The Moon Over High Street

by Natalie Babbitt

  Joe looked at her troubled face, and looked away quickly. He wanted to tell her what he wanted to do—oh, how he wanted to tell her!—but he was lost in uncertainty. She was the one who was supposed to know what was best, but maybe she didn’t know! So how should he answer her question? Would she like it if he was rich? If she didn’t have to worry about money for his college? And what right did he have, anyway, to push for his own ideas when he believed, as he always had, that he should try to please her? He felt, all at once, impossibly young and helpless, and the irritated feeling filled his head. He mumbled, “I don’t know what to say. I just—don’t know.”

  AND THEN, BLESSEDLY, the kitchen door burst open and Vinnie’s voice was calling: “Hey! Myra? Where are ya? Anybody home?”

  “Oh, good,” said Myra. “It’s Vinnie!” And she called back, “We’re here, in the living room! Come and meet Joe’s grandmother!”

  Vinnie came into the living room and nodded to Gran in his usual warm and easy way. “How do, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “I just stopped by t’see if the air conditioner was doin’ okay, and here ya sit, lookin’ all settled in!” He turned to Joe, then, and said, “Hey, kid! Now ya got two to look after! Not a bad way t’spend yer time!”

  But Myra interrupted this thought. “Gran!” she said. “Vinnie is one of my dearest friends, and he’s gotten to know Joe, too—they’ve had a lot of conversations—so what would you think about bringing him into our discussion? He’ll need to know what’s going on sooner or later, and he’s sure to have some good ideas.”

  “All right,” said Gran. “That would be fine with me!”

  “Hold on, now,” said Vinnie. “What ya talkin’ about? What’s goin’ on?”

  Gran lifted her pocketbook from the floor beside her, unzipped it, and took out an envelope. “It’s all in this letter that came to me yesterday, Vinnie, up home in Willowick. We’re just trying to figure out what we ought to do.”

  Vinnie took the envelope and looked at the return address. “Uh-oh,” he said. “Lawyers.” He perched on an arm of the sofa, frowning, and slid the letter out of its envelope. And then he began to read, slowly and carefully, his expression growing more and more astonished. Coming to the end of it at last, he lifted his eyes to Joe’s face. “Ya know all about this, kid?” he asked.

  Joe nodded. “Pretty much,” he said.

  “Well,” said Vinnie, “there ain’t no puzzle to it. Not t’my mind, anyway. I mean, the old guy wants t’retire without retirin’. He’s a good businessman, and he’s got it all figured out. Take on the kid here, train ’im up in a few fancy schools, and then, when the time comes, stick ’im inta the office and sit back. Everyone’ll expect him t’retire. I mean, it’s the classy thing t’do. But it’ll only look like he’s retirin’. He’ll still be the head man. He’ll still tell ya what t’do. He likes ya, kid, but don’t get the notion he loves ya. He’s not doin’ all this adoption stuff for love.”

  Vinnie handed the letter back to Gran. “Lookit,” he said. “There’s nuthin’ wrong with money, all by itself. It just lies around stacked up in the bank. It can’t make ya smart if yer dumb, and it can’t keep ya straight if ya feel like cheatin’. Sure, everyone’s gotta have some. But, kid, if ya wanna get rich, this could be one way t’do it. Ain’t no real harm in it, far as I can see.” He stood up and grinned around at them all. “How’s that for advice from a guy who never had two cents t’rub together? See ya later!” And he went back through the kitchen and out the door.

  They sat, then, in silence, each with different thoughts, Gran sipping her tea, Myra rubbing her chin, and Joe staring at the floor. Vinnie had driven off in the Sope Electric van and everything was quiet until, from across the street, there was barking, full-throated barking, barking to warn the world of terrible dangers and intrusions. The three in the living room looked up. “It’s Rover Sope,” said Myra. “He’s probably seen that cat that lives around the corner. She comes over here every once in a while to check things out—don’t ask me what things. She’s a cat, after all. And if he sees her, he finds a way to get out of his yard and come after her. She just climbs a tree or something, though, and doesn’t pay a bit of attention to him. There! He’s gotten loose!”

  Rover had managed to come into Myra’s front yard, still barking, and on top of that, they heard someone yell to him to come home where he belonged. Beatrice! Joe got to his feet. “I’ll go help get him penned up,” he said. “Be right back.”

  THE CAT WAS NOWHERE to be seen when Joe went out, but Beatrice was there, fastening Rover’s leash to his collar, and together she and Joe crossed the sun-splattered street, the dog between them. “I’m going to put him in the house,” said Beatrice. “If I don’t, he’ll just get out again. Thanks for helping, Joe.”

  But Joe said, “Beatrice, wait—come out for a few minutes after, okay? I have to talk to you. I guess I’m not supposed to tell anyone about this, but there’s something I really need to ask you. I need to know what you think.”

  “Well … sure!” she said. And in a moment, with Rover stowed inside, they sat down side by side on the grass. “So what’s going on?” she asked him. And Joe took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and told her about the letter from the lawyer.

  When he had finished, Beatrice pulled up a weed or two, slowly, and at last, keeping her eyes down, she asked him, “Don’t you want to be a scientist anymore?”

  “Sure I do!” he said.

  Beatrice turned to look at him directly. “Well, then,” she said, “where’s the problem? All you have to do is say so.”

  Joe stared at her. “But I just … I mean … if Gran wants … it seemed like I had to at least think it over!”

  “So you thought it over!” she said. “But you didn’t change your mind. Right?”

  Joe said, amazed, “You make it sound so simple!”

  Beatrice smiled at him. “It is simple,” she told him. “In spite of what anyone else has to say, it’s your life you’re talking about, Joe Casimir. Nobody else’s. And you have to do what you really want to do with it.”

  Joe stared at her, at her smile and the way she was looking at him, and the irritated feeling moved out from that corner of his head where it had lived for so long—moved out, stood apart, dissolved, and disappeared. He smiled back at her then and said, “Wow.”

  BACK IN AUNT MYRA’S living room, he said to the two who were waiting, “I’ve made up my mind. I don’t want anything to do with adoption. Money can be nice, sure, but it’s just not nice enough. I want to do what I’ve wanted to do for so long, I hardly even know when it started.” And he told them all about the moon.

  LATER, WHEN MYRA was putting together a simple Saturday night supper for the three of them, Gran clanked out to the kitchen and demanded, “Who says nobody has any sense till they turn twenty-one?”

  “Not me!” said Myra. “I always have plenty of sensible kids in my fifth-grade classes. In fact, sometimes it seems to me that the older we get, the less sensible we are!”

  Gran nodded. “Very true,” she agreed. “Take me, for instance. Right now I feel like dancing a jig!”

  “So do I,” said Myra with a smile. “And soon you’ll be able to.”

  “I guess so,” Gran replied with a smile of her own. “But it feels pretty fine just to want to!”

  XI

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON can be a lovely time, especially in June. It isn’t that Sunday is the beginning of a new week—no, Sunday is quite separate, a day off by itself, not the beginning or the end of anything. It’s a time for the world, and the other six days of the week, to keep out of the way … unless you happen to be someone who’s about to face a millionaire in his big and beautiful house on the best street in town.

  Some of us, however, are fearless. Gran had called Mr. Boulderwall on the telephone on Saturday, after Joe had said what he had to say, and in a voice she rarely used—a voice Joe was very glad she wasn’t using on him—demanded an interview for three o’clock the next day, Sun
day afternoon. And was given it. “Well, why shouldn’t he agree to see me?” she said when she’d hung up the phone. “I probably sounded like his mother!” She smiled, then, a smile of enormous satisfaction, for she was deeply glad—and proud—of Joe’s decision. So was Myra. And they’d said as much to Joe. To celebrate, they’d gone out to the Gobble House after supper, and all three ordered—and ate to the last spoonful—a chocolate Flipsie for dessert: a sundae with all the sauce on the bottom so that—poor you!—you had to dig for it. And later, when they went to bed on Glen Lane, all three slept the sleep that will come when the world, which had turned itself upside down, rights itself at last and becomes again the same old world you thought you knew.

  Being fearless, Gran was completely calm on Sunday. When Myra asked her what she was going to wear for the interview, she only laughed. “Wear? Why, I’m going to wear the same thing I’d wear for anyone! Just a plain old skirt and blouse. With a jacket. And two canes. I’m going to use two canes instead of my walker—I learned how in rehab. They kind of thump as you go along, but that’s better than clanking. And they take up a lot less room. Joe, fetch me those canes from my room, would you, please? I guess I ought to try them again before I go.”

  And then, after a successful practice, and closer to the deadline, the doorbell rang and there was Mrs. Mello. “Hello, all!” she chirped. “It’s only me. But I have something to discuss with Berta, and I thought we could just go out for a ride and have a little chat.”

  “Can’t do it now, Helen,” said Gran. “I’m already having a little chat. With Mr. Boulderwall, that man I told you about yesterday. And I’m due up there in just a few minutes.”

  “No problem in the least,” said Mrs. Mello. “It’s High Street, right? I know where that is. I’ll drive you, and then I’ll just wait in the car till you’re ready to leave.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Mello, I don’t think …” said Aunt Myra. “I mean, I was going to do that. Maybe even go in with Gran, to act as a kind of backup.”

  But Gran said, “You know, Myra, this might actually be better. If Helen drives me up, you’ll be completely out of it. They couldn’t blame you for a thing. Whereas I can go up there, say my piece, make my noise, and leave. I don’t have to worry that I’ll see them somewhere after, because I won’t be here. Yes. I like it better. Helen and I can have our own little talk in the car. And counting everything from start to finish, we’ll probably be back in an hour or so for a cup of tea and some cookies. All right?”

  “Well,” said Myra, “I guess so. Maybe you’re right. Joe, what do you think?”

  But Joe had escaped outside to the backyard and was swaying in the hammock, buried once more—wide awake this time—in The Sky: A History.

  THE FRONT HALL at the Boulderwalls’ house looked just the same as it had a week before—more white roses, more disapproval from the heavy gilt-framed mirror. But Gran was not taken to the living room. Instead, a maid led her to a much smaller room—a sort of parlor—with roses, in smaller vases, that were pink—and here she was directed to a settee with dark-red velvet upholstery, and was left alone for a minute or two to examine her surroundings: an elaborate landscape painting framed on the wall above a marble fireplace, two chairs with their own dark red upholstery, books on a wide bookcase, windows looking out to the terrace beyond. Little tables stood handy, waiting for cups of tea—or, possibly, glasses of wine. It was a beautiful room, and yet Joe and Myra were right about this house. It looked as if it had never been lived in.

  But it was owned, no question of that. Gran heard a deep voice giving orders to someone in the hall beyond the door, and then the man of the house—the rich old man of the house—stood before her. “Mrs. Casimir?” he said. “How do you do.” And he looked at her closely, squinting, measuring her, but otherwise his face was without expression.

  Gran looked back at him, equally expressionless. “How do you do,” she replied. “Yes, I am Roberta Casimir, Joe Casimir’s grandmother and legal guardian. And you, I presume, are Anson Boulderwall?”

  “I am,” he replied, sitting down in one of the chairs opposite her. “I see you’re using canes today. Joe told me you’d had a fall at home. It’s good to find you making such a speedy recovery.”

  “Thank you,” she answered. “Yes, I’m doing very well. And since that is the case, it seemed reasonable for me to come down to Midville and talk to you immediately, and personally, about your wish to adopt my grandson.”

  “You’ve received the letter from Columbus, then?” he asked.

  “I have,” she told him. “Early Friday morning, at my home in Willowick.”

  “Very good,” said Mr. Boulderwall with a nod. “Mr. Forsythe, my lawyer, was quick to see what a fine opportunity this is for Joe. It will be so satisfying when it’s put into action!”

  Gran said, calmly, “A fine opportunity indeed—for someone. But not for Joe.”

  Mr. Boulderwall stared. His satisfaction vanished, leaving him with only a slightly open mouth. “I beg your pardon,” he said, leaning forward. “Perhaps I misunderstood you.”

  “I said,” Gran repeated, “that it would not be a fine opportunity for Joe. He doesn’t want an office job. He has other plans.”

  Mr. Boulderwall sat back again. “Oh, well, as to that, I’m sure you’re mistaken. I asked him, a few days ago, what he wanted to do when he got out of college, and he told me he didn’t know.”

  Gran smiled. “Forgive me,” she said, “but he knows, all right—he just hasn’t talked much about it. Not to me, anyway. Not until yesterday afternoon. And he certainly wouldn’t have talked about it to a stranger.”

  “Oh, well, boys!” said Mr. Boulderwall. “They have their little ways. I used to be one, myself, so I ought to know!”

  “What you ought to know,” said Gran, “is that young people are not all alike just because they’re young, boys or girls. I’ve watched over Joe ever since he was two months old—ever since his parents died. I know him very well. Back when he was first without his mother and father—his father was my only child—Joe was lucky enough not to know what he’d lost. How could he know? He was so new to the world and so busy getting used to things!” She looked away from Mr. Boulderwall’s frowning face, out through a window to the flagstones and grass of the terrace. “He was cheerful, and curious … and eager,” she said. “But, like lots of other babies, he did cry once in a while for what seemed like no reason at all that we could see, his grandfather and I. It’s possible he just wanted to be comforted. I guess everyone wants that sometimes, reason or no reason. At any rate, we kept his crib in our bedroom, near a window, so we’d be handy if he needed us at night.” Then her voice, that had turned soft with memories, was firm again: “But—and this is the important thing—when the moon was shining outside that window, when it was a full moon or even only half-full, he simply didn’t cry! Not once. I’d get up to see why he was so quiet, and he’d be wide awake, lying there looking out the window at the moon, and he’d be reaching his arms up to it, and smiling at it, as if it made him feel safe and happy to see it there. I’d seen him look just that way at his mother and father, arms reaching up and all, and I confess I thought briefly, back then, that maybe he saw the moon as a kind of substitute for them after they were gone. But … well, that’s extremely unlikely, I know. I don’t go in much for psychological mumbo jumbo. The world has always seemed pretty practical to me. So all I can say is that he had a real love for the night sky back then, and he still does. He says now that he wants to be some kind of scientist when he grows up—the kind that studies things in the sky, especially the moon. He wants to be in on the research that’s trying to find a way to keep things like meteors and comets from smashing into us here—and also into the moon.”

  Mr. Boulderwall examined the knuckles of one hand for a moment, and then he looked again at Gran, his reaction to her story empty of emotion. He had become, instead, a practical man of business. “The kind of education required for scientific study is expensive
,” he said. “Regular undergraduate tuition at first, of course, and then four years of graduate school at the very least, with another big batch of tuition and a great many extra expenses. Have you considered all that?”

  “Of course,” said Gran. “His grandfather and I began putting money away for his college as soon as he was born. It may not be enough when the time comes, but he’s been such a good student, he’ll probably be able to get a decent scholarship right here at State.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Mr. Boulderwall, “but you’re a widow now. Or so I’ve been told. There’s no one but you to provide all this.”

  “That’s so,” she replied, “but it doesn’t especially worry me. I’ll find a way to manage when the time comes.”

  Mr. Boulderwall stood up abruptly and thrust his hands into his pockets. “My dear Mrs. Casimir,” he said, “perhaps you don’t understand what your letter from my lawyer is trying to tell you. When I adopt your grandson, money for him—for his education and everything else he will ever want or need—will never be a problem again. Never again. For starters, my wife and I have decided that we’ll send him, this coming fall, to a first-class eastern prep school. And after that to one of the finest universities in the country. Harvard, probably. Or Yale. I doubt you’d be able to afford all that.”

  “You’d send him to a university,” said Gran, “but not to study the sciences.”

  “Why—no! Of course not!” he exclaimed with growing impatience. “He’ll get his regular undergraduate degree in something useful, like economics or international relations, and then he’ll go on to business school and train to take over my factory! As for this moon thing, there’s no real challenge there. It’s only some quirk left over from his infancy. My guess is, he’ll outgrow it. But if he doesn’t, well, he can build his own observatory right here, in back of the house, and when he’s not down at the factory, he can fool around with telescopes as much as he wants to.”