s missing in action.” It was hard to swallow. “His ship might have been hit by a kamikaze plane. I don’t know.”

  Her face was sad. “Young pilots diving into ships. Some of them only seventeen years old. Such a waste of life. But you can’t be alone. There must be an adult to take care of you.”

  I pictured Celine with the hairpiece over her eyes.

  Then I remembered Theresa, outside somewhere in those high weeds.

  I pushed back my chair. “I have a turtle.” I darted toward the door. “Please, I just have to find her.”

  I waded in the sea of grass and weeds, then crawled through the old winding path where the growth wasn’t as high, back and forth, calling softly, as if she could hear me.

  I searched for her until it was too dark to see, then circled the fence with its huge spaces on the bottom. Those spaces were more than large enough for Theresa to have wandered through.

  She was gone.

  I went back to the kitchen door, which Elise had left open. She was setting out dough to rise, with the radio blaring war news: rings of destroyers around the island of Okinawa, many damaged, some sunk, but still many more alert, ready to fight.

  The Muldoon.

  Not ready to fight.

  Gone under the water.

  Elise turned to me, a dusting of flour on her face, wisps of hair escaping from her bun. “You’re back?” She shook her head a little. “It’s late. What are you doing here, child?”

  “Please let me stay,” I burst out.

  I could see the shock in those turquoise eyes. “But where do you live?”

  “Tell her,” the voice said. “Say it.”

  “I lost my turtle. A beautiful turtle Rob and I call Theresa. Please let me stay. I’ll find her in the morning. And then …”

  “And then you’ll go home.” Elise spread out her thin hands. “You have to go home. You belong somewhere. I know that.”

  I didn’t answer. How could I?

  “I don’t even know your name,” she said.

  I hesitated. Suppose I told her about Gingersnap?

  “It’s Jayna,” I said.

  Chapter 13

  Elise looked out at the darkness. “You’ll be safe here tonight. We’ll sort it out in the morning. If I had a phone …” Her voice trailed off.

  Tonight. It was a beginning. I was too tired to think of more.

  She went ahead of me through the bakery, flipping off the light switch and opening a door to a narrow hall. Ahead of us was a long, curved stairway, with a shiny wooden banister that was smooth against my hand. I loved the feel of it.

  What would it be like to live here? Really live here? To go up these stairs every night?

  I felt a rush of air as the ghost went past me. Her footprints appeared and disappeared, pressing down the carpet as she skittered up the stairs. “To belong,” she whispered.

  Yes, to belong.

  My fingers felt a difference in the wood of the banister. Someone had gouged out …

  Initials?

  I traced them with my finger, hesitating on the step.

  ML.

  Marie Louise?

  My mother’s initials?

  Could that be?

  On the next level, we passed a living room, and beyond that a dining room with a dark table as shiny as the banister. It was old, with scratches on the legs and a few on top.

  I counted four doors on the top floor. Elise opened the first one, just off the stairs. It was a perfect room for me, tiny, with a bed and a dresser and faded red flowers in the wallpaper. It overlooked the street, the darkened windows of the dress shop and the bookstore across the way.

  “You can shower,” Elise said. “The bathroom is down the hall. And root around in the dresser for something clean to wear.”

  She ran her hand over the bedspread, smoothing out a wrinkle. “We’ll call home in the morning. There’s a phone in the stationery store around the corner. After that, you’ll go back.”

  I opened my mouth, but what could I say? No one was there in our blue house. No one at all. And that was home.

  “It’s late,” Elise said. “We’ll talk about everything in the morning.”

  She smiled again and brushed my shoulder with her hand as she passed me and went out the door.

  Tomorrow, I thought.

  “Tomorrow,” the voice echoed.

  I was tired now, so tired that I slipped out of my blouse and skirt and left them bunched up on the floor. I went into the bathroom and stood in the shower with my head against the smooth tile wall, the water warm, my eyes closed.

  I let the mud, and the grit, and the sand wash down the drain. And my tears, too. Tears for Rob, for Theresa. Who knew where they were?

  I began to think about Elise and why I’d had that book. I remembered the day Rob brought me to the house with the blue roof. I’d wandered around from one room to the next, opening drawers, touching curtains. “Just tell me something else about our mother and father,” I’d said.

  “They were kind.”

  “Not that. Something different.”

  He raised his hands to his head. “Mom had ginger hair like yours. Her name was Marie Louise.”

  I knew all that. I wanted more. “What else?”

  But that was it for that day. Rob was a quiet guy.

  In the bedroom now, I found pajamas with tatted lace around the collar and a little more around the cuffs. I fell across the bed, my head on the pillow with its faint smell of lavender.

  I went back to my skirt, reached into the pocket, and found the stone girl. I put it on the dresser opposite the bed, where I could see it in the dim light coming from the window.

  I slid under the covers, so tired, so glad to be there, if only for one night.

  “Sleep.” Was that what the ghost said?

  “Yes,” I mumbled.

  And then I was dreaming.

  Chapter 14

  Daylight edged around the brownstone houses across the way, turning the steps rosy colors. A tiny glass clock on the dresser said four-fifty-five.

  A few minutes later, a church bell nearby chimed five times. From the window, I could see the steep roof and the cross on top of a church, blocks away.

  I pulled the sheet over my head, telling myself to sleep. Eyes closed, I pictured ships sinking and planes spiraling into the ocean.

  Hadn’t Celine told me about a pilot and his crew that were stranded on a raft for a few weeks? They’d been saved when a seagull landed on the pilot’s hat, giving them just enough food to get them through until they were rescued. But how often could that happen? A seagull!

  The pilot had kept thinking of chocolate malteds. I’d heard that somewhere. Was that what Rob was thinking of? Malteds and ice cream?

  “Soup,” whispered the voice. “He’d think of your soup. And when he comes home, you’ll make it for him.”

  “Asparagus soup,” I said.

  “Horrible.”

  I veere
d off. “Beef, then, thick with tomatoes and noodles, lots of noodles.”

  “Better.” Was she smiling?

  If only that would happen.

  I was wide awake. Cooking tins rattled in the bakery kitchen below. Bread was baking, or rolls, and I smelled fruit and cinnamon simmering.

  I remembered: Theresa! I had to find her.

  In one of the drawers, I found a plaid dress with bone buttons that fit. I went downstairs to the kitchen. Elise stood at the table, rolling out dough. She glanced at me and nodded.

  The boy from yesterday stood opposite her. His dark hair hung over his eyes. I hadn’t combed my hair this morning; I didn’t even have a comb.

  I stared at Elise, the soft loop of hair against her neck, earrings like drops of snow, and an apron that covered her completely, rustling as she moved, so starched it could have stood by itself.

  She worked quickly, twisting bits of soft dough into small braids, then put each one onto a metal tray in front of her.

  As fast as she finished one of the rolls, the boy dipped a brush into a pan of melted butter.…

  Not butter, but oleo, white margarine.

  Elise nodded at me. “Doesn’t taste exactly like butter,” she said, “but we make do.”

  He coated each roll, almost as if he were splashing paint on a wall. He never stopped talking, even though I was sure he’d seen me standing in the doorway.

  “No letters from my father,” he said, facing Elise. “Fifteen days now. But that’s all right. The war in Germany is over.”

  He turned to me. “He was in all the big battles. He’s tough even though he doesn’t look it. I saw him lift a stove once. I knew nothing was going to happen to him.”

  He talked so fast, it was almost as if he were a kite and I was trying to hang on, sailing along behind him.

  Elise kept making gentle sounds as she worked with the dough.

  I saw the cat carrier under the table. It wasn’t empty! Theresa was back inside, looking like her usual calm self, blinking once, then closing her eyes.

  I bent over to poke my fingers into the mesh; I ran my fingers over the edge of her shell. “Oh, Theresa.” I looked toward the boy. “Did you find her? Where was she?”

  “That carrier is a terrible place for a turtle,” he said. He sounded like a commercial on the radio, one that said some soaps were so terrible they made holes in the wash.

  “I know it isn’t a good place for her, but for now …”

  Elise nodded a little.

  “A box turtle.” His voice rushed along. “People used to carve their initials into their shells, sometimes the dates. One lived about a hundred thirty-eight years. But you’ll probably kill this one before she’s ten, keeping her in a cage.…”

  I opened my mouth to answer him angrily, but then I saw he was trying not to smile.

  “Probably,” I said. There was something about that face, that turned-up nose, his two chipped teeth, that made me want to smile.

  Would we be friends?

  But Elise said, “Jayna’s going home today.”

  “With the turtle?” the boy asked.

  “Of course with the turtle.”

  “She’s mine,” I said.

  “Actually, she should be mine now,” he said. “I found her. I read about that. Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

  “Just try to take her.”

  “Tough girl.” He nodded at Elise as she slid the tray of rolls into the oven.

  “I can’t go home,” I said.

  The bedroom upstairs with the red roses on the wallpaper, the church bells ringing, this enormous kitchen.

  Elise, who might be my grandmother!

  Elise wiped her hands on her apron. “Your family must be worried.”

  “You’d be worried if you were my grandmother?”

  “Yes.”

  “I really can’t go home,” I said, almost bursting with it. “There’s no one there. My brother, Rob, is somewhere in the Pacific, missing. There’s only a landlady.”

  The boy looked sorry for me. “No family?”

  Outside I heard a piercing whistle.

  Elise and Andrew glanced at each other. Andrew was grinning now. “That’s my sister, Millie. Time for school.” He turned to me. “Don’t kill that poor turtle while I’m gone,” he said, and he was out the door.

  Elise bent down to the stove, and I began again. “Celine, the landlady, really doesn’t want me there. She wants her life back. I heard her say it, but I knew it anyway.”

  “Tell me about this landlady. Tell me about your brother.”

  And so I told her everything. I talked about Mrs. Alman at the last foster home, about Rob rescuing me. I told her about Celine with the hairpiece; Celine, who was teaching me manners; Celine, whose vase was in a hundred pieces.

  I talked until I was out of breath, and Elise got up from the table and poured me a glass of cool water from the faucet.

  The only things I left out were what Rob had said about a grandmother, the recipe book, and the name Gingersnap. Instead I begged her, “Let me stay.”

  She sat there, head tilted, wisps of hair escaping from that bun. “So many children are displaced because of the war. Every war.”

  Displaced. Yes.

  I wanted to tell her about what Rob had said, about finding the book, about the girl with braids, but Elise came to the table and sat opposite me. She reached out and touched my hands. “We lived in an old stone house until the Great War came.”

  Her head was bowed. I could see the part running through her hair. It was almost as if she were talking to herself, whispering, as if she’d forgotten I was there. “We couldn’t stop to take anything with us but warm coats and our identity papers.”

  She shook herself and looked at me. “I know what we’ll do.” I could see it in her eyes. She was going to let me stay. But the bell jingled in front of the shop. The curtain was open, so I could see all the way to the door. It was the man with the little white pug.

  Elise stood up. “It’s Mr. Ohland and Ella, my two best customers. They want their breakfast.”

  She went through to the front and turned back. “We’ll call that landlady together. We’ll see what she says. Give me a minute and I’ll go with you.”

  I looked up to see the ghost’s fingers with my nail polish. Two of them were crossed.

  Chapter 15

  Elise led the way across the street.

  “Could I use the phone?” I asked the man behind the counter.

  “If you have a nickel.” He grinned at Elise. He was an old man with crinkly gray hair and a mustache that moved up and down when he spoke. “On the side wall,” he said.

  Elise reached into her pocket, but I shook my head. “I have it.”

  I picked up the receiver. My hands were damp. Suppose Celine said no? Suppose she wanted me back right away?

  “Number, please,” the operator said.

  The old man stacked bundles of newspapers against the other wall, talking to Elise as I waited for the operator to find Celine in North River.

  I heard Celine’s voice, almost as if she were standing next to me. “Wait, I have to sit down. I’ve been frantic. Jayna? Is that you? How could you run away like that?”

  “I’m all right.” I looked over my shoulder. Elise was still talking to the man. “I’m fine, really fine.” I lowered my voice. “I’m with my grandmother.”

  “A grandmother?” Her voice rose in surprise. “How can that be? Why didn’t I ever hear …” She was silent for a moment. “I’m glad you have someone.”

  It was my turn to be silent. I’d forgotten she could be that kind. But hadn’t she reached out to me after I’d read the telegram? “I’m in Brooklyn.”

  “Brooklyn? How did you possibly—”

  “A bus,” I cut in. “Then I took the subway.”

  “Exactly where in Brooklyn?”

  I ran the phone cord through my fingers. There was no help for it; I had to tell her. She’d be the one to g
et the news about Rob or his letters if they came. “She has a bakery. It’s on Carey Street.”

  Elise was next to me now, her hand out.

  “Listen, Celine,” I said, “I’ll let you talk to her.”

  I stood there, eyes closed. Please don’t let Celine mention grandmother.

  “Jayna’s here,” Elise said. “I’m not sure how you feel about her staying.”

  I stepped closer, trying to hear what she’d say. Whatever it was seemed fine.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Elise said. “You can be sure of that.”

  Celine said something else.

  “For a few weeks?” Elise said. “Yes, that’s what we’ll do.” She handed the phone back to me.

  “I don’t know about all this.” Celine sounded uneasy, worried. “Your brother’s sent money.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “He’d want you to have it.”

  “Will you call me?”

  “Yes, all the time,” I promised. I gave her the number of the stationery store phone. “If you hear from Rob, call. Call right way.”

  “Of course I will. But the money …”

  “It’s yours, Celine. Rob wanted you to have it.”

  She hesitated. “We’ll talk about it when he’s home.”

  When he’s home.

  I put the receiver down gently.

  What did I care about money?

  I cared about Rob. I cared about that bedroom with the roses. I cared about that kitchen, the pots hanging on one wall. Already I cared about Elise.

  I pulled my hair back with one hand, my unruly ginger hair, curly hair. I’d wet it down, tie it back.

  Mrs. Murtha’s voice: “You’re as organized as your hair.”

  I would be organized. I’d make Elise love me. I’d help. I’d take care of Theresa. I’d …

  “… do anything,” the voice said. “I believe in you.”

  When Rob came back, we’d rent that empty shop next to the bookstore. We’d stay here forever, a family, back and forth across the street to the bakery.

  As we left, Elise looked as uneasy as Celine had sounded. “We’ll just have to see.”

  “Goodbye,” the man called after us.