Little Women and Me

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  Amy had already grabbed her skates and was halfway to the door when it struck me what was about to happen.

  My story amnesia lifted and I saw the scene so clearly: Laurie oblivious; Jo seeing Amy coming up behind them but pretending she didn’t; Laurie skating ahead to see if the ice was safe before racing; Amy never hearing the warning Laurie gave Jo to stay near the shore, that it wasn’t safe in the middle; Jo not caring if Amy heard or not; Amy heading for the middle of the river because she thought the ice would be smoother there; and Jo turning just in time to see Amy fall through.

  So what if somehow Jo and Laurie pulled her out afterward, this was something dangerous I could prevent. Maybe, in addition to saving Beth at some future point, maybe I was supposed to keep Amy from falling through the cracks … literally!

  “I’m coming with you!” I shouted after Amy, thinking to avert disaster with my presence.

  Amy froze in the doorway, stunned.

  “But you hate the cold!” Beth objected.

  “You don’t even skate!” Meg further objected.

  Well, she was right about that. In my real world, I hated any sport that involved giving up physical control, which included all winter sports, as far as I was concerned: skating, skiing, sledding, the luge—whatever the heck that was. And yes, I did hate being cold. Still …

  “I don’t care!” I shouted, suddenly feeling the weight of my purpose in this world. “I’m coming with you!”

  “But you don’t even have skates!” Amy said, walking out. Meg, perhaps seeing how urgent I felt even if she didn’t understand why, shoved a pair of decrepit-looking skates upon me. “Here, take mine.”

  With hurried thanks, I grabbed them from her and raced off after Amy.

  Brrrrr!

  As much as I hated the cold when I was on land, it was even worse out here on the ice.

  Were they sure spring was right around the corner?

  One thing I knew was right around the corner was Laurie, who’d skated out of view around the bend in his fur-trimmed coat and cap, just like I remembered in my vision from the original book. Everything was going according to plot, right down to Jo being aware of Amy but pretending not to be, everything right down to Jo hearing Laurie say that the middle of the ice was too dangerous and her not caring if Amy heard him or not.

  Everything was the same, except for the addition of me, of course.

  Normally I would have been jealous of Jo and Laurie spending time alone together—this was different from them going off to a play in the company of prim Meg—but I didn’t have time for that now. As I teetered and wobbled and stumbled after Amy in the unfamiliar skates, it was all I could do to keep my balance.

  Amy turned to call over her shoulder to me impatiently, “If you’re going to come, come!” Then she began to head toward the precarious middle of the ice.

  “Wait!” I called after her.

  “What is it, Emily?” she asked in exasperation. “I’m in a hurry here.”

  I knew I had to stop her, had to keep her close to the shore where I still was, so I did the only thing I could think to do: I forced myself to fall.

  I remembered a line from an old television commercial. “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” I shouted, sprawling around on the ice as though I really couldn’t. Okay, I’ll admit it: I really couldn’t.

  It’s hard to stand up on ice when you have nothing to hold on to, no real sense of balance, and you don’t know how to skate.

  “Oh … fine.” She shook her blond locks and headed in my direction.

  She was halfway to me when the crack came.

  C-RACK!

  It was so loud, like a gunshot, I don’t know how it was possible that people in the next town didn’t hear it.

  I looked across the ice in time to see Amy’s arms shoot up into the air, and then her body disappeared into the black water that filled the space where the ice had cracked open, her little blue hood bobbing on the surface.

  This is still fine, I said to myself, forcing a note of calm into my internal voice. So I didn’t stop her from falling through the ice. So what? This will be just like the book. Jo will have turned in time to see Amy fall through and Laurie will lie down flat and grab Amy while he sends Jo to go fetch a rail from that fence over there.

  Only it wasn’t still fine. When I looked up in the direction Jo and Laurie had been just a minute ago, they weren’t there, so Jo hadn’t seen Amy fall through the ice.

  Oh no, I realized with an even greater horror. This meant that the only person left to save Amy was … me???

  Oh shoot.

  “Amy! Hang on!” I called to the bobbing blue hood.

  Then, still unable to rise in my skates, I dragged myself along the ice.

  After much heaving and pulling, I finally edged up on the black hole. I’ll admit, I was a little scared to get close. What good would it do the world—any world—if I fell in too and we both drowned?

  But then I realized that this was all my fault. In my misguided effort to avert disaster for Amy, I’d managed to make things worse. Now, instead of simply suffering a scary dunk in the water as she’d been meant to do, she could drown.

  I had no choice. I had to save her.

  Like the Grinch, my sometimes-ten-sizes-too-small heart grew three sizes that day.

  I inched up all the way to the edge, not caring about my own safety anymore.

  “Grab on to my hand, Amy!” I urged her.

  But she didn’t seem to hear me, struggling as she was to keep her head above water, to keep it from disappearing beneath the surrounding ice.

  If she didn’t hear my voice, did she hear the much louder crack that soon followed?

  Because there it was—C-RACK!— and the ice beneath me was giving way and now I was in the black water beside her.

  It was the coldest I’d ever been in my life, but I didn’t care. Somehow, I got my arms around her waist and with one enormous heave I threw her out of the water and onto the ice, like landing a really big fish. Then I tried to heave myself out too, using the ice border like I would the side of a swimming pool to leverage my body, but every time I bore down on another section of ice, it gave way beneath me.

  And I was getting cold. So cold.

  My hands became ice, my breathing shallow, and then suddenly I began to feel warmer even though I was still in the frigid water.

  Was this how my life was going to end, I wondered, far from my real life, stuck in the middle of blasted Little Women?

  And then there was Jo’s voice, yelling, “Emily March! What have you gotten yourself into? Get out of there this instant!”

  And then there was Laurie, lying down on the ice, reaching out a hand until he could grasp on to my wrist tightly, keeping me above water while he yelled to Jo to get a rail from the fence over there.

  And then they were handing me the rail, pulling me up and out to safety.

  “It took you both long enough,” I said accusingly to Jo and Laurie.

  “What happened?” Laurie asked, his concern so strong I would have felt hopeful for our future as a couple if I weren’t nearly dead.

  “That’s never happened before,” Amy said oddly. Then she added with awe in her voice, “Emily saved my life.”

  “Huh,” Jo said. “Well, I highly doubt that. Emily can’t even skate.”

  Back home, Amy and I were wrapped in blankets and put before the fire, our teeth still chattering.

  Jo couldn’t do enough for Amy. Apparently death was a great reminder of love.

  “Well, no harm done,” Marmee said soothingly. “A little cold water never hurt anybody.”

  I nearly choked on my tea.

  No harm done? my mind screamed. A little cold water? I wanted to strangle Marmee. Amy had almost died out there. I’d almost died out there! Hadn’t any of these people ever heard of hypothermia before?

  Oh, wait a second … 1862… perhaps no one had invented hypothermia yet … or maybe they just didn’t know about it …
>
  And then they were hurrying Amy and me off to our beds, and I could hear Jo and Marmee talking over Amy’s snoring in the next room.

  Jo was feeling guilty over her temper, worrying that one day she’d do something so awful it would destroy her life and make everyone hate her.

  Serves you right, I thought. If we were in my world and you pulled a stunt like that—letting someone go out on thin ice when you knew the risks, and then if that person died, we’d call it negligent homicide and lock you away.

  Wait a second. Maybe Amy wasn’t the resident sociopath. Or perhaps she and Jo were both pathological?

  But there was Marmee’s voice, soothing Jo with stories about her own temper, how it had taken Marmee most of her life to conquer it.

  “How did you?” Jo asked with rare timidity. “Conquer your temper, I mean.”

  “I didn’t conquer it permanently,” Marmee said. “It came back to me again when I had four young daughters and we were poor.”

  “Four? Don’t you mean five?” Jo said.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Marmee said sounding puzzled. “I don’t know why, but for some reason, I forget at times that there are five of you and think there are just four.”

  Gee, I wonder why that is? I almost snorted out loud. It was some comfort to realize that I wasn’t the only one here who was confused at times by all of this. Maybe the story mostly seemed preadapted to me, but there were these occasional wrinkles, as though the story still had to stretch to accommodate me.

  Then Marmee droned on about Papa, how his goodness and perpetual patience had been the beacon that had led to her current temper-less state. He’d encouraged her to be the kind of woman her girls would want to grow up to emulate, a woman who would be proud and happy to have her girls confide in her.

  It would have been so easy to snort then. So much of what she was saying was snort-worthy, like the idea of Papa being perpetually patient. Well, of course he was—because he never actually had to be there!

  I thought about what Marmee and Jo had discussed about Jo’s temper being something she needed to work on and I remembered those books Marmee had given us for Christmas: the four—no, five copies of Pilgrim’s Progress. It occurred to me that Marmee knew that Jo’s temper was her weak spot; and further, that Marmee had intended for each of us to work on our character. Meg, I figured, needed to become less superior; we all knew about Jo’s temper and Amy’s vanity, not to mention Beth’s shyness—shyness might not be a huge flaw like a pathological temper, but it did keep Beth from fully enjoying her life. But what then was my character flaw, the big thing I had to work on? Surely, it had to be something more than conquering my tendency to be the family skank.

  “I still don’t believe that story Amy told about Emily saving her,” Jo said. “Emily? Perhaps Amy was imagining things?”

  “It does seem unlikely,” Marmee admitted.

  Hey! I was outraged. I would have objected, loudly, but I was the eavesdropper here. And what did they mean by that? What did these people know about me that I didn’t? Was there something about me that made it seem unlikely I would ever save anyone else’s life?

  Then Marmee said how much she missed Papa but how she’d told him to go to war because she wanted to give her best to the country she loved, and then Marmee counseled Jo to turn to her Heavenly Father for guidance, Amy woke up with a happy cry to see Jo there, the two hugged and kissed, and everything was forgiven and forgotten.

  Well, I wouldn’t forget.

  Amy could have died because of Jo … and Amy destroyed Jo’s book!

  These Marches were nuts!

  Nine

  I needed to find out what a fortnight was.

  It had been making me crazy for years. Why hadn’t I ever looked it up before?

  I’d come across the term when reading Little Women when I was eight and I’d been puzzled by it, so I’d asked my mother. She’d said, “Look it up in the dictionary!” And I’d automatically assumed her advice really meant “I have no idea!” and I’d of course failed to look it up, coming up with my own definition. I’d figured a fortnight referred to four nights, something like a long weekend. Fortnight. Four nights. It made sense to me.

  But now as I watched Meg pack what the others termed the “go abroady” trunk for a fortnight at the Moffats’, and I observed all the junk she put in that trunk, it struck me that my definition couldn’t possibly be right. A fortnight had to be longer than four nights …

  It would have been nice if there were a dictionary handy, and with Jo being such a great writer, you’d think there would have been, but I’d long since become aware that whenever I wanted a particular thing, it was impossible to find it in the March household. So I did the next best thing: I pulled Beth aside from the others. It’s not like Beth was known for her brain power, but at least she could be counted on not to laugh in my face if I asked what the others thought a stupid question.

  “A fortnight is fourteen days,” Beth whispered, “or some people think of it as two weeks, but it is somewhere in there.”

  What was wrong with these people? They expanded “fifty” to the lengthier “half a hundred” while compressing the precise “fourteen days” to the confusing “fortnight.” Why couldn’t they be straightforward for once?

  That was when Beth laughed straightforwardly in my face.

  “Silly Emily!” she said between giggles.

  Silly Emily? Seriously, Beth?

  I was used to the others laughing at me at various times—or casting aspersions on my character by implying I wasn’t the sort of person who’d save my own sister’s life when she’d fallen through a crack in the ice—but never Beth. In fact, I was so stunned by her outburst, I couldn’t reply at all.

  “I’m sorry,” Beth said, at last managing to gain control of herself, “but don’t you realize that I can see what you’re up to?”

  “Up to?”

  “Why, yes! You are asking me a question that everyone knows the answer to, while pretending you do not.”

  “And, er, why am I doing that?”

  “Why, to make me feel just as intelligent as the others, of course! You know that I am shy about my lack of book learning, and you want to make me feel as smart as anyone else.” She gave a happy sigh before turning serious. “That is so like you: always looking to do the kind thing.”

  I was getting credit for being kind? Coolio! “Yes, well, kind.” It made me feel suddenly guilty that Beth thought of me that way, when all I cared about now was figuring out the meanings of terms I had no clue about. “I don’t know about that. But while we’re on the subject, could you tell me what a tarlatan is?” I’d heard Meg say something about packing hers.

  “Silly Emily!” She started to laugh again. “There you go again, being kind!”

  “Yes, heh, there I go.”

  It turned out that a tarlatan was a type of fabric, in this case referring to a slightly shabby-looking gown Meg intended using as her “ball dress.” It was obvious Meg wanted something finer—apparently the Moffats were very wealthy compared to us—but there just wasn’t enough money.

  “Anyway,” Jo said cheerfully, “Marmee has given you so many things from the treasure-box, I wouldn’t think you’d mind so much wearing an old dress to the big party, since so much else of what you’ll have on that night will be new. Well, at least to you.”

  The treasure-box—I’d been able to figure that out without resorting to pumping Beth—was an old cedar chest where Marmee had a few things to give to each of us when she thought the time was right. I was very curious about that chest. Since Marmee sometimes forgot there were five of us, not four, was there really anything for me in there?

  “Marmee says that fresh flowers are the perfect ornament for any girl anyway,” Amy said to Meg, “so isn’t it wonderful that Laurie has promised to send you some while you are at the Moffats’? I’ll bet the other girls will be green with envy!”

  Wait a second here. Laurie stood guard while Beth played th
e piano, he took Jo to the theater and skating, and now he was sending flowers to Meg? Off the top of my head I couldn’t think of any particular favor he’d shown Amy, but just what was going on here? When was Laurie going to romance me?

  But I didn’t have time to wonder about that anymore because Meg was fretting over her material things not being perfect.

  For the second time that day, Beth did something surprising. She got a little PO’ed.

  “Just the other day all you wanted in the world was to be allowed to go to Annie Moffat’s,” Beth said, “and now, even though Marmee has given you new gloves and silk stockings, it still isn’t enough?”

  “Yeah!” I agreed forcefully. I found myself liking Beth’s slightly skewed perception of the world with me cast in the role of kindness while Meg was an ingrate.

  If Jo had to work on her temper, Beth her shyness, and Amy her vanity, Meg definitely had to work on that dissatisfaction thing of hers.

  Perhaps sensing that dissatisfaction, the other three began exclaiming over the pretty things Marmee had given Meg and talking about all the fun and parties and new experiences she would have on her fortnight away.

  Fun. Parties. New experiences.

  Suddenly I had to get out of that room.

  The others were too busy squeeing to notice my quiet exit. As I gently closed the door behind me, I saw Marmee standing across the hallway.

  “Talk with me for a while, Emily?” she requested.

  How could I refuse? It wasn’t like back home, where I could say: “Not now, Mom, maybe later.”

  She led me to the small living room, took her special seat before the fireplace.

  “I am very worried about Meg,” she said, “but without Papa here, there is no one else I can confide in but you.”

  Whoa! Since when was I someone anyone could confide in?

  “You know,” Marmee went on, “I was reluctant to allow Meg to go to the Moffats’ in the first place.”

  “Well, yes,” I said, “with her being gone for a whole … fortnight, the King children will be neglected for two weeks unless I go to them myself.”