Bronze Pen (9781439156650) (13 page)

S
O THERE IT WAS. THE BIG QUESTION:
Did the pen really have anything to do with Lizzie's dad getting the promotion just so he, and all the rest of the Moraleses, would have to come home early, making Audrey's “See you soon” come true? Down deep Audrey couldn't quite believe it, but she really wanted to, for one reason in particular. And that reason was that if the pen had enough power to arrange Mr. Morales's promotion, that must mean that it was strong enough to answer Audrey's other requests. Particularly the most important one, about her dad not having angina pectoris anymore.

She told Lizzie so, and Lizzie said she thought that was one thing the pen would do for sure. “After all,” Lizzie said, “that's the one that really matters. I'll bet the pen will do that one.”

“But the other things that came true, like the one about talking to animals and the dragon thing, they happened
right away,” Audrey pointed out. “So how come my dad's not getting better already?”

But Lizzie had an answer for that, too. Well, sort of an answer, anyway. What she said was, “You know what? I think it must be that only really handy things happen right away. Like the talking to animals thing. Animals that were
right here
in your own house. That was quick and easy. But remember that ‘See you soon' thing you did to me? That took a little longer. I had to get your letter, and then my dad had to find out about the promotion so we would have to hurry back. So maybe some things
are
happening right now, right this minute, that are going to make your dad better real soon. Maybe not today, but before long.” Then Lizzie's eyes lit up like neon. “Hey, maybe that doctor is going to give him some new miracle medicine today, and in a few days he'll be good as new.”

Audrey wanted so much to think so. To think that Lizzie's guess was a good one. Even just a little bit true. But when her parents came back from the doctor's around two o'clock, there was no sign of it. Looking exhausted, her father went right to bed, and as Hannah bustled around getting ready to go to work, she seemed and looked as tired and worried as ever. When Lizzie asked if she could ride back to town with her, she answered impatiently. “Yes, if you're all ready to go. I have to hurry.”

Audrey tried to squeeze in a question about why Dr. Richards had made the extra appointment, but Hannah
shrugged her off. “Nothing important,” she said. “I guess he just wanted us to meet Marc, that nephew he's so proud of. He's going back to San Francisco tomorrow, and Doctor Rob wanted us to meet him before he left. Marc is a cardiologist. A heart specialist.”

“A heart specialist?” Audrey said eagerly. “What did he say—about Dad?”

“Nothing much.” Hannah sighed. “He seemed to agree with his uncle's diagnosis. You can ask your father about it when he wakes up.”

She left then, taking Lizzie with her. As she went out the door, Lizzie put out her hand to be slapped and whispered, “Just wait. You'll see.” Audrey stood on the front porch waving for several minutes before she went with Beowulf to sit on the floor in her father's room and wait for him to wake up. It took quite a while. Audrey was more than half asleep herself when her father finally woke up.

John Abbott laughed when he saw Audrey and Beowulf sprawled out on the floor next to his bed. “Nice pillow,” he told Audrey. “As long as his stomach doesn't growl.”

“No growls here,” Audrey said, poking Beowulf 's shaggy belly. “Just on this end”—she patted his big gentle head—“when he's in a dangerous mood.” She got up and went to sit on the edge of her father's bed. “So,” she said, “Mom said Dr. Richards's nephew is a heart specialist. Did he give you an examination?”

“Only a brief one,” John said. “But he'd been over all of
Rob's records about my case. He did bring up the bypass surgery thing again, but Rob is still against it.” He nodded thoughtfully for a minute before he went on. “I'd be willing to give it a try, but it would be very expensive and San Francisco is a long way off.”

“Dad,” Audrey said, “San Francisco isn't far at all if you fly.”

“Well,” her father said, “flying isn't exactly free either, and your mother would have to go with me and find a place to stay for a few days. And that would be expensive too.” He put one arm around Audrey's shoulder and gave her a hug. “Don't worry, kiddo,” he said, “I'll be all right. Nothing as boring as angina pectoris is going to get the best of an old newspaper man like me. I'll just write down ‘angina pectoris,'”—he wrote in the air with one finger—“and edit it out.” John Abbott scratched out what he'd written with his imaginary pen, and they both laughed, but Audrey's laugh didn't edit the catch in her throat.

She was still right there sitting on the edge of her father's bed when she heard a familiar but puzzling sound: the growl of a car's tires on the Abbotts' gravel driveway. It was only four o'clock. Much too early for her mother to be coming home from work. “I'll go see,” she told her father. “I'll be right back.”

When Audrey met her mother just as she reached the kitchen, she knew immediately that something was very wrong. Hannah Elgin Abbott's Homecoming queen's face
was an ugly twist of pain and anger, wet with recent tears. Throwing not only her purse, but an armload of files and folders on the table, she sat down and buried her face in her arms.

Stunned into silence, Audrey stood without moving for several seconds before she put her hand on her mother's shoulder. “Mom?” she whispered. “What is it? What happened?”

For a while there was no answer, but finally her mother raised her head. “I've lost my job, Audrey. That woman fired me for taking the morning off,” she said before she put her head back down and sobbed.

For several minutes Audrey tried to think of something to say or do, without much luck. She thought of saying it didn't matter, except she knew how much it did. Then she thought of saying something about Mrs. Austin, but the only words that came to mind were some that Sputnik used to say before he reformed.

Neither of them said anything more for quite a while. Then Hannah wiped the tears off her face and shook her head. “Don't tell your father.”

“I won't,” Audrey said. “But won't he have to know?”

Hannah nodded. “I'm afraid so.” Her sigh turned into a shudder. “But the trip downtown this morning seemed especially hard on him. I'll tell him tomorrow if he seems stronger.”

So they didn't tell him. Hannah explained her early
arrival by saying that someone else was taking her place for the whole day, which was more or less true. All the rest of the day Audrey worked hard on acting cheerful. So hard that, before the evening was over, her face felt stiffened by all the glued-on smiles. It wasn't easy, but it seemed to work. Her father seemed to believe their “everything is fine” act—or at least he pretended to.

It wasn't until after both her parents had gone to bed and Audrey had taken Beowulf on his bedtime outing that she felt free to go to her room. Instead of heading for his mattress in the living room, the big dog went on following her, following so closely that he stepped on her heels, right up until she sat down on the edge of her bed. He stopped then and stared into her eyes with his head cocked to one side before he licked her face, up the right side first and then the left.

He didn't talk this time, not really, but he didn't have to use words to tell Audrey that he knew she was hurting. And at that particular moment a sympathetic kiss, even a slobbery one, was all it took to break her up. Burying her face in the dog's shaggy neck, she began to cry. Beowulf waited patiently as she sobbed violently for several minutes and then a while longer as she shuddered with occasional sobs. Not until there was nothing left but a few sniffles did he pull away and collapse on his usual sleeping spot near the foot of her bed. It was then that Audrey got up and, wiping her face with both
hands, went to her desk and got out the bronze pen.

Holding it in both hands, as she had done before when she was excitedly wondering about its magical power, she stared squint-eyed as she turned it from side to side. But this time, instead of excitement, what she was feeling was a painful, aching anger. Anger that it
had
granted her wish that Mrs. Austin would stop being so mean to her mother, but in such a terrible way. So now there would be no more of Mrs. Austin's meanness, but only because there was no more job.

It was like those old fairy tales where someone is given three wishes, and each wish is answered, but in ways that make each granted wish turn out to be a worse disaster. She could vaguely remember one about an old man who didn't really believe he'd been given three wishes and, when he sat down to dinner, carelessly wished they had some sausages to eat. And there they were, on the table. And then his wife got him to tell about the three wishes, and she was so mad at him for wasting one of the wishes on sausages that she wished they were hanging on the end of his nose. And so they were, permanently, until they had to use their last wish to get them off.

But Audrey's last wish—the most important one—was still out there—where there had been no answer at all, at least not yet. The angina pectoris was clearly worse, her father's heart was still hurting, and if there really was something that might make his heart well again, it was
way out of reach. And what if her wish to have her father's angina pectoris stop would be answered by having his heart stop beating?

With the pen still clutched tightly in her hand, Audrey jumped to her feet and ran. Ran out of her room, down the hall, through the kitchen, out the back door, and into a moonless night, heavy with fog. A blinding blanket of mist that thickened as she climbed from one terrace to the next, until she was unable to see her running feet. But she kept going, stumbling and feeling her way until she got to the highest level. She stopped then, and turning to face the trail that went toward the cave, she held out the pen in both hands and whispered, “Why? Why?”

There was no answer.

She waited another long hopeless moment before she threw the pen as far as she could, out into the swirling fog. Afterward she wasn't at all sure whether she had only imagined a short sharp sound that echoed inside her head just as she threw the pen. A sound that might have been a shout or a squawk or perhaps a quack.

T
HE NEXT MORNING AUDREY WOKE UP
slowly, vaguely aware that it would be better to escape back into unconsciousness. But the comfort of drifting dreams refused to stay, and she was soon wide awake and, once again, filled with anger and anxiety. She was still trying, without much hope of succeeding, to sink back into forgetfulness when she became aware that somewhere in the house a phone was ringing. She looked at her watch—almost eight o'clock. She'd overslept. Still in her pajamas, she headed for the kitchen, where she found her mother talking on the phone.

“Yes. Yes. I understand,” Hannah was saying. “And I do thank you so very much. Yes. Yes. I can be there by nine. I certainly can.”

She hung up the phone, and turning to face Audrey, she said, “We have to hurry. It's late and I have to be at the office by nine o'clock.”

Audrey was confused. “But I thought—,” she was beginning when her mother interrupted.

“I know. I know,” she said, and the way she was smiling told half the story. The half of it that let Audrey know it was going to have a happy ending.

“That was Mr. Macmillan just now.” Hannah pointed to the phone. “You know, the district manager. And he said I'm to come back to work.” She grabbed Audrey by the shoulders and danced her around in a circle. When the dance stopped, Hannah said, “And the best part is that Austin is leaving. They're transferring her to the Glenview office.”

Audrey was stunned. “But why? I mean, how come?”

“I don't really know,” her mother said. “Except that Mr. Macmillan said he was curious about why I'd been fired so abruptly, so he called some of the other people in the office.” She almost giggled. “He didn't tell me exactly what they said, but I got the picture that some of them really stood up for me. And he wound up by saying that…” Lowering her voice and stroking an imaginary beard, pretending to be the important Mr. Macmillian, Hannah Elgin Abbott went on. “‘I guess it just happens that way from time to time. Two capable and otherwise well-adjusted people for some reason just can't seem to work well with each other.'”

“Two well-adjusted people, my foot.” Audrey snorted. “It's like Dad says. She was just jealous because you're
so beautiful and she's such a—” Suddenly overtaken by a startling thought, Audrey asked, “Have you told Dad yet?”

“No.” Hannah laughed. “No, I haven't told him anything. I thought I'd wait until after breakfast to tell him about being fired, and now…”

“And now you don't have to tell him about being unfired, unless you want to.” Audrey giggled. She grabbed her mother's shoulders and tried to start another dance, but Hannah pulled her to a quick stop.

“I have to be there by nine. Can you get breakfast started while I change?”

Audrey could. And it wasn't until the table was set and she was getting out the cereal and milk that it suddenly hit her. Hit her so suddenly and so hard that she gasped and stood absolutely motionless for a minute with a box of cornflakes in one hand and a milk carton in the other.

The pen's power had answered her wish after all. And not in a cruel, sinister way, but in a good, helpful—only a little bit slow and roundabout—way. Just as Lizzie thought it did when it had arranged a promotion for her father so that Lizzie would see Audrey soon—sooner than she expected to.

Audrey got to her father's room just as Hannah, dressed now in her best work suit, was helping him into his wheelchair. Running into the room, Audrey quickly slowed to a stop. John Abbott's right hand was pressed against his chest, as it often was when the pain was bad, and his face
was pale and clenched-looking. “Oh, hi,” she said, trying to make her smile normal and ordinary. “I just wanted to tell you that breakfast is ready.”

So there was a quick breakfast, Hannah left for work, and the day went on in an up-and-down way. Down, when Audrey would see the twitching muscle in her father's cheek that meant he was hurting, and then, a short time later, a little bit up, when his quiet smile showed that he was starting to feel a little better. The up-and-down times came and went most of the morning. And then in the early afternoon there was a phone call.

When the phone rang, Audrey thought it might be Lizzie, but an unfamiliar male voice asked for Mr. Abbott. Audrey took the phone to her father and waited.

John Abbott held the phone to his ear for a long time without saying much, and when he did begin to talk, he only said, “Well, that is very intriguing news, and I do thank you so much for your effort on my behalf.” He paused and then went on. “I'll have to talk it over with my wife…” He smiled at Audrey and added, “With my family. Then I'll call back and let you know. Could you give me the number?”

He beckoned for Audrey to bring him paper and a pencil. Then he listened again and began to write, and watching him, Audrey somehow felt certain that what was happening, and what her father was writing, was very important.

“Who was that?” she demanded as soon as her father hung up the phone. “What did he want?”

John Abbott's grin was a little bit teasing. “Well, now. I've just received a piece of very interesting news. It's quite complicated, but good news, I think. However, it seems to me that we—you and I—should wait a bit to discuss it. Just until your mother gets home. It's the kind of thing that involves the whole family. A decision to be made that we'll all need to be in on.”

Audrey begged a little, but it didn't do any good. Her father kept saying he thought it was something the three of them should discuss. But the way he looked when he said it made Audrey even more determined to find out. More and more determined as the hours went by. At one point she even thought briefly of having a temper tantrum, the way she sometimes did when she was a little kid and things didn't go the way she wanted them to.

Very briefly. She didn't know what having to deal with a temper tantrum might do to a person with angina pectoris, and she didn't want to find out. So she bit her lip and tried to find things to do to fill what seemed like endless hours until, at the end of the day, her mother's car came up the driveway.

And then there was another wait while Hannah Abbott finally came into the living room, smiling and full of news about how much better things were at Greendale Savings and Loan without a certain department head.
And John Abbott listened to her stories with maddening patience before he finally broke in and said, “Dr. Richards called today. No, not Rob, his nephew, Marc Richards.”

“But I thought he left,” Hannah said.

“Yes, he did. He called from San Francisco.”

“He did? Why on earth would…”

Audrey clenched her teeth to stop herself from saying something like,
Just be quiet and we'll find out.

“It seems,” Audrey's father was finally able to say, “it seems that Dr. Marc Richards discovered that his hospital has recently been given a sort of grant. Some funds donated by a wealthy man who was treated, quite successfully it seems, for a heart problem very much like mine. So he gave the hospital some money that could be used to help pay for bypass operations for people who are good prospects for the surgery but don't have the means to pay for it.” He grinned. “It's something you might call a ‘bypass scholarship,' I guess. And he quoted a bunch of statistics that made it sound like the operation is becoming pretty routine.”

“Oh, John. How wonderful.” Audrey's mom's shining face looked almost the way it did in that old yearbook where she had been labeled the Girl with the Most Beautiful Eyes. She threw her arms around Audrey and pulled her down into a three way hug with her father.

“Hey, hey,” John Abbott said. “Don't get too excited, now. There still will be the travel expenses to take care of
and whether you can get the days off and—” But Hannah Abbott couldn't be discouraged.

“We'll do it,” she said. “I know we will. I just know it.”

Audrey felt the same way.

As soon as she could get away, she went outside, and in the evening dusk she began to search. Climbing from one terrace to another and back again, she looked under every bush and pawed through every patch of grass. But she didn't find the bronze pen.