by Lynne Jonell
“Maybe I could help you bake some new ones?” Emmy said brightly.
“Thank you, that won’t be necessary,” said Miss Barmy, her voice icily controlled. “I shall bake new rolls myself. This very moment.”
“I absolutely forbid it.” Kathy Addison’s voice was firm. “You’ve made us feel very welcome, Miss Barmy, but I insist that you take the rest of the evening off. We’re going to—” She looked at her husband.
“We’re going to take Emmy out for burgers and malts,” said Jim Addison promptly. “Run on up and drop off your things, kiddo. We’re going on a picnic.”
Emmy grabbed her backpack, hoping devoutly that both the Rat and Joe were in it by now, and waved at everyone on her way out of the room. She waved especially hard at Miss Barmy, whose eye had begun to twitch.
“IF I NEVER SEE the inside of your backpack again, I can die happy,” said Joe, staggering out onto Emmy’s floor.
“You and me both,” muttered the Rat.
“And I had no idea a cat’s teeth were so big!” Joe shook his head.
“That was no cat—that was an Assassin.”
“An Executioner.”
“A Furball with Homicidal Tendencies.”
“Will you two listen?” Emmy opened the door to her playroom. “I’m going out for a while. Why don’t you guys just hang out in here? There’s a dollhouse, and little cars, and an electric train … you might find something warmer to wear, Joe; not Barbie clothes, either.”
“Sure, Emmy. After you, Your Rattiness.”
“No, after you, Dandelion Head.”
“Lead the way, Sir Fuzzalot.”
“Arrrrrgh! I’m leaving!” said Emmy.
“What’s wrong with her, Teenyboy?” said the Rat, scampering toward the playroom door.
“No idea, Shaggy Guy,” said Joe, tearing after him.
“Hey, wait! What was in those rolls, anyway?” Emmy called.
“Tell you later!” shouted the Rat.
“You’re safe for now, Emmy!” Joe’s voice came faintly. “Hey, cool, Ratty, look at the train!”
“Seriously, Jim—why do we do it?” Kathy Addison, seated on a bench by her husband, looked out over the bay.
They had brought take-out food down to the beach. Talking, laughing, skipping stones across the water … it had all been as wonderful as Emmy had ever hoped for. But now, lying on a blanket a few feet away from her parents, she pretended to be absorbed in making patterns in the sand. Grown-ups always talked more if they thought you weren’t listening.
“Why do we travel all the time? Was it really necessary to attend Count Whaposki’s polka stomp, and the anniversary of Princess Rotunda’s liposuction? And how about that German guy, what was his name?”
“Baron Kartoffelpuffen von Shtinken?”
“Yeah, him. Be honest, now—did you really enjoy the Five-Day Sauerkraut Fest and Hedgehog Hunt?”
“Well, the little fellows were pretty cute when they rolled up, all spiny—”
“I thought so. And what about the week on the yacht with that billionaire and his very bouncy friend?”
“Bimbo LaRue? The starlet who only knew words of one syllable?”
“That’s the one. Jim, what do we have in common with people like that, after all?”
“Not one thing, except …”
“Except money,” Kathy Addison finished.
There was a pause. “Well, would you want to go back to living above the bookstore and pinching every penny?” her husband demanded.
“That wasn’t such a bad life. We had fun together, we had work we believed in, and we had Emmy. Your great-uncle William may have left us his estate, but that didn’t mean we had to give up everything else we loved. Sometimes I wish he had left it all to those other distant relatives … his second cousins once removed, or first cousins twice removed, or whatever they were … he didn’t even know us.”
“We haven’t given up everything else we love!” Jim Addison raised his voice. “Emmy? Come here, honey, I want to ask you a question.”
Emmy got up. “Yes, Dad?”
“Listen, kiddo.” He pulled her to his knee. “Do you remember the bookstore Mom and I tried to run? Do you remember how tough it was?”
“It was fun,” Emmy said promptly. “We ate dinner together every night, and then we’d read together in the big blue chair. And on weekends you’d let me help in the bookstore, too.”
“You see?” said Emmy’s mother.
“I remember that blue chair.” Emmy’s father sounded disgusted. “It was worn through on the arms and the back left leg kept falling off.”
“It was the best chair in the world,” said Emmy sturdily.
Emmy’s father looked at his wife.
“Told you so,” she said. “Emmy knows what’s important.”
Jim Addison grinned. “I know when I’m beat.” He got up and shook out the picnic blanket. “Bedtime for you, Emmy. But why don’t we read a story or two tonight?”
“Let’s!” said Emmy’s mother. “We don’t have the big blue chair anymore—”
“That’s a relief,” muttered Emmy’s father.
“—but, Emmy, you can bring your pillow and some books to our room, and we’ll all pile onto the big bed and read. How does that sound?”
“Great!” said Emmy, starting to skip.
“And tomorrow afternoon,” added her father, “once Jems and I get the boat ready, we can go sailing.”
“Jim, we have a charity function at the house tomorrow, remember? It’s already on the calendar, so we can’t cancel it now.”
“All right, we’ll get the boat ready Saturday morning, and put it in the water in the afternoon.”
“And can we go to church together on Sunday?” asked Emmy. “Maggie goes. And we used to.”
Emmy’s mother nodded. “I can’t remember the last time we sat in a pew together,” she said thoughtfully. “See, Jim, I told you Emmy knows what’s important.”
“Point taken,” said Emmy’s father, starting the car. “But if you say ‘I told you so’ one more time, I’m calling Bimbo.”
Emmy danced up the stairs to her bedroom. What book should she pick? A new story or an old favorite? She rummaged through her pajama drawer and found some fuzzy blue ones. Perfect. It would remind Mom and Dad of the chair.
“Hey, guys!” Emmy poked her head into the playroom. “I brought you some supper.”
They had forgotten to shut off the electric train. Emmy flicked the switch on the control box and the hum from the motor abruptly died.
“Ratty? Joe?”
There was a soft grumbling rattle from somewhere near her feet. Emmy knelt to look in the dollhouse and there was the Rat, snoring in a miniature bed.
“Ratty? Where’s Joe?”
“Snurrrgh,” said the Rat and rolled over. “Snorrk.”
“Joe? Are you there?”
Joe’s head emerged from a third-story window. “Did you bring me any supper?”
Emmy handed him the bits she had saved in her napkin. “Listen, Joe—what was in the potato rolls? What did Miss Barmy do with the chinchilla?”
Joe swallowed a bite of french fry. “She made a bunch of little dough balls, for the rolls, you know …”
Emmy nodded.
“Then she grabbed this chinchilla around the middle and made it stick out one of its feet. And then—in every roll—she stamped it!”
Emmy felt sick. “She stamped a rat’s foot? In the rolls?”
“Yeah, and she didn’t wash it first either. Was she trying to poison you guys or something?”
Emmy knelt on the floor, perfectly still. She was thinking back to the little room full of cages in Professor Vole’s store. Back to the tags, each with a special power, each with its own instructions.
She didn’t remember seeing the chinchilla, and she had no idea what its tag had said. But there was some kind of power that Miss Barmy had hoped to use on the Addison family, and odds were it wasn’t anything good
.
There was a knock on her door. “Come in,” Emmy called, and Maggie entered, carrying a plate of milk and cookies.
“Wow.” Emmy looked at the chocolate wafers with crème filling. “What’s the occasion?”
“Miss Barmy insisted on sending up snacks.” Maggie, smiling, set the plate down on Emmy’s bedside table. “Better hurry, now. Your parents are waiting.”
Maggie whisked out. Emmy stared at the plate. And then slowly, carefully, with a slight twisting motion, she lifted the top wafer off one of the cookies.
There, slightly blurred in the crème filling, was the imprint of a rat’s foot.
Emmy grabbed a book at random and headed for her parents’ bedroom. It was going to be complicated to explain, but once her parents saw the rat print in her cookie—well, they’d have to get rid of Miss Barmy.
Emmy gave a little skip of joy as she opened her parents’ door—and stopped. The book slipped from her fingers.
“Look at this closet! Just look at it!” Kathy Addison wailed. “I have absolutely nothing to wear, we’re having people over tomorrow, and I don’t have time to fly to New York ….”
Emmy stepped behind her mother and looked anxiously at the closet bulging with clothes. “How about this one?” She pointed to a pale green silk. “You wore that to the orchestra gala, didn’t you?”
“Exactly. I wore it two months ago, I couldn’t possibly wear it again. One of my friends would be sure to notice.”
“But—” Emmy hesitated. “If they’re your friends, they wouldn’t make you feel bad about it, would they?”
“Oh, darling, you are so naïve. Friends are the worst; they’ll rip you apart, you can’t let your guard down for a single minute.”
Emmy swallowed hard and looked around the room. Her father, hunched over on the edge of the bed, was talking fast on the phone. She turned back to the closet and tried again. “This pink one is pretty, Mom …”
“That’s not pink, darling, what a plebeian name, it’s brine shrimp—but the color is so last year. There’s no hope for it, I’ll just have to get hold of Carravacci in New York tomorrow, and God only knows if I’ll be able to find anything decent, much less the right shoes.”
“Don’t give me that load of horse puckey!” Jim Addison’s face got redder as he yelled into the phone. “You can get me a direct flight if you try. Name your price—you can bet I’m not hanging around in Frostbite Falls for any three hours while some minimum-wage dolt finds an excuse to lose my luggage.”
“Dad?” Emmy tugged timidly at his sleeve. “Weren’t you going to read with me?”
Her father ruffled her hair and looked at his watch. “Not tonight, baby, Daddy’s got some very important business to take care of.”
“But, Dad, you promised …”
“I know, honey, and I really want to, but you know how important these recreational opportunities are to me, I’ve been so busy and I really need to get away ….”
Emmy’s voice was very small. “Are you going away tomorrow?”
“No, baby, we’re going to have the whole weekend together, just like we planned. I’m not leaving until Monday, that is, if this cretin on the phone ever gets his act together— What?” Emmy’s father spoke into the phone. “You can get a direct flight to Alaska Saturday night? That’s great, that’s fabulous, book it.”
He banged down the receiver and smiled broadly at Emmy. “There you go, doll, we’ll have all day tomorrow and most of Saturday, too. You can’t ask for more than that!”
He picked up the phone again. “Jack? Jim Addison here. I’m going to need the best salmon-fishing outfit you’ve got ….”
Emmy sat on the edge of the bed without moving, a small, miserable lump in blue fuzzy pajamas. Slowly, painfully, she looked at her father. He had forgotten her completely.
Emmy stood up stiffly. There was no point in staying here any longer. She stooped at the door to pick up the book she had dropped—and then she saw it.
A tray, on a little table. Two mugs of tea, half drunk … and a plate with a few broken fragments of cookies still left on it. Sandwich cookies with crème filling.
Emmy stared at the plate and then at her parents, so suddenly changed. She saw it all—now she understood.
There was a soft thumping down the hall: Miss Barmy’s cane. Emmy, feeling hot with anger and sick with fear, turned to face her.
“Bedtime, Emmaline,” said Miss Barmy, her eyes glittering with triumph. “Quality time is over.”
“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK the chinchilla’s powers actually are?” Joe, seated cross-legged on Emmy’s bed, had found some action-figure clothes and was toying absently with the dog tags around his neck.
“The power to make my parents crazy? At least I didn’t eat her filthy cookies ….” Emmy picked at her bedspread, frowning. “But I’ve eaten Miss Barmy’s potato rolls before and nothing much happened to me.”
Joe looked up. “You’re sure? You’ve eaten the same kind before?”
Emmy nodded. “They didn’t have any effect on me. Or— Wait!” She shut her eyes, trying to concentrate. “I do remember times when I didn’t exactly feel like myself. All mixed up, sort of, and I’d get really interested in—oh, I don’t know—stuff I usually didn’t care about. Like I remember one day I woke up and there were fifty Barbie outfits in a bag on my dresser. I remembered shopping for them, I remembered wanting them like crazy, and then later, I couldn’t figure out why. I don’t even play with Barbies.”
The Rat cleared his throat. “Fascinating though the subject of Barbies may be, don’t you think we should get back to what’s really important? The rat man is still after me, you know. And we have to release Sissy.”
“You’re what’s important?” said Joe hotly. “What about me being the size of a chipmunk? Or the Barmster trying to turn Emmy’s parents into zombies? Doesn’t that bother you?”
Emmy jumped in quickly. “Listen, guys, it’s all important. But we can’t go chasing off, trying to rescue Sissy or anything, because we don’t know enough yet.”
“You’ve got that right,” said Joe. “I’ve got about a million questions. Like, was it really the Rat’s bite that shrank me? And if it was, how come I didn’t shrink when he bit me once before?”
“How can we rescue Sissy?” added the Rat, pacing over the bedspread, his claws leaving little holes.
“I’ve been wondering why Miss Barmy hates me so much,” Emmy said. “And why she wants this weird power over my parents.”
“Here’s another one,” said Joe. “Why does she have to keep using the chinchilla? Does it wear off?”
Emmy sat up abruptly. “Hey, I guess it must!”
“Don’t sit up so fast,” cried the Rat, landing on his ear.
Emmy ignored him. “It’s got to wear off, or Miss Barmy wouldn’t have to keep baking more potato rolls every time my parents come home from a trip!”
“Ow!” Joe did an involuntary somersault. “Look, stop bouncing, will you?”
“Sorry.” Emmy made an effort to keep still, but she was too excited. “See, this has all happened before. My parents come home, and they’re happy to see me, and everything is just like it used to be. And then pretty soon, sometimes just a few minutes later, it’s like they hardly know I’m around. Only this time it took a couple of hours—”
“Because you dropped the cat on the potato buns—nice work, by the way—”
Emmy nodded. “So the rolls do their work long enough for my parents to leave town again, but by the time they get back, it’s worn off. That’s one thing we know for sure—the chinchilla’s power doesn’t last.” She hesitated, remembering with a sinking feeling that her parents’ trips had been getting longer and longer. Did that mean the chinchilla poison was building up in their systems? Might there come a time when it wouldn’t wear off?
“Hey!” Joe looked bright eyed. “Maybe shrinking doesn’t last, either!”
“I’ve probably got more staying power than a chinchilla,” t
he Rat muttered.
“Let’s hope not,” said Emmy. “Because we still don’t know how to unshrink Joe if it doesn’t wear off. With any luck, Brian’s found—” She stopped abruptly.
“What?” said the Rat. “Cat got your tongue?”
“Hush!” Emmy whispered fiercely. From the other side of the bedroom door came the sound of scratching and then a plaintive “meow!”
The Rat clawed frantically across the bedspread. “It’s the Assassin!” he gasped, huddling as close to Emmy as he could get.
“No, Ratty, not the cat—listen! Outside—can you hear it?”
A soft night breeze swirled past the curtains. The high, rhythmic sound of spring peepers filled the room. And then a low, throbbing rumble came distantly to their ears.
The rumble coughed, rattled, and died.
“That’s Brian’s truck,” said Joe, listening intently. “He’s come back to pick up the chinchilla, and he’s parking a block away, like the Barmster told him to. Do you suppose he’s found directions for unshrinking me yet?”
“Let’s find out.” Emmy grabbed her robe. “I hope you guys don’t mind riding in the pockets. There’s one for each of you, and they’re nice and soft.”
They were safely down two flights of stairs when the dramatic voice of a newscaster rolled out from the den.
“And in other news today, a human tragedy is unfolding in the town of Grayson Lake—”
Emmy stopped at the doorway and listened.
“—yes, little Joe Benson was brutally abducted today in broad daylight—”
“Little?” protested Joe from Emmy’s left pocket.
“Shhh—you’re little now, anyway.” Emmy opened the door a crack.
“—and police have taken a local resident, Professor Cheswick Vole, into custody. Professor Vole apparently threatened the boy earlier today, accusing him of stealing a classroom pet—”
“Cheswick?” snickered the Rat.
The newscaster, a man with a long jaw and thick hair, kept talking as a photo of Joe was shown. Emmy pushed open the door. Her father was watching the news, reading the paper, and sending an e-mail all at once.
“Dad? Mind if I watch the news with you?”