Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls

by Lynne Jonell

  The box slid onto a hard surface, and was still. One by one, the girls reached for one another’s hands. A reedy, discontented voice from somewhere outside the box said, “Where are my dollies?”

  The lid came off in a blaze of light. The girls, blinking, looked up at two watery eyes and a red-veined nose in a huge, chubby face. A thin white fuzz ringed the sides and top of the old man’s head, giving him the appearance of a large and amiable powder puff.

  “Here they are, my little daffodil,” he said, giving the girls a gigantic wink. “All ready to play with Mrs. B.”

  “Bring them here,” said the voice peevishly. “I want to play beauty parlor. Where’s that one with the long hair?”

  Ana suppressed a violent shudder as she was lifted out of the box and set before a scrawny woman with a neck like a chicken.

  The woman poked Ana in the stomach with a yellowed finger. “Say something!”

  Ana pasted a dim-witted expression on her face. “Hello-my-name-is-Ana,” she said in a monotone.

  “Hee-hee!” tittered the woman. “She’s not very bright, is she?”

  “But they like to play with you, Addie,” said the old man, who had sat down under a bright lamp and taken out a bit of wood to whittle.

  “You think so?” The woman pulled Ana’s hair into a tight ponytail and let the rubber band snap.

  Ana pretended she was someplace else. She gazed at the dollhouse that used to be their home, now sitting in splendid isolation on a table by the front window of Mr. and Mrs. B’s walk-up apartment. She could see tiny rooms full of delicately carved furniture, and the grand curving staircase down which Merry had loved to slide. It had been a pretty place to live, in spite of the sign over the door that read “Home for Troubled Girls.” Mr. B had created a little world for them on the table—a park with miniature trees, an edged mirror for skating in the winter, a slide and swings arranged on the green velvet “lawn” for summer—but it was still a prison, and on the whole Ana preferred the attic. In the attic, they had a lot more freedom.

  “This one’s boring,” said the woman petulantly, slapping down the brush on the tray so that Ana jumped. “Where’s that feisty one? She’s more amusing. Or the little one. Sometimes she even cries.”

  “They’re all boring, Mother,” said a voice from the dollhouse. A piebald rat, white and brown and tan, stepped from the shadows, flicked on the tiny spotlight that shone on the central staircase, and paused a moment, her tail looped elegantly over one paw. “Why don’t you get some use out of them for a change? Have them do your nails.”

  Ana stiffened and turned away. She didn’t look at the piebald rat more than was absolutely necessary. Miss Barmy had been horrible when she’d been Ana’s nanny, long ago and in another place entirely; her transformation into a rat hadn’t improved her.

  Mr. B fumbled with the knife in his hands, and set down his carving. “But nail polish might be dangerous. All those toxic chemicals—”

  “Nonsense,” said Miss Barmy. “Nail polish can’t possibly hurt Mother; she’s used it her whole life.”

  “I meant for the little girls,” Mr. B said apologetically. “They’re so small … and they’d have to breathe the stuff …”

  “Oh, the girls,” said Miss Barmy coldly. “Really, Father, I don’t understand you at all. You’re not thinking of Mother. She would so enjoy a pretty, new color …” She looked at Mrs. B consideringly. “The girls could dig out your earwax, too.”

  Mrs. B tilted her head to one side and consulted a pocket mirror. “I do have a few nose hairs that need clipping.”

  A low whimper came from the vicinity of the shoebox. Ana looked up at Mrs. B’s dark and yawning nostrils in horror.

  A sudden scuffling came from somewhere near Mr. B’s feet. Ana peered over the edge of the tray and saw a hole in the baseboard.

  It was a new hole; she could see fresh tooth marks all around the edges. It hadn’t been there when the girls had lived in the dollhouse, or Ana would have noticed it.

  “Paper!” bawled a voice from the hole, and a sleek striped rodent crawled out, stood up, and adjusted the sling on its shoulder.

  “Well? Toss it up!” commanded Miss Barmy from the table.

  “I’m collecting,” the gopher said, flipping open a small notebook. “You owe me for one week’s delivery of the Rodent City Register. Five seeds, please.”

  “Seeds? What kind of seeds?” Miss Barmy glanced at her father and jerked her head sharply. Mr. B got up and ambled to the kitchen.

  The gopher shrugged. “Oh, pumpkin, apple, sunflower—the usual.”

  “We don’t have any pumpkin,” called Mr. B, peering into a cupboard. “Caraway we’ve got. Sesame, yes. Anise, dill—”

  “Would any of those do?” Miss Barmy interrupted.

  “Cumin, celery, mustard, poppyseed …”

  The gopher looked startled. “Those are rare seeds, ma’am. Very valuable. Just plain pumpkin is good enough for me.”

  Miss Barmy’s eyes widened. Then slowly, greedily, she smiled, her furry cheeks bunching until her eyes were squeezed almost shut. “Father,” she called, “sesame seeds, please.”

  “But, ma’am,” the gopher protested, wagging his head, “it’s too much—really it is.”

  Miss Barmy, still smiling, looked down over the table edge. “Count out six seeds,” she said as Mr. B returned with a jar. “Our gopher friend”—she glanced at his name badge—“Gomer works hard. He deserves a big tip.”

  “Oh, ma’am!” cried the gopher. “You’re too kind!”

  “Perhaps I am too softhearted,” said Miss Barmy. “I’m told it’s my only flaw.”

  Gomer’s beady eyes were joyful. “Now I can rent my tuxedo for the party!”

  “What party?” Miss Barmy’s voice cooled ever so slightly.

  “The big party at Rodent City. There’s a notice on page three. I’m—I’m sure you’ll be invited, ma’am …” Gomer trailed off, flushing, and dived back into the gnawed hole in the wall. “Thanks awfully!” His voice floated out, dwindling, and he was gone.

  Miss Barmy leaned back in her chaise longue, crossed her hind legs at the ankles, and rustled the Rodent City Register discontentedly. “I don’t know why I wasn’t invited,” she muttered, reading the notice. “It’s a reception to honor Professor Capybara—I know Professor Capybara. They’ll have music, and dancing—I’m a marvelous dancer. Now that I’m a rodent, I really can’t think why I wasn’t included.”

  “But, Janie,” began Mr. B, “didn’t you tell me you and Cheswick tried to get rid of Professor Capybara?”

  “That was long ago!” said Miss Barmy, waving a dismissive paw. “I can’t understand why people insist on holding a grudge forever.”

  “It wasn’t that long ago,” Mr. B said hesitantly. “Just a few weeks, if I remem—”

  “Chessie!” cried Miss Barmy, sitting up with a jerk as a weary black rat shuffled into the room, dragging a rucksack by the strap. “Let me see everything you got!”

  It was one of their lucky nights, Ana thought as Mr. B put her back in the shoebox. Miss Barmy and Mrs. B had no interest in anything but the outfits Cheswick had brought, so Mr. B carried the girls to the kitchen, where he fed them bread and milk in bottle caps. Then he filled a cereal bowl with warm water, chipped a corner off a bar of soap, and laid out bits of rag for washcloths and towels.

  “I’ll come back in a while to take you to the attic.” He looked at them mournfully. “If only you had been more lively, Addie might have played with you longer.”

  “If only,” Ana said politely.

  “Yeah,” said Berit. “If only.”

  Mr. B sighed. “You could try harder. You could sing, or dance, or … do somersaults?”

  Silence greeted this suggestion.

  “If you were more entertaining, she’d let me take you out of the box more often. You can’t like staying cooped up all day in a shoebox.”

  Merry shook her head. “But we don’t—”

 
“—really mind it,” Ana interrupted, as Berit clapped a hand over Merry’s mouth and pretended to tickle her.

  Mr. B ran his hand through his wispy hair. “Of course, we have plenty of other boxes, since we live right above my shoe shop. I can put you in a new one, if you’re tired of the old. How about a nice leather pump from 1965? We have lovely colors, electric blue and alligator green and a really striking mustard …” He trailed off, looking apologetic. “It’s not as nice as the dollhouse, but we couldn’t ask Jane to share. I mean, even if she is a little furry, she’s still our daughter, whereas you’re just—”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “The Troubled Girls?” said Ana.

  The old man looked embarrassed. “I’d better be getting back,” he said hurriedly, and shambled off.

  “Me, I’m getting more troubled every day,” said Berit through her teeth. “I’d like to put that old fool in a shoebox and see how he likes it.”

  “Well, it’s nearly over for tonight,” said Ana. “Merry, let me undo your belt—you always get the shoelace in a knot. There, hop into the bath. And, Merry, don’t ever let them know we can get out of the box by ourselves. They’d only shut us up in something harder to escape.”

  “Oh,” said Merry, splashing in the bowl. “I forgot.”

  Bathed and fed, Ana and the girls watched through the half-open door as they waited to be put back in the box. Miss Barmy had gotten to the point of trying things on, but she seemed to be having trouble with the fit.

  “I don’t know what kind of measurements these dolls have,” she snarled, jamming her hindquarters into the skirt of a silvery dress, “but they can’t be healthy! Any rat that could fit into this evening gown would have to be anorexic.”

  “You’re certainly healthy,” said Cheswick, struggling to zip the back.

  “I’m big-boned,” Miss Barmy gasped, writhing as she wedged her ample chest into the silver bodice. She popped three buttons and split each sleeve as she shoved in her furry arms, but at last the dress was on—in a manner of speaking.

  “Lovely!” she said, breathing with difficulty as she looked in the mirror. “But I might just need a seamstress. Where’s that girl? Yes, that’s right—bring me the oldest one. Surely someone must have taught her to use a needle and thread.”

  Ana sat on the attic windowsill and leaned her head against the dirty glass. She liked climbing up here, to look at the sky and watch the sun sink behind the trees. And tonight, with her fingers sore and her palms pricked from trying (and failing) to sew with a needle as long as her arm, she needed a glimpse of the outside world more than ever.

  She wasn’t afraid of heights. She had learned not to be, after more than three years of visiting the attic. For although she and the girls used to live in the dollhouse most days, now and then Mrs. B had banished them to the attic. It was supposed to have been a punishment.

  Ana grinned and swung her legs over empty space. It had actually been more like a reward. Although the attic was cold in winter, hot in summer, and gritty with dust, the girls had a freedom in the attic that they never had in the pretty dollhouse. With hundreds of shoes in boxes, the girls had been able to pull out as many laces and knot as many ladders as were needed to climb to the highest shelves. And it had been important to explore the attic room to the very top, for it was full of wonderful clutter.

  As far as Ana could tell, Mr. B had never thrown anything away in his life. All the old-fashioned shoes he had never been able to sell; all the hooks and tiny nails and worn-out tools he had no further use for; broken watches, eyeglasses with one earpiece gone, faded ribbons, bits of pencils, assorted books, and almost empty bottles of glue—all of that and more the girls had found in their explorations, and much of it was useful.

  Small hooks supported ladders and safety nets. Lenses from broken glasses focused the sun’s rays for extra warmth on cold winter days. Ribbons were woven together over bits of rag to make soft, warm comforters; and pencil stubs, though as thick and long as Ana’s arm, were used to help the younger ones remember their letters and numbers. And many more bits of clutter, outdated or left over or nearly used up, could be found somewhere in the vast attic room.

  And it was vast. To a girl only four inches high, the attic was the size of three football fields together. For Ana, the windowsill was as high above the floor as if she were dangling her legs from the top of a six-story building.

  A movement outside the window caught her eye. She pressed her nose to the glass and looked down as a white puppy romped on the grass, barking madly at a butterfly.

  There were people below, too. She could see a lady locking the candy store for the night, and a teenage boy polishing the windows of a funny-looking shop with a gray animal painted on its sign. Ana wished, and not for the first time, that one of them would look up and see her. But even if someone did, how could that person know that the tiny bit of movement at an attic window was really a girl, shrunken and imprisoned? And how could anyone possibly hear her thin small voice through the window, even if she screamed for help?

  Even in the same room, people might not understand what they were hearing. Ana had found that out the hard way not long ago, when she had been awakened suddenly by loud voices and stomping feet and then the quick unpleasant swooping that meant the box they slept in was being picked up.

  At first the girls had clung to one another, terrified. But when Ana had tried to push open the box lid and failed, and when they had heard the nasty-sweet voice of Mrs. B saying, “Of course you can look, officers, but there are no little girls here,” the children had begun to call for help.

  It had been useless, of course. Mrs. B had just talked louder, shaking the box for emphasis. Finally, one of the men had told her to take her box of squeaky toys and get out so they could search.

  “Scream like that again,” Mrs. B had hissed after the police were gone, “and I’ll call the exterminator.”

  No, shouting had not worked. But the whole episode had given Ana a kind of hope that she hadn’t felt for a long time. Someone, somewhere, was looking for them.

  Ana’s eyes came into sharp focus as she looked directly below. Her favorite person was coming out early from the building next door, an old blue house that had been fixed up as a law office. He must be going somewhere else for dinner; usually at this time of night he was in his kitchen on the second story, scrambling some eggs or pouring a bowl of cereal for his supper.

  She felt as if she had gotten to know him over the years, although only in glimpses—the back of his head as he ate his lonely meals, a bit of his elbow as he worked at his hobbies. But sometimes on his way out the front door he would look up at the sky, and she would see his sad, kind face.

  Today he stopped to pet the white puppy, which ran to him as if expecting a treat, and then he bent over the garden at the side of his house. Ana loved his flowers; sometimes a sweet, elusive scent would rise on the warm summer air, all the way to the third floor.

  She watched the man pick a bouquet, pleased that he had someplace to go tonight—and then she stopped smiling, for all at once she had an idea.

  It was more than an idea. It was a plan.

  EMMY WANDERED GRUMPILY down to the lake, scooped up a handful of pebbles, and clattered onto the dock. She could make quite a bit of noise with her best hard-soled shoes if she stomped.

  She hated waiting around in her good clothes with nothing to do. If only she hadn’t had to get cleaned up for their dinner guest, she would have had another hour in the tree fort with Joe. Now, because of the soccer tournament, they couldn’t play for the rest of the weekend.

  Thomas wasn’t much of a substitute. He was only six and a half. And Ratty was in Rodent City, delivering their reply to Mrs. Bunjee’s invitation.

  Emmy shrugged, clicking the wet stones in her hand. That was just as well. She’d never make new friends this summer if she had a rodent hanging around.

  The blue water of Grayson Lake slapped against the keel of the family s
ailboat, moored to the dock. Emmy didn’t know how to sail, but she wanted to learn. It was on her list for the summer, right after “Build a tree fort.”

  The lake, choppy now that the breeze had picked up, wasn’t smooth enough for skipping rocks. Emmy tossed her pebbles into some rushes at the water’s edge, and glanced back toward the empty driveway that curved at the side of the gray stone mansion. Wasn’t Mr. Peebles ever going to show up? She was getting hungry.

  “Blast that girl! She chased away my minnow! And you were going to make me a pie, Menna!”

  The voice, low and oddly gravelly, came from somewhere near lake level. A sleek brown head poked out from the reeds and gave Emmy an intensely irritated look.

  Emmy almost apologized—then clamped her lips shut and tried to look as if she hadn’t understood. The last thing she needed was another rodent in her life.

  “I’ll make minnow pie tomorrow, Marshall,” said a second muskrat, popping up. “Let’s have a nice snack of cattails out at the point; it’ll be healthier, anyway.”

  “I hate eating vegetarian,” grumbled Marshall, but he pushed off after his wife and swam strongly toward the sandy point, the water streaming behind his head.

  Emmy wandered out to the end of the dock, ignoring the muskrats. The waves slid in, great slabs of water that smacked the rocks to her left with a fine white spray.

  “That’s a pretty little sailboat.” Menna’s voice came faintly back from the cattails. “I do so like a white sail.”

  Emmy turned as a small boat glided into view around the point. Two figures with ponytails, silhouetted by the dipping sun, suddenly ducked their heads and shifted sides.

  “They don’t know how to handle it, though,” said Marshall gruffly. “There, what did I tell you?”

  “Oh dear,” said Menna. “They’ll be on the rocks in a minute.”

  Emmy, watching, could see that the girls were in trouble. They had been trying to change direction, but something had gone wrong. The sail was flopping uselessly, and they were being pushed by the wind straight at the rocky shore.

  “They’ll smash,” said Marshall furiously, “and serves them right. Put your tiller to starboard, sailors!”