The Willoughbys Return

by Lois Lowry

  Richie’s father stood up. “But then you met Nanny—”

  “There once was a woman named Nanny,” Commander Melanoff said in a reverent voice. “Who had an incomparable—”

  Tim interrupted him. “An incomparable skill in the kitchen! I remember crème caramel for dessert!”

  Ben Poore shot up from his chair. “What did I just hear?” he asked. “Did someone say crème caramel?”

  “Let’s make our way to the dining room,” Richie’s mother said, rising from the sofa. “We won’t wait for our other guests. It appears that they’ll be late.”

  As they all began walking toward the dining room, Winifred made her way to Commander Melanoff and took his hand. His story had made her terribly sad.

  “I’m so sorry your wife was in an avalanche,” she said. “That’s why the book about avalanches MBD: must be distressing.”

  He looked down at her in surprise. “Oh, goodness, no,” he said. “It’s true that avalanches are distressing. But my wife survived, and I was thrilled that she decided not to return. I only wish she had not taken on the task of reorganizing the Swiss postal system. It made it almost impossible to ship my licorice candies to Switzerland. I ended up with a whole shipload of Lickety Twist held hostage in Rotterdam for months.”

  “Goodness!” said Winifred. “That—”

  Commander Melanoff finished her sentence as they entered the dining room. “Yes,” he said, “indeed. Very MBD.”

  “And now it’s all illegal anyway,” Winifred said sadly.

  “Wait a minute!” Winston spoke in a loud voice. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this while my sister has been thinking about minerals, which do not interest me in the slightest. I’m really interested in machinery. And while we were watching the presentation about Consolidated Confectionaries, I thought about the vats and the compressors and the label-makers and the robots, and the flavor dispensing machine— Do you still have the flavor dispensing machine, Mr. Willoughby?”

  “Of course,” Tim Willoughby said. “We’ll be auctioning everything off, now that the factory has closed.”

  “Not so fast,” Winston said. “You can repurpose it all! Just think about it! Every night, every morning, what does every one of us do? We go into our bathrooms and we . . . what?”

  Richie giggled. “That’s inappropriate,” he said.

  Winston winced. “I meant,” he explained, “that we all brush our teeth.”

  Everyone nodded.

  “And,” Winston went on, “what if we had toothpaste that tasted like the one wonderful taste we remembered from the past?”

  “Lickety Twist,” Commander Melanioff murmured.

  “Exactly! It will be so easy to convert the machinery so that it uses the same flavoring, puts it into paste, squishes it into tubes, and there you have it! And we’ll call it . . .”

  He waited. No one replied.

  “Lickety Spit!”

  The entire room burst into spontaneous applause.

  Richie’s mother had heard a noise outside and had gone to the front door. She returned to the room looking very concerned. “Tim,” she said, to her husband, “there’s a vehicle pulling into the driveway. It looks like a hearse!”

  41

  Two hours later, finally, after chaos, confusion, consternation, and at last pecan pie with vanilla ice cream all around, everyone was once again in the drawing room. But there were two more people now, dressed in hospital garments that came to their knees and tied in the back with a good deal of unfortunate flapping-open. They sat on the velvet-tufted sofa, on either side of Tim Willoughby, who looked stunned. His arms were around them both. “Father!” he kept saying. “Mother!”

  Henry Willoughby handed his son Tim an envelope. “This is all crumpled,” he said apologetically. “It was in my pants pocket when we went to the hospital. And now my pants are kaput. I’m afraid I barfed on them. All I have is this ridiculous hospital gown with no pockets, but—”

  “I’ll find you some clothes,” Tim said. “We’re about the same size. And for you too, Mother. I know we have Nanny’s clothing packed away.”

  “Anything but brown,” Mrs. Willoughby said.

  Henry Willoughby interrupted his wife and indicated the envelope. “I kept that throughout the hospitalization,” he said to Tim. “It’s an official statement.”

  “Please,” Tim said. “Let’s not discuss statements. I’ve been reading too many discouraging bank statements lately.”

  “That will change,” his father said. “And this is a different kind of statement.”

  “What is it, Dad?” asked Richie, looking at the sealed envelope in Tim’s hands.

  “I don’t know. Let me open it.” Tim tore open the envelope and withdrew a colorful card with a handsome picture of a horse with his mane flowing. “I’m sorry . . .” he read aloud.

  “I looked for anything but bunnies or flowers,” Henry Willoughby explained.

  Tim opened the card to reveal the other end of the horse, with its tail swishing away flies. “. . . I’ve been a you-know-what,” he read.

  Richie leaned over to see the card more clearly. “You’ve been a horse’s tail?” he asked Henry Willoughby.

  “I have. I was a bad dad. I didn’t pay enough attention to my children.”

  “I have a great dad,” Richie said happily. He stroked his father’s arm.

  Tim Willoughby put his arm around his little boy. “You realize,” he said to the couple in the hospital gowns, “this is your grandson?”

  They looked startled for a moment. “But we’re not old enough to have—” Frances Willoughby began. “Or maybe we are? I can’t figure any of this out!”

  “And that reminds me,” said her husband. “We had other children! What about the twins? And—oh, dear—what has become of little Jane?”

  “All grown up,” Tim explained. “Successful. Happy. Tell you what! We’ll go upstairs to the computer after we finish our coffee and we’ll FaceTime them all. You’ll be amazed to see Jane. She has tattoos.”

  “Do Skype, Dad!” Richie suggested.

  “What’s FaceTime?” asked Henry Willoughby. “What’s Skype?”

  Commander Melanoff had been putting away the projector he had used for his PowerPoint presentation. He looked up suddenly. “You know,” he said, “I remember when your accident happened. I was actually subscribing to some Swiss newspapers, because not long before, my wife had decided to take up with the Swiss postmaster. Not that that was in the news! But my attention was caught by an article about how two Americans had decided to climb a Swiss mountain peak—”

  “Alp,” said Mr. Willoughby. “It was an Alp.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the white-haired man went on, “but the Americans didn’t have the proper clothing or equipment. I’m sorry, but the reporters all said that—”

  “We had crampons,” Mrs. Willoughby said. “It was just that we didn’t know how to wear them. I blame L.L.Bean. Is that where we bought the crampons, dear? From L.L.Bean?”

  “No, I think it was some other company. But it was definitely their fault. They didn’t tell us how to wear them.”

  “I thought they looked nice on our heads, though, didn’t you, dear?” She reached over and took his hand.

  “You know what?” Tim Willoughby said. “I think that you two, at least in the realm of mountain climbing, were dolts.”

  Henry Willoughby looked shocked. “That’s a terrible thing to say to your father!” Then he paused. “But I used to say it to you, didn’t I, Tim?”

  “You did. All the time.”

  “Can you forgive me?”

  “Of course,” said Richie’s father.

  “You know what?” Winston said. “You should have Googled crampons. Or looked on YouTube. I bet anything there’s a YouTube video showing how to use crampons.”

  Mrs. Willoughby stood up suddenly. Then, when she realized that her backside was exposed, she sat back down. Still, she spoke in a loud voice. “That’s it!
” she said. “I am so tired of all this Googling and YouTubing and FaceTiming and Zappo-ing or whatever it is, and Instagram and—Skype? What on earth is that? Henry, we missed out on everything while we were frozen! It’s not fair! What on earth is Twitter? And I have no shoes!” She began to cry.

  Mr. Willoughby reached over and patted her hand. But he too looked a little frustrated and weepy.

  Their son Tim tried to reassure them. “Mother,” he said, though the word felt a little awkward to him, “don’t worry about any of that. It will all fall into place.”

  “We’ll make the best of it,” Mrs. Poore murmured.

  “What does that mean, exactly?” asked Winifred, but no one responded.

  “But look at me!” Mrs. Willoughby wailed. “I’m younger than my son is!”

  Her husband suddenly leaned forward, closer to her. “Frances,” he said, “even without my glasses, I think I see some wrinkles starting in your neck! A little like—what’s that wrinkly dog—a shar-pei? You look a little like that! It could be that you are actually starting to age!”

  “You think?” She calmed a little. “I hope not too fast.”

  Winifred, who’d been listening, said to Richie’s father, “Mr. Willoughby, there’s a book on the MBD stack about orphans. But you’re not an orphan anymore! Your parents are alive!”

  “So is my ex-wife,” Commander Melanoff pointed out. “She and her husband have retired from the post office. They’re very old now. But when we were all younger, Nanny and I . . .” He paused. “There once was a woman named Nanny . . .” he recited wistfully.

  “No, Commander,” Tim said gently, and patted his hand. “Not now.”

  “Incomparable.” The old man bit his lip. “Well. Anyway. Nanny and I would go to visit them now and then, in their Swiss village. It was quite boring, actually.”

  “There’s an MBD book about the Swiss postal system! I’m going to go and get that whole stack of books and we’ll . . . I don’t know, throw them in the fireplace or something!” Winifred left the drawing room and they all chuckled as once again they heard a young person’s feet thundering up the stars.

  In a minute she was back, and breathless. But she was holding only one book, and a magnifying glass.

  “That’s not MBD,” Winston pointed out. “That’s the book about—”

  “Right! Geology! I’d left it there on the chair where I’d been reading. When I saw it, I suddenly remembered—” She began turning the pages of the thick book. “Tellurium, calaverite, let me see . . . Winston?”

  “What?” her brother glanced over from the little toy car with the new wheels that that he’d been showing his father.

  “Run over to our house, would you, and get those rocks that Father brought us? They’re on the windowsill in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, all right. But you owe me.” Winston left the room.

  “I’d go,” Winifred said, “but it’s urgent that I find the page I’m looking for. Krennerite? I wonder if those shiny streaky things in the rocks . . . ? Could it possibly be . . . ? Father, when you were in Alaska, were you in gold-mining territory?”

  “I guess I was. But no one wanted to buy a set of outdated encyclopedias.” Ben Poore said sadly. He glanced over at the fruit bowl. Amazingly, he was still slightly hungry.

  “What do you mean, outdated?” Henry Willoughby asked. He leaned forward, adjusting his hospital gown carefully over his knees.

  Mrs. Poore explained. “They’re thirty years old. So there’s nothing in them about artificial intelligence, or about, let me think, or— What else is missing, Winifred?”

  “Gluten intolerance. Gene therapy. Global warming. The whole G volume is a mess, it’s so outdated.”

  “Probably no Google in it, then?” Mrs. Willoughby asked.

  “Oh my, no, I think not,” said Mrs. Poore.

  Winifred agreed. “No Google. And the V volume is horrible. It still has vampires, and Queen Victoria. But there’s nothing about vaping, or Verizon Wireless, or—”

  Winston reentered the room, carrying the two rocks. He handed them to his sister. “Here. And the mailman left a big package on the porch. From you, Father. You mailed it from Alaska. It’s really heavy.”

  “More rocks,” Ben Poore explained. “Lots more.”

  “I want one,” Henry Willoughby announced loudly.

  “I’m afraid not, Mr. Willoughby,” Winifred said politely. “Our dad sent them to me all the way from Alaska. They’re mine.” She picked up her magnifying glass.

  “I didn’t mean the rocks. I meant the outdated encyclopedias. I want one. I want two. More than two! I want all you have. Tim? Son? You haven’t spent all my money, have you? There’s some left?”

  “There’s some left. It’s in the bank. I didn’t need your money because I’d inherited Consolidated Confectionaries. Of course, now that—”

  “Just make out a check to Mr.— What’s the name again? Penniless? Write a check to Mr. Penniless.”

  “It’s Poore, Dad. His name is Poore.”

  “I want to read about what the world was like before we were frozen. I want to provide them to the schools! Everyone should know what it was like! Write a check to Mr. Poore and buy every single outdated encyclopedia he has.”

  Ben Poore looked up. His mouth was full. He had found a lovely ripe peach in the fruit bowl. “Someone wants to buy my—?”

  Winifred set down her magnifying glass. In a quiet voice she said, “We don’t really need the money anymore. These rocks are gold nuggets. They really truly are. Father? Guess what! You struck gold!”

  Her father wasn’t listening. He was looking around the table at what food remained. “Does anyone else want those last grapes?” asked Ben Poore. They all shook their heads no, and with a happy sigh he reached for them. “Probably a good thing that candy’s disappeared,” he said. “Fruit is so much better for you.” He popped a grape into his mouth.

  Tim Willoughby looked up. He had taken his pen from his pocket and been adding figures on a pad of paper. “In any case,” he said, “if they decide to reinstate candy someday, by then we’ll have the toothpaste production up and running. By my calculations, we could produce Lickety Twist and Lickety Spit simultaneously, maybe even package them together? You think? I’m picturing a commercial in which a kid munches on a piece of licorice, makes his teeth turn all black, so he gives a funny grin—maybe we’d use a laugh track there—then he goes into the bathroom, picks up his toothbrush, and—” He paused, then picked up the pen again. With a contented look, he scribbled a few more figures.

  Winifred stood up. She picked up the small knife that her father had used to peel his peach and tapped it on a glass until everyone had stopped talking and was paying attention to her.

  “I just realized what making the best of it means!” she said. “This is the best of it. This!” She gestured around the room, at all the gathered people who were talking and smiling. “The absolute best.”

  Then she grinned. “Oops. I think I just Marmed,” she said.

  In the hallway, looking down from the gold frame at her newly large and very happy family, Nanny seemed to be smiling.

  THE END

  Visit hmhbooks.com to find more books by Lois Lowry.

  About the Author

  Photo by Matt McKee

  Influenced in her childhood by a mother who insisted on surrounding her with books instead of roller skates and jump ropes, Lois Lowry grew up lacking fresh air and exercise, but with a keen understanding of plot, character, and setting. Every morning she opened the front door hoping to find an orphaned infant in a wicker basket. Alas, her hopes were always dashed and her dreams thwarted. She compensates by writing books. Today she is a wizened, reclusive old woman who sits hunched over her desk, thinking obsessively about the placement of commas.

  Learn more at loislowry.com

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  Footnotes

  1

  1 So pay attention. It will be confusing at first. But it’s worth hanging in there. And there won’t be a quiz.

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  2

  1 Most countries in Europe started using Euros in 1995. But not Switzerland. They still like their francs.

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  3

  1 They used the Reprehensible Travel Agency. The company ceased operation some years ago after consistently bad reviews on Yelp.

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  * * *

  2 So far he had composed seven sonnets, twenty-two haiku, and a nineteen-line villanelle. His favorite, though, was a limerick that was slightly naughty.

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  5

  1 He should not have done this. A top-grain leather basketball is intended for indoor use only. But Richie hadn’t read the instructions.

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  6

  1 Gruel is a disgusting porridge-y thing, sort of like oatmeal but much, much worse: watery, and full of lumps.

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  2 By Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868. There have been many movies of Little Women. The mother, Marmee, has been played by Spring Byington in 1933, Mary Astor in 1949, and Susan Sarandon in 1994. Laura Dern is the newest (2019) Marmee.

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  3 Atomic number 107, Bohrium is named after the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. It has a half-life of about one minute.

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