Charlie and Frog

by Karen Kane

  The three of them went into the kitchen, where they found Mr. Castle drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. Millie was making peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Frog brought a box of cereal and milk to the table while Oliver got bowls and spoons.

  Mr. Castle lowered his newspaper. “Ah. Frog, Oliver, and Charlie. Good morning,” he said and signed. “I was just warning—er, telling Millie that we all need to be extra care—rather, helpful with Mom today because—”

  Mrs. Castle stormed into the kitchen.

  Charlie hadn’t realized you could yell in sign language. But yelling Mrs. Castle was—with large, piercing signs that pinned them to their chairs.

  Mr. Castle stood up as if wanting to hug her. Even Charlie could see this wasn’t a good idea. Mrs. Castle shot a warning look at Mr. Castle. He sat back down. She continued her yelling.

  “Mommy is saying,” Millie interpreted for Charlie, “that no one is doing anything else today except helping her get ready for the Founders’ Day Dinner.”

  But what about their investigation? Charlie could see Frog was thinking the same thing because she began arguing with her mother. Mrs. Castle raised one hand—fingers spread wide—and turned it away from her with a sharp twist. Frog crossed her arms and slumped in her chair. Mrs. Castle turned to Charlie and signed.

  “Mommy says she isn’t yelling at you, Charlie,” Millie said. “She’s sorry you had to see her get so mad. But there’s a lot of work to do, and she is tired of having to do everything herself!”

  Mrs. Castle stormed out of the room.

  Everyone let out a sigh.

  “Your mother is very worried about Grandpa,” Mr. Castle signed and then spoke. “He should have been home last night. We all need to pitch in today. And Millie, are you really going to eat all those sandwiches?” Mr. Castle returned to his newspaper.

  Millie put her sandwiches in a brown bag as Frog wrote: See? We can’t say anything right now!

  I hope your grandpa is okay, Charlie told her.

  Grandpa is fine! He’s just late, that’s all. But Mom’s not going to let me out of her sight today. Frog brightened. If I help enough today, maybe tomorrow we can do more investigating.

  Okay, Charlie wrote. Today I have something to do anyway. Something to help me stay in Castle-on-the-Hudson.

  Remember, Frog told him. You’re the one with the power.

  Frog showed Charlie the sign for “remember.” She signed the letter A with both hands, palms down, her thumbs sticking out. Keeping her left hand in front of her body, she touched her right thumb to her forehead and brought it down to touch her left thumb. Charlie copied Frog. “Remember.”

  Frog crossed her fingers on both of her hands. Charlie did the same.

  • • •

  “You’re going to do what?” Yvette asked.

  “Bake cookies,” Charlie said. “With Grandma and Grandpa.”

  “Bake cookies?” Yvette peered into the living room. Charlie’s grandparents were sunk in their E-Z chair recliners, staring at a news program. “With them?”

  “Yes,” Charlie said. “With them.”

  Yvette picked up her book. “I’ll be upstairs dusting.”

  Charlie read the list of ingredients on the bag of chocolate chips: flour, sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla, baking soda, and salt. He found them all and lined them up on the center island counter. Then he went into the living room and stepped in front of the television.

  “Charlie, I can’t see the commercial,” Grandma Tickler said. “And I love this one—the dog sings.” Grandma flipped through the television guide. “Irving, what’s on next? That baking show we like?”

  “I thought we could do something even better,” Charlie said.

  “What’s better than a baking show?” Grandma asked. “A murder-mystery show?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “Instead of watching a baking show, we do the baking.”

  “Do?” Grandma said.

  “Yes,” Charlie said. “And I have the perfect thing for us to make—chocolate chip cookies!”

  “Charlie wants to bake us cookies, Irving!” Grandma shouted to Grandpa.

  “Not me,” Charlie said. “We. We bake cookies together.”

  Charlie turned the television off. He planted his feet wide and folded his arms.

  Grandma Tickler got the message first.

  “Charlie wants us to bake cookies, Irving!” Grandma said. “And he’s not going to turn the television back on until we do!”

  • • •

  After much discussion—Grandma Tickler wanted to move the E-Z chair recliners to the kitchen and sit while baking—Charlie’s grandparents were finally standing next to the line of cookie ingredients.

  The first step of the recipe said to “cream butter and sugar together.”

  “What does that mean?” Charlie asked.

  “It means to mash together. Isn’t that right, Irving?”

  “Ayuh.” Grandpa Tickler had watched as many baking shows as Grandma Tickler had.

  Grandpa Tickler grabbed a fork. He began stabbing at the hard lump of butter.

  “Irving, you’re not doing it right!” Grandma Tickler grabbed the fork from Grandpa Tickler. Grandpa Tickler grabbed it back. Grandma Tickler was trying to wrestle the fork out of Grandpa Tickler’s hand when Charlie had a brilliant idea.

  “Grandma! Grandpa! Let’s pretend we’re on our own baking show!”

  Charlie’s grandparents froze mid–tug-of-war.

  “We can pretend the cookie jar is the camera,” Charlie said, pointing to the ceramic container next to the oven.

  Charlie held up his hand and counted down with his fingers. “Our baking show starts in three, two, one. Action! Hello, everyone. I’m Charlie Tickler. I’m here with my grandparents, Irma and Irving Tickler, on the very first episode of Baking with the Grandkids.”

  Grandma and Grandpa Tickler stared at the cookie jar. They did not blink.

  Charlie continued. “They’re wonderful grandparents because they’re taking time to bake with me, their only grandson, Charlie. And we are going to bake the most delicious cookies you have ever tasted in your life!”

  Grandma and Grandpa both nodded at the cookie jar.

  “Right now my grandpa is creaming the butter.”

  Grandpa Tickler resumed his stabbing.

  “Charlie said cream the butter, not kill it!” Grandma Tickler said.

  Grandpa Tickler pointed the fork at Grandma.“Ayuh!”

  “Irving!” Grandma Tickler said. “How about I stick a fork in you?!”

  “Remember we’re on TV,” Charlie whispered. Grandpa stabbed the fork back into the butter.

  Charlie read the next step. “Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together. Do you know what ‘sift’ means, Grandma?” Charlie asked.

  “Of course I know!” Grandma said. “Hand me the sifter!”

  “What’s a sifter?” Charlie asked.

  “A sifter is for sifting!”

  “Do you have a sifter?” Charlie asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Grandma said. “Better skip that part.”

  Charlie handed her a measuring cup. “Two and a quarter cups of flour, Grandma.”

  Grandma began scooping flour. She spilled quite a bit since she was looking at the cookie jar camera and not at the mixing bowl.

  The baking-show people always talked as they cooked, so while Charlie’s grandparents stabbed and scooped, Charlie narrated. “Cooking with your grandkids is important. Right, Grandma and Grandpa?”

  “Ayuh,” Grandpa said.

  “Depends,” Grandma said.

  “On what?” Charlie asked.

  “If the cookies taste good!”

  They added the rest of the ingredients, mixing in the chocolate chips last. Charlie helped his grandparents form the lumpy dough into balls. He placed them on a baking sheet. Then Grandma and Grandpa hustled back to their E-Z chair recliners. Charlie joined them in the living room while the cookies baked.

 
The house started to smell wonderful. Charlie took some big loud sniffs to encourage Grandma and Grandpa Tickler to do the same.

  “Tissues are in the bathroom,” Grandma Tickler told Charlie.

  Charlie sighed and leaned back on the couch. It was hard being on a baking show when you didn’t know how to bake and your fellow bakers didn’t want to bake. But maybe it would work. Maybe it would make his grandparents care about him.

  Charlie thought about what Frog had said in the graveyard. They have to care! That’s what it means to be a family—you have to care!

  Charlie wondered why some kids had family who cared, like Frog. And why some kids had family who just didn’t, like Charlie.

  Maybe it was his fault. Maybe there was something wrong with him.

  Someone else began sniffing. Someone else finally smelled the cookies, too!

  It was Yvette, coming down the stairs. “Something’s burning.”

  Charlie ran into the kitchen. He put on an oven mitt and pulled out a pan of burnt cookies. Yvette opened the back door to let out the smoke. After the smoke cleared Yvette served Charlie’s grandparents the lemon squares she had made the day before. Grandma and Grandpa Tickler enjoyed them immensely while watching a baking show from their E-Z chair recliners.

  Miss Tweedy was at the circulation desk, sipping peach iced tea. Charlie handed her Baking with the Grandkids: 101 Easy Recipes to Fill Their Stomachs and Your Heart.

  It was time to be blunt.

  “Your grandparents may have loved to read and bake,” Charlie said, “but my grandparents love to watch television. They can do that without me. I need to find something they can do with me.”

  Miss Tweedy took the white card from the back of the baking book, thwacked it with the ink stamp, and slipped the card back in its holder.

  “Well,” Miss Tweedy said, “there was something my grandfather loved to do, but with my younger sister, Enid. It was much too violent for me.”

  She pulled a book off a cart next to the circulation desk.

  Fishing: The Basics.

  “Fishing?” Charlie said. “Fishing is violent?”

  “Oh yes. The impaling of the worm. The glint of the steel hook. The thrashing of the fish. Horrendous.” Miss Tweedy shuddered. “Pancake Pond is stocked with fish for the violent taking. Enid loves to fish and knit. She can do both at the same time, you know.”

  There is a lot of sitting and watching with fishing—skills Charlie’s grandparents had already mastered. Fishing was perfect.

  Charlie needed one more book. Miss Tweedy had found the fishing book for him. This time she looked pointedly at the card catalog. Charlie pulled out the drawer labeled Aa–As. He found the title he wanted. He showed the Dewey decimal number (419.7) to Miss Tweedy.

  “In the Dewey decimal system,” Miss Tweedy said, “four hundred and nineteen means sign languages. Add a decimal point and a seven, and you have the Dewey decimal number for American Sign Language. You’ll find the book ASL? You Can! on the shelves by the grandfather clock.”

  It was a fat, heavy book. Mrs. Castle had said there was more to ASL than just signs. Charlie hoped this book would show him what Mrs. Castle had meant. He handed Miss Tweedy his library card and checked out both books.

  Charlie sat down in the squishy armchair in the front of the library. He pulled out the letter from Frog that Mr. Simple had delivered this morning.

  Dear Charlie,

  All I have done since you left is CLEAN! But Oliver did distract Mom long enough for me to sneak away and investigate the graveyard. Stop worrying! I brought Bear with me!

  I regret to report I did not find any dead bodies except for the ones already buried. And I didn’t find any blood or any other clues that explain why Dex and Ray came here or what Aggie could have meant when she signed “dead.”

  BUT Dad said I could go to the village today when Mom is out doing errands!!!

  Can you meet at the library at 12:30 p.m. to figure out the next step in our investigation?

  Sincerely,

  Frog

  Charlie had an idea. In his yearbook Grandpa Sol had said he loved to fish. And because Grandpa Sol sounded like the kind of grandparent who did things with his grandchildren, Charlie bet Frog knew how to fish, too.

  Charlie tore out a few sheets of paper from his notebook. Using the ASL book, he drew a picture of himself signing “fish.” Charlie only had a blue pen, so he couldn’t show the color of his hair or eyes. But he could draw his freckles and his cowlick standing straight up like it always did—no matter how much he combed his hair. He studied his picture. Charlie added a drawing of a fish in case it wasn’t clear what his hands were doing. Underneath he wrote:

  Frog,

  Can you come fishing with my grandparents and me? If yes, meet me at my grandparents’ house at 12:30 p.m. instead of meeting at the library.

  Thanks, Charlie

  Charlie was torn between finding Aggie and making sure he didn’t find himself being shipped off to boarding school.

  PS: We’ll continue our investigation right after fishing.

  PPS: Bring fishing poles if you have them.

  Charlie walked to the gondola station, where Mr. Simple was reading a magazine while impatient riders waited. He handed him the folded notepaper. Mr. Simple nodded his approval when Charlie gave him three dollars for Frog’s tip. Charlie did, after all, have lots of change left from his hundred-dollar bill.

  • • •

  “You’re going to do what?” Yvette asked.

  “Go fishing,” Charlie said. “With Grandma and Grandpa.”

  “Fishing?” Yvette eyed the empty E-Z chair recliners. Charlie’s grandparents were at a doctor’s appointment. “With them?”

  “Yes,” Charlie said, “with them.”

  Yvette felt Charlie’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

  Frog knocked on the door just as Yvette was getting a thermometer. A glittering goldfish was pinned to her T-shirt. She handed Charlie two fishing poles and pulled out her notepad and pen.

  Why are we fishing? Frog wrote. We need to be investigating!

  It’s part of my plan, Charlie told her, to get my grandparents to want me to stay.

  Frog nodded and crossed her fingers once again. Charlie did, too, even though it hadn’t worked last time.

  The hardest part will be getting my grandparents away from the TV, Charlie explained. They watch TV all day—except when they have a doctor’s appointment.

  NO WAY, Frog spelled.

  WAY, Charlie replied.

  Frog thought a moment. My grandpa likes to hike.

  Charlie imagined his grandparents on a mountain trail—sitting in their E-Z chair recliners.

  Not happening, Charlie wrote.

  • • •

  Yvette solved the problem of getting Charlie’s grandparents out of their E-Z chair recliners—she didn’t let them sit in the E-Z chair recliners in the first place. Instead, when Herman returned the Ticklers from their doctor’s appointment, Yvette, Charlie, and Frog blocked the taxi doors.

  “What are you doing?” Grandma Tickler protested. “It’s lunchtime! We need to get out and eat!”

  Yvette held up a lunch basket. “I’ve got your lunch right here. You’re going fishing—with Charlie and Frog.”

  “Yvette said we have to fish for our lunch,” Grandma Tickler shouted to Grandpa Tickler. “With Charlie and Toad!”

  “Frog, Grandma. Her name is Frog!”

  • • •

  They drove to Pancake Pond, on the outskirts of the village. As Herman’s taxi rattled away Charlie set up lawn chairs and Frog stuck worms on hooks. Frog tapped Grandpa Tickler on the shoulder to make sure he was looking at her. Then, with gestures, she showed Grandpa Tickler how to cast the fishing line.

  Grandpa placed the fishing pole between his knees. Slowly he raised both hands, and with both hands signed the letter A. He brought his knuckles together over his heart, and wiggled his thumbs.

  Frog and Ch
arlie stared at Grandpa Tickler in astonishment.

  Frog fingerspelled to Charlie what that sign meant. SWEETHEART.

  “Sweetheart?” Charlie said. He made the sign himself.

  “Sweetheart,” Grandma Tickler confirmed as she reeled in pondweed. “Irving’s telling you he had a sweetheart who went to that Castle School—that’s the one sign he remembers!”

  Charlie wrote down what Grandma Tickler said. Frog read it and laughed.

  “Who was your sweetheart?” Frog signed to Grandpa Tickler. Charlie voiced Frog’s question to make sure Grandpa understood.

  “It was Mabel.” Grandma Tickler answered for Grandpa Tickler. “Mabel with the big head. That girl had the biggest head I’ve ever seen. Now why haven’t we caught any fish yet?”

  “You have to be patient, Grandma,” Charlie said after he had written down for Frog what Grandma had said. “We just started. Here, have a sandwich.” Charlie reached into the picnic basket Yvette had packed. He handed Grandma Tickler a sandwich wrapped in wax paper.

  “Do you know why we are fishing, Grandma?” Charlie asked.

  “To catch fish!”

  “Not just to catch fish,” Charlie said. “It’s to do something together. That’s what grandparents and grandchildren are supposed to do—things together.”

  Grandma Tickler mulled this over as she took a large bite of her egg salad sandwich.

  “Ayuh,” Grandpa said.

  “That’s true, Irving,” Grandma Tickler agreed. “Mabel was a wonderful girl even if she did have a big head. It’s wonderful you are learning sign language, Charlie. Sweethearts should understand each other!”

  “Grandma! Frog is not my sweetheart!”

  “What?” Frog signed.

  Charlie did not want to write down for Frog what Grandma Tickler had just said. He almost wrote “never mind” before he realized how rude that would be. Frog had a right to know.

  So Charlie wrote it down.

  WHAT? Frog stared at Charlie. WE ARE NOT SWEETHEARTS!!!

  I TOLD HER THAT!!!

  GOOD!!!

  “Are there any potato chips, Charlie?” Grandma Tickler asked. “Egg salad sandwiches need potato chips.”