The Velvet Room

by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

  “A raccoon!” she cried. “May I touch him?”

  Bridget nodded. The raccoon regarded Robin calmly and twitched his long thin nose at her outstretched hand. His black mask gave him a wicked look, but just now he seemed mostly sleepy. After a moment he keeled over against the gray cat and went back to sleep.

  “His name is Pythias,” Bridget said.

  Robin thought for a moment. “Then the cat must be Damon.”

  “Excellent, my dear. Not many children would know that, nowadays.” Robin wondered if she meant, not many Village children. “Where did you learn about Damon and Pythias?”

  “I read about them,” Robin said. “A long time ago. I read all the time when I can get the books. Did the cat really save his life?”

  “Oh, many times. You see, Damon is a dog chaser. He found out when he was just a kitten that dogs are afraid of cats that won’t run. And he’s been chasing them ever since. There are some dogs that come around here quite often, and they like nothing better than to tree poor Pythias. But they’re scared to death of Damon. He’s broken up more raccoon hunts than I can count.”

  They both laughed. Robin scratched Damon’s head, and he leaned against her and purred with a roar like a motor. He had a huge head and a smug flat face. You could see why the dogs ran. He looked very full of strength and self-confidence. “I wonder why he likes Pythias?” she asked.

  “They grew up together,” Bridget said. “They were both babies when I got them. Now perhaps you’d like to meet Betty.” They started toward the sheds, but the speckled hens were following so close, it was hard to keep from stepping on them. Robin tried patting one. Its stiff wing feathers made it feel hollow. It clucked hysterically, but it didn’t try to run away.

  “I’ve never seen such tame chickens,” Robin said. “Why aren’t they afraid?”

  “Most anything can be tamed if you have time and patience, and I have plenty of both,” Bridget answered. “Now here’s Betty, one of the most important members of my family.”

  A white goat with brown and black spots emerged from the shed. Robin had always thought that goats were ugly, but Betty had a delicate deerlike face and her brown ears were neatly trimmed in black. She put her head over the fence and nibbled at Robin’s arm. When Robin jerked her arm away, Bridget smiled.

  “That’s just her way of saying ‘hello.’ You needn’t worry about being bitten. Goats have no upper teeth except at the back of the jaw. I wonder if you would like to help me tether Betty out for the day? Do you see her chain hanging just under the eaves beside the back door? And we’ll need the stake and hammer on the bench below it.”

  Robin ran to the house and was back in a moment. They made their way very slowly around the pens and up the slope of the nearest foothill. Robin led Betty, who tugged eagerly at her collar. When they reached a spot where the grass had not been grazed off, Bridget told Robin how to drive the stake and attach the chain. On the way back, Robin noticed how slowly Bridget moved and how heavily she leaned upon her cane.

  “Do you stake Betty out often?” Robin asked.

  “As often as I’m able. The grass is good for her, and hay is expensive. Mr. McCurdy sends me some hay now and then, but it’s not always enough.”

  It had occurred to Robin that the situation had useful possibilities. “It only takes a minute for me to get here from the Village,” she said. “Could I come every morning and stake Betty out for you? I’d like to.”

  Under Bridget’s steady gaze Robin dropped her eyes. But she really did want to help Bridget, she told herself. It wasn’t just because of needing an excuse to come often to the stone house. Bridget smiled gently. “That’s a very kind thought, my dear,” she said. “But are you sure you’ll be permitted? Your parents may not want you to be coming here so often.”

  Robin nodded with assurance. “Oh, I’m sure they won’t mind,” she said.

  They were just entering the neat little back yard when Robin was startled by a whirring noise, and a spark of feathered lightning went right past her face. She blinked her eyes and opened them in time to see an incredibly tiny bird alight on Bridget’s outstretched finger. It was a hummingbird. Thimble-small, but confident as a blue jay, it sat on Bridget’s finger and cocked its iridescent head.

  “A hummingbird,” Robin breathed. “It’s tame! Is it yours? I wish I had one.” There was a fierceness in her voice that surprised them both.

  “I see we have interests in common,” Bridget said gently. “But a hummingbird isn’t supposed to be owned or given. I’m sure you understand that. I appreciate how you feel about him, though, because I feel the same way. So much beauty and perfection in such a tiny thing. Perhaps you’d like to feed him.”

  Following Bridget’s instructions, Robin found a small bottle of a reddish liquid on a shelf just inside the cottage door. She held the bottle while the hummingbird drank from it. Hanging suspended in a tiny storm of wings, it dipped its stem-thin bill again and again into the sweet-smelling liquid. Watching it, Robin almost forgot to breathe. Finally it flew away to the apricot tree.

  Robin was standing staring after it when Bridget’s voice broke the enchantment. “It’s almost noon, my dear. Perhaps you’d best go home soon. Won’t your mother be worried about you?”

  “Oh, not much, They’re used to my disappearing.” Robin meant to sound careless and gay, but a guilty quaver crept in without warning. In answer to Bridget’s questioning look, she went on, “I’m always getting scolded for ‘wandering off.’ That’s what they call it.”

  “Why do you do it?” Bridget asked.

  Robin had been asked that question many times, and she always answered, “I don’t know,” quickly and stubbornly. But there was no anger or even disapproval in Bridget’s question. She sounded intrigued, as if “wandering off” was an interesting and original thing to do. It surprised Robin into really trying to answer, “I don’t ... don’t ... I’m not sure,” she stammered. “Everything seems to be so mixed up and strange sometimes—and I just have to get away.”

  “I think I know just the feeling,” Bridget said. “But be that as it may, you’d better run along home now before they get too worried. Don’t you think so?”

  “I guess so,” Robin said. “It’s been awfully nice meeting you. And Betty and Damon and Pythias and everybody.”

  “It’s been nice meeting you, too, my dear,” Bridget said. “And I hope you’ll drop by the next time you ‘wander off’ in this direction.”

  It wasn’t until Robin was halfway home through the orchard that she remembered about the rip in her dress. She couldn’t recall whether she’d kept her arm over it all that time at Bridget’s. But it didn’t seem to matter very much.

  What It Means to Be a Wanter

  WHEN ROBIN CAME OUT of the orchard onto the dirt road of the Village she met the girl with the black braids again. The Mexican girl was hanging up clothes on a line behind the last cabin in the row. When she saw Robin, she put down the pail and smiled.

  “Allo,” she said, “I’m Theresa. You wan of thee new keeds from cabin tree?” Robin nodded. “I see your two seesters, while ago. You got lots of seesters?” Theresa’s English was easily understood, but it rose and fell with a Latin lilt; the R’s slurred and the E’s sang.

  “No,” Robin said. “I just have those two sisters, and two brothers.”

  Theresa examined Robin frankly. “You don’ look like your seesters,” she said.

  “I look like my mother,” Robin said. “She’s dark like I am. The other kids look more like my dad.”

  Theresa nodded. “Anyway, eet’s lucky for you, you got two seesters.” She smiled ruefully. “Me, I got seex lazee brothers.” She motioned to the long line of blue denim overalls she’d been hanging. “My brothers!” She nodded her head toward the closest pair, a rather small one with ragged knees. “Thees wan is Francisco, and Juan and Julio and thees leetle tiny wan is Lupe (he’s pretty cute) and Carlo, and,” she stopped and made a face, “that beeg sloppy wan on th
e end is José, my beegest brother.”

  Robin laughed and curtsied to the line of overalls. “How do you do,” she said. “I’m Robin Williams.”

  Theresa grinned approvingly, but then very suddenly her expression changed. “Where you been? You been gone a long time.”

  “I went for a walk,” Robin said, “through the orchard.” It was true as far as it went, anyway.

  “You better be careful,” Theresa said ominously. She pointed toward the hills in the direction of the stone house. “You go for a walk over that way and maybe you never come back.”

  “What do you mean?” Robin asked. “Why wouldn’t I come back? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Just then the screen door of Theresa’s cabin banged wide open and hung lopsidedly against the wall, trailing pieces of torn screening. A large dark woman appeared on the step.

  “Theresa,” she called, “ven aquí. Te necesito.” The woman was fat and her face looked tired, but her voice was low and musical.

  “Vengo, Mama,” Theresa answered. But as she started for the house, she turned back to Robin. “I got to go now. But you better stay away from that old Palmeras House. Eet’s a bad place. And right behind eet there ees a leetle house where the bruja leeves.” A fat dark haired baby boy had started down the steps of the cabin, and Theresa swung him up in her arms as she went up the stairs. In the doorway she turned and waved.

  A bruja! What on earth was she talking about? Well anyway, Robin decided, it would take more than a bruja to keep her away from Palmeras House, whatever a bruja might be.

  When Robin got back to the Williamses’ cabin, Dad was just arriving from the opposite direction. He had walked over from the mule barns. He looked pale and tired and he smelled of mules. The paleness of his face made the freckles stand out even more than usual. But he was feeling happy because when he saw Robin he said, “Hi, there, Big Enough,” and put his arm across her shoulders. They walked up the steps together.

  The rest of the family was just finishing lunch, which was just as well since there were only four chairs. Robin poured some water from the teakettle into the washbasin. It was warm, so Rudy must have found a way to mend the stove. Together, Dad and Robin washed up for lunch.

  The chipped enamel washbasin was dark blue with white speckles. It sat on a heavy wooden table against the wall. The table had received the splashes from so many dish washings and hand scrubbings that its surface was spongy and full of splinters. You could even pick up little pieces of wood fiber with your fingernails. On the wall, about two feet above the table, was a single brass spigot, going green with age. That one faucet was the only source of water in the cabin. But it could be worse. Many of the places the Williamses had stayed in the last three years had had no indoor water supply at all.

  While Robin and her father ate their lunch, Mama and Theda started doing the dishes. Theda washed and made an awful clatter with the tin plates in the enamel basin. Rudy, followed by Cary, drifted out the back door, probably to poke around in the old motor parts someone had left in the backyard. Shirley had been put down for her nap in the other room.

  Mama brought a stack of tin plates over to the table. She shuffled them from the top to the bottom of the stack as she dried.

  The plates got several dryings each as Mama chatted about what she had done all morning and what she was going to do.

  “You know, Paul,” she said, “I think we can fix this little house up so it won’t look so bad at all. Now that we can count on a steady salary, even if it is just fifty a month, we can put a little bit by for furniture and curtains and ...

  “Wait a minute, Helen,” Dad interrupted. “Don’t forget, Mr. McCurdy only said maybe it would be permanent. I have to prove I’m able to give satisfaction. Of course, I expect to if I can just keep from getting sick again, but ...

  “I’m just sure you’re going to stay well here, Paul,” Mama said. “The climate’s so mild and all. Why I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few months you had a foreman’s job, and we’ll all be living in a nice little white house like that one of Mr. Criley’s.”

  Robin sighed. It would be wonderful to believe in Mama’s prediction. But it had been a long time since she had counted on Mama’s plans coming true. She just couldn’t see how Mama could go on believing in them herself. When Robin was little, she had loved Mama’s stories about wonderful things that had happened or were going to happen. She couldn’t recall just when she’d begun to realize that Mama remembered only the best parts of things and planned things that weren’t ever going to happen.

  Nobody said anything for a few minutes, and then Mama went on. “Well anyway, Theda and I really gave this old place the scrubbing of its life this morning. Didn’t we, Theda?” Robin could see that the rough board floors were still water-logged. “And then I helped Theda wash her hair and set it, and we did some unpacking ... At that point Mama broke off suddenly and frowned at Robin. “And Paul,” she interrupted herself, “you just have to talk to Robin about ‘wandering off.’ She was gone again—all morning! And we certainly could have used her help.”

  Dad sighed and looked at Robin. “Where did you find to go this time?” he asked.

  “I just walked through the orchard up to the foothills,” Robin said, “and Dad, I met a woman who lives in a stone house that looks like something out of a fairy tale. She was awfully nice, and she showed me her family. At least she called them her family, but they were really a cat and a raccoon and a goat and a hummingbird. And Dad, she’s sort of crippled and she has to stake Betty—that’s the goat—out on the hills every day, and I said I’d come over and help her sometimes. Is that all right?”

  Dad shook his head in helpless wonder. “I never should have asked,” he said. “Sometimes when I’m not so tired, we’ll go over that again and see if I can make heads or tails out of it. In the meantime, you stay home and help your mother.” Dad’s voice sounded cross, but his eyes weren’t. Robin let her smile say that she knew he wasn’t really angry.

  “Dad,” Theda broke in, “now that you have a job, couldn’t I have just a little money for curlers? I just have a few left. I never did find all of them that time Cary used them on that stray dog’s hair so he could sell it for a poodle.” She turned around to display the back of her head. Her lightish no-particular-color hair was done up on rags at the back of her head, instead of on the metal cylinders that clustered around her face. She put her arm around Dad’s neck and her cheek against his. “I’d only need about a quarter.”

  “Oh, Theda!” Robin said. “That’s all you ever think about. Clothes and make-up and stuff. You’re always wanting something for yourself. Don’t be so selfish.”

  Theda looked surprised, but Dad’s reaction surprised everyone. “Now that’s enough, Robin!” he said, and this time his eyes were cross, too. “I’ve never worried about the things Theda wants. They’re not extravagant. You’re the one who worries me. You’re the real wanter in this family.”

  For a moment Robin stared at her plate feeling her cheeks getting hot. Then she got up quickly, leaving part of her beans and bread uneaten, and went into the other room. She threw herself down on the bed. Dad almost never scolded her, particularly not in front of Mama and Theda. And besides, it wasn’t fair. She never talked about wanting anything. What did he mean when he called her a wanter?

  She lay on the bed for what seemed a long time, but no one came in to see what she was doing. From the other room she could hear Mama telling Dad what groceries to buy when he rode into town with Mr. Criley. The only other sound was deep breathing from the corner of the room where Shirley was asleep on her old crib mattress on the floor.

  After a while Robin began to feel less hurt and more curious. It was strange the way Dad always knew what she was thinking, almost before she knew herself. When she let herself really think about it, Robin had to admit that she knew what Dad meant. She just hadn’t thought of it that way before. But there were uncomfortable hollows, empty except for vague lo
ngings—like when you’re hungry but not for anything you can have. And that was wanting, all right, wanting, wanting—wanting.

  And Dad must have known about it. It was like that with Dad and Robin. Once, a long time ago, Robin had overheard a conversation between Dad and another man. The man had mentioned, as lots of people did, that all the Williams children looked a lot like their father. All, that is, except Robin, who obviously took after her mother. But Dad had said, “Yes, Robin escaped the towhead and freckles, but in many ways she’s the most like me of them all.”

  That had been a long time ago, back in Fresno, before Dad had had pneumonia and had lost the house and his job. Robin had been pretty young when she overheard the conversation, but even then she had known just what Dad meant. The same things mattered to Dad and to her, important things like books and music. But in the last few years that had all changed.

  Gwendolyn McCurdy

  ROBIN WANTED TO ASK about going to Bridget’s again that evening after dinner, but she didn’t want the others to hear, and the little two-room cabin was just too full of Williamses. Besides, Dad was tired. When Robin asked him to go for a walk with her, he brushed her off with, “Some other time, Robin. I’m just too tired.”

  So when bedtime came, Robin resolved to wake up early the next morning and walk part way to the mule barns with him. She could ask him on the way. As she climbed into bed, she tried setting an internal alarm clock by saying over and over again, “Wake up at six—wake up at six.” She’d tried it before, and it worked, sometimes.

  Theda must have forgotten what Robin had said to her when she had asked for curlers. At least, she didn’t seem to be angry. As they were getting into bed, she gave Robin her choice, as usual. “Shall we curl up first, or stretch out?” she asked. This time Robin chose to curl up first.