The Book of Story Beginnings

by Kladstrup, Kristin

  And then her broom hit something that went rolling and clinking across the floor.

  “What’s this?” Her mother stooped and picked up the bottle of transforming potion. She pulled out the glass stopper and sniffed. “Well, it’s definitely not perfume,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Can I see it?” Lucy was afraid her mother would spill the potion.

  Lucy peered through the bottle’s narrow neck. Was there any potion left? It was hard to tell. She replaced the stopper and closed her fist around the bottle. She would need it when she found her father.

  Later, when her mother was closed up in her office again, Lucy lay on her bed in her room. She was thinking about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a book she had read so often it was indistinguishable from her own memories. She knew Narnia, the kingdom in the book, almost better than the characters did.

  She was actually thinking about time. She was thinking about how no matter how long you stayed in the other world of Narnia, you always returned to your own world at the exact moment you left it. It was a very convenient arrangement, thought Lucy. Unfortunately, The Book of Story Beginnings had not made things so nice and neat. Oscar had been away for decades, yet it hadn’t seemed like such a long time to him. Lucy wondered whether time ran more slowly on the island of cats and birds.

  Was that a good thing? She tried to puzzle it out. Suppose it took Oscar and her a day to get to the island, a day to rescue her father, and a day to get back. Those three days of island time might very well translate into three weeks, or three months, or three years and more back in Martin, Iowa. There was no way of telling.

  A new concern now dwarfed all of Lucy’s other worries. Even if she and Oscar were successful in rescuing her father, even if they returned home safely, there was nothing to say that they would find everything as they had left it. They might come home to find that Lucy’s mother was an old woman. She might have moved away. Or worse, like Oscar’s mother, she might be dead.

  Lucy allowed her imagination to punish her. She imagined herself in a rowboat on a cold, gray sea. Oscar and her father were in the boat, too. She was pulling hard on the oars, while they were straining to see through a thick fog. “It’s land, all right!” said Oscar. Then he and her father began to speak in low, frightened voices. Lucy glanced over her shoulder to see what was worrying them. Through the fog, she glimpsed The Brick on the shore. As she stared, its shingles started to fall off. The porch began to sag, then crashed down on one side. One by one, the windows shattered, as if invisible stones were crashing through the glass.

  “Row faster, Lucy!” screamed Oscar. But she couldn’t row fast enough and neither Oscar nor her father would help her. When she looked again, one side of the house had caved in.

  “Are you all right, Lucy?”

  “What?” Lucy opened her eyes.

  Her mother was leaning over the bed. “Did you fall asleep?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing really.” Another lie. “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost suppertime. Your father’s not home yet, though. I thought you and I should walk down to the burger place — just us girls. Does that sound okay?”

  “Sounds fine.” Lucy tried to match her mother’s cheerful tone.

  The burger place was a little white house at the edge of Martin. It had a window that slid open so that you could give your order to the teenagers who worked inside. Aunt Helen had taken her once, and Lucy had embarrassed herself by asking what kind of soda they had. In Iowa you were supposed to call it pop.

  Most people drove to the burger place, so Lucy and her mother drew attention walking down the highway. Two teenagers sitting on the hood of a station wagon stared at them as they came near.

  “Take my wallet and order what you want, Lucy. I just want a soda,” said her mother, sinking down on the bench of a picnic table. She seemed to have used up all her cheerfulness on the walk down.

  Lucy carefully ordered two drinks and a hamburger and fries. She would have to lie again and pretend she was hungry or her mother would worry. She had just brought everything back to the table when she saw Uncle Byron’s pickup coming down the road. He pulled up beside the picnic area and got out.

  “Hello, Jean, Lucy,” he called.

  As he walked toward them, a police car pulled up behind Uncle Byron’s truck. A tall, spare man with thinning hair climbed out. “Excuse me there, fella — I got to tell you that you’re illegally parked,” he said, his sunglasses glinting in the sun.

  “Well, I guess you’ll just have to slap me with a fine — or set me up at the county jail,” Uncle Byron drawled. Then he grinned. “How’re you doing, Ray?” He stood up to shake hands. “Jean, Lucy — I’d like you to meet the toughest law enforcement officer in Iowa, Sheriff Ray Jensen. Jean’s my brother Shel’s wife, Ray. I told you how they were moving here from back east.”

  “Sure! Living up at The Brick, aren’t you?” Sheriff Jensen shook hands with Lucy’s mother. “I used to hang out with this rascal here and your husband when we were kids. I hope you’re finding Iowa to your liking.”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “I’ve been meaning to stop in and say hello. How’s Shel?” said Sheriff Jensen.

  “Oh, just fine,” said Lucy’s mother.

  “Too busy to come out to supper, eh?” said Uncle Byron.

  “What? Oh, yes . . .” Lucy’s mother sipped at the drink Lucy had given her. “Actually, Byron, I haven’t seen Shel all day. Have you seen him?”

  “I can’t say I have. He didn’t go up to Sioux City, did he? I heard him say just the other day that he wanted to go.”

  “He went to Sioux City yesterday,” said Lucy’s mother. “And wherever he went today, he didn’t take the car.”

  No, thought Lucy. He had definitely not taken the car.

  “Sounds like we got ourselves a missing person,” said Uncle Byron, winking at Lucy. “Aren’t you supposed to handle things like that, Ray?”

  “Now Byron, I’m too busy writing parking tickets for folks like you.” Though Sheriff Jensen played along with Uncle Byron’s joke, he was watching Lucy’s mother. Her mouth was tight and closed, and her eyes looked watery. “How long has Shel been gone?” Sheriff Jensen asked, his voice more serious.

  “Since last night — probably only this morning,” said Lucy’s mother. “I’m sure he just forgot to tell me where he was going.”

  “Shel hasn’t changed a bit, Ray,” said Uncle Byron. “He’s just as absent-minded as he was as a kid. He’s probably off daydreaming somewhere. Right, Lucy?”

  “Right,” Lucy stammered, feeling her face grow hot. She hoped nobody had noticed.

  Lucy’s mother never watched television, not unless she was sick. All the same, when they came home from the burger place, she went straight up to her bedroom and turned on Aunt Lavonne’s tiny black-and-white set. When Lucy looked in on her a half hour later, she was asleep, curled up next to the phone as if she hoped it would ring. The thought that her father wasn’t going to call — the thought that her mother didn’t know — made Lucy feel so alone that she could hardly bear it. For a moment, she thought of waking her mother, telling her everything, telling her what she planned to do. But her mother would never believe her.

  Instead, she began preparing for what she was already calling the voyage. In the kitchen, she rummaged for provisions. She found apples and bananas. She stockpiled soft drinks and store-bought cookies, putting everything into plastic grocery bags. She made four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then thought better of it and started to make four more.

  “Lucy?”

  She dropped the knife and whirled around. Oscar was standing at the screen door.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “I went to see Earl.”

  Lucy held the door open for him. “You did what?”

  “I slept for a while this afternoon. Then I walked into town and asked
some boys I saw if they knew where Earl Norby was staying. Your aunt Helen said he was visiting somebody named Denise.” Oscar looked down at his nightshirt and knickers, at his bare feet. “I guess my clothes must look out of place. Those boys sure looked me up and down. But they told me where Earl was, and I found the house all right. I thought I’d just knock on the door. But there he was, sitting alone out on the front porch.” Oscar shook his head. “I’m such a fool! I didn’t recognize him right away.”

  “What did you say to him?” asked Lucy.

  “I didn’t have to say a word. Earl took one look at me and said, ‘Oscar? Oscar Martin?’ And I said, ‘Earl?’ And the two of us just stared at each other.” Oscar grinned. “I think Earl thought he’d died or something, so as quick as I could — as best I could — I told him what happened to me.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  “Earl’s sharp, Lucy. And he’s my best friend. Of course he believed me! And oh, Lucy — it was so good to see him. There was so much to catch up on — I guess nobody ever had quite so much to catch up on as I do.” Oscar grinned. “Did you know they have airplanes that can get you to Europe in the same day? They’re called jets. Earl flew in one all the way to Paris, France!”

  Oscar looked as if he expected Lucy to fall out of her chair in surprise. She tried not to laugh. It was a surprise to find that she could laugh.

  “And Earl has a machine inside his chest, Lucy — it keeps his heart going.”

  “A pacemaker?”

  “That’s right. Say, is that a sandwich you’re making? Would you mind awfully if I had one? I’m pretty hungry.”

  Lucy pushed the sandwich across the table, wondering whether Oscar would notice the other sandwiches, or ask why there were so many.

  “Mostly we talked about the old days,” continued Oscar. “That’s what Earl calls them. For me, they don’t seem old — they seem — well, they seem like yesterday. Earl said the same thing: ‘It seems like yesterday,’ he kept saying. But I could tell that yesterday for him isn’t the same as it is for me.” Oscar shook his head. “He told me about my family — what happened after I left. I had to find out, Lucy — coming back and finding them gone — it’s just . . .” Oscar looked down at the table. “It’s just hard, that’s all.”

  She and Oscar weren’t so very different now, thought Lucy. Depending on what happened, it might very well be her sitting across the table years from now, trying to find out what had happened to her mother. “Oscar — I need to tell you something,” she said, her voice small. “I have a plan for finding my father. It involves using The Book of Story Beginnings,” she began. But that was only half true. She didn’t just have a plan. She had already put a plan into action. “What I mean to say is — while you were sleeping, I wrote something in The Book of Story Beginnings,” she said.

  “What exactly did you write?” Oscar’s voice was guarded.

  The Book of Story Beginnings was on the counter. Lucy handed it to him and watched as Oscar read her story beginning. When he was done, he looked up. “‘She and her great-uncle set off to find him in a boat’?” he read aloud. “Is that supposed to be me?”

  “Well, yes . . .”

  “Not a very elegant way of putting it.”

  “You’re not mad at me, are you?” It was a silly question. Lucy could tell that Oscar was angry.

  “Do you realize what you’ve done?” he said.

  “I had to do something. I have to find my father.”

  “Just tell me then. What do we do now?”

  Oscar had said we. Lucy clung to that hopefully. “I thought we could use the boat. Pull it around to the front of the house. I can use my father’s transforming potion to make the sea appear. Then we follow the moonlit path, just like you did. . . .” She didn’t tell Oscar that she had only just thought of using the transforming potion.

  “You make it sound so easy! Like going off to a Sunday school picnic!”

  “Please, Oscar. Please help me. With any luck, we can get to the island, rescue my father, and get back here in a few days — maybe a week. I know we can do it.” She didn’t dare tell Oscar that a week might turn into years.

  She took his silence as encouragement. “My mother’s asleep,” she said. “I’ve packed food and things to drink. We could leave now —”

  “What you want to do is too dangerous!”

  “I have to try to find him!”

  “How will we get back? Have you thought of that?”

  She hadn’t. “I — I have to find him,” was all she could say.

  Oscar didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he threw up his hands. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Everything was harder than Lucy could have imagined. First they had to tilt the rowboat on its side and drag it out of the smokehouse. They heaved and hauled it through the backyard and pulled it around the house. Every time the boat scraped on the gravel driveway, Lucy was terrified her mother would wake up. Finally they dragged it across the front lawn to the end of the walk.

  “This is what my father did,” Lucy told Oscar. She tilted the bottle of potion up and let a drop fall onto a pencil she had brought along. Then, with a trembling hand, she lifted the pencil in the air. “Sea!” she said firmly. Only her throw was so bad that the pencil didn’t even make it across the road in front of The Brick.

  Nothing happened.

  Then Oscar tried, throwing a stick so far that they almost lost sight of it as it arced through the darkness. Yet the same thing happened again, which was to say nothing, and Lucy stood there numbly, wondering what to do next. “I was so stupid to think this would really work,” she said.

  “And just what did you think would work?” said a voice behind them. It was Lucy’s mother. Her arms were folded across her chest.

  “Mom —”

  “Lucy — in case you haven’t noticed, it’s dark and it’s late and as far as I know, those two things have always meant that your father and I like to know where you are and what you’re doing. You can explain to me later why you seem to have forgotten that fact, and why there’s a rowboat in our front yard. Earl — I believe I sent you home at a late hour last night, as well. Good night!” She clamped her hand down on Lucy’s shoulder and steered her toward the house.

  Seeing Lucy and her mother cross the lawn, Oscar decided that the strangest thing of all was having other people living in his house. He watched them go in the front door, then saw the lights in the front parlor turn on. How bright the electric lights looked in the darkness!

  In a way, it helped that everything was so strange. The entire day had felt like a stroll past the sideshows at a circus. All the fantastic sights made it hard to think about anything else. And there were so many things that he didn’t want to think about.

  But now it was night, and the night was almost too familiar for comfort. The same stars he had seen all his life were greeting the moon as it rose above The Brick. And even with its newfangled electric lights blazing, Oscar couldn’t help thinking that The Brick was his house, his home. He couldn’t help thinking of Ma and Pa and Lavonne and Morris inside it. He closed his eyes; it was as if nothing had changed at all. He might look now, he thought, and find that everything was all right.

  It wasn’t. Oscar wheeled about, nearly falling over the rowboat at his feet. It was only then that he realized he was still holding the bottle of potion in his hand. Lucy and her crazy plan, he thought. He sat down in the boat, facing away from The Brick. There were two bags at his feet. They were made of a crinkly sort of paper that Lucy had called plastic. He felt inside one and pulled out a sandwich wrapped in yet more plastic. He was hungry.

  He was about to take a bite when he had an idea. He opened the bottle of potion and let a drop fall on the sandwich. “Apple turnover,” he said, picturing in his mind one of Ma’s freshly baked pastries, steaming hot from the oven.

  “Ouch!” Oscar fell backward, dropping a hot turnover in the bottom of the boat. He stared at the mess of crumbs and sticky brown
apple filling. “Well, I’ll be!” he said. “How did that happen?”

  He took another sandwich from the bag and tried using the potion again, setting the sandwich down this time before he said apple turnover. To his disappointment, however, nothing happened. He tried two more times without success. “Hang it all!” he said. “Why did it work just that one time and not the others?”

  He ate the sandwich and a bit of ruined turnover. Then, turning to look at the house, he saw that the lights were off now. Lucy and her mother must have gone to bed. He contemplated waking Lucy up, throwing gravel at her window again so he could tell her what had happened.

  But it was a mistake to even look at the house. Oscar was once again overcome by the feeling that nothing had changed. He yearned to go inside The Brick. What if he were to go up to his own room? Or what if he were to knock on Ma and Pa’s bedroom door? What if he were to call out, I’m home . . . ?

  “Stop it!” Oscar told himself. He put the bottle of potion in his pocket. He would tell Lucy about the apple turnover tomorrow. Tomorrow it would be light again, and the world would be strange again, and he wouldn’t have to think about home. He really ought to try and get some sleep.

  One of the problems with having been a cat for so long was that Oscar felt wide awake when he shouldn’t. For the longest time, he lay staring into the darkness of the smokehouse.

  He thought about The Book of Story Beginnings. If only he had never found it! He’d been so sneaky — taking it without telling Ma. Had she known that it was magic? Was that why it was locked away in the attic? He would never know. He could never tell Ma how sorry he was.

  It’s all my fault, he thought. Even Lucy’s father being gone was his fault. He hadn’t meant to chase him out the window. But he never would have chased him out the window if he hadn’t been a cat. And he wouldn’t have been a cat if he hadn’t written in The Book of Story Beginnings.

  He wanted to help Lucy. It seemed like a cruel sort of twist for that magic potion of hers not to work all of a sudden. On the other hand, thought Oscar, it was the sort of thing that happened in stories — a twist in the plot. Every so often, it helped to remind himself that this was a story.