Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls (3 page)

“Permission to bring cargo aboard, sir?”

“Permission granted,” said Joe, helping Thomas yank the object free. It came over the edge with a clatter of wood on wood, rolled to Emmy's feet, and stopped, its small carved faces staring sightlessly.

“Wow! Remember this, Emmy?” Joe untied the cord from Miss Barmy's cane. “It'll be a perfect figurehead!”

Emmy stared at the little faces. Up here in the tree fort, as the sun moved over the carved surfaces with light and shadow, the cane looked different, somehow. The entwined hair looked more elaborately carved than she had ever noticed—almost like some kind of curving script—

“Hey!” Emmy leaned closer, tracing the wooden
strands with her finger. “These are letters … There's a ‘P,' and an ‘R'…”

“I … S … C …” said Joe, moving along the wooden strands with his finger. “I … L … It's a name!
Priscilla
.”

Emmy looked up. “That's old William Addison's daughter,” she said slowly. “The one who died, or drowned, or something …”

Joe nodded soberly. “This one's Ana,” he said, tracing the hair of another tiny face. “And … Berit. And Lisa.”

“The one next to her is Lee,” said Emmy, turning the cane gently. “And this one—the littlest—is Merry.”

Thomas and the Rat moved in closer. There was a long silence.

“I wonder where they all are now,” said Thomas.

T
HE AFTERNOON SUN SLANTED
through the dusty air of the attic room. The window was dirty, but the rays stamped the wooden floor with gold, and a long trapezoid of light stretched out to touch a small girl with her back to the wall.

She was
very
small—about four inches high—with long brown hair and watchful eyes. Her name was Ana, and as the sun warmed her bare legs, she looked up and quickly pushed a bundle of knotted shoelaces under one of the long shelves that lined the room from floor to ceiling. “Almost time,” she called, clapping her hands twice.

Light footfalls stirred the dust as three tiny girls, clothed like Ana in handkerchief dresses of ragged white, came running from various parts of the vast room. Ana reached up to unhook a shoelace ladder from the shelf above, and the girls began to climb.

“Into the box with you,” said Ana, giving an encouraging smile to the youngest, who hung back. “Where's Berit?”

“I dunno.” The child put a ragged piece of cloth to her cheek and smoothed it with her thumb. “Ana, I don't
like
the box.”

“No one likes the box, Merry.” Ana gave the child a boost up the knotted ladder. “But Miss Barmy moved into our old house, and you wouldn't want to live with her, would you?”

Merry shook her head vigorously.

“All right, then. You try to be brave, and I'll tell you a story tonight.”

“We're
usually
brave,” said a voice from within the box. “Right, Lee?”

“Right, Lisa,” said another voice, sounding identical to the first.

The floor vibrated slightly. Ana turned, listening, and the voices fell silent.

There was another vibration, and another, as if a giant were stepping heavily somewhere outside the room. Ana cupped her hands around her mouth. “Berit!” she called, her voice anxious. “He's early!”

There was a flurry of activity in a dim, far corner, and a small white figure ducked out from beneath a pile of clutter.

“Run!” cried Ana as the floor shook again.

The tiny girl pelted across the floor. Her arms and
legs pumped strongly, her shapeless dress flew out behind her like a flag, and with a last burst of speed Berit crossed the patch of sunlight, skidded against the shelf, and leaped for the ladder.

There was a shuffling at the door and the metallic sound of a key scraping in a lock. Ana hastily climbed to the second shelf, hooked the shoestring ladder safely out of sight, and flung a leg over the side of a box marked “Wingtips, Black Leather, Size 11B.”

The doorknob turned. The door to the attic room creaked open. Ana scrambled inside the cardboard box and pulled the lid over their heads with a paper-clip hook.

All was suddenly dark. There was a smell of shoes. Berit's gasps were loud in the space as she tried to catch her breath.

“All right, everyone,” Ana said. “Time to be brave. And don't forget to act stupid.”

The girls fell back as the box slid out with a jerk. There was a horrible swaying sensation as it was carried through the air, then downward in a series of bumps.

“Is h-he g-going to dr-drop us?” Merry clutched Ana's arm.

“H-he has-n't dropped u-us yet,” whispered Ana, “s-so don't w-worry.”

“I-I'm n-not wor-ried,” said Lisa. “Are y-you w-worried, L-Lee?”

“Hush!” said Ana, as the bumping stopped.

The box slid onto a hard surface, and was still. One by one, the girls reached for one another's hands. A reedy, discontented voice from somewhere outside the box said, “Where are my dollies?”

The lid came off in a blaze of light. The girls, blinking, looked up at two watery eyes and a red-veined nose in a huge, chubby face. A thin white fuzz ringed the sides and top of the old man's head, giving him the appearance of a large and amiable powder puff.

“Here they are, my little daffodil,” he said, giving the girls a gigantic wink. “All ready to play with Mrs. B.”

“Bring them here,” said the voice peevishly. “I want to play beauty parlor. Where's that one with the long hair?”

Ana suppressed a violent shudder as she was lifted out of the box and set before a scrawny woman with a neck like a chicken.

The woman poked Ana in the stomach with a yellowed finger. “Say something!”

Ana pasted a dim-witted expression on her face. “Hello-my-name-is-Ana,” she said in a monotone.

“Hee-hee!” tittered the woman. “She's not very bright, is she?”

“But they like to play with you, Addie,” said the old man, who had sat down under a bright lamp and taken out a bit of wood to whittle.

“You think so?” The woman pulled Ana's hair into a tight ponytail and let the rubber band snap.

Ana pretended she was someplace else. She gazed at the dollhouse that used to be their home, now sitting in splendid isolation on a table by the front window of Mr. and Mrs. B's walk-up apartment. She could see tiny rooms full of delicately carved furniture, and the grand curving staircase down which Merry had loved to slide. It had been a pretty place to live, in spite of the sign over the door that read “Home for Troubled Girls.” Mr. B had created a little world for them on the table—a park with miniature trees, an edged mirror for skating in the winter, a slide and swings arranged on the green velvet “lawn” for summer—but it was still a prison, and on the
whole Ana preferred the attic. In the attic, they had a lot more freedom.

“This one's
boring
,” said the woman petulantly, slapping down the brush on the tray so that Ana jumped. “Where's that feisty one? She's more amusing. Or the little one. Sometimes she even cries.”

“They're
all
boring, Mother,” said a voice from the dollhouse. A piebald rat, white and brown and tan, stepped from the shadows, flicked on the tiny spotlight that shone on the central staircase, and paused a moment, her tail looped elegantly over one paw. “Why don't you get some use out of them for a change? Have them do your nails.”

Ana stiffened and turned away. She didn't look at the piebald rat more than was absolutely necessary. Miss Barmy had been horrible when she'd been Ana's nanny, long ago and in another place entirely; her transformation into a rat hadn't improved her.

Mr. B fumbled with the knife in his hands, and set down his carving. “But nail polish might be dangerous. All those toxic chemicals—”

“Nonsense,” said Miss Barmy. “Nail polish can't possibly hurt Mother; she's used it her whole life.”

“I meant for the little girls,” Mr. B said apologetically. “They're so small … and they'd have to breathe the stuff …”

“Oh, the
girls
,” said Miss Barmy coldly. “Really, Father, I don't understand you at all. You're not thinking of
Mother
. She would so enjoy a pretty, new color …” She looked at Mrs. B consideringly. “The girls could dig out your earwax, too.”

Mrs. B tilted her head to one side and consulted a pocket mirror. “I do have a few nose hairs that need clipping.”

A low whimper came from the vicinity of the shoebox. Ana looked up at Mrs. B's dark and yawning nostrils in horror.

A sudden scuffling came from somewhere near Mr. B's feet. Ana peered over the edge of the tray and saw a hole in the baseboard.

It was a new hole; she could see fresh tooth marks all around the edges. It hadn't been there when the girls had lived in the dollhouse, or Ana would have noticed it.

“Paper!” bawled a voice from the hole, and a sleek striped rodent crawled out, stood up, and adjusted the sling on its shoulder.

“Well? Toss it up!” commanded Miss Barmy from the table.

“I'm collecting,” the gopher said, flipping open a small notebook. “You owe me for one week's delivery of the
Rodent City Register
. Five seeds, please.”

“Seeds? What kind of seeds?” Miss Barmy glanced at her father and jerked her head sharply. Mr. B got up and ambled to the kitchen.

The gopher shrugged. “Oh, pumpkin, apple, sunflower—the usual.”

“We don't have any pumpkin,” called Mr. B, peering into a cupboard. “Caraway we've got. Sesame, yes. Anise, dill—”

“Would any of those do?” Miss Barmy interrupted.

“Cumin, celery, mustard, poppyseed …”

The gopher looked startled. “Those are rare seeds, ma'am. Very valuable. Just plain pumpkin is good enough for me.”

Miss Barmy's eyes widened. Then slowly, greedily, she smiled, her furry cheeks bunching until her eyes were squeezed almost shut. “Father,” she called, “sesame seeds, please.”

“But, ma'am,” the gopher protested, wagging his head, “it's too much—really it is.”

Miss Barmy, still smiling, looked down over the table edge. “Count out
six
seeds,” she said as Mr. B returned with a jar. “Our gopher friend”—she glanced at his name badge—“Gomer works hard. He deserves a big tip.”

“Oh, ma'am!” cried the gopher. “You're too kind!”

“Perhaps I
am
too softhearted,” said Miss Barmy. “I'm told it's my only flaw.”

Gomer's beady eyes were joyful. “Now I can rent my tuxedo for the party!”

“What party?” Miss Barmy's voice cooled ever so slightly.

“The big party at Rodent City. There's a notice on page three. I'm—I'm sure you'll be invited, ma'am …” Gomer trailed off, flushing, and dived back into the gnawed hole in the wall. “Thanks awfully!” His voice floated out, dwindling, and he was gone.

Miss Barmy leaned back in her chaise longue, crossed her hind legs at the ankles, and rustled the
Rodent City Register
discontentedly. “I don't know why I wasn't invited,” she muttered, reading the notice. “It's a reception to honor Professor Capybara—
I
know Professor Capybara. They'll have music, and
dancing—I'm a
marvelous
dancer. Now that I'm a rodent, I really can't think why I wasn't included.”

“But, Janie,” began Mr. B, “didn't you tell me you and Cheswick tried to get
rid
of Professor Capybara?”

“That was
long
ago!” said Miss Barmy, waving a dismissive paw. “I can't understand why people insist on holding a grudge forever.”

“It wasn't
that
long ago,” Mr. B said hesitantly. “Just a few weeks, if I remem—”

“Chessie!” cried Miss Barmy, sitting up with a jerk as a weary black rat shuffled into the room, dragging a rucksack by the strap. “Let me see
everything
you got!”

It was one of their lucky nights, Ana thought as Mr. B put her back in the shoebox. Miss Barmy and Mrs. B had no interest in anything but the outfits Cheswick had brought, so Mr. B carried the girls to the kitchen, where he fed them bread and milk in bottle caps. Then he filled a cereal bowl with warm water, chipped a corner off a bar of soap, and laid out bits of rag for washcloths and towels.

“I'll come back in a while to take you to the attic.” He looked at them mournfully. “If only you had been
more lively, Addie might have played with you longer.”

“If only,” Ana said politely.

“Yeah,” said Berit. “If only.”

Mr. B sighed. “You could try harder. You could sing, or dance, or … do somersaults?”

Silence greeted this suggestion.

“If you were more entertaining, she'd let me take you out of the box more often. You can't
like
staying cooped up all day in a shoebox.”

Merry shook her head. “But we
don't
—”

“—really mind it,” Ana interrupted, as Berit clapped a hand over Merry's mouth and pretended to tickle her.

Mr. B ran his hand through his wispy hair. “Of course, we have plenty of other boxes, since we live right above my shoe shop. I can put you in a new one, if you're tired of the old. How about a nice leather pump from 1965? We have lovely colors, electric blue and alligator green and a really striking mustard …” He trailed off, looking apologetic. “It's not as nice as the dollhouse, but we couldn't ask Jane to share. I mean, even if she
is
a little furry, she's still our daughter, whereas you're just—”

There was an awkward pause.

“The Troubled Girls?” said Ana.

The old man looked embarrassed. “I'd better be getting back,” he said hurriedly, and shambled off.

“Me, I'm getting more troubled every day,” said Berit through her teeth. “I'd like to put that old fool in a shoebox and see how
he
likes it.”

“Well, it's nearly over for tonight,” said Ana. “Merry, let me undo your belt—you always get the shoelace in a knot. There, hop into the bath. And, Merry, don't
ever
let them know we can get out of the box by ourselves. They'd only shut us up in something harder to escape.”

“Oh,” said Merry, splashing in the bowl. “I forgot.”

Bathed and fed, Ana and the girls watched through the half-open door as they waited to be put back in the box. Miss Barmy had gotten to the point of trying things on, but she seemed to be having trouble with the fit.

“I don't know what kind of measurements these dolls have,” she snarled, jamming her hindquarters into the skirt of a silvery dress, “but they can't be healthy! Any rat that could fit into this evening gown would have to be
anorexic.
”

“
You're
certainly healthy,” said Cheswick, struggling to zip the back.

“I'm big-boned,” Miss Barmy gasped, writhing as she wedged her ample chest into the silver bodice. She popped three buttons and split each sleeve as she shoved in her furry arms, but at last the dress was on—in a manner of speaking.

“Lovely!” she said, breathing with difficulty as she looked in the mirror. “But I might just need a seamstress. Where's that girl? Yes, that's right—bring me the oldest one. Surely
someone
must have taught her to use a needle and thread.”