The Romeo and Juliet Code

by Phoebe Stone

  “You’ve cheated, again,” said Aunt Miami, “and I want a rematch.”

  “Whining and pining will get you nowhere,” he said.

  “You should talk,” she said. “You’re the one who lives in the past.”

  “Won’t you come and have a go at Parcheesi, Flissy? Isn’t that what they say in jolly old England? ‘Have a go’? We’ll start afresh. You might very well like it, even though I am the undisputed champion,” said Uncle Gideon, wiggling his eyebrows up and down, trying to be funny. I hadn’t realized he even knew I was standing in the hall.

  Miami threw some cards from another game in his face and they fluttered about and fell all over him. He looked very docile sitting there with cards on his shoulders and cards in his lap. But he didn’t fool me.

  “Fliss, we need you. Parcheesi with three is much more of a challenge. Please?” he said.

  “Probably no,” I said, going into the room and flopping down on the sofa. “I’m quite busy, actually.”

  “Extremely urgent, is it?” he said, smiling.

  “Oh, all right,” I said. “But it’s too dark in here to see the game board clearly.” I stood up and went over to the curtains. I saw the curtain cord hanging there along the window and I pulled it and the curtains went swishing off and away from the many windows. The room was suddenly filled with morning sunlight.

  Uncle Gideon looked at me quickly. Then he stared down at his hands. Finally, he said quietly, “Lovely, Fliss. Perfect. Pull up a chair.”

  “Beware,” said Miami, whispering to me, “he sneaks around and seems to know everything and he always wins.”

  “Oh, come now, it’s only a game, you two,” Uncle Gideon said later, after he had crushed us both at Parcheesi and we were sitting there feeling like two smashed-up fishing boats side by side on the beach. Uncle Gideon looked over at us in a terribly cheerful way.

  Then Auntie got out a photo album and we saw pictures of Danny when he was eleven years old, the day he climbed the huge boat launch in the harbor and hung upside down by his knees over the water, smiling at the camera. In all the photographs, my Danny always seemed to be in the center, beaming in his handsome way, and Uncle Gideon always seemed to be lost in the background.

  I was just going to ask again about Danny’s letter when The Gram poked her head through the parlor door. “That son of mine. That Danny Bathburn. It’s a wonder you are such a sensible girl, Flissy, when your father, Danny, never showed any sense at all right from the start.” She sighed and closed her eyes and then she went over and hugged Aunt Miami. She seemed to hold on to her terribly tightly because her thin, small hands turned white and tense against Miami’s lavender sweater.

  “My Danny is very clever, and so is Winnie,” I said in a loud way.

  “Yes,” Uncle Gideon said. He looked quite dismal for a moment. Then he suddenly announced that he wanted to make me a little bed for Wink and would I fetch Wink for measurements. “Now that you are eleven, Fliss, don’t you think Wink ought to have his own sleeping quarters? Wouldn’t that be a step in the right direction? You should give him his independence,” said Uncle Gideon, smiling at me again.

  I had to admit he did sometimes have a nice smile. It had a sort of bearish warmth to it, reminding me ever so slightly of Wink when Wink was thinking about something fondly. But then hadn’t Uncle Gideon just beaten Auntie and me at Parcheesi, showing no mercy at all and being terribly gleeful about it? And why was he so gruff about Danny’s letter?

  I frowned and didn’t exactly answer him. I just left the room on my way to get Wink. I was stomping up the stairs, feeling grumpy and puzzled by everything. If I still depended on Wink, it wasn’t my fault. My teacher in London had said it was Winnie’s fault. Winnie had cried then and said her work was “very pressing.” I had been ever so embarrassed.

  I was just running past what I had guessed was Derek’s door. But then, I stopped. I heard something. It was music, jazzy mournful music coming from in there. Captain Derek collected records. He liked jazz, I was told. How strange that I hadn’t met him. How strange that he hadn’t come out and that I hadn’t even seen him at all.

  I forgot all about losing dreadfully at Parcheesi. I sat down on the hall floor and listened to the music. I leaned my head back and imagined for a moment that I was ice-skating with Winnie and Danny. I loved skating with them on a pond in Hampstead Heath, but we only went once. They never had time to go again.

  I sat back up and looked at Captain Derek’s door. Right then and there, I made up my mind. I went upstairs to write Captain Derek a note.

  Dear Captain Derek,

  My name is Felicity Bathburn Budwig AKA Flissy. I am Danny Bathburn’s little girl. Have you ever played Parcheesi with Uncle Gideon? Do you think he cheats? Auntie thinks so. I thought the music was lovely. I should be very pleased to meet you. Will you be coming downstairs any time soon?

  Yours most sincerely,

  Felicity Bathburn Budwig

  I daresay British children don’t usually do rash and daring things without asking an adult first, but then I do have a bit of Danny in me and perhaps that part was to blame. Anyway, I took that note and on my way back downstairs, I shoved it under Captain Derek’s door. Then I took Wink into the parlor, and he got fitted for a brand-new bed. Uncle Gideon drew me a picture of the way the bed would look when it was finished. It was lovely, and I said, “It’s jolly nice, Uncle Gideon. I’m not half chuffed.”

  “Not half chuffed? Now what is that?” he said.

  “Not half chuffed means ‘pleased.’ I’m very pleased,” I said.

  “I see,” said Uncle Gideon, and after that, he used not half chuffed over and over again, every chance he got, all the while smiling at me.

  Then, while The Gram had her back turned, Uncle Gideon popped into the kitchen and swiped a cookie from the just-for-Sunday cookie jar. And he tried to look all sweet and sheepish so I wouldn’t tell. Anyway, British children are not snitches. So he got away with it. (Besides, he ended up sneaking one out for me.)

  After supper, I went into the library. “Well, who is that letter from, then, if it’s not from my Danny?” I said, crossing my arms and standing there very solemnly.

  Uncle Gideon looked over the top of his reading glasses at me and said, “Just from an old school buddy of mine, that’s all, Fliss.”

  But I didn’t believe him.

  “By the way, have you read anything decent lately?” he said. And he handed me a book called A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A British writer.

  I said thank you and took the book, but I still didn’t believe him. I curled up in a chair and studied the cover of the book and wondered what it would feel like to have a middle name like Hodgson.

  In my bed that night with poor Wink, I thought about that letter from Portugal with the colorful foreign stamps all over it and Danny’s adorable Hs and I was ever, ever so sorry, but I knew I had to read it. I just had to know, only because I missed Winnie and Danny so much. I sat up in my bed and watched the ocean in the dark and I could see the lights of a tanker going across the horizon in the distance and I wondered if that tanker was going all the way to England.

  Before you knew it, I was ever so regretful that I had pushed the letter to Captain Derek all the way under the door. Because if I had pushed it halfway under, then I would have known if someone had pulled it through and picked it up. Now, for all I knew, the letter I wrote might have been lying there in the shadows unread, unnoticed. It was for that reason that I wrote another letter.

  Dear Captain Derek,

  It’s me again, the one they call Flissy Bathburn. Sorry to bother you. But some things have been happening out here in your absence that perhaps you may be interested in. First of all, Uncle Gideon has received a letter from Portugal, and he has acted very strangely about it and quite frankly lied (in my opinion). I am very curious now and worried. Do you think he is hiding something concerning my parents? I hope you got one of my biscuits. I made them with The
Gram. When you come out, you can meet Wink. He is very shy too.

  Yours,

  Felicity Bathburn Budwig

  This time I was very much more clever. I tucked the letter halfway under the door and I waited. Even though I could hear Uncle Gideon calling, “Fliss dear, could you come down here and take a little walk on the beach with your aunt Miami? She’s just gotten to the poison part of Romeo and Juliet and she’s all gloomy and talking about never getting to play Juliet, that it’s too late for her and the stage and all that.”

  And Aunt Miami called back, “Oh, don’t listen to him, Flissy. He’s the one who’s letting his talent go to waste.”

  I barely heard them. I was watching that letter halfway under the door. And then, just as I was about to turn round and go downstairs, the letter moved. Someone pulled it under the door.

  My heart started racing and thumping and spinning, carrying on inside me like a tiny sparrow in a new cage. I was scared and nervous and pleased all at once. It was a jolly nice feeling to realize that I had run a test and it had worked. I had proved that Captain Derek existed. He was in there. It made me think that I can be a clever girl, even though I can’t do long division.

  “Flissy, you’re all fidgety again,” said The Gram when I came downstairs with my hand strangely over my face, trying to hide what I had just discovered. “I think a nice long walk will be a good thing. Take your time, now.”

  Auntie shrugged and patted me on the back. “Come along, Flissy Miss,” she said. “Are you up for a stroll?”

  The Gram handed us a packed lunch. Then she whispered something in Auntie’s ear. And everything seemed to turn dark again and that feeling came over me, that feeling of being a little boat cast out to sea with no flag to raise on the deck and no port to turn to.

  We clumped down the long steps to the beach. Then we edged along the water silently because Auntie was often quiet. The tide was out, so we could walk on the hard sand that is usually under the ocean, and we saw all sorts of creatures lugging their homes on their backs and others lurking in tide pools, waving their claws about, looking for a good fight. I kept picking up sand dollars and putting them in my dress pocket, wishing they were called “sand shillings” instead. In England, everyone thought Americans called dollars “bucks.” We thought everyone lived on cattle ranches and said, “I’ve got ten bucks that says that cowpoke won’t make it to Wyoming.” But so far, I hadn’t heard the Bathburns say anything like that.

  Without talking at all, Aunt Miami and I walked way out to the end of the jetty. Then Auntie stood on the very tip of the point, swaying her arms in the wind.

  “What a perfect place at the edge of the world to say some poetic lines,” she called out. “Do you mind?”

  “No, it would be lovely,” I called back. And so I sat down on a rock, with the tide slowly rolling in. Auntie turned in circles, and the wind rippled and ruffled her skirt, and her hair blew about. She stared up at the sky and began,

  “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

  Deny thy father and refuse thy name …”

  She went on for a while and I even joined in.

  Then the sky got dark and it looked like a storm was rolling up behind the clouds. The wind was ripping Auntie’s words apart and sending Juliet’s speech flying off into the roar.

  “Auntie,” I called, “I think we should go back! You can say the rest of your speech as we run.”

  Auntie took my hand and we did run all the way back from the end of the jetty to the beach. The lighthouse was sending its rolling light round and round on the choppy water. And there was a bell tolling, riding the water in a buoy off the coast to warn boats. We ran and ran and ran. The wind and rain on the sand were frightfully nasty. The sand came up and hit my arms like thousands of tiny needles, and I had to cover my eyes. We dropped our packed lunch somewhere and Auntie Miami lost one of her shoes and all the shells fell out of my pocket. Even with the wind swallowing us up, Auntie seemed hesitant as we got closer to the house.

  “Come on, Auntie,” I called. “Let’s hurry.” But she held back, looking up at the Bathburn house high above us on the ridge. The porch swing was knocking about all by itself, and one of the wicker chairs had blown off onto the ledge above us. I looked at the ocean. The waves were swelling higher and higher. Still, Auntie seemed to pull back and turn away. “Please, Auntie,” I called again. “Let’s go in.”

  Finally, I was ever so glad to grab the wooden railing of the stairs. I dragged myself up each step, though I thought the wind would toss me away like a wicker chair onto the rocks at any moment. When we got in the door, I had sand in my hair and all in my wet clothes. And there were pools of water under my feet in the hallway.

  We got back much sooner than expected. The house was very quiet. And it was ever so dark. The Gram came downstairs, looking worried and tired. “Miami, it would have been better if you’d stayed out longer, dear,” she said. Then Uncle Gideon came downstairs, followed by a man with a black doctor’s bag. The air smelled of medicine.

  Things came to me in pieces then, like a mismatching cardboard puzzle, shadowy and broken up with light and muffled noise. Was he a doctor? He must have come out of Captain Derek’s room. Was Captain Derek sick, then? Is that why he stayed in there?

  The Gram and the doctor and Uncle Gideon all walked past me as if I weren’t there at all. They went into the parlor, closing the double doors behind them. Then I heard murmuring and mumbling and whispering. I went up close to the door, listening, but I could not make out a single word they said.

  I went into the library the next afternoon, feeling ever so sorry about Captain Derek. I hadn’t even met him, and now, since he might be desperately ill, perhaps I never would. I was poking about among the shelves in the library, hoping to find a book on stamps, one with pictures in it showing what stamps exactly came from Portugal.

  Suddenly, I stopped short. I noticed for the first time that under piles of newspapers and magazines in the far corner was a piano, one of those great black shiny ones shaped like the continent of South America on three legs. I went over to it and I saw that the lid of the piano, the part that covered the keys, was nailed shut with great big nails driven into the wood. I’d never seen a piano nailed shut before. I was just reaching out to feel the lid and the places where the nails had gashed and scarred the wood when, suddenly, Uncle Gideon stood up. He had been sitting deep behind a pile of books and I hadn’t seen him. “Please!” he shouted out, “Please stay away from that piano. Don’t touch it and don’t go over there again.”

  I backed away towards the door.

  “Oh, I am sorry, Fliss,” he called after me. “I didn’t mean to bark. I don’t bark usually. You must know that by now. I was just angry for a moment. I was caught off guard. It’s not you,” he said. “I’m not angry at you.”

  I hurried out of the room and ran down the hall to the dining room. I found a big, high-backed stuffed chair and I turned it round to face the wall. I sat staring at the wallpaper.

  “Flissy?” Aunt Miami said. “Are you there?”

  I hadn’t realized she was also sitting in the room in another high-backed chair. I never knew what to expect in this house. I very much wanted to go home. Now more than ever. So I didn’t answer her. I turned my head away, tracing the tangled vines on the wallpaper. All the vines were covered with thorns, and the roses seemed squeezed and confused among the leaves.

  Miami kept saying, “Flissy, are you okay?”

  Finally, I said, “I was only looking at something in the library, but it bothered Uncle Gideon.”

  “Ah,” said Miami, “the piano.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why is it nailed shut? Why was he so angry?”

  “Oh, Flissy,” said Miami, “you are too young. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I would understand,” I said, standing up and stomping about.

  “You would?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Truly.”

  “Well, my brother Gideon
is a wonderful pianist. He can play anything and everything. But he doesn’t want to play the piano anymore. So he nailed it shut.”

  “Why?” I said.

  Miami shook her head. She leaned over and tugged on my braids twice. She touched the end of my nose three times. Then she simply got up and left the room.

  Most eleven-year-old girls are terribly posh and in England some of them even go round to parties and dance with lovely boys from Eton. My chum Lily Jones knew an eleven-year-old girl who wore lipstick in secret and had her toenails painted fire engine red. I wanted to be one of those girls; that’s what I told Wink. But Wink wasn’t listening. He was crying instead because there were so many secrets here, and everything seemed so odd, making him feel like a bear without a country. He felt he didn’t belong anywhere. I rocked him in my arms and I said, “There, there, Wink, don’t cry,” and soon I was crying too, because Wink’s tears always went straight to my heart.

  I was not sure about anything anymore. As summer drew on, I was not sure what would happen in September with my education. Normally, in England, most eleven-year-olds had taken the Eleven Plus Test. If you failed, you had to go to Secondary Modern and learn how to be an automobile mechanic or something like that. But my school had closed because of the war and so no one had taken the test. Most children had been sent to the country to be away from the bombing anyway. I was one of the last ones to leave, except for my chum Lily Jones and her little brother, Albert. They were still in London because their mum was afraid to send them off.

  I heard The Gram say earlier this morning in the hall before I got up, “Well, Miami, at least he’s no longer contagious. We must be grateful for that.”

  Now I took a peek out my very-high-up windows and I could see the postman rounding a hill, so I took off like a bomber ripping down the stairs and flying out on the porch till The Gram called out, “Flissy B. Bathburn, where are your British manners?”