A Girl, a Raccoon, and the Midnight Moon

by Karen Romano Young

  Francine slammed the book shut. “Mine,” she said, and hugged it.

  Together Mom and Pearl sat on the front stoop of their apartment in the low evening light to play gin, listening to the city’s hum-thrumming tune of horns, sirens, strollers, bikes, skateboards, feet walking, people talking, baths and beds and babies.

  Billie Bilbao, the artist lady, Francine’s granny, humped and lumped along the sidewalk toward them. She’d been Gully’s tenant forever, so they knew her by sight. She was a modern artist who went around every evening pulling a kids’ red wagon, the kind with the high wooden sides, filling it full of clattering, banging, heavy-looking stuff, some of it broken.

  A Sidebar About Page 66

  Ask any circulation librarian. She’ll tell you that the place to put the library’s book stamp—a round stamp with the library’s name and logo on it—is page 66. The stamp has two halves, like a hole punch, but instead of making a hole, it embosses the paper—presses it into a raised pattern you can feel. I don’t know why they started doing it on page 66, but somebody did, and they do it to this day, at least at the Lancaster Avenue branch. My grandmother says page 66 is a good place to learn something about stories, too. If there is a page 66, it’s not a picture book, so it’s probably a couple hundred pages long. Any good book starts with a bang, and if it’s a really good book, there will be another gentle sort of bang around page 66 that shows you’re raising the stakes. Even if you drop the action down again, the reader knows you know what you’re doing. Right?

  —M.A.M.

  “Evening!” she called up. Pearl and Mom laid their cards in their laps. “My granddaughter wants to formally introduce me.”

  Francine came trailing up behind Billie, looking like introducing her was the last thing she wanted. “This is my granny,” she said. “This is Mrs. Moran and Pearl Moran. They’re the library people.”

  “Francine is in love with the library!” exclaimed her grandmother. “She’ll be a fifth grader,” Granny/Billie Bilbao said. “And we are new to each other.”

  “Really?” asked Mom. It was an invitation to tell more.

  “Francine is living with me while her parents are out of the country.”

  Francine’s eyes, usually so full of light, got dark like the sun had gone behind the clouds. She clearly didn’t like hearing Granny talk about her parents. That made even Pearl not say anything.

  “Look,” said Granny, maybe to make a distraction. “A broken lampshade, knockoff Tiffany.” She pointed at the wagon, indicating a stained-glass shade with yellow tulips and green leaves on a marbled plum-colored background. “And look at these fabulous springs!” They were thick metal coils. “And my favorite of the day—three spent Mylar balloons.” They looked—well, like she’d pulled them out of trash cans. Pearl guessed that was the point. Granny grinned at the look on her face. “Everybody’s a fool for something. Well, come on, Frank. That’s enough for one night.”

  Frank? Francine’s dark look changed to alarm at what was obviously a nickname she was not fond of.

  Pearl smiled. “See ya,” she said. She thought the whole scene was funny. Francine—so fancy and glittery! Covered in trash! Being called Frank! But she could see Francine was mortified, and that made her feel some sympathy, and she didn’t say anything rude as Francine slumped away.

  But that was enough Francine for the day, Pearl felt, so she changed the subject to something she knew would grab Mom’s whole attention.

  “Could a raccoon write?” she asked.

  If Mom was surprised, she didn’t show it. She didn’t even blink. “If you can read, you can write,” said Mom.

  “Oh, Mom,” said Pearl. “I meant, physically could it write.”

  “It? He or she, please.”

  “Come on. With those paw . . . fingers, you know? That’s what I mean.”

  “Your fingers aren’t what write,” said Mom. “It’s your brain that writes.”

  Pearl flopped backward on the stoop and looked up at the shadowy leaves and the slate-blue sky beyond them. She couldn’t remember the last time Mom had read her a story. She longed to be years younger, when she was still little enough to curl up next to Mom and hear a story, when the library wasn’t going anywhere and everything was perfect. “Ma?” said Pearl. “What do the raccoons that live in the garden do in the winter?”

  Mom laid her gin cards in her lap. “I’d have thought you were too old for raccoon stories,” she said. Pearl didn’t look at her mother’s face; she kept on looking at the leaves. But she invited, as her mother had taught her when she was very little, “Do tell.”

  “Well,” Mom said, warming to the old invitation, “You would think that raccoons would just make a nest in the leaves, curl up in a stripey ball, and sleep the winter away.”

  “You would think that,” said Pearl. “But . . .”

  “But,” Mom said, “our raccoons aren’t just any raccoons. They know what’s what.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “They know that winter is the best time to curl up with a book and read the cold away.”

  “Don’t they get cold in the tree? Don’t they ever go inside?” Pearl was thinking of the paw in the basement, the note that had seemed to be—but couldn’t have been—could it?—from the raccoons, Ask Mrs. M. Wasn’t that what Pearl was doing right now? Asking Mrs. M.?

  “Inside where?”

  “Maybe someplace out of the way, like the basement,” said Pearl, feeling like she knew a secret.

  “Not that I’ve ever observed,” said Mom. “Nope, they stay in the trees, where they can keep an eye on things, patrol the rats, and stay out of the way of the coyotes, and, probably, reread those letters you wrote them.”

  “Oh, and they kept those?” She hardly believed it.

  “How else do you think they know you?”

  Yes, that’s right. Pearl had left tiny notes and letters and even books she’d drawn and stapled together, tucked under the edge of the saucer of milk. Whyever had she stopped? Because of Simon, of all people. Now she knew he wouldn’t have teased, but when she was in second grade, she’d thought that writing to raccoons might seem like something only little kids did.

  “They grow up so fast,” said Mom. “Little Matilda Mallomar and her sister Eilonwy might have children of their own now! I wonder if they do.”

  “Why don’t you ask Mrs. Mallomar?” Pearl suggested. Ask Mrs. M. again. She felt her heart pick up, but she tried not to look flustered.

  Mom shrugged, sighed. “She’s so busy, and we’re on such opposite schedules, our paths never even cross. Once I saw her when I was up in the middle of the night, coming home from work.”

  Here was the story Pearl had been looking for. “What’s Mrs. Mallomar’s job?” she asked.

  “Putting out the midnight Moon, of course. She’s the editor in chief,” Mom said. “Otherwise how will the raccoons of Lancaster Avenue know who’s who and what’s what?”

  (“Who’s who and what’s what” is the motto of the midnight Moon. The midnight Moon, in Mom’s stories, was the nighttime edition of the regular Moon newspaper, catering to a nocturnal readership—not like the morning and evening Moons, with their diurnal, night-sleeping readership.)

  Pearl laughed, rolled onto her stomach, and turned over her playing cards.

  “You don’t believe me?” said Mom.

  Pearl smiled. She saw again, in her mind’s eye, the raccoon face in the basement, peering through the glass. She thought she might tell Mom about it, but—

  “How do you feel about school starting?” Mom asked out of nowhere. “Are you glad Francine will be there?”

  Mom meant she’d have a friend at last. Pearl didn’t want to talk about friends. She blurted, “Mom, who are your friends?”

  Mom didn’t go out with people, men or women. Her only boyfriend, if you could call him that, was Bruce. Mom hadn’t stayed in touch with her older brother since their parents died, when Pearl was a baby. And she didn’t have the least
idea where Pearl’s own father was. So she’d better not keep asking Pearl about Francine!

  Pearl didn’t want to think about fifth grade yet. She would rather hear about Matilda and Eilonwy, babyish as it might be. There was a girl in Pearl’s class—Khadija—who she’d have liked to be friends with if only Khadija wasn’t friends with mean Elsa. Then she had a horrifying thought: What if Francine got to be friends with Elsa and Khadija and nobody, nobody! was friends with Pearl. Everybody in fifth grade was jerks! She hated that Mom had brought up the subject of school.

  “Relax,” said Mom. “Your shoulders are up to your ears.”

  Pearl dropped them and scowled down at her cards.

  “Francine likes you, Pearl, that’s all,” her mother said.

  “She does not,” said Pearl.

  “Oh, then it must be the books,” said Mom. She stared at Pearl until Pearl had to smile. “Admit it,” Mom insisted. “She likes the books and you.”

  Pearl shrugged.

  “What’s so weird about that?” said Mom. When Pearl didn’t answer, she said, “Are you going to play your turn or not?”

  Pearl drew a card and considered. Francine liked her? The thought had not occurred to her. Yes, Francine wanted to be where the drama was, and ever since Vincent’s head had been stolen, that was the library. And because Francine was a kid, naturally she would glom onto another kid, whoever was there. Pearl crossed her arms over her stomach, as if to guard herself from being friends with Francine. But she couldn’t deny, as she questioned herself closely, that the idea of being liked gave her a warm little glow under the place on her stomach where her left thumb rested.

  “You’re surprised?” Mom asked.

  Pearl nodded, and pulled her lips inside her mouth to stop the smile.

  “Well, you shouldn’t be.”

  1 Except for the last three lines, this oath is the one that was instituted by Anne Carroll Moore, head of the Office of Work with Children, in 1911, when children were first allowed into the New York Public Library—at the Central Children’s Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue.

  2 The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton (Houghton Mifflin, 1942).

  9: THE FULL GAME

  SEP 5

  The first morning of the new school year, when Pearl stepped out her door, who should she find standing there, bouncing up onto her tippy-toes, but Francine.

  “Please—walk to school with me, or else Granny’s going to. She only let me come this far alone because I swore I’d walk with you, and I have to rush back and buzz her so she can look down and see I’m not walking alone, or she’s going to come down and walk me, and—” She grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll make a good first impression if she’s there.” She tucked her hands into the sides of her bright new school jumper and took a deep breath.

  Pearl thought about Francine’s parents being all the way in Brazil so that she had to live with Granny and go to a new school. She swallowed her curiosity and tucked her thumbs under her backpack straps. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  It was just as well not to have to walk to school alone. As they walked the eleven blocks to school, more and more students joining the sidewalk at every crossing, it was good to have someone at her side for once, although it would have been better if Francine was in the same class. She dropped Francine at another fifth-grade classroom and turned nervously toward her own.

  Pearl knew she shouldn’t be afraid of the girls in her room, but she was, a little. She couldn’t figure out when or how they had become such good friends. It seemed like everyone had all been friends forever—but never friends with her. No one was mean to her, they mostly didn’t think about her. There was no reason for them not to be friends with her, but there was also no reason why any extra effort should be made for Pearl when they just naturally already were friends with each other.

  It was awful.

  But whenever Pearl pushed the matter, things got even worse. She couldn’t understand it, and she couldn’t stand it, either. She knew there was nothing wrong with her. She was nice! She would be a good friend and not tell on anyone! She was an interesting person who knew about books and could recommend them and quote from them and even give a brief synopsis of them if someone wanted her to. But after five years of going to school with Pearl, the kids only asked her for book reviews in order to distract her or appease her or make the teachers think they were talking to her for real.

  Maybe this year would be different.

  At lunch, Pearl didn’t see Francine at first, so she sat down at the fifth-grade table next to a new kid, a tall brown girl named Millie Perez, who had just moved to New York all the way from Miami Beach, Florida. Pearl liked the look of Millie, with her navy socks that slouched down to her ankles, tiny glassy earrings, and a long brown ponytail as straight as a broom. But Elsa Mann was sitting on the other side of Millie, and when Pearl sat down, Elsa moved farther away from Pearl and motioned to Millie.

  “Why?” said Millie softly, but Pearl heard.

  And she heard Elsa whisper back, “BOR-ing. Watch.”

  Then Elsa asked Pearl if she’d read all of Harry Potter,1 which of course she had. “Tell us what it’s about?” Elsa had invited her in an insincere voice, so Pearl should have known enough to resist. Who didn’t know what it was about, anyway?

  A Sidebar About Harry Potter

  There is such a thing as being in the right place at the right time. There is also such a thing as being born to greatness. But most heroes aren’t great just because they were born in the right place at the right time or were born to greatness. Especially female heroes. Ask Hermione.

  Or ask Francine. Do you really think she didn’t see Pearl in the lunchroom? When I heard this, I thought Pearl was anything but a hero.

  —M.A.M.

  Pearl asked, “You want a synopsis of all of Harry Potter?”

  “Well, however much you’ve read,” said Elsa.

  Francine walked in just then, and stood scanning the room. Pearl knew she was looking for someone to sit with—looking for her.

  “Pearl?” insisted Elsa. “Potter?”

  Khadija’s and Millie’s eyes were on Pearl, too.

  “Please?” said Elsa. “You know I could never get through a book that thick.”

  Pearl was shocked at the idea that Elsa hadn’t read it. She looked at the other two. They glanced from Pearl to Elsa.

  Elsa said, “They haven’t read it either, probably. Please tell us.”

  “From the beginning?” Pearl ducked her head to avoid Francine’s eyes.

  Elsa nodded, smiling. “You’re the best at”—she tried for the word Pearl had used—“synopsis-es.” Millie shrugged, and smiled, too.

  So Pearl caved, determined to prove Elsa wrong about her being boring. She gave a synopsis of Harry Potter so complete, passionate, and engrossing that it took every minute of lunchtime. She hardly had time to take a bite of her tuna sandwich, only it was worth it to have someone listening with intense eyes like Millie’s.

  But when the bell rang at the end of lunch (Pearl had told only through Book 1), Elsa turned her shoulders away from Pearl and took Millie with her.

  “Where ya going?” Pearl said. She knew it was a mistake but it came popping out of her mouth. She followed them, trailing slowly. Along the way, Elsa grabbed hold of Khadija, and by the time Pearl got there, they had set up a jump rope game.

  “Can I jump in?” Pearl asked.

  “Game’s full,” said Elsa. “There are two turners and one jumper.”

  “I’ll wait my turn,” said Pearl.

  “Well, none of us wants to wait,” said Elsa, jumping. “We’ve got just the right number as it is.”

  “Sorry, Pearl,” said Millie, and looked it. But she didn’t argue with Elsa.

  “Sorry, Pearl,” said Khadija, who knew how things usually went, and usually went along.

  Pearl said, “Two people can jump at once, you know.”

  “That’s not the plan,” said E
lsa.

  “Why?” demanded Pearl, then felt too ashamed to continue.

  They didn’t even glance at each other, just watched Pearl while they turned the rope, the rhythm like a heartbeat.

  Pearl turned away. She took When You Reach Me2 out from under her arm and sat by the wall.

  But she couldn’t focus on her book. Something made her think of Francine. She glanced that way, and there was Francine in a group of kids from her class, playing four square. When she saw Pearl, she smiled and waved. Pearl tried to make it look like it was her choice to be sitting by the wall with her book. Well, wasn’t it? Wasn’t this the reason she’d brought the book with her, just in case? She gave Francine a big cheesy smile and a thumbs-up sign, and raised her eyebrows as if to say, You okay? She was going to pretend she hadn’t seen Francine in the lunchroom. At least Francine hadn’t been there to see Elsa embarrass Pearl.

  Pearl skimmed her eyes around the playground. Just about everyone here was older than her. If only fifth grade was still on the lower playground, she could have gone to the lower-grade teachers and offered to push kids on the swings or catch them on the slide. She could have brought her own jump rope and taught the little kids. She could have pretended she wasn’t interested in jump rope or playing or friends anyway. And she wouldn’t have to pretend she was sitting alone on purpose.

  1 The Harry Potter series began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (U.K.: Bloomsbury/U.S.: Scholastic, 1998). If you’re reading in the United States, you know the first book as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

  2 When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books, 2009).

  10: NOT JUST ANY NEW YORKER

  SEP 8

  The first stupid week of the school year was finally over when the bad news came in the form of an email from the mayor’s office in Bruce’s inbox. At the four o’clock meeting that afternoon, Bruce dropped the bomb of this news onto his staff.