The Willoughbys
Authors: Lois Lowry
Illustrated by the Author
H
OUGHTON
M
IFFLIN
C
OMPANY
B
OSTON
2008
Walter Lorraine Books
Walter Lorraine Books
Copyright © 2008 by Lois Lowry
All rights reserved. For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowry, Lois.
The Willoughbys / by Lois Lowry.
p. cm.
"Walter Lorraine books."
Summary: In this tongue-in-cheek take on classic themes in children's literature,
the four Willoughby children set about to become "deserving orphans" after their
neglectful parents embark on a treacherous around-the-world adventure, leaving
them in the care of an odious nanny.
ISBN-13: 978-0-618-97974-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-618-97974-3 (alk. paper)
[1. Orphans—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.
3. Family life—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.L9673Wi 2008
[Fic]—dc22
2007021550
Printed in the United States of America
MV 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
für meine deutschen Mädchen,
Nadine und Annika
Contents
1. The Old-Fashioned Family and the Beastly Baby
5. The Arrival of the Odious Nanny
11. An Astonishing acquisition
12. Another Cryptic Communication
18. A Walking Tour Is Suggested
19. Long Hours in the Laboratory
20. A Confectionary Recognition
21. A Decision, an Announcement, and an Unexpected Arrival
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Anne of Green Gables
The Bobbsey Twins and Baby May
A Christmas Carol
Heidi
James and the Giant Peach
Jane Eyre
Little Women
Mary Poppins
Pollyanna
Ragged Dick
The Secret Garden
Toby Tyler; or, Ten Weeks with the Circus
The Willoughbys
Lois Lowry
1. The Old-Fashioned Family and the Beastly Baby
Once upon a time there was a family named Willoughby: an old-fashioned type of family, with four children.
The eldest was a boy named Timothy; he was twelve. Barnaby and Barnaby were ten-year-old twins. No one could tell them apart, and it was even more confusing because they had the same name; so they were known as Barnaby A and Barnaby B. Most people, including their parents, shortened this to A and B, and many were unaware that the twins even
had
names.
There was also a girl, a timid, pretty little thing with eyeglasses and bangs. She was the youngest, just six and a half, and her name was Jane.
They lived in a tall, thin house in an ordinary city and they did the kinds of things that children in old-fashioned stories do. They went to school and to the seashore. They had birthday parties. Occasionally they were taken to the circus or the zoo, although they did not care much for either, excepting the elephants.
Their father, an impatient and irascible man, went to work at a bank each day, carrying a briefcase and an umbrella even if it was not raining. Their mother, who was indolent and ill-tempered, did not go to work. Wearing a pearl necklace, she grudgingly prepared the meals. Once she read a book but found it distasteful because it contained adjectives. Occasionally she glanced at a magazine.
The Willoughby parents frequently forgot that they had children and became quite irritable when they were reminded of it.
Tim, the eldest, had a heart of gold, as many old-fashioned boys do, but he hid it behind a somewhat bossy exterior. It was Tim who decided what the children would do: what games they would play ("We'll have a game of chess now," he occasionally said, "and the rules are that only boys can play, and the girl will serve cookies each time a pawn is captured"); how they would behave in church ("Kneel nicely and keep a pleasant look on your face, but think only about elephants," he told them once); whether or not they would eat what their mother had cooked ("We do
not
like this," he might announce, and they would all put down their forks and refuse to open their mouths, even if they were very, very hungry).
Once, his sister whispered to him privately, after a dinner they had refused to eat, "I liked it."
But Tim glared at her and replied, "It was stuffed cabbage. You are not allowed to like stuffed cabbage."
"All right," Jane said with a sigh. She went to bed hungry and dreamed, as she often did, about becoming older and more self-assured so that someday she could play whatever game she liked or eat any food she chose.
Their lives proceeded in exactly the way lives proceeded in old-fashioned stories.
One day they even found a baby on their doorstep. This happens quite often in old-fashioned stories. The Bobbsey Twins, for example, found a baby on their doorstep once. But it had never happened to the Willoughbys before. The baby was in a wicker basket and wearing a pink sweater that had a note attached to it with a safety pin.
"I wonder why Father didn't notice it when he left for work," Barnaby A said, looking down at the basket, which was blocking the front steps to their house when the four children set out one morning to take a walk in the nearby park.
"Father is oblivious—you know that," Tim pointed out. "He steps over any obstructions. I expect he poked it aside." They all looked down at the basket and at the baby, which was sound asleep.
They pictured their father taking a high step over it after moving it slightly out of his way with his furled black umbrella.
"We could set it out for the trash collector," Barnaby B suggested. "If you take one handle, A, and I take the other, I believe we could get it down the stairs without much trouble. Are babies heavy?"
"Please, could we read the note?" asked Jane, trying to use the self-assured voice that she practiced in secret.
The note was folded over so that the writing could not be seen.
"I don't think it's necessary," Tim replied.
"I believe we should," Barnaby B said. "It could possibly say something important."
"Perhaps there is a reward for finding the baby," Barnaby A suggested. "Or it might be a ransom note."
"You dolt!" Tim said to him. "Ransom notes are sent by the ones who
have
the baby."
"Maybe we could send one, then," said Barnaby A.
"Perhaps it says the baby's name," said Jane. Jane was very interested in names because she had always felt she had an inadequate one, with too few syllables. "I would like to know its name."
The baby stirred and opened its eyes.
"I suppose the note might give instructions about babies," Tim said, peering down at it. "It might say where to put them if you find one."
The baby began to whimper and then very quickly the whimper changed to a yowl.
"Or," said Barnaby B, holding his ears, "how to keep them from screeching."
"If the note doesn't tell the name, may I name it?" Jane asked.
"What would you name it?" Barnaby A asked with interest.
Jane frowned. "Something with three syllables, I think," she said. "Babies deserve three syllables."
"Brittany?" Barnaby A asked.
"Possibly," Jane replied.
"Madonna?" Barnaby B suggested.
"No," Jane said. "Taffeta, I think."
By now the baby was waving its fists, kicking its chubby legs, and crying loudly. The Willoughbys' cat appeared at the front door, gazed briefly down at the basket, twitched its whiskers, and then dashed back inside as if it was made nervous by the sound. The baby
did
sound a bit like a yowling kitten; perhaps that was why.
Tim finally reached down past the flailing little fists and unpinned the note. He read it silently. "The usual," he said to the others. "Pathetic. Just what I expected."
He read it aloud to them. "'I chose this house because it looks as if a happy, loving family lives here, prosperous enough to feed another child. I am very poor, alas. I have fallen on hard times and cannot care for my dear baby. Please be good to her.'"
"Take that handle, twins," Tim said to his brothers. He took hold of the opposite handle. "Jane, you carry the note. We'll take the whole disgusting thing inside."
Jane took the folded note and followed behind her brothers, who picked up the basket, carried it into the front hall of the house, and set it there on an Oriental rug. The noise coming from the baby was not insignificant.
Their mother, frowning, opened the door at the end of the long hall. She emerged from the kitchen. "Whatever is that noise?" she asked. "I am trying to remember the ingredients for meat loaf and I cannot hear myself think."
"Oh, someone has left a beastly baby on our front steps," Tim told her.