by N. E. Bode
“I hope so,” Fern said, sitting down on her bed. “I hope there are some clues. We have no clues!”
The Bone sat down next her. “Fern,” he said, “I wanted…,” but then he trailed off.
“What?” Fern asked.
“I wanted to tell you that I know.”
“What?”
“I know why you shook the diary so hard.” He paused. “It doesn’t work that way.” He shook his head. His eyes were misty again, and Fern wondered if he would ever really cry. “She can’t come back. She was buried in a cemetery. There’s a tombstone with her name on it. She can’t come out of a book. Your mother, she’s gone.”
“Oh,” Fern said. She felt like crying, but she didn’t either. She kind of knew that it wouldn’t work. It had been a long shot. She said, “I just thought…”
“I know,” the Bone said. “I know what you thought.” He squeezed her shoulder, and then they both fell quiet, so quiet that the only thing they could hear was the Miser, hissing in his locked room down the hall.
3
THE UPRISING
“FINISH YOUR BREAKFAST QUICKLY, DEAR! Quickly! I knew this day would come,” Mrs. Appleplum was chirping in the kitchen. “Oh, my,” she said. “I just knew it. Hurry, hurry!”
Fern was eating toast with marmalade, which reminded her of a bear who lived in England named Paddington, a British bear whom she used to read about when she was a bit younger. She’d actually planned on canceling her lesson with Mrs. Appleplum today. She wanted to go back upstairs to relieve the Bone, who’d been trying to decode the diary all night while she slept. She wanted to switch places with him. He looked awful, bleary-eyed and bedraggled. “What is it?” Fern asked. “Is it Mr. Haiserblaitherness? Has he done something?”
“Done something?” Mrs. Appleplum looked at her, perplexed. “No, I don’t think so. Do you think he’s broken something in his room? He’ll have to pay for that, you know.”
“No, I was just asking…”
“Mr. Haiserblaitherness is fine, as far as I know. I untied him this morning. He looked well-rested. But I do wonder if your father’s lisp isn’t contagious, because Mr. Haiserblaitherness sure had a strange sin his words.”
“Well, I’ve never caught the lisp,” Fern said, although she knew very well why Mr. Haiserblaitherness was still a bit hissy. She’d been thinking about him this morning. Those envelopes were on her mind. What was he writing? Why did he keep them even after addressing and stamping them? Why didn’t he just mail them?
Mrs. Appleplum went on, “In any case, the point is—are you done eating?”
Fern nodded.
“The point is—Come on. Come on.” She held on to Fern’s arm and walked her briskly to the back door. “We have a problem.”
Fern opened the screen door and stared at the backyard. Straight ahead beside the giant peach tree was a line of creatures. She recognized some—furry-footed hobbits and the redheaded fairy still wearing the pansy, now slightly wilted, clipped to her belt. There was also a scowling rat, perhaps the same one who’d stuck his tongue out at her, and two rabbits—one nervous older rabbit and the other younger, more casual, almost cool, if a rabbit can be cool. Fern recognized them from the front yard, where she’d once seen them chatting together. And there was one squirrel who was—squirrelly.
(Here, let me interrupt, if you’d be so kind, to say…if you think I had trouble writing about the fairy, you can imagine that I’m going to struggle with the hobbits, and, well, the talking animals will be my downfall. I don’t like talking animals, as a rule. Not that I would be rude to a talking animal if I came across one. I wouldn’t, of course! But luckily I’ve never had that kind of awkward encounter. I suppose Aesop started the trend—well, there was that serpent who talked to Eve in the garden—but why did the trend have to persist? Generation after generation with their talking animals! It’s ridiculous. I wish I didn’t have to be a party to it. And yet, I’m handcuffed to the story here. And, sorry to say, in this story there are some talking animals. It’s not my fault. It’s the fault of the people who wrote the other books in the first place. I guess this is what I’m saying: if you are deeply offended by talking animals, I completely understand.
Fern, unlike me, was fine with talking animals. Some people are. And so…)
“What do they want?” Fern asked.
“They want you!” “Why me?” Fern asked. “They need help, Ida. And you’re the only one who can help them.”
Fern was worried. She remembered the mean fairy from the night before. She was a little afraid of her. “How?”
Mrs. Appleplum steered her toward them. “Smile,” she said. “It’ll make them more at ease.”
Fern smiled. The line of creatures shuffled and tittered anxiously.
“How can I help them?” Fern asked.
“The books,” Mrs. Appleplum said through her teeth, smiling.
“The books.”
The fairy started first. “I’ve organized this uprising! There are things we need! And some of us want to go back! She’s got to help us. It’s not our fault we’re here!”
“Now, now, let’s remain civilized,” said the nervous rabbit in a genteel British accent. “Don’t make her angry.” Fern could see that he was fiddling with a gold watch on a chain, somewhat like the one the Bone used for hypnosis, but this one was much, much smaller.
The rat paced. “Just get on with it!”
The squirrel blinked and flicked its tail.
The hobbits looked skittish and a little sheepish. One said, “We only want what’s simple. We have but simple needs. And only if it isn’t any trouble. We don’t want to trouble you.”
“Wait, just wait,” Fern said. “Are you all angry because you’re not in your books?”
The fairy said, “I want to go back!” But the others shook their heads. The nervous rabbit raised his hand. “I may like to go back, perhaps.” But the younger rabbit nudged him in the ribs, and said to Fern, “No, he don’t.”
They decided to go one at a time. The hobbits, it turned out, much preferred living here in Mrs. Appleplum’s front yard. It was safer and quieter than the book they’d come from, and they could enjoy their routines, their small comforts. It was just that they missed some of their favorite ale and tea and pipe weed.
Mrs. Appleplum had already compiled the books Fern would need. The Hobbit was the first book in the pile. Fern concentrated and shook, and sure enough she got a nice barrel of ale and a few canisters of tea. “Are you sure you need the pipe weed? Is it really good for you?” she asked.
They shuffled their furry feet. “Not especially,” one admitted with a little cough.
“This is fine,” another said. “Thank you so very much. We aren’t worthy of this much goodness.” And another, “How can we repay you? We must repay you! Thank you so kindly!”
The chubby hobbits started rolling their barrel to their underground homes in the front yard. They were very spirited. “We should taste it, don’t you think?”
“At this hour of the day?”
“We shouldn’t drink it. We should simply taste it to see if it’s made it through well enough.”
“I suppose we could.” And the other nodded, and soon they’d gotten cups and were sipping the ale, tasting and tasting to make sure it hadn’t soured.
The young rabbit introduced himself as Peter and he was wearing his blue jacket, but it was a mess—grass-stained elbows, the brass buttons all popped loose. “He wants to get rid of his watch,” Peter told Fern, pointing with a jerk of his head to the older rabbit. “He wants it to go back in the book.”
“You see,” said the older rabbit. “I’m always afraid I’m late, terribly late, for something quite important. And Peter has really taught me that I must calm myself and have adventures.”
“Do you agree with him?” Fern asked.
“I do, but I’m frightened.”
“Well, the problem is that I can’t put things back in books. I can only get the
m out.”
The redheaded fairy erupted. “Well, what good are you then?” And she started to stomp off.
But then Mrs. Appleplum whispered, “Actually, you can put things back. I just haven’t shown you how to yet. It’s quite easy.” Fern remembered then that when Mrs. Appleplum’s foot had started to come out of the book, she did jiggle it back in as fast as she could.
“Wait! Wait!” Fern yelled to the fairy. “I can try!”
So the redheaded fairy slouched back to the group.
“Let me start with the gold watch,” Fern said.
The old rabbit handed Fern the watch hesitantly.
“Are you sure?”
“He’s sure,” Peter said.
Mrs. Appleplum placed the gold watch on top of the open pages of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Concentrate,” she said. “Jiggle softly.” And sure enough, like sifting sand, the gold watch disappeared into the book.
“Did it work? Did it work?” the fairy asked.
“Yes, yes, it did,” announced Mrs. Appleplum.
“What do you want?” Fern asked the rat.
“My name is Templeton.”
“Oh, I know you!” Fern said. “I’m named…,” but she stopped herself just in time. She didn’t want to bring up the girl named Fern in Charlotte’s Web, which Mrs. Appleplum had on top of the pile now. She corrected herself and said, “I’m named Ida Bibb.”
“Great. Fine. I’d rather not say it to the whole group, okay?”
“Okay,” Fern said, and she bent down so he could whisper.
“I miss, you know, folks in the book.”
“You mean Wilbur?”
“Shhh.” His eyes darted around. “Well, maybe.”
“Do you want to go back?”
“Keep it down, would you?” Templeton said, then he added loudly, “It’s just that they need me in that darn book! I’m very important. Everything will fall apart without me!”
“Okay, okay.” Fern let Templeton climb up on the book. She jiggled and he started to sink in. He gave a sharp nod for a good-bye. But as soon as he was gone, his rump reappeared. He was pushed back out. “Let me in!” Fern could hear him shouting. “Come on! Let me back in!” Finally, after a bit of a struggle, he was securely in the book. Fern shut it quickly.
That left the fairy and the squirrel. The fairy said, “I want to go back. You see, I love it there. It’s a wonderful place.”
“Let’s try,” Fern said.
The fairy climbed up onto the opened pages of The Complete Guide to Fairies. “Wait,” she said, handing Fern the barrettes and starting to unclip the pansy. “Here, these are yours. The Borrowers gave them to me.”
“You can keep them,” Fern told her. “They were never really me, if you know what I mean.”
“Thank you,” the fairy said. “If this works, if you pull this off, you can shake this book anytime and you’ll have a whole army of fairies to help you. That’s a promise.”
“Thanks,” Fern said, and she concentrated very hard. (She was still afraid of a nasty ankle bite.) She jiggled, and the fairy disappeared.
“One left,” Mrs. Appleplum said. “Now what book are you from?” she asked the squirrel.
The squirrel was glancing around at the house and up the tree and at the hobbits who, quite unlike themselves, had gotten so joyously carried away, they were singing a pub song about a woman named Adeline. One belched and excused himself profusely, and then another farted, terribly embarrassed. Fern could smell the cheesy air from where she stood downwind.
“What do you want?” Fern asked the squirrel. “Do you want something?”
But the squirrel didn’t really want anything. As it turned out, he was just a regular squirrel. And thank goodness for that! I really needed just a regular squirrel! He blinked his eyes and dashed off.
4
WILD DRUDGERS ON TAMED HEDGE ROAD
JUST THEN, THE BONE STUCK HIS HEAD OUT THE back door.
“Ida! Meet me at the car! We’ve got to head out! We’ve got a…a…an errand to run!” He looked at Mrs. Appleplum. “Encsssyclopediasss! Jusst a quick jaunt.”
Mrs. Appleplum looked at Fern. “Thank you for helping. You’re very good, you know.”
“Thanks,” said Fern, and then she nearly reached out and grabbed Mrs. Appleplum. She could feel her arms almost rise up and hug her. Fern remembered the kiss Mrs. Appleplum had planted on her cheek. Fern wanted to hug her, but would Mrs. Appleplum hug her back? Fern couldn’t be sure, and so she didn’t. She resisted. Instead, she ran off, bounding past the tipsy hobbits, who thanked her again with a small chorus of proper cheer, and around the house into the Bone’s wheezing car.
The Bone drove the wobbly car down the long driveway, the diary jostling on the seat between them.
“Where are we going?” Fern asked.
“Howard!” the Bone said. “Howard is the key. It struck me, Fern. This diary is a pattern. And patterns can be mathematic equations. The diary has words and numbers like algebra. Howard will be able to crack this code, I tell you.”
Howard! Of course, why hadn’t Fern thought of him? Howard was at the Drudgers’. “Are you taking me back to Tamed Hedge Road?”
The Bone nodded. “Where else?”
What would she think of her house now that she’d been through so very much? She went through the dates in her head. Math camp would be over with. That was good. And vacation at Lost Lake wouldn’t start for a while yet. Would the Drudgers have missed her? Had she missed them?
While they drove, Fern told the Bone about the hobbits, the rabbits, Templeton and the squirrel. “Do you ever think we’ll need an army of fairies?”
“You never can tell.”
“I almost hugged Mrs. Appleplum,” Fern said.
“You didn’t tell her that you’re her granddaughter, did you?”
“No,” Fern said. “Of course not.” What she didn’t say was that she really wanted to, that she was dying to tell her.
“Good,” the Bone said. “Keep your eyes peeled for butterflies. I’ve asked the Great Realdo to help us out. And, well, that’s the form he likes to take with me.”
Fern kept watch. They passed an old gas station. It was boarded up, but through its dusty windows, Fern could see that it was packed with old stuff—furniture and dusty junk. The old pumps looked familiar, and Fern remembered the background of the photograph of her mother, swaying, maybe dancing.
They drove on until Fern knew the streets, the familiar turns. There was a certain well-worn comfort. She closed her eyes as the car got closer to Tamed Hedge Road. There was no denying the gravitational pull toward her old house. The pause at the stop sign. The dip in the intersection. The clunk of the manhole cover. The Bone bumped the car over the curb and into the driveway. Her body knew its way there so well. Had this been home all along and she just hadn’t been able to recognize it? Maybe! Wouldn’t that be a simple fix. Fern opened her eyes, and there they were…the cream house with cream shutters on Tamed Hedge Road. Fern felt a familiar tightening in her chest. She narrowed her eyes; it was an instinct. She patted down the front fluff of her wild hair. No, Fern thought, this isn’t home. This is the Drudgers’ home, not mine.
Now, I’m sure you haven’t been thinking too much about Howard’s vacation with the Drudgers, but I can tell you it’s been an unusual one. First of all, no matter how happily ordinary Howard is, no matter how much he admired and craved the Drudgers’ dullness, he was brought up by the Bone. And there’s no avoiding the fact that the Bone had influenced him. The Bone had made him a little adventurous…just a little tiny bit. So this is what happened: Howard became very good friends with Milton Beige, the chubby beige boy with the ball-tipped nose whom Fern was supposed to marry one day. While doing math problems for fun, Howard told Milton a secret. It slipped out. Hypnosis. Milton goaded Howard into proving it. “I don’t believe you!” he said. So Howard decided to make it clear. Howard wasn’t a great hypnotist. Keep that in mind. He was taught by the
Bone, who was in a fragile state and not very confident in his own skills. So…
It only took a second for Fern to notice that something was wrong at the Drudger household. The grass was much too long. The boxy front hedge had a few wild branches shooting up from it. There was grass growing in the sidewalk cracks, and the racket of crickets, which she’d never heard before from her yard, was noisy.
Fern jumped out of the car. She raced to the front door.
“What is it, Fern? What’s wrong?” the Bone asked. To his untrained eye, things seemed just fine.
“It’s all wrong!” Fern told him.
She twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. She pounded on the door and buzzed the bell, one long buzz. Then she stopped and listened. She heard weird noises, screeching? Did she hear screeching?
“Who is it?” asked a voice that Fern didn’t recognize.
“It’s me. Ida. No, Fern, Fern…” She nearly said Fern Drudger, but she then thought, No, Bone. By this point, Fern didn’t know what to say. “Just let me in!” she said. “This is my house!”
“Oh. Well, this is Milton Beige, and I’m unable to open the door at this moment. I…I just can’t right now. Why don’t you come back later?”
“Open up, Milton!” Fern said.
The Bone was standing next to her now. “Open the door. I’m here, too. Tell Howard that it’s the Bone.”
The door unlocked, and Milton’s round nose and big beige cheeks appeared. “Come in, quick,” he said.
Howard, his face flushed, was standing behind Milton. “Hello,” he said with a sigh.
Fern and the Bone were hustled inside. The house was a wreck. The ceiling light in the hall entranceway was gone. In its place was a splotch of broken plaster and a handful of wires.
“We can explain,” said Milton, his voice high with nerves. “See, we got a little bored—”
“I made a mistake,” Howard said. “It’s all my fault.”
“See, I didn’t know it until I met Howard, but I’ve been bored all my life!” Milton broke in. “But, see…”
