The Wonder of Charlie Anne

by Kimberly Newton Fusco

“She’s too young for him.”

  “And what are they doing bringing their maid and letting her sit with them up front like that?”

  The preacher takes a good long look at Old Mr. Jolly, like he’s cussing him out for being late, and then he clears his throat and begins.

  You are not supposed to make people feel worse during a funeral, but that is what the preacher did at Mama’s. Papa put his lips into that thin line and stopped taking us to church, even though Mama wanted us to be church-raised and all. Papa said we would let the angels guide us after that. I told him I already stopped praying after Mama had so many babies, and then went straight to heaven, and he said I did not need to worry, that angels watch over us no matter if we are mad about things or not. God is very good like that.

  The preacher clears his throat, and that is my signal to look out the window and think about other things. I wonder if Phoebe is going to hate this as much as me.

  CHAPTER

  21

  Old Mr. Jolly must have told Rosalyn about how after church there is a picnic outside, because when I come out from church, she and Phoebe are already standing behind the table, taking the cover off their sharing plate.

  I am stuck behind everyone, all standing and gabbing and whispering, and Zella, right in front of me, is saying to Mrs. Reilly, “She should pin her hair up or something,” and Mrs. Ellis says, “Maybe he made a mistake, marrying a woman from the South, don’t you think? They are funny down there.”

  “He’s not much to look at, either; maybe she’s all he could find,” Zella says, laughing.

  I think they sound just like Minnie and Olympia and Bea. I am trying so hard to listen to them that I do not notice what Rosalyn and Phoebe brought for sharing until I get almost right up to them.

  Well. Somebody must have forgot to tell them that these are hard times and that we all bring things like vinegar pie and biscuits and jam from all the blackberries that grow around here. But no one did, because sitting on their plate are the most glorious cupcakes I have ever seen. They are chocolate with chocolate frosting so thick it looks like dark butter, just ready to be licked, and on top of each one is a little purple violet, looking up and smiling at everyone. I bet even Jesus himself is smiling, hallelujah.

  “Well, will you look at those,” Mrs. Ellis says, and she stops and stares for a minute, and then she skips right over them and takes one of her own sour lemon squares. When Becky reaches for a cupcake, Mrs. Ellis pushes her hand away.

  “Who does she think she is?” asks Zella. “What’s she doing, trying to outdo us all?”

  “Somebody ought to tell her pride is a sin,” laughs Mrs. Reilly.

  “No thank you,” Zella says with her best manners when Phoebe holds a cupcake out for her.

  “No, dear,” says Mrs. Reilly when it is her turn.

  I notice Phoebe slump just a little. It turns out that several people hurry past Rosalyn and Phoebe’s cupcakes and go right to Mirabel, who is cutting pieces of my vinegar pie, pretending it is hers.

  A big long shadow moves over Rosalyn. Phoebe is about to cry. I keep trying to catch Phoebe’s eye, but she is too busy trying to give her cupcakes away.

  Then the little Morrell girls go up and take cupcakes from Phoebe, and then Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich take two each. I think maybe they are trying to make up for all the bad manners all around them.

  When I finally get up to Phoebe, I hold out my plate. “I’ll take three.”

  Rosalyn smiles. Phoebe looks at me all grateful-like and she piles the cupcakes on my plate. Then I tell Phoebe why doesn’t she come over and sit with me by the tree, and she does. I am just itching for another invitation to her room.

  “Where are your manners?” Mirabel says in her mad voice when she sees me with so many cupcakes piled on my plate, and I start wondering what the manners book will have to say about this, but before I get too far with my thinking, Mirabel reaches over and snatches one of the cupcakes and eats half of it in a single bite.

  “Ohhhhh,” she says, her eyes glistening. “These are won-der-ful.”

  Phoebe looks all proud and then Rosalyn comes over by us, and Mirabel says a quick good morning and then hurries off to find Peter.

  Well. Peter is up in an old maple tree with some of his friends, and Mirabel starts yelling so loud I can hear her over here. In about one and a half seconds he is on the ground and Mirabel is marching up to us.

  “We’ll see them home,” says Old Mr. Jolly, nodding at me and Birdie. “It will give me a chance to check on my cow.”

  My heart falls. Mirabel stands there considering. Phoebe looks over and squeezes my hand. “Don’t worry,” she whispers. “Rosalyn has already talked to him about you keeping that cow.”

  Finally, Mirabel nods okay, and she takes Peter by the back of his shirt and marches him off to the road. Old Mr. Jolly winks at Phoebe and bites into a cupcake and starts grinning. “Never in my life have I had anything so good,” he says in a voice so loud that even the preacher looks over. I notice then that Old Mr. Jolly winks at Rosalyn.

  She reaches over and hugs him and kisses him right on the lips in front of everyone—which is something we’ve surely never seen at church before.

  “Sweet Pea?” Rosalyn says as we are walking home.

  Phoebe looks up.

  “Those cupcakes were delicious.”

  Phoebe nods.

  Rosalyn reaches over and hugs her for a very long time and we all stop and watch. Then she takes one of Phoebe’s hands and Old Mr. Jolly takes the other.

  “One, two, three, up,” says Old Mr. Jolly, and they swing Phoebe off the ground and she yelps and they set her back down and she yelps when they do it again. Just watching them, I think about my mama and how much I miss her and how my family is all broken apart.

  I notice Birdie noticing, too. I reach over and take her hand and give it a little squeeze and feel what’s left of her sticky lemon drop.

  * * *

  “We need a school,” Rosalyn says as we pass Becky’s house. “A school to change things. Why doesn’t anyone open that school, Charlie Anne?”

  I don’t say anything because my heart is in my mouth and everything is going all dizzy all around me because I am remembering Miss Moran and the day she told me how the world is divided in two.

  “There are those who can and those who can’t,” she said, stacking all the books on her desk, and pushing them away from me. “Young lady, I see now that you are someone who can’t.” Then she told me to sweep the floor and fill the wood box and wash the blackboard three times because it wasn’t done right.

  I didn’t want Miss Moran to see all my tears, but I missed my mama so much my tears were a river. That was the first time Mama told me maybe it was time I started visiting her. Things would be better if I did.

  CHAPTER

  22

  Right away I know something’s wrong. Anna May and Belle are not where they are supposed to be. They are up as close to the house as they can get. They don’t like it up there. It is too close to Mirabel.

  “What’s going on?” Birdie is asking, and I hardly hear her because I am already flying for the house. Birdie is trying to keep up with me, yelling, “Wait, Charlie Anne, wait!” But I can’t stop. I can’t.

  When I get close, I see what Anna May and Belle are looking at. There is Peter all packed up like a little present, his hair slick as grease, and there are Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Will beside a big black automobile in front of our house.

  Peter takes one look at me and runs and tries to jump in my arms. “Noooooooooo, Charlie Anne. I don’t want to go. Don’t make me go with them. I don’t want to go to Boston. I want to live here with you.”

  I look up quickly at Mirabel. “What’s going on?” Peter is crying so hard, and trying to wrap his arms around me, that I lose my balance and slip and fall right into the dirt. Then Peter is on top of me, hugging me, choking me, keeping me from getting up again.

  “It’s for the best,” says Mirabel, trying to u
nwrap Peter’s arms from around my neck. That just makes him hold tighter.

  “For the best?” I ask, choking quite a bit and trying to untangle myself. “What’s for the best?”

  “Mirabel is going to make me go live with them and be their little booooooy.” Then Peter sobs so hard I can feel his heart pounding right into mine. I hold on to him as tight as I can. I press my cheek against his.

  Mirabel is still trying to pull Peter away from me, but he just keeps holding on. “Charlie Anne, let go,” she says. Then Birdie is jumping on Peter and hugging him and squeezing herself between me and Peter and Mirabel.

  “Charlie Anne, LET GO,” says Mirabel.

  I look up into her eyes. “NO,” I tell her through the tears that have started running down my face.

  “I want to go to Boston,” says Ivy.

  “They want a boy,” says Mirabel.

  “But who’s going to do all the outside chores around here, if not Peter?” asks Ivy.

  Mirabel looks at me and she doesn’t even have to say it out loud. I know what she’s thinking. Then Aunt Eleanor is beside us, trying to pull us all apart. “Charlie Anne,” she says. “Are you really going to stand in the way of Peter’s going to a good school and making more of himself than could ever be possible on this …” She looks around at our house and our barn, at Minnie and Olympia and Bea pecking in the dirt, at Anna May and Belle in the close-by field and at all of us children, and frowns. “He has a chance to better himself. Are you really going to stand in his way?”

  “I don’t want to go to Boston,” cries Peter again, and he buries his face deeper in my arms.

  Aunt Eleanor is looking at Mirabel. It looks like she is having second thoughts. “If he doesn’t want to go…,” she says.

  “Nonsense,” says Mirabel. “I don’t have enough food to feed them all. I haven’t heard from James since he left.”

  Peter starts sobbing so loud that Aunt Eleanor shakes her head. “I did think he was younger. It’s hard for a child this old to make a new start.”

  “Oh, that’s ridiculous,” says Mirabel. “He’s only seven. Plenty young enough.”

  Eleanor is walking back to the car. I hold Peter tighter.

  “He wants to stay with us,” I tell Mirabel. “This is going to make Papa really, really mad.”

  This time I have the feeling I am getting through to Mirabel. She kneels down in the dirt beside Peter and tries to pull him onto her lap. Then she is whispering in his ear.

  I expect she is telling him how it will be all right, how she has changed her mind and he doesn’t have to go. We will all stay here and wait for Papa and everything will be better very soon. But he starts crying even harder and I know this is not what she is telling him. Then she talks louder: “It will be all right in Boston, Peter. It is just a vacation. Just for a little while. You can go to school in Boston.”

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Peter says, and then he starts howling again.

  Aunt Eleanor looks at Uncle Will. “I don’t know,” she says.

  Uncle Will is turning a little red. He keeps looking at his watch. “I didn’t come all this way,” he says, finally, and then he stomps over to us and reaches down and peels Peter from my neck. He lifts him up and carries him to the big car and drops him into the backseat and slams the door.

  Then Aunt Eleanor rushes to the car and climbs inside and Uncle Will starts the motor. Even before I can loosen Birdie’s arms from my neck, Uncle Will is backing up out of our driveway. Peter has his face squished up against the window, and he is crying.

  We all watch them go, and Birdie is sobbing because everyone else is crying, even Ivy.

  I run after the big black car from Boston and rush out onto the road, and when it hurries over the hill and I can no longer see it, I start to really sob. When I look up, Anna May and Belle are looking at me all tenderhearted, and Rosalyn and Phoebe have walked across the road to see what has happened. They wrap their arms around me, and it feels very much like I am wrapped up in Mama’s poppy-colored quilt. When Birdie comes over, they make room for her, too.

  CHAPTER

  23

  Mirabel is baking an applesauce cake to make things better. She knows I love applesauce. I know what she is up to.

  “How could you?” I scream. “How could you break us apart when Mama told us family was the most important thing?”

  Mirabel must see the sparks flying off my head. She puts the flour sack on the table. Birdie does not understand things like sometimes you get so mad and sad at the same time that sparks really do fly off your head when tears are rolling down your face. She rushes up and tries to pull me away from Mirabel. She does not like loud voices or tears.

  “Go away, Birdie.” This only makes her start crying, and then she rushes to Ivy, who is sitting at the table, waiting for supper.

  “You’ve really done it this time,” Ivy tells me, pulling Birdie up onto her lap.

  Ivy never pulls Birdie up onto her lap or does anything nice for Birdie at all. I would belt her if we were alone. “Shut up, Ivy. I wish Aunt Eleanor took you, not Peter. Then we would be rid of you.”

  “Did you hear her?” shrieks Ivy, turning to Mirabel. “Did you hear the awful things she said to me?”

  Mirabel slams her wooden spoon on the table. “Charlie Anne.” She is about to say something else, but I am looking like an old boar pig ready to tear her apart, and she closes her mouth.

  Birdie has given up trying to get me to stop. She is burying her face in Ivy’s pinned curls.

  “Look what you’ve done,” I say, moving closer to Mirabel. “How could you send Peter away like that? He is OUR BROTHER. You made a terrible mistake. You should walk out the door and leave us and never come back, that would be the best thing you could do for us. We all hate you.”

  Mirabel tenses her whole body and then just stands and stares at me, her frown flat. Everyone stops crying. We are all looking at Mirabel, watching to see what she will do next.

  At first, she does nothing. She just stands there looking from one of us to the other. Then she gets a little teary and turns away and looks out the window over the sink and out across our hay fields. We have never seen her eyes get even a little damp, and I have plenty of time to brace myself for what’s coming next because she looks out the window for a long time. I put my hand on my chest to try and slow my speeding heart. Ivy is telling me with her eyes that I’m going to get the what-for, and I tell her with my eyes to go jump in the river.

  Mirabel is good with cuts and fixing hurting fingers, and I guess she’s also good at drying up her own tears, because when she turns back around, there is no trace of them.

  “Charlie Anne, I saw no other way,” she says. “We have not heard from your father in a long time. Anna May is hardly giving us any milk at all and those chickens are good for nothing. I got one egg yesterday. One. I wanted Eleanor to take Birdie, too, but she said no.”

  Well. Birdie starts screaming after that and Ivy pushes her out of her lap. Birdie comes rushing over to me and I pick her up the way I always do.

  “We do not need you,” I tell Mirabel. “We would be better off on our own.”

  “Young lady,” says Mirabel, who has pulled herself almost completely back together again. “Need I keep reminding you that you are forgetting your place? I would be doing a great disservice to your mother if I let you continue to act this way toward your elders.”

  “Oh, why don’t you just shove off?” I tell her, and then I set Birdie down on the sofa, and I don’t pay any attention to her cries because I have some things I need to say to Mama.

  * * *

  I rush out through our corn and up on the hill where the river is churning from all the rain we got last night. I ask Mama if she knew about how Aunt Eleanor was coming and why she didn’t warn me and why she didn’t make sure Peter didn’t go.

  Did you know?

  The river is roaring and I am yelling and I can’t hear if Mama is saying anything and then I
decide I do not even want to hear what she says anyway so I turn and race toward the house. I think maybe she is calling after me but I do not turn around and I do not go back.

  The night is awful. There is an empty spot in the bed for Peter and I won’t let Ivy lie in his space, even when she complains why can’t she have his spot, since he’s not around to roll on top of us anymore. Aunt Eleanor took him so fast he left his measuring tape behind, and I tuck it into the chest at the foot of the bed, nestling it under the someday books Mama left for me.

  That night it pours harder than I’ve ever seen and the boulders in the river roll and thunder and the rain pounds against our roof and then it comes leaking through our ceiling and drips on our bed. I think even the heavens are crying out for Peter.

  CHAPTER

  24

  Anna May and Belle are getting quite worried about me. They want to know why I am thin as a rail. Because of all these chores, I tell them, throwing another string bean in the pot.

  Mirabel thinks when you lose your mama and your papa and now your two brothers, the thing is to keep busy. Snapping beans is the best cure, she keeps telling me, for when you are feeling down in the dumps.

  I tell her to stop talking like that. I run out and bury my face in Anna May’s neck. After a while, there is Mirabel right beside me, handing me another basket of beans.

  I am down by the barn giving Minnie and Olympia and Bea the what-for because they have hidden their eggs again where I can’t find them.

  I hear crying, and first I think it is Birdie, out by the road again. It is not. It is Phoebe. She is ripping her little braids apart, and throwing the little strings on top of the sunflowers that are just poking up. Then she stomps all over everything. She is making quite a mess. Then she sinks down and buries her face in her arms, and I can see her shaking all the way over where I am.

  I hear my heart saying I better go over, and of course Anna May and Belle are right there telling me to hurry, Mirabel won’t even know.