Love Among the Walnuts

by Jean Ferris

  The solemnity of sharing a room with four comatose fellow creatures affected all the inmates. They settled themselves quietly and, though the lack of a TV screen clearly made Virgil and Lyle uneasy, they all turned their faces expectantly toward Sunnie.

  She read the chapter where Rat and Mole are head ing back to Rat's riverbank home, where they both now live, through a mid-December snowstorm and stumble upon Mole's old home. Rat and Mole stay the night there—fixing a cozy supper for the mice who come along caroling—and Mole realizes that, though he has a new life now, "it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome."

  When Sunnie read those words and closed the book, there was a long thoughtful silence. Could any of the people in the room have said the words Mole had?

  Perhaps because of their preoccupation with their own thoughts about what constituted home, no one had noticed that while Sunnie was reading, Louie had jumped into L. Barlow Van Dyke's lap, curled himself up, and gone to sleep while Mr. Van Dyke scratched his ears.

  CHAPTER 14

  Sometime during the night the power went off at Eclipse, and Sandy and Bentley awoke shivering. They dressed quickly and warmly. Bentley covered his chemistry experiments with thermal blankets, and they decided to have breakfast at Walnut Manor.

  When they arrived at Walnut Manor, Sandy was surprised to find icicles hanging above the front door. On the inside.

  He could see his breath in the front hall.

  "Rats," Sandy said, "the heat's off here, too. It's even colder than at Eclipse."

  They went upstairs, where Sunnie, in her snowsuit and mittens, had piled more blankets on the sleepers and had just thrown more logs on the grate in the fireplace. "Do you know how long it'll be before the electricity's back on?" she asked Sandy and Bentley. "We haven't got any heat or lights or kitchen appliances. Not that we need refrigeration, that's for sure. But poor Virgil and Lyle are going crazy without their TV."

  "I have no idea," Bentley said. "We don't have a radio or a TV, and our phone is out, too."

  "The wires to both Eclipse and Walnut Manor must have come down in the storm. There's nothing else out here, so it'll probably take a long time for the power company to pay any attention to us," Sunnie said. "They don't know we have medical equipment to worry about."

  "I didn't see any wires down," Bentley said. "And I looked when we drove over here. I wonder..."

  Bentley and Sandy looked at each other, the same idea occurring to each of them at the same time. "Bart and Bernie," they said in unison.

  "No!" Sunnie said. "They wouldn't."

  "Why not?" Sandy asked her. "You said yesterday that none of us were safe now. Freezing Horatio and Mousey are all that's necessary, but I doubt they'd care if a few more of us froze in our sleep. Especially me."

  Sunnie put her hands on her hips. "Well, if that's what they have in mind, they've got another think coming. We're all tougher than that. Sandy, you and Graham get outside and chop lots of wood for the fireplaces. We can stay warm and cook, too. Opal's got candles and the pantry's full. All the important medical equipment's got battery backups and there're plenty of blankets. How do you think people got along before there was electricity?"

  "I'm going to have a look at the telephone and power lines," Bentley said, "to see if I can find out what happened."

  ***

  Graham was so terribly clumsy at chopping wood that Sandy was afraid he would amputate something on himself or on somebody else, but he kept gamely at it. Sandy wasn't so coordinated himself at first, but he caught on after a while. Everett helped, too, grunting with each stroke of the ax. Since Everett didn't attribute his grunts to anyone, Sandy knew nobody else could have said it better.

  Rather than leave the sleepers alone, Sunnie and Opal decided everyone should congregate in the sickroom. Lyle and Virgil and Boom-Boom, Mr. Moreland and Mr. Van Dyke and Dr. Waldemar formed a sort of bucket brigade going up the stairs and passed along the logs and food and supplies until everything they needed was stockpiled in the hall outside the sickroom door.

  Virgil and Lyle, huddled under so many blankets that they looked like a year's worth of undone laundry, asked plaintively, "When will the TV be back on?"

  "I don't know," Sunnie said. "Maybe not for a long time. This might be a good chance for you to begin reading some books. I have lots and I'd love to share. And the library's full, if you don't like my books."

  Mr. Moreland and Mr. Van Dyke were already browsing through Sunnie's library of financial books, blowing dust off the tops of them. Sunnie's interest in finance had flagged early, and she'd moved on to reading about gemstones in spite of the fact that Mr. Moreland told her they were a risky investment.

  Soon, between the fire and the heat generated by all their bodies, the room warmed. Opal made hot chocolate and soup, Sunnie passed out books, and Dr. Waldemar fell asleep in his chair. When Sunnie wasn't tending to her patients, she was rubbing liniment into the shoulders of Everett and Graham, who were sore from chopping wood.

  Sandy watched and regretted that his regular workouts in the gym at Eclipse had kept him in such good shape that his own shoulders felt perfectly fine.

  Late in the afternoon, Bentley returned. He came into the sickroom so red faced and angry that he looked as if he could heat the room all by himself.

  "What?" Sandy said.

  "Those #*@!* uncles of yours!" Bentley exploded, getting so tangled up in unwinding his scarf that he almost strangled himself. As Sunnie helped him get his scarf and coat off without hurting himself, Bentley told them what he had found out. "None of the wires are down, or even out of order. I went over every inch of them, from where they leave the poles at the road to where they come into the houses. Then I drove along Old Country Road looking for a place they might be downed. No soap. I ended up driving all the way to Jupiter and not finding anything. As long as I was in town, I went to the power company and the phone company to find out about getting our service restored, and they said our service had somehow been inadvertently shut off. They blamed it on a computer error. Sort of a big coincidence that both companies shut both of us off at the same time, isn't it?"

  "But how could Bart and Bernie get to the computers?' Maybe it was an error," Sandy said.

  "I don't believe it," Bentley said. "I know Bart and Bernie aren't smart enough to work a computer, but they're certainly smart enough to find somebody who can: either employees at the phone company and the utilities company, or one of their unsavory friends. For enough money, almost anybody will do almost anything. I know they're responsible for this. I'll bet they'd be calling right now to see if anybody answered the phone, if they knew our phones were working again, the way they did the morning after they brought the birthday cake to Eclipse."

  "Are they?" Opal asked. "Working again?"

  Bentley picked up the extension in the sickroom. "Yes! There's a dial tone. So we should have heat soon, too, and—" He flipped the light switch and the overhead light went on.

  Sunnie hugged him. "Oh, Bentley, you've saved us."

  In spite of the restoration of lights and heat, no one seemed eager to leave the sickroom, not even Lyle and Virgil. They all had the somewhat giddy feeling of accident survivors, and they needed to keep telling one another the story of what had happened to them.

  When night came and their picnic-style dinner was finished, Sandy and Bentley got ready to return to Eclipse. Sandy never could explain what made him do what he did: It might have been a simple desire to share what was his with people he cared about. Anyway, he said, "Would any of you like to come spend the night at Eclipse? We have lots of beds."

  Boom-Boom grabbed a handful of Sunnie's sweater and sucked hard on his thumb. Virgil and Lyle shook their heads in perfect three-quarter time. Graham went to stand by the window and look out onto the white landscape. Everett seemed to be rifling his mind for an appropriate qu
otation, but nothing surfaced.

  "Sure," Mr. Moreland said, breaking the silence. "I'd be delighted to get out of here."

  At those words, Dr. Waldemar gathered himself together and said, "I'm sure there's something in our bylaws or in our rules of operation or whatever it's called about inmates leaving the premises. Especially without permission.'"

  Opal, whose usual crusty behavior hadn't been improved by her having quit smoking, snapped, "I give 'em permission. Attempted murder by freezing doesn't happen every day. There must be a provision for extraordinary circumstances. If this doesn't qualify, I don't know what would. Go on, all of you."

  Boom-Boom continued sucking, and Virgil and Lyle continued shaking their heads, and Graham continued looking out the windows; but Everett and Mr. Moreland and Mr. Van Dyke stood up and buttoned their coats.

  "Wait," Dr. Waldemar protested feebly. "I don't think..."

  "So don't start now," Opal said gruffly. "Let 'em go. It can get pretty boring hanging out here all the time. I've noticed that, even if you haven't."

  "You want to come, too?" Sandy asked Opal.

  Neither Sandy nor Sunnie missed the changing expressions on Opal's face. First there was apprehension that equaled Virgil's and Lyle's. Then consideration, anticipation, rejection, and finally, world-class grouchiness. "I can't," Opal said. "I have to take care of the place."

  "I can do it," Sunnie said. "At least until morning. Go ahead, Opal. You've earned it if anybody has."

  "Well...," she said, badly tempted and fighting her qualms and her conscience.

  Mr. Moreland came up to her, buttoned the coat she hadn't taken off all day, and, grasping her by the shoulders, pointed her toward the door. "Let's go," he said. "You can't stop to consider in the middle of a jailbreak."

  "Is that what we're doing?" Opal asked, sounding uncertain for the first time in anyone's memory.

  "Isn't that what it feels like?" Mr. Moreland asked.

  "'Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.' Harry Emerson Fosdick," Everett said.

  "Harry Emerson Fosdick?" Mr. Moreland asked as they went out the door. "I'm starting to think you make these things up."

  After they left, Sunnie sent everyone else off to get ready for bed. When they were gone and she had the first quiet moment she'd had all day, she tried to remember if she had actually seen Louie sitting in L. Barlow Van Dyke the cat molester's lap last night or if she had just imagined it.

  Sunnie was serving a cereal-and-muffin breakfast in the sickroom the next morning when she heard a loud commotion downstairs.

  "Graham," she said, "go see what's going on." When Graham looked at her, uncertain and a little frightened, she added, "Boom-Boom, you go with him. I'm sure the two of you together will be perfectly capable of finding out what's happening."

  Boom-Boom took his thumb out of his mouth and said proudly, in his grown-up voice, "Come along, Graham. We must look out for Sunnie and our sleepers." He hesitated briefly in the doorway, and his thumb headed for his mouth. But then he squared his shoulders and went off down the hall, with Graham two steps behind him.

  Sunnie stood in the doorway of the sickroom listening. She heard shouting from downstairs, and she recognized Sandy's voice and Mr. Moreland's and Opal's. She didn't recognize the other voices. The noise went on for quite a while until suddenly the front door slammed with a crash that shook the entire building. Then there was total silence for a moment before she heard the pounding of a lot of feet running up the stairs.

  She closed the sickroom door, locked it, and stood with her back braced against it. If that was Bart and Bernie on the way upstairs, they'd have to get past her before they could get to her sleepers, or to Eddy, or Virgil and Lyle, or Dr. Waldemar.

  Pounding on the door shook her so hard her teeth rattled, but she continued to lean against the door panels as Virgil, Lyle, and Dr. Waldemar cowered together.

  "Sunnie, it's me, Sandy. Open up."

  With relief, Sunnie unlocked the door and was almost knocked down as Sandy, Bentley, Mr. Moreland, Mr. Van Dyke, Opal, Everett, Graham, and Boom-Boom rushed into the room, all talking at once.

  "Stop!" she screamed over the clamor. "I can't hear anything you're saying."

  "Quite right," Bentley said, smoothing his overcoat lapels. "Sandy, you tell."

  Everyone crowded around Sunnie and Sandy, who stood facing each other in the crush.

  "As I drove up Old Country Road from Eclipse, I saw a car coming from the other direction. It turned into Walnut Manor just ahead of me. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when Bart and Bernie got out of it, but I was. But that was nothing compared to how surprised they were when I got out of the Daimler, and then Bentley, Opal, Mr. Moreland, Mr. Van Dyke, and Everett did, too. They looked as if they were seeing ghosts, which is probably what they were hoping to see inside. Opal lit right into them and ordered them off the property."

  "She's just crabby because she hasn't had a cigarette in a few weeks," Mr. Moreland said. "Crabbier than usual, I mean."

  Opal stuck her elbow into Mr. Moreland's stomach and said, "Three weeks, six days, eleven hours, and fourteen minutes."

  Sandy continued. "They said they were going to report Bentley and me for kidnapping inmates or encouraging a breakout or something equally felonious, and that we'd be locked up so fast it would make our heads swim and we'd never have a chance to spend all Horatio's money. As if that's what we wanted to do."

  "We'll just say nothing ever happened," Mr. Moreland said. "There's no evidence to substantiate their accusations."

  "But isn't that lying?" Sandy asked. He'd never told a lie, though he knew what they were.

  "Certainly not," Mr. Moreland answered indignantly. "Nobody was kidnapped and there was no breakout. In court, all you have to do is answer the questions they ask you, yes or no. Don't elaborate or you'll get yourself in trouble."

  "Your uncles are getting desperate," Sunnie said, sounding worried.

  "They're desperate and dumb," Opal said. "A dangerous combination. I think we'd better be prepared for something really drastic next time."

  They all knew there would be a next time.

  CHAPTER 15

  In order to distract them all from worrying, Sunnie got the inmates to assemble Christmas presents for one another, and Opal began complicated preparations for a Christmas Eve feast. Everyone had an opinion as to what should be served. Boom-Boom wanted roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and chocolate-chip cookies. Mr. Moreland wanted champagne and caviar. Dr. Waldemar wanted sauerbraten and marzipan. Virgil and Lyle wanted meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Everett wanted madeleines because Proust liked them. Mr. Van Dyke and Eddy wouldn't say what they wanted, and Graham wanted it all.

  So Opal decided to make it all, but only if everyone would help her. Bentley ordered the supplies from the fanciest grocery in Jupiter, and for many days in advance, when the inmates weren't keeping secrets from each other about their presents, they were in the kitchen helping Opal chop and stir and cook and freeze things. Graham was one of Opal's most ardent helpers, and he always came out of the kitchen a little fatter than when he went in.

  Finally Sunnie felt she had to take him in hand. "Graham," she said, "each time you go into the kitchen, I want you to lift everything in the dining room on the way in and on the way out. You can make that your Christmas present to me."

  "That's a strange present," he said. "Why would you want that?"

  "Never mind. I just do. Will you give it to me?"

  "I guess so. Does that mean every fork and spoon, one at a time?"

  "Only if you can't figure out a more efficient way to do it."

  "Oh," he said, and she could almost hear the wheels turn inside his head. "So if I can lift the whole table, I've also lifted everything that's on it?"

  "Why, what a smart idea," Sunnie told him. "That would make it much faster, wouldn't it?"

  Graham rose to the challenge. The first time he tried it, crouching underneath the table an
d straining upward with it resting on his back, he could barely get the table legs off the ground. He was so fat that just getting underneath the table in the first place represented a considerable amount of exercise. He couldn't lift the sideboard all at once, so he had to take the drawers out, lift them individually, and then try to get the sideboard up. Lifting the chairs was a snap.

  Soon, he could pile two or three chairs together and lift them at once. Then he could put a couple of chairs on top of the table and lift them together. Then he could put all the chairs on the table. Then he could lift the sideboard with the drawers out. Then, with the drawers in.

  He barely noticed that it was becoming easier for him to get beneath the table. But he did notice, finally, that his belt wasn't on the last hole anymore. And that his shirts, while still tight around the shoulders, were flapping at the waist.

  "Look, Sunnie!" he said, running across her in the dining room on the morning of Christmas Eve. "Look at my belt! What happened?"

  "You've been getting a lot of exercise," she said. "And staying out of the kitchen while you did it. Less food and more exercise makes you lose weight. It isn't magic. You did it all by yourself. Aren't you proud? And there's no reason why you can't keep on doing what you've been doing—you can lift the library stuff and the bedroom stuff, as well as the dining room stuff, you know. You'll be able to wear a bathing suit when the pool gets filled in the summer. You can leave here."

  Graham had looked ecstatic until Sunnie mentioned leaving Walnut Manor. Then the expression on his face approached panic. "If I get thin, do I have to leave?" His eyes darted in the direction of the kitchen.

  "Don't you want to go home?"

  "Would you want to go back to two people who were so embarrassed by the way you looked that they hid you? And then never came to see you or even sent a card?"

  "You've got a point," Sunnie had to admit. "Well, the way I see it, you can stay here as long as you like. Nobody can make you leave."