Bronze Pen (9781439156650) (12 page)

From there, the letter went on in a very ordinary way. The way anyone would answer a letter from a friend who was away on a trip.

Oops! It might not be a good idea to write,
I wish I could be there too,
because if she did, she just might be. Might appear suddenly in the middle of a lot of astonished Moraleses, without any possible way to explain how
she got there. So…how to go on? After some thought she continued that particular sentence:

So far so good, except that she still hadn't said anything to let Lizzie know about the bathing suit test and, even more important, what had happened when she wrote about animals talking to each other. It really seemed important to let Lizzie know. What could she say that Lizzie would understand but nobody else would? Maybe something like:

There. Audrey felt sure Lizzie would know what that meant. Putting the letter in an envelope, she sealed it securely. And tomorrow, after she'd asked Mr. Potts how much postage would be necessary to send a letter to Mexico, she would get it in the mail. And in two weeks, when Lizzie returned, they would think of some new ways to prove that writing with the pen would make whatever you wrote about—or at least a part of what you wrote about—come true.

So the letter went off with Mr. Potts the next day, and Audrey went back to worrying and wondering. Wondering about the pen and worrying about her father's sick heart.

And then, only a few days later, there was more to worry about. Her mother came home from work that evening feeling even worse than usual. Some things hadn't gone well at the office, and Mrs. Austin had been even meaner and more critical than usual. Audrey's mother had come home bringing some Chinese takeout food because, as she told Audrey, she was feeling too depressed to even think about cooking. She even cried a little while they were dishing out the chop suey and chow mein, with big tears rolling down her cheeks and clumping the long lashes on her famous eyes. But by the time Audrey's father came to the table, she had dried her tears and stopped talking about the terrible things Mrs. Austin had said and done. Stopped entirely, with not a word about her terrible day during dinner. Not even one.

Audrey went to her room that night feeling concerned about her mother but even more worried about her father. She was almost sure that the reason her mother had stopped complaining, which she hardly ever did, must be because John's heart was worse. So much worse that it would dangerous to say or do anything that might upset him in any way.

Audrey tried not to believe that had been the reason, but the thought kept coming back, especially after it occurred to her that her father's serious condition could be why Beowulf had been insisting on spending so much time in John's bedroom lately. As if his doggy intuition was telling him he might not have much longer to be…

Audrey winced and tried to force herself to think of something else. But it wasn't easy. Sitting at her desk, she suddenly took a clean sheet out of her binder, spread it out, and got out the bronze pen. She stared at the pen and then at the empty page for a long time before she wrote anything.

Sometimes in the past it had seemed to work better if she wrote what might happen as part of a story. But this time what she wanted to say had nothing to do with any kind of fiction. This time what she needed the pen to do was just so completely nonfiction. At last she sighed, picked up the pen, and began to write.

She blew on the ink to be sure it was dry, started to fold the paper—and then stopped. Picking up the pen, she added another sentence to what she had written:

Finishing the folding, she put the paper away in her secret novel binder and went to bed.

Audrey woke up the next morning feeling cautiously hopeful, but it wasn't long before her hope disappeared. At breakfast her mother was tense and quiet, and her father was, as far as Audrey could see, not any better. Cheerful and smiling as always, but not any less pale and shaky. His hands still shook when he picked up his cup, and his eyes, under his tilted eyebrows, were deep and dark rimmed. Audrey went on watching him out of the corner of her eye until he grinned at her, wiped his face with his napkin, and asked, “What's up, kiddo? Do I have egg on my face? You're staring.”

Audrey was still denying that she'd been staring when the phone rang. Hoping to change the subject, she jumped up to take the call, even though she was pretty sure it wouldn't be for her. As usual, it was for her mother.

Hannah came back to the table looking puzzled and even more worried. “That was Dr. Richards,” she said. She looked at John. “He asked if you could come in tomorrow
at ten, instead of on Saturday.” But when Audrey's father asked why, she only shook her head and said, “He didn't exactly say. Something about getting a second opinion.”

When John asked if The Warden (meaning Mrs. Austin) would give her enough time off to drive him to the clinic on a workday, she nodded. “Yes,” she said firmly. “She'd better.”

It was just about then that the phone rang again, and this time it was for Audrey. “Who is it?” she asked her mother.

“It's Lizzie.” Hannah looked puzzled as she handed the phone to Audrey. “I thought she was in Mexico.”

“She is,” Audrey said. And then, into the phone, “Lizzie? Where are you?”

“Hi,” Lizzie's familiar voice said. “I'm here. Right back here in Greendale.”

“But I thought—” Audrey was beginning when Lizzie said, “Yeah. So did I. But my dad found out he might get a promotion—if he was here next week. So he threw everyone in the van—at least everyone and everything he could squeeze in—and here we are. What a shock.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Audrey said. “So you had to leave early? What a letdown!” What she was thinking was,
Hooray!
But what she said was, “When can you come over? Right away?”

“Well, maybe not right away. Hey, I got your letter and I can't wait to talk to you, but I have to help unload
the van first, and believe me, that's going to take a while.”

Audrey was frustrated. “Why do
you
have to do it? With all those brothers, you'd think—

“Yeah. You would, wouldn't you? But they've all managed to disappear. Must have hit the ground running.”

Lizzie paused, and from a distance, Audrey could hear someone with a deep voice calling in Spanish.

“Okay, okay. I'm coming,” Lizzie shouted, and then, quickly, “Bye, Audrey. See you. Sooner or later.”

The phone went dead.

A
UDREY WAS STILL STARING AT THE
phone when her father asked, “So, the Moraleses came home early? What happened?”

“Something about her father having to come back to get a promotion,” Audrey said. “She sounded pretty frustrated. I guess she was really having a good time with some cousins.” Audrey shrugged. “Too bad,” she added, feeling a little guilty because she really wasn't a bit sorry. Not when there was so much she needed to talk to Lizzie about—the sooner the better.

Audrey's parents agreed it was too bad and went back to making plans for tomorrow and wondering about Dr. Richards's change of plans. Hannah sounded anxious, but John laughed and said it was probably because Doctor Rob wanted Saturday free to play golf.

It wasn't until Hannah left for work and John was busy with the morning paper that Audrey was able to spend a
few minutes alone, making plans about what she would tell Lizzie and what might happen after that. But when Lizzie called again, a few hours later, it was to say that she wouldn't be able to come over until the next day.

“Not till tomorrow?” Audrey started to complain before it dawned on her that tomorrow might be best. For more reasons than one, it would be better for Lizzie to arrive while John and Hannah were at the doctor's. For one thing, if they knew Lizzie was arriving, it would mean that her parents wouldn't fuss at her to come with them. But even more importantly, there wouldn't be any witnesses to whatever experiments she and Lizzie might decide to do with the pen. Any experiments—like talking animals or baby dragons—that might be hard to keep secret in broad daylight.

Audrey went to bed that night looking forward to the next morning and Lizzie's visit, but the scene at the breakfast table was, once again, worrisome. John Abbott still didn't seem to be any better. And as for the other bronze pen experiment, the one about Mrs. Austin, nothing seemed to have changed there, either. At least when Audrey asked what Mrs. Austin had said when her mother asked for the morning off, Hannah only shook her head, frowned, and said grimly, “When I told her I had to have this morning off to take my husband to the doctor, she just turned around and walked away. Without saying anything.”

Audrey's father grinned and said, “Well, it could have been worse. The Warden must have been in one of her better moods.” And Audrey could only hope he was right, hope that the fact that the Austin woman hadn't yelled or said no might mean that one of her requests really was being answered. Crabby old Mrs. Austin was finally being a little nicer.

After her parents left, Audrey stayed on the front porch waiting for Lizzie, but not for long. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes until there she was, trudging up the road from the bus stop. Audrey ran to meet her.

They slapped hands and headed for the house, stopping only long enough for Lizzie to share a few welcoming bounces with Beowulf.

By the time they'd reached her room, Audrey had gotten around to saying it was too bad Lizzie's family had to come back early, but—. That was about as far as she got before Lizzie broke in: “
But
you've got news about the pen, haven't you? That's what your letter meant? That stuff about experiments?”

“Yes,” Audrey said. “I wanted to tell you—”

“So did it do some new things?” Lizzie interrupted. “What did you find out?”

“Well.” Audrey sighed. “Well, when I wrote to you, something had just happened that made me think it was still really working. That's why I wrote what I did.”
She sighed again. “But before that I'd done two other experiments and nothing at all happened.”

“Oh yeah? What kind of experiments?”

“I did two experiments about…well, about getting a new bathing suit.”

Lizzie laughed. “You're kidding,” she said. “You wasted a wish on a bathing suit?”

Audrey's face felt hot. “I know. It was a stupid thing to do, but it was just a test. And I guess it didn't prove anything. But then, night before last, I wrote two really important things. Wait, I'll show you.” Getting out her secret notebook, she opened it to the page where she'd written:

“Good one,” Lizzie said. “And…?”

Audrey shook her head. “He's no better,” she said. “Maybe even worse.”

“And this one?” Lizzie said, pointing to where, on the same page, Audrey had written:

“That didn't happen either,” Audrey answered. “Yesterday when my mom asked her about taking the
morning off, she just walked away without saying anything. I guess it could have been worse if she'd said no. But just walking away like that was pretty rude.”

“Yeah, pretty rude,” Lizzie said. She frowned. “But then, what was it that happened when it really worked? You know. When you wrote to me. Did Mowgli come to visit?”

“No.” Audrey grinned. “I thought I'd save that until you got back. But what I did was to write some more of the detective story about the girl who could talk to animals. You remember that one.”

“Sure, I remember,” Lizzie said.

“I wanted to find out if I could get Beowulf and Sputnik to talk to me again. So I wrote this kind of afterword to finish up the story, and what happened then was the two of them talked, but just to each other, not to me.”

Lizzie was frowning. “I don't get it,” she said.

So Audrey turned to the page where she'd written the Afterword to “Heather's Alley Adventure,” and after Lizzie read it, Audrey said, “See, I didn't realize that I hadn't mentioned anything about a human talking to an animal until the next day, but then as soon as I did, I could see that what I
had
written really did come true.”

“I still don't get it. How'd you know they were talking if you couldn't understand them?”

So Audrey explained how she knew, going into a lot of detail about the way Beowulf and Sputnik had acted and the noises they'd made and how much better they'd been
getting along since they'd had a chance to talk things over.

By the time she finished, Lizzie was grinning. “Yeah,” she said. “Sounds good to me. You and that pen are really something. But I already knew that. Look at the way it got me home early. And”—she poked Audrey in the chest—“and look at my dad's promotion! The pen did that, too, I'll bet.”

Audrey was bewildered. “Your dad's promotion? I didn't write anything about that. And I didn't say anything about you getting home early, either.”

“Sure you did.” Reaching in the pocket of her jeans, Lizzie pulled out a badly wrinkled letter and smoothed it out on the desk. “See right here at the end? Right here.” Her finger was stabbing at the bottom of the page just above where Audrey had signed her name. Stabbing the words “See you soon.”

Audrey gasped. “But that doesn't mean…I mean, I didn't say anything about you coming home early.”

“No, of course not,” Lizzie said. “You didn't have to. But soon is
soon
—not two whole weeks later. So the pen had to make it so I'd have to come back right away. So it got my dad the new job.”

“Lizzie Morales,” Audrey said, “I think you're crazy.” But she was laughing as she said it. Laughing and hoping, or at least trying to hope, that Lizzie just might be right and that whatever she wrote, whether it was a story or just a wish, might come true.