The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place (21 page)

To my great relief, Jake did pick up the phone, and without hesitation, he accepted the charges.

“I'm in jail,” I said.

“Who is this?”

“I'm who the operator said I am. I am Margaret Rose Kane.”

“Oh,
that
Margaret Rose Kane,” he said, laughing nervously. “What happened?”

I told him about the SPCA and the water hose. He said nothing. The silence on his end of the line was aggravating me. “I'm in jail!” I yelled.

“Have they stopped the demolition?”

“Didn't you hear me? I'm in jail.” He was really aggravating me.

“I heard you.”

“I'm in jail, and Tartufo's been taken to the pound.”

“Yes, but have they stopped the demolition?”

Really, really aggravating.

“How should I know? I'm in protective custody.”

“Are you behind bars?”

“Might as well be. I'm in a room with an ugly steel door painted gray with one little window that has chicken wire pressed into it.”

“Can you do something that will make them keep you overnight?”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don't know. Cry or write dirty words on the walls.”

“I could write the worst words in the world, and they wouldn't notice because . . . because . . . Jake, are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, I'm listening. You were saying . . . what were you saying?”

“I was saying, I can't write dirty words on the walls because they wouldn't even notice because, Jake,
they're already there.
All of them. Spelled out in capital letters.”

“All right, all right. Maybe that wasn't such a good
idea. But listen, Margaret. We have to stop them at least one more day. Are you listening to me?”

“Better than you listened to me.”

“What did I say?”

“What is this, Jake, a comprehension exam?”

“No. Not an exam. But a required course. There's only one more day till the weekend, and city employees never work on weekends. By Monday, Loretta Bevilaqua and Peter Vanderwaal will have their petitions ready.”

“What if they euthanize Tartufo?”

“Ah, yes! Tartufo,” he said. “I told you that dog would—” Then he stopped abruptly. “Where are your uncles?”

“At the mall. It's the Bastille Day Blowout. Remember?”

“I guess I'll have to call them. Once they find out where you and Tartufo are, I know they'll rescue you. Too bad.”

“Too bad?” I yelled. “Did I hear you say
Too bad?”
“Yeah. I guess I better call your uncles.”

“That
is
too bad.”

“Yeah. Are you sure you can't do something to make them keep you overnight? I've got plans—”

“Jacob?”

“What now?”

“Good-bye.”

I hung up.

I had wasted my one phone call. Nothing was settled. I didn't know if I would get out of jail or if Tartufo would get out of the pound or if the demolition would stop.

Being a juvenile held in protective custody was making it very difficult to carry out Phase One, and even though he was an adult and had a credit card and a driver's license, my co-conspirator, Jacob Kaplan, was not helping.

As soon as he got Jake's call, Uncle Alex left the Time Zone and hailed a cab to take him to the animal pound. Uncle Morris stayed at the mall only long enough to reach Dennis the Tattoo and Helga the Reliable to take their places at the Bastille Day Blowout. Then he drove to the Clarion County Behavioral Center to rescue me.

The lady with the epaulets was reluctant to release me into Uncle Morris's care. She wanted to know why, if he was my guardian, he had been so negligent that I had been able to slip out of the house and climb the tower.

Uncle Morris's tactics in dealing with the lady with the epaulets was exactly the opposite of those that Uncle Alex had taken with Mrs. Kaplan. He humbled himself. He wrinkled his brow. He wrung
his hands, and he oiled his Hungarian accent to something between mayonnaise and margarine as he explained the situation. He explained that he had left for work early that morning because of the Bastille Day Blowout at the mall, and that his brother did not mention to him that their niece was up in the tower when he left.

Nothing he said was untrue. He
had
left for work early. But so had Alex. And, of course, there had been no need for Alex to mention that I was up in the tower because he had seen it for himself.

“Where are this child's parents?”

“On a mission in South America.”

“A mission in South America?”

“Yes. They have gone to Peru for four weeks.”

“What kind of a mission?”

“In the Andes.”

“A rescue mission?”

“I'm sure you'll read about it in the papers when they return.”

“I'm going to let you take the child home with you, Mr. Rose, but you must promise me that you'll watch her.”

“Like Mary Poppins I'll watch her.”

“I'm warning you: If I find out that you have put that child's life in jeopardy, it's going to take an appeal
to the supreme court of the United States of America to keep yourself out of jail.”

“I promise that won't happen.”

She pushed some papers forward and indicated that Uncle was to sign them. He did. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.
Köszönöm szépen.”

She answered,
“Nagyon szivesen.”
They exchanged smiles: his, knowing; hers, more so.

Uncle Morris now had one rescue. Uncle Alex had one. I had a headache.

A
ll the way back to Talequa, Jake had a worried mind. Later he told me that he had felt uneasy about leaving me high, dry, and alone on Tower Two. He was upset with himself for not having a backup plan. Hadn't Alex said that everyone should always have a backup? He knew that he should not have left without one.

It was late when he opened the door to his cabin. He found a Post-it on his coffeepot. It was from his mother. Hummingbird cabin needed new lightbulbs. He checked the time. Not quite midnight, still Wednesday, still his day off. But it was well past lights-out for the Hummingbirds, so they were already in the dark. They would see daylight before they needed new bulbs. He crumpled the note and threw it in the corner trash.

He brewed a fresh pot of coffee and sat in his chair and thought about the towers. It was funny how important they had become to him. He would not even have known that they existed if his mother had not
called Uncle Alex that Sunday that I preferred not to go tubing on the lake.

—
that Sunday

About an hour after the bus left, Mrs. Kaplan came into Meadowlark, carrying a plate of cookies and a container of milk. “Come, Margaret,” she said. “Come sit here so that we can have a little chat.” She placed the plate of cookies between us. “Help yourself,” she said.

I took a cookie, said thank you, and took a bite. She smiled and waited for me to swallow. I took a second bite. She allowed me to chew a little before she said, “Today, Margaret, we hear that you preferred not to go tubing on the lake.” I nodded. “As a result, Margaret, we hear that you kept an entire bus full of girls waiting while you took time to decide that you preferred not to go. Is that not so?”

“Not quite,” I replied.

“Can you tell us what you mean by
not quite?”

“Sure,” I said. Mrs. Kaplan waited. “I did not hold up the bus while I made up my mind. I had made up my mind the night before. It was Gloria who held it up.”

“Now, Margaret, you don't mean to tell us that Gloria would keep a busload of girls waiting? Gloria knew how eager everyone was to go tubing on the lake. Everyone but you, Margaret.”

I asked, “Is that milk for me, Mrs. Kaplan?”

“Yes, it is,” she replied, handing it over.

It was hot, and I was thirsty, and I could hear myself making
glug-glug
sounds. I said, “So much better than that powdered stuff you give us in the mess hall.”

“The powdered milk keeps better,” Mrs. Kaplan said.

“And is a lot cheaper,” I replied.

“Margaret!” Mrs. Kaplan said. “Margaret?” she said softer.

“Yes, Mrs. Kaplan.”

“You haven't answered our question.”

“I'm afraid I didn't hear a question, Mrs. Kaplan. Would you mind repeating it?”

“You knew that everyone was eager to go tubing.”

“And?”

“And you knew that Gloria would have to come to Meadowlark to get you.”

“And?”

“So why do you tell us that Gloria—not you—held up the bus?”

“Because I told Gloria last night that I would not be going tubing on the lake.”

“Gloria would not have held up the bus if you had told her. She is one of our finest counselors. She has seniority among all of our counselors.”

“She must have selective hearing loss. It's a medical condition of seniors.”

“Gloria is twenty-two years old. She's not even old enough to be your mother.”

“Then she must have selective
listening.”
I paused a minute. “This morning I told three of the Alums”—here I counted on my fingers—“Alicia Silver, Ashley Schwartz, and Blair Patayani, to remind her.”

“And no one heard you?”

“I guess not.”

“Do you want me to believe that these girls also have selective hearing loss?”

“They must. Otherwise, I would have to believe no one told Gloria so that I would be blamed for holding up the bus. That's harder to believe than that they have selective hearing loss. Isn't it, Mrs. Kaplan?”

Mrs. Kaplan immediately dropped the subject of who held up the bus. She sighed mightily before resuming her smile. “Why, Margaret? Why do you reject all of our efforts to befriend you?” she asked as she reached out to cover my hand with hers.

I allowed her hand to rest on mine, looked her straight in the eye, and said, “Because you are destroying my self-image.”

Even though the little chat did not end exactly there, that was where it hit bottom. That was when she popped up from the bed. And that is when the cookie
crumbled. And that is when she sent me to Ms. Starr for the second time.

Jake remembered his mother's shock and dismay after that little chat. She had gone to her office to compose herself and to read over my file again, and then went to find him.

Earlier in the day, just about the time that Jake's mother was carrying cookies to Meadowlark, Cook had called Jake and asked him to come to the mess hall to fix her sink. The problem required nothing more than a plunger and took only a few minutes. When he finished, he saw the Sunday
New York Times
lying on Cook's cutting board. He asked Cook if she was done with it. She told him to help himself. So he did. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down with the newspaper. Coffee was not offered to the girls, and he helped himself only when they were gone—and not too often at that because he liked real cream in his coffee, and the best the mess hall had to offer was milk, and whether it was powdered or in the bottle, it was skim.

The mess hall was next door to the infirmary. Just as he sat down, he heard singing. “. . .
Scatter her enemies/And make them fall,/Confound their politics
. . . ” He looked
out, and just above the lower edge of the window he saw a dark head moving toward the infirmary. Surprised that any of the girls were left in camp, he got up to see who it was. He recognized me, the Bartleby girl.

I was singing as I sauntered slowly toward my next encounter with Nurse Louise. He smiled to himself as he thought, She must have preferred not to go tubing on the lake. Keeping himself out of the window frame and in the shadows, he watched as I made my way to the infirmary. He heard, “. . .
Frustrate their knavish tricks,/On Thee our hopes we fix,/God save us all!”
He watched until I was out of sight behind the infirmary door. As he sat back down with his coffee and his newspaper, he thought, How strange! No camper has ever sung that before.

He had hardly glanced at the headlines when his mother came into the mess hall, visibly upset. He saw that she needed to talk.

Mrs. Kaplan helped herself to a cup of coffee. Before she would allow herself to sit down, she said, “Jake, you will not believe what your Bartleby girl just said to us.”

“Said to
us? Us,
Mother? This is Jake, remember. I am your son, your only son. Singular. You are my mother. My only mother. Singular. So who is
us,
Mother?”

Jake said he didn't know what had prompted him to
choose that moment to call his mother on saying
us
for
me
and
we
for
I.
After all, she had been doing it for years. Maybe it was timing: Having his Sunday morning interrupted first by Cook, now by her. Maybe it was just that there was something acid in this session's hot summer air. Maybe (and most probably), it was hearing “God Save the Queen” that did it.