The Moon Over High Street

by Natalie Babbitt

  “Please sit down,” said the maid. “I’ll tell Mrs. Boulderwall you’re here.”

  She came, in flowered silk with a cashmere cardigan sweater tossed across her shoulders. She came with a smile, her head tilted back and her eyes half shut, and she took Aunt Myra’s hand in the warmest of gestures. “My dear Miss Casimir!” she said. “How good of you! And you, too, Joseph.” Behind her, Mr. Boulderwall appeared, his eyes going at once to Joe, though he, too, shook Aunt Myra’s hand. Another maid was there now with a heavy silver tray displaying a gleaming silver tea service. Two teapots, one big, one small. A lidded sugar bowl with tongs. A cream pitcher. Silver spoons. Teacups and saucers of the thinnest, most delicate china. Little napkins embroidered with a single initial: B. And a platter of sweets: butter wafers, macaroons, and thin-sliced brownies.

  It was exactly what Joe had expected. The indoors was just as perfect as the outdoors, except that here, indoors, it all looked careful, somehow. Too careful. Everything matched. Everything fit. Everything had been chosen to bring out the best in everything else. The wrong person in a house like this would have to be raked away, like the leaves that dropped from the trees outside. A house like this would demand a huge amount from anyone who lived in it. He didn’t like it. Not at all.

  He glanced at Aunt Myra and noted her tight, erect position on the edge of the little chair where she sat, her fingers hooked together as if they might never come unhooked again. Well, she’d said she’d probably be scared. But she was exclaiming on the weather, answering questions, being polite, pretending to be at her ease. Then, while Mrs. Boulderwall was pouring out the tea, the maid brought a napkin and the platter of sweets to Joe, who took a brownie. He was just wondering how soon it would be all right to eat it when Mr. Boulderwall beckoned to him. “Come on, boy,” he said. “Bring that thing along to my study. We can get to know each other in there, just the two of us, while the ladies stay out here and chat.”

  The study was off the back of the room where they’d been sitting, and it had a door of its own which Mr. Boulderwall closed behind them when he and Joe had gone inside. A big desk and a couple of chairs took up some of the space, but mostly it was a room full of books and papers and files—on the desk, on shelves, even on the floor. It was messy, thank goodness. Not careful. Maybe Mr. Boulderwall told the housemaids to stay away. Maybe he told Mrs. Boulderwall to stay away. Joe took a bite of his brownie and decided to be comfortable.

  Mr. Boulderwall pointed him to a chair and sat himself down behind the desk. He squinted at Joe for a moment or two and then he said, “So … Joe, is it? All right. You never knew your mother and father, is that the way of things?”

  “Yes,” he answered, aware that the irritated feeling had arrived quite suddenly, pushing aside his comfort.

  “So you didn’t know they were Polish,” said Mr. Boulderwall.

  “My grandmother never talks about things like that,” said Joe.

  “She’s not Polish herself?”

  “I don’t know,” said Joe. He took another bite of the brownie and added, around his mouthful, “Like I said, she never talks about it.”

  “Umm,” said Mr. Boulderwall. “Well, I could find out her name before she got married, I suppose, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s just that I’m Polish, so you and I have something important in common. Except—I was born over there. I’ve been in America almost all my life, but still, the place where you’re born, it’s always special, even if you don’t remember it.” He paused, and then: “You’re living with her, your grandmother. Right? You’ve always lived with her? So where is that? Where’s home for you?”

  Joe chewed up the bite of his brownie and swallowed. And then he said, “Up on Lake Erie. Willowick.”

  “I know where that is. East of Cleveland, right? And she’s up there, waiting for you to come back?”

  “Well, not exactly,” said Joe. “She’s in the hospital. She broke her hip on the attic stairs.”

  “For goodness’ sake!” said Mr. Boulderwall. “That’s no fun! I’m sorry to hear that. So you had to come down here alone.” He got up from his chair and went to stand at a window, looking out at what had turned into a steady patter of rain. “You get along all right with her? Your grandmother?” he asked. “She’s been good to you?”

  “Well … sure!” said Joe. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

  Mr. Boulderwall turned around. “No particular reason,” he said. Then he squinted at Joe again. “How’re you doing at school?” he demanded. “You get decent grades?”

  “School?” Joe exclaimed, once more surprised. “What do you want to know that for?” He wanted to say “It’s none of your business,” but managed not to.

  Mr. Boulderwall tilted his head. “I want to know because I’m interested in you, Joe Casimir!” he said. “Why else?”

  The old man’s calm, and his power, were evident. It was easy to see he was used to getting his way. But then Joe remembered Rover and the cinnamon roll. There wasn’t anything to get in a fuss about with this rich old man, he told himself. He’d have to be polite, sure, but he didn’t have to lean in or look hopeful, like Rover. Hopeful of what, anyway? “My grades are okay, I guess,” he said. “Mostly As and Bs.”

  “Good,” said Mr. Boulderwall. “I’m glad to hear it. And what do you want to do when you’re grown up? After you’re out of college? How do you want to spend your life?”

  But this was farther than Joe was willing to go. He scratched at an elbow and said, looking away, “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, never mind,” said Mr. Boulderwall. “There’s plenty of time to talk about that. Because we’ll be talking, Joe Casimir. We’ll get to be friends. The thing is, you never had a father to share things with, and I never had a son, so we can fill in some blank spots for each other. How does that sound?”

  “All right,” said Joe.

  “Good,” said Mr. Boulderwall. He rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Well! It looks like we have that big dog to thank for all this. It’s lucky he brought you here for breakfast yesterday. Dogs always make a difference, one way or another, seems to me, but I haven’t had one in years. Have you got a dog? Up there in Willowick?”

  “For a while I did,” said Joe. “He was really my grandmother’s, though. An old bulldog named Big Mike. But he had sort of a weak stomach, and used to throw up a lot, so we didn’t get another one after he was gone.”

  Mr. Boulderwall laughed and looked at Joe with obvious satisfaction. “Probably a good decision. So! Back to the ladies. I hope they haven’t eaten all the cookies.”

  IT WAS SOON over—proper thank-yous and proper goodbyes, with handshakes and bobbing of heads, and the mirror in the front hall glad to see them leaving—and then Joe and Aunt Myra were escaping through the rain. “Whew!” said Aunt Myra, turning the little black Ford into High Street. “I’m a wreck! I don’t know how your visit went, but mine was uphill all the way. What did Mr. Boulderwall have to say?”

  “He wanted to know if I get good grades in school,” Joe told her, “and what I want to do when I get out of college. He says if my name is Casimir, I must be Polish. He’s from Poland, too, and he said we should be friends.”

  “Friends?” she exclaimed. “Because you’re Polish? We do have some Polish ancestors, way back, but so do a lot of people over here. I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. Oh, well, when he’s ready, I guess he’ll let you know what’s on his mind. It’s kind of strange, though. Don’t you think so? It seemed as if that tea party was meant just for you and him. Mrs. Boulderwall was perfectly polite, but she didn’t say anything about wanting to be friends with me, and that’s all right—I didn’t expect anything—she was only passing the time. But … oh, Joe, what a house! What a house!” They had come to Glen Lane by that time, and as they were pulling into Aunt Myra’s driveway, she said, “It’s a whole different world up there on High Street, isn’t it? That house—I can’t get over it!”

  “I like your house better
,” said Joe. He climbed out of the car, pulling off his necktie, and there in the rain, he started to stuff it into a pocket. But then he remembered the little stars all over it. He started again, folding it carefully this time, and once they were in the house, he went to his room and hung it over a hook in the closet.

  VII

  THE NEXT MORNING, Monday morning, Joe and Aunt Myra were just finishing an ordinary breakfast of orange juice and cereal, both of them still yawning, when there was a banging at the back door and Vinnie burst in, waving a newspaper. “Hey!” he said to Myra. “Yer a teacher, so, okay, here’s somethin’ t’teach! Lookit.” And he pointed to an article on a folded-back inside page of the Midville Informer. “It’s talkin’ about accidents ya can’t do nuthin’ about, and it says how, over in England last Christmas in some town called Barwell, wherever that is, a big rock, and I mean a really big rock, fell right outta the sky and wrecked two houses! And a car! Oh! Hey—breakfast! Got any coffee ready?” Then, to Joe: “So, kid. How ya doin’?” He pulled out a chair from the table and flopped into it, tossing the newspaper onto the floor.

  Myra fetched a mug from a cupboard, filled it with coffee, and set it down in front of him. “I’m so sorry!” she said to him. “I just plain forgot you were invited.”

  “Aw, c’mon, Myra,” he pleaded, spooning sugar into the steaming mug. “Don’t do like that! I got a great story for ya! Listen! What’s in the paper reminded me of somethin’ I ain’t thought of in years! I never told ya about my granddaddy, did I? My old man’s pop? Born up northeast of here, back before the Civil War. Long time ago. Near that town called New Concord. By the time I come along, a’course, he was gettin’ pretty old, but we useta go visit him sometimes. Him and me was good friends, considerin’. He was a great old geezer. Lived his whole life on that same farm. So, listen to this! He useta tell me back then, when I was a little kid, how one day when he was a little kid, this humdinger of a rock, like that one they got there in the paper, come crashin’ straight down outta nowhere and bopped his favorite horse! Got ’er between the ears and knocked ’er over dead. Right there in front of ’im!”

  Joe sat forward, openmouthed, and Myra said, “Vinnie, for goodness’ sake! That’s terrible!”

  “You bet! Enough to scare yer pants off, is what!” said Vinnie. He sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee thoughtfully, and then he went on: “The poor old guy! He loved that horse! Seems like he never did get over what happened to ’er, even after all those years. But the thing is, a rock, all by itself, is what finished ’er off. No announcement aheada time, no fuss and feathers, nuthin’. Just all of a sudden, BAM!—like that!” And he brought his fist down on the tabletop so hard that the cereal spoons jumped in their bowls.

  Joe could keep himself quiet no longer. “It must’ve been a meteorite,” he said. “That happens everywhere. They fall out of the sky once in a while and smash things.”

  “Yep,” said Vinnie. “That’s exactly what the paper says. What’s their name again?”

  “Meteorites,” said Joe. “It means a meteor that’s come down to earth.”

  “Well, okay, but what is it?” Vinnie demanded. “Just a big, dumb rock that busted offa somethin’ up there or what?”

  “It’s a rock, all right, but they don’t know for sure where it comes from,” said Joe. “All they say is, it’s not from outer space the way they used to think. It’s more like—local.” And then he looked away, suddenly wanting to end this conversation.

  But Vinnie was nodding with approval. “This is one smart kid ya got here, Myra,” he said. And to Joe he added, “Where’d ya find that out, all that? At school?”

  “Oh,” said Joe, looking down into his cereal bowl, “no—I guess I just read it somewhere. In a library book or something.”

  Vinnie swallowed the rest of his coffee and stood up. “Stuff like that oughta get taught in school,” he said. “It’s important. If my granddaddy’d been the one that got bashed instead of his horse, I prob’ly wouldn’t even be here now. I mean, ya don’t see or hear them sky rocks comin’ at ya. Kinda hard to get outta the way in time! Anyway, thanks for the coffee, Myra. I gotta go to work.” And then he disappeared through the back door. But he left his copy of the Midville Informer behind on the floor.

  Joe picked it up. “Okay if I keep this?” he asked Aunt Myra. “It’s kind of interesting—you know—that story Vinnie told us.”

  “Of course you can keep it,” she told him. “Meteorites. They’re amazing. But it’s too bad about the horse.”

  AN HOUR OR SO AFTER this conversation in Aunt Myra’s kitchen down on Glen Lane, another conversation was under way in a bedroom up on High Street where the Boulderwalls were dressing for the day. “Anson, you can’t be serious!” Mrs. Boulderwall was saying, her face pale, her jaws tight. “That’s utterly impossible! What would Ivy say? What would all our friends say? You must be out of your mind! Adopt that common little nobody? Adopt him and leave him our money? And our name?”

  “Calm down, Ruthetta,” said Mr. Boulderwall, who was as calm as ever, himself. “I just had a birthday, remember? I’m seventy-one. I’m getting old. So are you. In a few years, it’s going to be time to put somebody else in my office down at the factory. But I’m not going to turn it over to just anybody. I came awake this morning with my mind made up: I want that boy. And I want him to be with us while he’s still young enough for me to train him. It’ll take a while, yes. But he’s plenty smart. Anyone can see that. I’ll bring him along slowly, and by the time he’s through college, he’ll know how to do things right. Ruthetta, listen. Everything about it is so perfect! When he’s ready to take over, I’ll be ready to retire. More or less. Also, he’s got next to no family ties to get in the way—no money-hungry relatives wanting in on the game. There’s only a grandmother and this aunt or cousin or whatever she is that lives here in Midville. That seems harmless enough! And then, too, Ruthetta, he’s Polish. I suppose I’m being sentimental, caring about that, but there’s nothing wrong with a little sentiment. It feels good. It feels right. It feels like he could really be my grandson.”

  Mrs. Boulderwall sank down into a brocade-upholstered chair near her bed and stared at her husband. “So,” she managed to say, “you’re going to take Ivy’s money away from her and give it to an absolute nobody and then just walk away.”

  “Ruthetta,” said Mr. Boulderwall, his voice heavy with patience, “you’re not listening. I’m not going to touch Ivy’s money. I have another kind of plan altogether. Of course, I’ll have to talk to the lawyers about it, clear the way and all, but it’s my factory and I intend to pick the next president myself—pick him now, once and for all, and in writing—someone who’ll follow along when the time comes and do things the way I want them done. I’m ready to pick Joe Casimir for the job, and it’ll look better—he’ll have more authority—if he’s a legal, adopted member of my family. Joseph Casimir Boulderwall. Sounds good to me! And when he takes my place, he’ll get a good share of the stock, and a healthy salary, too—and turn into a somebody in no time at all.”

  Mrs. Boulderwall said, in a voice full of disgust, “A somebody? Somebody where? Somebody how? This boy you’re so set on, and that simple-minded woman he’s staying with, don’t have the least idea how to fit in with people like us.”

  “My dear,” said Mr. Boulderwall, “if I may remind you. When we started out, we didn’t have the least idea how to fit in, either. We had to learn how to be people like us. And Joe can learn, too.”

  “No, he can’t,” she sniffed. “There isn’t anyone to teach him.”

  “You could do it,” said Mr. Boulderwall.

  “Me?” she said. “Oh no! Not me. Not on your life. Just go on down to your office, Anson. Maybe a good day’s work will bring you back to your senses.”

  THINGS MAY HAVE stayed a little cranky up on High Street, but the rest of Monday down on Glen Lane slipped away peacefully. Joe and Aunt Myra talked to Gran on the telephone in the afternoon. She had finis
hed with the hospital, thank goodness, and was in the rehab center, working hard with exercises and doing fine, learning how to use a thing called a walker, and practicing with a couple of canes as well. Then Joe, wandering idly about, discovered a hammock put away in the garage, and when he and Aunt Myra strung it up between two trees in the backyard, it made a good place to read a book, especially if it was a book he wanted to read. He had found one like that on a shelf in the living room—a square-shaped book with an interesting title, The Sky: A History—and it was full of diagrams, charts, and photographs. In fact, there was a lot more to look at in this history than there was to read. But that was okay. More than okay. He lay back in the hammock, with one leg dangling over the edge so that his toe could touch the ground and keep the hammock swinging, just a little, drowsily back and forth, while he studied page after page. And then, somehow, the book slid from his fingers and dropped across his chest, and he had swung himself off into a comfortable dream in which the hammock—with him aboard—went drifting up beyond the treetops, high up, into a diagram of stars—all with five points—precisely arranged in constellations.

  And then a hand was smoothing his hair, and Aunt Myra’s voice was saying, “Joe! Wake up, Joe—supper’s ready! Hot dogs, potato salad, all the extras! Chocolate milk, too, if you want it.”