Skylark and Wallcreeper

by Anne O'Brien Carelli

  She realizes she’s been holding her breath. She lets air out slowly, terrified that even that soft sound will bring the Germans back. A draft of cold whistling air suddenly blows through the cracks of the storage bin.

  A loud explosion blends with the screaming wind.

  The girls burst out from their hiding place. By the time they are halfway to the olive grove, the lieutenant is already on the other side, frantically waving at Collette and Marguerite to run even faster.

  Chapter 16

  A Bridge to Cross

  Brooklyn to Manhattan

  November 2012—Day 8

  By looking at a map on the wall of the Armory, I’ve been able to figure out how to avoid busy roads to get to the Brooklyn Bridge. I bicycle along side streets and cut through neighborhood parks, where giant uprooted trees often block the path. They’re splintered and splayed out, sometimes piled on top of other trees that had been torn apart by the hurricane. Branches are scattered everywhere, even strewn across paved playgrounds, as if Sandy ripped them off the trees and carried them far away before letting go. Thousands of autumn leaves, still fresh, are spread across green picnic areas and piled against chain-link fences.

  Police officers wave me on. “Go home, kid!” But I keep going, sometimes lifting my bike over tree trunks that have crashed to the pavement. I finally spot the bridge ahead of me.

  A line already winds around several blocks, as people in Brooklyn wait for the extra buses to Manhattan. After a rain-soaked weekend, they seem determined to go to work, even though the subways are closed and the tip of Manhattan still doesn’t have any power.

  I guess everyone had the same idea to get in line right after the sun came up. They’re all bundled up, sipping coffee and checking their phones. There’s a low hum from the line as conversations start up and they slowly move forward to board the special buses. But mostly the crowd is subdued and cold.

  I figure the restaurant wants their bicycle back, but I’m going to keep it one more day and get over the Brooklyn Bridge to the city. I have to get to the Pen Emporium to find a replacement pen so I never have to tell Granny that I lost the original.

  I’ve been texting Johnny about my plans to go to Manhattan, but it’s too hard to explain the whole story in a text. I’m dying to tell him everything that’s been going on over the last few days, but as long as school is out, he’s spending all of his time at his family’s restaurant. The story will have to wait.

  My mom called before she left for work, as usual. My school is still closed, but teachers have emailed assignments. I promised to do my homework and described a busy day at the Armory, including plans for Johnny and me to take Granny for a walk. She reminded me that Granny tires easily but was pleased that Johnny will be with me. My mom wasn’t too sure about Johnny when she first met him, especially because he was only eleven and had a pierced eyebrow. But once she saw him working in his family’s restaurant, she started to like him more. He’s been around for over a year now, and she’s used to him. It helps that he brings us leftovers from the restaurant’s kitchen.

  At the end of the call, she seemed reassured that all is well in Brooklyn.

  I bike easily past the long line and work my way over side streets to the beginning of the bridge. There’s a small crowd of people there, but they stretch out over the walkway and keep moving over the river to Manhattan.

  Here I go, I text Johnny as I pull my bike up to a handful of people gathered around dancers in black tights and gray T-shirts that say NYC DANCE COMPANY. While one of the dancers makes a beat with “uh-uh-uh San-DY,” the rest hip-hop dance in unison. They’re serious and never look up. They’re working hard, but they still must be feeling the cold. I guess everyone in this city has to find a different way to cope with Sandy.

  I just want to get to the pen store and back again before I run out of money, and before Granny starts to figure out that something isn’t right.

  “Lily!” I think I hear Johnny’s voice. Was it just wishful thinking? “Breakfast!” He rolls his bike in front of mine and grins. He’s shorter than I am—in fact, he’s shorter than most kids, but he always seems older and taller.

  Last time I saw him, his wild, fuzzy brown hair had a pink streak. Today it’s tipped in bright blue, and I have to smile. I can count on Johnny to do the unexpected, and now he’s right next to me. I had seen him right before the storm, but it seems like ages ago.

  “What are you doing here?” I pull my bike over to the side against the high steel fence, to get out of the way of the walkers on the bridge. Traffic roars below us as a steady stream of buses makes its way up the ramp to go over the bridge to the city.

  “Classy bike.” He rubs his fingerless gloves over the edge of the basket. I’ve plunked my backpack into the basket, and added a bottle of water, a box of cheese crackers, and some pudding cups. Johnny shoves over the crackers and places a brown paper bag in the basket. “Doughnuts. Girl needs to eat.”

  Johnny loves to get people to try his newest recipes. There’s no way Johnny had made plain old doughnuts. He can’t even make a pancake without adding squash for color and raisins for a sweet surprise. Someday he’s going to have his own cooking show, I just know it.

  I peer into the bag and, of course, the doughnuts are unusual shapes and colors. He pulls one out. “This one is stuffed with popcorn and pretzels if you want something crunchy.” I shake my head, so he pulls out a fat orange doughnut. “Made with sweet potatoes and marshmallows. Very filling!”

  I pull off a gooey piece and am not surprised that it’s quite tasty. “What else?”

  He shows me one with peanut butter and jelly leaking out the center, but the one I choose has pieces of Oreo cookies blended into the doughnut. I can’t resist eating all of it, even though I’ve already had a breakfast of potato sticks and fruit cup. “Yum. This is a keeper.”

  “What’s the big hurry to get to Manhattan?”

  I usually tell Johnny everything, but it suddenly feels weird if I tell him that I have to get to a fountain pen store as fast as possible. He’ll think that my brain got soaked in the flood. “I’m picking some things up for people at the Armory.” I hate to lie to him, but it’s an explanation that he might buy.

  “You can’t get anything in the city. There’s no power at all in Lower Manhattan. You’re better off in Brooklyn. What do you have to get?”

  “It’s a long story.” I should have known that Johnny wasn’t going to accept my answer. He reaches into his backpack and pulls out a black knit hat, zips up his fleece vest, and starts walking his bike along the bridge.

  “So tell me,” he says, motioning for me to follow him. “I can get to the restaurant late. Something’s going on, and I want to know what it is.”

  So I tell him. In fact, I don’t stop talking for the full thirty minutes it takes to walk the bridge. At one point, I climb on my bike to try to pick up the pace, but he insists that we walk. “Too many people. Keep talking.”

  I love talking to Johnny about it all. It’s the first time I’ve been able to describe everything to anyone—from measuring the floodwaters, to delivering mozzarella and canned pears, to losing the pen. I describe my visit to Keepsakes as an adventure, but I know he understands. He says all the right things. At least he makes the right noises at the right times. “Cool.” “So wrong.” “Unreal.”

  And he asks about Granny. He gets why I don’t want her to be sad. “So what’s the deal with your granny and this pen? And who’s Marguerite?”

  “The pen must belong to Marguerite. Except that it has an F engraved on it, so maybe that’s Marguerite’s last name. I really have no idea.” We wind around a couple who stop to take pictures. “And I don’t want to ask Granny until I know I’ve got the pen. Or at least one like it that will hopefully fool her.”

  “And the 4810? Is that some sort of code or something?”

  “It has to have a special meaning, but I haven’t been able to figure it out. Since I lost the pen, I’ve been avoidi
ng the subject. All I know is that Granny really wants me to give that pen to someone named Marguerite.”

  “Maybe your granny stole the pen and she wants to give it back before she dies.”

  I stop my bike. Even though I’ve been wondering the same thing, I didn’t like to hear anyone say it out loud. Even Johnny. “She’s not dying. And she doesn’t steal.”

  Johnny climbs on his bike as we reach the end of the bridge. “Well, maybe Marguerite is her long-lost granddaughter and there’s a check for a million dollars rolled up inside the pen. And she wants you to deliver it—and all you’ll get is her pink hat.”

  “Funny. Really funny.” I pull out ahead of him, and we work our way through a flow of people filling the sidewalks, pouring from the bridge into the bottom tip of Manhattan. The narrow streets are lined with tall office buildings and the occasional shop or restaurant, all closed and dark because they still have a power outage. Traffic is light, mostly taxis. Loud machines pump water down the sewer drains, and the police have rolled out yellow tape to mark off sections of the street, deep puddles, and piles of debris.

  One street has a power line down, and sparks are flying as it wiggles around on the pavement. Cops and city workers are everywhere, keeping people away.

  We watch for a while, like tourists, as a man in a long dark coat argues with a cop, gesturing up at the building near the sparking wire. He finally gives up, flings a duffel bag over his shoulder, and walks away. “I just want to get my stuff!” he yells one more time.

  The police attempt to direct the small amount of traffic, but no one seems to be paying much attention. Cars jockey for space, jerking around wooden barriers and parked trucks that have giant buzzing generators. “Typical New York,” one police officer yells to another. “Life goes on.” He blows a whistle at a taxi and bangs on the hood. “Move!”

  We don’t have far to go, but we end up mostly walking our bikes instead of riding them. It looks like everyone stayed home again today, except for those who are determined to get to work, and others who just want to take pictures.

  Superstorm Sandy left its mark everywhere, but the few people on the street keep acting as if nothing has changed. They step around anything that’s in the way. Mud mixed with garbage has piled up against the curb. Standing water fills any spot where the pavement dips. Sawhorses have been set up around manholes and open gutters. There are stacks of soggy junk shoved up against the buildings.

  “Looks like people are already starting to clear out the flooded buildings,” Johnny says quietly as we wheel our bikes around mounds of broken pieces of wood, torn plastic, tree branches, and silt-covered lawn chairs.

  “This is what came in with the ocean, honey,” a woman standing in a store doorway says to Johnny. “It’s all from somebody else’s house.” She grabs a wide broom and starts pushing piles of soaked trash into the gutter.

  It’s a gray day. By now the lights would be on in the buildings and neon glowing in some of the windows. But the only source of bright light is yellow flashers, set up on top of metal barrels. As we work our way farther from the bridge, it seems as if most of the stores are shut tight. I start to get a little nervous that this trip will have been a waste of time. “I hope the pen store is open. The website said they’re closed only on Sunday and Monday, so we should be okay if they have power.”

  We zigzag across an intersection, avoiding a gushing pipe and roaring machines near a subway entrance. Men in bright orange-and-yellow vests are shouting, “Three levels! At least another week!” as they ramp up the equipment to pump water from the subway tunnel.

  “Over there!” Johnny points across the street, but all I see is a bar with a giant shamrock over the door. On the same block are stores with crisscross metal gates covering the plate-glass windows.

  Then I see it—on the corner a hidden doorway. FOUNTAIN PEN EMPORIUM is in peeling gold ink on the rippled glass on the door. It looks closed.

  Chapter 17

  Standing Order

  Manhattan

  November 2012—Day 8

  I try the door handle of the Fountain Pen Emporium and knock on the window while Johnny locks our bikes together and leans them against the building.

  I pull out my phone and check the time. “It’s too early. They’re not open yet.”

  “Or maybe they’re not going to open at all. This block looks sort of dead. Doesn’t seem like they’ve got power here.”

  “WHAT?” A man jerks the door open, and I jump back, stumbling into Johnny. “You need a place to stay? Is that it? No lights, no heat, so now you’re homeless? Bah!”

  The man is the same height as Johnny and has a giant piece of greasy hair stretched over the top of his bald head. His glasses are greasy, too.

  We all stare at each other for a moment. I realize that people who live in the Armory are considered homeless, but how could he know where I’ve come from? “Actually, I’m here to buy a pen.” I peer over his shoulder and see a narrow store about as big as Granny’s room at Rockaway Manor. There are pens crammed everywhere—stuck upright in jars, laid out in display cases, and mounted on boards hanging on the back wall.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so!” He steps aside and waves us in. “All day it’s people looking for a place to sleep until they can get back into their apartments. Just because I have electricity. Do I look like a hotel?”

  “Not really,” Johnny mutters in my ear. “Looks like a prison cell.”

  “I heard that!” the man barks at Johnny. “This is my piece of heaven, I’ll have you know.”

  The store is warm and stuffy. Johnny shoves his hat and gloves into his backpack. Stacked way up high on the sides of the cramped store are shelves filled with plastic boxes. At the end of the room is a high counter with a magnifying glass on a long, bendable stand. The man climbs onto a tall stool behind the counter and holds up a bright red fountain pen with a gold tip. “Feel that,” he says, handing it to Johnny. “Heavy, huh?”

  As Johnny weighs the pen with his hand, I close the door and look around. At the very top of the loaded shelves are rows of photos. All around the room are hundreds of overlapping pictures of famous people, all with elaborate signatures.

  I tug on Johnny’s shirt and point up. “Jay-Z?”

  “Loves my pens,” the man says. “Never signs a contract without one.” He points around the room, rattling off names. “Frank Sinatra, but you probably don’t even know who that is. This place opened in 1946, and Frank was one of the first customers. I sell to Bruce Springsteen, that country guy Tim McGraw, even Woody Allen has a few. There’s senators, mayors, even Bill Clinton. You probably don’t know who he is, either.”

  We crane our necks and turn slowly to inspect the photos. “Look.” Johnny points over in the corner. “Madonna! Seriously?”

  “Big-time collector. How about that one, huh?” The man points with his thumb behind him. “This red one’s for her.” We move to see, but he’s blocking the photo. “The one who dressed in meat. You know, Lady Gaga.”

  “Lady Gaga buys your pens?” I start to giggle and am so glad that I’m not alone. No one would believe this.

  “So does Johnny Depp.” Johnny points at a note pinned to the wall straight ahead of us, and reads the signature. To Henry—see you next time I’m in New York, JD.

  “That’s me. I’m Henry.” He collapses the lamp and swings it against the wall. “So what do you kids want? If you want a ballpoint, those are not pens, they’re sticks, and I don’t sell them. You need to write something down; is that why you stopped here?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that,” I start to say, but Henry interrupts.

  “Do you even know what a fountain pen is? Know how it works?”

  Before we can answer, he demonstrates. He shows how very old pens were dipped in a bottle of ink or an inkwell, blotted on a rag or special paper, and then drawn across a heavy sheet of stationery. He writes his own name in angles with deep blue ink, asks for my name, and writes it
like medieval letters in green and gold ink. For Johnny he writes in big, elegant loops, “Like Hancock scrawled on the Declaration of Independence.”

  From the shelves, he pulls out boxes of ink bottles and ink cartridges that slide into newer fountain pens and shows us his collection of old, elaborate inkwells.

  “So which one do you like the best? If you had all the money in the world, which pen would you buy?” He lays out a dozen pens on the high counter. Most of them are dark blue or black, but some are rich colors in dark red, emerald and gold, or shiny silver. Some have jewels embedded in the side, or tiny colored sketches of the Beatles, Snow White, or famous paintings. The autographs of the One Direction singers are featured on a set of multicolored pens in an elaborate case.

  He makes us lift each pen to see how it feels in our hands, and write the word pen several different ways. “Too light? Does it fit your hand?”

  One has a tiny diamond at the end of the pen cap. “There’s more diamonds on the nib.” He touches the point used for writing. I like that one the best, but Johnny likes a big, thick black pen with a fat gold nib engraved with someone’s initials.

  For several minutes I forget why we’re here. I like the quiet closet-like store, away from the noise of the street, where just writing the word pen takes concentration.

  Johnny takes Henry’s writing assignment seriously and asks a million questions. Henry seems pleased that someone cares, and pulls out more and more pens from the plastic boxes. “This is one that Bill bought for Hillary for Christmas in 2001. I’m hoping Obama will order one for Michelle. This one was used to sign the contract for building the new Freedom Tower. The Supreme Court buys the same ones every year—those people have no imagination.”

  He keeps handing Johnny pens. “And here’s one that was given to all the Brooklyn Dodgers when they beat the Yankees in the World Series in 1955.”