Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls

by Lynne Jonell

  Four tiny girls crouched on the dusty floor of an attic room, each one holding down a corner of a wrinkled piece of paper. Ana grasped a pencil stub as thick and long as her arm and carefully printed her name at the bottom. “There.” She looked at the smudged paper with satisfaction. “Now help me roll it around the stick.”

  It was a good thing for Ana’s plan that the attic was full of so many bits and pieces. It hadn’t been hard to find string and a pencil and even a stick of wood, smooth and rounded and not too heavy for the girls to lift. And every shoebox contained crumpled packing paper; they had only to smooth it out, and Ana could write the message she had been planning all day long.

  “Is this tight enough?” Berit tied a third knot and tugged, with her feet braced on either side.

  “Yes, but do two more,” said Ana, looking critically at the result of the day’s labor. The letter, rolled around the wooden dowel, was already tied like a sausage around both ends and the middle, but it wouldn’t hurt to be safe. She didn’t want it to fall off and blow away.

  Lee tilted back her head to look at the windowsill, high above. “How do we get it up there?”

  “Yes, how?” echoed Lisa. “Do we all climb up and pull?”

  “I’m scared to climb that high,” said Merry, putting her thumb in her mouth.

  “You won’t have to. I’ve figured it out. Where’s that really long piece of string?”

  Berit brought it and helped Ana tie one more knot around the middle of the stick. “We’ll do the rest in the morning,” said Ana as they rolled it out of sight behind a pair of green rubber boots.

  They trudged back to the shoebox, their feet making tiny tracks in the dust. Shelves loomed high above them, reaching up to the dim and distant rafters, and the attic turned gray and shadowy as the sun went down.

  “Do you think it will work?” asked Berit in a low voice.

  “We’ll find out soon.” Ana reached for the paper-clip hook and slid the cover across the box. The lid fell into place with a soft thump, and the dim light was gone.

  “I hate the dark,” said Lisa.

  “Me, too,” said Lee.

  “Ana,” said Merry suddenly, “why can’t we have a window in the box?”

  “Because the big people would see it. And if they saw we could make a hole in the box, they’d just lock us up in another box that was harder to get out of.”

  “I don’t mean a big window,” said Merry in a small voice. “Just a little one.”

  Berit tapped the paper clip against the cardboard. “We could poke a tiny hole with the straight end of our hook. They wouldn’t notice that.”

  “But the box is cardboard,” said Lisa.

  “It’s way too thick and hard,” said Lee.

  There was a little silence. “We could do it together, maybe,” Ana said thoughtfully.

  “I can help, too.” Merry pulled her thumb out of her mouth.

  “All right. Everybody grab on to the paper clip and push. Twist it back and forth—don’t bend it—hey, it’s working!”

  With a last twist and a pop, the paper clip poked through the cardboard, and the girls fell down. A pinhole of light, like a tiny star, appeared in the side of the box.

  “Wow!” Berit put her eye to the hole. “I can see right through!”

  A key rattled in the lock of the attic door. “Everybody sit down,” Ana ordered. “Now, all together, just like we practiced—yell!”

  “Mr. B!” they all cried together. “Mr. Beeeeee!”

  Footsteps creaked on the attic floor. “Now, girls, quiet down.” The box lid tipped up to reveal a large, roughened thumb and a pair of watery blue eyes over a red-veined nose. “What’s the matter?”

  “Please, Mr. B,” said Ana, clasping her hands, “it was so hot in the attic today. Would you open the window just an inch or two?”

  “Well …” Mr. B’s other thumb came up to rub the side of his nose. “I don’t suppose I’d get in trouble over something that small.” He bent closer and gave an enormous wink. “Just don’t tell on me.”

  There was a scraping sound as the window was levered up, and then came the usual sickening swoop as the box was lifted and carried down the stairs. The girls hugged each other in silent glee, sliding in a mass from corner to corner.

  Berit’s mouth found Ana’s ear. “Phase Two complete!”

  Ana nodded. Phase One had been to create the message; Phase Two, to get the window open. Now all that remained was Phase Three. Tomorrow morning, when the nice man from next door came down the walk to get his morning paper, she would push out the stick at just the right time to catch his eye as it fell. With that hope ahead of her, Ana thought she could even bear Mrs. B tonight.

  But Mrs. B was not interested in playing with the girls. “Take them back,” she said pettishly, waving the box away.

  “Why, my little squash blossom, what’s wrong?” Mr. B put the girls’ supper inside the box—five pieces of macaroni and cheese, each piece as long as the girls’ forearms—set the box on the floor, and sat beside his wife.

  “Why hasn’t Jane come back? I don’t care for her associating with those lower classes. Field rats go to those parties. And now she’s late—never a thought for me.”

  Ana nibbled halfheartedly on her macaroni. It was slippery, and the cheese smelled strong. She peered out of the pinhole they had made. She could see nothing but a table leg, and beyond it the baseboard and a few inches of wall.

  Mrs. B was still talking in a thin, discontented drone, but between the words Ana thought she heard a scrabbling behind the plaster. She moved her head slightly, and suddenly she was looking straight at the new hole in the baseboard that the paper boy—or, rather, paper gopher—had used.

  Where did it lead? Maybe to the field rats Mrs. B had talked about?

  Ana had often thought about escape, and here was a hole just their size. If only they weren’t watched so closely! But escaping was one thing, and finding some way to live afterward was another. They would need food and a safe place to stay. There were cats and dogs out there (Mr. B had once brought in a stray kitten to play with them, and Ana had never gotten over the fright), and owls, and hawks, all of which might pounce on very small girls.

  If they could make it to wherever the field rats lived, perhaps the rodents would take them in. Ana didn’t think she would mind living in a burrow in a field—not very much—and almost anything would be better than living with Miss Barmy and her mother.

  Ana watched the hole as the rustling sound grew louder. All at once she saw a flurry of skirts as a piebald rat in a tiara crawled through, stood, and dusted herself off with soiled white gloves.

  A chipmunk, handsome in a tuxedo, emerged behind her. He didn’t look about the room, Ana noticed. He only had eyes for Miss Barmy.

  “I’ll bring it to you tomorrow,” he said earnestly. “If I work all night, I might be able to bring it over sometime in the morning.”

  “First thing in the morning, Chippy dear,” said Miss Barmy with a melting look. “I’m sure you understand how important this is to all the rodents.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Chippy uncertainly. He bent low over Miss Barmy’s paw. “Dearest Jane, allow me to express my deepest—”

  “Just bring it to me tomorrow by sunrise,” Miss Barmy said impatiently. “Then you can express whatever you want.”

  Chippy swallowed hard and kissed Miss Barmy’s paw. “Of course, Jane dear. I’ll do anything you say.”

  Ana scowled as the chipmunk backed through the hole, his black eyes misty with longing. So there was another rodent on Miss Barmy’s side—maybe they all were. Ana slid down, her back to the cardboard wall. Escaping through the hole wouldn’t do them any good if the rodents on the other end just brought them back to Miss Barmy.

  After a while, Mr. B took them up to the attic. The girls stuck out their tongues at his back—a nightly ritual—and climbed out of the box.

  They had made comfortable beds on a low shelf, but Ana went first
to the stick and tied the loose end of the long string around her waist. Then she climbed up a series of shoelace ladders, shelf by shelf, until she reached the windowsill; hooked the string around a nail in the sill; and climbed back down, pulling the loose end with her.

  She tied the end to a low brace and looked at her handiwork with satisfaction. “See, Merry? You won’t have to climb. If you four grab the end of the string and pull, you’ll raise the stick right up to the windowsill.”

  “This message was a very good idea,” said Berit.

  “I hope it works,” Ana said. “Off to bed, everyone. We have to wake up early.”

  It took Ana a long time to fall asleep. But even so, she was the first one up the next morning. And once she had climbed to the windowsill, and the stick had been raised by four small girls pulling heartily on the string, saying “Heave! Heave ho!” (that had been Berit’s idea), Ana felt as if she had been waiting forever for this chance.

  The sun rose and tipped the eaves with pinky gold. A dog barked on the green, the birds raised their small voices in a trilling clamor, and then came the ting-ting of the paper boy’s bell and a rubbing sound of bike tires on asphalt. He pulled a paper out of his bag and tossed it. As usual, he failed to hit the front porch, and the paper landed halfway up the sidewalk. Ana nodded. Perfect.

  Nervously she rolled the stick into position. Somewhere in town, church bells rang, and Ana found herself praying—“Please. Oh, please, let it work.”

  The front door of the blue house creaked open, and the nice man padded out in his slippers.

  Ana took a breath and shoved, hard. The stick fell, end over end, the white paper making a fine flash in the sun as it dropped. The man looked up, then at the stick, now lying in the grass. He stepped off the path.

  And then Ana saw a pale blur streaking across the road from the green. There was a sudden pounce, and the blur became a white puppy with a madly wagging tail and a paper-wrapped stick in its mouth. The puppy looked up expectantly.

  The man chuckled and took Ana’s stick. With one smooth motion, he pulled back and tossed it in a high, turning arc. The puppy tore after it with short, delighted barks.

  “At least you didn’t get my newspaper this time, you scamp.” The man grinned, picked up the Sunday edition, and went inside. His door shut behind him with a click.

  Ana stared down in disbelief.

  Footsteps sounded on the attic stairs. “Someone is coming!” cried the little girls as they raced for the box.

  The attic door was opening. It was too late to climb down the ladder. Ana lay flat on her stomach and rested her head on her arms with the calm of desperation.

  “In here,” said Miss Barmy’s voice, and rat toenails clicked across the wooden floor.

  Ana shivered as a cool breeze from the window touched her shoulders. Miss Barmy had never come up to the attic before.

  “Careful, Father! Lay it flat. Now, Cheswick, set up the pieces just like Chippy showed you.”

  Ana looked hard between the rows of shelves. She could see something vast and shiny on the floor, and the feet of a piebald rat.

  “Chippy,” grumbled Cheswick, coming into Ana’s field of view as he dragged a sack behind him. “He’s not such a genius.” The black rat pulled out something that clanked.

  “Now, Father, get the little girls.”

  Ana’s muscles tensed. There was a tremor of heavy footsteps, and a sliding sound as of a box being moved, and then no sound at all for what seemed to be a long time.

  “Only four girls,” said Miss Barmy pleasantly. “I wonder why?”

  “There were five when I put them away last night,” said Mr. B, sounding perplexed. “Don’t blame me, Jane. I counted ’em, I know I did.”

  Miss Barmy didn’t bother to answer. Ana watched with growing dread as the piebald rat’s feet passed back and forth. Then the rat stopped, its tail alert.

  A sniffing nose, a patchy face of pink and white and brown, thin veiny ears perked to catch the slightest sound—Miss Barmy’s furry body slowly emerged from behind a shelf and turned, her eyes following the line of tiny footprints that showed plainly in the dust and stopped at the wall.

  Miss Barmy raised her eyes to the windowsill, where the small bump of Ana’s body showed dark against the window’s light, and smirked. “Bring me the girl on the windowsill,” she ordered Mr. B. “The rest of you, stand on the mirror. Cheswick will show you what to do.”

  Mr. B gave Ana a reproachful look as he picked her up in his callused hand. “Now you’ve gone and gotten me in trouble!”

  Ana didn’t really care. She was listening to an odd grating noise that had suddenly started up.

  “Here she is, Jane,” said Mr. B as he set Ana down on the floor. “She’s very sorry. Right, little girl?”

  Ana ignored him. She was watching Lisa and Lee walk in circles, pushing around something that looked like a cross between a turnstile and a miniature merry-go-round. The push-bars were pencils stuck into holes in the side of a thick metal ring about two inches high. The grating noise came from the metal ring, coated with grit on its bottom and pressed against the surface of a large mirror. Berit and Merry stood on a platform that fit on top of the metal ring, and held on to a central pole as they were turned slowly around. It was their weight that pressed the metal ring down, and Ana could see that, given enough time, the metal ring would cut a hole right through the mirror.

  “Faster! Faster!” said Miss Barmy, looking at a watch that had been laid on the floor. “You have lots to cut, and not much time!”

  “I could do it, precious,” said Mr. B humbly. “I could do it for you faster.”

  “No, I want them to learn,” snapped Miss Barmy. “Besides, they need the exercise.”

  Merry looked as if she were getting dizzy. “I’ll help,” said Ana suddenly. “Let Merry get off for a while.”

  Miss Barmy ignored her. “Bring me the archery set, Cheswick.”

  Ana stiffened as Cheswick pulled a bow and arrows out of his sack. Was he going to shoot her? But no. Miss Barmy put the bow in Ana’s hands, and notched an arrow to the string. Ana flinched slightly at the touch of her claws.

  “There you are, dear. While the other girls are cutting glass, I want you to practice archery. Shoot this arrow as high as you can, over and over. When you can shoot it over the third shelf up, I’ll let your little friends rest.”

  Ana glanced at the girls’ faces, already weary, and felt a slow, cold anger. Somewhere in the distance, church bells rang faintly once more, but this time she didn’t bother to pray. “Why are you making us do this?”

  Miss Barmy smiled with all her pointed teeth. “Why, for your health, of course. And that reminds me. Father, shut that window, and don’t open it again. Too much fresh air is bad for little girls.”

  LIGHT FILTERED THROUGH stained glass and fell in patches of bright color on Emmy’s lap. She tried to listen to the organ, the deep humming tones that filled the whole church with sound—but she couldn’t stop thinking about the party at Rodent City.

  She and Joe had gotten away as quickly as they could after Miss Barmy’s announcement, but it had seemed an eternity before they were back at the Antique Rat, with Sissy kissing their cheeks to grow them back to their true size. Emmy hadn’t drawn an easy breath until she was back at home and in her own bed.

  What a horrible night it had been. And she felt so helpless. Miss Barmy was up to something—she knew that in her bones. But she had no proof.

  The congregation shuffled to its feet for the first hymn, and Emmy looked over her shoulder as late-comers filed in. A familiar pudgy figure trudged down the aisle, stopping to put a piece of paper in the box marked “Prayers.”

  What was Thomas so worried about that he had to put it in the prayer box?

  The hymn was over. Emmy sat down and tried to listen, but it was just announcements.

  All right, so maybe Miss Barmy was planning something. Why should Emmy care what happened in Rodent City, anyway? She had
plans for this summer, and they didn’t include her rodent friends. Her friends—ha! Mrs. Bunjee had turned against her, and Chippy had gone crazy for Miss Barmy. Sissy tried too hard, and as for Gus—if only to avoid Gus the gopher, Emmy would happily never set foot in Rodent City again. And Ratty? He was probably rehearsing with the Swinging Gerbils, and good luck to him.

  Everyone stood up again, this time for prayers. Emmy shifted her weight as an usher brought up the request box … The pastor was reading them now. Most of the names Emmy didn’t recognize. Her mind drifted off …

  “Ana. Berit.”

  Emmy’s head snapped up.

  “Lisa. Lee.”

  Emmy turned her head to look for Thomas. He was sitting with his head bowed.

  “Merry Pumpkin.”

  Emmy shrugged uneasily. Thomas could pray for a miracle if he liked, but she, for one, planned to forget about the girls. If the police couldn’t find them, there was certainly nothing she could do.

  Emmy sat alone on the sidelines of the soccer field. Joe’s team seemed to be winning, but she didn’t want to ask the score. The only people she knew (besides Thomas, who was chasing grasshoppers) were Joe’s parents, Peter Peebles, and the girls who were sitting on a small grassy knoll beneath a shade tree.

  Joe’s father yelled too much. She had embarrassed herself in front of Mr. Peebles. And as for the girls, Emmy knew what they thought of her. “Stuck-up,” Kate had said to Meg and Sara, and “I’m never going to ask her to do anything again.”

  Emmy felt the heat rise to her cheeks. If only she were stuck-up, it would be easy. She wouldn’t care whether they liked her or not.

  But she did care. She cared more than anything.

  “Hey!”

  Emmy looked around, then down. Of course; she should have known it would be another rodent. This one was small, round, and bouncy. Had it been at the party?

  “Why are you crying?” The mouse jumped on her knee. Its fur was a soft tan, with a white star-shaped patch on the back of its head, and its tail was a long and delicate question mark.

  “I’m not crying,” Emmy said stiffly.