The Penderwicks on Gardam Street

by Jeanne Birdsall

  “My husband, Dan.” Iantha was back with Batty and Ben and a plate of oatmeal cookies and—oh—orange slices.

  “I’m sorry,” said Rosalind. “I didn’t mean to snoop.”

  “You didn’t. Here, eat something.”

  “He was handsome.”

  “Yes, and even smarter than he was handsome. Do you know how he died? A drunk driver crashed into his car. It was six months before Ben was born,” said Iantha. “That’s the part I mind the most, that he never met Ben.”

  “Do you—” Rosalind wasn’t quite sure how to ask. “Do you get used to it?”

  “Yes.” Iantha smiled. “After a while.”

  Ben and Batty drifted across the room to the window, where they whispered together while Asimov wove through their legs. Rosalind feared another Bug Man sighting, but when Batty did spot someone a few moments later, it turned out to be worse than Bug Man.

  “It’s Tommy! Tommy’s home!” she called out. “Rosalind!”

  “I heard you, Batty,” she answered, glad that the window was closed, or Tommy would have heard her, too, even from all the way across the street.

  “Nice boy, Tommy. Good-looking, too,” said Iantha. “I think both the Geiger boys are. I do remember from my younger days, though, that adults never seemed to get that stuff right. What do you think?”

  “They’re okay, I guess.” Rosalind had never paid much attention to the Geigers’ looks. “Mostly they’re just annoying, especially today. Nick made me promise to talk to Tommy about something that I don’t want to talk to him about, and Tommy won’t want to talk to me about it, either. It’s going to be a disaster. How do you even start a conversation like that?”

  “Do you want to practice? Pretend I’m Tommy.”

  Rosalind squinted at Iantha, trying to make her look like Tommy, but it was impossible. No one had that much imagination. “I don’t know.”

  “Does this help?” Iantha took a lampshade from a nearby lamp and put it on her head. “Now I’m Tommy in a football helmet. Say ‘Hello, Tommy’ and go from there.”

  “Hello, Tommy. I want—” Rosalind couldn’t get any further without laughing.

  “Rosy, you’re not concentrating.”

  “I am!” she protested, laughing harder.

  Attracted by the laughter, Batty and Ben left their window and came over to watch their elders. Having an audience didn’t help Rosalind gather her thoughts, and when Asimov made a flying leap from a chair to knock the lampshade off Iantha’s head, Rosalind gave up altogether and surrendered to hysteria.

  “Maybe I should just go see Tommy now and get it over with,” she said when she could catch her breath.

  “Are you sure?” asked Iantha. “We could practice more.”

  “Please, no more practicing.”

  “Good luck, then. You’ll be great.”

  “And I’ll go with you, Rosalind,” said Batty. “Tommy is my good friend.”

  Discussing Trilby was going to be difficult enough without Batty chiming in. “Not this time, Battikins.”

  “Why not?”

  “Batty, dear, stay here with me and Ben while Rosalind visits Tommy,” said Iantha.

  “But why?”

  “Because sometimes older sisters want to be alone with people, without younger sisters around.”

  This set off a series of additional questions from Batty, which Iantha gracefully took on, giving Rosalind the chance to slip away unnoticed. She crossed the street to the Geigers’ house, headed round to the back, and knocked on the kitchen door, just as she’d done a thousand times before. This time, though, it wasn’t a Geiger who opened the door, but Brendan, one of Tommy’s football buddies. Rosalind had already had her fill of football players that afternoon, and then it got worse, for when she stepped inside, she saw that Tommy hadn’t brought home just Brendan. The kitchen was crammed full of boys—Simon, Josh, Kalim, Hong, Byron, and Jack—and the food they were consuming. Every horizontal surface was covered with milk cartons, blocks of cheese, cold pizza, fruit or its remains, jars of who knew what, and loaf upon loaf of bread.

  “Hey, Rosy, you want a sandwich?” Tommy flapped a peanut butter sandwich at her from the other side of the room.

  “No, thanks. Actually, I need to talk to you.”

  “Okay.” He finished his sandwich and grabbed another.

  “I mean, without them.”

  Brendan hooted obnoxiously, but Rosalind withered him with regal disregard. The rest of the boys, not wanting to be similarly withered, cleared a path to Tommy and let her push him and his sandwich out into the hall.

  “Hello, Tommy. I—” Now what? She realized, too late, that she had needed practice, after all. Stalling, she looked him over, one old friend surveying another. “You’ve grown a few inches.”

  “I know.”

  “Still too skinny, though.”

  “I know that, too.” He shoved the rest of the sandwich into his mouth. “Sure you don’t want anything to eat?”

  “Yes, I’m sure, thank you.”

  “Then what do you want?” Tommy asked, most reasonably.

  For a fleeting second or two, she considered asking him to put a lampshade on his head. Oh, just plunge in! “I want—”

  Somewhere upstairs the phone rang. Tommy strode across the hall and shouted up the steps, “Mom, don’t answer it!”

  But Mrs. Geiger must not have heard him, for a moment later she came down holding the receiver. “Why, Rosy, how nice to see you with your bright cheeks. I swear you just keep getting prettier all the time.”

  “Mom?” Tommy pointed to the phone.

  “Oh, yes, honey, it’s Trilby again.” Mrs. Geiger handed over the phone, and with a wave for Rosalind, went back upstairs.

  Rosalind stared at the ceiling while Tommy was on the phone, doing her best not to listen, though since Trilby seemed to be doing all the talking, there wasn’t much to hear. After a dozen or so nonspecific grunts, Tommy hung up and turned sheepishly to Rosalind. Now she knew how to begin.

  “So that was Trilby. Does she call often?”

  “I guess so.”

  “That must be annoying.”

  “Not necessarily,” he answered, suddenly as stonefaced as Mount Rushmore, as Rosalind later told Anna.

  “Oh, sure it is,” she said, rushing on despite Tommy’s lack of encouragement. “That and the cheering at football practice, the whole one-week-anniversary thing, and, well, et cetera. It must be driving you crazy.”

  “Et cetera?”

  “You know, blah, blah, blah.”

  He folded his arms, and looked even more Mount Rushmore–ish. “Are you jealous?”

  “Jealous of Trilby?” She was astonished at his stupidity. “Nyet! Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet.”

  “Then what business is it of yours?”

  “None. You’re right, absolutely none. Why should I care about what you do? That’s what I told Nick, but he—”

  “Nick? You and Nick have been talking about me? The great and perfect Rosalind and my great and perfect big brother have been deciding what’s best for me?” Tommy stomped around in a circle and came back to glower at her. “Now that drives me crazy!”

  When pushed—and Rosalind was definitely feeling pushed—she could glower as well as anyone, and the glowering bouncing around that afternoon was truly frightening. As neither combatant had any intention of backing down, they could have been there for hours if Simon hadn’t wandered out into the hall.

  “Geiger, you’re out of peanut butter,” he said, then ducked, for all the glowering was suddenly turned onto him. “Never mind.”

  Simon disappeared, and Rosalind found that she was out of glowers and out of words, too. She’d been an idiot to start this, an idiot to promise Nick, an idiot all around.

  “I’m sorry, Tommy,” she said.

  “Fine.” He, at least, had plenty of glowering left in him.

  “I’ll leave now.”

  “Also fine.”

  Going back throug
h that kitchen full of boys was impossible, so this time Rosalind took the front door. Despite good intentions, she slammed it on the way out.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

  JANE DIDN’T BELIEVE in having tragic days. She’d never made Sabrina Starr have a tragic day, or Rainbow, either, except for the day when the priest almost cut out her heart. But the priest didn’t cut out her heart, and the rest of Rainbow’s day after that was just perfect, with everyone treating her like a great hero and Coyote finally realizing it was her that he adored.

  So why was Jane having a tragic day? She’d been trying with all her might not to, but first there’d been watching Skye leave for Boston with Churchie, when it should have been Skye watching Jane leave for Boston, and it would have been if it hadn’t been for Rainbow and her noble attitude toward sacrifice. Jane believed now, though she hadn’t when she was writing the play, that Rainbow’s attitude might be too noble. She’d decided that she preferred Sabrina Starr’s slightly less noble outlook on life—and promised herself that the next time there was a Hound Draw for Order, she would listen to Sabrina Starr, not Rainbow.

  Then after the dreaded leave-taking, there’d been the soccer game against the worst team in the league. What should have been an easy victory—even without Skye—had been a 1–0 loss. And who had missed two easy goals for Antonio’s Pizza? The same girl who’d felt so sorry for herself that she’d declined going out for pizza with the rest of the team after the game. Who was this sad soul?

  “Jane Letitia Penderwick,” said Jane to her bedroom ceiling. “Now lying alone on her bed and wallowing in misery.”

  She wondered what Skye was doing right at that moment. She and Churchie would already have arrived in Boston. Maybe they were eating lunch with Jeffrey at a glamorous restaurant. Maybe—Jane couldn’t help but hope—Jeffrey had been the littlest bit disappointed that it was Skye who had come to visit. She reached under her bed and pulled out a blue notebook and pen, and wrote:

  “Jeffrey, Jeffrey, I’m so happy to be with you at last,” said Skye.

  “Thank you.” Jeffrey turned away to hide his sorrow.

  “But what is this? Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Of course I am, dear Skye.” He turned back to her, his face ablaze with honesty. “But it is your beautiful and talented sister, Jane, whom I prefer.”

  “Ha,” said Jane, scribbling violently over what she’d written. “Like anyone would say that about me.”

  What should she do? She couldn’t just lie here all day. Was she desperate enough to clean? Even to her jaded eyes, her half of the room looked dreadful. Reluctantly, she got off her bed and wandered around, pushing stuff hither and yon. Each time she pushed, she found herself closer to her desk, where the book she’d been reading, The Exiles in Love, just happened to be lying open. I won’t look at it until I’ve straightened up, she told herself, but somehow, she looked at it anyway, and soon she was sinking to her bed, lost in the story, which all too quickly came to an end. Jane closed the book and put it back on her bookshelf. She hated finishing one of her favorite books, because she knew she’d have to wait at least a few months before she could read it again. It was a rule she’d imposed on herself after reading The Various twice in one week—a disaster, like eating three large slices of chocolate cake at one sitting.

  So what to read now? Certainly not the book she’d been assigned for school, a novel about George Washington’s winter at Valley Forge. A history lesson disguised as a story, Jane sniffed. She ran her fingers lightly along the books on the shelves, and the books in piles, and the books on the floor, but for once none of them seemed just right. She drifted over to the window. It was bright and beautiful outside, with fluffy clouds cruising across the sky and a crazy quilt of fallen leaves covering the ground.

  Soon it will be Halloween, thought Jane. Maybe she should spend the rest of the day working on a costume to wear. Last year she’d been Sabrina Starr, in a dark cape covered with silver stars. That had been delightful. This year she could be…but she couldn’t think of anything.

  “Even my imagination has deserted me,” she said, squashing her nose against the window.

  She stood there until at last she grew tired of being pathetic and lonely, and left her room in search of a sister to talk to, any sister at all. The only person she could find was her father, in his study grading papers.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked.

  “Rosalind is at Anna’s house, and Batty is next door with Ben and Iantha,” he answered. “I, however, am right here. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You think about it and let me know.”

  While her father went back to his grading, Jane leaned against the desk and poked around among his books. Most of them were about botany, with names like Magnoliophyta: Caryophyllidae, Part 1. Jane shuddered. If she was ever stuck on a desert island with only these books to read, she’d have to give up reading altogether. At the bottom of the pile, she found one that wasn’t about botany. It had an orange spine, and on the cover were two young women in old-fashioned clothes.

  “Sense and Sensibility. Are you reading this, Daddy?”

  He looked up, startled, then took the book from her and slipped it into a drawer. “Here and there, yes. It was one of your mother’s favorites.”

  Sense and Sensibility wasn’t as bad as Magnoliophyta: Caryophyllidae, Part 1, but it was still a boring title. In Jane’s opinion, this was true of the titles of most grown-up books. None of them were ever as fascinating as, say, Emily of New Moon or The Phantom Tollbooth—a good reason not to grow up quickly. But she was too polite to criticize her father’s book, especially if her mother had liked it.

  She turned now to a stack of her father’s mail. It was sure to be as dull as the books—only bills and scientific bulletins. But there was something different. An elegant invitation to a gala event at Cameron University, to celebrate the opening of a new science wing.

  “Why, here’s Iantha’s name,” she said. “She’s giving a speech.”

  “She’s representing the astrophysics department. If you read farther down the list, you’ll see that I’m representing the botany department.”

  There it was: Dr. Martin Penderwick. “How exciting, Daddy. If you want help writing your speech, just let me know. And look, the invitation is for you and one other person. Have you decided who you’ll take with you?”

  “It’s weeks away still.”

  “Marianne, maybe?”

  Her father took the invitation and put it into the drawer with the book. “Jane, love, have you put any thought into going outside and getting some fresh air?”

  “No.” She glanced out the window, though. It wasn’t any less bright and beautiful than before.

  “You could rake some leaves. That’s always fun.”

  “Not doing it alone, it’s not.”

  “Then go find someone to do it with. Maybe Tommy or Nick.”

  “Nick!”

  “Well, Tommy, then. Go now,” he said. “Nunc, celeriter. Quickly.”

  So Jane wandered out of the house and across the street, where she found Mrs. Geiger in her garden, gazing mournfully at a squashed plant.

  “Hello, Mrs. Geiger,” said Jane. “It’s a pretty day, isn’t it?”

  “It would be a prettier day if someone hadn’t stomped on my chrysanthemums.” She poked at the plant, looking for some life. “Some advice, Jane? If you want your flowers to bloom, don’t let your sons play football.”

  “I’m not going to have any sons. Great writers need their privacy.”

  “As do chrysanthemums.”

  “Yes.” Jane didn’t think it was the same thing at all. “Do you know where Tommy is?”

  “In the garage, dear.”

  Jane went in through the side door of the garage, or, as Nick liked to call it, Geigers’ Gym. That past summer he and Tommy had pooled their grass-cutting money to buy training equipment, a
nd set it all up in here. She found Tommy lifting a bar loaded with what seemed to Jane a great deal of weight.

  “You’re getting really strong,” she said, wondering if in her next Sabrina Starr book, she should have Sabrina lift weights to build up her already impressive strength.

  Tommy did one last lift, then put the bar back onto its rest. “Only one guy on the team can press more than I do, and he’s a defensive lineman with a D average. Hold the bag for me, will you?”

  He meant the punching bag—a large gray one, almost as big as Jane herself—hanging from a hook in the ceiling. As Tommy strapped himself into boxing gloves, Jane wrapped her arms around the bag and braced herself. Still, she wasn’t prepared for how she was rocked around when he started pounding at it. Tommy really was quite strong, she thought. He would make a good hero in a book. Or a play.

  “Maybe I’ll be a boxer for Halloween this year,” she said admiringly when he stopped and she could breathe again.

  “Boxers wear shorts. You’d be cold.”

  Jane didn’t like being cold. Then she had a better idea. “I could be a football player! Oh, Tommy! Will you lend me one of your old uniforms?”

  “Sure.” He hit the body bag several more times. “What’s Rosy gonna be?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jane, busily picturing herself in shoulder pads, doing that do-si-do thing that Nick had taught them. Side step, side step, forward run, turn around, side step, side step. “What about you?”

  “Trilby’s got it all worked out.” He hit the bag again, even harder. “I’m going to be Superman, and she’s going to be Lois Lane. I agreed on the condition that we go trick-or-treating only in her neighborhood.”

  “You won’t be on Gardam Street?” Jane couldn’t imagine Halloween without Tommy.

  “Do you really think I’d show my face in my own neighborhood dressed in tights and a cape?” He hit the bag so hard Jane was almost knocked off her feet. “Ros—people would laugh at me for the rest of my life.”

  “Well, then, stay here and be something normal that doesn’t include capes.”