by Anne Nesbet
And the spell seemed to be Josie’s singing!
All these people here might have heard that song before, but they had never heard it sung like this, by a girl whose voice was so nightingale-sweet and honey-smooth. They were entirely won over. They were entranced. They seemed to lean forward, soaking up the beauty of it, and at the end, the whole theater erupted into cheers and applause that seemed like it would never end. Gusta and Josie had to take their own individual bows, and they also had a couple of bows together. Josie was glowing with happiness — really, she was incandescent! It had not been a long concert, but it had been glorious.
Gusta could see how happiness was lighting up Josie’s face as if she were a lantern with a perfect candle new-kindled inside. Surely this was a golden moment (unless you were Gusta, about to do one right thing). All those high-school kids, the band members and the string players, were lingering on the stage and being just as sweet as could be.
“That was so gorgeous!” they said to Josie, “That was beautiful!”— and even “How’d you ever learn to play that horn like that, kiddo?” to Gusta — and the whole crowd of those musicians was aglow in the thrill of having played so well, and having made that audience so happy.
“Oh, if only Mrs. Hoopes had been here!” said Josie to Gusta. “And Miss Marion! Oh! Let’s hurry home and tell them all about it. Come on, Gusta —”
“Just a moment, just a moment,” said Gusta, and she made a sort of mumbling gesture in the general direction of the music room. “I’ll be back. I’ll be back in a minute, Josie. Just wait here a minute, won’t you?”
Because first Gusta had to fulfill a bargain as hard as any in a fairy tale: she had to let go of her horn — which was just another way of saying she had to let go of her voice and her heart.
Gusta slipped out the stage’s side door and trotted through the halls of the school to the music room at the back of the building, her horn bumping against her shins — for the last time, perhaps.
To tell the truth, her hand was not very steady as she opened the music room door. Miss Kendall looked over in her direction and smiled. “Gusta! That was wonderful! How proud you must be, dear.”
Gusta took a step forward, and another step forward.
Uncle Charlie, she thought sternly.
“Miss Kendall,” she said, “I brought you the horn.”
And she held it out in front of her, like you might bring a roast turkey to a Thanksgiving table on a fancy old platter.
“Oh, Gusta!” said Miss Kendall. “Really? Are you sure you want to do this? I know how much your horn must mean to you.”
Gusta made herself nod.
A hundred dollars was so much money: enough for an operation to loosen up a scar-bound hand.
It was the right thing to do. The right thing to do.
Anything else was merely wishful thinking — and couldn’t be counted on.
“But you’ll take good care of it, won’t you, Miss Kendall?” she added.
“Well, yes, of course,” said Miss Kendall. “I’ll do my utmost to see that the students treat it with proper respect. With the respect it deserves. And that you deserve, Augusta. You are a true musician and, if I may say so, a very good niece. I do hope your poor uncle will now get the help he needs.”
Gusta blinked. And blinked again.
Uncle Charlie. That was right. She had to keep her mind firmly on him.
Miss Kendall was already reaching for her satchel. It was really happening. She produced five twenty-dollar bills, which she counted into Gusta’s hand. One, two, three, four, five. Gusta now had a hundred dollars in her fist.
A hundred dollars was an enormous amount of money.
Enough for Uncle Charlie’s hand.
She set the horn in its case gently down on the floor.
“Thank you, Miss Kendall,” she whispered, and she turned and ran blindly out of the music room.
But she didn’t get more than ten feet past the swinging door before she ran right into a man in a sturdy sort of overcoat. Oh, no!
She was numb at this point, and her eyes, even with her glasses on, weren’t seeing very clearly. But she had the terrible feeling that she recognized this person, and when he spoke aloud, she knew she did know him.
“What is this?” he said, and he closed his thick-fingered hand around Gusta’s wrist — the wrist of the hand that was holding the five twenty-dollar bills Miss Kendall had just counted out. “You! You!”
It was Mr. Kendall, and he was so furious that his cheeks were flushing red, as if that secret map of splotches had been lurking under his skin all this time, just waiting for enough anger to bring it out.
He grabbed the money out of Gusta’s hand and was examining it now in obvious rage and disgust. “More blackmail?” he shouted. “That’s what you’re about, is it? Threatening to tell everyone everything, if you don’t get paid. Well, hear me now, you poisonous little devil-child: you won’t get away with it!”
He shook Gusta with his other hand until her teeth chattered.
“Stop, stop, please, stop,” she kept saying, but he didn’t stop.
“Couldn’t get money from me, could you? So you come after my sister instead! Of all the conniving, deceitful, wicked —”
“Freddy!”
Miss Kendall had flung open the music room door. She stood there, frozen like a waxwork statue for a moment in horror.
“What are you doing?” she said to Mr. Kendall, who turned away from Gusta (thank goodness) to sputter his rage in Miss Kendall’s direction.
“Don’t think I don’t blame you, too, Grace,” he hissed at her. “You let this happen! You let yourself be led down that daisy path — putting these venomous creatures, these vipers, in the limelight like you did tonight!”
“Vipers!” said Miss Kendall. “Freddy! Whatever can you be talking about, I’d like to know?”
“It was those Hoopes girls’ idea, this musical number of yours, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it? They fed the plan to you, like feeding a hook to a codfish. And you bit, didn’t you? A spectacle! To make me look like a fool! ‘Moon Love’? In that girl’s voice! Why, it’s pure slander! And then I come back here to find this one has been blackmailing you —”
“What horrible things you’re saying,” said Miss Kendall. “I don’t understand any of it. This is my annual spring concert at the high school, Fred. Of course I organized the program myself — and surely it has nothing to do with you.”
He wasn’t shaken at all. He was so thoroughly certain he knew what was going on. “Is that so? Well! This ugly little girl here”— and he gave Gusta one last shake for good measure —“this girl you had up there onstage playing that twisted tuba thing —”
French horn, thought Gusta, indignantly. He could call Gusta whatever he wanted, but he had no right to say anything nasty about her horn.
“This very girl was in my office yesterday, down at the mills, threatening me. They’re trying to shake money out of us, whichever way they can. That’s what they’re up to.”
Gusta gasped. It was so far from the truth, what he was saying. “That’s not —” she said, and Mr. Kendall gave her wrist a cruel twist.
“You going to deny it? Oh, that’s how you operate, all you Hoopes women: always deceiving and threatening and denying.”
“Please, Fred. Stop this! You’re talking about a child!” said Miss Kendall.
“This is no child,” said Mr. Kendall. “This here is a viper, pretending to be a child. If I don’t keep paying them money, they’ll spread the vilest gossip all around town. That’s what this child said.”
“What?” said Gusta. She was taken aback. She had said nothing of the sort.
“What?” said Miss Kendall (but her what meant something different than Gusta’s). “Whatever is this all about, Freddie? I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“You’d better wise up,” said Mr. Kendall. “Just because I lost my head for a moment over that Marion Hoopes, years ago, now they want t
o shout all over town that the girl’s mine. That Josie you’re so gaga about!”
“Please don’t go bringing Josie into this,” said Miss Kendall. “Josie has such talent — a hardworking, good-hearted girl.”
“Another Hoopes viper, that’s what she is!” said Mr. Kendall. “And haven’t I paid enough? Haven’t I paid enough? How much more do they want from me? Coming to my office with their threats. Didn’t you, you awful girl? Tell her, tell her the truth!”
Miss Kendall looked at Gusta, at her brother, and then back at Gusta again.
“Augusta?” she said. Her voice was weak.
“It’s not how he’s saying, Miss Kendall,” said Gusta, her heart pounding lickety-split in her chest. “We only went to see him to ask for help for my uncle. To pay for his hand.”
“See?” said Mr. Kendall, a triumphant bellow. “She admits it: threats and blackmail! Slandering our good name all around town.”
Gusta shook her head, but what could she do against the brute force of Mr. Kendall? He was so angry, and so confident in his version of the story. And worse: horror was spreading over Miss Kendall’s face.
“Oh, Gusta,” she said. “So it’s true? You went to the mills? Making threats against my brother? For money? But I can hardly believe it.”
“Oh, you’d better believe it,” said Mr. Kendall.
And Gusta could see it happening, right there before her: those awful lies and half lies were sinking right in through Miss Kendall’s skin like poison. They were becoming lies that she believed.
That was where something broke in Gusta. She had wanted to be brave. She had wanted to make things better. But everywhere she turned, she just made things worse.
We don’t always know who we are going to be when the storm breaks over us. There was nothing Gusta could think of to say, nothing she could do; Mr. Kendall would simply twist it all and make something ugly of it.
She had tried to be true, to be Gusta, even in the light of trouble. And she had failed.
So Gusta turned and fled.
It was only when she was already out the main high-school doors that she realized that she had come away without those five twenty-dollar bills.
Miss Kendall had kept her horn, and Mr. Kendall had taken her money.
Josie was still radiant the next morning as they all walked to school; Gusta much, much less so.
“I don’t know, Gusta,” Aunt Marion had said, looking at her with exhaustion and worry. “You sure you’re well enough for school? You don’t look right to me. What am I going to do if more of you come down with the flu?”
“We won’t, we won’t,” promised Josie, and Gusta just shook her head. She didn’t need the influenza to feel like she was being wrung dry.
It was a strange, strange day, all around.
During mathematics, a student aide poked her head in through the door and said the main office needed to see Augusta Neubronner, please. She mangled the pronunciation of Gusta’s name. A profound hush blanketed the classroom. Every student was wondering, as always happened when someone was called out of class, what offense had been committed and what the punishment might be.
“Perhaps it’s about your solo last night?” said Miss Hatch with a smile. “You know I was there, dear. You certainly did our fifth grade proud.”
The students sank back into their chairs. Mostly they were relieved on Gusta’s behalf, which spoke well for them. A few were undoubtedly disappointed to have the excitement fizzle so fast.
Gusta, however, felt a knot of dread tighten in her stomach. She didn’t want to talk about her horn solo. She had already forgotten all the sweet parts of yesterday. The sweetness was gone. She didn’t want to think about what had happened the night before, not any of it.
The principal of Jefferson Elementary School was named Mr. Wallace Jones, and all Gusta knew about him was what the boys had told her: that he was mean and unfair, and that he had fingers missing from his right hand, like the old movie star Harold Lloyd. The boys argued about whether it was one finger or two fingers. They had apparently had enough visits to the principal’s office to fuel an argument on the subject. It was “awfully disrespectful,” said Josie, the way those boys talked about the principal of their school.
On the other hand, Gusta, now seated in front of the daunting figure of Principal Jones, was some tiny percent distracted from her discomfort and worry by the thought that if he moved that hand of his over another inch or two, the hand holding the copy of today’s Tribune, she might be able to count those fingers herself.
“Miss Augusta Neubronner,” said Principal Jones, and he actually gave the paper something of a shake. “I do not like to learn that a student in my school has been keeping secrets from us. Perhaps you can explain?”
Gusta was confused. Had the concert been written up in the newspaper? Sometimes that did happen. But never so fast. The concert had only been hours ago. And it wasn’t so much a secret, anyway. And the principal’s voice, his words, none of it seemed like what a person would say on his way to complimenting one of his pupils on her excellent performance of a Tchaikovsky horn solo.
“I — don’t know, Mr. Jones,” said Gusta. “The concert at the high school — that was just because the music teacher asked me —”
“Concert?” said Principal Jones. “What concert? I am talking about secrets, ugly secrets. And misdirection. I have received a letter of complaint this morning, Miss Neubronner. Delivered by hand. From one of the town’s most upstanding citizens.”
It was as if he had just wandered into the drought-parched woods that was Gusta’s soul, made a feint with a watering can, and instead lit a match.
Inside Gusta, everything flared up all at once in alarm.
“And this upstanding citizen tells me some things about one of my elementary pupils that I find, Miss Neubronner, to be extremely grave. Even disturbing. That you invaded his office, interrupting his work, and proceeded to threaten him, because of a family grudge against the man’s business interests, which, if I may be very plain about it, form the central engine of our local economy. Miss Neubronner! Let me make one thing very clear: Jefferson Elementary does not tolerate misbehavior of any sort. We punish truants, we punish those who waste paper or break pencils, we punish those who pull a classmate’s hair. But it is entirely beyond the pale — it is absolutely unthinkable — that one of our students should attempt to bring down a pillar of our little community in this reprehensible and egregious manner. I am telling you now: we will not stand for it, Miss Neubronner. Threatening local pillars? We will not stand for it. This letter will go into your school records file, Miss Neubronner. We will be watching you.”
Into the pause, Gusta slipped one thin-edged phrase: “But it’s not true.”
She was amazed that she had managed even that much. It was almost a miracle.
Principal Jones slapped the top of his desk with the five fingers of his left hand.
“Not true?” he said. “Let us examine the evidence. Did you pay a visit to the Kendall Mills offices on this Wednesday, with another smaller, defenseless child in tow? Don’t deny it! There are witnesses.”
“I did go to the mills,” said Gusta. “But I wasn’t threatening anyone. I was just there to — to ask him to do what was right.”
“To make threats,” said the principal flatly. “Since you are an essentially deceitful person. And how do we know that?”
He tapped the folded newspaper on his desk.
“Right here. You have not been honest with us, Augusta Neubronner. You have not been honest about who you are. But today the truth has come out.”
He flipped the newspaper over. And there, staring out at her from the front page, was Gusta’s own papa.
She gasped, of course. Her hand went out toward the paper, but not fast enough. Principal Jones had already pulled the newspaper away. She could no longer see the photograph of her father. She could only see the boldest of the other headlines: PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT: HITLER A THREAT TO AMERICA
S — TIME TO PREPARE IS NOW.
“You, Augusta, are the only offspring of the notorious fugitive August Neubronner.”
Forest fires can go from a spark to outright conflagration in less time than it takes for an egg to boil. The trees were burning now in Gusta’s soul, almost as far as a person could see. But in all that fire, there was one cleft in the rock, one little cave a person might hide in, at least for a time, and that was the word fugitive.
A fugitive is someone who has not yet been caught.
She couldn’t say anything aloud, though. The oxygen was being stolen by the fire inside her. She could hardly breathe, much less speak.
“I find it surprising that you would think no one would ever discover what sort of person you are,” said Principal Jones. “But we do know now, and I promise you: You will toe the line here. You will not be allowed to corrupt your classmates, to terrorize the people of this town, or indeed to misbehave in any way, large or small. Consider yourself duly warned. That is all.”
Stranger and stranger: when distressed, discombobulated Gusta slipped back into her classroom, she was met by applause.
Oh, she couldn’t understand anything today. She tumbled into her seat and tried not to let the fire still smoldering inside her leak out in any way. She looked very hard at the Scottie dogs on the wall, just past the head of Miss Hatch, and focused on not letting any of her turbulent thoughts show.
“I was just informing the class,” said Miss Hatch, “because somebody asked —”
Georges made the tiniest little sound from the rear of the room, but from that tiny sound, Gusta knew that the somebody who had asked must have been Molly Gowen — whatever the question was.
“Somebody asked about the ‘Vision of America’ essays, about which two will be read by their authors as part of our Patriotic Pageant. And I said I was happy to announce, and I am very happy to announce, that your essay, Augusta, is one of our class’s two best.”
“Along with mine,” said Georges Thibodeau.
