BREAKING IN
“Gol-dang!” Gramps said. “What a lot of birds of sadness wing-dinging their way around Peeby’s family.”
Gram said, “You liked Peeby, didn’t you, Salamanca?”
I did like Phoebe. In spite of all her wild tales and her cholesterol-madness and her annoying comments, there was something about Phoebe that was like a magnet. I was drawn to her. I was pretty sure that underneath all that odd behavior was someone who was frightened. And, in a strange way, she was like another version of me—she acted out the way I sometimes felt.
?
I do not think that Phoebe actually planned to break into Mrs. Cadaver’s house, but as Phoebe was going to bed, she saw Mrs. Cadaver, in her nurse’s uniform, get into her car and leave. Phoebe waited until her father was asleep, and then she phoned me. “You’ve got to come over,” she said. “It’s urgent.”
“But Phoebe, it’s late. It’s dark.”
“It’s urgent, Sal.”
Phoebe was waiting in front of Mrs. Cadaver’s house. There were no lights on at Mrs. Cadaver’s. Phoebe said, “Come on,” and she started up the walk. I admit that I was reluctant. “I just want to take a quick look,” she said. She crept up onto the porch and stood by the door. She listened, tapped twice, and turned the doorknob. The door was unlocked.
I don’t think Phoebe intended to go inside, but she did, and I followed. We stood in the dark hallway. In the room to the right, a shaft of light from the streetlamp came in through the window. We went into that room. We both nearly leaped through the window when someone said, “Sal?” I started backing toward the door.
“It’s a ghost,” Phoebe said.
“Come here,” the voice said.
As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could see someone huddled in a chair in the far corner. When I saw the cane, I was relieved. “Mrs. Partridge?”
“Come over here,” she said. “Who’s that with you? Is that Phoebe?”
Phoebe said, “Yes.” Her voice was high and quivery.
“I was just sitting here reading,” Mrs. Partridge said.
“Isn’t it awfully dark in here?” I said, bumping a table.
Mrs. Partridge laughed her wicked laugh. “It’s always dark in here. I don’t need lights, but you can turn some on if you want to.”
As I stumbled around looking for a lamp, Phoebe stood, frozen, near the doorway. “There,” I said. “That’s much better.” Mrs. Partridge was sitting in a big, overstuffed chair. She was wearing a purple bathrobe and pink slippers with floppy bunny ears at the toes. On her lap was a book, her fingers resting on the page. “Is it Braille?” I asked, waving at Phoebe to come into the room. I was afraid she was going to run out and leave me.
Mrs. Partridge handed me the book, and I slid my fingers over the raised bumps. “How did you know it was us?” I asked.
“I just knew,” she said. “Your shoes make a particular sound and you have a particular smell.”
“What’s the name of this book? What’s it about?”
Mrs. Partridge said, “Murder at Midnight. It’s a mystery.”
Phoebe said, “Erp,” and looked around the room.
Each time I went into that house I noticed new things. It was a scary place. The walls were lined with shelves crammed with old musty books. On the floor were three rugs with dark, swirly patterns of wild beasts in forests. Two chairs were covered in similar ghastly designs. A sofa was draped in a bear skin.
On the wall behind the couch were two thumpingly grim African masks. The mouths on the masks were wide open, as if in the midst of a scream. Everywhere you looked there was something startling: a stuffed squirrel, a kite in the shape of a dragon, a wooden cow with a spear piercing its side.
“Goodness,” Phoebe said. “What a lot of—of—unusual things.” She knelt to examine a spot on the floor.
“What’s the matter?” Mrs. Partridge said.
Phoebe jumped up. “Nothing. Nothing whatsoever.”
“Did I drop something on the floor?” Mrs. Partridge asked.
“No. Nothing whatsoever on the floor,” Phoebe said. Leaning against the back of the sofa was an enormous sword. Phoebe examined the blade.
“Careful you don’t cut yourself,” Mrs. Partridge said.
Phoebe stepped back. Even I found this unsettling, that Mrs. Partridge could see what Phoebe was doing even though she couldn’t actually see her.
Mrs. Partridge said, “Isn’t this a grandiful room? Grandiful—and a little peculible, too, I suppose.”
“Phoebe and I have to be going—” We backed toward the door.
“By the way,” Mrs. Partridge said as we reached the doorway, “what was it you wanted?”
Phoebe looked at me and I looked at Phoebe. “We were just passing by,” I said, “and we thought we would see how you were doing.”
“That’s nice,” Mrs. Partridge said, patting her knees. “Oh, Phoebe, I think I met your brother.”
Phoebe said, “I don’t have a brother.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Partridge tapped her head. “I guess this old noggin isn’t as sharp as it used to be.” As we left, she said, “Goodness, you girls stay up late.”
Outside, Phoebe said, “I’ll make a list of items which the police will want to investigate further: the sword, the suspicious spot on the floor, and several hair strands which I picked up.”
“Phoebe, you know when you said that your mother would never leave without an explanation? Well, she might. A person—a mother—might do that.”
Phoebe said, “My mother wouldn’t. My mother loves me.”
“But she might love you and still not have been able to explain.” I was thinking about the letter my mother left me. “Maybe it would be too painful for her to explain. Maybe it would seem too permanent.”
“I don’t know what in the world you are talking about.”
“She might not come back, Phoebe—”
“Shut up, Sal.”
“She might not. I just think you should be prepared—”
“She is too coming back. You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re being horrid.” Phoebe ran into the house.
When I got home and had crept up to my room, I remembered how Phoebe had shown me some things in her room that reminded her of her mother: a handmade birthday card, a photograph of Phoebe and her mother, and a bar of lavender soap. When Phoebe pulled a blouse out of the closet, she said she could see her mother standing at the ironing board smoothing the blouse with her hand. The wall opposite Phoebe’s bed was painted violet. She said, “My mother painted it last summer while I painted the trim at the bottom.”
And I knew exactly what Phoebe was doing and exactly why. I had done the same things when my mother left. My father was right: my mother did haunt our house in Bybanks, and the fields and the barn. She was everywhere. You couldn’t look at a single thing without being reminded of her.
When we moved to Euclid, one of the first things I did was to unpack gifts my mother had given me. On the wall, I tacked the poster of the red hen which my mother had given me for my fifth birthday, and the drawing of the barn she had given me for my last birthday. On my desk were pictures of her and cards from her. On the bookshelf, the wooden animals and books were presents from her.
Sometimes, I would walk around the room and look at each of these things and try to remember exactly the day she had given them to me. I tried to picture what the weather was like and what room we were in and what she was wearing and what precisely she had said. This was not a game. It was a necessary, crucial thing to do. If I did not have these things and remember these occasions, then she might disappear forever. She might never have been.
In my bureau were three things of hers that I had taken from her closet after she left: a red, fringed shawl; a blue sweater; and a yellow-flowered cotton dress that was always my favorite. These things had her smell on them.
Once, before she left, my mother said that if you visualize something happening, you can make it happen. For example, if you are about to run a race, you visualize yourself running the race and crossing the finish line first, and presto! When the time comes, it really happens. The only thing I did not understand was what if everyone visualized himself winning the race?
Still, when she left, this is what I did. I visualized her reaching for the phone. Then I visualized her dialing the phone. I visualized our phone number clicking through the wires. I visualized the phone ringing.
It did not ring.
I visualized her riding the bus back to Bybanks. I visualized her walking up the driveway. I visualized her opening the door.
It did not happen.
While I was thinking about all of this that night after Phoebe and I crept into Mrs. Cadaver’s house, I also thought about Ben. I had the sudden urge to run over to the Finneys and ask him where his own mother was, but it was too late. The Finneys would be asleep.
Instead, I lay there thinking of the poem about the traveler, and I could see the tide rising and falling, and those horrid white hands snatching the traveler. How could it be normal, that traveler dying? And how could such a thing be normal and terrible both at the same time?
I stayed awake the whole night. I knew that if I closed my eyes, I would see the tide and the white hands. I thought about Mr. Winterbottom crying. That was the saddest thing. It was sadder than seeing my own father cry, because my father is the sort of person you expect might cry if he was terribly upset. But I had never, ever, expected Mr. Winterbottom—stiff Mr. Winterbottom—to cry. It was the first time I realized that he actually cared about Mrs. Winterbottom.
As soon as it was daylight, I phoned Phoebe. “Phoebe, we’ve got to find her.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling you,” she said.
THE PHOTOGRAPH
The next day was most peculible, as Mrs. Partridge would say.
Phoebe arrived at school with another message, which she had found on her porch that morning: We never know the worth of water until the well is dry. “It’s a clue,” Phoebe said. “Maybe my mother is hidden in a well.”
I walked straight into Ben when I went to my locker. That grapefruit aroma was in the air. “You’ve got something on your face,” he said. With soft, warm fingers he rubbed the side of my face. “It’s probably your breakfast.”
I don’t know what came over me. I was going to kiss him. I leaned forward just as he turned around and slammed the door of his locker. My lips ended up pressed against the cold, metal locker.
“You’re weird, Sal,” he said.
Kissing was thumpingly complicated. Both people had to be in the same place at the same time, and both people had to remain still so that the kiss ended up in the right place. But I was relieved that my lips ended up on the cold metal locker. I could not imagine what had come over me, or what might have happened if the kiss had landed on Ben’s mouth. It was a shivery thing to consider.
I made it through the rest of my classes without losing control of my lips.
Mr. Birkway sailed into class carrying our journals. I had forgotten all about them. He was leaping all over the place exclaiming, “Dynamite! Unbelievable! Incredible!” He said he couldn’t wait to share the journals with the class.
Mary Lou Finney said, “Share with the class?”
Mr. Birkway said, “Not to worry! Everyone has something magnificent to say. I haven’t read through every page yet, but I wanted to share some of these passages with you right away.”
People were squirming all over the room. I was trying to remember what I had written. Mary Lou leaned over to me and said, “Well, I’m not worried. I wrote a special note in the front of mine distinctly asking him not to read it. Mine was private.”
Mr. Birkway smiled at each nervous face. “You needn’t worry,” he said. “I’ll change any names that you’ve used, and I’ll fold this piece of yellow paper over the cover of whichever journal I’m reading, so that you won’t know whose it is.”
Ben asked if he could go to the bathroom. Christy said she felt sick and begged to see the nurse. Phoebe asked me to touch her forehead because she was pretty sure she had a fever. Usually Mr. Birkway would let people go to the bathroom or to the nurse, but this time he said, “Let’s not malinger!” He picked up a journal, slipping the yellow paper over it before anyone had a chance to examine the cover for clues as to its author’s identity. Everyone took a deep breath. You could see people poised nervously, waiting as tensely as if Mr. Birkway was going to announce someone’s execution. Mr. Birkway read:
I think that Betty [he changed the name, you could tell, because there was no Betty in our school] will go to hell because she always takes the Lord’s name in vain. She says “God!” every five seconds.
Mary Lou Finney was turning purple. “Who wrote that?” she said. “Did you, Christy? I’ll bet you did.”
Christy stared down at her desk.
“I do not say ‘God!’ every five seconds. I do not. And I am not going to hell. Omnipotent—that’s what I say now. I say, Omnipotent! And Alpha and Omega!”
Mr. Birkway was desperately trying to explain what he had enjoyed about that passage. He said that most of us are not aware that we might be using words—such as God!—that offend other people. Mary Lou leaned over to me and said, “Is he serious? Does he actually, really and truly believe that beef-brained Christy is troubled by my saying God?—which I do not, by the way, say anymore anyway.”
Christy wore a pious look, as if God Himself had just come down from heaven to sit on her desk.
Mr. Birkway quickly selected another journal. He read:
Linda [there was no Linda in our class either] is my best friend. I tell her just about everything and she tells me EVERYTHING, even things I do not want to know. Like what she ate for breakfast and what her father wears to bed and how much her new sweater cost. Sometimes things like that are just not interesting.
Mr. Birkway liked this passage because it showed that even though someone might be our best friend, he or she could still drive us crazy. Beth Ann turned all the way around in her seat and sent wicked eyebrow-messages to Mary Lou.
Mr. Birkway flipped ahead in the same journal to another passage. He read:
I think Jeremiah is pig-headed. His skin is always pink and his hair is always clean and shiny…but he is really a jerk.
I thought Mary Lou Finney was going to fall out of her chair. Alex was bright, bright pink. He looked at Mary Lou as if she had recently plunged a red hot stake into his heart. Mary Lou said, “No—I—no, it isn’t what you think—I—”
Mr. Birkway liked this passage because it showed conflicting feelings about someone.
“I’ll say it does,” Alex said.
The bell rang. First, you could hear sighs of relief from the people whose journals had not been read, and then people started talking a mile a minute. “Hey, Mary Lou, look at Alex’s pink skin,” and “Hey Mary Lou, what does Beth Ann’s father wear to bed?”
Beth Ann was standing one inch away from Mary Lou’s face. “I do not talk on and on,” Beth Ann said, “and that wasn’t very nice of you to mention that, and I do not tell you everything, and the only reason I ever mentioned what my father wore to bed was because we were talking, if you will recall, about men’s bathing suits being more comfortable than women’s and—” On and on she went.
Mary Lou was trying to get across the room to Alex, who was standing there as pink as can be. “Alex!” she called. “Wait! I wrote that before—wait—”
It was a jing-bang of a mess. I was glad I had to get out of there. Phoebe and I were going to the police again.
We got in to see Sergeant Bickle right away. Phoebe slapped the newest message about the water in the well onto his desk, dumped the hairs which she had collected at Mrs. Cadaver’s house on top of the message, and then placed her list of “Further Items to Investigate” on top of that.
Sergeant Bickle frowned. “I don’t think you girls understand.”
Phoebe went into a rage. “You idiot,” she said. She scooped up the message, the hairs, and her list and stormed out of the office.
Sergeant Bickle followed her while I waited, thinking he would bring Phoebe back and calm her down. I looked at the photographs on his desk, the ones I had not been able to see the day before. In one was Sergeant Bickle and a friendly-looking woman—his wife, I supposed. The second picture was of a shiny black car. The third picture was of Sergeant Bickle, the woman, and a young man—their son, I figured. I looked closer.
I recognized the son. It was the lunatic.