“Hello,” said a boy's voice.
Jane's eyes flew open (she had closed them to better picture Arthur). Right in front of her was a real boy to look at. He didn't have tawny eyes and auburn hair, but Jane all of a sudden understood that brown hair and green eyes could be nice. And if his face had too many freckles to be called noble, still, she already knew he wasn't the kind of boy to tell tales to his mother.
“How's your head?” she asked.
He leaned down a bit to give her a better view of the purple bruise on his forehead. “It's okay. Churchie put ice on it when I got home.”
“Good.” Jane beamed, then pulled herself together. She still hadn't done her job. “I have a speech for you.”
Churchie came up behind Jeffrey. “Sure you don't want to come in, Jane?”
“She has a speech,” said Jeffrey.
“Heavens!” said Churchie.
“You can listen if you'd like,” offered Jane.
“How could I pass it up?”
Jane cleared her throat, stood tall with her hands clasped behind her back, and began. “Good morning, Jeffrey. I'm Jane Penderwick, officially elected spokesperson for Skye Penderwick, whom you met yesterday. Skye asked me to express her regret for crashing into you and for her subsequent rude behavior and hopes you will forgive her and not take it too personally The end.” Jane bowed.
Churchie applauded. “We don't get many speeches here. That was a good one. What do you think, Jeffrey?”
“It was fine,” he said. “I accept the apology.”
“Already?” said Jane. “I figured you'd need persuading, so I've been thinking up more things to say. Like how Skye's always saying exactly the wrong thing to people—it wasn't just special for you. And how she's really nice, sometimes, after you get to know her. And then I'd ask you to have pity on motherless girls brought up without a woman's gentle influence, which doesn't really count, because our father is gentle, but I thought it sounded good. I have more, too, if none of that worked.”
“You can stop,” said Jeffrey. “Not that it wasn't great.”
“Yes, very well put,” said Churchie.
“Thanks!” Jane hadn't been so proud of herself since delivering the speech for the dedication of the new playground at Wildwood Elementary School. And in a minute she was even prouder, for Jeffrey agreed to go back with her to the cottage for homemade chocolate chip cookies. She had done it! She had soothed the wounded pride of the former enemy and was about to deliver him to the Penderwick camp! Not even Rosalind could have done better.
Jane said good-bye to Churchie, and the two children set off for the cottage, talking a mile a minute. For, to Jane's delight, Jeffrey seemed to like to talk almost as much as she did. This gave her a chance to do some research for her book. She had been having trouble deciding what Arthur would talk about, except imprisonment and doom, of course, and imprisonment and doom can only go so far. Jeffrey seemed willing to talk about anything. He told Jane about watching her family arrive from his window, but his mother had called him just as they were getting back into the car—that's why he had disappeared suddenly And Jane told him about Hound throwing up in the driveway and how nice Cagney had been about it. And Jeffrey told her about how nice Cagney always was and about the stuff he was always doing for Jeffrey, like making a tunnel through the hedge so that Jeffrey could escape from visiting Garden Club ladies and giving him an iguana named Darwin, but Darwin made his mother break out in hives, so he'd had to give it to Churchie's married daughter in Boston. And Jane told him all about the other Penderwicks, and what their names were, and how Rosalind was the prettiest, Skye the smartest, and Batty the littlest. And Jeffrey told her that he was an only child and that it sometimes got lonely. And Jane said, Well, you won't be lonely for the next three weeks, because we'll be here. And he said, That'll be great. And Jane said that they should hurry, because the chocolate chip cookies must be almost done, and everyone would be so pleased to see him.
Because Rosalind didn't come back in a few minutes like she had promised, Skye struggled on her own with the cookie preparation. She finished stirring the batter, tossed little blobs onto the cookie sheets, shoved the cookie sheets into the oven, and turned the knob to broil. Now there was nothing to do but wait and see if Jeffrey showed up. So she went upstairs to her neat white bedroom, pulled her math book out of her suitcase, and forgot all about the cookies.
Which is how it happened that when smoke began to leak out of the oven, no one was there to notice. Mr. Penderwick was where he had been since breakfast, in his room reading about wildflowers. Jane and Jeffrey were still on their way to the cottage. Rosalind was outside with Cagney and the rosebush, and Batty and Hound were in his pen playing astronauts on the moon. Skye? She was working.
“A tree casts a shadow 20 feet long, and a girl who is 5 feet tall casts a shadow of 4 feet. What is the height of the tree? Okay, if the height of the tree is x, then x over 20 is hmmm—” She scribbled enthusiastically in her math book. “—which means that x equals 100 divided by 4, or 25. Easy. No problem. I am the champ. Next. Four gallons of ice cream …”
On and on she went, solving problem after problem as more and more smoke poured out of the oven. Nothing broke her concentration, not even the faraway sound of Hound barking danger-danger-danger. It wasn't until she heard doors slamming and lots of running around downstairs that she looked up and sniffed. What was that smell? She ran down the steps into the kitchen.
Skye was amazed at what she saw. Rosalind was pulling two smoldering black cookie sheets out of the oven, Cagney was dragging a hose into the kitchen from outside, Batty and Hound were tearing around the table playing firemen, and everywhere there was smoke, smoke, and more smoke.
“What happened?” said Skye.
“You ruined the cookies and almost burnt down the cottage, that's what happened,” said Rosalind, coughing. “What made you turn on the broiler? What were you thinking?”
Skye didn't know a broiler from a boiler from a rolling pin, but she was too mortified to admit it in front of Cagney. She put on her most stubborn face. “I wasn't thinking of anything.”
“Well, that much is obvious,” said Rosalind. “I didn't know you were such a moron in the kitchen.”
Rosalind had gone too far. Skye knew it, and she knew that Rosalind knew it, too, by the look on her face. And Skye knew that Rosalind was about to apologize. But it was too late. Skye lost her temper.
“You promised you'd come back inside and help me, and you didn't, so it's your fault as much as mine. Besides, these stupid cookies weren't my idea in the first place. They were your and Jane's idea. I would never make cookies for a boy, especially a rich, stuck-up boy with a snooty mother!”
Suddenly the kitchen was very quiet and no one was looking at Skye. They were all looking the other way, toward the door. Slowly Skye turned her head and saw what she least wanted to see—Jane and Jeffrey, staring in through the screen. And again Jeffrey was so pale Skye could count his freckles.
“Oh, no.” Skye wished that the cottage had burnt down and she was at the bottom of a pile of charred rubble.
That's when Mr. Penderwick wandered into the room. “Well, my goodness,” he said cheerfully. “Have we had an accident? Good morning, Cagney—quick work with the hose. And is this Jeffrey Tifton? Hello, son, I'm happy to meet you.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A New Hero
MR. PENDERWICK BELIEVED IN LONG WALKS. One of his favorite sayings was, Take a walk, clear your head. Skye figured that's why he had sent her on a walk with Jane, Jeffrey, and Batty while he and Rosalind aired out the kitchen. For Skye to clear her head and, maybe, too, for Skye and Jeffrey to clear the air between them. Not that Skye hadn't already apologized for calling Jeffrey rich and stuck-up and not that Jeffrey hadn't said that was all right, forget about it, but that was as far as they had gotten, conversationally, and since then, they had barely looked at each other.
So here was Skye, slogging along behind Jeffrey
and Jane, listening to them gab on and on like old friends. It was enough to make a person sick. Of course, Skye wasn't jealous and she didn't wish anyone would pay attention to her or anything. It was just such a waste of time being with people who talked about boring stuff.
Jeffrey was taking them to see something special, or so he had told Jane. He led them across the cottage grounds away from the hedge and toward the high stone wall that marked the other boundary line. Once they reached the wall, they turned to the left and followed it for another hundred yards until they came to a wooden gate, where Jeffrey called a halt. The gate was almost as high as the wall—much too high to see over—but there were knotholes in the wood. Jeffrey told Jane to put her eye to one of these knotholes and look through to the other side.
“It's just a field,” said Jane.
“There should be a bull over there,” said Jeffrey.
“Nope, no bull.”
“Let me look.”
Jane moved aside to make room for Jeffrey.
“You're right. I don't see him, either,” he said. “He must be in the barn today.”
Skye tapped her foot impatiently The truth was, she thought, there was no bull. That boy was just trying to impress Jane.
“He gored a man right in this very field,” said Jeffrey, looking back at Jane.
“Oh!” gasped Jane. “Did the man die?”
“Almost.” If Jeffrey heard Skye's scornful snort, he didn't let on. “Cagney told me all about it. The man's guts fell out of his stomach and it took three doctors to stitch him back up again. Some people signed a petition to have the bull shot, but the police said it was the man's own fault, because he was trespassing in the bull's field.”
“I feel sorry for the man, but just the same, it would be awful to be shot,” said Jane.
“Besides, Cagney says the bull's more dumb than mean. It's not right to shoot someone because they're not intelligent,” said Jeffrey.
“He could be hiding in a corner.” Jane looked through the gate again. The knothole was too small to give much of a view.
“There's a ladder in the wall farther down. We could climb it and look over the top,” Jeffrey said. He turned and looked at Skye. “Do you want to come?”
Skye didn't, but because she figured that Jeffrey didn't want her, she shrugged and said, “Sure, okay.”
So off they went, Jane and Jeffrey talking, talking, talking and Skye trailing behind, wishing she had never gone through that stupid tunnel and bumped into this jerky boy.
Stay close to your sisters, Rosalind had told Batty, and Batty had stayed pretty close while they were all walking, but when Jeffrey stopped at the gate, Batty drifted away and hid behind a bush. Not just because of Jeffrey and how he kept asking her questions about Hound—nothing made Batty feel shyer than questions—but also because of the leave -me -alone -or-I'll-break-your-arm look on Skye's face. Batty wouldn't have minded either of these things as much if Hound had been there to keep her company but he would have had to be on a leash, and Hound thought that being on a leash meant playing tug-of-war.
Batty peeked out from behind the bush. Jeffrey and her sisters were leaving. She knew she should follow them, but first she wanted to see what was on the other side of that gate (she had been too far away to hear about the man-goring bull). She crept out from behind the bush and over to the gate and put her eye to a knothole.
What she saw was a field full of clover and daisies, with a barn over on the other side. Now, Batty knew all about horses and their needs. There was a horse farm near the Penderwicks' home in Cameron, where Mr. Penderwick often took Batty to feed carrots to her favorites, Eleanor and Franklin. So she knew a perfect field for horses when she saw one. And while she didn't see any actual horses through the knothole, she figured that didn't mean there weren't any They were probably hiding just out of her view. Horses could be shy, too.
The gate was locked and too high to climb over. There was, however, a gap at the bottom big enough to crawl through. Batty carefully wrapped her wings around her shoulders, flopped to the ground, and wriggled under the gate.
Alas, no horses, not even a shy one. Batty looked this way and that, but she was alone on that side of the wall. Oh, well, she would pick daisies instead and take them back to Rosalind to make into a chain. She headed toward the largest clump of daisies and bent to her task.
All was at peace while Batty picked flowers and hummed a song about kangaroos. Above, the birds wheeled cheerfully across the sky. Below, the worms slid happily through the soil. In between, the summer breeze softly ruffled the clover and daisies. But soon the peace was disturbed. Across the field from Batty, the barn door swung open as if shoved by something very strong. And here it came, strong, yes, and big and black. The king of the field, the bull, sauntered out into the sunshine and proudly surveyed his realm.
Skye lagged as far behind Jane and Jeffrey as she could without being too obvious. By the time she finally bothered to catch up with them, Jane was already halfway up the ladder in the stone wall. Jane looked down at her and said, “Isn't Batty with you?”
Skye had forgotten about Batty but wouldn't admit it for the world. Watching over Batty was always the job of the OAP, or Oldest Available Penderwick, and without Rosalind, Skye was definitely the OAP.
“She was hiding behind a bush when we were at the gate,” said Jeffrey.
More showing off, thought Skye, who hadn't noticed Batty behind her bush.
“Maybe I'll be able to spot her from up there,” said Jane, then clambered to the top of the ladder and hoisted herself onto the wall. “It's wide enough up here to walk.”
“Be careful,” said Jeffrey. “It's a long drop.”
“I don't see Batty,” said Jane, surveying the cottage side of the wall.
“She probably went back to see Hound.” Skye hoped it was so. As annoying as Batty could be, losing her altogether wouldn't be so terrific.
“Maybe,” said Jane doubtfully.
“I'll go back to look for her,” said Jeffrey.
“I'll go with you in a minute. Just let me look for the bull.” Jane turned around to look at the field. “Oh, there he is! He must have just come out of the barn.”
“Isn't he big?” said Jeffrey.
“Huge!”
So there really was a bull, thought Skye, but she couldn't believe he was as awful as Jane and Jeffrey were saying. It was probably a small bull. Maybe even a fat old cow. She would go up and see for herself, but Jeffrey was in between Skye and the ladder, and she'd stand there all day rather than ask him to move.
“Go on up and look,” said Jeffrey, stepping out of Skye's way.
“After you.” She wasn't going to fall for his phony politeness.
And then Jane started to scream.
Batty was watching a purple-and-orange bug when Jane screamed. The bug had fallen off a daisy, and Batty had lain down on her stomach to make sure it landed safely. Batty recognized the scream as Jane's, and as Jane had a habit of screaming, more often than Skye, for example, Batty wasn't worried. However, she did look up from the bug.
A bull is so much larger than a bug that at first Batty didn't understand what she was seeing. She looked back down at the bug, who had by now safely scuttled up another daisy stem, then looked back up again, hoping the black monster would be gone. Not only was it still there, it had come a step closer. It was only fifteen feet away.
“Nice horsie,” said Batty hopefully.
Now, this bull had never actually gored anyone. It was true that once a tourist had sneaked into the field and dropped his expensive camera in front of the bull, who, quite rightly, stepped on it and smashed it to pieces. But that hadn't been enough of a story for anyone. The first person who told it added a part about the bull scratching the tourist's leg, and the second person who told it turned the scratch into a gouge, and so on, until by the time Cagney repeated the story to Jeffrey, the poor tourist had a gaping stomach wound. When Jeffrey told Jane, he hadn't exaggerated all that
much, just changing one doctor to three. Nevertheless, gorer or not, the bull was not sociable, and he particularly didn't like visitors lying in the middle of his favorite daisy patch. It was also possible that he didn't like being called a horsie, because now he shook his horns and stomped his foot at Batty.
Batty knew this was no horse. She suddenly knew lots of things she hadn't known a minute ago, like, she should never have gone under that gate alone, and she should never have disobeyed Rosalind, and she would be a good, dutiful child for the rest of her life if that terrible beast would just stay away from her. For now, she knew she had better just lie very still and wish that Hound were there, and Daddy. Daddy wouldn't let anything hurt her. Oh, Daddy. Oh, Hound. Oh, somebody, please help her.
To Batty's very great relief, a moment later help was on its way, heralded by the noises Jane was making as she ran at Olympian speed along the top of the wall toward the wooden gate. The noises weren't exactly shrieks, or shouts, either; they were more like the sound a fire truck would make if it was trying to speak. It wasn't until Jane reached the gate and skidded to a halt—still on top of the wall—that anything she was saying made sense to Batty.
“BULL! BULL! UP HERE! UP HERE! LEAVE HER ALONE!!!”
The bull swung around toward the wall, and Batty dared to raise her head and look at Jane, who was jumping up and down and waving her arms around like she was directing traffic.
“YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT, YOU MEAN OLD BULL, PICK ON SOMEBODY YOUR OWN SIZE!” screeched Jane.
Then Batty heard what she hoped was more help coming from the other side of the gate, though mostly it sounded like Skye and Jeffrey arguing with each other. A moment later, however, Jeffrey did slide under the gate with Skye right behind him.
A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy Page 4