Message from the Match Girl

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  The iron gate of Andersen Park rose into view. Georgina stopped to look at the Little Match Girl as they went by. Mysterious and distant she appeared from there, and far removed from all that was happening.

  “George! Come on.” The procession had arrived. Everyone else was poised outside the sandwich shop door. Walter stood in the lead like a proud general. They waited for Georgina to cross the street, then all went in—except for Poco’s robin. He settled down in a nearby tree. With his craning neck and shiny black eyes, he looked just as excited as anyone else. Would Walter’s mother dare to come out in the open?

  Inside, Poco and Georgina squinted and had a first wave of doubt. Behind the shop’s counter stood another woman.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, we all want to order.” Walter swept his guests forward to a table. Never had he seemed so pleased with himself.

  “That cat is not allowed in here.” The waitress spoke as they sat down. She was large, middle-aged, and prickly looking. “Animals of any kind are against the law.”

  “I’ll keep her on my lap,” Walter promised. He tucked his knees and Juliette under the table. “See? No one will even notice.”

  “The law is the law. Absolutely no cats!”

  “But we can’t put her out on the street alone.”

  “Why not?”

  “We just can’t!”

  “In that case, out you go.” The woman placed threatening hands on her hips.

  At this, Juliette herself stood up and gazed at the waitress from Walter’s lap. In the sun her blue eyes blazed up like sapphires.

  “What is she, a Siamese?” The waitress’s voice sounded suddenly nicer. She stepped close and offered her hand. “You certainly are a fascinating thing.”

  The old cat smiled and gave her a wink.

  “Well! I guess … I guess she could stay. Who could possibly mind? She is such a beauty.” A look of surprise went over the waitress’s face, as if she had not expected to say this. Then she shrugged and asked to take their orders. Two hot fudge sundaes. One orange soda. Juliette lay back and began to lick a paw. Georgina stared at her in horror.

  “Did you see that?” she whispered to Poco.

  But Poco was thinking of something else.

  “Where is the other waitress?” she asked the older woman.

  “There isn’t one, dear. Just me, that’s all. We run the place together, me and my husband. There he is standing behind the meat counter.”

  When they turned, they saw the mean-faced old man eyeing them.

  “But someone else was here whenever we came before.”

  “That part-time girl? We got rid of her. She was supposed to wash dishes and keep the place clean. But there, every time our backs were turned, she’d be doing what she shouldn’t—gabbing to folks, writing letters, staring out the window as if her life depended on it.”

  “But when did she leave?” Georgina couldn’t believe it.

  “Yesterday morning. We gave her notice a week ago. She didn’t mind much. She said she had to go home.”

  “Home!” Poco glanced at Georgina. “Where was her home, did she ever mention?”

  The waitress shrugged and shook her head. “Who knows? Who cares? Not around here anyway. The one time I asked her, she said, ‘Across an ocean.’”

  FOURTEEN

  IT WAS AS IF a door had slammed shut. Poco and Georgina had never felt such a jolt. One minute Walter’s mother was there, with a face and a life, and her terrible shyness. The next she was gone—whisk!—out of the world.

  “But she was alive. We saw her. She spoke to us!” Georgina said it often in the days following.

  “Maybe not,” Poco would answer. “That was only what she seemed. She might really have been the ghost-mother Walter believed in. Don’t look so upset. These things happen.”

  “No they don’t!” Georgina gave a violent, disbelieving shiver. “Remember how we sat drinking our sodas? She was washing dishes like an ordinary mother. All that time she was really dead?”

  Poco smiled. “I think Walter liked her better that way.”

  “But that has nothing to do with it.”

  “Maybe it does if you’re desperate enough.”

  About none of this did they ever speak to Walter. What was the use when nothing could be proved? His view of things was as good as theirs. Better, in fact; he was a steadier person. His mother had left him, but this time it was expected. She had done what he had asked, held up her end. For some reason, this gave Walter confidence. There was no need to creep into corners or vanish like Houdini when he felt unsure. Walter walked in the open air. The old demon spirits that had stalked him went away, and he began to take charge of his powerful antennae. Where before they had picked up cold, distant worlds, now his radar worked on things close to home. He saw, for instance, how lonely Granny Docker was and began to talk to her in a different way.

  “Louder, you mean?” Georgina demanded.

  “Softer,” Walter said. “She hears me better.”

  Amid all this change and the scurry of summer, the one forgotten thing was the Little Match Girl. The friends never did walk over that morning, because Juliette was struck by a bad case of weakness. Perhaps she had used too much strength on the waitress. Walter was forced to carry her home from the shop, with Poco’s robin fluttering wildly overhead. For a while they were afraid the cat would decide to pass on to her next life that very night. But thankfully she rallied and paid them all the compliment of choosing to stay a little longer.

  So it was not until nearly the middle of August that the friends found themselves walking up the knoll again, and coming face-to-face with the bronze girl. Juliette, who was with them, thanks to Walter, sat on the little lawn and gazed up at her with a look of grave respect. By now the grass had become quite long. From everywhere bushes seemed to have exploded, and there was a general thickening of stem and foliage. It was amazing to see how fast things could grow. The green veil that had hidden the statue from the park was rising again. Before the month was out, the Little Match Girl would once more crouch in shadow.

  At first Poco and Georgina were shocked by this state of neglect. While Walter and Juliette watched, they rushed about, pulling up weeds and vines. But soon the heat of the day overwhelmed them. They lay back on their elbows and gazed out at the park, knowing they would never be able to keep up with nature. The knoll was too wild; its roots went too deep. Even the flowers they had planted were in danger of being choked.

  “All that work for nothing,” Georgina said.

  “Oh no,” said Walter. “I don’t think that at all. It was nice to see the Match Girl out in the open. Now she wants to go back undercover.”

  “She wants to!” said Georgina. “How do you know?”

  “See how she’s trying to turn her face?”

  They looked, and it did seem to be so, whether because of the new burst of leaves or a certain cast of afternoon light. Where the Match Girl had appeared to reach out to them before, now she was modestly drawing away.

  Suddenly it seemed to them that they’d never really known her. She was a statue from a story that had happened too long ago. They could come to visit her over and over, but they would never understand why she’d frozen as she had. Or whether in the end she was sad, or happy, or if heaven was a place she really wanted to go.

  While everyone was thinking these thoughts, Juliette stood up, stretched, and padded toward the statue. She swirled with elegant steps around the Match Girl’s hand. Otherwise, Georgina’s eye never would have caught it.

  “Poco! Walter! Look, a ring!”

  It was different from the other. Smoother, plainer, silvery colored.

  “Wait a minute!” cried Georgina. “What is going on?”

  Walter smiled. “Maybe the Match Girl is expecting another ghost.”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Investigators of the Unknown series

  chapter one

  GEORGINA RUSK WAS CERTAIN WHAT they had
seen that night were helicopters.

  She said they were helicopters at least ten times, until her friend Poco began to peer at her strangely.

  “Are you sure?” Poco asked. “You can say if you’re not.”

  “Trust me,” Georgina said.

  But of course Poco wouldn’t.

  There had been sightings near the old Wickham Reservoir before. It was one of those places where people saw things: spinning saucers and dancing points of light and shadows that hovered in the dark above the water. Over the years, all sorts of stories had grown up.

  Poco said, “Remember those dogs they never found? The ones that disappeared from their own backyards? Mrs. Anthony from down our block thinks her Rambler was sucked up by a giant light beam.”

  “Oh, Rambler,” Georgina said. “That yapping mutt. Someone let him out and strangled him probably. People will believe anything if you let them. And please don’t bring up that stupid flying doll.”

  “Why not?” said Poco, who had just been about to.

  In this strange tale, the doll of a younger girl they both vaguely knew had been surrounded by light before her eyes one night, and then floated out her bedroom window. The girl had insisted her story was true, though no one believed her—until two days later.

  “They found the doll in a ditch,” Poco recalled now, “far across town—too far to walk. It makes you wonder.”

  “About what?” Georgina asked.

  “Well, what if aliens were after that girl but somehow, in the rush, they picked up her doll. Then they saw their mistake and dropped it.”

  Georgina looked away, disgusted. “Sure, if you believe in aliens. Personally, I don’t. They’re not scientific. I think that little girl made everything up. She wanted attention and she got it.”

  “Scientific?” Poco squinted in her foggy way. “Does that mean what we saw was—”

  “Nothing!” Georgina roared.

  Poco Lambert had become an embarrassment that fall. The chief trouble was, she never seemed to grow and by now had turned into such a small person that Georgina disliked going about with her. Georgina was sure people would think she was younger than she was, or that, having no friends, she was settling for toddlers.

  And there was something else: Poco’s endless bird chats with a robin that lived in the Lamberts’ backyard. Over the summer, Poco had grown more and more attached to him. She couldn’t go for five minutes without wondering where he was or what he was doing, or if he was thinking fondly of her … which he never was, of course, being only a bird, with a brain fixed mainly on warm baths and worms.

  “Poco, you can’t expect him to feel anything back!” (Georgina was forever having to cheer her friend up.)

  “Really, Poco, don’t worry, he’ll come home again. He has not crashed into a sliding glass door!”

  Eventually, he would return. Then he would parade in front of Poco’s nose without a thought for the agonies she had suffered. But she was always so thankful to find him safe that she only tried harder than ever to please him, in hopes that he wouldn’t go off again … which he did anyway. He was heartless. Heartless!

  In fact, as Georgina might have pointed out, the bird was the reason they’d been awake that night, and had seen what they had in the still, black sky. Helicopters probably. Or was it something else?

  chapter two

  POCO HAD BEEN SITTING rigid on her bed, keeping watch for the robin out her window. Georgina, who was spending the night, lay yawning beside her. Across town, a church clock had rung twelve slow strokes, each one answered by a dismal echo. Midnight, times two. Poco stood up.

  “He’s always here by now. Something’s happened, I know it.”

  “No it hasn’t.” Georgina yawned again. “I’m sure he’s all right.”

  “He’s not. He’s fallen. He’s broken his wing.”

  “He’ll be back by morning. Come on, let’s go to sleep.”

  “George, how can you be so uncaring?” Poco whispered in a furious voice. Everyone else in the house had gone to bed hours ago. “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going out to find him.”

  “You can’t do that! It’s the middle of the night.”

  But Poco had done it. She had gotten up and tiptoed down to the kitchen, where she let herself out the back door. Georgina, as her guest, was forced to follow.

  They stepped off the porch and walked across the grass, feeling strangely light in their summer pajamas. It was early September but still quite warm. Under the old apple tree, Poco came to a stop.

  “George, hoist me up! I can’t reach the branch.”

  “Okay, okay. Stop kicking.”

  “Sh-sh! Mom will hear. Just push me up … there! Now let me step on your shoulders. …”

  “Okay, but wait Ouch!”

  After this, there was silence, except for the noise of Poco scrabbling upward in the tree.

  “Georgina, I can see his nest!”

  “Good grief.”

  “He’s not in it.”

  “Big surprise.”

  “I thought maybe he’d come home and fallen asleep at the bottom. Robins do that sometimes.”

  “Really.” By now, Georgina had climbed up, too. She sat back indignantly on a branch. They were quite high off the ground, she noticed, glancing down.

  “Let’s just stay here for a while,” Poco whispered from above. “Maybe, if he sees me, he’ll figure out I’m worried and fly home.”

  “Oh sure.”

  “He does care about me, whatever you think.”

  Georgina did not even bother to argue. She turned her eyes upward to the stars and thought of going home. But her parents were away at an overnight party. That was why she was staying with Poco.

  The air in the apple tree felt thick and still. The leaves made a latticework screen around them, through which the sky’s vast depth was visible in patches. It was one of those nights when the eye opens wide and the mind slips its cage and makes for wilder regions. Georgina took a firmer hold on her branch.

  Below, the yard shone dimly, illuminated by a single light on the Lamberts’ back porch. There was a shadow with a long-nosed profile on the lawn. Could it possibly be a wolf? A twig snapped in the underbrush.

  “George, what’s that?” Poco was pointing off to their right.

  “What?”

  “That creature. Slinking along the ground over there. It looks hairy.”

  Georgina turned and caught her breath. But then she let it out again. Poco’s mind must have escaped into wild places, too; the hairy creature was only a cat. In fact, it was Poco’s own, Juliette. The old Siamese appeared to be on a hunting expedition. She was moving slowly, head low to the ground. All at once, she leapt on a clump of bushes.

  “Oh!” Poco gasped. Then she recognized her, too. “Oh, it’s only Juliette.”

  “I think she’s caught something.” Georgina strained to see.

  They heard the brutal sounds of a body being shaken and dragged farther into the underbrush. Most likely, it was one of the little chipmunks that lived along the yard’s borders. Juliette had a taste for them.

  Poco covered her face. “Don’t think of it,” she said.

  The night fell into silence again. There was no moon. Except for the far-off prickle of stars, the sky beyond the leaves was blacker than a cave. Georgina shifted on her perch. A phantom claw of wind scraped through the tree, and in that instant, she felt something new. A premonition of movement rippled through the leaves, of clouds gathering or armies on the march. Georgina glanced up.

  “Poco! Look!”

  Above, a squadron of round, bright-lit objects hovered in silence, sharply etched against the night sky. Georgina and Poco leaned back and stared. Five … no, six … no, seven gleaming forms paused overhead in an investigative way.

  “They’re like glass marbles. You can see right through.” Georgina’s voice came out as a whisper.

  “What’s all that stuff floating inside? George, I think they can see us, too.”
/>   Georgina felt her eyes heat up. For a moment, it did seem as if the objects were staring down, had found them in the dark and paused to examine them. Then zip! Her spellbound eyes were released. The ghostly marbles flew away. Or melted. Or maybe vaporized? It was hard to find the word for what they had done. One second they were there, and the next, vanished.

  “What were they?” Poco was cowering on the branch.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “They looked like—”

  “Don’t say it.” Georgina rubbed her eyes. “They were probably just planes. Or helicopters—that must be it.”

  “But they were so quiet.”

  “Sometimes spotlights catch on things in the sky and make them look completely different.”

  “It could have been a flock of geese migrating south. Or was it—” Poco stopped. “Oh no, robins! Maybe he’s left for Florida.”

  “Come on,” Georgina said, “let’s start climbing down. I think I want to go in.” She felt shaken.

  “Will you help me watch again out my window?”

  “Oh, Poco, he’ll come back whether we watch or not. It’s the one thing that bird does that’s reliable.”

  “You’re right.” Poco sighed. “Why do I get so worried?”

  “Because you’re caught. You love him. You can’t help it.”

  Georgina said this in such a faint voice that Poco looked down.

  “George? Are you all right?”

  There was no answer.

  “George!”

  “Yes, I’m okay. It’s just so strange.” Poco quickly climbed down beside her. Then they sat close together and stared up through the leaves, but the sky was vast and dark and unreadable.

  chapter three

  THERE IS NO PLACE FURTHER from the trackless realms of night than an ordinary bedroom flooded with morning sun. Georgina woke up and glanced about with relief. Everything seemed back to normal. Poco sat hunched by the same window, but now her face was flushed with contentment.

  “George, look, my robin’s here.” He was perched on a sprig of the apple tree, grooming his wings with self-important pecks. “He certainly believes in neatness.”