A Girl, a Raccoon, and the Midnight Moon

by Karen Romano Young

  When Jonathan Yoiks heard that profits from the caps were going to support fixing the spiral staircase, he bought two. He put one on his head and carried the second one out the front door, down the driveway, and into the garden, then took a run up to the statue and hooked the cap over Vincent’s beckoning left hand. The bright yellow cap hung there like an autumn leaf on a tree, the bandit mask glimmering on top. The effect was oddly festive.

  It was all a strange double scenario.

  In the best case, the library was bustling, full, getting ready for a party.

  In the worst case, the party would be a last gasp.

  40: MR. GULLIVER AND MR. NICHOLS

  OCT 26

  After school, Gully beckoned to Pearl and Francine, who were in a hurry to get to the library. They stopped mid-jog and went into the store.

  “Running makes people look guilty,” he commented.

  “You think everybody’s guilty,” said Pearl. For a moment they stared each other down.

  But then Gully pulled a bright blue Reading Raccoon hat from under the counter. “Looky here. Anonymous donor. Actually—your homeless friend. Came in with an old credit card I never thought would work and bought a gross of caps. Wanted to make sure anybody who wanted a hat got one.”

  “Don’t call him gross!”

  “No, a gross is a quantity. A gross means a hundred forty- four caps,” said Gully. “Mysterious guy, your friend. He had a job like that, you know.” Gully tilted his head toward the library.

  “Like what?”

  “Contractor, construction, architecture like Mr. Dozer. Not that he was much good at it.”

  That just sounded like trouble, Gully trying to create drama where there was none. Pearl’s neck got hot. But also—she couldn’t help being interested. Mr. Nichols had mentioned that he’d been an architect. Had Gully uncovered the story of the mysterious Mr. Nichols?

  “Don’t know, do you?” He jerked his chin toward the truck. “I thought librarians were supposed to be the smart ones. But nobody over there picked up on the facts about that guy. He got a surprise when I mentioned it to him, let me tell you!”

  “Thanks about the hats,” said Pearl stiffly.

  What was the story? She couldn’t ask. She couldn’t afford to alienate Gully, not now that he was her hat supplier! Francine placed a handful of tiny plastic pumpkins on the counter, the kind Alice had been using as prizes for kindergarten readers. Pearl knew she was trying to make peace, that she could see Pearl was about to go up in smoke.

  “Curious, aren’t you?” Gully said.

  “No!” Francine said. She grabbed Pearl by the wrist and hauled her out the door.

  “Thank you for shopping at the Buck-a-Buy,” Gully called after them. “Ask your old pal about his bird building.”

  “Will you?” Francine asked Pearl, as soon as the door closed behind them.

  “I’d better ask him alone,” said Pearl. Francine nodded and waved before turning to go upstairs to her own door.

  But Nichols wasn’t in his usual spot. Pearl went to the reference desk. She asked Ramón extremely quietly, “Would you do a search for something online?”

  “Is it a secret?” Ramón clicked his computer awake. “What are your search terms?” he asked formally.

  “Nichols. Birds. Building. Architect.” She could have done it herself. No, actually, she couldn’t have. She needed Ramón with her now.

  When the page finally loaded, he said, “Oh,” as if he’d gotten bad news.

  “What?” She skimmed the words on the screen.

  “A wing collapsed,” said Ramón.

  “A bird wing?”

  Ramón read some more. He said, “Uh . . . The William T. Quayle Birdcraft Museum, Hudson Cliffs, New York. Somewhere upstate. A whole wing. A whole section of the museum. Four years ago, Pearlie.”

  A building collapse was front-page news. It had even been on the front page of the Moon, even though the building was a smallish one far away. But they hadn’t known Nichols then.

  “‘Construction weakness,’” Ramón read in a whisper. His eyes were grave. “Dreadful.”

  Pearl read, “‘Seven dead, plus fifty-nine irreplaceable endangered bird specimens destroyed.’”

  Ramón put his finger on the name of the construction company. “‘The company head, Christopher Nichols, could not be reached for comment.’”

  “This must be what Gully was talking about,” said Pearl. “What does it mean?”

  Ramón held his thoughts for a moment, then answered, “‘No comment’ often means someone doesn’t want to talk to the press. In this case it looks like he may have been responsible for some kind of error in construction.” Then he clicked again and said, “Yep.”

  “What?”

  Three months later, there was a tiny, inch-long follow-up story in the Moon about how the Birdcraft Museum had been demolished because of fears of “structural weakness.” And then Ramón pointed something out: “‘The search continues for the head of Nichols Construction, missing since the accident and presumed dead.’” He added, “I think the search probably still continues.”

  Pearl hit the escape key to make the computer go back to the library’s home page. “Do you mean they’re still looking for him?”

  “Could be,” said Ramón.

  “What should I do?”

  “Tell your mother.”

  Mom understood the importance immediately. She and Pearl went up to the third-floor office and dialed Jonathan Yoiks. Pearl took the phone from Mom, and Mom let her.

  “Hello, this is Pearl Moran.”

  “Pearl! How’s the library?”

  Pearl imitated Mom’s “everything’s dandy” voice. “Are you coming to our celebration on Halloween?”

  “What’s better than a re-heading on Halloween?” He sounded suspiciously cheerful.

  She said, “When is my Unique New Yorker profile coming out?”

  “Oh, Pearl.” He didn’t bother being gentle. “I think it’s doubtful that it will.”

  “Why not?” She was appalled at how small her voice sounded.

  “Well—Unique New Yorker typically has an adult readership—”

  “So?” demanded Pearl. Mom put a hand on her arm. “You don’t think adults are interested in libraries?”

  “It’s just that most of your interview consisted of a not- exactly-realistic story.”

  “Predictable!” said Pearl.

  “My editor says our readership—” Yoiks began. He stopped. He cleared his throat. He started over. “Pearl,” he said pointedly. “How nice to hear from you. Is the head there yet? Will you do me a favor and let me know when it comes?”

  “It’s coming on Halloween,” said Pearl.

  “Well, I hope that helps lift your spirits,” said Yoiks.

  (But he didn’t know what could possibly lift his own, after the rejection of his heartfelt story.)

  Then Pearl asked him to look into another building with structural problems: the William T. Quayle Birdcraft Museum in Hudson Cliffs, New York. “Ramón says you have one of those newspaper-searching tools,” she said. “We’re trying to find out what happens when a condemned building gets, um, repurposed.”

  “Let me do a brief search and send you a few links.”

  “See you Halloween—wear your best book costume!” said Pearl.

  They hung up.

  “Do you think he’ll find out anything else about Mr. Nichols?” asked Pearl.

  “Anything like what?” said Bruce, now in the doorway.

  A Sidebar About Profanity

  It looks worse in text than it sounds in speech. And it seems to release the same emotion I release through growling.

  —M.A.M.

  “Anything like, maybe he was responsible for a building collapsing,” said Mom.

  “Gully told me,” said Pearl.

  Then Bruce said something very rude about Gully, something you could never print in a family newspaper.

  “Bruce!” sa
id Mom.

  “Well!” said Bruce.

  41: HEADLESS

  OCT 27–29

  Bruce finished some projects that week. He dropped the first—in a big yellow envelope—onto the kitchen table one night. Dinner was on the stove: homemade chicken soup, but Bruce claimed he wasn’t hungry.

  “Read it after I go,” he said. “Don’t open it until I’m down the stairs, up the street, down the subway, and across town.”

  “Not like you’re worried about what she’ll think or anything,” said Pearl. “So dramatic!”

  “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” said Mom.

  He blew her a kiss and was gone.

  Mom tore the end off the envelope. Pearl pulled her chair close and they turned their attention to Bruce’s papers. He’d made a plan, some detailed sketches, and a wish list for the library. On the list were new wiring, new internet, and a new burglar alarm, plus the alarmed gate for the garden, and everything else he could think of that would be needed to bring the library up to code and into the 21st century. The spiral staircase would be restored; so would the iron roses on the bookshelves in the reading room. The children’s room would have a new extra door that was four feet tall, for the littlest kids. The Memorial Room would be turned into a young adult section with a 1950s diner motif, plus a little event stage for poetry readings, he said, though Pearl thought Francine and Simon would say karaoke.

  “He’s not going to be able to make it look more profitable than Mr. Bull and Mr. Dozer’s plans for new housing,” Mom said.

  “Nobody could,” said Pearl. “It’s like the Disney World of libraries.”

  Mom quoted a book: “‘If only, if only,’ the woodpecker sighed.”1

  “Well, I’m proud of him,” said Pearl. “He’s telling us his own version of how he wants things to be.”

  Mom snorted. “That’s the trouble. It’s just for us. It’s a love letter. He doesn’t ever intend to submit it. Not that they’d ever fund it.”

  “It’s perfect,” said Pearl, uncertain why she felt uncertain.

  “It would never happen.”

  “Why shouldn’t it?” demanded Pearl.

  “The library board would never take this seriously,” Mom sniffed. “They’d think Bruce was making fun of them.” She stood up and went into her room and closed the door. Then she called, “It’s a fantasy library!”

  “Come out,” said Pearl. When nothing else happened, she went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and got in bed. What would the library board think when they heard about Reading Raccoons? What if everybody thought she, Pearl, was in a fantasy land? What if they thought she was just a liar? Mom came out of her room and sat in her pajamas on the floor, leaning against the side of Pearl’s chair-bed, her back to Pearl.

  Pearl laid her open book, one by Philip Pullman,2 facedown across her stomach and touched Mom’s hair.

  Mom reached up and grabbed Pearl’s hand. “Nobody could care more,” she said. She explained that Bruce had also written a regular budget, in addition to this pie-in-the-sky budget. “Nobody could write a better one. But nobody could beat the housing plan financially. We just don’t have the numbers. And the city does need more affordable housing.”

  “Is it going to be affordable enough for us to move into when you lose your job?” asked Pearl.

  Mom had to laugh. “Hell, no,” she said. And then she started crying right in front of Pearl. She put her hands over her face, dropped her face to her knees, and all of a sudden was sobbing.

  At first Pearl felt like this was happening on TV, as if this was something that had nothing to do with her. But it was true, it was real, it was really her brave mother crying on the floor. She started crying herself, but stopped right away, because both of them crying would have been too much.

  Instead, she tried to do what Mom would have done if it was her crying.

  She climbed out of her chair-bed, went to the stove, and put on the tea kettle. She put two pieces of bread in the toaster and pushed the button down. When it popped, she used a butter knife to scrape the too-hard refrigerated butter onto the toast in little curls, and when they melted, she spread them. She set the plate of toast on the table next to Mom.

  But Mom didn’t even notice. She knocked the plate with her elbow, and the toast fell to the floor.

  “Oh,” she said, looking up. “Sorry, but—Pearl, what if it’s just not going to work out for us? Not with Bruce or the library?”

  Pearl picked up the toast and flung it into the trash. Mom blew her nose, tossed her tissue toward the trash, and missed. “You’re the mom,” Pearl said. “What do we do?”

  Mom didn’t answer. She went on sitting there. So Pearl went into Mom’s room and closed the door.

  After a few minutes, Mom knocked on the door, her cheeks very pink. “Enough of this moping!”

  Pearl said what she had been thinking to herself while she’d waited. “You can take us out of the library, Mom, but you can’t take the library out of us.”

  “You’re right, of course.” Mom said. “Let’s get out of here, Pearl girl. Let’s go get ourselves an ice cream.”

  “But I already brushed my teeth! I’m already in my pajamas!”

  “You’re the kid,” said Mom. “Quit acting so responsible.”

  When they had their cones and were walking back home, Mom said, “I wonder what Mary Ann thinks about relocating. Have you asked her?”

  “Of course,” said Pearl.

  (She hadn’t, not yet. But now she would.)

  “Mary Ann thinks Eloise might be gone for good,” said Pearl. “And you know what that means.”

  “Oh, Pearl!” said Mom. “My point,” she added after a few moments, during which they walked through the chilly evening, licking cones that melted slowly, “is that we may be in for a new adventure, and that it will be okay.”

  “How?”

  “I have some money saved. And I’ve been with the system long enough that if I lose my job, they’ll pay me a severance—some money to cover the gap between this job and the next.”

  “The next job?”

  “I can be a library director wherever they need one,” said Mom. “River to river. Borough to borough. Coast to coast, if need be. Everybody needs books. So don’t worry about that emotional display you just observed.”

  A Sidebar About Projects

  When things are really bad sometimes, you just have to try to make them better. Just keep going, keep working on it, and try not to get too wacky, even if it seems like you might be wacky for trying.

  If you were hoping for something deeper, well, that’s all I’ve got.

  (Kindly refer to page 297, my to-do list.)

  —M.A.M.

  “It’s okay, Mom.” Pearl finished her ice cream gravely. There was nothing else to say.

  So instead, she asked Mary Ann.

  “Haven’t you ever wished you lived in the country like a wild raccoon?”

  Mary Ann waited, her eyes half shut, which gave her a snotty expression.

  “You don’t want to be a wild raccoon?”

  Mary Ann couldn’t trouble herself to write anything. She crossed her paws and looked dainty.

  “You are a wild raccoon? A wild city raccoon?”

  That was better, but Mary Ann was still stiff and silent and too cool to write anything to Pearl or even change her expression.

  Pearl looked closer. “You’re insulted?” she asked.

  Mary Ann raised her chin higher.

  “You’re scared,” said Pearl. “You’ve never lived in the country.”

  Mary Ann’s eyes closed just for the briefest moment, and Pearl knew she was right.

  “You know,” Pearl said softly. “I’ve been to the country.”

  Mary Ann looked curious.

  “Bruce loves it, so once he took Mom and me camping upstate. In a tent and everything, out there in the fresh air.” She paused, waiting for Mary Ann to get it. “That’s right, fresh air. I practically had
a coughing fit. In fact, I threw a fit. I was not a fan of mosquitoes and sleeping on the ground. And Mom must not have loved it either because it didn’t happen twice.”

  Mary Ann raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean,” Pearl went on, “what would life be like without hot subway breath belching up the stairs?”

  Mary Ann made a movement like a chuckle.

  “Without people throwing lit fireworks into dumpsters?”

  Mary Ann mimed a response to an earthquake.

  “So you don’t have to think you’re the world’s only city mouse.”

  More shock. “Who are you calling a mouse?” Mary Ann seemed to say.

  They sat together laughing, their shoulders shaking. “I guess we’d both survive,” said Pearl at last.

  “Look what I’ve done for you, Pearl,” said Bruce, and he dropped a bag on the reference room table where she was doing her math homework. The bag was heavy, packed with a wool overcoat, scarf, and boots: Bruce’s winter wear.

  “What is this stuff?”

  He was making a big deal out of it, said he was giving Pearl a piece of heritage from his hometown, Sleepy Hollow.3 “Have you heard of the Headless Horseman?”

  He took the clothes out and assembled them on Pearl. The scarf went over the top of her head, and the coat buttoned up around it. The only way to see was to peer out between two buttons on the coat. It was hot and clumsy.

  “No way,” said Pearl. In a fury, she tugged off the coat without unbuttoning it and threw it over a chair. “I don’t care if it is a book-character Halloween parade. I’m not going as the Headless Horseman. I don’t want to be a headless anything. I want to be the Reading Raccoon. Head and all.”

  “Well, you don’t get everything you want,” Bruce said, surprisingly affronted. He held up his big right hand. “End of discussion.”