Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls

by Lynne Jonell

  “Close enough.” The mouse scanned her critically. “Listen, sad-eyes. What is it you want?”

  “Nothing,” mumbled Emmy. She wasn’t going to tell her problems to a mouse, no matter how cute.

  “Don’t give me that.” The mouse put a paw on its hip. “Make a wish. Pick one thing you really want, and tell me.”

  Emmy sighed. “That you would go away?”

  The mouse blinked up at her, and Emmy felt suddenly ashamed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. Let’s see.” She hesitated, looking around for inspiration.

  “Do you want a new bike? More toys? World peace?”

  “Sure. I’ll take world peace.”

  “Just kidding. World peace is for everyone. Pick something for you.”

  Emmy smiled. She was starting to like this little mouse. She looked across at the group of girls—larger now, more had joined them—and pointed at them with her chin. “Okay, then, I wish I could go to a pool party with those girls. Or a sleepover.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s a lot,” said Emmy. “Because it will never happen.”

  “I don’t know,” said the mouse. “Why don’t you go over there and say hi?”

  Emmy shook her head.

  “Just do it,” urged the mouse. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “They could laugh at me,” said Emmy promptly, “or ignore me, or say something mean, or trip me and pretend it was an accident, or—”

  “They don’t look that mean,” said the mouse, squinting. “Go on. You won’t get your wish if you don’t take the first step.”

  Emmy watched the mouse bounding away—it jumped an amazing distance for such a little thing—and thought about what it had said. It was true that the girls weren’t really mean. They just had gotten the wrong idea about her.

  Well, maybe it was worth a shot. Her heart beating lightly in her throat, Emmy walked along the sidelines. She would speak to Joe’s parents after all, and on the way …

  “Hi!” said Emmy, as she walked by Meg and Kate. Then she was past, and breathing again. At least she had shown them she wasn’t as stuck-up as they’d thought—

  “Hey, Emmy!” Meg ran up behind her and fell into step. “Listen, my mom said I could have a sleepover tonight. Do you want to come?”

  Stunned, Emmy tried to act normal. “Sure—I’ll just have to ask my parents.” She thought of something else to say. “Should I bring anything? Chips?”

  “Just your swimsuit. It’s going to be a pool party, and we’re having pizza, too.”

  Feeling as if she were in a dream, Emmy asked to borrow Mrs. Benson’s cell phone. As she punched in her number, she dimly heard Mr. Peebles tell the Bensons that he couldn’t stay but hadn’t been able to resist stopping by to see how Joe was doing.

  “After all, he’s my—let’s see—not a nephew, exactly …”

  “You’re my cousin, Peter,” said Mrs. Benson promptly. “So that makes him—”

  “Hello, Mom?” said Emmy into the phone. “Oh, Maggie. Could you get Mom, please?”

  “—first cousin once removed,” finished Mrs. Benson.

  “Close enough,” said Mr. Benson. “Look at that boy go!”

  At last Emmy’s mother got on the phone and gave permission. Mr. Peebles walked back to his office, and Emmy shyly joined Meg and her friends on their blanket.

  Of course it was just a coincidence that she’d been invited, Emmy thought as she sat with the girls. The tan-and-white mouse had just given the advice grown-ups always gave—to smile, be friendly, say hi. And for once it had happened to work. There was nothing mysterious about it at all. And the fact that it was a sleepover and a pool party—well, that was coincidence, too. Kids had parties like that all the time.

  There was a sudden commotion near the tree trunk behind Emmy. “Oh, he’s so cute!” squealed one of the girls.

  “Good doggie,” coaxed Meg. “Do you want to play?”

  Emmy turned to see a white puppy frisking at the edge of the blanket. He had dropped a stick, curiously wrapped with paper and twine, right in front of Kate.

  “Ugh, dog slobber,” said Kate. “I’m not throwing that thing.”

  “Why is it all tied up like that?” wondered Sara aloud.

  “Hey, there’s writing on it. Cut the string, somebody. Who’s got a nail clipper?”

  Meg had a jackknife in her pocket, and worked the blade under the tight strings, wet with dog drool.

  “Read it, Meg.”

  “What does it say?”

  “Not much—it’s all chewed and wet. See?”

  “It says, ‘help us,’” said Kate, looking closely at the paper, “and here’s another word—might be ‘up’—up something. ‘Upsies’?”

  “‘Upstairs,’” said Meg, looking over Kate’s shoulder. “And ‘prison’—no, it’s ‘prisoners.’ Here, unfold it—there’s another line. ‘We are only four inches tall’…”

  The girls all laughed.

  “It’s just some kids pretending,” said Meg. “Here, puppy, go fetch!” She tossed the stick, and the puppy shot off, barking happily.

  “Does anybody know these kids?” asked Kate. “Ana, Berit, Lee something—I can’t read the rest …”

  Emmy caught her breath. “Could I see that?”

  She looked at the paper in her hand, and the pieces suddenly fit together. Of course the police hadn’t found the girls when they’d searched. They would have been looking for full-sized children, not girls that could fit inside a teacup.

  Emmy got up, unable to sit still any longer. “Just stretching my legs,” she said vaguely. She walked off and looked at the paper in the sun. Yes, there they were: five signatures, faint and wet, but still legible if you knew what to look for. She could see the long tail of Merry’s “y” curving past a chewed part.

  Prisoners … upstairs … at the Home for Troubled Girls. Five girls, smart and brave enough to send a message the only way they knew how. Hoping that whoever got it would figure out how to find them.

  Emmy walked slowly back to the shade tree. She could report this to the police and ask them to search again, but what good would that do? They’d just laugh, and tell her to stop playing.

  The professor would believe her. He would know what to do next.

  Emmy folded the paper carefully and put it in her pocket. Out on the field, someone blew a whistle. And at her feet, there was a tiny sneeze.

  Emmy glanced down to see a rat’s face poking from a hole in the ground, and flinched. Not Sissy, not now … She walked on, hoping Sissy would get the hint.

  “Pssst! Emmy!” said Cecilia, trotting after.

  Emmy turned, irate. Hadn’t anyone at the Speedy Rodent Messenger Service told her to stay far from crowds? Hadn’t anyone taught her the first rule of rodent safety?

  “A message for Emmy Addison, from Raston Rat …” Sissy’s nose was running again, but her words were clear.

  Emmy squatted down and pretended to watch the game. Whoops—it was halftime already. All right, she would pretend to adjust her sandal strap. “Go away, Sissy,” she said, very low. “Go back down the tunnel. It’s not safe here.”

  “But Raston says Chippy’s going to—”

  “Shhh!” Emmy began to walk away. Surely even Sissy wouldn’t dare to come any farther.

  “Eeeeek!” Sara stood up and pointed, hysterical. “Emmy, run! There’s a rat!”

  Screams came from the girls on the blanket, and Kate bent to scoop something from the ground. “Scram!” she cried, and threw a rock.

  Emmy froze as the other girls snatched more rocks. Sissy was too far from the tunnel.

  Turn around, go back, Emmy thought urgently. I can’t save you, these girls think I’m weird enough as it is …

  Stones rattled on either side of the rat. Sissy shot one terrified look up at Emmy, then whirled in desperation and ran the wrong way. Someone threw a rock that hit her hard, flipping her onto her side with a high-pitched squeal that pierced Emmy’s hea
rt.

  “No!” Emmy cried, too late to do any good. She ran toward the girls with her hands outstretched. “It’s okay, I’m okay, don’t throw any more—look!” she said with false brightness. “It’s halftime!”

  Somehow she convinced them all that it was only a ground squirrel, that it was no threat, that Joe had waved to one of them to come over—no, she didn’t know which one—yes, he was the cutest boy in class, she thought so, too …

  Emmy chattered on until their attention was solidly on something else, and then she sneaked a backward look. Sissy, trailing a thin line of blood, was dragging herself along the ground. As Emmy watched, the slender gray rat inched into a tunnel and slowly disappeared.

  EMMY STARED at the empty hole in the ground. She had never felt more like a rat.

  She looked quickly, guiltily around. Joe was talking to his father at the bench—he hadn’t seen anything. And Thomas? He was too busy tucking something in his pocket—a grasshopper, probably—to have noticed anything. As Emmy watched, he turned toward the soccer field and broke into an awkward, shambling trot. At the sidelines he picked up a ball, carried it to the middle of the empty field, and began to dribble it slowly with his feet.

  He couldn’t dribble at all. It was almost painful to watch him, but he shuffled along and kicked it at last, right into the goal. Of course, Emmy thought, he could hardly have missed, he was standing ten feet in front of it—but the ball was solidly kicked and it hit the net with a satisfying thwap.

  Thomas looked to the sidelines, where his father was talking with the coach.

  “Good job, honey!” called his mother, waving.

  Thomas waved briefly, then retrieved the ball and put it down on the field again, a few yards farther from the goal this time. Emmy was surprised that he was showing such an interest in soccer, when there were grasshoppers to catch and rodents to talk to.

  She glanced over her shoulder again at the tunnel into which Sissy had crawled. Still empty. Or wait— was that the same hole?

  Emmy felt irritable. She couldn’t keep track of all the little burrows in the schoolyard—there must be a zillion. And how the rodents themselves kept their bearings underground, she didn’t know. Maybe they had little signposts.

  The girls around her were giggling over something or other. Emmy tried to laugh along, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Cecilia.

  What had the rat expected, popping up like that in broad daylight? It was her own fault if she got hurt. And why hadn’t the Messenger Service trained her better? For that matter, Ratty should have known that his sister was too inexperienced to be let out alone.

  Emmy shifted her weight uncomfortably. Maybe all that was true, but she was the one who had stood by while a friend got rocks thrown at her. Emmy couldn’t forget the look of helpless panic in Sissy’s eyes.

  Emmy lifted her shoulders and dropped them, as if trying to get a weight to slide off. It wasn’t really her fault. She hadn’t thrown the rock that hit Sissy. Anyway, Sissy was going to be okay. She must be nearly back to Rodent City by now. It was only across Main Street, and even if the tunnel had a few twists and turns, it wouldn’t be long before she would be tucked up in bed, with a bandage on her leg and a mug of hot chocolate on a tray. Mrs. Bunjee would see to that.

  Emmy cheered up at the thought of Mrs. Bunjee. Cecilia would be in good hands. Still, it would be a nice gesture to check in at Rodent City and see how she was doing. If Emmy walked over to the art gallery, she could quietly speak into the crack in the steps that was the front entrance, and some rodent might come up and give her the news.

  The sun was high overhead, and warm on Emmy’s neck. There was a pleasant buzz of conversation going on all around her, and bits and pieces came through the general murmur: “Whose puppy is that?” “And so I said to Jenna—” “Hey, that kid can kick!” None of it was about a rat, and none of it was about Emmy.

  Relaxing, Emmy put her hands in her pockets. At least no one seemed to think she was any weirder than before. Her fingers rubbed against a damp piece of paper, and she stiffened. She couldn’t forget the little girls. She had to show the letter to Joe.

  She found him standing a little way off from his team, his shoulders hunched. “What’s up?” He lifted his head.

  Emmy had a sudden urge to confess what had happened to Sissy, but she didn’t do it. “Look,” she said, and told him about the note.

  Joe studied the signatures. “Wow … you’re right. There’s the dot from the ‘i’ in Lisa, and part of the ‘-ry’ in ‘Merry’…” He looked up. “They’re alive! We’ve got to find them. The minute this game is over, let’s—” He stopped abruptly.

  “What?” Emmy asked, startled at the black look of anger on his face.

  “I forgot. I won’t be here. I’m going to stupid California.”

  Thomas came up, flushed and happy, holding the soccer ball. Joe handed him the note and turned away, a muscle working in his cheek.

  “But I thought your dad was going to get a refund!” protested Emmy.

  Joe didn’t answer.

  Thomas looked up. “The soccer camp doesn’t give refunds. Dad said they’d only give our money back if Joe had a letter from the doctor that said he couldn’t play. Like if he broke his ankle or something.”

  “I wish I would break my ankle,” said Joe bitterly. A whistle blew, and he stalked off to take his place on the field.

  Thomas bent over the note, his lips moving as he read. A small tan-and-white mouse popped its head out of Thomas’s pocket and turned an alert gaze on Emmy. “So—are you going to the sleepover?”

  Emmy was startled. How had it known she’d been invited?

  The whistle blew again, and the ball was kicked. Then, suddenly, there was a snap and a sharp cry. A blue-jerseyed player was down, his pale hair spread on the grass.

  The coach ran on the field with a first-aid kit. Mr. and Mrs. Benson followed as the players milled around.

  Emmy stared at all the commotion. “What happened?” she asked one of the players as he passed.

  “Stepped in a gopher hole,” said the boy. “Broke his ankle.”

  The mouse in Thomas’s pocket nodded briskly and dusted its paws with a satisfied air. “That’s three,” it said, and leaped to the ground. It bounded off toward the field where Emmy had first seen it, jumping a foot at a time.

  “Wait!” Emmy ran after it, but she didn’t dare call out in more than a whisper, and the mouse didn’t stop. It popped into the ground right before her eyes. Emmy sat down beside its burrow, breathing hard.

  “Come out,” she begged. “Please.” She looked up to see her new friends glancing curiously her way.

  “What is it now?” The bouncy rodent poked its nose out.

  “Did you …” Emmy hesitated. “Did you break Joe’s ankle?”

  “Of course not!” The mouse was chagrined.

  “But he wished, and then it happened, just like me getting invited to the party.”

  The mouse lifted one shoulder expressively, ruffling the star on its back. “I merely allowed his wish to take physical form.”

  “Well, then—could you take it back? What if I wished that Joe’s ankle wasn’t broken, after all? I don’t think he really meant it.”

  “Sorry,” said the mouse firmly. “Three wishes only, and no changing your mind.”

  “What do you mean? Three wishes per day? I know it’s not three per person, because I only had one, and Joe only had one …”

  The mouse scrubbed at its ears in frustration. “Leave me in peace, will you? You humans are never satisfied. You think you’d be happy to get your heart’s desire, but noooo …”

  The small annoyed voice dwindled as the mouse disappeared into the tunnel. Too late, Emmy realized that she had forgotten to ask what the third wish had been.

  Thomas came up, puffing slightly.

  “It was a wishing rodent,” said Emmy. “Did you know?”

  Thomas beamed over the soccer ball in his arms. “I thought it
might be. Do you suppose it will give more wishes?”

  “No!” cried a voice from the tunnel, and somewhere below a door banged shut.

  “I guess not,” said Emmy. She led the way back to the sidelines, where the spectators were clustered. Mrs. Benson had brought the car right up over the grass, and Mr. Benson, looking very anxious, was carrying Joe off the field.

  Joe’s face was tense with pain, but as he passed, Emmy thought he looked more mystified than upset. She gave him a small, private wave, and he attempted a grin.

  “That’s my brave boy,” said Mrs. Benson, tucking him into the back seat. “Oh, Thomas. You’ll have to come with us—we’re going to the doctor’s to get an X-ray.”

  “Can’t I stay with Emmy? She’ll babysit me.” Thomas slipped his hand into Emmy’s and looked up with wide, trusting eyes.

  Emmy managed to keep from laughing. “I sure will, Mrs. Benson, if that’s okay with you.”

  “All right—but you two stay together, and don’t go swimming in the lake!”

  “What did you run off for?” asked Meg curiously, as the Benson car drove away.

  “Maybe she was playing cops and robbers,” said Sara, to general laughter.

  Emmy tried to think fast. She wasn’t about to say that she ran after a wishing mouse—but she couldn’t think of an excuse that sounded good.

  “She was trying to catch something for me,” said Thomas. “She’s babysitting me, you know.” He gave them the same blue-eyed, innocent look he had used on his mother, and it worked just as well on the girls.

  “Cool,” said Sara enviously. “I’m not allowed to babysit yet.”

  “Emmy, Emmy!” Thomas tugged at her sleeve in a babyish way. “Take me to see the professor, okay? You said I could show him my soccer kick. You promised!”

  Emmy looked at him in admiration. For six, he was awfully quick. “Sorry, girls—I’ll see you tonight.” And just that easily, they were on their way to the Antique Rat.

  “I should really make you hold my hand, crossing the street,” said Emmy as they came to the road.

  “Don’t push it,” said Thomas calmly. “Anyway, I’m carrying a ball.”

  Emmy grinned and steered him toward the art-gallery steps. “Do me a favor, will you? Pretend you’re catching bugs or something, and call down the Rodent City entrance. I want to see if Sissy’s there yet.”