by N. E. Bode
“No,” Fern said. “I don’t see! What happened?” Frustrated, she pushed past Howard and Milton and ran from room to room. The closet doors were thrown open and coats and scarves were strewn everywhere. Mr. Drudger’s work umbrella was popped open and hanging from the ceiling fan slowly revolving in the kitchen. There were muddy footprints, small like a dog’s footprints, all over the beige carpeting. Banana peels splayed on the coffee table. The Drudgers’ painting of their living room in their living room was completely crooked. And still there were screechy noises coming from upstairs. And padding. And thumping.
“What’s happened here, Howard?” the Bone asked.
“I made a mistake. I wanted to impress Milton. I wanted to prove I could do it. And Milton had a gold watch from his grandfather. I showed it to the Drudgers. I rocked it back and forth and their eyes latched on so easily. I wanted them to be fun! I wanted them to have fun!”
Milton broke in, “Honestly, sir, for all the bad stuff that’s happened here, I can honestly say that I have had fun. And the Drudgers, sir, are more fun.”
Fern was charging up the stairs now. She followed the noises until she came to her parents’ bedroom. The door was closed. She paused, and Howard charged to the door, blocking it with his body. “Look, Fern, they were so dull I had to do something. I had to at least try!”
“Let me see, Howard, for myself,” Fern said.
She pushed Howard out of the way and opened the door. And there they were. Mr. and Mrs. Drudger…they were still dressed like themselves, khakis, button-downs. But Mrs. Drudger was jumping on the bed and Mr. Drudger was hanging on the doorknob of the closet. They were both squat and waddling, their chins out, their lips pursing and unpursing. They were ooh-oohing and hee-heeing. Mrs. Drudger’s hair was wild and somewhat matted. Mr. Drudger was unshaven.
The Bone said, “Yep, I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Our system isn’t perfect. It has…”
“Some kinks!” Fern said. “I’d say it has some kinks!”
Milton was standing in the hallway too, breathless from having bounded up the stairs. He wasn’t used to such exercise. “Aren’t they magnificent creatures?”
“You are a menace,” Fern said. “How could you two do this? It’s completely unfair. How long have they been like this, Howard? How long?”
Milton walked into the bedroom. He pulled some grapes out of his pockets, and the Drudgers waddled over to him. They plucked the grapes from his dimpled hand and popped them into their mouths.
“A week, I guess. I tried to get in touch, but you all weren’t home. Have you moved?”
“Just for a little bit,” the Bone said.
“And you didn’t tell me?” Howard looked hurt.
“We aren’t far,” the Bone said. “We’re trying to get the book. We’re getting closer. It’s why we’re here.” The Bone handed Howard the diary. “We found this, but we need it decoded, and I thought if anyone could do it, you could.”
Howard eyed the diary. “I can try, I guess,” he said.
Fern was still in shock. She was watching Mr. and Mrs. Drudger eat grapes and pick at Milton’s hair. “We should try to get them back, shouldn’t we?” Fern questioned. But then she really looked at them. They were all cuddled up, talking to each other in a low monkey chatter. They appeared so loving now, as one sniffed the other’s head. “Shouldn’t we?”
“I love them like this!” Milton smiled. “Let them be happy a little while longer. Just a little! You don’t understand,” he said. “This is a beautiful thing, I tell you.”
The Bone shrugged.
Howard said, “I’ve tried. They just won’t look at me long enough to really settle into dehypnosis. It’s like they know and they don’t want to. It’ll wear off.”
Milton said, “We bought a monkey costume. Howard is going to take Mr. Drudger to the bank and get him to cash some checks. I think folks will think he’s being funny, you know, annoyingly in character. But they’ve got to let him take the money out.”
“Sounds like a clever plan. And you know I love clever plans. But are you okay?” the Bone asked Howard. “Really?”
“It is actually kind of fun. I sort of like taking care of them. And, you know, it’s good for Milton. Look at him.”
Milton was climbing on the bed now, jumping with them. Fern smiled. “Well, I guess it’s good for them all, somehow.”
Howard opened the diary. “This might take a while,” he said. “It might be a tough code to crack.”
“You can do it!” Fern said.
“I’ll try,” Howard said.
He walked them downstairs to the front door.
“Did they get fired from Beige & Beige?” Fern asked.
“No, Milton told me to call in some personal vacation time. You know they had a lot of unused vacation days!”
“I know,” Fern said. She wandered away from the Bone and Howard into the living room. She walked to the painting of the living room and moved it so that it hung straight. She could hear the Bone saying “Here’s my phone number. Call us as soon as you think you’ve got it,” and Howard saying that he would, as soon as he could.
Howard and the Bone didn’t hug. The Bone didn’t do that kind of thing. While they shook hands, Fern shut her eyes and slowly lifted her hand to the painting. Then she tried to glide her fingers into the painting, thinking to herself, No, it isn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Not here. Her fingers were stopped. They bounced off the canvas. Then she heard the monkey noises overhead, and she tried again, thinking this time that it was possible, that anything was possible, really, that things weren’t what they seemed to be. And this time her fingers did slip into the painting. Fern patted the fuzz of the beige carpeting, a replica of the beige carpeting she was standing on at that very moment. Fern was astonished that she’d had this power all along and had never known it. Feeling jittery, she pulled her hand out of the painting and walked quickly back to Howard and the Bone.
“I’m proud of you, son,” the Bone said. “You’re part my boy, even though you’re a Drudger. You know that?”
Just then there was loud screeching from upstairs, the Drudgers howling like monkeys. “There’s no denying it,” Howard said. “No denying it.”
5
THE LIMP
STAY FOCUSED NOW! STAY SHARP! THAT’S MY advice, because things may pick up speed and get a little jostled like those roller coaster boxcars on their tight, loopy tracks, and I don’t want you to topple out, or something dreadful like that. I’m doing the best I can, and I can’t think of any advice from my old writing instructor that would help me now. He never wrote a book with so much going on. In fact, his books are dry and dusty, big fatty books that sit on library shelves until you check them out just to let them get some air, because you feel sorry for them. I hope the rest of this goes well. I can hear that roller coaster motor chugging and whining and, actually, I don’t like roller coasters. Once I got off one and threw up on my shoes.
The Miser has had some time to think. Once he turned himself back into the Miser and especially while he was waiting for Mrs. Appleplum to shuffle in and untie him, he was thinking. He was shaking the blurred vision of love from his head and he was putting things together. He knew Fern had Eliza’s diary and that Fern was jiggling things from it. That’s how the Miser ended up under the peach tree. And if Eliza had written about The Art of Being Anybody—how couldn’t she have?—Fern could possibly even shake the book from the diary. So he was nearly convinced that Fern already had The Art of Being Anybody, or almost. By the time he was untied and striding out of his room, he had one more question: what was more important to Fern than the book? What?
The old jalopy was acting up, even more than usual. When the Bone and Fern drove in the long driveway and parked, the Bone got out of the car and lifted its rusted hood to look at the engine. Fern went inside the house to tell Mrs. Appleplum that they were expecting a very important phone call, and that they’d want to answer the phone from now on, if that
was okay with her.
“Mrs. Appleplum?” Fern called. “Mrs. Appleplum?”
There was no answer. So Fern called out again, but this time she called for Mr. Haiserblaitherness. You see, ever since Fern was in the Miser’s room, she was dying to know what he was writing. The letters in those envelopes hadn’t gone very far from her mind. Was it part of a dastardly plot of his? The house seemed empty. Maybe this was her chance. She walked up the stairs, calling again and again for Mr. Haiserblaitherness. Still no answer. She called once more, in front of his door, then turned the knob. It opened easily. (She’d taken the key the night before, and he’d had no way of locking it on his way out.)
Fern couldn’t help but think there was something alive in the room. The window was open wide now, and the envelopes under the bed were still rustling. Fern moved to the desk. There were envelopes with Mrs. Appleplum’s address on them and other letters sitting out. Fern started reading.
Dear Mrs. Appleplum,
I’m sorry I didn’t attend breakfast. And apologize for any rudeness last night. I am not myself.
Sincerely,
M.
The next letter read:
Dear Mother,
The wind is warm here. And I miss you terribly. Tell sister Imogene that I think of her. I often wonder if she married the grocer. I hope Father’s back has held up from all of his strongman lifting and that he’s stopped eating those nails. It isn’t good for his digestion. It’s been so many years since I’ve been in touch. As you know, I haven’t been myself.
Love,
M.
There were letters to Imogene, to the grocer, to the Miser’s old landlord, an apology for lying—he had, in fact, sealed some small holes in the walls with toothpaste and had left milk in the refrigerator to sour. Fern started opening envelopes under the bed. There were letters to his old piano teacher thanking her for her kindness and apologizing for his lack of diligent practicing, and long weepy epics to his nanny. There were letters to the Bone. They were warm and honest and filled with regret. Fern was shocked. All of the letters ended the same way: As you know, I haven’t been myself.
Who was the Miser?
Just then there was a rustle of wings, a quick flap-flapping. A crow appeared on the windowsill. It was a giant black crow. It cawed loudly. Fern knew she was being scolded. Was it the Miser, transformed? She quickly put the letters back in their envelopes and under the bed.
“Sorry,” Fern said.
The crow looked at her sadly. It cawed again, a high cry. Fern thought the crow might hop to her and sit in her lap. It seemed so forlorn. But, no, the crow puffed up its chest. It began beating the air. It rushed at Fern, and she screamed. She ran out the bedroom door, and the crow was after her. She turned and ran down the stairs, past her black umbrella in the parlor, through the kitchen and out the back door to the yard. She felt the crow flap violently around her, up, up into the sky.
Fern stood there, breathing hard, with her hands on her hips. Had the Miser, in the shape of a crow, just caught her with his secret? Or had it been a crow? Sometimes a crow is just a crow.
Out in the distance, she saw a shape stand up in the garden. It looked like Mrs. Appleplum, her dress, her swoop of hair; but she was standing upright, not hunched even the least little bit. In fact, she seemed rather tall. She was striding confidently around the garden with a set of clippers. She stopped suddenly as if she felt Fern watching her. She looked up, then rummaged through her pocket. She held up a letter over her head. Fern walked toward her, and she walked toward Fern. They met in the middle of the yard. There was nothing arthritic about Mrs. Appleplum now. Nothing at all, except for a small limp, just a little limp in one leg. It reminded Fern of the bird that turned into a dog. Fern’s heart was pounding in her chest.
“This is for you,” her grandmother said. She handed the letter to Fern, and Fern recognized the handwriting—the Miser’s.
Fern took the letter, but her head was spinning. Shaken by the angry crow in the Miser’s room and by having just been at her old house, which was not her home—it had never really been her home—Fern wanted to confess to Mrs. Appleplum, more than ever before, that she was not Ida Bibb, but her granddaughter. She remembered the kiss Mrs. Appleplum had given her on her cheek and how she had wanted to hug her after dealing with all of the creatures in the yard. Fern remembered how it had felt to have her hand in the goldfish pond that first time. She said, “I…I…haven’t been honest.”
“It’s okay,” the old woman said. “I haven’t been honest either.”
“Your name is Dorathea Gretel. I know, but…”
“Yes, and you know I have a limp from an accident. You know about the accident too, don’t you? You saw me once get hit by a car, but you didn’t know it was me. I thought you might put it together though. So I took on many limps so that you wouldn’t recognize that limp. You’re very smart, Fern.”
Fern looked at her. Her eyes welled up. Her heart swelled. Her grandmother knew who she was, had always known. Had she known her since she was just a baby? “When I was a little,” Fern said, “there was a book, and I shook crickets out of it, a whole roomful!” It felt wonderful to be able to tell her anything she wanted, anything at all.
Mrs. Appleplum smiled and shook her head. “Things aren’t always what they seem, are they?”
Fern remembered the snowflakes that had turned into scraps of paper and the little sentence—that little sentence, that she had lined up on her desk. “No,” she said. “They aren’t.”
Mrs. Appleplum pulled Fern to her chest. She hugged her tightly. She smelled of sweet lemons and the garden’s dirt. And Fern knew that Mrs. Appleplum had been keeping an eye on her for a long time. She’d been the bird on her windowsill, and the bat that had turned into the marble. She’d been the tree and the nun and the lamppost, and she’d known everything all along.
“Do you want your umbrella back?” Fern asked.
“That old thing? No, thank you. I’m not sure why you held on to it. It’s dented, you know.”
This made Fern laugh and cry at the same time. Has that ever happened to you? It’s such a strange and wonderful thing. If it hasn’t ever happened to you, I hope it does one day.
“Hush, my girl, hush. We’ve got work to do,” Fern’s grandmother said. “The Bone is gone.”
PART 5
SWEET, SWEET
1
THE KIDNAPPING
(actually, The Adultnapping, right?)
FERN TORE TO THE FRONT YARD, WHERE SHE found the Bone’s old jalopy, its hood still cranked open. Her grandmother called her to the house. Fern ran to her, ripped open the letter her grandmother had been holding and read it out loud while following her grandmother upstairs.
Dear Fern,
I have the Bone. I want the book. I believe you’ve heard of The Art of Being Anybody? I’ll come to collect it at three o’clock. Don’t try to find us. We’ll find you. If I don’t have it today, I’ll have to do something terrible to the Bone. I don’t want to do this terrible thing. But as you know, I haven’t been myself.
Sincerely,
M.
Fern began, “Do you know—”
“The Miser, yes. He was a fine enough boy. His name was Michael, once upon a time. Your mother cared for him, but didn’t love him.”
“Did you know—”
“I knew Mr. Haiserblaitherness was the Miser, certainly. Just as I knew you and your father were never the Bibbs.”
“And Mr. and Mrs. Drudger…”
“They are nice people, Fern. They took care of you well. A bit dull, but nice.”
“How come—”
“You could get crickets to pop out of a book as a little, little girl, but now you have to relearn it? Well, children can do so many things until they’re told they can’t. This is true of you, as an Anybody, but it’s true for other children, too.”
“You’ve been…”
Here Fern’s grandmother turned. They now stood near the ent
ranceway to her grandmother’s bedroom. It was the only room in the house Fern hadn’t seen yet. “Yes, I’ve been the one keeping an eye on you. I knew that you would come to me, when you needed me. In your own time. This is the way it was meant to work, Fern.”
“Do you know—”
“Of course I know where The Art of Being Anybody is. Do you think I’d leave it laying about?”
Her grandmother twisted the knob and opened the door. Inside was a jungle of books, and everything in it, truly everything, was made of books—the night stand, the dresser, even the bookcase that held books was made of books. The bed had a coverlet, dust ruffle, and canopy of soft, old canvaslike parchment with ancient scrawl. The curtains were made of the same material. The lamp shade was an octagon of thin books wired together. Fern turned and turned in the room, the ceiling, the walls—all books. The floor, too, was completely covered by leather bindings, like a brick path. She bent down and opened the book at her feet: Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies. She went to pick it up off the floor.
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. Those books aren’t lying on the floor. They are the floor. If you lie on your belly, though, you can still read it.”
“Maybe later,” Fern said.
Her grandmother smiled. “When I give you The Art of Being Anybody, Fern,” she said, “you can do anything with it. I mean anything. You can use it in such a way that, eventually, one day, you could be a world leader. In fact, if you learn everything it has to offer, you could rule the world. Do you understand?”
“I don’t want to rule the world. I want the Bone back.”
Her grandmother shook her head. “I’ve heard this before, you know. It’s what your mother said when the Bone was coming for her. We were standing in this very room. And do you know what I said?”
