The Wonder of Charlie Anne (21 page)

Rosalyn is carrying a stack of books, and I see
David Copperfield
on top, and I say to myself, Good, I’ve been wondering how things turn out for poor little David.

She tells us Old Mr. Jolly has gone on ahead to check on the school and to get a fire started in the woodstove. Then she gives me a map of the United States to carry and also an American flag. I am so proud to be going to school with Phoebe. We walk arm in arm.

Rosalyn starts humming a tune I’ve never heard before, and by the time we are out of sight of the house, she puts words to the music:

Then Phoebe starts, her voice flying straight up to heaven:

And then I open my mouth and try and sing the chorus without sounding too much like a toad croaking:

Then Birdie starts singing, her voice all soft, and I think about how it’s been a long time since I have been so happy as I am now.

When we get around the corner, there are three dead robins lined up in a row across the road. Birdie shrieks and starts wailing and I have to pick her up and my stomach starts balling up. Rosalyn looks quickly all around us and then tells us we better hurry, and I put Birdie down and tell her we all have to run.

I wonder why there is no wood-smoke smell in the air. When we get around the corner, I see why. Old Mr. Jolly hasn’t even gotten inside the school to start the fire. Instead, he is ripping off a bunch of old boards that someone nailed right across the school door.

“Oh, no,” says Rosalyn.

“Whoever did this took a lot of time,” Old Mr. Jolly is saying. “There are a lot of boards here.”

Rosalyn reaches for Phoebe, and together they look at everything blocking our way. Birdie won’t let me go.

“I won’t quit,” Rosalyn keeps telling Old Mr. Jolly.

“Then let’s get the rest of these boards off,” he says, and he gives us all tools from the back of his truck: hammers, screwdrivers, even a crowbar. It takes us a whole hour to get the boards off and broken up, and Old Mr. Jolly tells us we should use them to start the fire for our soup.

When the fire is catching and we are all calming down, I ask Old Mr. Jolly who he thinks did such a thing, and if he thinks it was the oldest Thatcher boy, and he says there’s no way of knowing for sure. “And the dead robins,” says Birdie, starting to howl again.

I lift her up and wipe her tears with my hand and catch Old Mr. Jolly looking into Rosalyn’s face and running his fingers through her hummingbird hair.

“I think I’ll just stay here today, doing some chores outside, while you hold school. And I think you should lock the door.”

She nods and he goes out to the woodshed, and a few minutes later we hear him chopping wood.

“First thing we have to do each morning is get the soup going,” Rosalyn says, and we are soon chopping potatoes and onions and turnips and carrots. Ivy is complaining she doesn’t like turnip.

“It sweetens up once it’s cooked. You’ll be surprised how a thing can change,” Rosalyn says, and Ivy doesn’t look too sure about that, and I notice she has the
Movie Mirror
magazine tucked into her pocket.

Soon the schoolhouse is warm from the fire and smelling good from the golden harvest soup, and we can hear Old Mr. Jolly outside chopping wood. Rosalyn tells me I can sit near Phoebe—for a little while, until we start reading and she starts needing to be assistant teacher.

Birdie sits beside me on the other side and Ivy sits behind us. Then we wait for the other children to come, and Rosalyn keeps looking at the door.

Ivy is slumped in her seat whispering how she told me so, how nobody is going to come to this stupid school and how she is going straight home to tell Mirabel we should have waited for the teacher from Boston.

“Shut up, Ivy. Will you just shut up?”

“Perhaps we should start reading?” Rosalyn asks.

I say that might be a very good idea, and it comes out all mad because my temper is short from the worry over the robins and the boards on the door and from waiting for more children to show up.

Rosalyn reaches for
David Copperfield
and asks if I would mind if she started from the beginning since neither Ivy nor Birdie has heard it, and I say that would be okay, since I like the beginning very much.

Old Mr. Jolly comes in and dumps a big load of wood in the wood box and then Rosalyn opens the book.

Her voice is soft and the fire is warm, and as I listen to the story, I start to forget about the boards nailed across the door, and I start feeling all wrapped up in Mama’s poppy-colored quilt, and if I weren’t feeling so bad about David Copperfield’s sad life, sadder than even mine, I could fall asleep. After a while, I turn around to make sure Ivy isn’t reading her
Movie Mirror
, and even her eyes are wet from the sadness of what Mr. Murdstone is doing to little David. Rosalyn is just getting to the part where David gets sent to the tiny wretched bedroom at the top of the stairs when she sets the book down.

“I just want to remind all you teary eyes out there that this is the beginning of the book and things have a way of turning around. That’s just the way books are. You have to keep being hopeful when things are bad. Do you understand that?”

I look at Phoebe. Tears are falling down her face. I reach over and squeeze her hand.

Rosalyn waits to make sure we really do understand, and that we are nodding—yes, yes, we understand—before she picks up where she left off. Then she puts the book down again, and I groan way down deep inside myself because I want her to keep going something awful.

“And sometimes,” she says, “it is a good idea to read about someone who’s having trouble—maybe more
trouble than we are—because it helps us find ways through our own troubles.”

Yes, yes, even Birdie is nodding. Then Rosalyn picks up the book again, and just as I begin to think that David is about as sorry a little creature as ever lived, there is a rap at the door.

Well. My seat is telling me to sit right where I am and not move. Phoebe has that ironing board down her back again, and I know she’s thinking what I’m thinking: whoever nailed up all that wood over the door is waiting out there now, ready to do something even worse.

Birdie jumps into my lap. “Shh,” I say, rubbing my hands over her hair. “Where are your lemon drops?”

She holds up her last sliver.

“I told you we should have never come,” Ivy is saying. “What if it’s that Thatcher boy?”

“He has cooties,” says Birdie.

Rosalyn closes the book and looks at us. “Girls, we are not afraid, are we?” She is looking like she’s not fearful of anything, not even bats flying around a schoolhouse. You can hear Old Mr. Jolly chopping wood out back. He must not know anyone is out front. “Charlie Anne,” she says, “would you please answer the door?”

Well. We all just sit there. I feel the hundred knives slashing at my cheek. I shake my head.

“There’s no need to be afraid,” Rosalyn says gently.
“Stand up, Charlie Anne, walk tall, and open the door so we can greet whoever would like to join us.”

“But the boards …”

“Someone who did something like that won’t come out in the daylight. That sort of thing is done at night. We don’t need to be afraid.”

We hear more raps at the door. “Charlie Anne,” says Rosalyn.

I turn to Phoebe. “Come with me.” Her eyes are moons, filling up her whole face, and she shakes her head.

“We are blood sisters, remember?” I say. Phoebe shakes her head. No.

“That’s a good idea,” says Rosalyn. “Phoebe, go help.”

When I take Phoebe’s hand, her fingers are shaking and cold. I tell Birdie she has to get off my lap, but she won’t let go of my leg, so finally, we walk to the door, Phoebe, me, and me dragging Birdie.

I grab the handle and look back at Rosalyn. She smiles and nods and I open the door.

The first thing I see are the barn boots, three sizes too big, stuffed with rags no doubt, and the flour-sack dresses.

Then I notice that the dresses are clean and pressed and the boots are spotless. It is the Morrell girls: Sarah, Deborah and Mary. Their hair is all washed
and brushed, and when Sarah gives me a basketful of biscuits, I see her fingernails are clean. I tell myself to stop it. I am acting just like Mirabel.

“Come in, oh, come in, girls!” says Rosalyn, jumping up, and I am breathing a very large sigh of relief, and I check to see if Phoebe is sighing, too, and she is.

Rosalyn says we are going to have a school like no other, a wonderful school, where we will grow readers, and then she tells the Morrell girls to find seats, and then Rosalyn tells us she has some things she needs to go over.

“First, everyone who can should bring something to put into our soup pot. Even an onion is fine. Each day we’ll make a soup for lunch.” Rosalyn walks over and lifts the cover off the pot and stirs the soup, and the smell spreads all through the school, and I have to tell my belly it has to wait just a little while longer.

“Next,” Rosalyn says, “we’re going to start the day discussing history and geography and the world around us because I think it’s important to know why things are the way they are.

“For example, we could begin by talking about the hard times we are living in right now. Charlie Anne, Ivy, Birdie, I know your father has gone north to build roads to make money to keep the farm. And hasn’t Mr. Morrell done the same thing?”

All three Morrell girls nod.

“And our brothers, too,” says Sarah.

I think about Peter. I wonder if school in Boston is better than this. I look around the cozy little room, with the sun pouring through the shining windows, and I don’t see how it could be.

“Does anyone know what President Roosevelt meant when he said, ‘There is nothing to fear but fear itself’?”

No one says anything. Birdie puts the last of her lemon drop in her mouth.

“I think he means that if we can’t see the good in life, it will be hard to turn the tough things around. What do you think?”

No one says anything.

“Well, what are you all doing at home to get by?” Rosalyn asks.

“Vinegar pie,” says Ivy, pinching her nose, and I want to smack her.

“Handing-me-down-forevers,” I say.

“Not enough lemon drops,” says Birdie.

“That’s right,” says Rosalyn. “Sometimes, though, doing without makes people bitter. And sometimes, instead of seeing the wonder of another person, all they see are the differences.”

“Like with Phoebe?” asks Birdie.