The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

by E. L. Konigsburg

  Jake laughed. “I wish I could agree,” he said. “But thanks for the compliment.” I started to leave, and Jake called after me, “Let’s eat lunch under the towers. Sound like a plan?”

  Worried that I would sound like a fool if I told him how good a plan I thought it was, I answered, “Okay with me. If you want to.”

  The anticipation of sharing lunch with Jake in the Tower Garden was tamping down the bad news I was holding inside me, and thinking about Jake’s plan for my ceiling was crowding out the possibility of my thinking up a plan for Phase One.

  Jake hopped down from the scaffold and reached for the fan. He set it down on the plank of his scaffold and tossed me the cord. “I don’t suppose this will reach from here to the outlet,” he said. “I better set it on the floor, and tilt it up. Next week, I’ll bring an extension cord.”

  “The Uncles have miles of extension cords,” I said. “They used to work on the towers at night. I’ll bring you one.”

  Jake murmured thanks and turned his attention to the book of roses. He laid the glass globe on the bed and spread the photocopies out on top of the dresser. On a piece of cardboard, he measured off five inches on one side and six on the other. With a craft knife, he cut a window in the cardboard. He held the window over the copy of the rose so that the pistils and stamens were in the center—the same spot as the overhead light in the room. He traced the outline of the cardboard window right onto the photocopy and then, with a very fine pen, drew a half-inch graph on the color copy. There were ten squares in one direction and twelve in the other, just like the grid on the bedroom ceiling.

  “Now, on each ceiling square, I will draw an outline of what I see in the corresponding square here,” he explained. “When I’m ready to paint, I will do the same with the colors. I hope to get a good start on my drawing today,” he said. He untied the bandanna from around his forehead and wiped his face. “Why don’t you find those extension cords for us?” he asked.

  I heard an echo of Mrs. Kaplan in that us, and, willing gofer that I had been just minutes ago, I went reluctantly to look for the cords. I returned to the dining room and kicked the box with the handcuffs and duct tape. What was the matter with me? Just minutes ago, I was anxious for Uncle Alex to leave so that I could be alone with Jake. Just minutes ago I was ready to fix us a nice picnic tray so that we could eat lunch under the towers. I seemed to like us but not us. Maybe Mrs. Kaplan and Nurse Louise were right. Maybe I was incorrigible after all. I kicked the box again and rattled the chain of the handcuffs. Then I remembered that the Uncles kept their extension cords in the basement.

  I found yards and yards of yellow wire coiled into a nest on the floor next to the pile of wooden planks that the Uncles had used to create their workstation. I did not know that a coil of wires could be too heavy for me to lift, so I looked for a place where two lengths of cord had been joined. I found one and then another and another. I needed only one of those lengths—after all, my bedroom was not that large, and the cord would not have to reach farther than halfway across. Untangling it was not easy, for the wire was not wound neatly into a spool but in layers that crossed over and under themselves. I decided to take my time bringing us the extension cord, so I sat down on the pile of boards and studied the coil until I found a free end, and I began to unwind.

  I remembered that when the Uncles were putting the clock face on Tower Three, they had laid the boards across the rungs so that when they stood, they could easily reach the top. My mother told me that she and Loretta Bevilaqua had sometimes climbed up to one of the platforms and would use it as a tree house of sorts until the Uncles had to move the boards to their next workstation.

  I had loosened one whole length of extension cord. It was as twisted as a strand of DNA, but at least it was separated from the mass. I held one end between my thumb and forefinger and wound it around my elbow, as I had seen my uncles doing. I stood beside the pile of lumber—winding, winding—absently thinking about the planks that had once been a platform and would no longer be one ... except... except... except, of course! The planks would again be a platform. They would be my platform. They would be my tree house of sorts. By the time I finished winding, I had a plan.

  I was excited. I had a plan. I would take possession of the towers—nine points of the law—and prove they were safe at the same time.

  I ran upstairs with the extension cord and quickly plugged one end to the fan and the other to the wall. Breathless with excitement, I said, “We have to talk.”

  Jake, who was carefully making lines on the second of the photocopies, held his pencil in midair and continued to look at the drawing. “Sure,” he said. “Let’s talk. What do you want to talk about?”

  “Money”

  “I don’t have enough to talk about. End of conversation.” He glanced over at the fan. “That works really well. Thanks.”

  “I want a refund from Camp Talequa.”

  He laughed. “I think your uncle and my mother already settled that between them. Tillie Kaplan does not give refunds.”

  “I need a refund. Really, really need it.”

  Putting his pencil behind his ear, he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Margaret Rose, I really, really hate to tell you this, but the last two people to get a refund from Camp Talequa were the parents of the girl who came down with Lyme disease the second day of camp. They blamed the deer ticks in the woods near the camp even though no one had been near the woods and even though the girl’s symptoms could not possibly have shown up that fast. But these were not ordinary parents. They were lawyers. Both of them. They sent Tillie a letter on cream-colored, heavy-bond stationery that was just one step short of parchment. They politely requested a refund of their full deposit. They didn’t even threaten to sue—they didn’t need to—their letterhead said enough. They got a check by return mail.”

  “You mean that lawyers can scare even Mrs. Kaplan?”

  “Tillie Kaplan would rather risk bungee jumping off the Verrazano Bridge than risk a lawsuit from a husband-and-wife team of lawyers with killer stationery.”

  I thought, My uncles have lawyers to the left and lawyers to the right who have tasteful wooden signs that are just as lethal as any letterhead. “My situation also involves lawyers,” I said, “and I need a refund.”

  “You may also need a lawyer to plead your case.”

  “How about the cash that my mother and father put in my personal Camp Talequa account, the money they left with her for my incidental needs like candy bars and postage stamps? I didn’t spend any of it.”

  “Oh, that money! You mean your uncle didn’t take it with him when he brought you back?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “I can take care of that. You won’t even have to send a threatening letter.”

  “When?”

  “Right after you tell me what you need it for.” “I’ve got to get supplies.”

  “Supplies for what?”

  “For camping out.”

  “I thought you were finished with that for the rest of the summer.”

  “This is not recreational. This is business. Serious business.”

  “Oh,” Jake said. “Serious business. Well, that changes everything.”

  Serious business. I wondered again if he was being sarcastic. “I need your attention, Jake,” I said. “I need you to listen to me—really listen, really, really listen—and you’ll see that what I have to say is serious enough to be a matter of life and death.”

  “A matter of life and death? Well now, that does sound serious.”

  Two sarcasms, and I was sure that he had a syndrome and that I was falling out of love. I took a deep breath. “I wouldn’t ask for your help if I didn’t need it.”

  “Do you want to discuss this over lunch?” Now all the mockery was gone from his voice. “Let me wash up,” he said as he started toward the bathroom. I stood there, waiting. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the Tower Garden.”

  “In the kitchen,” I
said.

  “I thought we had a plan.”

  “I prefer the kitchen,” I said.

  “Whatever you prefer,” he said, and waited for me to return his smile.

  I did. No reason not to. I had his attention.

  Even when the news was bad—as this surely was—I always got a certain shudder of excitement, which is called a frisson, at being the first to tell. I was embarrassed that this was so, but not so embarrassed that I did not feel my blood warm at the drama of what I had to say—and at what I guessed would be Jake’s reaction to it.

  I was not disappointed. He bounded up from his chair and lifted it, jammed it back down onto the floor, sat down with a thump, and pounded the table. “Who are these Philistines?”

  “The neighbors. They’re lawyers.”

  “They can’t do this!”

  Feeling very grown up, I replied, “Yes, they can. They can unless we stop them.” I told him about my conversations with Peter Vanderwaal and Loretta Bevilaqua, and how each of them had told me that step one was to stop the demolition. “Possession is nine points of the law,” I explained, “so I am going to buy the towers as Loretta said I should, and then I am going to occupy them. Will you help?”

  I told Jake what I hoped to do, and we discussed it as equals. We made a list and checked it twice. After we reviewed who would do what and when, Jake said, “Sounds like a plan.” And we shook hands on it.

  When Jake was ready to head back to Camp Talequa, I walked out to the alley with him. He looked up at Tower Two. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Are you scared?”

  I nodded again.

  “Good,” he said. “If you’re scared, you won’t get careless.”

  nineteen

  I got through dinner without mentioning the towers even once, and afterward Uncle Alex and I took Tartufo for his walk. “Tartufo likes to walk at night,” he said. “In Italy where he was born, they train truffle dogs mostly at night because the tartufai, the truffle hunters, like to keep their best locations secret. People have been known to kidnap prize truffle dogs. Truffle hunting is a very competitive business. The season is short, and the rewards are high. There is safety in secrets.”

  “What if Tartufo never finds any truffles, Uncle?”

  “I don’t care. He keeps me doing something from within myself for the sake of something that is not. Tartufo is good company.”

  “Uncle Morris doesn’t think so.”

  “Yes, he does. That’s his secret, édes Margitkám. We’ll let him keep it.”

  “Doing something from within yourself for something that is not—is that why you built the towers?”

  “Probably. They kept Morris and me going through some bad times. It was good having something that was common to both of us and was its own thing besides. Other people have children they raise. The children are from both parents, but also someone in their own right. They are good company while you have them, but you have to let them go.”

  “Like the towers, Uncle? Is that why you don’t care that the towers are coming down?”

  Uncle Alex stopped short, but Tartufo kept going, tugging on the leash. Without looking at me, he resumed walking. “So you know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I guess I should be relieved. Neither Morris nor I could bring ourselves to tell you.”

  “Because you really do care.”

  “Of course we care. But it’s like having kids or like having Tartufo. Having had them is more important than keeping them. Can you understand that, édes Margitkám?”

  “Not really.”

  “Maybe it will take a few more years.”

  “A few more years? I thought they were going to start next week.”

  “I mean, a few more years for you to understand that ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tennyson.”

  “Was he an artist?”

  “No. A poet who lost a dear friend.” I reached over for Uncle’s hand. “Yeah,” he said, lifting my hand to his lips and kissing my fingertips. “Friends, sisters, towers. Loved and lost. There’s nothing more to say.”

  When we returned to the house, Uncle Alex said to Uncle Morris, “She knows.”

  “You told her?”

  “I did not.”

  “Then how does she know?”

  I hated having people talk about me in the third person as if I weren’t there. “Why don’t you ask me?”

  “So?” Uncle Morris asked. “You found out how?”

  By careful editing, leaving out as much as I put in, I told them how I had found out. I worried whether not telling them my plans was a lie and decided that it wasn’t. It was a secret. And hadn’t Uncle just said that there is safety in secrets? Feeling relieved about telling the truth but not the whole truth, I asked my uncles if they would sell me the towers for a dollar a piece. (As part of our afternoon planning, Jake had given me a cash advance on the refund I was due from Talequa.)

  “Why do you want them, Margitkám? You will have the house. It’s in our will that you will inherit the house. The towers? They are not worth anything at all. They are what we call in business a liability.”

  “Not to me. I want to say they’re mine even if it is only for a little while. Like having children.”

  Uncle Alex, who caught the reference and was touched by it, said, “Morris, the child wants them. Give them to her.”

  “No,” I insisted. “I must buy them. I have the money.”

  “All right,” he said. Then, turning to his brother, he said, “Alex, you write up a paper.”

  “And we’ll get it notarized.”

  “Notarized? Where did you learn of such things?”

  I did my best imitation of the Old World shrug. “Sixth grade.”

  The following morning my uncles and I made a trip to the bank where they normally did their Time Zone business. Mr. McDowell, their loan officer, made out an official bill of sale. Before I turned over my three dollars to complete the sale, Mr. McDowell asked my uncles, “Does this niece of yours realize that if anyone gets hurt as a result of something falling from them or if anyone falls off of them, she can be sued?”

  I truly hated being talked about as if I weren’t there. I said, “We have a fence and a vicious dog to keep them out. If they get in, they’ll be trespassing.”

  Mr. McDowell still wouldn’t talk to me. “Does your niece know that the towers have been condemned?”

  “Condemned?” I asked. “Condemned to die like someone guilty of a crime?”

  That got his attention, and at last he addressed me. “In the case of a building, it means unfit for use by official order.”

  “Unfit for use! How stupid! The towers have no use. My mother says that they don’t need to be useful. She says that they are superfluous and that is their power because, without them, our world would be less beautiful and a lot less fun.”

  Mr. McDowell said, “She’s a sassy one, isn’t she?”

  “She?” Uncle Alex asked. “You must not mean our Margaret Rose. Our Margaret Rose isn’t sassy. She’s incorrigible.”

  Mr. McDowell cleared his throat and notarized the bill of sale.

  twenty

  For the next five days, between the time that Uncle Alex left for the Time Zone and the time Uncle Morris returned, I laid in supplies. I already had a rain poncho, a sleeping bag, sunblock, and mosquito repellent among the stuff that I had brought back from Talequa.

  I bought quantities of bottled water, trail mix, beef jerky, and towelettes. These items required multiple trips by bus to various distant strip malls so that I could avoid those that were near Schuyler Place or my family home because I didn’t want anyone who knew me to spot me. And, of course, I stayed clear of the Fivemile Creek Mall. I bought a little bit at a time so that I could find places to stash things. Every time I went out, I bought a pound of cottage cheese, ate
some, dumped the rest, washed the container, and stashed it in my bottom dresser drawer.

  I also made many important long-distance phone calls.

  I called Loretta Bevilaqua at work and got her administray assist, who insisted that Ms. Bevilaqua could not come to the phone, but I was free to leave a message either with him or on voice mail.

  “When will she get it?” I asked.

  “When she checks her messages.”

  “Can I tell her not to call me during certain hours?”

  “You certainly may, but, of course, that could delay her response.”

  I chose voice mail. I said that I now owned them. I said that they cost three dollars. And that it was notarized, but I didn’t ask for a return call.

  I always had better luck reaching Peter Vanderwaal. Either a polite female voice said, “Sheboygan Art Center,” and then connected me directly to Peter, or Peter himself answered. He reported that he was making progress on getting the CPC organized, but it was taking a lot longer than he had thought it would. “At my own expense, I am sending letters out by Federal Express with prepaid return envelopes, and you have no idea—I certainly didn’t—how expensive that has turned out to be. So far I have received only three of them back. When I call to remind them, they don’t call back.”

  I sympathized with him and told him the difficulties I was having in reaching Loretta. Peter said, “I thought she would return calls directly.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Because she is a truly busy person. Truly busy people don’t dillydally. They are decisive and they return phone calls. It’s those of lesser importance who have to impress you with how busy they are and how they can’t get around to your request.”

  “But she has an administray assist.”

  “Darling,” Peter said, “you are sunk unless you can find some way to get around her.”

  “Him.”

  “Worse,” Peter said. “When the administrative assistant is a male, he is hell-bent on proving how important he is, so he works overtime protecting his boss from the people she has to do business with. Tell me, don’t you have any way to get around him?”