In the only clear thinking he’d been able to do that long afternoon, Max had decided that he should live at home, which meant he needed to sleep that night in his own bed in his own bedroom. He was a little afraid—which was ridiculous, but also true—and he didn’t expect to get much sleeping done, but he had decided. Begin as you mean to go on, that was the advice he meant to follow. He wanted to be as independent as his parents said he could be.
When she saw the expression on his face, Grammie looked sternly at him. “No discussion. No argument. You already have a bag packed.”
Max stuffed spaghetti into his mouth. He needed a minute to consider this. Considering it, he remembered: When he was just eight, the Company had presented dramatizations of some Aesop’s fables at all the schools in the city, and at the University, too. One of these told the story of a stiff, proud oak tree that was broken in half by a strong wind, while a small, weak reed only bent under its force. Max had played the reed, his mother the oak, and his father the bellowing, billowing wind. And so he decided that just for this one night he would let Grammie tell him what to do. It would make her feel better, too, to have him there in the house with her. “All right,” he said. “Just for tonight.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said.
As they ate, they didn’t talk much more than to ask for salt or the bowl of grated cheese. Only occasionally did they need to look up at one another. Over the years, they had had supper together countless times, at the same small table in Grammie’s warm kitchen with its bright red cupboards and long soapstone sink, so they knew exactly what they’d see if they looked up.
After a long, companionable silence, Grammie said, “So.”
Max looked across at her. “What do you think has happened?”
“What happened is they’ve gone off without you.”
“Come on, Grammie, you know what I mean. I mean what do you think is going on? You read that note.” Max had had an afternoon and a spaghetti supper, too, to get somewhat used to his situation.
“That note made no sense,” Grammie said.
“Maybe it made too much no sense,” Max said.
“Unless they planned all along to leave you behind,” Grammie said. “Did you ever actually see your ticket?”
“It was supposed to be waiting on the boat. Maybe it was. But, Grammie? Arabella and Banker Hermann aren’t even in the same play.”
“I know that.” She sighed and set her fork down on the plate. “I know that, and I recognize the Shakespearean lines. Eye hath not heard … That’s from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, spoken by that fool who is magicked by fairies. But why did he use those lines? That play is about love, and illusions. Do you think that’s what the note is about? Love makes no sense, but it could be saying this isn’t the way it looks.”
“That would make it a warning.”
“I think it’s time you told me exactly what that invitation said. And exactly where it was from. And exactly who sent it,” Grammie announced. She picked up her fork again.
Max did not argue. He recited the contents of the Maharajah’s letter while Grammie twirled spaghetti, chewed, swallowed, and did not interrupt with any questions. At the end, he reminded her about the brooch, and that was what she had something to say about. “I was already suspicious about that. So tell me, what did the Harbormaster tell you about the ships that sailed this morning. Where were they bound?”
“For China and Australia and South America,” Max answered quickly. He had made sure of that. “None for India, but a boat going to China or Australia might be stopping at an Indian port, couldn’t it? To reprovision, to refuel.”
“So your parents are most likely on one of those, rather than the one going to South America,” Grammie said. “For which I’m grateful, because South America these days is nothing but little revolutions, one general trying to oust another.”
Max agreed with her deduction. “Besides, the boat for South America was a cargo ship. But why have Flower of Kashmir tickets if there’s no Flower of Kashmir?”
“It could be this Maharajah just pretends to himself that it’s his private ocean liner. People who have great power and wealth? They … they go a little crazy, in my opinion; they don’t live in the same world as the rest of us.” She thought some more, then reminded Max, “And your mother is right, they do always land on their feet. Imagine how they’d laugh at us if we called out the army and they were lounging around in the lap of luxury in a first-class stateroom. You know what, Max?” she asked, sounding like her normal self. “I think we’re going to have to be patient. That’s what he said, isn’t it? Wait with your grandmother? We’re going to have to leave it up to them. They know where you are.”
“Patient for how long?”
“Long enough for them to get in touch with us. When they do, this will all make sense. Things tend to make sense, in my experience. Unless”—she smiled—“your parents have been struck down with amnesia.”
Max pointed out, “Amnesia’s not contagious. They wouldn’t both have it at the same time.”
“Exactly,” Grammie said. “Or it could be—if someone is fool enough to believe in that ‘fortune’ your father’s always talking about? In which case you’ll get a ransom note. Unless they’ve been taken for some other reason. But what could that be? Who would need the use of two actors?”
“It was supposed to be three actors,” Max objected. He believed in that third ticket, whatever his grandmother might think.
“All the more unlikely to be kidnapping, then,” Grammie said. She asked, “Can you live with the worry?” She reminded him, “I know how hard that is, waiting and not knowing, waiting and hoping, waiting and imagining the worst. I remember …”
Max had always known that Grammie had lost her young husband to a sudden squall on the lake; that his boat had not been located for a night and a day; and that it wasn’t until the morning of the second day of the search that his body had been found. Grammie knew what she was talking about. She said, “It’s not easy.”
Max looked right back into those brave blue eyes and thought about it. He didn’t know where his parents were, but he couldn’t imagine that his parents were really lost, gone for good. Not for good, he thought. It wouldn’t be for good, it would be for bad, for very bad. He swallowed hard and held his grandmother’s glance. “I can wait. I will.”
Grammie moved right on. “Not that we’ll be doing nothing,” she said. “I’ll be doing research and locating passenger lists, itineraries, reading the newspapers. You’ll be watching the mail, and also you should keep an eye on the theater, in case that was what somebody was after. Although, I can’t think of why.”
Neither could Max. The Starling Theater was an old building, in the old city, not convenient to the New Town. The seats were almost always filled, true, but that was because of his parents. “Any other company would have gone belly-up years ago,” his father maintained. “But we have your mother! who is a beauty as well as brilliant.”
At which pronouncement his mother would smile and roll her eyes at Max.
“And we have me!”
At which Max rolled his eyes at his mother.
Remembering that lightened Max’s spirits even more than spaghetti.
“Which leaves us with the question of what to do about you,” said Grammie, fixing him with a stern teacher’s gaze.
Trying to match her sternness, Max told her, “I want to live in my own house,” and reached out to serve himself green lettuce from the bowl of salad. “Is there dessert?” he asked, hoping that would distract her.
With a grandmotherly smile, to say You’re not fooling me, Grammie allowed herself to be distracted. “How do you feel about baked apple?” she asked. “With custard sauce?”
It wasn’t until they had done the washing up and were seated side by side in the parlor in front of Grammie’s woodburning stove, both pairs of stockinged feet stretched out toward the warmth, that Grammie asked for more details about what Max had lear
ned on the docks that afternoon.
Max reported, “Captain Francis actually saw them. He said they were just getting out of a closed carriage. They waved and looked happy—at least from a distance. Then they went off up the gangplank of a ship, too far away from The Water Rat for him to read the name. He said my father was wearing his long green scarf and a wide-brimmed black hat, and looked dashing.”
“And your mother?”
“He didn’t say.” Max’s mother didn’t get noticed—unless, of course, she was on stage, acting, and even then it was her character, not the actress, that people remembered. “He asked me why I wasn’t with them, and I told him I was joining them in Porthaven. He believed me,” Max concluded, pleased with the success of his lie.
Grammie smiled. “That was pretty smart, Max. I don’t think we should tell anybody. Not until we hear from them, assuming that we will. Not the police, not anybody else, either. We need to be sure they’re safe first. If we don’t know what’s going on, we might … put them in danger. If we tell the wrong person, or involve the wrong people. Since we don’t know who the right ones are, or even if there are any. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said.
“Then, what about your school?”
“Don’t tell them,” Max answered, so vehemently that she looked sharply at him. He explained, “It’s better if the school thinks I’ve gone off with my parents. I don’t want anyone to suspect that I’m living alone.” He didn’t look at his grandmother, who either didn’t hear or didn’t feel that she needed to argue the point. “And besides, if I’m going to school, how can I earn the money to live on? I know you can’t afford me, Grammie.” He’d thought about this, too, during the long afternoon. His grandmother could live comfortably enough, she always said, on her librarian’s salary, and she always declined the help her son-in-law offered, thank you very much, but she had nothing to spare, Max knew.
“We could manage,” she assured him, but weakly. “Maybe it’s lucky after all that your mother had such terrible morning sickness with you. I know you used to want a brother, or a sister, but I’d never be able to support two of you.” Grammie gave a little laugh. “Still, it’s a pity your father’s famous fortune isn’t in coins.”
Max recited the lines, in as near an imitation as he could manage of his father’s rich voice. “My fortune? My personal fortune? I break my fast each morning in its company.”
Grammie just shook her head.
For some reason—maybe because they were talking about it together rather than trying to face it alone—both Max and Grammie felt better, not so shocked and frightened and powerless, more as if they had a plan.
“I want to work anyway,” Max said, because how could you be independent if you weren’t self-supporting? “But I’ve only ever had my jobs with the Company, and they’re not any use outside of the theater, and the Company is the only theater in the city.”
“It’ll be hard for you to find work,” Grammie agreed.
“I can mow lawns, and weed, and prune hedges, I suppose. I can wash windows and clean a house. I could probably clean a business, too, a bakery or a store or an office.” He thought. “I can hammer, but I don’t know how to build anything, not furniture or even a birdhouse.”
“You can paint,” Grammie reminded him.
Max knew better. “Even Joachim has trouble earning a living painting pictures.”
Grammie had gone back to thinking about Max’s education. “I can teach you history and reading, I know the books, and writing, too, and some science, and certainly geography. But I can’t teach you mathematics. We’ll have to find a tutor for that.”
“Another expense,” Max warned her. He finished his tea, suddenly tired. “I hope it’s not too long before they write.”
“We’ll be fine,” Grammie announced resolutely.
If she could believe that, maybe Max would, too.
Out of the window in the little room he had so often slept in when he was too young to be at the theater with his parents, or traveling with them, Max could look down, across the garden, to where his own house lay, pale in the moonlight, its windows dark. He hadn’t really expected to see lights in the windows and the silhouetted figures of his parents moving through the rooms, but he wouldn’t have been entirely surprised, either. After the day he’d had, nothing would surprise him. Was this what it was like having an adventure? Because he was beginning to suspect that being independent on your own wasn’t as easy as being independent with parents.
Max slid under the blankets and pulled them up around his chin, as if they could warm him against the cold and anxious worries that filled the dark air around him.
In which Max doesn’t want to get out of bed, Grammie is bossy, and Madame Olenka enters the scene
Max didn’t expect to sleep well, but he did. He did expect to feel better when he woke up, at least a little bit better, but he didn’t. The first morning after, he awoke to a gentle April rain falling outside the window and to the sight of his own silent and empty house, shrouded by a gray veil. From downstairs came the small sounds of Grammie in the kitchen, but when, after several minutes, he heard her footsteps coming up, he pulled up the blanket and closed his eyes.
He heard the door open, then nothing for a few seconds. The door closed and he opened his eyes.
He couldn’t have said why he’d pretended to be asleep, why he didn’t want anyone, even his grandmother, to see him. Once he’d heard her leave the house for the day, he decided, he’d get out of bed.
And then what? he asked himself, and so he did not move, not when the front door closed with a thump, not as the minutes ticked by. Max stayed in bed, motionless under the covers, and tried to go back to sleep. That failed, but still he did not dare to get out of bed. A terrible thing had happened yesterday, and Max did not want to have to face it. As long as he was in this bed he could feel safe.
He wished his father could see him now, see how wrong he was about twelve being old enough to be independent. Max knew he wasn’t old enough. If his father stepped into this room, Max would just laugh at him because of how wrong and stupid he had been to say Max was old enough.
He wished his father would just step into the room.
Max had been thrown away, like some old rag tossed into the corner of a room, and forgotten, and Yes, he did feel sorry for himself. They had dropped him into the deepest and coldest part of the lake and there was nothing he could do about it. He sank.
He couldn’t think what he was supposed to do. If his parents were in danger. If they never came back. If they’d left him behind on purpose. If they couldn’t be bothered to leave him anything but that senseless note.
He thought he might be hungry for lunch, but he wasn’t. He got up to go to the bathroom and drink a little water out of the sink faucet, but then he skittered back to bed, as if a pack of dogs snarled at his heels. Only the thought of Grammie coming home and finding him still in bed got him up and dressed and downstairs when she returned from work. Once she was in the house with him he discovered that he was hungry after all.
Grammie served leftover spaghetti for supper.
“What did you do today?” she asked him.
Max shrugged.
“I know. Me too,” she answered. “I’m going to look at the ships’ manifests. I told the Harbormaster it was official city business, so he agreed to send them over tomorrow. Maybe I’ll find out something.”
Max nodded. The rain slid down the window over Grammie’s sink.
After a quiet while, Grammie asked him, “Did you think about what work you can do?”
“Who would hire me?” Max asked. “I’m underage.”
Something was making Grammie cross. “Plenty of boys your age have jobs.”
Plenty of boys my age are eating dinner with their parents right now, Max thought but did not say. He shrugged.
Grammie sighed but didn’t pester him. Instead, she told him about one or two of the people who had come into the library that day, a
nd complained about the newspapers and magazines left scattered all over the reading room. “It took me an hour to put them away, and some are still missing. To think I argued and argued that the library needed a room where people could sit and read periodicals, on rainy days especially. I should have known better.”
“Now you do,” Max said un-helpfully.
He went up to bed right after the dishes were washed, not because he was tired but because he wanted so badly to be asleep. He didn’t know why it should be so, but it seemed that he was more shocked and frightened now, even if it was a day and more after, than when he’d first realized that his parents were gone.
He hoped every day wasn’t going to be worse than the one before. There was only so much black emptiness he could swallow without … without exploding from it.
The next morning, Friday, the second morning after, Grammie dropped something heavy onto the bed where he was pretending to sleep. “You might as well read,” he heard her say. “I’ve left bread and honey on the table, there’s milk in the icebox, and it’s stopped raining, so you could do a little work in the garden.”
The books she had left for him—for the heavy things were two books—made the day pass quickly enough. He’d read both Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn before, and he guessed he knew why she’d picked out those two in particular, but still, he picked them up and turned to well-remembered scenes, reading with only half of his attention.
It was his father’s note that really made him angry. Why did everything with his father have to be an adventure and a game? And why hadn’t his mother written anything? What kind of parents were they? They said he was old enough to be independent, but they expected him to stay with Grammie. Probably his parents were just as happy he wasn’t with them. Probably they thought he was just moping here, feeling sorry for himself, and they probably thought it served him right for being so foolish as to think he’d actually be invited to go to India, in a first-class stateroom, and that’s if it really was first class and not another one of his father’s overdramatized pronouncements.
Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things: Mister Max 1 Page 4