The Penderwicks in Spring

by Jeanne Birdsall

  “No more times, but we can shoot hoops if you want to.”

  Ben did want to, even more than he wanted extra jumps, so they went into the garage for the basketball. Just before they got started playing, Ben thought of another thing that had been bothering him about Batty.

  “She’s quiet now,” he told Nick.

  “What do you mean? Like not talking?”

  “Yeah, she doesn’t talk much.” Ben thought for a while. “And she’s not humming at all.”

  “Huh,” said Nick, and tossed the ball through the net.

  Batty knew she wasn’t humming. Her sprite had deserted her, been driven out, vanished, since The Conversation, the one that echoed over and over through Batty’s memory. In exchange for our dead mother, our dead mother, our dead mother, we got Batty, Batty, Batty, just what we didn’t need, didn’t need, didn’t need.

  She was taking Duchess and Cilantro on an extra-long walk through Quigley Woods, her escape from home and the pretense of not being thoroughly unhappy. If she’d hoped that her sprite would be waiting for her in here—and she hadn’t quite dared to—she’d been mistaken. Batty had nothing inside her now but regular old human parts, plus a painful knot that gave no indication of wanting to leave.

  Cilantro whined and snuffled at her, as though he’d sensed her misery.

  “I’m okay,” she reassured him, though she knew dogs could always spot a lie.

  Maybe she had to encourage her sprite to return, lure it back with music. Batty had never felt less like singing, but maybe the singing would make her feel better. It was worth a try.

  “Sit,” she said to the dogs, neither of whom did. But at least for this one moment they weren’t pulling on their leashes. “Good enough, I guess. Keep it up. I’m going to sing now.”

  She planted her feet, stood up straight, took deep breaths, and—broke off, horrified at the dreadful rasping noise she’d made. So it wasn’t just that her sprite had gone, it had taken Batty’s very voice along with it, to who knew where and for how long. Forever? She sank onto the ground beside the dogs, overwhelmed with this new grief, piled on top of her already impossible burden of sorrow.

  So now what was she if not a singer? Batty no longer knew.

  Cilantro pressed up against her, showing his concern.

  “It’s just that my voice is gone,” she told him. “You’ll still like me even if I can’t sing, won’t you?”

  While Cilantro seemed okay with that, Duchess gave out a low whine, then barked.

  “You can still sing on your own, Duchess,” Batty told her. “Whoa, calm down.”

  For it seemed that Batty’s lack of singing wasn’t the problem. Some scent or another had gotten Duchess’s attention, and she was ignoring Batty, straining against her harness to get at whatever it was. Her excitement stirred up Cilantro, who went into a crouch, tuba-ing his distress.

  Batty gathered up the voice Nick had tried to teach her. “Duchess, stop it! I mean it! Sit!”

  This time Duchess glanced at Batty, but with a look that meant she had no intention of sitting—now or maybe ever—then suddenly went rigid. The scent had done something marvelous. Duchess pulled toward it. Batty pulled back. Duchess pulled again, harder, and this time pulled herself right out of her harness.

  For Batty, it seemed as though the whole forest went silent, waiting to see what would happen next. Hardly breathing herself, she crept slowly toward Duchess, hoping that the little dog hadn’t yet realized she was free. It was a vain hope. After an apologetic bark, Duchess gaily dashed off into the trees, determined to follow the scent, and all the scents—rabbits, foxes, bears!—to the ends of the earth. The ends of the earth came soon enough, what with Duchess’s ridiculously short legs, and even with Cilantro trying to pull Batty in the wrong direction. In those few short moments, though, Batty started to cry, and by the time she’d tackled Duchess and was rolling on the ground with her, both of them tangled in Cilantro’s leash, she was sobbing. No one was safe with her. Not dogs, not people.

  “What would I have done if I’d lost you, Duchess? The Ayvazians would never have forgiven me.”

  A contrite Duchess licked away the tears and Cilantro tuba-ed his sympathy until Batty had cried herself out. She hooked Duchess’s leash to her collar—she couldn’t risk the harness again—untangled Cilantro, and stood up. Time to take the dogs back before she messed up anything else.

  The Ayvazians, rather than being upset with Duchess’s near escape, were delighted.

  “She got out of her harness? That fat dog slid right out of it?” Mr. Ayvazian was so impressed, he bent way down to give Duchess a hug and an extra biscuit.

  “Don’t you see what this means?” Mrs. Ayvazian asked Batty. “That means she’s lost a great deal of weight. You’ve done such a good job with her!”

  “We’ll buy a smaller harness tomorrow,” said Mr. Ayvazian, and gave Duchess yet another biscuit, and two to Cilantro.

  “Stop feeding her, Harvey,” said Mrs. Ayvazian. “Batty, come into the kitchen and bring the dogs with you before Duchess has gained back all her weight.”

  In the kitchen, the dogs rushed to the corner where the Ayvazians kept two water bowls, for moments like this when Duchess and Cilantro were both thirsty.

  “Mrs. Ayvazian, you’re really not angry at me?” asked Batty.

  “Why would I be angry at you? It was our fault for not noticing that the harness had gotten too big.”

  “But maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I shouldn’t walk Duchess anymore.”

  “You would break Duchess’s heart. Your walks are her favorite part of the day. Have a cookie.”

  The cookies were large and cinnamon-y, and Batty was glad for them, and glad for an excuse to duck her head away from Mrs. Ayvazian’s scrutiny.

  “Are you feeling all right, dear?”

  “Oh, yes.” Batty smiled to prove it, hoping her eyes weren’t still red from weeping. “May I take some cookies home for Ben and Lydia?”

  “That’s a nice idea.” Mrs. Ayvazian piled cookies into a paper bag.

  “Mrs. Ayvazian, you’ve lived here for a long time, right?”

  “Thirty-four years.”

  “So you remember my mother? Not Iantha, I mean my birth mother.”

  “Of course I do. She was lovely. Skye looks so much like her, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Though Jane has more of her personality, I think. Always laughing.” Mrs. Ayvazian put a few more cookies into the bag. “Take these for Skye and Jane, too. Never too old for cookies, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I always looked forward to Halloween when your sisters were little. One year your mother dressed them as the Three Little Pigs. And once, as the Three Musketeers, with plumed hats and tinfoil swords. They loved those swords.”

  “Three Little Maids from School!” called Mr. Ayvazian from the living room.

  “Oh, yes! That was the year she had them in kimonos and had tried to teach them the song and to wave fans around. Rosalind sang the song as best she could.” Mrs. Ayvazian sang a few lines for Batty. “ ‘Three little maids from school are we. Pert as a schoolgirl well can be.’ But Skye refused to sing because she’d broken her fan, and Jane, who must have been only three, wanted to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ instead.”

  I would have liked a tinfoil sword, or a kimono, thought Batty dully.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Mrs. Ayvazian put her hand on Batty’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?”

  “No fever.” Batty smiled again. “Just a lot of homework to do. Thanks for the cookies, Mrs. Ayvazian.”

  “You’re welcome, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Batty got Cilantro out of the house before she started crying again.

  That night, Batty went to Lydia’s room to say good night and to tell Lydia that once again she’d spend the night there. To her parents, Batty had said it was for Lydia’s sake, but Batty knew that she was the sister most in need of comfort
.

  “So that’s great, right?” she asked Lydia. “That I’ll sleep in your big-girl bed?”

  “Batty’s bed.”

  “I really am just borrowing it.”

  “Sing,” said Lydia.

  “No singing. Stories tonight.”

  “Sing,” said Lydia again. “Itsy bitsy.”

  Batty wrapped her fingers in Lydia’s curls—so soft they were, so springy and sweet. And Lydia was looking at her with such trust.

  “I’ll try.” She swallowed hard. “The itsy bitsy spi—”

  But it was just as bad as earlier, maybe worse. Lydia reached up to touch Batty’s lips, as if making sure they still belonged to a human being.

  “Frog,” she said. “Again.”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry.” With great effort, Batty kept back the tears. She would not cry in front of Lydia. “I’ll tell you a story instead. Once upon a time—”

  “There was Princess Dandelion Fire.”

  “Once upon a time—”

  “Lydia was the princess!”

  Weakened, smashed on the shoals of life, drawn as fine as spun glass, Batty pulled herself together for one final attempt of the day.

  “Once upon a time, there was a Princess Dandelion Fire named Lydia.…”

  WHEN BATTY KNOCKED on Mrs. Grunfeld’s door the next day at recess, she was determined not to cry.

  “Welcome!” cried Mrs. Grunfeld, opening the door. “And how was your weekend with your mentore?”

  Batty started to cry. She stumbled to the piano bench and cried and cried, and when Mrs. Grunfeld handed over tissues and hugged her, Batty cried more.

  “I’ve lost my singing voice,” she finally managed to say.

  “Lost it? In what way?”

  Batty croaked out a few words of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” then started crying again.

  “You have a sore throat?”

  Batty shook her head. “No, it’s not that.”

  Mrs. Grunfeld gently massaged Batty’s throat. “No swollen glands.”

  “No.” Batty shook her head again.

  Mrs. Grunfeld now held her at arm’s length and inspected Batty’s face with great attention. “Perhaps you’d better tell me about your weekend.”

  Batty told her as much as she could, leaving out, of course, The Conversation. Even without it, it was a sad tale.

  “Your Jeffrey abandoned you,” said Mrs. Grunfeld when Batty had finished.

  “Yes, I know. Though it wasn’t completely his fault. My sister made him leave.”

  “He could have stood up to her. Teenage boys are not the most reliable of creatures.”

  “He used to be,” said Batty sadly. “What if he doesn’t want to be my mentore anymore?”

  “Has he told you that? No. Until then, you must not be concerned. Anyway, one doesn’t need a mentore to sing. One needs only the talent and the will, and you have both.”

  “But my voice!”

  “Yes, let’s see about that. Stand up and breathe for me. Deep breaths.” Mrs. Grunfeld watched as Batty breathed. “Fill your lungs all the way to their bottom.”

  Batty tried to fill her lungs—oh, how she tried—but when she got to the bottom of her lungs, there was that knot in her stomach, pressing up against them.

  “That’s the best I can do! Oh, Mrs. Grunfeld!” And here she was, crying yet again.

  Mrs. Grunfeld didn’t fuss, which helped greatly. She simply handed Batty another tissue and said, “Now you see how unhappiness can affect our breathing. Try again; take in a breath slowly, slowly—that’s right, relax, think only of your breathing—yes, that’s better.”

  And Batty indeed felt the tension ease up a tiny bit. Not enough, though, not nearly enough. “I can’t stand this,” she said.

  “Yes, you can stand it, because you must,” said Mrs. Grunfeld. “Let’s not even try to sing today. Instead, we’ll discuss the rhythm of breathing—how different singers choose when to take a breath. Does that sound interesting? Yes? Then let us begin with a song of great yearning, written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse. I will speak the song line by line, you will repeat what you hear, including the breathing. After that we will listen to how Mr. Newley sings his song. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “ ‘Who can I turn to—’ ” Mrs. Grunfeld nodded at Batty. “Now you.”

  But Batty had started to cry again. Mrs. Grunfeld wrapped her arms around the sobbing girl and kept hold of her for a long time.

  When Batty got home after school, Jane said that a large box had come for her in the mail and was waiting on the kitchen counter. Batty’s first inclination was to turn around and leave again, hoping the box would disappear on its own while she walked Duchess and Cilantro. It was sure to be a birthday present from someone, and the closer Batty got to her birthday, the more it horrified her. However, the box would still be sitting there when she got back. Besides, this one might possibly be from Aunt Claire, Uncle Turron, Marty, and Enam. While she didn’t deserve a present from them any more than from anyone else, sometimes Marty and Enam drew pictures of tigers and turtles on the outsides of packages, and that would be nice to see.

  But the return address was Jeffrey’s.

  Tentative, she touched it, then pulled back. Did she really want anything from Jeffrey right now?

  The doorbell rang, and Jane was letting people into the house—Batty heard Artie and both Donovans. In a minute Jane would be in here looking for pretzels and asking what was in the box and when Batty was going to open it, and if Batty did open it, Jane would want to discuss Jeffrey’s present, and then maybe Skye would come in, too. Batty picked up the box—it took both hands—and ran upstairs with it to her room.

  Asimov was waiting for her, stretching and yawning in his spot between Funty and Gibson, and wondering what all the fuss was about. He wondered more as Batty struggled to get through the layers of tape Jeffrey had used to secure the box. Then came the opening of the box, and the digging through the crumpled newspaper used for cushioning, and then—there were two smaller packages inside, each covered with gift wrap and, again, lots of tape. Each had a note attached. The note on the larger one, which was shaped exactly like record albums, said OPEN ME FIRST. The note on the smaller one, shaped something like a book, said OPEN ME SECOND.

  Another struggle with tape, and Batty revealed the bounty inside OPEN ME FIRST. It was indeed record albums, a pristine set still in its original box and plastic wrapping. Batty traced with her fingers the words on the cover: LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN, 9 SYMPHONIEN, BERLINER PHILHARMONIKER, HERBERT VON KARAJAN.

  “Von Karajan!” Batty told Asimov.

  Jeffrey had once wanted to be an orchestra conductor—long ago, when he first met the Penderwicks. He’d since moved on from that, saying that while a conductor couldn’t make music without a whole bunch of musicians agreeing to be conducted, a pianist needed only his piano. But he’d retained his fascination with the breed and had taught Batty about the famous ones, Bernstein and Muti, Klemperer and Previn, Solti and Ozawa, and about this very Herbert von Karajan, one of the twentieth-century greats.

  This had to be an old recording—decades and decades old. Batty marveled at how such a treasure could stay untouched for so many years, waiting for someone to release its magic.

  Jeffrey had taped—lightly, thank goodness!—a card to the box. The picture was of a cat playing the piano, which Batty liked very much, although Asimov swatted at it when she showed him. But the note inside was even better.

  Battikins: Some consider this the finest recording ever of the symphonies. We’ll listen to it together (especially the Eroica, which you know is my favorite) someday when—um, you know—I’m allowed back into the fold. Until then, Happy Birthday from Ludwig, Herbert, and Jeffrey. P.S. Fine mentore I’ve turned out to be, missing our breakfast. Hope you can forgive me.

  “I do forgive you,” she breathed.

  But wait, what about the second package?

  She groped around the be
d and found it, buried under the wrapping paper from the symphonies. This one had its card on the outside, taped underneath OPEN ME SECOND. Another cat, another piano—Batty didn’t bother showing this one to Asimov—and another note.

  Do you remember giving this to me on my eleventh birthday? A long time ago—you were only four. Because it was your favorite photo, you said that maybe I’d let you “borrow it back” someday. This seems like the right day to me. Yours, Jeffrey.

  Trembling, Batty ripped away the wrapping. It wasn’t a book—she was almost certain, because she was starting to remember. Yes, she was right. It was a framed photograph, the one she’d been looking for everywhere, the one—it came back to her now—that she’d kept beside her bed when she was small, until she’d given it away to Jeffrey.

  Hound.

  That evening after dinner, Ben put the final touch on Minnesota, gluing a final Monopoly hotel to St. Paul. It was due the next day, and Ben couldn’t wait to show it off. His would be the best state in the second grade, except for Rafael’s, whose Florida would be just as good, because best friends don’t compete with each other.

  There was this problem, though: Minnesota now held so many rocks that Ben could no longer pick it up by himself. Actually, he hadn’t been able to pick it up since gluing on the Sawtooth Mountains. Batty had told him that she’d help him carry it to school, but Ben thought he’d better remind her.

  Her bedroom door was closed and loud music was blasting through—classical music played by an entire orchestra. He knocked hard, and then harder, but when she didn’t answer, he tried pushing the door, but it wouldn’t budge. Something was blocking it.

  That was nuts. Blocking doors was what Ben did, not Batty. He pounded on the door until it flew open and Batty yanked him into the room. One glance at her and Ben was ready to leave again. She had an air of recklessness about her, reminding him of how Rafael had been that time just before he leapt off the jungle gym and broke his arm.

  “Changed my mind, good-bye,” he said.

  But Batty was already blocking the door again, wedging a chair under the doorknob. Then she turned down the music so that they could better hear each other. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m calling a MOYPS.”