Alice At The Home Front (12 page)

“Oh! I see.” The nurse consulted her chart. “Yes, here he is, but he’s not supposed to have visitors yet, and besides, it’s late.”

“I just need to leave this for him,” showing her the overnight bag.

“At the desk would be fine.”

Alice scrunched up her face to look pitiful. “I promised I’d get it to him now, tonight.”

“We-e-ell,” said the nurse.

Good, she’s taking pity
, thought Alice.

“No more than two minutes. Room 255. And you need to get back to your room, Miss Ophelia.”

Alice found the door and crept in on tiptoe.

“Psssst! Jimmy!” She said, pulling aside the curtains. “Are you really alive?”

Jimmy slowly raised his head. He seemed to have trouble seeing. Then he focused on Alice in her bathrobe and head bandage. She was holding a thermos in one hand and reaching for a hot water bottle with the other.

“Oh!” she said as she almost dropped it on his feet. Slowly, a smile crept over Jimmy’s face, and he started to laugh. He began laughing and laughing and then winced, because something must have hurt. Alice didn’t see what was so funny.

“You could thank me for the hot water bottle, at least,” she said, “and all the trouble I went to.”

“Oh, thanks, Alice,” he said, but his voice sounded rusty and then became a whisper, “Thanks a billion, ol’ thing.”

Alice beamed.

He collapsed back on his pillow, and Alice could see he was exhausted.

“Okay,” she said, placing the thermos on his bedside table and then covering his legs with Gramp’s furry old jacket. “That should warm you up.” She looked around. “They haven’t given you a thing for the cold! Not even a hot water bottle!” she sniffed. “Want some tea?”

Alice sat beside him for a few minutes, and then when he didn’t answer, she said, “Guess I’ll be on my way.” She suddenly remembered that Mother would find her missing if she didn’t get back lickety-split.

Jimmy opened his eyes, pointed to the bandage on her head, and cracked a grin.

“I’ll take it off before getting on the trolley,” she said. “Don’t worry,”

He smiled, but his eyes were closing.

She tiptoed out of the room down to the nearest restroom, changed quickly, and caught the next trolley home. When she got there, she snuck in the back door, and there was Bagheera waiting for her. Better Bagheera than Mother. She had to clasp her hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t meow.

When Alice came back from school on Wednesday, Mother was holding Gramp’s furry jacket up by the collar.

“Guess what Mrs. Brownell found in Jimmy’s room, along with my thermos and Gramp’s hot-water bottle.”

Alice saw Mother struggling to keep from smiling, which told her she’d get through this one without a screaming session.

“She brought all that over here? Nice of her to return it,” said Alice.

“I won’t ask you how it got there. I’ll just remind you once more in clear and emphatic terms:
do not bother Jimmy
. I was so embarrassed when Mrs. Brownell came with these things.”

That’s it
, thought Alice,
that’s what’s bothering her—being embarrassed.
“Okay, Mother, I’ll call her up and apologize. I know she’ll forgive me.”

“Well, at least you made him laugh. He told his mother all about it—how you came in your bathrobe. Alice, do apologize. But do
not
approach him again until he is well, do you hear me?”

Gramp, who had been reading the paper through all this, looked up. “It was an old jacket, Maddy. You didn’t have to make a fuss.”

Two weeks later, when Jimmy came home from the hospital, Mother told Alice that Mrs. Brownell wanted to have a meeting at the house with Jimmy and the CAP people to find out exactly what had happened. According to CAP reports, he should not have made it through after having been exposed to the elements for that long. Mother and Gramp were going along too, because, as a yachtsman, Gramp could help explain the conditions. Mr. Parker and Mr. Hopkins would be there to report back to CAP, and Alice could join them so long as she did not to speak out of turn.

Alice couldn’t wait and barely slept all the night before, dreaming of rescues at sea. For the occasion, Alice had brought sugar and butter down to Elsie’s, so she would make some fudge for Alice to take to the meeting.

“I’ll give you my month’s allowance if you can get it made by five o’clock this afternoon.”

“You should have given me more notice. I have my violin lesson at three.”

“I didn’t know about it until today,” said Alice. “How about one and a half months’ allowance?”

“It’s not polite to bribe people,” said Elsie.

“It is if it’s really important. Like telling a lie—it turns white if it’s really important. Then it’s called a white lie.”

“It turns white?”

Elsie was skeptical but finally agreed, and Alice rode her bike lickety-split down to get the fudge at five o’clock and back in time for the meeting.

At the door, Alice presented the fudge to Mrs. Brownell, who thanked her, surprised.

Mother mumbled to her on the side, “So that’s where the butter went. I hope you like corn oil on your toast.”

Everyone was already seated around the living room, with Jimmy lying flat on the couch, four gigantic pillows propping him up. He’d lost a lot of weight, thought Alice. She found an ottoman and sat on that (better than a footstool, she thought). Mr. Hopkins sat in the wing-back chair and took charge.

“Welcome everyone to Jimmy’s recovery and to this meeting.” (There was clapping all around.) “We are here to determine, with Jimmy’s help, what happened to him and how he survived. Jimmy, why don’t you start us off by telling us what you remember?”

“That’s the problem, Sir, my mind isn’t too clear. That morning I was operating as a sub chaser, heading offshore about fifty miles out. The wind shifted, and I found myself in the midst of a nor’easter, which they hadn’t predicted in the morning report. Personally, I’m scared of nor’easters.”

Most everybody smiled; some nodded seriously in agreement. Alice could tell they all felt the same way.

“I thought to be safe I’d better head back, but the storm overtook me.” He frowned, thinking back. “I remember struggling to keep the plane level, and then the visibility faded completely. I began to get confused, because I couldn’t orient myself, and finally I couldn’t tell up from down. I mean, whether the sea was below me or above me. That’s when I panicked.”

Jimmy paused and took a breath. Alice could see how drawn his face was.

“A common problem in that kind of storm, especially in a Piper,” said Mr. Hopkins. “Take your time, Jimmy.”

“I had no idea where I was. I knew I wasn’t far from land, but with all the rivers and estuaries in the bay, there was no telling where I might land if I tried.”

Jimmy stopped a minute to get his strength back.
He’s still weak
, thought Alice.
Good thing I brought some fudge.

“So what did you
do
?” Alice prompted, and Mother said, “Shush.”

“I circled round and around trying to get my bearings and trying to guess where to land. I was using up gas so fast that I knew I would have to make up my mind. So I began the descent. Through the rain and gunk on the windshield, I thought I saw a little stretch of land, and then it seemed to disappear. My plane hit the water instead, and I bailed out as fast as I could in case it sank. Then I started swimming hard and fast so as not to freeze, hoping to reach that bit of land but without a clue which direction it was in or if I’d really seen it. I just kept going.

“I finally hit the shore. A little stretch of sand about the size of a bath mat (Alice heard laughter around the room) and dragged myself up on it.”

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, was Spar Island,” interrupted Mr. Hopkins.

“Why, I’ve never heard of it!” said Mrs. Brownell. “I thought I knew all the islands around Narragansett and Mt. Hope Bay: Conanicut, Prudence, Block Island … there’s a lot of them, but I never heard of Spar Island.”

“That’s because, Mrs. B, it’s about the size of your living room and dining room combined, and that’s at low tide,” said Mr. Hopkins.

“Yup,” said Gramp. “I remember it. Used to aim for it in the Merry Maiden when I was a young’un, sailin’ out there with a pretty girl at the bow. He, he. Instead of runnin’ outa gas like with a car, I’d get becalmed and have to land! Worked just as well.”

Mother looked at him wide-eyed.

One of the men said, “Attaboy, John. Always up to tricks.”

Alice couldn’t figure it out.

“You have to imagine it. I ain’t got a map here,” said Mr. Parker. “Suppose this whole living room was Mt. Hope Bay. Now in the middle of the room would be Spar Island, about the size of Alice’s left shoe, there. It’s smack in the middle of the bay if you can find it on a map, which usually you can’t. Sometimes part of it is under water, dependin’ on the season, but most of the time the tip’s showin’. Little bunch of eel grass, some flotsam and gypsum. Go on now, Jimmy. Sorry for interruptin’. Tell us how you survived on the bath mat.” He pulled out a pipe and lit it.

Most everybody smiled, and Mrs. Brownell heaved a sigh.

“I lay there for I don’t know how long. Then I looked around, and I could just make out the hull of a rowboat upside down, all busted on one side, so, of course, I crawled in there for shelter. In the bow there was a bit of tarp covered with sand. I brushed it off and rolled myself up in that. The next thing I found, luckily, was an old rusty tin with some brackish water in it, so I took little sips. Then I dug it into the sand, so it would stay steady from the gusts and collect the rain from the occasional showers. The hail almost tipped the darn thing over more than once. I was freezing, and there was nothing I could do about that except wrap myself in the tarp, which was cold and slimy. I must have slept even so.”

Mr. Parker interrupted again. “So what did you eat then, Jimmy? All those days, you must have eaten something? Couldn’t have caught bluefish without tackle, and pike is too scarce.”

“That was the miracle, Sir. It must’ve been a miracle, because a couple of times a day the sand around me would be covered with flounders! Baby fish!” He looked at Alice. “I couldn’t believe it, you know. Like manna in the Bible, but instead of dropping from heaven, they washed up on shore. So I ate them as best I could. I just had to. There was nothing else. Where they all came from, I didn’t have the energy to guess.”

“Ugh!” cried Alice, “I can’t imagine it—cold and raw and wiggly, with the eye looking up at you!”

Mother gave her a withering look.

Mr. Hopkins was taking notes and needed a minute or two to catch up.

Mr. Parker tamped ashes from his pipe into the ashtray and filled it up again. “Durham Pipe Tobacco,” Alice read to herself.

Jimmy went on. “The storm would die down for a bit, and I’d get some sleep. Then it’d start up again. Gosh! It must have been days like that! And sure enough, the flounders kept coming up. But only juveniles, for some reason. I don’t think I’ll ever eat another one, though.” He looked at Alice. “Even if it’s cooked. In the end, I was more scared of freezin’ to death than of starving to death. But then, I must have passed out for good, ’cause I don’t remember nothin’ after that, I’ll confess.”

“Anything,” corrected Alice.

This time Mr. Hopkins spoke up. “Maybe I can clear up the mystery, seeing as how I was working on the preservation and ecology of the bay awhile back.”

Everybody grew quiet.

“You know, flounders have always been the main edible fish around these parts, and the most plentiful. Well, they began disappearing a few years ago, and we didn’t know why.”

“I know why!” exclaimed Alice. “It’s because of pollution—all that gunk running down the rivers into the bay from Lee’s River and Cole’s River, and now the bottom creatures have taken over, and all the fish are swimming away to a nicer place.”

Mother gave her a stern look that held a little admiration behind it.

“You’re probably right, Alice. And that’s why ecologists are tracking them—the flounders—making maps and studying their routes. We’ve found their habitat is now mainly in the estuaries and mouths of the rivers. The fishermen have given up on them. They have almost completely disappeared from the bay except for one tiny area. And can you guess where that is?” He looked at Alice.

“Spar Island?”

“Yep, right you are! Around Spar Island there is a permanent nursery of young flounders, hundreds and thousands of them. No place else in the whole bay. That’s why, Jimmy, with the storm, it was natural that they would be washed ashore, and lucky for you, by gumbo. They saved your life.”

“A toast to the baby flounders, then!” announced Mrs. Brownell, offering a choice of tea or Postum (instead of coffee that took so many ration stamps). “A toast to Spar Island!”

Alice took her plate of fudge from the kitchen, unwrapped it, and went from one person to the next, whispering, “Don’t take more than two, because they’re mainly for Jimmy to give him back his strength.”

And when she got to him, she said, “Eat plenty of these. They’ll rid you of the taste of that raw, live, disgusting flounder!” And he laughed.

But Alice could see it still hurt him to use his fingers, so she picked up a few pieces and placed them on a napkin for him, and he smiled and winked. “Bright girl, Alice. Good to see ye again.”

And Alice let the warm rush of his words flow over her, like a tropical wave, and she could swear she’d never felt so happy.

Chapter Fifteen
 

Victory Gardens
 

“Be
quiet
!” Alice ordered as she pulled the bedcovers over her head. What a racket. P-e-e-e-p! P-e-e-e-p! Chirp! Chirp! Alice threw down the covers and let out a loud “
Shhhhhh
!” But the spring warbler outside her window was not going to take orders from a little girl, she realized soon enough. The sun—a bright, warm sun, not a cold, make-believe winter sun—was streaming in through her window. Nobody turns it on like a bedside reading light, thought Alice. It just comes on when it wants to. Mother Nature never seems to know which season it is. According to the calendar, it was not even spring yet. Thank God Jimmy was already on his feet and back to work. Alice had run into Moses on Thayer Street last Tuesday and had asked him, “So what do you hear from Jimmy?”