The Calder Game

by Blue Balliett

  “And did you see those mobiles he first made, the ones with pieces of broken glass and wood and junk that he’d picked up? He was clearly a finder,” Tommy said. He rummaged through a box of bathtub toys and old shoelaces.

  “And a poet,” Petra added, bending over an assortment of squashed party favors.

  “I know you three are going to make many mobiles for the Calder Game exhibit, whether you do it in school or out.” Ms. Hussey was sifting through a wooden crate filled with old gardening supplies. There were cracked tomato stakes, ancient packets of seeds, the wire fan of a rake — Ms. Hussey hunted thoughtfully, as if wanting to give each item a chance.

  Tommy barked, “No time for making mobiles this fall, according to the Button.”

  “What?” Ms. Hussey said, momentarily confused. She frowned and stood up. “What did you say?”

  “No time,” Tommy repeated.

  “Yeah, she said the Calder Game was a fun art project, but not for seventh graders who can’t spell,” Calder said.

  “But if Ms. Button wants us to spell, why isn’t she letting us write?” Petra blurted. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Ms. Hussey was quiet for a moment, then she straightened her shoulders. “Hey, I like that all of your mobiles will be so private,” she said. “Who knows what amazing stuff you’ll come up with? I can’t wait —” She paused, then shook her head. “I mean, I’d love to see them, any time.”

  “Great,” Petra said, and felt like herself for the first time that day. Why was it that just being around Ms. Hussey was such a good thing? “We’ll be back.”

  Ms. Hussey grinned, her familiar we’re-in-this-together-and-who-knows-where-it-will-take-us look. “And, of course, you’ll go back to the show on your own. Don’t forget: You are never finished looking at a Calder mobile. Everything you see is shifting, in process — a sight that shouts, HERE! NOW! and reminds you that each second of your life holds its own world of experience.”

  Ms. Hussey paused for breath, and the three grinned. “So, there!” She nodded, hands on hips.

  “Thanks,” Calder said.

  “Right,” Tommy added, and squeezed a rubber duck he’d been holding. A squeaky waaa and drops of water came out.

  “We won’t forget,” Petra promised.

  The following week, when Ms. Hussey heard about Calder’s upcoming trip, she clapped her hands in delight. “How fabulous!” she beamed. “Since I can’t go with you, I want you to do one thing for me.”

  She whispered something in Calder’s ear, paused, then whispered some more. He nodded, his face serious.

  When Petra and Tommy asked him what she’d said, he only shook his head and looked pleased. Neither could quite believe that Ms. Hussey had asked Calder to do something so secret. The moment felt funny, and not quite right.

  What had Ms. Hussey said? And why couldn’t Calder tell?

  Several days after Ms. Hussey whispered this secret in Calder’s ear, on a Saturday afternoon in early October, the three kids stood outside Calder’s house on Harper Avenue. Petra and Tommy were there to say good-bye; it was finally time for Calder and his dad to leave on their trip to England. The first autumn leaves dropped in slow, deliberate spirals, drifting with grace and abandon as if there were no tomorrows, no feet to squash and scuff them.

  “Hey, mobiles everywhere,” Petra said. “One moment they’re happening, and the next they’re not.”

  Neither boy replied. Calder squinted down the street, and his pentominoes — only returned yesterday by the Button — rattled busily as he stirred them in his pocket. Tommy kicked the curb and sighed.

  “Ever collected leaves, Tommy?” Petra asked.

  Tommy shook his head and stuck out his jaw. “Isn’t that what we did in nursery school?” he asked. His voice implied that she should stop talking.

  A little spurt of anger rose in Petra’s throat, just enough to make her say meanly, “You also picked your nose in nursery school, and you still do that.”

  Both boys now looked at her. Petra turned her back on Tommy and said to Calder, “How about if you send me a mobile instead of a postcard? No words, and I’ll try to figure it out.”

  “Okay,” Calder said.

  Tommy started to say something, opened his mouth, and shut it again.

  A taxi pulled up, and the screen door behind them slammed. Calder’s parents came out, and Yvette Pillay gave her son and then her husband many hugs. Her eyes were sad. Petra and Tommy glanced away.

  “All right, boys!” she said. “Call when you arrive!”

  Calder scrambled into the taxi first, and then his dad. As the car pulled away, Calder waved, a glint of yellow pentomino visible in his hand.

  “I think that was a W,” Petra said. “Or maybe an M for maze.”

  “It was an N,” Tommy said gruffly.

  Calder’s mom sighed. “First time they’ve both been away,” she said slowly, as if reminding herself of the facts. “At least they remembered their passports.”

  She looked at Petra and Tommy. “Stop by anytime, and I’ll let you know the news,” she said. Then, turning away with a worried smile, she walked back toward the house.

  Petra glanced at Tommy, wondering if they would even say two words to each other without Calder around. Tommy’s shoulders were hunched, as if he’d shrunk.

  “See you,” he said, then stared straight ahead, which happened to be right at Petra’s neck. “Going this way?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he spun around and began to walk.

  Petra stared for a moment at his back, then hurried off in the opposite direction.

  “Little jerk,” she muttered angrily to herself.

  “Stupid girl, thinks she has all the ideas,” Tommy said under his breath.

  Both ached, suddenly, for Calder’s company, and at the same time felt relieved that things were out in the open: They weren’t going to pretend to get along while Calder was gone.

  Yvette Pillay, peering out at the empty street moments later, sighed. Maybe she’d go back to the wonderful Alexander Calder exhibit today. Mobiles were healing. They always seemed to sing, Look, no tangles, we do what we want, yet here we all are. A mobile is simply an ideal family, she thought, reaching for her jacket. Everyone moves and changes, but in reality they all stay connected.

  Look, no tangles, we do what we want. The words had a catchy rhythm.

  Walking along Harper Avenue to the train station, she glanced back at their house, which was the only red building on the block. Had she locked the door? Of course! Admiring the airborne yellows caught between the bright rectangle of their home and the dark slashes of trees, she tried hard to ignore a sense of something hovering — something frightening that did not fit.

  When he arrived in London the next morning, Calder was in a daze. He was so excited that he’d stayed awake for almost the entire flight. This was a first, leaving the United States, and he didn’t want to miss a thing.

  As the plane landed, he checked the sky and clouds to see if they looked different. He thought they did; they were mixed together into a smooth gray that made him think of a gummy eraser, the kind Ms. Hussey used in projects. And the accents! Even in the airport, Calder felt an immediate and confusing shock of recognition. His grandma Ranjana, who had died three years before, had spoken English with a British accent, and his dad had just the slightest trace of the same sound in his voice. Amazing how a person’s language can change the way you see them, Calder thought to himself.

  As his dad hunted for the luggage, Calder sank down in the baggage area and continued to stare. What was a foreigner, anyway? Is the place you’re born the only place you really belong? That seemed ridiculous. He knew lots of people who had been born other places but were definitely not foreigners in the United States — after all, his mom was from Canada and his dad was from India. Calder had been born in Hyde Park, but he couldn’t see that it made any difference.

  Most of the people he liked had family in other parts of the world. Tommy had
been born in Colombia, his father’s country, and his mom was from England, although she hadn’t been back for a long time. Petra had family in the Middle East, in North Africa, and in Europe. Calder had no idea where she’d been born, and it had never occurred to him to ask.

  He wondered: At what point do you stop being from “away” and start being from “here”? Ms. Hussey would like puzzling over this whole idea.

  His dad seemed happy to be surrounded by British voices. He’d found their bags, and now walked quickly and smiled lots. Soon they climbed on the bus to Oxford and Calder sat by the window, watching the scenery turn quickly to rolling hills and small roads. Yellow and red leaves, tiny discs and crescents, dotted the green. Hey, parts of a huge Calder mobile, he thought to himself, and wished Petra was there to share the idea. She loved it when art turned up in the real world. He noticed that the clock on the bus was on twenty-four-hour time: It read 16:44.

  He elbowed his dad. “Are clocks always like that over here?” he asked.

  “Yes, when transportation is involved. Very logical, don’t you think?”

  Calder nodded. A moment later he saw a sign that said SOFT VERGES, followed by QUEUE CAUTION. He elbowed his dad, who explained that the first meant swampy ground by the edge of the road, and the second meant traffic ahead. Both British signs seemed so gentle and polite. Then Calder thought again of his grandma, who sometimes used that word queue in the grocery store in Chicago, when she really meant line. How could a line be a Q, if one was straight and the other curly? It had always made Calder giggle, the idea of people waiting in a Q with their eggs and milk.

  Before long Calder and his dad arrived in Oxford and changed buses for Woodstock, the town where they were staying. On the second bus, Calder’s eyes began to droop, and he slept.

  A short time later, Calder’s dad patted his shoulder. “We’re here,” he said.

  The bus left them on a street corner in front of a row of stone houses. Walter Pillay pulled out a map, handed it to Calder, and said, “We’re looking for the Knowsley Bed-and-Breakfast, on Alehouse Lane.”

  They studied the map together, then bumpbumped their suitcases across the street, around a corner, and down a short, curved alley. Everything seemed very quiet and very old. It was beginning to get dark, and a soft drizzle was falling. Calder noticed there weren’t many streetlights. He and his father turned another corner, and stopped dead.

  They had found the town square, but something was wrong. Both father and son froze, and neither said a word for several seconds.

  Calder’s dad had picked what he’d hoped was a typical English town for them to stay in, a sleepy place that belonged to another century and another, slower time. But what was this?

  In the middle of the empty square was a gigantic, red sculpture. It was extraordinary, exuberant, and unmistakable — could this possibly be a piece of art by Alexander Calder? What was it doing here?

  “Bizarre,” Calder’s dad said, and Calder understood the note of confusion in his voice. After all, had they come all this way to see something they could have seen at home?

  As soon as they knocked on Miss Posy Knowsley’s door, it flew open. Had she been waiting on the other side? Her speed was a little mysterious. An older woman with a pillowy figure, she spun away and whisked them upstairs to their room before they’d had a chance even to shake hands. She then shut the bedroom door with what was almost a bang.

  Their room smelled like roses and had several embroidered pillows that said things like Walk softly and carry a big bag and The early bird gets the bird. There was a small lamp in the shape of an overflowing treasure chest, complete with skull and crossbones, between the beds. Calder and his dad kicked off their shoes and flopped down on top of the covers, too tired to wonder at the weird sayings or even to wash.

  As Calder drifted off that night, his dad already asleep nearby, he thought of what Ms. Hussey had whispered to him. Then he listened to the splat-splat of water dripping steadily on stone, and pictured Alexander Calder’s red metal gleaming oddly under a damp English moon.

  The next morning they tiptoed downstairs and found a table set for two in the front parlor. Miss Knowsley popped out of the kitchen in her slippers, and this time they had a chance to look at her. She had blue glasses, a tricky apron covered with small suitcases stacked in a checkerboard pattern, and hair that reminded Calder of dough. Although Calder knew her last name began with a K, he wondered if there was anything remarkable about her nose. There wasn’t.

  She served them fried eggs with both bacon and sausage, as well as a plate of very dry toast. Calder wasn’t used to all the fat in the meat, and pushed it carefully to one side. While his dad ate, Calder looked around the room.

  There were ten sets of china salt and pepper shakers on shelves, exactly twenty pottery beer mugs, three candy dishes sitting on lace on round side tables, a basket filled with many pairs of knitting needles and red balls of wool, lots and lots of old group photographs, and five fancy paintings, also of people.

  Calder was staring, looking from one portrait to the next. Several of the men had something resembling a wool pancake on their heads. Calder wanted to point this out to his dad, but Miss Knowsley was watching them from the doorway, sliding her hands around and around each other as if washing them in air.

  “Oh, yes, family in their Sunday best,” Miss Knowsley said, as if it were obvious. “Generations and generations. I was born in this house. It’s been a struggle to stay here, what with taxes and repairs, but I’ve never lived anyplace else. Nor will I.”

  Calder’s dad looked up quickly, perhaps afraid Calder might say “Weird,” something that often popped out while his son was thinking. Sausage in one cheek, Walter Pillay said, “Tell us about the Calder sculpture. It is a Calder, isn’t it?”

  Miss Knowsley’s pleased expression vanished. As Calder watched, fascinated, her face went from sweet to severe. “We aren’t happy about it here in Woodstock,” she said with a scowl. “It’s been in the square for a couple of weeks now, and created quite the uproar. Given to the town anonymously this fall, some say by a rich American. He apparently has other pieces of modern art. A gift, he called it, but I think he must have been cleaning out his tractor barn. Valuable, I’m sure. I guess that impresses some people.”

  She paused, perhaps remembering that her guests were also American. “At any rate,” she said brusquely, turning away. A scrape-slam-slam sound came from the kitchen.

  “Oh, that’ll be Pummy,” Miss Knowsley said, brightening. “He comes and goes on his own. Smartest cat in town.”

  She opened the swing door to the kitchen. “Come, Pummy dear! Come to Mummy! Come at once. We have visitors.”

  Calder and his dad watched as an immense, black barrel of fur rolled toward them. One beady, amber eye blinked up from the end of the barrel; the other eye was closed in a permanent wink. It was hard to believe that Pummy could stand.

  “Yeow,” the shape said.

  “Yes, poor dear, lost an eye in an accident as a baby,” Miss Knowsley said tenderly, bending over to pat the cat on the side like a small dog. “That’s my boy, Pummy! He comes and goes through his own door in the back, but when I see him in town and say, ‘Home, Pummy, Home!’ he turns right around and trots back. Amazing, really. Such an intelligent boy.”

  “Yeow,” Pummy said again. He was sitting now, and waves of furry belly rolled outward around his front paws. He looked impatiently in the direction of the breakfast dishes, and then at Miss Knowsley. No wonder he hurries home, Calder thought to himself.

  As Miss Knowsley cleared the table, Pummy rolled along in her wake, yeowling piteously. “Yes, dear,” the older woman said, holding open the kitchen door with her elbow so Pummy could enter first.

  As Calder and his dad left the house ten minutes later, Miss Knowsley handed the boy a key on a metal ring. Its worn lettering read, Visit Woodstock, Home of Kings. Calder popped it into his pocket and heard it make an unfamiliar clink against his set of pentomin
oes.

  “What’s in that pocket, anyway?” Miss Knowsley asked, her face close to Calder’s. Her glasses were very thick. “An entire toolbox?”

  “Pentominoes,” Calder said stiffly, pulling out the V piece to show her.

  “I see,” she said, but clearly didn’t. “Now, young man: I know your dad will be off during the day, and you may want to come and go.” Opening her eyes very wide, she gave Calder a calculating look. Her eyes slid back and forth behind him, as if something in the corners needed watching.

  “Guard my key,” Miss Knowsley continued. “Who knows who may be coming through town, what with that monstrosity out there.”

  It was shocking for Calder to hear an Alexander Calder sculpture referred to as monstrous. He and his father smiled weakly and nodded. Calder decided she must have forgotten what his name was. Either that, or she didn’t want to remember.

  As he followed his dad out the door, Calder stepped carefully over Pummy. The cat was lying down now and filled most of the hall. He stopped licking his front paw and looked furiously at Calder, the tip of his tongue sticking out, as if to say, “Not a word about all that bacon, understand?”

  Calder smiled and reached out to give Pummy a scratch behind the ear. Whang! Before the boy could touch him, Pummy gave Calder a surprisingly hard whack on the hand, a warning with just a hint of claws.

  Calder quickly shut the door.

  While his dad attended the first day of the conference at the Oxford Botanic Garden, Calder wandered around. The place was a marvel. Started almost four hundred years before, it was the oldest medicinal garden in Europe, and Calder knew that it was filled with rare plants that had been brought back to England from all over the world. Calder was used to his dad, whose job was to make gardens in cities, trying out plants in their front yard, but this was something else. Stretching in all directions were long rectangles filled with leaves and flowers, row after row, the beds set in a smooth carpet of green grass. Outside the garden’s high stone walls, traffic flew by; inside, all was leafy and peaceful.