"Oh, no!" Rebecca whispered back at us. "It's the Wicket!"
The Wicket was how we referred amongst ourselves to our next-door neighbor Helena Wicket.
"What should I do?" Rebecca hissed.
"I'm afraid you'll have to let her in," Annie said. "Our lights are all on; she must know somebody is home."
So that's what Rebecca did: opened the door and let the Wicket in.
Once she was inside, we could swear she was practically as short as we were. And yet she was somehow very scary too.
"Which one are you, Eight?" the Wicket said to Rebecca.
"I'm Zinnia," Rebecca said.
"I'm Petal," Zinnia said.
"I'm Jackie," Georgia said.
It may not have been nice to fool her, but we had a theory about people like the Wicket: if they couldn't be bothered to get our names straight, treating us as though we weren't each an individual person in her ill own right, we certainly wouldn't help them out any.
"I'm An—" Jackie started to say, but the Wicket cut her off.
"That's enough," she said, raising a palm. "I don't need to know any more. I came to deliver this present to your parents."
For the first time, we noticed something in her other hand: an oblong pan with red and green crinkle wrap covering the top. It looked heavy.
"I have a fruitcake for them," the Wicket said importantly.
It gave off a horrid smell, causing us to try not to inhale.
"Oh," Annie said, then she paused. "My." When she resumed speaking, she spoke brightly. "Well. Here, let me take that from you."
But the Wicket held the pan out of reach.
"I prefer," she said, "to deliver it myself. I have been very concerned. Your parents always attend the Collinses' New Year's Day bash, but I did not see them this year. I've tried calling here, often, to make sure everything is okay, but no one answers the phone, nor is the machine on."
It was true. We'd stopped answering the phone because we'd discovered that most calls were nuisance calls. It was always telemarketers asking us stupid questions or people trying to sell us credit cards, which we really didn't need; we already had plenty of those.
"But what if whoever is connected with Mommy and Daddy's disappearance tries to contact us?" Petal had asked at one point.
To which Annie had replied, "I don't think it'll happen that way. Whoever that person is seems to favor communicating by leaving notes behind that loose stone in the drawing room."
In a house with eight people, it had been odd to hear the phone ring without anyone ever answering it. The phone seemed to get louder and louder sometimes, as though it were screaming, Pick me up! Pick me up! But after a while, we'd gotten used to hearing it ring, unanswered. We'd gotten used to our parents disappearing, and after that, we could get used to anything.
"You're so right," Annie said to the Wicket now, "and we're very sorry. We'll be sure to answer next time."
"That will be an improvement"—the Wicket paused, peering closely at Annie as though trying to make out which one of us she was— "Petal." What a mistake to make! "But I'd still like to speak with your parents."
"I'm afraid that's impossible," Annie said quickly.
"How so?" the Wicket demanded just as quickly. "I saw the car drive up a few hours ago and it never left again."
"Daddy is in France modeling," Zinnia piped up.
"And where is your mother?" the Wicket pressed. "Surely"—she surveyed our disorganized home, messed up during the course of our celebration—"surely you can't be here alone." Pause. "Without adult supervision."
We were tired of saying one of our parents had a tummy virus. If we kept saying that, our family would get a bad reputation in town. So instead, Annie said, "I'm afraid Mommy is too busy working to be disturbed right now. You know"—she paused meaningfully—"she is a scientist."
At that, the Wicket's ears perked up.
"Yes, I did know that," the Wicket said. She tacked on a smile. "Can you tell me what sort of project your dear mother is working on now?"
"Sorry, no," Annie said abruptly. "Top secret."
The Wicket looked disappointed. Then: "Do you know what it is?"
'"Fraid I can't answer that one way or the other," Annie said. "If I did, the thumbscrew guys'd have to come for me."
"I see ... Zinnia," the Wicket said.
"It's Marcia," Annie said.
"I thought you said Petal," the Wicket said quickly.
"Didn't I just say Petal right now?" Annie said. "I'm sure that I did."
"I'm sure..." the Wicket began. Then: "Never mind. So, your mother is working on something top-secretly scientific ... in her office right now?"
We had to change the story fast. The way The Wicket was craning her neck around, we were sure if we said Mommy was in her study—for it was a study and not something so boring as an office—the Wicket would charge through us, moving like a greased pig, and then the jig would be up.
"No, actually," Annie said, "she's not."
"The thumbscrew guys snuck in earlier," Jackie put in. "Not because Mommy did anything wrong but because, you know: top secret. Cover of darkness, cone of silence. You probably didn't even hear their car drive up or see it—they're that good at covert operations."
"Then you are here alone?" The Wicket had an ah-HA! in her voice.
"Just briefly," Annie said. "Daddy will be coming home from France any time now. But," she hurried to add, "he'll be coming in the limo, and it's one of those very quiet limos, so you probably won't hear him. Also, he'll be very tired—you know, jet lag—so I'll just take that lovely fruitcake from you now and see that he gets it."
"Perhaps I should stay with you," the Wicket said shrewdly, although she did let go her vise grip on the fruitcake. "You know, children really shouldn't be left unattended. Particularly not eight of them."
"You can see"—Annie indicated the wrecked room behind her—"we're managing just fine. And as I say, Daddy should be home any second—oops!" She cocked a hand behind one ear. "Do I hear a car now? You'd best go. If it is Daddy, he doesn't like to have visitors thrust upon him first thing. He just gets so tired. You know: jet lag. Modeling. France."
Georgia and Rebecca each took the Wicket firmly by an elbow, and Jackie raced ahead to open the front door.
"But..." said the Wicket. "But ... but..."
"Goodbye, A/Irs. Wicket!" we all called after her as Georgia and Rebecca attempted to shove her out the door.
"But why are you dressed like that, Petal?" the Wicket finally demanded of Annie.
It was too late, though. Jackie had already slammed the door.
"I'm dressed as Daddy, you stupid cow," Annie muttered to the closed door. "We're children. We're playing dress-up."
"Well, that was no fun," Rebecca said, wiping her brow.
"And it'll get less fun," Annie said sternly. "That was a close call."
"That woman is evil," Georgia said with a shudder.
"But what can we do about her?" Marcia asked. "She lives right next door. And we can't very well move. Or ask her to move. I suppose a tall fence is out of the question too?"
"And she'll be back," Georgia warned, ignoring Marcia's last comment. "Her kind always are."
"We'll have to make it, then," Annie said, "so that she thinks Daddy did arrive back home tonight, to put her off the scent."
"But how?" Petal asked.
"First," Annie said, "I'm going to get rid of this." The this was the wretched fruitcake, which she offered to the cats, who refused it, before tossing it in the kitchen trash. "Now," Annie said, "follow me."
So we followed her into the drawing room, where she walked straight up to the suit of armor.
"Not the spear again." Georgia groaned.
"Do you mean to kill the Wicket?" Rebecca said in a hushed tone.
"No, not the spear," Annie said, "and we're not going to kill anybody." She thought about this, shrugged. "Well, not unless we have to."
Then she grabbed hold of t
he suit of armor, directing us to help.
"What are we going to do with Sparky?" Petal asked, using our pet name for the suit of armor.
"Sparky's going on a little trip," Annie said.
So, following her instructions, we carried Sparky out to the front room, where Annie had us sit him down in a big comfy chair by the window. Then she drew the drapes and turned on the lamp behind the chair.
"There," she said, "anyone looking in will think a man is sitting here."
"Sparky doesn't look quite human, though," Marcia observed with a tilt of the head. "Not with that pointy helmet thing on."
So Annie relinquished her hat, putting it on Sparky's head. Then she went to the kitchen and fished around the junk drawer.
"There." Annie shoved the old corncob pipe we used when we made snowpeople into the gap in Sparky's facemask. "Daddy's home."
As if in response, Anthrax entered, hopping in Sparky's lap for a nuzzle.
"But our daddy doesn't smoke," Georgia said.
"He does now," Annie said with satisfaction. "In fact, I think I'll get Daddy's quilted smoking jacket for him, so he'll be more comfy."
"I'm exhausted," Rebecca said, the hypers having worn off some time ago.
"Me too," Georgia admitted. "How long are we going to have to keep this up, coming up with new charades to put off nosy parkers like the Wicket?"
"As long as it takes," Annie said. "As long as it takes."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, still tired from our celebration and the Wicket worries of the night before, we walked downstairs to find the shock of Daddy Sparky still seated in the front window.
Yes, we had put him there ourselves, but he was still a shock.
And there was something sad about him.
"He looks so lonely there," Petal said, "sitting all by himself."
So then Annie got the idea that he shouldn't be alone. Even before breakfast, she had us all go back upstairs to Mommy's great big closet where she kept a wardrobe dummy. Besides being a scientist, Mommy was a great seamstress.
"Here." Annie selected a purple sleeveless dress and a string of pearls. "Let's dress Sally," she said, Sally being our name for the dummy.
Then she sent Durinda to the tower to get one of the wigs out of our costume trunk because she said the dummy looked silly bald.
Once we had the wig in place, Annie had us carry Sally downstairs. Then she had us stand Sally in the front room not far from where Daddy Sparky was enjoying his morning pipe.
"There," she said, satisfied, "now Daddy won't be lonely. What's more, when people look in from the outside, they won't wonder why they only see Daddy here but never Mommy."
"But," Rebecca pointed out, "won't they find it strange that Daddy is always sitting and Mommy is always standing?" The dummy was stiff.
"I suppose," Annie said, "they'll think Daddy is a man of leisure, which he somewhat is, being a model, and that Mommy waits on him hand and foot, which she never does."
"What about them always being in the same spot?" Rebecca asked.
"I'll devise a rotating schedule," Annie said. "We'll keep them in the front room in the mornings; it's nice to think of them chatting there after breakfast. But then we'll move them to other rooms: the drawing room in late afternoons for tea, the dining room for formal, and so forth. If they get too cold, we can always send them to the beach in the Summer Room."
So that's what we did. And thanks to Annie, we now had a mommy and daddy again. Well, sort of.
"Don't you think"—Rebecca had one last question—"people will think it odd that Mommy is wearing a summer dress in the middle of winter?"
"No, I don't," Annie said. "Everyone knows Mommy is a bit odd."
***
Another school week went by, Annie in charge.
As the yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting made the rounds at Will's in-school birthday celebration on Friday, the McG presented Will with her tidily wrapped gift. When he opened it up, we saw that she'd got him a deck of sports trading cards: soccer. Will didn't like soccer.
"Ooh," Georgia said. Annie kicked her under the table, encouraging her to be nice to the McG. "I've always loved soccer."
"Black and white balls," Rebecca added, not wanting to get kicked, "those have always been my favorite colors for balls."
"Soccer," Jackie observed with no kicking or threat of kicking at all. "It's the wave of the future, isn't it?"
"I wish," Zinnia said with a sigh, "someone would give me soccer trading cards. Really, any present at all would do right around now."
"It's a terrific present," Will said to the McG stoutly. "Honestly, no one's ever given me anything quite like it before."
The McG beamed. Maybe, we thought, she wasn't so bad after all.
Then she told Annie not to touch the cupcakes, just in case she still had that stomach virus she had before, and we thought: Yes, she was that bad.
But so what if Annie hadn't been able to enjoy any of the frosting at Will's in-school birthday party? There was sure to be plenty of frosting on hand at his real birthday party at Kids' Castle the next day.
***
The next morning we arose with greater excitement than we'd had on New Year's Eve morning. We were going to a party!
Too bad Annie made us all dress in dresses.
"It's what Mommy would have you do," she said when we objected.
"But it's Kids' Castle!" Georgia said.
"Besides," Rebecca added, "Mommy isn't here. Or Daddy."
"Doesn't matter," Annie said. "If she were here, she would tell us even scientists should look like ladies. Unless they're men, of course."
It was true, we couldn't deny it: Mommy would say that.
"What about you?" Rebecca sneered at Annie. "No dress?"
"I'm still the driver." Annie held up her Daddy disguise. "So I get to wear this."
Then she ripped the fedora off Daddy Sparky's head.
***
At Kids' Castle, Annie pulled the Hummer around back so no one would observe her dive into the back seat wearing her Daddy disguise and then emerge in a frilly dress—she'd even stuck a bow in her short hair!
"You'll make everyone suspicious," Rebecca scoffed. "With that bow in your hair, you don't even look like you!"
But Annie ignored her. It took Jackie, Marcia, Petal, and Zinnia all working together to carry in the huge present we had gotten for Will.
"Annie, Durinda, Georgia, Jackie, Marcia, Petal, Rebecca, Zinnia—how good of you all to come!" Mrs. Simms said.
We really liked Will's mother. She always got our names right.
"My, how pretty you all look!" Mrs. Simms went on. "I have trouble dressing one boy, but look at the job your mother does with eight."
Annie scowled at this. Our appearance that day had nothing to do with our mother and everything to do with her.
"And what an enormous birthday present!" Mrs. Simms clapped. "I'm sure Will will love it, whatever it is. But where are your parents?"
All around Kids' Castle, there were parents. Parents, parents everywhere, and not a single pair were ours. It was enough to drive a person to drink juice boxes.
"They just had, er, some errands to run," Annie said. "Don't worry."
Will was playing with Mandy Stenko on the jungle bars, but when he saw us, he came over. He had on dressy clothes, his hair slicked back.
"I'm really glad you all could make it." Will looked relieved. Who could blame him? Without us, he'd have been stuck with just Mandy.
"We wouldn't miss it for the world," Zinnia said.
"So, you're nine now." Rebecca punched Will lightly on the shoulder.
Will rubbed his arm. Apparently, the punch hadn't been that light.
"Don't worry," Will said amiably, "you'll get there too. I mean, if you just keep getting older, it's bound to happen, right?"
Mrs. Simms showed us where to put our present, which we had wrapped as well as we could. We placed it next to the only other present.
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"Who wrapped your present," Mandy Stenko shouted to us from where she was swinging upside down on the jungle bars, "your cats?"
It was, sadly, true: our present did look ratty—at least the wrapping paper did—when placed beside Mandy's perfectly wrapped one.
"Our mother," Annie replied with the testiness of a Georgia or a Rebecca, "was too busy coming up with inventions to save the world to bother with something as silly as wrapping a present perfectly, especially when Will's only going to rip the paper off."
Will rescued the moment by inviting us to join in the play.
But that wasn't as much fun as it normally would have been, because Annie kept yelling at us not to hang upside down or do tumbling.
"But we have tights on!" Georgia objected.
"Doesn't matter," Annie said.
This really was too much. For although Mommy would have made us wear dresses to a party, she never would have stopped us from hanging.
"A woman," Mommy always said, "should always look like a lady. But," she would add, "a scientist should never let fashion get in the way."
Even if Annie was sometimes good at being Daddy, she was definitely no Mommy. So we mostly sat on our hands in chairs as Mandy had all the fun with Will. Mandy's mother had let her wear jeans and a T-shirt to the party, and as Rebecca put it, she looked like a mechanic.
When it was time for pizza, at least we had something to do. But Annie insisted we use utensils so we wouldn't drip on our dresses.
Our absent Mommy had been given credit by Mrs. Simms for our pretty clothes. Our absent Mommy had been accused by Mandy of being a poor present wrapper. And everywhere we looked, there were still parents milling. It made Annie try all the harder to be our parent.
Cake time was better, because everyone else had to eat with a fork also. We silently thanked the universe that it was a sheet cake. If it had been cupcakes, Annie probably would have made us use utensils for those too.
"I must say," Rebecca muttered to Annie as she ate the frosting, "you're not making this fun. We might as well be at home cleaning toilets."
It was unfortunate she said that, because Annie had yet to assign any of us to toilet-cleaning detail, and even the cats had started to complain.
Annie's Adventures Page 6
