The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody (9 page)

Generally it is not a good idea to fret too long over things like ladies who disappear, or ladies who appear, for that matter, or you will lose your nerve. I try to remember how the lady in the orange flappy hat always showed up when I was having a very bad day and she helped make things better. Maybe this is one of those days.

I lift Peabody into my arms. His little butterscotch self up next to me is very reassuring. ‘We are here,’ I whisper, ‘and we are very parched and need something to drink.’

I lift the latch on the fence and open the gate and carefully climb the front steps. Peabody wants to get down as soon as we get up on the porch, so I let him. He runs over by the front door and sits and wags his stumpy tail. Usually that is a good sign. Cordelia sniffs at the dried geranium blossoms that have fallen on the floor.

I take a deep breath and knock. I rub the scuffs on the sides of my work boots and wipe at the dirt on my overalls. I pull my hair tight over my cheek.

I give Peabody one more look-over. A leaf hangs off his belly from when he was watching the bees. I brush it off, telling him how first impressions are very important.
He looks up at me and then back at the door. He couldn’t care less about first impressions. He wags his stumpy tail.

I knock again, nice and loud. We stand there and wait, the three of us looking at the door for a very long time, and then at each other. Peabody whines.

‘Stop that. It is bad luck.’ I knock again, nice and loud, so I sound like I mean business.

A crow caws in the woods and then another caws and then another. Cordelia looks up. I try and take no notice of all the crows and all that I know about crows and crow warnings from being at travelling shows so long and I knock again, louder this time so I can be heard over the very loud commotion in the woods.

Peabody gets bored and wanders over to the swing and sniffs it. He circles round and round and finds a good spot and lies down, listening to the crows. I go over by Peabody and sit on the swing. I am very thirsty. Ellis has noticed for sure that I am missing by now.

As a general rule of thumb, it is a good idea to think about other things when you are bothered. I tell this to Peabody. He is busy watching a honeybee trying to get to the geraniums.

I make myself count up the good things about my life while I am trying not to worry. ‘First is you, Peabody.’ I bend down and scratch his ear. It is standing straight up because he is still watching the honeybee.

‘Second is you, Cordelia.’ She goes over and flops down
by Peabody. I smile, my heart filling with the sight of the two of them. ‘Third is my health. I am strong.’ I stretch out my legs and look at my wobbly thigh muscles and cross my legs again. Peabody is not watching. ‘All right then, maybe not that. But I am well fed, but not too much, and I do not have temper fits and I have a happy heart when I am not getting teased about my diamond. I am clean and can read very well. Because of that I know all about the stars and about bird identification and about the weather. I know when sunny days are just around the corner.’

Peabody turns to me and raises one ear and it flips over. Then he turns back to the flowerpot. There are now two bees buzzing around the geraniums. Peabody gets up and goes over for a closer look.

I breathe in the clean country air blowing all around me. It is better than Pauline’s apple shampoo in my hair. I look back at the door. I stand up.

‘Come on, Peabody. Let’s try again.’

I turn the knob slowly, and finding the door unlocked I gently push it open, a tiny bit at a time.

‘Hello?’ I whisper.

It is very bright inside from the sun that jumps through the windows. There is a big hall inside the door with waxed wood floors and a tall staircase that shoots up to a second floor, and a railing just made for sliding down.

The house is much bigger than it looks from outside. I hold my hair tight over my cheek and step inside. Peabody and Cordelia are right beside me. They are looking up the stairs. I breathe in and out, deep as I can, and try to quiet all the worry thoughts tumbling around inside of me.

‘Hello?’ I say, this time a little louder. ‘It’s me. It’s Beatrice Rose Hockenberry. This is Peabody and Cordelia. We are very thirsty.’

There is no answer, only the slight scratch of the curtain lace against the screens. Peabody looks up at me like maybe I should not have thrown all my eggs in one basket, like maybe I should have been sure about how things would turn out before I showed up.

I clear my throat. ‘It’s me, Bee, the girl you keep waving at.’

Everything is quiet. Everything smells of lemon wax. On one side of the hall is a fancy sitting room with a sofa and many plump chairs and everything has little lace cloths so your head can lean back without getting the chair dirty. I know this from looking at Pauline’s
McCall’s
magazines. There are bright rugs on all the floors. Already I know where the Christmas tree should go.

On the other side of the hall is a room filled with many books and bookcases, a desk, a sofa and stuffed chairs for reading. This is a room to be quiet in, a room to think things over. Pauline would like to write poems in this room. I sigh.

I don’t see any mirrors, anywhere. This is a good thing because when you have a diamond on your cheek you don’t always feel like looking.

Peabody tips his head. He lifts one ear. He looks down the hall toward the kitchen. Then I hear hushed voices, soft murmurs and a mumble or two.

Peabody whines. I look at him, my finger on my lips. He whines again and I pick him up.

Then: ‘Oh, shush, Mrs Swift.’

‘You shush up, Mrs Potter. You shush up now.’

I look at Peabody. Cordelia grunts softly. ‘Hello?’ I whisper, not sure if I should turn around and run out the door or get a glass of water first. My throat tightens. I tiptoe toward the water.

Cordelia’s little trotters click on the waxed floor. The
hall leads to a kitchen with a white stove peeking through the doorway. The stove sits on legs and has many
red-painted
knobs and a big steel teakettle on top.

‘Now there’s a stove for cake baking,’ I whisper. Peabody keeps his eye on a large white sink and water faucet. I notice two hard-boiled eggs on a round table set with a pink-and-white-checked cloth. The eggs sit on a china plate beside a teacup and saucer, a little bowl of sugar and a creamer. The counters are covered with canning jars and cookie boxes and tall tins of tea biscuits. The back door is open and the smell of roses is everywhere.

I am very still. I feel Peabody’s heart flipping. I feel my heart flipping. Finally I clear my throat. ‘It’s me, Bee.’

At first all is quiet, but then there are murmurs, and then distinct voices.

‘She’s only a girl. And a wee one at that.’

‘She can’t be the one.’

‘Of course she’s the one.’

‘We’re not expecting a DOG, Mrs Potter. And certainly not a PIG.’

‘Oh, horse feathers! We’ve been expecting this girl for years.’

‘We cannot have a dog. You know that would be a very bad idea. And a pig? Good gracious!’

Then more muffled voices coming from the walls, or maybe from under the floors, or from inside the tall cupboard in the corner of the room. It is very hard to tell.

‘Did you hear that?’ I ask Peabody. He is looking at the sink.

‘We are very thirsty,’ I whisper, looking around the room again, and then I tiptoe over to the faucet and turn it on and watch a heavy dribble the colour of butternut squash tumble out.

Generally, when you find yourself in a bad situation it is a good idea not to make it worse. Looking at a cup as half empty and going around and around and around your troubles in your head are not the best ways to handle things. It is usually far better to skip right over them and think about sunnier days ahead.

Sometimes this does not work. Sometimes you let the bad thoughts get the better of you. This is what Peabody is doing right now looking at the rusty water.

‘Stop whining like that, Peabody. It is bad luck.’

Peabody looks up at me like he does not want to think about blue skies ahead. I know what he is getting at. I let the water run for several minutes, hoping for a clear stream, all the while looking behind me and listening for the voices. The water turns muddy.

Before Peabody can say boo, my eyes fill. Thirst will do that to a person. I pull my dog closer to my heart and tell my pig to follow me and I back out of the kitchen and down the hall and out the door.

The sun is pouring through the maple trees, all over me and across Peabody’s butterscotch self. I can hardly
see anything, on account of the sun and my tears. We get out as far as the first apple tree on the thin ribbon road and sink beneath it.

More than anything, I want Pauline. I want her to come and get us. I want to hear her say how I shouldn’t worry because bright days are right around the corner. I want her to play the ha-ha game with me and tell me how beautiful I am and how I should not worry about crooked roads ahead. They have a way of straightening out when you keep putting one foot in front of the other.

When the thought of Pauline makes me so sad I don’t know if I can stand up again, I wonder how many miles stretch between me and Bobby. My tears are falling onto Peabody’s sun-covered backside and he is whining in my arm because if there is one thing I am learning, it is that Peabody does not like a girl in tears.

‘Hello, Beatrice.’ The voice is a soft whisper, and Peabody jumps up. I turn around, and there, right there, leaning on her cane in the thin ribbon road, is the lady in the orange flappy hat.

‘You’re not giving up on us so soon, are you?’ Her flappy hat is tipped to the side. Her pink wool shawl is cinched tight with a large silver safety pin. You would think she would be hot. Peabody watches her intently, the way he watched the bees on the geraniums. Cordelia is more interested in the apples on the ground. I pull my hair across my cheek. The lady in the flappy hat looks into my eyes again and smiles. It is kind and generous.

‘You are in awful need of a home, isn’t that right?’

All I can do is stare at the soft wrinkles on her cheeks and around her eyes, which are blue as sky. I look down at my worn-out work boots with the holes in the bottom and remember how I wanted to make a good impression. Peabody barks. I pick him up and push him under my arm, but he backs out and turns around and watches the old woman in the flappy hat.

‘I’m sorry Mrs Swift and I frightened you. We’re a little unused to dogs. And it’s been years since we had a pig in the house.’ She laughs softly.

I look at Peabody. His head is tilted and he has one butterscotch ear raised.

‘I am Mrs Potter. Do you like pickled eggs?’

Peabody raises his other ear.

‘Pickled beets? Pickled herring? And tea biscuits and strawberry jam?’

I nod. I like anything, as long as it is not hot dogs and onions and sauerkraut.

‘Good,’ she says, ‘because Mrs Swift is very busy getting things on the table.’

‘And water?’ I ask. ‘We are very thirsty.’

‘The kitchen pipes are rusty. But the well is fresh.’ She reaches down and scratches Cordelia between the ears. ‘We have a nice place out back for your little pig. Come see.’

Peabody and Cordelia fly off toward the backyard and I pick up the rear. A shed sits behind the house with a little garden fence all around. I open the gate and show Cordelia and Peabody how to get inside the fence. By the time I am in, Cordelia is already rooting under some old cornstalks. I open the door to the shed and peek inside. It is bright with a little window and a pile of old straw on the floor. I breathe in the sweet straw smell and kick some around the floor so my little pig will have a nice bed
and before I am even done, Peabody flops in the middle and watches me.

‘It is perfect!’ I tell this to Cordelia, who is now sniffing around some old squash vines while a red squirrel runs across the fence. The lady in the flappy hat leans against her cane.

I look at Peabody. I think about all the years I have been seeing the lady in the flappy hat when I needed somebody, and now she is right here, up close, smelling like roses. Normally, it is not a good idea to let folks see tears puddle up your eyes. But I am so worn out, I cannot help it now.

The old lady in the flappy hat puts her arm around me. It is light as air.

It takes us several minutes to get back to the kitchen because Mrs Potter hobbles so, especially going up the steps. When we finally get there, Peabody’s tongue is dragging on the ground, he is so thirsty.

The woman with hair the colour of a new silver dollar is standing at the sink, trying to open a canning jar.

‘Who in the world put this on so tight?’ she says, looking up. Her eyes are bright, clear and violet. They move from Mrs Potter to me and finally to Peabody. ‘We weren’t expecting a dog.’

‘Now, Mrs Swift,’ says Mrs Potter, limping over to help with the canning jar.

‘Oh, don’t Mrs Swift me. A dog is a problem, and you know it. And a pig. What will we ever do with a pig?’

‘We’ll do fine,’ says Mrs Potter, twisting the ring and then, with a knife, popping the lid. ‘The pig is out in the shed, happy as a clam.’ She sniffs at the inside of the jar, crinkles her nose and sets the jar down. ‘It smells a little old.’

There’s a pitcher of water on the table and I hurry to it and fill the saucer and put it on the floor for Peabody. He
slurps it up in a second and I refill it and fill the teacup for myself. I fill both over and over again.

‘Straight from the well. Delicious, isn’t it?’ Mrs Potter comes over and sits down.

‘We don’t feed dogs out of our grandmother’s saucers!’ Mrs Swift says, frowning, when she turns around. She hurries over and picks it up off the floor and wipes it on her apron. ‘Bad dog; bad, bad dog.’

Peabody takes one look at her and hurries under the table.

Mrs Potter pulls a pot from under the sink and sets it on the floor. I fill it with water. Then she slices the eggs and puts a few pieces on a napkin and sets them on the floor. She pulls out a chair for me.

The eggs are a little grey and the yellow centres are a funny shade of blue. Old vinegar soars up my nose. She puts some slices in front of me and I touch the white part. It is quite firm. My stomach rumbles. How long since we’ve eaten anything but apples? Already I feel them running through me.

Mrs Swift opens another jar. ‘What do you think?’ Mrs Potter limps over and sniffs the jar. She shakes her head.

‘Well, there’s always these.’ Mrs Swift brings over a tin of tea biscuits. She pries the rusted top off and pulls a flat biscuit from inside and snaps it to see if it still crunches. It does not. She puts one biscuit on the table and one on the floor for Peabody. He sniffs it and then
looks back to Mrs Swift for something else.

‘You’ll eat what’s put before you,’ Mrs Swift tells him, her hands on her hips, her voice stern. That’s all Peabody needs to hear. He gobbles the biscuit in one bite.

I nibble on a biscuit. Mrs Potter laughs. Her face really is an apple, old and soft and folding in on itself. ‘Is there any cake?’ I ask finally. ‘I really do like cake.’

Mrs Potter and Mrs Swift look at each other. ‘Well, we haven’t figured out how to use this stove,’ says Mrs Swift. ‘Maybe you could show us how?’

The stove looks at least one hundred years old. I glance at Peabody.

‘If we could find the fireplace, we could use that,’ says Mrs Potter. ‘I know it’s behind that wall. Why they ever closed it up, I do not know.’

Peabody whines, waiting for another stale biscuit. He is worried about how things are going. I try to think about blue skies ahead.