The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (14 page)

Fancy turned to her sister. “Tell me some sounds that you don't like to hear.”

“I think your mother wants to start the meeting.” Radcliffe sat straight in his chair. He had his reading glasses on and had already replaced two of the bulbs in the halogen track lighting.

“No, no,” said Grandma Zing. “Carry on, I'll just be a moment.” She flipped through documents piled in a box.

Marbie thought. “Some people,” she said, after a moment, “make this kind of grunting sound. This sound kind of like
uh,
when they're reading or thinking, and they don't even know that they're doing it.”

Fancy wrote the word
UH.

“I imagine the sound of a
key
in a
lock
might be a sound you don't like to hear,” said Grandma Zing, with a glint.

There was a clamor at this as everyone cried, “How did you make it out the
window
?” and “That was
such
a close one,” and Radcliffe said bossily, “We should discuss this at the appropriate time in the meeting, shouldn't we?”

“Oh
God,
” said Fancy, closing her notebook again. “How did I let it happen? I think I must have lost my touch!” (There was another clamor as everyone assured her she had not lost her touch.)

“Look at the way you opened the window, closed it behind you, jumped into a tree, and climbed down without being seen,” Marbie said. “I think you're amazing. And anyway, Fancy, it was my fault—I didn't notice the car coming down the street until the last moment.”

“Why didn't you notice it?” said Radcliffe pointedly.

“I was distracted.”

“Distracted by what?”

“But still,” interrupted Fancy, “it was so lucky she switched on the TV right away, and stayed in the front room—if she hadn't…”

“Gotta change that pager sound,” said Radcliffe.

“And we all thought that it was the cat's meow,” offered Nathaniel.

Everyone groaned, and Marbie hit his leg, but then she embraced him proudly, while Grandma Zing said, “Shall we start the meeting? We have an
edict
today!”

“Worn-out brake pads,” whispered Grandpa Zing, leaning over to Fancy, “make an awful squealing sound.” He pointed at Fancy's notepad, and she mouthed, “Thanks, Dad,” and wrote it down.

Fancy was at her computer working on
Love Among the Wildebeests,
while Cassie played on the floor by her feet. She tapped the space bar several times, sighed, turned away from the screen, and took up her pen to write to Cassie's teacher.

Dear Ms. Murphy,

You may be pleased to know that my daughter (Cassie's) loose tooth has come out. And the tooth fairy has come and gone.

She stopped. She had already written about Cassie's asthma, her allergy to bees, her aversion to gingham. What else was there?

Cassie sat on the floor behind her, threading plastic beads onto a string and saying now and then, “Mum? Will Listen
really
come to my school next term?”

Fancy swiveled around and looked at Cassie. “Any more loose teeth, darling?”

“No,” said Cassie sadly. “Wait.” She tested each tooth with her tongue. “No. No loose tooths.”

“Teeth! You know that. Cassie, anything
interesting
happening at school?”

“No,” asserted Cassie confidently.

“Hmm.” Fancy turned back to her note and stared at it for a while, while Cassie continued to chant, “Mu-um, will Listen
really
come to my school after the holidays?”

“Right then,” Fancy said suddenly. “I'm trying to work, Cassie, and you should be in bed!” Then her eyes roved over the pink plastic beads scattered on the study floor like sugar drops. “Sorry, Cassie! Yes. Marbie called today to tell me that Listen is going to your school next term. After the holidays, Listen will be at your school for just one term. Because her classrooms got flooded.”

“Thanks,” said Cassie solemnly, and stood up at once, ready to go to bed.

Fancy had a happy flash of inspiration then, and continued her letter:

I hope you will forgive me for writing again so soon, but I have a small favor to ask.

Cassie was climbing under the covers, and her mum was picking clothes up off the floor.

“
Cassie,
these are your sports clothes! You should have put them in the wash!”

Cassie said, “Whoops!”, slid under the Harry Potter quilt, and squashed her cheek against the pillow. Her mother shook out the clothes, frowning at them. She folded them over her arm, pulled the curtains tightly closed, patted Harry Potter smooth, and switched off the light.

In bed, Cassie imagined her own school flooded. She thought of papers, teachers, desks, and bottles of white-out bobbing along in a river. Ms. D'Souza in a life raft, Mr. Woodford in a rowboat, Ms. Murphy treading water. She thought of blackboard erasers, whiteboards, and pink chalk; overhead projectors, flower vases, cardboard boxes. She thought of the school turtle, swept out of his pond, paddling and honking in alarm.

The whole thing seemed suspicious to Cassie, and also, absolutely strange.

On the Monday of the final week of term, Fancy found an uncapped purple marker in the pocket of Cassie's sports shorts. A purple butterfly bloomed at the hip of the shorts, but Fancy attacked it with prewash stain remover, and watched as the wings began to dribble.

In inky purple marker, on a piece of tissue paper, she then listed:

Objects in a Family Home:
The Laundry

Tide

oatmeal soap

a bucket containing a pink sponge and Spray 'n Wash

a puddle at the base of the washing machine

washing machine

On Tuesday, Fancy found a coffee filter, filled with aging coffee grounds, quietly wilting in her coffeemaker. “Oh,
Radcliffe,
” she said aloud. She then listed:

Objects in a Family Home:
The Kitchen

calendar with photos of the Canadian Rockies

collage of family snapshots in silver frame

name stickers

doll's underwear

port decanter

collapsed birthday-card display

on the table: spots of candle wax

also on the table: a ceramic bowl filled with this and that

On Wednesday, Fancy sat at the kitchen table to scrape at the candle wax. After a moment, she reached for a notebook and a pen.

Objects in a Family Home:
Ceramic Bowl Filled with This and That, Specifically:

pushpins

elastic bands

empty film canister

business card

Valerio Sore Throat Gargle

cotton

AAA battery

bobby pin

Hong Kong two-dollar coin

glue stick

nail file

a tube of sample Musk perfume

a safety pin

a paper clip

a token for a locker at Baulkham Hills Shire Council Library

moisture absorbent in white paper wrapping: DO NOT EAT, DO NOT EAT, DO NOT EAT

On Thursday, Fancy felt she could not possibly go on. She reached for her handbag to choose something new to be listed: she would strike through Objects in a Family Home.

Her List of Potential Lists was not in her handbag.

“Ah,” she sighed, moving into her study and checking on her desk. It was not there. It was not in the desk drawers either. “Hmm!” she said, with a jaunty frown.

She was not concerned because she remembered exactly what was on the list. It would be easy to rewrite on the back of another phone bill. Nevertheless, she began a thorough, cheerful search of the house: the kitchen, the laundry, the bedrooms, the garage, the car. She found herself running up and down the steps, searching in random places such as the cutlery drawer and the liquor cabinet.

It's probably in a pocket somewhere,
she realized.
Now, when did I last have it?

And then it came to her. The last time she had it was at the Intrusion. The
near-disastrous
Intrusion—when she had failed to notice Marbie beeping
her, had come within a cat's whisker of getting caught, and somehow had climbed out of the window.
So, it would be in the pocket of my black pants, of—

But there was the strangest sensation in her cheeks, as of automatic doors closing slowly toward her nose. Because there were no pockets in her black pants.

She had left her List of Potential Lists on the dining-room table by the window inside the apartment. And her phone bill was on the back.

Her mother, when she telephoned with shaking hands and teary voice, was remarkably professional. “There was a pile of papers on the dining table there?”

“Yes,” Fancy quavered.

“Chances are it's still exactly where you left it,” said her mother contentedly. “I'll put out an Urgent Request for a Distraction. You let Marbie know what's going on. And we'll have an Intrusion under way before the end of the day, you mark my words.”

“I'll sit by the phone,” promised Fancy.

“Don't worry so much, darling. Just go about your day as planned, but keep your pager with you. We may have just a slight margin.”

Of course, Fancy could not possibly leave the house. She was agitated and hysterical all day, gasping whenever the phone rang and whenever she heard leaves rustle (that was the new pager sound). She called Radcliffe and asked him to fetch Cassie from school as she was too overwrought to drive. Radcliffe tried to reassure her, but the excitement of disaster bristled in his voice. She called Marbie several times to confirm that she would leave work early. Marbie laughed and was serene about the whole thing when Fancy first told her, but even she seemed to grow a bit tetchy after Fancy's fourth phone call.

When their mother's alert finally arrived, Fancy's heart was playing thrashing rock.

But it went surprisingly smoothly.

There was nobody around; Marbie climbed her tree safely; the code worked; the apartment was empty and dark; and the List of Potential Lists was sitting safely on the dining room table, underneath some kind of legal assignment. Once she had folded the list into her handbag, Fancy was so relieved that she decided to do the Maintenance Work she had not completed on the last Intrusion.

“Sleep well,” said Marbie kindly, as she dropped Fancy back at home. “And have a nice, relaxing day tomorrow. Get an aromatherapy massage.”

But the next day, Friday, the last day of the school term, Fancy woke in such a state of jitters that she had to spend some time deep breathing.
It's all right, it's all right, it's all right,
she chanted.

Her hands fluttered from her mouth to her elbows to her ears, and sometimes to nothing.

“Are you all right, Mum?” said Cassie, as Fancy drove her to school.

“Yes, darling, perfectly fine! Have a nice last day at school! Holidays tomorrow! Hooray!”

Cassie looked back at her suspiciously.

Driving home again, Fancy knew that she must
take action
against this hysteria. Otherwise, it would manifest itself in some physical way such as a heart attack or hives. She needed exercise—it was far too cold to go jogging, but she could go to her gym.
Swimming,
that was what she needed. The serenity of gliding through the water.

And how about that, it was Friday morning, and that man on the phone had told her that
this
was the quietest time for swimming. She would go home, gather her things, and drive directly to the gym.

The Canadian was standing on his porch.

“I haven't seen you for a while!” she chatted as she reached her own front door. “I guess it's been too cold for your breakfasts on the porch. I never got a chance to thank you for that delicious cake! Cassie
loved
it, by the way. I froze a couple of pieces for her, so she could take them to school as a special treat with her lunch.”

“Never too cold for me,” he said, “to eat breakfast on my porch. I've been away, is the explanation. And that is the nicest thing I've heard in a while, that Cassie took a piece of my maple cake to school as a special treat. Thank you.”

“Tell me,” said Fancy suddenly. “Now, a sugar maple leaf, that would be a Canadian sort of leaf, wouldn't it?”

“They have sugar maples elsewhere as well,” said the Canadian formally. “But yes, the maple leaf is on our flag. So, you could say it's Canadian.”

“Then tell me,” Fancy repeated, “would a teardrop ever look like a maple leaf?”

The Canadian considered this for a moment. “I would have to say,” he said slowly, “I would have to say, I'd choose a different sort of leaf if I wanted to describe a teardrop. I would choose a leaf with your more traditional leaf shape. Such as that eucalyptus leaf, right there. Now, I suppose that a teardrop might fall
splat
onto a page—say you were reading a book and having a little weep—a teardrop might fall
splat,
and the mark that it left on the
page
might, if you were lucky, resemble a sugar maple leaf. But otherwise, I would say no.”

Fancy felt a rush of love for the Canadian-next-door.

“Thank you,” she said, blushing, and walked into her house.

Driving to the swimming pool, Fancy felt calm and happy. She allowed herself to imagine that she had invited the Canadian along. And he had
said,
Swimming, I love to swim!
And she had said,
Me too!
And he had run inside and returned with his swimsuit. Perhaps even wearing it! To prove that he was Canadian, and could get about bare-chested in such gray and icy weather. (It was close to zero degrees, the radio told her.) And then she had driven chattingly along, her bare hand on the gearshift, so close to his bare legs! And then, at the pool, there would be nobody else! Just the two of them! And he would shake his head in wonder at the grace of her stroke.