A Girl, a Raccoon, and the Midnight Moon

by Karen Romano Young

  “You’ve done good, Pearlie,” said Alice. “I just hope the board votes that construction proposal down tonight and makes it all worthwhile.”

  It was not like Alice to want to burst Pearl’s balloon, so this was a reality check. Pearl was newly aware of the very real possibility that the library board could, that very afternoon, burst a whole bunch of balloons. And if that wasn’t enough, here came Bruce, brandishing the evening Moon high above his head and calling, “Publicity! Free publicity! Just in time for the board meeting! Go, team!” He made a deep bow and presented the paper to Mom.

  With a crack and a swoosh, Mom opened the paper and read them the story of how the stonemason at the cathedral had agreed to carve Vincent a new head. When she finished, she added, “Good.”

  “Good what?” Pearl asked.

  “Good about Yoiks,” said Mom. “Keep him coming. I want him to cover our new-head Halloween party. That’ll help.”

  “It’s going to be all but too late,” said Bruce.

  Mom resumed stamping date-due cards.

  “Not if the Rock Lady story keeps on working,” said Pearl. “And it will.”

  PART THREE: RISING ACTION

  “I’ll keep a little tavern

  Below the high hill’s crest,

  Wherein all grey-eyed people

  May sit them down and rest.

  There shall be plates a-plenty,

  And mugs to melt the chill

  Of all the grey-eyed people

  Who happen up the hill.

  There sound will sleep the traveller

  And dream his journey’s end,

  But I will rouse at midnight

  The falling fire to tend.

  Aye, ’tis a curious fancy—

  But all the good I know

  Was taught me out of two grey eyes

  A long time ago.”

  —“TAVERN”

  BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY1

  1 The poem “Tavern,” from Renascence and Other Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Harper, 1917).

  28: THE RACCOON INVASION

  OCT 2

  But the day wasn’t over. Late that afternoon, the sun setting, a troop of people headed up the front steps of the library. More patrons so soon?

  But no. It was Gully, with Mr. Bull and Mr. Dozer, and a woman in a red uniform with an X on her pocket and on her cap. In the driveway was a red van to match, with a logo that said X Marks the Spot X-terminator.

  “What’s the trouble?” Ramón asked. “Roaches? Rats?”

  “Here, I understand the problem is raccoons,” said the exterminator. “That right?”

  Gully, Mr. Bull, and Mr. Dozer nodded. “I’ve already got one in the Havahart trap from the garden this morning.”

  “Trap?” cried Pearl.

  “It’s a harmless trap,” Mr. Bull told her.

  Mr. Dozer chuckled. “As long as you don’t mind being in it,” he said.

  “Anyone would mind being in a trap,” said Francine, bewildered.

  “Better than being dead,” said Gully.

  Mom got a grip on Pearl’s elbow before she could say anything else. “On whose instructions?” Mom demanded of the exterminator. “This is still city property.”

  Mr. Bull made a little speech: “Well, Mr. Gully here had mentioned the other day that there was something of a pest situation in the neighborhood, and if our firm is going to be investing in a property here, it’s important to know beforehand what measures will need to be taken.”

  Mr. Dozer summed things up: “It’s my prerogative as a contractor with a bid on city property.”

  “A bid not yet accepted?” Mr. Nichols said, from behind the morning Moon.

  Mr. Dozer gave him an appraising look. “The vote’s tonight,” he said.

  “We’re all aware of that,” said Mom.

  “Let me see the raccoon!” demanded Pearl.

  “Yes, we need to see it,” said Mom.

  The exterminator demurred. “I can’t be exposing children to potentially harmful wild animals, ma’am.”

  “The wild animal is the one that was harmed!” said Pearl.

  Mom leaned toward the exterminator. “If you’re going to bill the city, someone here is going to have to sign off on the invoice. That means someone is going to need proof that you actually removed an animal. That means someone has to see the raccoon.”

  Mr. Dozer didn’t say anything, which told Pearl that Mom must be right. Ramón said, “Just open the back of the van and give us a quick peek.”

  The exterminator wouldn’t let Pearl near, but she finally let Mom and Ramón follow her around to the back of the van. “What are you going to do with her?” Pearl heard Mom ask in a shaky voice. Pearl’s heart was in her throat.

  “Relocate her, ma’am,” said the exterminator. “Somewhere more hospitable to a wild raccoon than the garden of a public library.”

  “But if we take responsibility for her?” Mom began.

  “Take responsibility? Like a pet?” The exterminator sounded skeptical. “Ma’am, this is a wild animal. At best, it’s a pest. Now, it’s stressful for a raccoon to be in a trap in a van like this. If you’re concerned about its welfare, you’ll let me take it where it’s going.”

  Afterward Pearl told herself Mom never would have let the raccoon go if she didn’t think Bruce could get her back. However it happened, though, it happened: The exterminator climbed in behind the wheel and drove away.

  It was impossible to misunderstand the crumpled expression on Mom’s face and the way she hunched forward as the van left, clenching her fists at her sides. Pearl grabbed her arm.

  “Who was it?”

  Mom looked into her eyes and said, “Eloise.” Then, “Get Bruce.”

  Pearl ran for the stairs.

  “Who’s Eloise?” Francine, of course, was on her tail.

  “She’s a raccoon!” whispered Pearl to Francine. Then she said, “Will you tell Bruce to come?” Francine nodded, and rushed up the stairs while Pearl went down.

  A Sidebar About Havahart Traps

  What they are—helpful—is not as important as what they’re not—hurtful.

  They are not the kind of traps with sharp metal jaws that snap and break your legs and paws and toes.

  They are not designed to let you get away, but that’s better than hurting you so much, you’d chew off your own foot to escape them.

  They are also not designed to kill you by slow bleeding to death or starving.

  They are designed so you follow the bait inside and get shut in. It’s scary, like being locked in a closet, but the idea is that a person checks the trap regularly enough so you don’t dry out or starve to death. Then they take you to another location that is supposedly safer for animals.

  The Havahart trap is supposed to be a nice, humane solution to the problem of vermin. But that, of course, is only the human perspective.

  —M.A.M.

  The basement was silent. There was nothing to be gained in waking the raccoons. Pearl left a note: Eloise has been taken away in a Havahart trap.

  (Imagine someone laying a trap for one of your family members—even your least-favorite one—and hauling them away somewhere you can’t find them.)

  Pearl couldn’t imagine this; she only had one real family member, and if Mom was kidnapped, at least she could call the police and get them on the case. The idea that Eloise could be just taken was even worse than Vincent’s head being stolen.

  When Francine came dashing back down with Bruce, Pearl could see that Mom was barely holding back tears of stress—an hour’s worth (this hour, when Eloise was taken), a day’s worth (this day, when the board vote was taking place, Bruce’s proposals up against Mr. Bull’s, both of them vying for the same “piece of property”), a career’s worth (where would she go, she and Pearl?).

  Gully was still standing there defending his right to call an exterminator. He said the library was public and neglected, and overrun by raccoons. “I’ve been hearing stori
es for years. What right do they have? And you know the kind of trouble they can cause,” he said. “Not just for you. For the neighborhood.”

  “What trouble were they causing?” Bruce demanded. Mom didn’t mention any of the raccoons by name, and she had Pearl’s wrist gripped tightly in her hand. Pearl knew Mom didn’t trust her to speak.

  The phone rang, and Mom lunged for it. “Lancaster Avenue branch library,” she said. Bruce and Pearl saw the news in her eyes.

  “Thumbs-up to the apartment proposal,” said Mom.

  Bruce sighed hugely.

  “That means?” said Francine.

  “It means the district votes on Election Day,” said Bruce.

  Mom said, “It means the city’s giving everyone a choice about how to use this gorgeous building. You, me, Gully—we all get equal say now.”

  Ramón added, “Library or housing? The people will decide.”

  You could practically count “one elephant” between the things people were saying, as if every sentence was a thunderclap.

  “Let’s get out of here, Pearl,” said Francine. Francine tugged her arm, and surprisingly, Pearl went. Pearl would never know what had been on her face, only that for the first time leaving the library saved her, thanks to Francine.

  Released as though a bubble had popped, the girls scattered through the foyer, down the stoop, and along the street toward the subway, but stopped there.

  Nichols was standing at the newsstand, having whisked himself out of the library in avoidance of Gully. Pearl gave him the board vote results and stood in silence, panting. Hot and sweaty from running, she felt frozen nevertheless, as if she was holding off the emotion of the day behind some cold wall. Nichols asked only, “Raccoons okay?”

  “Mom says Bruce is going to see to it that they are,” said Pearl. Bruce the hero, Bruce the hardworking, Bruce the wise. Pearl’s mind rattled back and forth between the freedom of the neighborhood and the pull of the library and Mary Ann.

  The afternoon’s papers hung from the clips at the top of the stand, along with the evening Moon. Francine read the headlines aloud:

  Moon headline:

  MAYOR CONSIDERS

  RAISING BRIDGE TOLLS

  Daily News headline:

  BALANCE BUDGET ON

  BRIDGE-CROSSERS’ BACKS?

  Star headline:

  RESIDENTS RESPOND TO RACCOON RISK

  Pearl froze in horror. “What raccoon risk?” she asked indignantly. “How about the risk of our library being replaced by housing?”

  Tallulah met her eyes and pulled out her own copy of yesterday’s Star. It was already folded open to the vermin invasion article.“Coyotes, raccoons, rats. All the nocturnals,” she said. “This is going to be a big story around here.”

  “What time does the midnight Moon arrive?” said Pearl, her voice catching on the lump in her throat. “I bet it’s going to say RACCOONS ARE AT RISK.”

  “Huh?” said Tallulah. Her face, turned away from the others, had a deep frown that told Pearl she shouldn’t have mentioned that.

  “I didn’t know there was a midnight Moon,” Francine said.

  “Learn something new every day,” said Pearl lightly. She inwardly cursed herself for exposing a secret. Of course Francine didn’t know. Only people who knew about the reading raccoons knew about the midnight Moon.

  “It has a limited readership,” said Nichols, who knew.

  “A limited highly educated readership,” said Tallulah, who knew, too. They were trying to keep the secret safe.

  “Who reads a newspaper that comes out in the middle of the night?” Francine asked.

  Pearl made her hands loop around her eyes like spectacles. “Reading raccoons!” she added.

  Francine asked, “Who would write a newspaper for raccoons?”

  “Reporter raccoons,” said Pearl. “Duh.” Want it to seem real? Act like it’s real, she thought.

  Tallulah leaned over the ledge of the newsstand. “Even the coyotes have a right to their own side of the story.”

  Francine looked skeptical. “You think I’m stupid or something?” she asked them. “What’s all this about?”

  Pearl rushed off to the library, hoping to arrive there alone. Of course, Francine charged along with her, keeping up. “Tell me!” she said. And, hardly knowing what she was saying, Pearl gave it to her straight: the whole story about the reading raccoons.

  When she was done and they were almost there, and she was about to dart off to the basement, Francine got in front of her. “I’ve gotta go!” Pearl said.

  Francine held up the palm of her left hand as if she was Vincent, and said, “You’re going to have to put that in our performance, too, Pearl. That’s amazing.”

  “It’s true!” said Pearl.

  Francine laughed. “Of course it is!”

  Pearl didn’t know what to say. Did she want Francine to believe the story was real—or just to think she was a genius storyteller?

  Francine said confidently, “Everybody’s going to want to come to the library even more when they hear this new part about the reading raccoons.”

  So Pearl left it at that. Fiction or nonfiction, how much did it matter if it was a good story? She looked up at the brick face of the library building and knew Francine was right about how other people would react.

  “We’re going to have to work fast,” Pearl said. “Faster than that exterminator. Faster than Mr. Bull and Mr. Dozer. Faster than Gully!”

  Pearl couldn’t get down the basement stairs fast enough.

  Mary Ann was awake, wide awake and waiting, pacing between the book elevator and the stairs. She had already written a message for Pearl.

  Find out where they took Eloise!

  “We’re trying,” said Pearl, seriously, formally. And then stupidly, “I thought you didn’t get along with Eloise?”

  She’s my cousin!

  “I don’t have a cousin,” said Pearl, causing Mary Ann to make a gesture with her whole body that could only be interpreted as SO?? “I mean, I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Then Mary Ann grabbed the pen again and wrote so hard, her paw shook with the effort.

  Somebody else might be next. And . . .

  Mary Ann was savvy, Pearl knew, so she wasn’t worried about getting trapped herself. Mary Ann must be worried about little Arak.

  Once they go, they usually don’t come back.

  Had other raccoons been trapped before? Pearl reached out a finger, and for the first time touched Mary Ann, on the back of her paw. It was soft but bristly.

  Stupid Eloise! Why couldn’t she have learned to read and write? Then she could send us word.

  Pearl had barely gotten through reading when Mary Ann snatched the catalog card away, crunched it into a ball as if it was the stupidest thing she’d ever written, and pulled out another one.

  She must have gotten trapped on purpose.

  With that, Mary Ann shredded the card into a pile of confetti and threw it wildly from the stair, dashed through it like snow, and disappeared into her nest.

  Pearl heard a snuffling noise. She waited, listened, realized what it was. Pearl had heard a cat yowl, a dog whimper. Now she was hearing a raccoon cry.

  Everything that happened to the library happened worse for the raccoons. Suddenly, Pearl felt the futility of the Rock Lady act. What could a ghost story and a few measly kids do that was more powerful than money and new buildings and a whole city?

  “Mary Ann!” she called. “Where’s your mom? Where’s Arak?”

  Suddenly, Mary Ann came rushing back out. She snatched a card and scrawled one message, shoved it toward Pearl, and disappeared.

  Someone who can write has to go after Eloise. She’s the only one who knows what happened to Vincent’s head.

  Pearl gasped.

  Mary Ann knew how important it was for Vincent to get her head back—to prevent future crimes, or so the library could be a solid institution for the neighborhood and not a crumbling one, or maybe because V
incent’s power actually did channel magic to the raccoons and taught them how to read. No matter what, Mary Ann knew that if Vincent’s head came back, the whole city would see the library in a new light. She was telling Pearl the truth—Eloise knew who the thief was!—as her last attempt to help. Pearl sprinted upstairs.

  “Bruce! We have to go after Eloise!”

  “The raccoon in the trap?” Bruce seemed irritated at the distraction. “She’s supposed to be relocated to an open space area.”

  “She’s the one who knows where Vincent’s head is!”

  “The raccoon knows?” asked Bruce.

  “Yes!” What was wrong with Bruce? He had heard all these stories for as long as she had. Where did he stand on the fiction/nonfiction aspect of them? She realized what it meant that he stood with science—he didn’t believe Mom’s stories were real. “I just want to get Vincent’s head back,” Pearl said.

  “Why?” Bruce looked loony, half angry, and double-confused, staring at Pearl, glancing at Mom—who had more to lose than Pearl.

  Something strange and magical combined inside Pearl’s mind. She thought of Tallulah saying the raccoon invasion would be a big story. She relived the narration she’d given on the playground to accompany Francine’s performance, and the drama in the garden around Vincent’s statue. She recalled the stories Mom had told of Mrs. Mallomar, and considered the one she was writing herself, with the help of Mary Ann. She thought about Francine and Tallulah and Nichols and Gully and the exterminator and Mary Ann and poor, trapped, kidnapped Eloise.

  “Bruce, Eloise is a Mallomar,” Pearl explained. “She is one of the youngest members of the family of smart raccoons who has been living in the library for generations, reading and writing. Eloise can barely read and can’t write at all, but she’s the one who saw the head get stolen. That means she has the information that will return the library to the community as a pillar of light and goodness. This is why it’s important that we get Eloise back, for ourselves and for her family!”