The Wonder of Charlie Anne (24 page)

Phoebe falls asleep and Mirabel says this is the best thing and then Birdie and Ivy are coming in and Birdie is climbing all over me and she is crying because she doesn’t understand things like sometimes you can get caught in a trap and you can’t get out, unless someone is there to help you.

After about a thousand years, Old Mr. Jolly comes back with the doctor. I see a surprised look on the doctor’s face when he sees Phoebe. He is in an awful hurry and I wonder about that and he tells us how we haven’t done anything right and how Phoebe shouldn’t be sleeping and she shouldn’t have her foot up so high and I am feeling like Mirabel has been telling us to do all the wrong things.

Then he looks at her foot again and bandages it up and puts her foot as high as Mirabel had it and gives Rosalyn some medicine that will help Phoebe sleep and he stands up to leave and Rosalyn asks if Phoebe will be all right and the doctor says he thinks so but only time will tell.

Well. That’s not very helpful, I think. He and Old Mr. Jolly are walking out to the porch and Old Mr. Jolly is reaching in his pocket and giving the doctor money and explaining how he is sorry there isn’t more to give and I want to know for sure, is Phoebe going to be all right, and so I follow them.

“You know, Jolly, if I’d have known …,” the doctor is saying, putting the money in his pocket.

“Known what?” Old Mr. Jolly is asking.

“You know what I’m saying without me having to say it,” the doctor says.

“In case I don’t,” says Old Mr. Jolly, his voice hard, “why don’t you go ahead and say it?”

“All right, I will.” The doctor puts on his hat. “I’ve got patients stacked ten high back at the house, all of them with influenza. And none of them are colored.” Then the doctor finishes buttoning his coat and puts on his hat and walks out.

I can hardly believe the terrible thing the doctor just said. Old Mr. Jolly stands there on the porch, looking at me. Then he hurries down the porch stairs, his shoulders all hunched, his face red. He picks up a rock from the driveway and stands there, tossing the stone in his hands. Then he winds up, aiming straight at the doctor’s car. I hold my breath, hoping the rock will smash a window.

I am getting all light-headed from holding my breath so long and watching Old Mr. Jolly just winding up. And then, very slowly he puts his hand down, and then he drops the rock on the driveway and he turns and walks up on the porch. “He’s not worth it,” he says when he sees me.

Then Old Mr. Jolly smiles a sad smile, and I follow him inside and notice how tall he walks now. I’m not going to be able to call him Old Mr. Jolly anymore.

*    *    *

Right away, as soon as Phoebe starts resting peacefully and Mirabel tells us it is time to go, I have to go right up and tell Mama about the whole awful day.

It was terrible. I thought Phoebe was going to die. I thought I was going to faint with all the blood.

But you didn’t
, Mama says.

No. I’m pretty mad at that Thatcher boy for leaving that trap there.

Yes. It is very sad.

Mama, the doctor said awful things.

I know. I heard it, too. What are you going to do?

Me?

Mama laughs gently.
I know you, Charlie Anne. I saw you get Belle home, remember? You have to show people like that doctor that they are wrong.

How?

You’ll find a way.
Then Mama pauses.
You could become a doctor yourself.

Don’t you have to read to be a doctor?

Mmmmmm
, says Mama.
But you’ll be surprised how things can change. Just give it a little more time.

I’m also very afraid of blood.

Is that so?
Mama says, and then she starts laughing so hard that pretty soon I am laughing, too. It is a pretty nice change to a terrible day.

Two very good things happen after that, which makes the bad thing that happens not as bad as it could be. Life is like that, if you look hard enough. The good will outweigh the bad if you give it half a chance.

The first good thing is Phoebe starts healing. It is slow going at first. I go check up on her every day and sit on the chair and watch her lying all still in her bed. Each day I bring a bouquet of dried goldenrod or Queen Anne’s lace and put it on her nightstand. At first, I can’t tell if she even knows I’m there, and so I spend the whole time telling her, “Hi, Phoebe, it’s me, Charlie Anne,” and praying to the angels that I will get my friend back.

Then she stops sleeping so much, and her foot must hurt more than anything because she gets really grouchy and she cries a lot. Then as she gets even better, she gets so bossy I don’t even want to be near her. “The sun is in my eyes, can’t you move the curtain right?” she says, and then “Charlie Anne, go get me some sweet raspberry tea,” and “Charlie Anne, it’s not sweet enough,” and “Charlie Anne, you didn’t put enough raspberries in.”

Mirabel says this grouchiness is to be expected, and
that brings me to the other good thing that happens. Mirabel says Ivy can do more of my chores now so I can come over and be with Phoebe.

I try to figure it out, when did Mirabel change her mind about Phoebe? I guess it happened when Mirabel picked up Phoebe in her arms and carried her, and she saw how carrying her was just like carrying any other child. In fact, she keeps sending me over to check on Phoebe, and usually she sends me with some kind of potato casserole she has made. And then she comes over in the afternoon and helps Rosalyn take off the bandage and soak Phoebe’s foot and wraps it up again. There has been a lot of foot washing around here.

Ivy is very mad about all of this.

“Mind your manners,” Mirabel tells her.

The bad thing that happens is Rosalyn tells me we won’t be opening the school, not for a long while. Mr. Jolly and I have to go tell the Morrell girls, and when we do, Sarah starts to cry.

One day, when I am trying to get the temperature of Phoebe’s tea just right, Rosalyn starts drawing pictures on little pieces of paper and cutting out letters and putting everything in a big basket.

“How would you like to try this again?” Rosalyn wants to know.

I look up at Phoebe.

“She’s fallen asleep,” whispers Rosalyn. “We have time.”

She draws a picture.

“What’s this?” she asks.

“Hen,” I say.

Rosalyn studies it. “Well, it’s really a duck, but hen is all right. Here, I’ll draw another one.”

“Turkey,” I say.

After that, Rosalyn gives me the pen and tells me to draw the pictures.

This is something I am good at. She tells me to draw a house, and I do, and Rosalyn says, “Wow, Charlie Anne, you are really good at drawing,” and then she tells me to draw a baby and then a door and then a barn and then a clothesline. I am very good at drawing all of these things. Pretty soon we have a whole stack of little pictures. We put them in the basket.

“Now, let’s cut out some letters.”

Rosalyn helps me draw the alphabet and then we cut everything out. Then we go check on Phoebe, who is still sleeping, and Rosalyn makes a cup of sweet raspberry tea for each of us and gives me a strawberry tart she has been saving for me. “Reading takes a lot of energy, Charlie Anne.” I tell her between bites that I think she’s right, and then she tells me to close my eyes and pick out six of the pictures, and then we spread them out on the table.

Rosalyn spreads all the letters on the table, and she asks me to say the word for the picture on the first paper.

“Door,” I say.

“What sound does
door
make? Sound it out.”

“D-d-d-d.”

“Very good. What letter is that,
d-d-d?”

I look at all the letters that are lying on the table. I know it is a
d-d-d-d
sound, and I know that sound is made by either a
b
or a
d.

I am afraid of making a mistake, so I sit on my hands and think about it for a while longer.

Don’t be afraid
, Mama says.
Everyone makes mistakes when they are learning something new. Rosalyn will understand.

Then I make a fist and stick my thumb up, just like Rosalyn taught me. I look at Rosalyn and try and imagine what she will do if I say the wrong thing. I think about Miss Moran and that spot under her desk where I had to sit and how there was a spiderweb way in the back corner.

I look back at the letters. They are looking all jumbled up and pushed together and I can’t remember what anything says anymore and I am starting to feel very, very hot.

Rosalyn is looking at me. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” she says gently. “Reading is hard at the beginning. But I have an idea. Let’s spend more time on the letters first, before
we start on the pictures. Let’s talk for a long time about each letter and about what each letter says and about what sound each letter makes.”

So we start at the beginning, the very beginning, because just like a house, reading needs a good foundation.

I lay all the letters on the table and we look at them and make the sound of each one. We spend a very long time on the
b
s and the
d
s. I make another
bed
with my letters.

When Rosalyn thinks I may understand the difference, she points to the picture of the door again.

“What is it, a
b
or a
d?”

Right then and there, I feel a smile start spreading across my face, and then I am laughing out loud.

“It’s a
d.
”

Day after day, Rosalyn tells me what pictures to draw and I draw them and then I tell her what letter they start with. I have about a hundred little pictures. Mr. Jolly props Phoebe up on the couch so she can be closer to us.

“You should play I Spy with Charlie Anne, like you and Mama did with me when I was learning,” Phoebe says.

And so that’s what we do next. Only, Rosalyn makes Phoebe teach me. This is good for Phoebe because she
has to sit up, and we spread all the pictures out on her lap, and she says, “I see something that starts with
t.
” Then I have to spend about a hundred years looking for something that starts with
t.
Phoebe doesn’t want me to miss anything.

Finally, when Phoebe thinks I have looked long and hard enough, she says, “Well?” and I pick up a turtle, a trumpet and a pair of trousers.

One day the three Morrell girls and their mama come to visit Phoebe with a pint of blackberry jam and some fresh biscuits, and when they see us playing I Spy, they ask if they can play, and Rosalyn says of course.

“Sit here,” I say, spreading the drawings all over Phoebe.

“I spy some things that begin with
m,”
says Phoebe. “Can you find them, Charlie Anne?”

It doesn’t take me long to find the mouse, the mitten and the manger. Then it’s my turn. “Sarah,” I say, “I spy some things that begin with s.” She finds the bag of sugar, the saw and the strawberry.

She turns to her sister. “Mary, I spy some things that begin with p.”

While we are playing, Rosalyn is brewing up some sweet raspberry tea. By the way the Morrell girls smack their lips, I think sweet raspberry tea is something they haven’t had in a while.

Then Rosalyn asks Mrs. Morrell how they are all
getting along, and Mrs. Morrell says they are doing much better now that she is over the influenza. “Mirabel has been coming over and helping out some days. She’s going to the Thatchers’ after she leaves me. I hear the influenza is finally out of their house, too.”

“Maybe we should open the school right here in our living room while Phoebe is healing,” Rosalyn says one day.

She says I have to invite Ivy and of course Birdie wants to come. “Go invite Becky Ellis again,” she tells me. “People have a way of changing.”

Well. I hope not. I stall for three days and Rosalyn keeps asking if I’ve been over to see Becky. Finally, I go knock on their door.

“Rosalyn wants to know if you’ll send Becky to school at her house, while Phoebe is recuperating.”

“I think not,” says Mrs. Ellis, without inviting me in.