Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls

by Lynne Jonell

“Emmy!” cried a voice.

  “It’s us!” shrieked another.

  “Help!” shouted a third, loudest of all.

  “Don’t wake her!” whispered Emmy furiously, but it was too late. Mrs. B’s eyes popped open. She sat up in her chair with a bang.

  “Oh. Sorry,” came the contrite whisper, but Emmy was already galloping toward the shoestring ladder, dragging Merry by one arm. “Up you go! Hurry!” she said under her breath, and Merry, obedient, climbed as fast as she was able.

  The lizard-skin shoes slid back. The floor creaked. There was a whisper of cloth.

  “Faster!” urged Emmy. “Grab the nail at the top—go out through the hole. I’ve got you, don’t be afraid—”

  “Oh, little girl… where are you? Where is Mrs. B’s little dolly?”

  Emmy and Merry scrambled and tumbled across the bit of roof, their hands and knees burning from the gritty asphalt shingles. They could feel the roof shake lightly, in time with the heavy footsteps on the attic floor.

  Emmy lifted Merry into the basket and leaped in after her. She grabbed the upper wire and pulled it hard, calling out for Meg. Where was she?

  The window behind them banged open. Two scrawny arms reached out, clutched the wire, and pulled it hand over hand. Inch by inch, the basket came shuddering back.

  Emmy’s heart pressed into her throat. She glanced across to the phone line—could she leap to it? Maybe by herself, but never with Merry.

  The little girl buried her head in Emmy’s side as Mrs. B’s strong, sinewy fingers came closer. The polished red talons curved around them, smelling leathery and stale. The girls were lifted from the basket.

  Emmy gripped Merry tight as they fell sickeningly into a pocket, and twisted up to watch as Mrs. B yanked the zipline down—basket, wire, pulleys, and all. It fell, the wire singing, and landed with a discordant twang on the grass.

  “Can’t get back now,” Mrs. B gloated, and banged the window shut.

  MRS. B WAS TERRIBLY METHODICAL. She ripped the shoelace ladder from the windowsill. She pulled down shoeboxes and made a corral, enclosing her chair and the colander. And last of all she set the girls down inside the shoebox fence.

  “Naughty dollies,” she said, “to make me run. I think I stubbed my toe.” She pulled off her shoes and stockings and peered at one foot with rheumy eyes.

  The odor of unwashed feet was powerful. Emmy tried to keep from gagging.

  “I know! You can give me a pedicure!” Mrs. B stretched her thin lips in a spiteful smile. “Take that file and start on my left foot.” She leaned back in the chair, humming to herself.

  Emmy, whose hands were pressed over her nose, looked at Merry in alarm. “She can’t be serious.”

  Merry nodded sadly. “We do whatever she says.” She knelt to pick up the nail file, and staggered with it over to Mrs. B’s leathery, reeking feet. “Which is the left one?” Merry whispered. “I forget.”

  Mrs. B waggled her left big toe lazily. Merry did not look at Emmy as she leaned the file against the toenail and began to move it doggedly back and forth.

  Emmy glanced at the bits of fur she could see through the colander’s holes and turned away. They weren’t going to be any help. Merry would have been safe by now, if those friends of hers—ex-friends, she reminded herself—hadn’t yelled loud enough to wake the dead.

  Emmy examined the shoebox fence that enclosed them. The boxes were higher than her head. But suppose she could get over them, then what? How was she going to get up to the windowsill without a ladder? Climb from shelf to shelf, and then leap?

  Even if she managed all that, there was still the little matter of getting across to Mr. Peebles’s attic, and she couldn’t do that with Merry on her back. In fact, none of it could be accomplished if she brought the little girl along.

  “You know,” said Mrs. B from a great height, “I could squish you if you’d rather not work. The choice is completely up to you.”

  Gritting her teeth, Emmy took the heavy end of the file and helped scrape at the thick yellow toenail. A flake of old crimson polish chipped off and flew up into her face.

  “I have never done anything this gross,” Emmy muttered, sawing away. “Never, never, never!”

  “Emmy…” The whisper sounded ghostly, hollow, coming through the holes in the stainless steel colander.

  Emmy looked over her shoulder. Six small paws were extended to her through the holes.

  The sight softened her heart, but only slightly. So they’d changed their minds about needing her help, had they? It was just too bad they’d waited until she was trapped, too.

  “We’re really sorry.” It sounded like Buck.

  Emmy flushed. She had been sorry, too, about what had happened to Sissy, but no one had forgiven her. She turned back to her loathsome task, bearing down hard on the file.

  “We didn’t think,” pleaded Joe.

  “We didn’t mean for you to get caught,” the Rat added, sniffling a little.

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t mean to abandon Sissy either,” said Emmy, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “So now you know how I feel.”

  The rasp of the file was loud in the quiet attic room.

  “Hey! That tickles!” Mrs. B jerked her foot, and Merry fell down with a whimper.

  Emmy, already upset, now lost her temper entirely. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” She dusted Merry off and glared upward. “And why don’t you lose the red polish while you’re at it? It’s—” She cast around in her mind for something cutting. “It’s so last year!”

  There was a ghastly silence.

  Emmy took a step backward. How could she have been so stupid? “I mean, why don’t you try pink?” she added hastily, attempting to smile. “Or fuschia? Or maybe brine shrimp? I hear that’s fashionable this year.”

  Mrs. B hung over them. A dusting of face powder drifted down like dirty snow. “Rude, ill-mannered little dollies,” she murmured, “must be taught a lesson.” She reached a scrawny hand into the shiny green purse and fumbled inside it, pulling out a small container of cotton balls.

  Dread fought with hysteria in Emmy’s stomach. What was Mrs. B going to do with those? Pat them to death?

  Mrs. B rummaged in her purse and drew out a clear bottle, gazing at it dreamily. “I’ll just soak a cotton ball, and little dollies can rub and rub my toenails until the old polish comes off …”

  Merry stopped in mid-whimper, her eyes round. “Mr. B says that’s dangerous for little girls.”

  The yellowed, bony fingers tilted the clear bottle up, then down. The liquid swirled, catching the light, and Mrs. B smiled. “But Mr. B isn’t here, now, is he?” she said, and set the bottle gently on the floor.

  Emmy stared at the bottle of nail-polish remover. Its label was at eye level. “Acetone,” it said in bold letters. “Avoid breathing fumes. Toxic to birds. Keep out of reach of children.”

  Emmy blinked. Toxic meant … poisonous.

  If acetone fumes were poisonous to birds, what might they do to someone bird size?

  Fear stabbed through her like silver ice, turning her skin cold. She leaped for the farthest shoebox and grabbed the edge of the lid with fumbling, numb hands. She levered up a foot, a knee, an elbow. She heaved, she rolled, she was on top of the box, she was almost out of reach. She would run—she would hide—

  She would abandon Merry.

  On the very edge of the box, Emmy turned.

  From three feet away, Mrs. B looked at her, smiling dreadfully. Her hand was cupped around the little girl.

  Emmy felt the strength run out of her bones. There was nothing she could do. If only the rodents under the colander were free—they would have no trouble scampering over the boxes, swarming up the shelves, even with Merry on one of their backs. If only Emmy were a rat, she could do it …

  If she were a rat. The words seemed to sizzle on her brain.

  Mrs. B was unscrewing the cap. “Dolly,” she said carelessly, “do you remember which is t
he left foot?”

  Merry nodded. She put her thumb in her mouth.

  Emmy felt a great pain, as if something inside her was squeezing, squeezing … She saw vividly the thick, orange twisted rope, the spiking thorns of the thing in her blood. It was just as knotted and horrible as the green wormy mass that had kept Miss Barmy a rat—it would keep Emmy a rodent, too, if she was foolish enough to become one.

  She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t be a rat for the rest of her life.

  Mrs. B was dripping clear liquid onto a cotton ball. A sharp, dizzying scent wafted past Emmy’s nose, lifting the tiny hairs inside. Merry, closer to the bottle, coughed.

  And suddenly Emmy saw, with piercing clarity, that if she didn’t turn into a rat—if she didn’t rescue Merry right now—then, for the rest of her life, it wouldn’t matter that she still looked human. She would feel like a rat until the day she died.

  A small sound—it might have been a sigh—worked its way up from Emmy’s chest and out her throat. She slid down off the box. She pushed her hand through one of the colander’s holes.

  “Bite it, Ratty,” she said, and shut her eyes. “Hurry!”

  She was thickening. No, parts of her were thinning. Everything was different—her arms grew short and furry—and instinctively Emmy sniffed the air. The harsh, stinging acetone was overpowering, but there were a hundred other smells, too. Each of the three rodents beneath the colander had his own unique scent; the musty attic had odors of mold and leather; and somewhere a banana was rotting slowly. She could smell the strong human odor of Mrs. B, and Merry’s scent, too, more faint …

  Merry. Emmy opened her eyes—even the colors looked different!—and located the child. She was swaying dizzily, her white dress sagging. The soaked cotton ball fell from her hands.

  Emmy’s hindquarters bunched, and she leaped powerfully. Her sharp claws dug into the soft wood of the floor. With a snarl she darted past Mrs. B’s nasty yellowed feet and snatched up Merry, clenching the little girl’s shoelace belt in strong rodent teeth.

  It was rat’s play to scrabble up on top of the boxes; it was the work of a moment to leap down and scurry along the floor. Emmy scaled the shelves by the window with the agility of a rock climber, and before Mrs. B had recovered enough to stand and pursue, Emmy had pushed Merry through the hole in the wall, and wriggled after her.

  Emmy’s whiskers brushed the asphalt shingles, giving her precise information about the surface, the slant, the amount of traction. Her sensitive ears picked up the humming of the phone line, and in an instant she had leaped onto it, balancing like an acrobat.

  It was amazing, Emmy thought, what a difference a tail made. She would have gotten a much better grade in gymnastics with one. All she had to do was stick it out to one side or the other—just a flick—and she was completely stable. She didn’t even have to think about balancing.

  But she did have to decide what to do next. Emmy crept along the swaying wire as easily as if it were a sidewalk three feet wide, carrying her precious burden, thinking hard. And suddenly there was Meg at the window, biting her nails.

  Emmy lowered the limp white form to the windowsill. “Meg,” she said, as the girl opened her mouth, “see those fishing rods in the corner? And the tackle box? Find me a spool of fishing line and a big paper clip. Hurry!”

  “Who are you?” Meg demanded. “You’re not— Emmy?”

  “Yes! Hurry!”

  Meg obeyed without question, tying the line to the paper clip as Emmy directed. “Remember—wait for two sharp tugs. Got it?”

  Meg nodded.

  “And then take Merry straight to the professor. Tell him she got a whiff of some nail-polish remover. And please send someone to let me know if she’s all right.”

  Emmy grasped the paper clip between her teeth and headed for the phone line again. She could not see much into the distance, which was actually a relief. She was just as happy not seeing how far down it was to the ground.

  But her sense of smell was keen. As Emmy crept up to the hole in the window frame, one sniff was enough to tell her that no one was hiding on the other side.

  Emmy squirmed through the hole and into the Home for Troubled Girls once more. Quietly, carefully, she pulled the fishing line behind her, and dangled gently to the floor. She moved into the shadows.

  The chemical smell of acetone was pungent in the attic room. As she moved closer, she could see that Mrs. B was doubled over in her chair.

  Had she been overcome by the fumes, too? wondered Emmy. But as she peeked through a gap in the shelves, she had to bite down hard on her paw to keep from squeaking with laughter. Mrs. B had apparently taken Emmy’s advice, and was carefully painting her toenails pink.

  Emmy crept softly to the back side of the colander, put her muzzle up to a hole, and whispered a few brief words.

  “Got it,” whispered Joe. “Get ready, you guys.”

  Noiseless and swift, Emmy climbed to the second shelf and lay flat on her furry stomach. She edged around a brown leather brogue and lowered the fishing line, with its dangling paper clip, all the way down to the colander.

  The paper clip made a tiny ting as it touched the stainless steel. Instantly a paw reached through and drew it inside.

  Mrs. B lifted her head. She glanced at the colander, but after a moment went back to her toenails. The translucent fishing line was all but invisible in the dim attic light.

  Emmy watched narrowly as one end of the paper clip was stealthily threaded out through another hole, and then back. She nodded—braced herself—and tugged on the line, two sharp tugs.

  On the other end, Meg felt them. At once she yanked back hard, pulling the fishing line until it stuck. And in the attic room, the colander flew up, the rodents dashed out, and Mrs. B began to screech.

  They glued her feet to the floor.

  Mrs. B was small by that time, naturally. While Joe and Buck and Emmy distracted her from one side, snapping and squealing with high-pitched, nerve-racking cries, Raston dashed in from the other side, settled his claws firmly into her right ankle, and got in two good bites.

  After the first bite, of course, she was able to understand what Raston and Buck were saying; it wasn’t very flattering. And as she was bitten a second time, she shrank with an ear-piercing shriek that was music to Emmy’s soul.

  But it wasn’t until Mrs. B was safely glued down, and under the heavy steel colander, too (they gnawed the fishing line until the cage fell over her with a satisfying clang), that Emmy felt the situation was fully under control.

  The four rodents sprawled some distance away, catching their breath. Now that the battle was over, Emmy felt a little awkward. She rested her furry chin on her forepaws and risked a quick glance at the others.

  They were all grinning at her.

  Relieved, Emmy grinned back. Somehow after combining forces to capture the terrible Mrs. B, they had become good friends again without needing to say anything at all.

  But of course there was still the problem of the necklace.

  “And Sissy, too,” said the Rat after the jewelry-store burglary had been explained.

  “She’s a little better,” Emmy said earnestly. “She hasn’t woken up yet, but she’s not so pale.”

  “I want to see for myself.” Raston sprang up.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go,” Joe objected. “Maybe she needs her rest.”

  Buck nodded his striped head. “And remember, we’ve got to find Emmy’s necklace and get it back.”

  “Chippy’s going to put the jewels in the tiara for the beauty contest.” Emmy tapped the floor with her claws.

  The fur on Buck’s back stood up. “Are you telling me,” he demanded, “that my brother knows those jewels are stolen? That he’s helping criminals?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Emmy. “But Miss Barmy did tell him the jewels had been in her family for generations. And he believes everything she says. Maybe he’s just a—what do you call it?”

  “A dupe,” said Buck grimly.


  “A pigeon,” added Joe.

  “A patsy,” said the Rat.

  “Downright stupid,” finished Buck. “And so is everyone in Rodent City. They’ve let themselves be blinded by a pretty rat—”

  “She’s kind of blotchy,” said the Rat. “I like a nice smooth gray myself.”

  “—and a beauty pageant, and all those seeds and nuts she’s been handing out.”

  Emmy nodded. “You know those seeds that the rodents think are so rare? That you use for money? The kitchen downstairs has whole jars full. They only cost a few dollars in human money at any grocery store.”

  “Let’s go to Rodent City and tell them!” cried Joe. “We’ll tell about the jewels, and the troubled girls, and the seeds, and everything. The Barmster won’t get to run her old beauty contest after all!”

  “I wonder if they’d listen,” said Buck slowly. “Everyone is so thrilled about the pageant. Even Mother has been sewing dresses. They won’t want to believe us.”

  “I have an idea!” the Rat said brightly. “Let’s wait until after the pageant to tell them! Everyone is so looking forward to it … and there’s going to be a theme song …”

  Emmy hid a grin. “What? Were you asked to write one?”

  “Well, yes.” The Rat lowered his eyes modestly. “And sing it, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Joe.

  “Don’t tell me you want to be a part of that three-ring circus,” Buck said with disgust. “It’s bad enough that Chippy’s involved. And that everyone else in Rodent City thinks Miss Barmy is Queen Princess Biggypants.”

  Joe snorted out loud.

  The Rat’s head shot up defensively. “It’s a good song. I spent hours getting it to rhyme.”

  “Let’s hear it, Ratty!” Emmy rolled on her stomach and propped her furry cheeks on her paws.

  The Rat stood up shyly, and dug a toe into the floor. “This is to the tune of ‘There She Is, Miss America,’ you know.” He clasped his paws behind his back, swelled his chest, and sang:

  There she is, Princess Pretty—

  There she is, your ideal …

  The dream of each lovely rat

  Here in Rodent City—

  “Listen!” said Buck suddenly. “Feel that?”