A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

by Jeanne Birdsall

  Churchie hung up the red dress and pulled out another, this one cornflower blue. “For Skye, do you think? It matches her eyes.”

  “Lovely. But, Churchie, this is all so sad.”

  “It is sad. I'll tell you what, though. Jeffrey's been happier since you Penderwicks arrived than I've seen him for a long time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  There was a sudden disturbance in the blouses, and Jeffrey, Skye, and Jane appeared, carrying large wooden bows and quivers of arrows.

  “Really what?” said Skye.

  “Really, you're going to poke somebody's eye out with those arrows,” said Churchie.

  “We've already decided we'll ask Cagney to cover the tips with rubber to make them safe,” Jeffrey explained.

  “Humph,” said Churchie.

  “Rosalind, you should see the stuff over on the other side of the attic,” said Skye. “There's a canoe, and a whole cricket set, and three horse saddles.”

  “And swords, Rosalind!” said Jane. She plucked an arrow from her quiver and waved it around like a saber. “Ill-bred cur, prepare to meet thy doom on the sword of Sabrina Starr.”

  “Those are Jeffrey's grandfather's army swords,” said Churchie. “Nobody cut any fingers off, I hope.”

  “There was only one little accident. Skye, show her your hand,” said Jeffrey.

  Skye held up a hand with two fingers folded under.

  “Very nice.” Churchie wasn't impressed. “Try not to get blood all over everything.”

  Jane had tired of instruments of destruction and was noticing the clothes all around her. “Look at all these,” she said.

  “Churchie is lending us dresses to wear to Jeffrey's birthday party,” said Rosalind.

  “Wow,” said Jane, her eyes huge. “What about the one you're holding, Churchie?”

  “I thought it would look nice on Skye.”

  “Since it's so dainty and ladylike,” said Jeffrey.

  Now, of course, Skye refused to wear the blue dress. It was only after a long debate, with Jeffrey continuing to cause trouble with his sly compliments, that she finally agreed to wear a dress at all and only then because Churchie found a slim black one that reminded Skye of a dress her mother used to wear. Then Churchie and Rosalind started on Jane, who wanted something both flowingly romantic and thrillingly dashing, two characteristics almost impossible to find in one dress. But Churchie did manage it, discovering way back in the corner a full-skirted navy-and-white taffeta sailor's dress. Jane loved it.

  “Now stand still, everyone,” said Churchie, and measured the sisters with her cloth tape. “Good. By taking in seams and adding tucks, I can make these dresses look like they were designed for you three. And I think I've found a few long skirts with enough fabric for a sundress for Batty. Where is she?”

  Jeffrey found Batty in the middle of a set of wooden animals, all sorts of animals. There was an elephant as big as Batty herself and a mouse as small as her littlest finger. She had taken possession of a rabbit and was hopping it across the attic floor.

  “Churchie's going to make you a dress,” he said.

  “I don't want a dress. I want this rabbit. His name is Yaz.”

  “You can have the rabbit if you let Churchie measure you for a dress.”

  “Okay,” said Batty, and let him take her back to the others.

  Another half hour and it was all settled. Not only would the Penderwicks be going to the formal birthday party that Mrs. Tifton was organizing, they would be wearing her own clothes to the event. That included even her shoes, for Churchie had solved the problem of suitable footwear by unlocking trunks full of shoes of all colors and shapes and telling the girls to choose what they liked. Only Batty's feet were too small to fit into anything, and it was agreed that she could get by with her everyday sandals.

  “After all,” said Skye. “What does it matter what she's got on her feet when she's wearing those dumb wings?”

  “They're not dumb,” said Batty, clutching her new rabbit.

  “Come on, everybody,” said Jeffrey. “Let's go outside and play soccer.”

  That evening Rosalind called a MOPS to tell her sisters the sad story of Jeffrey's missing father. They were dismayed and wished they could do something, but not even Sabrina Starr had any ideas. They did, however, come up with two helpful resolutions: Do not ask Jeffrey questions about his father, and Get Jeffrey really good birthday presents. Then the sisters went off to their separate rooms, and as each fell asleep, she thought that if there could be anything worse than having a parent die, it would be having a parent who never bothered to meet you.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Birthday Dinner

  IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A PERFECT WEEK? A perfect day, maybe, but seven whole days of paradise? The Penderwicks would say yes, that the seven days between their visit to the Arundel attic and Jeffrey's birthday party would be forever locked in their memories as perfect. Skye liked to say later that the week seemed that way only because they had not yet met Mrs. Tifton. Maybe she was right. Certainly, through either good luck (Skye's theory) or magic (Jane's), Mrs. Tifton did stay out of sight all the way up until the birthday party, leaving Arundel and its treasures to the children.

  During those wondrous days, Jeffrey took the girls over every inch of the estate grounds, showing them the old springhouse buried in the side of a hill, the path behind the cottage that led to a bubbling stream, the hiding place under the Greek pavilion, the lily pond with its dozens of frogs, the ancient trash-burying ground where you could dig up old pots and pans, and, on one especially hot day, the controls that turned on the garden fountains. Everyone, even Rosalind, who should have known better, jumped into the streams of water that leapt into the air before Cagney came running to turn the fountains off again, but since it was Cagney, he just laughed and told them not to do it again.

  On top of all that, each sister had her private joys. For Batty, it was Hound sleeping with her every night and, almost as special, daily visits with Rosalind to see Cagney's rabbits. Sometimes Cagney was there, but more often he wasn't, and then Rosalind would let Batty open the screen door just far enough to slide in two carrots, then watch from outside as Yaz and Carla nibbled. For Jane, it was soccer practice every day with Skye and Jeffrey, plus the Sabrina Starr book, which was growing ever more exciting. (Sabrina had made several flying visits to Arthur but had not yet figured out how to get him out of his window and into her balloon.) For Skye, the best times were the long, wild romps through the gardens with Jeffrey by day and the calm of her clean, white, tidy bedroom at night. And Rosalind? She cherished Cagney's early-morning visits to water the Fimbriata rosebush and the time he'd take afterward to sit and talk on the porch. By using Anna's First Rule of Conversation with a Boy—Ask lots of questions—Rosalind was learning a lot about Cagney Like how he was saving his money to go to college, because he wanted be a high school history teacher and baseball coach. And when he had accomplished all that, he would buy a house in the country and raise a family with enough kids for a basketball team (a baseball team being too large even for him) and, in his spare time, write books about the Civil War. Every night, Rosalind carefully wrote down everything Cagney had said and sent it in a letter to Anna.

  And so the days slid by, each better than the one before, and everyone thought that their perfect vacation at Arundel would last forever and ever and ever.

  Then came the birthday party.

  “Smile, troops!” said Mr. Penderwick, and pushed the button on his camera. Nothing happened.

  “The other button, Daddy,” said Rosalind.

  “Ah, yes.” He peered over his glasses at the camera. This time there was a flash of light.

  “Take another one, Daddy. Hound wasn't smiling,” said Batty.

  “He doesn't deserve to smile,” said Skye. A half hour earlier, Hound had thrown up on Skye's—that is, Mrs. Tifton's—silver party shoes. Rosalind had thoroughly cleaned the shoes, but now the
y squished at each step.

  “Do my knees show in the picture?” Jane asked. Her knees were scraped from the morning's soccer practice.

  “I told you before, your skirt is long enough to cover the messy parts,” said Rosalind.

  “Okay, here we go,” said Mr. Penderwick. Another flash of light went off.

  “Daddy, no! Batty had her gum side toward the camera,” said Rosalind. Batty had gotten chewing gum stuck in her hair that morning, and though Rosalind had cut it out as neatly as she could, there was now an awkward gap in Batty's curls.

  “Okay, one last shot. Vincit qui patitur,” said Mr. Penderwick.

  “Concentrate, everyone,” said Rosalind.

  “Beautiful,” said Mr. Penderwick as the camera flashed again. “My four princesses.”

  Rosalind looked anxiously at her sisters. They did look nice. Skye was as sleek and undainty in her black dress as she could possibly be, and Jane was so delighted with her sailor's dress that she kept twirling the full skirt out like a parachute. Batty was, of course, wearing her wings, but Churchie had chosen a bright yellow fabric for her, saying that if the child insisted on being a bug, you might as well let her be a brightly colored bug. And Rosalind hoped that she herself looked all right. Her striped dress fit like a glove, and she had piled her hair on top of her head. She had put on lipstick, too, but then rubbed it off before coming downstairs. Anna believed that lipstick looked silly until at least eighth grade.

  “Are we ready to go?” she said. “Who has Jeffrey's presents?”

  “I do,” said Jane, picking up a large shopping bag.

  “Everyone say the rules again,” said Rosalind.

  “Please and thank you to everything, keep your napkin on your lap, and don't argue with or make faces at Mrs. Tifton,” said Jane and Batty.

  “Skye?” said Rosalind.

  “I know the rules,” said Skye.

  “Hound wants to come with us,” said Batty, and Hound barked to back her up. “He says he'll escape if we don't take him.” Hound's latest attempts at jail-breaking had been to dig under the fence. He hadn't made it out yet, but Mr. Penderwick was spending a lot of time filling in holes.

  “Don't worry about Hound,” said Mr. Penderwick. “He and I are going for a long walk in search of Rudbeckia laciniata.”

  “And you won't miss us for dinner, Daddy?” said Jane.

  “I'll be fine. Hound and I are having hot dogs. You all enjoy yourselves and say happy birthday to Jeffrey for me.”

  The girls took the long way to Arundel Hall, as Rosalind didn't trust they could make it through the hedge tunnel without damaging their finery. Once in the gardens, they made a quick detour to hide the shopping bag under the Greek pavilion—they had agreed earlier to give Jeffrey his presents after the party, without Mrs. Tifton around—then walked around the mansion to the kitchen door. They wanted to show Churchie the results of her handiwork.

  “Churchie, it's us,” said Rosalind, knocking.

  But it was Cagney who opened the door. “Wow, you girls look great.”

  “Except for my shoes.” Skye shifted from one foot to the other to demonstrate her squishiness. “It's Hound's fault they're wet.”

  “Okay. Except for Skye's shoes, you girls look great.” He grinned at Rosalind, who blushed and wished she hadn't.

  “Cagney, bring them in here,” called Churchie from the kitchen.

  The girls went into the kitchen, where they found not only Churchie, tossing a big salad, but Harry, leaning against the sink and eating a dinner roll. Today his shirt was yellow.

  “I came over for the fashion show,” said Harry.

  “Don't listen to him,” said Churchie. “He and Cagney came to eat. Now let me look at you girls.”

  They formed a line. Jane curtsied, then twirled her skirt around.

  “You all look gorgeous, just like flowers in bloom.”

  “Thanks to you, Churchie,” said Rosalind. “We love our dresses.”

  “Don't they look gorgeous, Harry?”

  “Absolutely.” Harry picked up another dinner roll.

  “Where's Jeffrey?” asked Skye.

  “In the dining room with Mrs. Tifton and Mr. Dupree,” said Churchie.

  “The boyfriend,” whispered Jane to Skye.

  “Yes, the boyfriend. Mrs. Tifton told me to escort you there when you arrived.”

  “Oh, dear.” Rosalind straightened Jane's sailor collar and smoothed Batty's curls over the gum place.

  “You'll do fine,” said Cagney He gave Rosalind a thumbs-up sign, which she ignored with all her might, determined not to blush again.

  “After all, what can she do to us?” said Skye. “Let's go see Jeffrey.”

  Churchie led the girls through the pantry and down a short hallway and stopped beside a wide doorway. “Here we are. Now get in there and do yourselves proud.” She gave them each a kiss on the cheek, then disappeared back toward the kitchen.

  Jane peeked around the edge of the doorway and whispered, “They're standing at the other end of a very, very long room.”

  Rosalind took a firm grip on Batty's hand—she knew poor Batty would rather be anywhere else—and stepped into the entranceway For once, Jane hadn't been exaggerating. The dining room was so long that the people standing together at the other end looked like little dolls. The backs of little dolls, anyway, for all three were facing away from the girls. Rosalind hesitated. It didn't seem right to creep down that long room behind Mrs. Tifton's back.

  “Let's shout hello,” said Skye.

  “That would not make a good first impression,” said Rosalind.

  “Sabrina Starr and her companions were too proud to sneak up on their enemies,” said Jane.

  “Let's go home,” said Batty.

  “What are we, men or mice?” Skye stood tall, her shoulders back, to show that she, at least, was no mouse.

  “You're right,” said Rosalind. “Troops, advance.”

  They struck out, Rosalind in front with Batty, Skye and Jane behind. One step, two steps, onward they went, and still the people at the other end didn't turn. Eight steps, nine steps, ten steps, down that long, long quiet room. Or it would have been quiet if not for Skye's shoes. It seemed that the closer the girls got to Mrs. Tifton, the louder Skye squished, like a monster jellyfish with feet. Rosalind looked pleadingly at Skye, but Skye shook her head and frowned—she couldn't help it.

  The three people at the end of the room were looking larger now Mrs. Tifton was in a fancy purple dress, and Dexter and Jeffrey were both wearing suits. Jeffrey also seemed to be weighed down by something slung over his shoulder, something thick and brown that hung all the way to the floor.

  “What's Jeffrey doing with that log?” said Batty.

  “I don't think it's a log,” said Rosalind.

  “It looks like a log,” said Batty.

  Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six steps.

  Then Jeffrey looked over his shoulder. For one brief second, Rosalind saw a look of misery on his face, and then it was gone, and he was smiling. Slowly and carefully, he turned himself and the big brown thing around. Whatever it was, it was heavy, and now it was hidden behind him and even more mysterious.

  “Mother, the Penderwicks are here,” the girls heard him say.

  Mrs. Tifton turned to face them.

  And the sisters immediately wished she would turn away again. Walking down that long room behind her back was nothing to doing it under her gaze. Oh, what a gaze! The girls tried to describe it to their father later. It was like steel, said Rosalind. No, like a hawk, said Skye. You could tell she doesn't like animals, said Batty. She was just like the Queen of Narnia, not Queen Susan or Queen Lucy, but the mean one that turned everything into winter, said Jane. Not that she isn't pretty, added Rosalind. Pretty, humph, said Skye, she looked like her face would crack if she laughed.

  Altogether, Mrs. Tifton was one of the last people you would want to talk to, let alone eat dinner with, and if it wasn't for Jeffrey, Rosal
ind would have turned her sisters around and marched them right back out of the room. But they couldn't desert Jeffrey, not like that, not on his birthday.

  So they kept on walking. Forty-nine steps, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two, and finally fifty-three.

  “Halt,” said Rosalind under her breath, and they all did.

  “Ah,” said Mrs. Tifton, then paused for a moment— which seemed like an hour to everyone else—while she inspected the Penderwicks. “So these are the girls my son spends all his time with. What do you think, Dexter?” She turned to the man standing beside her.

  Dexter was handsome—the girls agreed on that later—dark-haired, with just a touch of gray at the temples and a distinguished-looking mustache. But unfortunately, he looked like he knew exactly how handsome he was.

  “Very nice,” he said. Then he smirked. Rosalind had seen smirks before, but never one quite so— smirkish. Again she thought of flight—however cowardly and craven—but then glanced at Jeffrey and saw that the look of misery was back. She gave him a thumbs-up, just like the one Cagney had given her, and was rewarded by a smile.

  “Now, Jeffrey, introduce us,” said Mrs. Tifton.

  “This is Rosalind,” said Jeffrey. “She's the oldest.”

  “Hello, Rosalind,” said Mrs. Tifton. “What a charming dress.”

  Rosalind froze. What was she supposed to do now? With everything else to worry about, she had forgotten to worry about Mrs. Tifton recognizing her own dresses.

  “You got it at the Salvation Army. Right, Rosy?” said Skye.

  “Yes, that's right,” said Rosalind, and while she was grateful to Skye for rescuing her, she thought the Salvation Army was going a little too far.