Love Among the Walnuts

by Jean Ferris

  Sunnie read a chapter from Treasure Island before Bentley came to take Sandy back to Eclipse, and they all spent an uneasy night filled with long wakeful spells and restless dreams.

  Morning came as a great relief. Somehow problems always look more manageable in the daylight than in the dark. And morning brought all the inmates together again. They had learned that there were solace and strength in being together.

  While they were having breakfast in the dining room, the phone rang. They could hear the ring from the kitchen phone and the muffled ring of the phone in the office. Opal didn't move to answer it. Neither did anyone else.

  It rang thirteen times before it stopped.

  "Thirteen isn't a very lucky number," Lyle said, glancing nervously at Virgil.

  The phone began to ring again. Somehow it seemed louder and more insistent this time. Again, it stopped after thirteen rings. Virgil and Lyle moved their chairs closer to each other and held each other's hands.

  "I give them an hour, tops," Opal said. "I'll bet they don't even try the doorbell. They'll come right in."

  "Why should they ring the doorbell?" Mr. Moreland asked. "They're sure there won't be anyone in here who could answer it."

  "What are we going to do when they come?" Boom-Boom asked in a voice that was halfway between his little kid's voice and his grown-up one.

  "We could play dead," Graham suggested. "And when they come into the library, we could all jump up and scare them out of their wits."

  Boom-Boom giggled. "Yeah," he said. "That would be fun."

  "I think it would be better if we pretend nothing has happened," Mr. Moreland said. "If we play dead, they'll know we're on to them. We want to keep them guessing. Let them think their canister of gas failed to work."

  Forty-five minutes later they were in the library, with the door to the hall open, occupied with their usual activities, when the front, door stealthily opened and Bart and Bernie stuck their heads cautiously in.

  "Do you hear anything?" Bernie asked in a stage whisper.

  "How can I hear anything with you hissing in my ear?" Bart answered, not bothering to lower his voice. "There won't be anything to hear, anyhow."

  They closed the door and came across the hall to the library. Dr. Waldemar got out of his chair by the fire and walked to the door to meet them. "Is there something I can do for you?" he asked mildly.

  The color drained from Bart's and Bernie's faces. Then Bernie's eyes rolled up into his head and he fell over backward. When his head hit the floor, the house shook a little and everyone in the library winced.

  Bart opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  Dr. Waldemar waited patiently for an answer to his question.

  Finally Bart found his voice. "I...," he croaked. "We just came by to see how our brother is."

  "He's doing as well as can be expected," Dr. Waldemar said, sounding just like a real doctor, which he was, but it had been a long time since he'd had to sound like one. "But your other brother doesn't seem to be doing as well."

  Bart glanced down at Bernie. "Oh, he gets these ... spells. He'll be all right,"

  "Well, good-bye," Dr. Waldemar said. "Nice of you to stop by." He started back to his chair.

  "Uh, you're all looking well," Bart said, still standing in the doorway.

  "We are, thank you," Dr. Waldemar said.

  "No flu or colds or any other ailments?" Bart asked.

  "Nothing at all," Dr. Waldemar said. "We're all unusually healthy. Sometimes I think there's something in the air at Walnut Manor that protects us from ever getting sick. We'll probably live forever out here."

  Bart muttered something under his breath.

  "What was that?" Dr. Waldemar asked.

  "Nothing," Bart said.

  "I thought you said, 'Not if I can help it.'"

  "Of course not," Bart said. "Why would I say such a thing?"

  "I couldn't imagine. Do you want some help with your brother?"

  "No." Bart grabbed Bernie by the leg and dragged him to the front door, which was still standing open, and right down the steps to their car.

  When the sound of the car's engine faded into the distance, Everett said, "'It's not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.' Marcus Aurelius. 121 to 180."

  "Well, I feel more alive than I have for a long time," Mr. Moreland said. "I think Dr. 'demar does, too." He clapped Dr. Waldemar on the shoulder. "Doc, your performance was fabulous. Nothing like a good crisis to make one feel alert and cheerful. Remember, L. Barlow, how it was when our companies were in trouble? Didn't you feel sharp witted and cunning then?"

  Mr. Van Dyke nodded with fond remembrance.

  "I feel that way again, don't you?" Mr. Moreland asked.

  Mr. Van Dyke nodded again.

  "We're going to get them," Mr. Moreland said. "I know we will."

  "You better get those sharp wits to work in a hurry, then," Opal told him. "Those guys aren't going to wait long before they make another try. And sooner or later they'll succeed. We can't always be as lucky as we were yesterday."

  "Wouldn't it be simplest to have Dr. Waldemar report the cooked books?" Sandy asked. "Even if he has been careless about his paperwork, surely the authorities would believe him."

  "And then what do you think would happen?" Opal asked. "At the very least, Dr. Waldemar would lose his job for letting this criminal activity go on for so long. I probably would, too."

  "According to these records," Mr. Moreland said, "there's no pension plan for either of you. Losing your jobs would leave you with no money and no place to live. Dr. Waldemar is too old to be looking for another job."

  "And what do you think would happen to Walnut Manor?" Opal asked. "Except for Sandy's and Bentley's family, it's been years since we've had a new patient."

  There was a long heavy silence as they all realized that if they blew the whistle on the board of directors, it would be the end of Walnut Manor. It surprised them to realize that they now felt about Walnut Manor the way Mole had felt about his cozy home. They couldn't imagine living anywhere else. And when they thought about where they might be sent if Walnut Manor closed, they all shuddered.

  "What can we do?" Graham asked.

  "There's got to be something," Mr. Moreland said, frowning. "There's got to be a way to get somebody to pay attention to the ravings of a bunch of nut cases who haven't been out in the real world for years. Somebody who would overlook Dr. Waldemar's inattention to business and Opal's ... ah ... eccentricities."

  Mr. Van Dyke was shaking his head sadly, thinking of his son on the board.

  Virgil and Lyle shook their heads, and so, finally, did Graham.

  "'Our repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done, as fear of its consequences.' Due de La Rochefoucauld. 1613 to 1680," Everett said.

  "So we have to come up with some good consequences," Opal said. "Any ideas?"

  For the rest of the day there was silence in the library as everyone thought. Just before five o'clock, Sandy went into the office and made a phone call.

  CHAPTER 18

  The next morning, when Sunnie opened the door to the sickroom to take in the breakfast trays, Louie, tired of being cooped up for so long, ran unnoticed past her and scampered down the stairs. He sauntered into the library and curled up in L. Barlow Van Dyke's unoccupied chair.

  Sandy arrived, just as breakfast was over, and sat down at the table to join everyone in having an extra cup of coffee. Bentley was hot on the trail of another possible cure, so he had remained at Eclipse. After their coffee, they all helped Opal clear the table and wash the dishes. As Everett put the last dry dish away, Sandy said, "I have a plan. Why don't you come into the library and let me tell you about it."

  They trooped into the library and took their customary seats, Mr. Van Dyke having to lift Louie onto his lap so he could sit down. Sandy stood by the fireplace. He'd gone over his plan with Bentley several times the night before, looking for flaws in it, but they h
adn't found any. Now, looking but at the hopeful faces of the people he'd come to care so much about, he worried that his plan was too naive or implausible to work. After all, what did he know about the world?

  As he opened his mouth to speak, Boom-Boom screamed, a high-pitched, frightened-child scream, and pointed to Louie in Mr. Van Dyke's lap. "He has Louie!" Boom-Boom cried. "And he's a cat molester!"

  Louie, scared awake by Boom-Boom's scream, jumped up and climbed Mr. Van Dyke's chest until he was pressed under his chin with his paws around the man's neck. Mr. Van Dyke cuddled Louie against him protectively and, though bright red in the face, said with dignity, "I am not and never have been a cat molester."

  Well, you could have heard a feather drop in the library then.

  "Why didn't you say so sooner?" Opal finally asked irritably.

  "I was too mad," Mr. Van Dyke said. "The first day I came here, or, rather, was brought here"—he stopped to clear his throat. His voice had a rusty, unused quality about it—"against my wishes, I should add, you asked me what I would like to be called. I told you, but you thought I'd said 'Cat molester,' and you told everyone to be careful with cats around me. I was so insulted. I, L. Barlow Van Dyke,"—he cleared his throat again—"a man of wealth and culture being referred to as a common cat molester. It was intolerable. I've always had a hot temper. My explosions, in fact, were one of the reasons my family put me in here, I suppose. I was determined not to lose my temper the minute I arrived; I figured that would only make things worse for me. So I thought I'd keep quiet until I got over being mad, and, well, at first it was kind of restful, and then it just got to be a habit."

  "What did you want to be called?" Lyle asked.

  Mr. Van Dyke cleared his throat again, but already his voice was much stronger and surer. "You know how I always wear this yachting cap? That's because I like to think of myself as captain of my fate. It's a sad joke, considering where I've ended up, but I still like wearing the cap. And my first name is Lester. So I wanted to be called Captain Lester."

  "Captain Lester?" Boom-Boom said. "Oh, I get it! If you say it fast it does sound like 'cat molester.' Well, gee whiz, I don't see what the fuss was all about."

  Mr. Van Dyke looked abashed. "It does seem silly now. But I must have been more ... distressed when I arrived than I realized. The way all of us were."

  "But aren't anymore," Sandy said. "Except for poor Eddy. I can't say I've really seen any improvement in him. But that's what my plan is all about. You know, Mr. Moreland, how you said nobody would listen to us because we're all a bunch of nuts—or incompetent, in my case. Well, I don't think we are anymore. So last night I called our family doctor, Dr. Malcolm, and asked him to come out to Walnut Manor with a colleague of his to examine all of us and certify us as sound in mind and body. Then we can bring our charges against the board and no one can dispute us. At least, not on those grounds." He paused and then went on. "And just because I'm so sure we're really all right, last night I faxed all the incriminating papers to the Senior Partner among all of Horatio's lawyers."

  He waited, breathless, for someone to tell him his plan was poppycock.

  "Wiener schnitzel!" Mr. Moreland cried. "That's genius! Then what?"

  "Well, I have another idea, too," Sandy said. "You'd better tell me if it will work."

  Just then they heard Sunnie yelling from upstairs, "Louie's missing! Is he anywhere near Mr. Van Dyke?"

  Boom-Boom ran across the hall to the foot of the stairs and yelled up, "He's in his lap. And he's fine. Mr. Van Dyke isn't a cat molester after all. He's just Captain Lester."

  "I don't know what that means," Sunnie called down, "but I'm sure somebody will explain it to me eventually." She paused. "Is everything all right down there?"

  "We're fine," Boom-Boom yelled. "Sandy has an idea. I can't keep yelling up the stairs, it hurts my throat. We'll tell you later."

  "All right," Sunnie said, and those two words sounded so lonely and disappointed and left out that everyone in the library got up in one movement (except for Dr. Waldemar who had to be awakened and Eddy who had to be carried) and went upstairs to the sickroom.

  There, Sandy explained his idea again—the one that Mr. Moreland had said was genius—and hoped he didn't look as proud and flattered as he felt. And then he explained his other idea.

  Mr. Moreland was at a loss for words. He had already used up genius on the previous idea, and this one was so much better that he didn't know what to call it Sunnie got her thesaurus out, and Mr. Moreland finally decided on original, creative, and inventive.

  Sandy was thrilled by this praise, and even more thrilled that Mr. Moreland and Captain Lester thought his second idea would work like a charm. But what he was waiting for was Sunnie's response. She said she loved the idea better than anything she had ever heard, but she still didn't look directly at him. Sandy wished he didn't care as much as he did.

  "We've still got a couple of problems," Opal said, bringing everyone down to earth with a thump. "One, Bart and Bernie are still trying to kill us, and two, our sleepers are still asleep. No matter how terrific Sandy's ideas are, they won't change those things."

  For the rest of the day, the inmates seesawed between elation about Sandy's ideas and deep discouragement about Opal's. It gave them an inkling of what it must have felt like to be Boom-Boom as he changed back and forth from child to adult.

  Bentley told them at dinnertime that he was getting close to a cure he thought had promise, and he told them he had analyzed the Pensa-Cola canister and had found no traces of Pensa-Cola syrup. In fact, no traces of anything. So the canister had either been delivered pristinely empty, which was unlikely, or it had contained something so volatile and evaporative, the way cyanosulfidioxinethonoxide was, that it had been left pristinely empty when the gas was gone.

  After a subdued dinner and a chapter of Treasure Island, they all went to bed. They needed a good night's sleep to be fresh for tomorrow, when Dr. Malcolm and his colleague Dr. Trinidad, the brilliant, world-famous psychiatrist, were coming to examine them.

  There is no more dependable way to ensure a restless night than to convince oneself that a good night's sleep is absolutely essential. Consequently, by the next morning, they were all gritty eyed and crabby from insufficient sleep.

  Dr. Malcolm and Dr. Trinidad, a regal dark-skinned woman with a melodic foreign accent, arrived right after breakfast and set to work.

  It took them all day, but they finally got everyone examined, and promised to deliver the results of all the tests in two days. That day was also when the meeting with Horatio's lawyers was scheduled, to get started on Sandy's second idea, as well as to decide what to do about the board of directors.

  Sandy invited the doctors to stay for dinner, but they declined. Dr. Malcolm whispered to Sandy as he left, "I've never spent a whole day with worse-tempered people. Are they always so peevish?"

  "Just Opal. She's worse lately because she's quit smoking. But the rest of us were all so nervous, we couldn't sleep last night and it's made us grouchy. I hope it won't influence our tests."

  "If grouchiness were an illness, there wouldn't be a soul on the streets; we'd all be in hospitals," Dr. Malcolm assured him. "But I hope you understand if we don't want to stay for dinner."

  "Of course," Sandy said. "I can't say I'm looking forward to it myself."

  It was a good thing Dr. Malcolm and Dr. Trinidad hadn't stayed for dinner: It was awful. Boom-Boom spilled his milk, and burst into tears when Opal scolded him more severely than was necessary. When Mr. Moreland told her so, she told him to mind his own business, if he could remember what it was. When Captain Lester came to Mr. Moreland's defense, Opal said she liked it better when he couldn't talk. Graham, Virgil, and Lyle were smart enough to keep their mouths shut, but their faces were rebellious and stormy. Everett muttered to himself.

  Sandy wished he were upstairs in the peaceful sickroom with Sunnie and his parents. He wished he were at Eclipse with Bentley, who was so hard at work on h
is cure that he'd decided to skip dinner. He wished he were anyplace but where he was, and he began to wonder if his second idea was such a good one after all.

  The next morning, after a night in which they all slept as if they'd been hit in the head with a club, they were their old selves again. Opal apologized to Mr. Moreland by saying she knew he remembered enough of his own business to mind it, and to Captain Lester by telling him that she was glad he could talk again and that eventually he might say something she wanted to listen to. To Boom-Boom she simply said she was sorry.

  Sandy's sleep had been disturbed at Eclipse by the sounds of Bentley prowling through the house. As far as Sandy knew, Bentley had been up most of the night, though when Sandy was ready to go to Walnut Manor, he found Bentley sprawled on the floor of the laboratory, sound asleep.

  Sandy bicycled to Walnut Manor, leaving the Daimler for Bentley in case he woke up in time for lunch.

  But lunchtime came and went with no Bentley. He'd never stayed away from Walnut Manor and Flossie for so long, and Sandy began to worry.

  The other inmates, Opal, and Dr. Waldemar headed outside for exercise, leaving Sandy, Mr. Moreland, and Captain Lester at the card table working on their plans, and Eddy lying by the fireplace.

  The front door burst open so violently, it hit the wall and bounced closed again.

  Sandy, Mr. Moreland, and Captain Lester jumped to their feet. Captain Lester grabbed the fireplace poker and Sandy grabbed the ash shovel. Mr. Moreland was left with only the little hearth broom for protection.

  The door opened more slowly this time, and Bentley came through it holding a jar filled with a black substance. Bentley's hair and clothes were disheveled, he had bags under his eyes, and his shoelaces were untied.

  Relieved, Sandy, Mr. Moreland, and Captain Lester put down their weapons. "What happened to you, man?" Mr. Moreland asked. "You look a wreck."

  "I feel a wreck," Bentley said. There was a wild light in his eyes, and Sandy wondered if all the work and the worry of the past months had driven him over the edge. "But I've got something"—he waved the jar—"that I think, I hope, might do it."