The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody (12 page)

Before I can get all the dishes washed, someone knocks on the front door.

Mrs Potter sips her tea, looking at the hole she banged in the wall. Mrs Swift rushes in from the library, a book in her hand. ‘It’s that horrid Mrs Marsh.’

I give Peabody a stern look. ‘That was a very bad thing to do,’ I tell him, reminding him about the chickens. Peabody jumps up from his cosy spot at Mrs Potter’s feet and races for the front door.

‘We don’t need trouble like this.’ Mrs Swift drops into one of the chairs. ‘Bee, go open the door. Tell her we are not home. Find out what she wants. You must get her to go away. We can’t have our plans bothered like this.’

‘I’m not opening the door,’ I say, wiping my hands on a towel and peeking down the hall.

Mrs Marsh is trying to look through one of the windows.

‘Yoo-hoo,’ she calls. ‘Yoo-hoo.’

‘I said, I’m not doing it.’ I look behind me to see why Mrs Potter and Mrs Swift are not answering me, but they have already left the room.

Peabody barks at the door.

‘I know you’re in there,’ Mrs Marsh calls through the open window. ‘I have news. Now open the door.’

I look behind me one more time to see where Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter have gone and I cover my face with my hair and walk down the hall. Peabody sits growling softly while I open the door.

‘What on earth took you so long, child?’ Mrs Marsh is holding a letter in her hand.

Peabody barks as soon as he sees her. He raises up the fur on the back of his neck and howls.

Mrs Marsh takes a step back. ‘Well, he’s no friendlier than the last time I saw him, is he?’

‘Shush,’ I tell Peabody, picking him up. But he slips out of my arms and jumps in front of me and barks furiously.

‘Well, I have never met a more disagreeable dog.’

‘Peabody, will you knock it off?’ I scoop him up and I forget all about the diamond on my cheek and my hair falls away.

Mrs Marsh is staring at my face. I stuff Peabody under my arm. I fling my hair across my face and hold it tight with one hand. I hold Peabody with the other.

‘I need to speak with your aunts. Right this minute.’

‘My aunts were just here,’ I say slowly. ‘Mrs Potter? Mrs Swift?’

‘You call your aunts by their formal names?’

Peabody wiggles himself out of my clutches, looks at
Mrs Marsh and barks.

‘Shut up, Peabody,’ I say, trying to keep him and my hair under control.

‘Well, I am an up-front kind of woman. I’ve come to talk with your aunts directly.’ With that she steps inside the door.

This is more than Peabody can stand. He barks so furiously he flips himself out of my grasp, jumps to the floor, slips, falls over, stands up and barks louder.

Mrs Marsh takes another step forward. Peabody barks louder. She takes another step and is looking into the parlour and at the little lace cloths on all the chairs and then into the library, where Mrs Swift left her books on the desk. Peabody howls. I am no longer telling him to stop, because I do not want her in the house. But she takes another step and then another, and each time she does I back up, and she looks up the stairs. Peabody backs up and barks again and again and again.

‘I will introduce myself to your aunts.’

She kicks at Peabody, but he scurries out of her way and narrows his eyes and howls. There is a bustling in the kitchen and a pot crashes to the floor.

Mrs Marsh looks at me for a second, and then she straightens her back and marches down the hall.

‘Yoo-hoo,’ she calls. ‘Is anybody home?’

Peabody whines. I scoop him up and follow Mrs Marsh.

The kitchen is empty. The back door is open. Mrs Marsh turns, an eyebrow raised. She searches my face for lying. ‘I thought you said they were home.’

‘They were,’ I say miserably.

‘Are you making a fool of me, child?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Very well,’ says Mrs Marsh, walking back to the parlour and dropping onto the plump sofa. ‘I’ll wait.’

I look at Peabody. Peabody looks at me.

‘Come sit and wait with me, child.’ Mrs Marsh pats at the sofa. Her voice is strained.

I do not sit on the sofa with her. I sit across from her. Peabody jumps up on the chair with me and watches Mrs Marsh. He growls. ‘Stop that,’ I tell him.

Mrs Marsh sits back on the sofa, looking down her long nose at Peabody and me.

Peabody barks.

‘Shush,’ I say again.

‘Where is that pig?’

‘Outside,’ I whisper.

The early September sun is beating through the window and soon I am very hot. Little drops of sweat form along my hairline and down my back. Mrs Marsh pulls a handkerchief from inside her dress and takes off her sun hat and pats the back of her neck.

I get up and open the windows as wide as they will go and I make quite a fuss over pretending I am looking up and down the street for Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter.

‘Golly, I do not know where they are,’ I tell her as I am
rearranging a curtain so it does not wrinkle.

‘Is that so?’ Mrs Marsh begins to tap her foot and I watch it rise and fall, rise and fall, rise and fall, as if she is playing a trumpet and keeping time, but what she is really doing is waiting to prove I am a lying little fool.

Peabody watches Mrs Marsh’s foot go up and down, up and down.

‘I would like some tea. Would you kindly heat some water? And while you are fixing it, please tell your aunts that I would very much like a word with them. I have received an important letter from the lawyer who represents this house.’

A few minutes later I carry two cups of tea into the parlour. I set them down on the table beside the sofa, being careful to keep my cheek turned away from Mrs Marsh. She picks up the cup without saying thank you and stirs the tea with the little spoon I put inside the cup.

‘Is there any milk?’

‘I’m sorry. We are out of milk.’

‘At least some sugar?’

I shake my head. ‘It was hard as a rock. We gave it to Peabody.’

‘You gave that dog your sugar? When it is rationed?’ She looks at me as if I am a little touched in the head.

She takes a sip and puts her cup down. ‘I can’t drink tea without milk and sugar.’

I am careful not to smile. Maybe she’ll leave.

‘Well, there doesn’t appear to be anybody here,’ she
says, standing up. ‘Are you living here by yourself, child?’

‘No,’ I say quickly. I lift Peabody into my arms. ‘They were here all morning. I don’t know where they are now. Mrs Swift has been working on her autobiography.’ I point at the library.

Mrs Marsh looks in and her eyes pass over the desk and all the open books and the china inkwell and pen. ‘Well, please tell your aunts that I would like to meet with them, go over things, that sort of thing. I’ll see my way out.’

She opens the door and before leaving turns back to me. ‘And the man who owns this house has just died. Rest his soul. I am sure if he could speak he would tell me he had no idea there was a girl and a dog
and a pig
living here all alone.’ She takes another look at Peabody. ‘And kindly keep that dog away from my chickens.’

Then she walks out the door and I stumble into the library and fall onto the sofa. Peabody jumps onto my lap and circles until he finds just the right spot. My stomach growls.

‘Phew,’ says Mrs Potter, walking into the room with a cup of tea in her hands.

‘Where did you go?’ I snap.

She sets her tea on the table and ties her orange flappy hat. ‘Come on, Beatrice. Let’s go have a look at that pig.’

I know she is just trying to butter me up. But I follow her anyway.

‘Do you mean to tell me any girl can go to school?’ Mrs Potter is sipping weak tea with milk the next morning. She likes three spoons of honey in each cup now.

I look up at her. ‘Of course,’ I say, taking a big bite of pie. ‘If you like school, which I don’t.’ I roll my eyes.

‘So you’ve been?’ Mrs Swift asks, holding her teacup in mid-air.

‘Well, no. Pauline taught me to read and do math,’ I say quickly.

‘Humph,’ says Mrs Swift sharply. ‘How would you know what it’s like if you’ve never been?’

Mrs Potter cuts in: ‘And after high school a girl can go to any college she chooses?’

‘Of course she can.’ Mrs Swift leans forward. ‘You’ll remember I was the first woman to graduate from college in this state.’

I look at her. I have never thought much about school. Pauline taught me to read in the back of our hauling truck so I wouldn’t have to sit in a classroom with pupils who wanted a look at my diamond. I take a bite of the Rumford honey cake. The recipe called for a full cup of
honey and it is very sweet.

‘Well then. That answers that,’ Mrs Swift says, looking at Mrs Potter. ‘Beatrice shall go to school.’

‘Oh no,’ I say, pulling my hair over my diamond. ‘I will be just fine here with all the books in the library.’ I pull my cookbook closer and point to the mocha honey cake. ‘I read just fine.’

Mrs Swift takes another sip of tea. Peabody has jumped onto Mrs Potter’s lap and she is feeding him tea biscuits.

‘On the day I was born,’ Mrs Swift says, ‘my mama took one look at me and said, “Oh dear, I am sorry it is a girl. A girl’s life is so hard.”’

Mrs Swift takes another sip of tea. ‘Things shall be different for you, Beatrice, which is why you shall go to school.’

‘I’m not going to school.’ I roll my eyes at Peabody, but he doesn’t see me because he is licking the last of the biscuits.

‘You will go to school if you want to keep living here,’ says Mrs Swift, waiting for me to refill her tea. ‘And you will wear a frock.’

A frock? I do not bother with her tea. I clomp outside, telling Peabody he better follow me or else. He is having trouble lately deciding who he likes more: me or Mrs Potter with the biscuits.

The last of the French toast still sits in the bottom of Cordelia’s food bucket, where it is surrounded by apple peels, eggshells, onion skins and a large dollop of yesterday’s oatmeal.

I open the gate for Peabody and he hurries into the shed. I run close behind.

Inside, Cordelia lies on her belly, her snout resting on her front legs. She watches a bumblebee. She doesn’t look at us and she doesn’t flick her curled tail.

‘What is the matter with you, Cordelia?’ I kneel down beside her and rub her neck and all along her face and between her ears. She picks her head up for a minute and then plops it down and grunts.

Peabody licks her split ear. There is mud on her belly and I wipe that off and also more manure sticking to her leg. I sit back on my heels and watch her.

Her straw is clean. Pigs never use their sleeping spot for a toilet, not if they have enough room. Pigs also like to eat. So there is something the matter when a pig doesn’t eat. I try to remember if there was something that Bobby fed the piglets other than dried-out hot dogs and uneaten
honey buns and gone-by apples.

Then I remember the corn. Bobby always had corn to get them to run to the finish line and he always had some in his pocket, which he handed out in little nibbles. That’s how he trained them so well. Corn.

‘Do you want corn?’ I whisper, scratching her along her back and up around her ears, but she barely notices.

I check and make sure Cordelia has enough water by her food bucket and then jump over the fence. Mrs Swift is working on her autobiography and Mrs Potter is napping on the sofa.

‘My pig is doing awful poorly. Can we go buy her some corn?’

‘No,’ says Mrs Swift. She is writing very fast and doesn’t bother looking up. ‘That pig is fine on table scraps, same as we always fed our pigs. Now, shoo. I have a lot of work.’

Mrs Potter opens an eye, then the other, and frowns at Mrs Swift. ‘Is your little pig worse than when I saw her?’ she says, looking at me.

‘Yes, she won’t get up. She just lies on her straw. She didn’t eat her French toast.’

‘Humph,’ says Mrs Swift. ‘A pig that doesn’t like French toast is spoiled.’

‘Does she drink her water?’ asks Mrs Potter.

‘I don’t think so.’ My eyes fill.

‘Well, we are not buying that pig special food,’ says Mrs Swift, finally looking up. ‘I never wanted a pig in the
first place.’ She frowns at Mrs Potter. ‘I told you a pig was a very bad idea.’

‘Oh, come now. The child loves the pig.’ Mrs Potter reaches out to me, wanting me to sit with her on the sofa. I flop down and let her run her fingers through my hair and pull me close. I like the way her shawl smells like a dresser drawer that hasn’t been opened in a long while.

Mrs Swift bends over her notebook and scribbles. She dips her pen into her ink bottle and keeps writing.

I breathe deeply to hold back tears. ‘If you take me to get corn for my pig,’ I whisper, ‘I will go to school.’

Mrs Potter claps her hands. ‘That settles it.’

Mrs Swift lays down her pen and looks up at me. ‘I guess, Beatrice, we could at least enquire about the price of corn.’

Red’s Feed and Hardware is a big barn that sells grain for cows, horses, sheep, goats, chickens and pigs.

Mrs Potter, Mrs Swift and I watch the folks going in and coming out. Peabody is all interested in a swallow that swoops over our heads, and Mrs Potter has to tie him to a low branch. I pulled a rusted wagon the whole way and now it sits between us.

‘You’re not going in with me, are you?’ We are watching a burly man come out with a bag of grain over his shoulder. He heaves it into his pickup.

‘You know we need the fresh air.’ Mrs Swift stops Mrs Potter from saying more.

Mrs Swift hands me the fat leather envelope. ‘Count it twice,’ she says, and I slip it into the pocket of my overalls. Mrs Potter straightens her flappy hat. I pull my hair tight and take a deep breath and walk toward Red’s open door. I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t so worried about Cordelia.

Feed stores smell nothing like Woolworths. The scent of many sweet bales of hay fills my nose, along with the donuts a lady is frying in the back corner. There are horse
brushes and cowbells and halters and chicken feeders hanging on little pegs on the wall. Big burlap bags are heaped against one another on the floor.

‘Can I help you?’ A man in a heavy apron looks up from behind the counter. I pull my hair tighter.

‘I need corn for my pig.’ I say it while I am looking at the floor.

‘This one here is for pigs,’ he says, coming from behind the counter and pulling out one of the burlap bags. ‘But you’re going to need some help carrying it. A bag of pig corn is mighty heavy. You’re an awful little thing. Did you bring anyone to help?’

‘Oh, my aunts will help me. They’re outside.’

He looks out through the open door and raises an eyebrow.

‘Right there, under that tree,’ I whisper, feeling an uneasiness in my belly. I pull out the leather purse and shake as I count the money.

He takes the dollar bills, counts them and gives me my change. My hair springs back when I take the coins and try to get them into the envelope, and the feed store man has himself a good look.

The little muscles at the edges of his eyes tighten. I wonder if he will be one of the ones who say something about what is plain as the nose on my face or if he will pretend there is nothing there.

He clears his throat. He looks out the door. ‘You’re
really going to need some help, and I don’t see any aunts.’

‘Right beside my dog. And my wagon.’

He looks again. A slow trembling rises inside me.

‘I see the dog, young lady, and I see the wagon, and that is all.’ He carries the pig corn to the door and drops it on the floor. ‘Have it your way,’ he says, turning and walking back to the counter.

The shopkeeper is right. Pig corn is very heavy. I can barely lift it into my arms and I bump into a shelf as I push through the door, sending a couple of dozen cans of Spam crashing to the floor.

‘Oh golly,’ I say, feeling the trembling move into my arms.

Mrs Potter is nibbling on a piece of honey cake when I drop the bag of corn into the wagon. ‘We have a surprise for you at home.’ She claps her hands, she is so excited. Mrs Swift is trying to get Peabody untangled from the tree. I am too out of breath to listen and too worried about the trembling pushing through my body to pay attention.
Pauline couldn’t see Mrs Potter, either.

‘We were going to wait until tomorrow morning, but we changed our mind. We found some frocks in the attic for you to wear to school.’

I lift the handle of the wagon and start pulling my heavy load. I don’t say a word to Mrs Potter, even though I feel her watching me, wondering why I am not excited
about the frocks. All I can think about is the trembling in my chest and Pauline, who is talking in my head:
Aren’t you a little old now for made-up friends, Bee?