Cherry Ames Boxed Set 5-8

by Helen Wells

  For this was a very particular date, ringed in red pencil on Cherry’s calendar. A long-awaited date, long and earnestly prayed for, now excitedly prepared for by all the scattered Ameses, preceded by long-distance telephone calls between Cherry and her mother, and by a flurry of shopping for perfume and a comfortable new robe and slippers (and a winged piggy bank which Mr. Ames stuffed with quarters), crowned by the baking of an immense cake on which Mrs. Ames was right now squeezing out pink icing to spell: welcome home. For this was the week end Cherry’s twin brother Charlie was to be mustered out of the Army Air Forces and—at last, at very long last—he would be home.

  Hilton was drowsing under a July sun on the Saturday noon Cherry climbed her porch steps. She pushed her black curls off her warm forehead, feeling so excited she wondered if she were shooting off sparks. For not only was her adored brother arriving in state this week end—as if that were not happiness enough!—but Gwen and Mai Lee and the others were arriving today! This week end at the Ameses was to be the Spencer girls’ big reunion—planned by letter, weeks ago, when Charlie was still a flying speck out in the Pacific. Charlie—her pals—holiday—

  “It’s like having a chocolate mint soda and a pecan fudge sundae and a whipped cream cake, all set before you at once,” Cherry thought. “But I guess I can manage a double dose of pure happiness.”

  She dropped her small overnight bag with a thump in the hall and called:

  “Hi, family! Here’s another Ames! Where are you?”

  Her mother called from the kitchen, “Come and admire Charlie’s cake!”

  Cherry raced through the cool, darkened rooms to the white kitchen. Mrs. Ames, flushed, was bending over the resplendent cake. Cherry kissed her hello.

  “Welcome home to you, too,” her mother said. “You look fine, honey. Dad and I were so pleased with your letters.”

  “I’m flourishing. Glad to see you are, too. Where’s Dad? Oh, isn’t this wonderful about Charlie?”

  “Wonderful!”

  Cherry and her pretty mother hugged each other in glee.

  “Dad’s downtown trying to buy Charlie some civilian clothes.” Mrs. Ames untied her apron and smoothed her dress. “I have everything ready, finally, even myself!—Charlie’s room, a nice lunch for your girls, rooms for them, tonight’s picnic supper—”

  “Poor Mother. Your kids certainly make you a lot of work.”

  “Oh, that’s what mothers are for. I just hope—With such a houseful of youngsters already invited, if Charlie brings his friends too—Well, someone may end up sleeping in the bathtub!”

  “Charlie’s bringing a quartet of generals?” Cherry laughed.

  “He wrote something about one young man he’s very fond of—Oh! The ice cream! Cherry, run downtown this minute and get the gallon of peach Mr. Feldkamp is saving for me. And if you can find some green peppers,” she called after Cherry, “and some more clothes hangers—And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to buy extra toothbrushes—”

  But Cherry was already halfway down the tree-lined block. She sped downtown in the scorching prairie heat, made the purchases for “Hotel Ames” plus Charlie’s favorite red roses, plus gumdrops for Gwen, plus a pretty new compact for her long-suffering mother. Then Cherry raced home, juggling parcels, trying to trot along faster than the ice cream could melt. She arrived home in a litter of roses, toothbrushes, and curls in her eyes, and ducked straight into the shower. She scrubbed and showered and dressed herself into a presentable member of the family welcoming committee.

  Not a minute too soon! The doorbell rang.

  Cherry ran down the staircase, still clutching her hairbrush. Charlie? Gwen and the girls, bless ’em? Mrs. Ames got to the screen door first.

  “We are selling a trial subscription to—” the man started.

  “No, thank you,” said Mrs. Ames forlornly.

  “Then could I interest you in a free copy of our gardening bulletin which every household should—”

  “Not today,” said Mrs. Ames in a disappointed tone.

  Cherry saw the salesman’s expression turn sympathetic.

  “If it’s boll weevil in your garden that’s making you feel bad, lady,” he began—But Cherry good-naturedly waved her hairbrush at him and shooed him away.

  “Now he’ll probably tell our neighbors,” Mrs. Ames said, “that we’re a houseful of lunatics.”

  “Crazy with joy,” Cherry agreed. She ran up the stairs and had reached the top landing when the doorbell shrilled again. Both Cherry and her mother made another wild dash toward the door.

  It was Midge.

  “Oh!” both Cherry and Mrs. Ames said. “Well, come in. Don’t just stand there in this heat.”

  “You make me feel like an anticlimax,” Midge protested. “You didn’t notice my new hair-do, either. Listen, Cherry! What’s the difference between a raven and a writing desk?”

  “Don’t know. Give up,” Cherry said impatiently.

  “You mean you don’t know the difference betw—”

  “This isn’t exactly the right moment for puzzles, Midge dear,” Mrs. Ames put in.

  “Cherry doesn’t even know that? Doesn’t even know the difference between a raven and a writing desk?” Midge persisted. “My, I’ll bet you have a lot of trouble when you sit down to write a letter.” And Midge burst out laughing.

  “I would describe you as a nuisance,” Cherry said between clenched teeth, “if I weren’t too polite to say such things.”

  Midge blinked, figuring that out. Mrs. Ames cocked her dark head. A car was stopping outside their house. It was a taxi, and Charlie and another khaki-clad airman were stepping out. Cherry rushed out on the porch, her brother ran up the porch steps four at a time. The Ames twins collided in a hug.

  “Oh, Charlie! You old sweetie—”

  “My favorite sister!”

  “My favorite brother.” She patted his fair hair. “The very nicest brother there is.” Mrs. Ames crowded in, and Midge somehow squeezed in the middle.

  “Home.” Charlie looked at all of them, then lifted his eyes and looked at their gray house. “Home! Out of the Army Air Forces. For good.” He grinned and stretched luxuriously. He was tall and athletic, light-haired, blue-eyed, and had exactly the same pert face as his sister. “Home … Dad be home soon? … I want to ‘jest set’ and look at all of you.”

  Mrs. Ames said, “Yes, I want you to rest, Charles.”

  Cherry was so delighted to see her brother that she sputtered. “You look pretty, I mean fine—was the Pacific a long way?—that is, did it take you long to get home?—Oh! you’re still wearing the identification bracelet I gave you.”

  “Sure, honey. Never took it off for five years.”

  “Never? Not even once?”

  “Not even once. Guess what, Cherry?” Charlie said. “I brought you an Oriental robe.”

  “That’s wonderful. But you brought yourself, and that’s the best present of all.”

  And they all said the commonplace, deeply felt phrases, and laughed a little for joy.

  The other boy stood there, smiling and forgotten, until Charlie dragged him forward.

  “—you are not either in the way. Mother—Cherry—and Midge—this is—All right, all right, I won’t tell them. This is my good friend, Bucky Hall.”

  “How do you do, Bucky.” Cherry still did not really notice him. She was too absorbed in the miracle of her brother’s return from five years of combat flying. He and Bucky wore the same wings insignia on their khaki sleeves. They must have been through the same war experiences together. And here they were, having survived war together. No wonder they were close friends.

  But Bucky remained, to Cherry, only Charlie’s friend, only an anonymous flyer in khaki, until about half an hour later. Mr. Ames had come home, the preliminary tension was beginning to slacken, and they were all sitting around the living room, talking. Cherry overheard Midge say to Charlie’s friend:

  “What is it about you that Charlie isn’t supposed to tell? S
omething awful?” she asked hopefully.

  Bucky grinned. He had a crooked, likable grin. “My secret vice. I eat onions. Raw. For breakfast.”

  “That’s no vice, that’s a talent.”

  “Well, it certainly ensures my privacy. It worked even in the Army! The Fragrant Vagrant, they called me.”

  “On Kitchen Police, you were The Scallion Scullion,” Charlie muttered. “Also, The Little Stinker.”

  “But confidentially, I eat onions for breakfast only in self-defense. Stop shuddering, Midge.” Bucky’s voice was husky, with an oddly plaintive note.

  Cherry noticed now that Bucky Hall was one of the most attractive fellows she had ever seen. Not as tall as Charlie, not as handsome, nevertheless Bucky had a way about him. There was a cheerfulness about his turned-up nose, a swing to his walk, something teasing in his smile. He had so much charm that it was outrageous. But in disarming contrast, his eyes were soft and deep, and his voice had that plaintiveness.

  Cherry said, liking him, “Onions or no onions, I trust you’ll be here for breakfast tomorrow morning?”

  “I’ll be here for the weekend, thanks, but I can’t guarantee that Hall will show up for breakfast. Unless Charlie blasts me awake. You wouldn’t want me around that early, anyhow. I’m horrible, then. Cross, cranky, bite people’s heads off—” Bucky grinned appealingly. “The rest of the time, of course, I’m lovely, just lovely. Practically a pin-up boy.”

  Charlie turned an affectionate, level gaze on his friend. “Bucky flew with me for a year. We got hurt together—that is, Bucky got hurt.”

  Cherry quickly turned to him.

  Bucky scowled. “It was nothing. I—I just did it to get sympathy.”

  “He also got himself a couple of decorations,” Charlie said meaningly.

  “Will you go run up a tree?” Bucky demanded. “And why didn’t you ever show me a really good picture of your sister? You know, Cherry, Charlie talked about you all the time. He bored us so much that we decided you were a battle-ax. I never suspected you’d be as nice as this.”

  “As nice as what?” Cherry teased.

  “Cherry!” Midge said. She was shocked—and a bit jealous.

  Bucky smiled at Cherry and his eyes were full of laughter. “I’ll tell you over the weekend. In detail,” he promised. “Very nice of all the Ameses to take me in. I’ll try to be a model guest.”

  Cherry already thought Bucky Hall one of the most likable young men she had ever known. Having him around for the weekend, she decided, might be extremely pleasant.

  For a moment Cherry nearly wished that the girls were coming some other weekend. But as she told Bucky about them—“warned” him, Charlie insisted—all their good times came dancing back. Swiping a life-sized doll—getting two of everything for a birthday-Christmas present, including a pair of galoshes—giving an Army party in the Pacific, and arranging Ann’s wedding in England—all the funny, frolicking, heart-warming times together!

  “Your girls sound grand,” Bucky said. “But is this weekend going to be safe for mere males?”

  Charlie urged flight before the oncoming feminine horde. He spoke, he said, from experience. Cherry knew her brother did not mean a word of his teasing. Bucky was all for holding his ground—even when, outside, a car door slammed and they could hear laughter.

  “We’ll vanish,” Bucky gave in to Charlie, “but only while Cherry says hello to them. We’ll be back later and with a vengeance! All right, Charlie? Come on, Midge, you’re no more of a Spencer girl than I am.”

  Those three had already vanished out of Cherry’s attention. A commotion started at the front door. “They’re here!” Cherry shrieked and ran. “They’re here!”

  Young women spilled through the door. Redheaded Gwen Jones grabbed Cherry first. The others milled around them in the Ames living room.

  “After all this time—you darlin’ old so-and-so!”

  “Hello, you old freckle face! You imp! Gosh, am I glad to see you. And Josie—Josie Franklin!”

  Josie Franklin, looking like a frightened rabbit behind her glasses, wriggled forward. “We got back from England—I mean, we’re here,” she stuttered. “And—and—you see?”

  “Yes, I see,” Cherry laughed, kissing Josie, “and I’m darned glad you are here! Why, Bertha Larsen!”

  A tall, plump, fair young woman enveloped Cherry in a large embrace. “This is nice,” she said solemnly. “Only for such a good thing as this would I leave our farm.”

  “Next,” said a Chinese-American girl shyly, from behind the others. Cherry swooped down on the demure ivory-faced figure, and Mai Lee suddenly turned into a real live person.

  Cherry announced, “The others couldn’t get here—Marie Swift is way out in San Francisco—Vivian is already job hunting, poor child—and Ann is very busy being Mrs. Jack Powell. It’s a shame they couldn’t come, because this is the first time we’ve met since we’re out of uniform.”

  “Since we’re out of the Army Nurse Corps.”

  “How long has it been?” someone asked.

  “Whatever it is, it’s too long!” Cherry said. “We’ve got to do something about keeping together. Starting right now!”

  But first there were notes to exchange, notes of what each friend had been doing, and hoped to do. Cherry had last seen or heard of them all in England, in wartime. Ann and Gwen, with Cherry, had been flight nurses. The others had been attached to a mobile hospital unit. Like Cherry, several of them on their return to the United States had been veterans’ nurses. Although their dress now was civilian, their talk rang of the martial nursing they had all so long and loyally worked at.

  “I wish,” said Mai Lee, “that I’d get a chance to wear a starched white uniform, for once in my life. Why, we’ve never—except for Cherry here—worn anything but student nurses’ blue-and-white, and Army khaki!”

  “Anyone heard from our old nursing superintendent, Miss Reamer?”

  “She’s fine, and she wrote me she wants us all to come back for a class reunion next year.”

  Josie Franklin was wailing, “But I don’t know what I want to do next!”

  “Me neither,” said Gwen.

  “So far, all of us are just resting after Army life,” Bertha Larsen summed it up. “And trying to get our bearings.”

  “Well, there’s one thing we’re going to do!” Cherry said. She tossed back her curls. “We’re not going to drift apart again. I’ve missed you kids like anything. So I propose—uh—I declare us the Spencer Club! As of this moment.”

  “Hear, hear!”

  “Cherry for President!”

  “No, no,” Cherry said hastily. “We don’t need a president or dues or regular meetings or anything. We’ll just be a club for sticking-together purposes.”

  “An eating club would be nice,” plump Bertha Larsen said hopefully.

  “I could be corresponding secretary to stick us together,” Josie Franklin offered.

  “Unanimously accepted, Miss Franklin! We’ll meet at least once a year, is that it, Cherry?”

  Mai Lee said quietly, “Maybe we could all do something. Eight of us—counting in Ann and Marie and Vivian—all nurses—all making a fresh start in nursing—Maybe we could all go into the same field of nursing work together!”

  “And all take an apartment together! Can you cook?”

  “All right,” Cherry said. “Next time that we all meet, a new career will be first on our agenda.”

  “Luncheon is on your agenda right now,” said Mrs. Ames, coming in smiling. “My word, what eight girls will be able to think up! I thought our one nurse kept the household lively but a crowd of you—Well, this is fun!”

  She led the chattering friends out into the side yard and garden. Bucky and Charlie were still tactfully keeping out of the way, Cherry noticed. Midge, too, was miraculously absent—probably as a result of maternal maneuvers.

  On a picnic table under some shade trees, Mrs. Ames had spread a cool lunch. The girls took places on the two long
benches, shooed a robin off the table, and feasted. The just-born Spencer Club relaxed and dismissed such matters as agendas and nursing careers. Their talk turned to romance.

  “Where’s Wade Cooper, Cherry? Aren’t you going to marry him?”

  “Ann Evans reports that marriage is grand!”

  Gwen said in a stage whisper, “I strongly suspect Ann of being in love with her husband. But, Cherry, what about the handsome Captain Cooper?” Gwen groaned. “If only he’d fallen for me, freckles and all!”

  “I like Wade, sure. But I have no overpowering urge to spend the rest of my life with him. I guess,” Cherry said a little wistfully, “that I just haven’t met the right man yet.”

  Bertha Larsen said, “Sometimes you find him in your own back yard, when you’re not even looking for him. Right under your nose, Cherry.”

  Cherry jumped. Bertha was right! There was an eligible young man right under her nose. A young man named Bucky Hall.

  “What about you, Bertha?” They all turned to the big fair girl.

  Her china blue eyes softened. “About me—did I never tell you? It has been settled since I was a little girl, and John was a little boy on the farm next to ours. We grew up together, we always loved each other, we always knew we would marry. That is all.”

  There was a hush. Someone said, “That’s very lovely.”

  “I am fortunate,” Bertha said simply, but Cherry thought her John was the fortunate one. She herself began to feel rather forlorn. Apparently Josie Franklin did too, judging by her long face. Gwen was grinning to herself.

  The girls pounced on Gwen. “What about you?”

  Gwen flushed. “He lives in St. Louis. Nothing serious, honestly. We’re just in the ‘I-could-dance-with-you-forever’ stage.”

  “Well,” said Bertha practically, “when you get to the ‘could-you-care-for-me-forever’ stage, be sure to let us all know. We’ll give you a shower.”

  Cherry said, “St. Louis? I’m going there soon with my Owenses. We’ll be at the Mississippi Hotel.”

  “Oh, fine! I’m going to be in St. Louis visiting my aunt and”—Gwen grinned—“guess-who. It’s a date, Cherry.”