“Penelope,” she says.
“And Grandpa Felix, you tell Mum that you’re sorry for leaving me at the hospital and for acting like you were Graveyard Dead, even though you were not.”
Grandpa Felix clears his throat.
“Penelope,” says Mum. “It’s not that simple.”
“I know,” I say, “it’s because you don’t have words. But you don’t need words.” I spread the arms of my coat. “Because I’ve got all these pictures. We’re all together. Right here.”
“I think I’d better be going,” says Grandpa Felix.
“No, don’t!” I grab his arm with both hands.
Mum grabs my coat at the elbow. “Don’t do this, Penelope. Come on, we’ve got to get going, too.” But I hang on to Grandpa Felix, hang on for dear life. Because if I let go, everything will go with it. “I’m not letting go!”
“Mum!” says Terrible.
But Mum isn’t letting go either, and so we’re both holding on, holding on tight for I don’t know what. But I guess no matter how much you hold on, sometimes, you can’t stop people from leaving.
“I’m not letting go!” I yell again, pulling harder on Grandpa Felix’s arm, and people around us are starting to stare and whisper, but I don’t care. I get tossed around inside the grandpa-size coat as I hold on and pull, and before I can stop it, my arms are out of the sleeves and I’m out of the coat and knocking into Terrible. He catches me and keeps me from falling.
Mum and Grandpa Felix are still pulling on the coat even though I’m not in it. I reach out to grab the coat again, but before I can get hold of it, there’s a loud ripping sound that stops me. When I turn to look, Mum is holding on to half of my dad’s picture. The rest of his face is still glued to the coat, which is now in Grandpa Felix’s hands.
And I think my heart stops beating for real.
Chapter Twenty-three
On my walk to school, I stare up at the grey clouds. It makes me feel a little better to see them there. Like they understand and are just waiting to scatter when things decide to go right.
I leave my toolbox at home for the first time since I found it, on account of the fact that when you’ve lost everything, there’s nothing left to fix. Graveyard-Dead dad. Lost, found, and lost again grandpa. Lost nose powers. Lost coat-of-arms coat that is somewhere with the lost, found, and lost again grandpa. Lost chance of coat of arms being picked for the PORTWALLER-IN-BLOOM SPRING FESTIVAL and because of that, lost chance of being a not-dead famous artist like Leonardo.
Grey clouds. Grey clouds. Grey clouds.
“OK, everyone,” says Miss Stunkel. “Today is the big day. Each of you will present your coat of arms to the class. I’ve selected a few teachers to act as the judges. They will look them all over after school and decide which one will be chosen for display at the PORTWALLER-IN-BLOOM SPRING FESTIVAL. Now, who would like to go first?”
I keep my eyeballs on my desk and trace over “Maths is stupid” with my finger.
“Penelope?” says Miss Stunkel.
“Let’s see yours.”
“I don’t have one,” I say, without looking up.
Patsy Cline gasps and Miss Stunkel says, “What do you mean you don’t have one? I thought you said yours was already finished.”
“It was. But I lost it in battle,” I tell her.
Miss Stunkel tells me she’s very disappointed in me, and she makes a big deal out of the very. She also says to see her after school, which I know means another note home. While she tells me all this I’m pretty sure I see two more wrinkles pop up on her forehead.
Then she calls on Angus Meeker to show off his coat of arms. His coat of arms has dry pasta glued all over it, on account of the fact that he says his dad works at an Italian restaurant. He’s also got drawings of cars and trucks on it, because his stepmum fixes cars. And a palm tree for his real mum who he doesn’t see very much because she lives in Florida. Truth be told, I guess I didn’t know very much about awful Angus Meeker. And after he’s finished, awful Angus Meeker doesn’t seem as awful as I thought.
The rest of the class show off their coats of arms, but none of them are actual coats like mine.
After school, Miss Stunkel hands me a note for my mum. I don’t have to read it to know what it says:
Dear Mrs Crumb,
Penelope is a failure with no NOSE POWERS
who isn’t anything like Leonardo da Vinci.
Sincerely and very truly,
Miss Stunkel
I tuck the note in my back pocket and head for home. Angus Meeker gets to the front door of school just when I do. “Why didn’t you do a coat of arms?” he asks me.
“I did. I just don’t have it any more.” I push open the door, and he walks alongside me.
“Too bad,” he says.
“Humph,” I say and then nothing else.
“No,” he says, “I mean, I bet it was good. You’re kind of the best at art.”
I feel my face go red. After a while I say, “I liked your pasta. Yours is the one that should win.” And that is true blue.
Climbing the stairs to our apartment is hard work. Miss Stunkel’s note is as heavy as a brick in my pocket. As soon as I get inside, I slam the door behind me because I am an excellent slammer.
“Penelope!” calls Mum from the kitchen.
“What!” I yell. Because my nose is tingly and the grey clouds are still out there.
“Come here, please,” she says.
“What for?” I say, seeing if I can make my footsteps as small as grasshoppers.
“Penelope Rae!” (Clogged arteries.)
My word. I make my footsteps bigger like medium-size grasshoppers. When I get to the kitchen, Mum and Terrible are waiting for me.
I hand over Miss Stunkel’s note. “Oh dear,” Mum says. Then without opening the note, she lays the envelope on the counter. “We’re making dinner, and we need you to set the table.”
“Fine,” I say, even though it really isn’t.
I grab three plates from the cupboard, and then Mum says, “Make it four.”
“Fine,” I say again. And the day is so grey that I don’t even ask who number four is.
Mum pinches my chin gently. “By the way, how’s your nose? The swelling looks better.”
“OK,” I say, with a shrug. I sniff at Terrible and cough a little at the smell of his aftershave. “I can smell some things now.” He pushes me away. “But I still don’t have any nose powers.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” says Mum.
“What do you mean?”
There’s a knock at our door then. “Your nose might have more power than you think,” says Mum.
“What do you mean?” I look from Mum to Terrible.
He shrugs and then says, “Get the door, genius, and maybe you’ll find out.”
“Terrence,” says Mum.
“What? I called her genius, not dorkus or anything,” he says. “Right, genius?”
“Whatever you say, alien.” And then I race down the hall before he can catch me. I swing open our door, and standing right there, right in front of me is Grandpa Felix.
“Oooooooh-klahoma!” I say when I see him. “What are you doing here?”
Grandpa Felix clears his throat. “I believe I was invited.”
“You were?”
Then Grandpa Felix pulls my coat of arms from behind his back and holds it out to me. All of the pictures are there, except for the one of my dad. His picture is just gone, with only a green square where he used to be. “This belongs to you now.”
I slip the coat on and wrap my arms around me. Mum is beside me then with her drawing pad under her arm and her face full of red blotches. She flips open her drawing pad and tears out a piece of paper. This time it’s not a drawing of a creepy inside. It’s a drawing of my dad. “I was going to glue on another picture of him,” she says. “To make your coat like it was. But then I started sketching.”
I swallow. And take the picture with both hands. �
�It looks just like him.” I smile at her and Grandpa.
He smooths his shirt, which I notice is a clean one. He scratches his whiskers and then shifts from one foot to the other. “Are we going to stand around like this all night?”
“Come on in, Felix,” she says. “Dinner will be ready soon.”
Grandpa Felix nods and squeezes by me, stepping inside our apartment. “How’s the nose?”
I don’t know how long I’ve been holding my breath, but I let it all out in a whoosh. “Still big,” I say.
He laughs. “Good thing.”
And then when I look at my nose on his face, all at once I know what my nose powers are. And they are almost as good as being a war hero. I found Grandpa Felix, all because of my big nose. That’s why he’s here. “I brought you back from being Graveyard Dead,” I tell him.
Then he puts both hands over his heart and takes a long sniff of the air.
“I believe you did, little darling.
I believe you did.”
Dear NASA,
My brother is named Terrence Crumb. He was snatched by aliens and then the aliens turned him into an alien and brought him back when they were finished with him. Here’s how I know my brother is an alien:
1. He doesn’t want me in his room.
2. He tells lies. Aliens are not to be trusted.
3. He calls me names in his alien language (like Dorkus Maximus) for no reason at all.
4. He’s always telling me what to do, especially when Mum is not around.
5. He wears stinky aftershave to cover up his alien smell.
6. He’s pretty good at mind-reading and knowing what I’m up to.
7. Even when he looks like he’s asleep, sometimes he’s just pretending.
8. The smell of his feet makes me want to throw up.
9. He’s always after my allowance.
10. He tries to slice my brains open by shooting invisible laser beams from his eyeballs.
OK, maybe every once in a while, he does something nice like help my mum fix my arm coat and not tell on me when he knows what I’ve been up to. So, even if he is an alien, maybe not all aliens are bad all of the time. I don’t know for sure. Do you think so? Have you met any nice aliens? I think I need to do more detective work. So don’t send any scientists over to our house just yet. I might keep him for a while. I’ll write back to you and let you know how it’s going.
Sincerely,
Penelope Crumb
Good gravy!
More adventures with Penelope!
October 2013
February 2014
www.shawnkstout.com
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
@quercuskids
Interview with Shawn K. Stout, the amazing author of the Penelope Crumb series!
Penelope is an excellent detective. Have you ever solved any mysteries?
No, but I would very much like to find out where all of my socks have gone.
Did you ever have a teacher like Miss Stunkel?
Oh my goodness, my fourth grade teacher was a billion times worse than Miss Stunkel. She did awful things like tape us to our chairs and sniff our armpits to see who wasn’t wearing deodorant. True story.
Penelope Crumb has a big nose? Do you know anyone with a big nose?
Well, me. Ahem. And a couple of other people, but I won’t say who because that would be rude. Besides, if they don’t know they have a big nose, I’m not going to be the one to tell them.
What is your favourite thing to draw?
I’m an expert doodler. So I’m really good at drawing circles and squiggly lines and sticks. I can draw sticks like nobody’s business.
Patsy Cline loves cows. What’s your favourite animal?
The dog, the dog, the dog. After all, dogs don’t judge you even if you have a big nose and aren’t wearing matching socks.
If your brother was an alien like Terrible, would you report him to NASA or try to protect him?
Report him to NASA in exchange for a trip to the moon. I would very much like to hold some moon dust.
Is it really hard to write a book?
Well, it’s a lot easier than finding a pair of matching socks in my dresser drawer.
Acknowledgments
I didn’t know I had a big nose until I was twelve, when an uncle and cousin pointed it out to me during Thanksgiving dinner. (Thank you, Big Paul and Joey, for that one.) I wish I could say that I reacted to the news with as much sense of pride as Penelope, but at twelve, I didn’t have Penelope’s unique view of the world or appreciation for such things. Most days, I still don’t. But I’m working on it. For my big nose and all that comes with it, I would like to thank my grandfather, Albert Beck. His nose is a curse and a blessing. Without it, though, I wouldn’t have been inspired to write this book and discover the wondrous nature of Penelope Crumb. Thank you to the many people who read earlier versions of this book, including Mary Quattlebaum, and my advisers and faculty at Vermont College of Fine Arts, in particular, Kathi Appelt, Jane Kurtz, Uma Krishnaswami, Tim Wynne-Jones, Marion Dane Bauer, and Rita Williams-Garcia. Your insight and encouragement helped me to keep writing until I found the story I wanted to tell. Thank you also to my classmates and friends who read early drafts, especially Annemarie O’Brien, Jess Leader, Allyson Valentine Schrier, Gene Brenek, Micol Ostow, Gwenda Bond, Debbie Gonzalez, Jandy Nelson, and Carol Lynch Williams. In addition, I’d like to thank Alisha Niehaus for her thoughtful critique, which helped me realize that Penelope Crumb is indeed the sort of girl who would embrace a nose the size of a mountain. Many thanks to a most amazing agent, Sarah Davies, at Greenhouse Literary Agency, for your patience and kindness. Thank you for believing in me and pushing me to dig deeper. And to Jill Santopolo, my editor, thank you for your guidance and knowledge, and for shepherding Penelope and me through this wonderful journey. Thank you, also, to my family, for all of your support and love.
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