The Books of Fell

by M. E. Kerr

  Mere chance has her way,

  Mere chance!

  They ended with a thunderous “WELCOME TO SEVENS!”

  From the ceiling, a square-shaped, enormous silver tray descended slowly. On it were three top hats and three light-blue blazers with three white carnations in the buttonholes.

  Through the door from the kitchen, waiters came carrying flaming Cherries Jubilee on silver platters.

  • • •

  I walked slowly back toward Sevens House in a misty rain after. I’d hung back a little so I could walk alone. I felt good. I kept thinking of Pingree’s saying, “I was happiest right here.” I wasn’t happiest, but I was happy.

  What I liked best about getting into Sevens was that it was really just a fluke. I’d almost called my tree Adieu, which would have meant I’d have missed by two letters.

  Schwartz had named his tree after the rock star Madonna, and another guy had called his Cormier, after the man who wrote The Chocolate War.

  I could live with the reason I’d gotten into Sevens.

  • • •

  When I got inside Sevens House, the housemother came gliding across to me in a velvet robe that touched the floor, the same color as her blond hair, which was held back in a bun. She looked like some model out of a fashion ad, about to ask me to share the fantasy.

  “Are you Woodrow Pingree, Jr., dear?”

  “Yes. Only I call myself W. Thompson Pingree.

  Thompson, or Tom, for short. And you’re?”

  Not a day over thirty. Oh, I would confide all my troubles to this one. I would tell her about a Spanish poet who said life was itself a dream, and dreams are only dreams.

  “I’m Mrs. Violet. I’m glad I caught you.”

  “I’m easy to catch, Mrs. Violet.”

  “You’re not, though. I’ve been waiting and waiting for you, dear. Your mother is here.”

  “My what?”

  “Your mother.”

  “Not mine.”

  “Mrs. Pingree. Yes. She’s right outside in that big, long white limousine.” “She is?”

  “I was hoping she’d see you come in.”

  “I came up the side path. My mother? Mrs. Fern Pingree?”

  My heart was hammering under my shirt. I figured Mrs. Violet could see my blazer move in and out.

  I looked out the front door and saw a white stretch limo.

  “What a beautiful car!” said Mrs. Violet. And with a gentle push at my shoulders, she added, “You’d better hurry, dear. She’s been waiting a long time. She wouldn’t wait in our little reception area.”

  So I went back out into the misty, cold night and walked very slowly down toward the Cadillac.

  The back door opened as I approached.

  Fern Pingree sat forward in a fur over her shoulders, a white turtleneck sweater, and black leather pants, her small, almond-shaped eyes suddenly very large.

  “You!” she said.

  I tried to think of what to say. I bent down, peering into the backseat, when hands grabbed me.

  They were not her hands.

  A man I’d never seen before introduced himself by pulling me the rest of the way inside, holding me by the throat.

  He reached back and shut the car door.

  “No!” Mrs. Pingree said. “This isn’t Ping!”

  “This isn’t your son?” said the man.

  “This is John Fell,” she said. “Let go of him. We’re not taking him. Where’s Ping, Fell?”

  “Your son,” I managed to choke out, “is in Switzerland.” My neck felt as if it’d been in a vise. I moved from my knees to the small jump seat facing Mrs. Pingree and her henchman.

  The driver said, “What do we do now?” He didn’t bother to turn around when he spoke.

  “Where’s Woodrow Pingree? Ask him,” the henchman said.

  “I think I know where Woody is,” said Mrs. Pingree. “I think he’s also in Switzerland. Right, Fell?”

  “I don’t know where your husband is.”

  “Who is this kid?” the driver said.

  “It doesn’t matter to you,” said Mrs. Pingree. “He’s no use to us. Both the fish and the bait are in Switzerland. Right, Fell?”

  “Ping is,” I said. I could smell the sweet gardenia perfume she wore.

  “Yes, I’m beginning to get it now. Ping is at L’Ecole la Coeur. He’s there as you, and you’re here as Ping. Is that how it worked?”

  “I’m here as Ping,” I admitted.

  “And you last saw my husband when?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “Yes,” she said. “He went to Atlantic City about a month ago. He must have come here then.”

  The henchman said, “What do we do now?”

  “We say good night to John Fell,” said Mrs. Pingree. “Let him out!”

  chapter 19

  From The New York Times:

  BRUTT PHYSICISTS NAMED AS SPIES

  SPY RING TIPPED BY CHINESE DEFECTO

  SAN FRANCISCO — Woodrow Thompson Pingree, Sr., 58, surrendered to Federal agents here late yesterday, and was charged with passing United States intelligence secrets to the People’s Republic of China.

  Clued to the fact the Federal Bureau of Investigation was shadowing and wiretapping him and his wife, Fern, 37, as they plied their trade, Mr. Pingree was reported to be about to flee to Switzerland.

  Fern Pingree, still being sought by authorities, is the alleged ringleader of an espionage coterie that passed classified documents for nearly nine years to the Chinese. She is said to have recruited Mr. Pingree sometime after their marriage, while they were both employed at the Brutt Institute in Bellhaven, New York. There, both Pingrees were privy to highly sensitive nuclear research and had top security clearances.

  Unbeknownst to Mrs. Pingree, her husband had enrolled his son by a former marriage, Woodrow Thompson Pingree, Jr., 16, in L’Ecole la Coeur, in Switzerland, under a false name, apparently to put him out of harm’s way, and Mrs. Pingree’s reach, while he made preparations to leave the country. Apparently long reluctant to continue in the espionage work his wife was committed to, in the last six months Mr. Pingree was liquidating his holdings and disentangling himself from debts incurred by gambling.

  The defection last month of Wu Chu-Teng, 63, a double agent from the People’s Republic of China, was said to have precipitated the investigation of the Pingrees.

  “Come in, Thompson,” said J. T. Skinner. “Shut the door after you. There’s no point in calling you that anymore. What do you prefer to be called?”

  “Fell.”

  “Of course. By your last name, as all Sevens are called.”

  The headmaster of Gardner was a lot like his office: big, friendly-looking, immaculate. He even had a manicure. He had a large belly, covered by a vest with brown-and-white checks, and a gold Phi Beta Kappa key. He had on one of those unpressed tweed suits that made him look relaxed and slightly English. He was bald and gray eyed, with a ruddy complexion.

  He sat back in a leather swivel chair behind his mahogany desk and pointed to the straight-backed chair in front of his desk. I sat down in it.

  Behind him, through his office window, I could see snow coming down from the late-afternoon sky.

  “Well, Fell, I’ve talked with the FBI agents, as you have. We’d better have our talk now that some of the smoke has cleared away. You’d better thank your lucky stars that you made Sevens.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m a legacy, you know. When I came to The Hill as a boy, it was my dream to make Sevens. My father was a Sevens.”

  “I didn’t know that, sir.”

  “He told me not to count on it, and not to think there was anything wrong with me if I didn’t make it, but I was still very disappointed. You know how a boy feels — that he can’t measure up to his old man.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you hadn’t made Sevens, you’d be a very disappointed young man, too — assuming that you like it here. Do you?”

>   “Yes, I do, sir.”

  “You’d be held reprehensible for enrolling at Gardner under a false identity. I’d probably have to expel you. I can’t expel a Sevens. You made it. Young Pingree didn’t. So you’re under the protection of Sevens. Of course, I could ask you to resign.”

  “Are you, sir?”

  “No, I’m not, Fell.”

  I watched the snow come down behind him.

  He said, “Of course, if the Sevens didn’t want you among them, they could make it very uncomfortable for you. There was a case like that a few years back. There was a Sevens member suspected of dealing cocaine. While he was under investigation we couldn’t touch him, even though we knew he was guilty. Sevens gave him an immunity from immediate disciplinary measures. But the Sevens made life so unbearable for him that he resigned. That won’t happen to you, according to Schwartz. The boys are behind you.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, sir.”

  “You have a good record. You won the N.B.C. competition, too…. I’m a little curious about that, Fell. I know you’re probably tired by now of being questioned, but did the infamous Fern Pingree coach you about life in a Japanese internment camp?”

  “No, she didn’t, sir. I hardly knew her.”

  “The newspapers say her grandfather died at Jerome, in Arizona, back in World War Two.”

  “I didn’t see that article. I only saw the write-up in The Times.”

  “I’ll give you what I’ve got there on my desk, if you’re interested. There’s a lot more being written about her now in Time, Newsweek, and the tabloids.”

  “I’d like to look at it.”

  “They still haven’t found her.”

  “I should think she’d have been easy to find in that white stretch Caddy she showed up here in.”

  “She rented that in Philadelphia. That’s where they lost her trail. Oh, they’ll find her,” he said. “I was just curious what you know about her.”

  “No more than I told the FBI agents,” I said. I’d been grilled by them for hours on the morning after Mrs. Pingree had made her attempt to kidnap Ping. They’d explained that if she’d gotten Ping, Pingree would have kept his mouth shut about anything to do with the espionage operation at Brutt. Now he’d probably cooperate in exchange for immunity or a lighter sentence.

  “And Woodrow Pingree,” said Dr. Skinner, picking up a gold letter opener to pass from hand to hand while he talked, “what did you think of him?”

  “I liked him, sir. It’s impossible for me to believe he sold secrets to China. I didn’t even know he was a gambler.”

  “All around he’s not casting the best light on Gardner,” Skinner said with an ironic chuckle.

  “He always said he was happiest here.”

  “I have no doubt, considering what came later. I looked him up in his yearbook. Want to see?”

  He passed across the light blue leather-bound book with THE HILL BOOK, 1944 stamped across it in white.

  There was a rubber band holding back page 23.

  There was a photograph of this dark-haired kid with a faint smile on his face and bright, earnest eyes.

  WOODROW THOMPSON PINGREE

  SEWICKLEY, PENNSYLVANIA

  “WOODY”

  First Prize Westinghouse Science Talent Search ‘43;

  Student Council ‘43; Captain, Baseball ‘43; Secretary,

  Current Events Club ‘43; Upper School Tennis

  Champion — Singles ‘43; Highest Average in Form ‘44;

  Cum Laude ‘43, ‘44; Upper School Tennis Champion —

  Doubles ‘44; Science Club President ‘44; Senior House

  Prefect ‘44; Choir ‘43, ‘44.

  Ambition: To be a good Marine.

  Remembered For: Ask Sara!

  Slogan: Semper Fidelis!

  Future Occupation: Move over, Einstein!

  I gave the book back to Skinner.

  “You just never know, do you?” Skinner said.

  “I think she did it to him.”

  “Nobody does it to you, Fell. You do it to yourself. You have choices. You make your own choices.”

  “But he was under her spell. Even the papers said she recruited him.”

  “According to the tabloids, he wasn’t under her spell recently.” He’d picked up the letter opener again and was playing with it as he talked. “What’s the real Ping like?”

  “He’s interested in magic. He didn’t like her, either. There were some rumors that she was responsible for his mother’s death.”

  “I read about that. They were out in a boat together when the first Mrs. Pingree was drowned.”

  “Where did you read that?”

  “It’s all in these magazines and papers. Here, take them with you.” He leaned forward in his swivel chair and picked them off a pile on his desk. They were all open to the pages with the write-ups on the Pingrees. As he passed them across to me I caught glimpses of Fernwood Manor, Pingree with his arm around Fern Pingree, and one of Pingree with Ping.

  I could pick out random sentences.

  … They never lived ostentatiously — Fern Pingree bought her wardrobe off the rack….

  … She was an old-school spy, doing it out of conviction, long embittered by old memories of her Japanese grandfather’s World War II internment, by Hiroshima, and by a belief that the United States was anti-Asian in its Vietnam policies, as well …

  … He was her opposite, the modern spy, convictionless, and only in it for the reported $300,000 paid them over the years, a gambler with vast real estate holdings on Long Island, in Atlantic City, and Nevada, and …

  Dr. Skinner said, “You’ll have time to look at all of that later, Fell.”

  It was hard for me to stop thumbing through what was on my lap.

  “Are the other boys treating you well, Fell?” Skinner asked.

  “Very well. They’re just full of questions.”

  … reports of a romantic involvement that was also said to have prompted Pingree’s withdrawal from his wife’s espionage …

  “You’d be wise to tell the other boys you can’t talk about the matter, Fell, and be sure not to talk to any reporters. This isn’t the kind of publicity Gardner seeks.”

  “I realize that, sir. I’ll be careful.”

  “Another thing, Fell. You can’t continue as a junior. You’ll have to be entered as a senior and make up any back work on your own time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I’d shifted in the chair so I could turn the copy of Time around and see what was on the next page.

  That was when I saw her.

  “You’ll have a lot of homework ahead on your Christmas vacation,” said Skinner.

  It was Delia, in a raincoat, with a scarf around her long black hair, a cigarette going in one hand, a large satchel over the other arm.

  Delia Tremble, 25, questioned in Zurich about her relationship to Pingree, says, “I’ll stand by him forever.”

  “So far,” Skinner said, “you haven’t made the news, but I suppose they’ll get around to it.” “I suppose so,” I said.

  … began two years ago when the pair met in Atlantic City, where Pingree went to gamble. Miss Tremble denies knowing anything about the Brutt operation, but admits she was helping Pingree escape.

  chapter 20

  Everyone in my family’s so strange — I didn’t pay much attention to your strangeness. That’s how you got away with it,” Dib said. “My strangeness?”

  “The gun. I would have thought harder about the gun.”

  “And what else?”

  “Your interest in cooking. Remember, once I asked you who taught you to cook, and you said your mother. Then in another conversation, you said you’d worked in a gourmet shop and gotten your interest in cooking there.”

  “No one’s perfect. But I’m not so different now, am I?”

  “You’re more popular. First Sevens, then this. You’ve become a star at The Hill.”

  “The public is fickle, though, Dib. After C
hristmas I’ll be the senior who can’t keep up with his class.”

  We were on the bus to Trenton, New Jersey. I had a wire from Keats in my pocket.

  MUST SEE YOU HOPE YOU CAN COME TO ADIEU OVER HOLIDAYS ALL IS FORGIVEN DADDY SAYS OR I’LL DRIVE INTO BROOKLYN DID I SAY I’D ACTUALLY GO TO BROOKLYN OH FELL ONLY YOU CAN LIFT ME FROM MY DEPRESSING DOLDRUMS AND YES I WANT TO HEAR ALL ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS DELIA WILL YOU TELL ME THINE UNTIL DEATH KEATS

  “Anyway,” Dib said, “you’re not a star in Lasher’s eyes, are you?”

  “No, not in his.” I’d heard he was the only Sevens who voted for my resignation.

  “Creery says he calls you Felon behind your back.”

  “And to my face.”

  “Maybe he’ll lay off Creery for a while and concentrate on you. The new snake in the grass.” “Probably.”

  “By the way, I overheard a knockdown fight between them while all this upheaval was going on. I’d gone over to Sevens House looking for you…. Lasher was accusing Creery of getting help getting into Sevens.” Dib looked over at me to get my reaction. “Can you get help?”

  “I’m not going to talk about Sevens.”

  “Lasher shouted at Creery, ‘Your father helped you and his helped him!’“

  “I don’t know anything about it,” I said. But I’d wondered about something like that. If Pingree’d been a Sevens, for example, and if Ping had gone to Gardner, would Pingree have told Ping about choosing a seven-letter word for his tree … or would he have been honorable and not told him? And I laughed to myself. Honorable. Pingree … That was like saying Hot. Snow.

  “Sorry I mentioned it,” said Dib, “but your name came up, too.”

  “How did I get into it?”

  “Lasher said, ‘You and Pingree don’t belong in Sevens! Neither of you got in honestly!’ Then it sounded like they were knocking each other around the room, and Lasher was shouting, ‘I’ll kill you!’ I made tracks at that point, scared they’d spill out into the hall.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He’s going to have it in for me. That’s the least of my worries right now.”

  “Fell?” Dib said. “Listen, I never said I was sorry about Delia.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “I didn’t know if you wanted to talk about it.”