The Penderwicks at Last Read online

  When she arrived, Batty was releasing several spiders into the wild, and singing “Born Free,” an old and sappy song about a lion named Elsa. Lydia danced along, making leaps of freedom, always away from the scuttling spiders, until Batty stood up, her containers now empty.

  “That was the last of them,” she said. “Every spider I could find has been relocated. How was Alice’s secret place?”

  Lydia leapt back toward Batty, hoping she wasn’t inadvertently squishing spiders—they’d already had enough trauma for one day. “Perfect. And, Batty, I was officially welcomed to Arundel by a bobolink! And the meadows are called Bobolink Meadow One and Bobolink Meadow Two, and I saw some frogs at the lily pond.”

  Batty put down her containers and gave Lydia an inspection, not the full treatment, like if they’d been apart for a month or so—Lydia’s height, for example, wouldn’t have changed in the last hour.

  “You really like it here, Lyds, don’t you? Even after Mrs. Tifton said those things about us?”

  “Why? We’re not leaving, are we? Please say we’re not.”

  “We’re not leaving.”

  “Good, good, good.” Lydia spun in circles, one spin for each “good.” “I believe it is our destiny to stay.”

  “I don’t know about that, but it turns out I was the only one who wasn’t sure we should. I talked to Mom, Dad, and Rosalind, and Jane. Rosalind and Tommy talked to Jeffrey, and Jeffrey talked to Mom and Dad and Skye. Ben fits in there somewhere, but I’ve lost track. They brought me around by promising I’ll never have to see or talk to Mrs. Tifton again. Jeffrey thinks she’ll go back to New York soon, but until she does—or until he gets here next week to distract her—I should just stay out of her way. And Jane promised that she and Ben would get here as soon as they can tomorrow, to help protect me. Not that Jane isn’t scared of Mrs. Tifton, too—she told me she is—so I’m not sure how much protection she’ll be.”

  “Having been officially welcomed by the bobolink of Arundel,” said Lydia, dancing a bit of Swan Lake, “I can also help protect you from Mrs. Tifton.”

  “You’re really not afraid of her?”

  “I don’t like it when she yells, but I don’t get scared.”

  “Lyds, you don’t actually like Mrs. Tifton, do you? I know you like everybody—”

  “I. Do. Not. Like. Everybody.” Maybe she should make Non omnes amo her motto after all. “I wish you could remember that, especially since Deborah.”

  “Sorry, I’ll try.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And Mom asked me if you’re homesick yet. I told her you aren’t, so I hope that’s true.”

  “It’s true. As long as no Rockettes show up, I’ll be fine. Yikes! What’s that noise?”

  Something or someone in the carriage house was clonking loudly, as if a sink or tub had gone to war with its own metal pipes. And now the sisters heard Feldspar barking, not his weird half bark, but a real one, the kind that meant he had nothing in his mouth. They rushed inside, followed the racket into the bathroom—where there was barely enough room for two people and one emotional dog—and discovered he’d dropped his ax into the bathtub. His barking was meant to convince it to jump back out.

  “Quick!” said Batty. “This is our chance to get the ax away from him. Go find something else!”

  “Like what?” Lydia was shoved aside as Sonata arrived to find out why Feldspar was so excited.

  “Anything!”

  Maneuvering herself out of the room, Lydia flew around the apartment in search of the next replacement object. The kitchen cabinets and drawers were empty, and there was nothing lying around the apartment except cleaning supplies—scrub brushes, sponges, a mop, a broom, and four buckets of soapy water. She briefly considered the mop, but that would cause as much trouble as the ax. In desperation, she looked under the couch, and there it was—a lone chair leg abandoned in some distant past, stoically waiting for the rest of its chair to come back.

  “Got it!” Lydia rushed into the bathroom and shoved the chair leg right in front of Feldspar’s nose, distracting him while Batty grabbed the ax from the bathtub and raced into the kitchen.

  “All safe,” she called. “It’s in the refrigerator now.”

  Feldspar knew when he’d been bested. He took the chair leg, pretending that doing so was his own idea, and fooling no one.

  “That’s taken care of, anyway,” said Batty.

  “What else?” Still buoyed by the bobolink, Lydia thought there was no problem she couldn’t easily solve.

  “Cleaning, remember?” Batty pointed to the supplies.

  Except cleaning. There was no easy solution to dirt. Lydia sighed and picked up a scrub brush.

  LYDIA SAT UP QUIETLY, careful not to wake Batty or the dogs. The four of them had slept on the floor of the apartment, cuddling in a nest of sleeping bags and couch pillows. It was more comfortable than it looked, not that it mattered much. Lydia and Batty would have slept well anywhere. Hours of cleaning is a good guarantee of a restful night.

  She was getting up to see if the eastern towhee she’d heard, calling Ly-di-AH-AH-AH-AH, was an actual bird or, as she hoped, Alice. When she got to the window, there, indeed, was her new friend.

  “Good morning, Alice,” she whispered. “Batty’s still asleep.”

  Alice whispered back. “You’re both invited for breakfast, and Mom said you’d better come right now if you want to see Hatshepsut climbing the stairs.”

  “I didn’t know chickens could.”

  “So far, only this one can.”

  While Lydia pulled on her clothes, she contemplated waking up her sister, who would surely want to witness Hatshepsut’s display of mountaineering. But Batty was still deeply asleep, and Lydia had learned long ago not to wake up sleeping people, especially when they’re not yet full-fledged adults. Now she had to waste precious time looking for a way to leave Batty a note—there was nothing in the apartment—and finally used Batty’s own phone to send her a message, then raced out to Alice.

  While Lydia had assumed she’d find Hatshepsut climbing the steps to the front porch, the reality was more exciting. The chicken had sneaked into the house and was climbing the stairs to the second floor. When the girls arrived, she was halfway up and determined to go even higher.

  “She’s probably trying to get to Jack’s room. We think he taught her,” said Alice. “I’ll tell my parents you’re here.”

  “But what should I do?” asked Lydia. “I have no chicken experience.”

  “Just try to keep Hatshepsut from going farther up.”

  “Please go no farther,” Lydia told Hatshepsut as Alice disappeared into the kitchen.

  The chicken threw Lydia a scornful glance and hopped to the next step.

  “Wrong way. Please. No, come down, come down.”

  Defiantly, the chicken hopped yet higher.

  “Help!” cried Lydia, and was relieved when Natalie appeared. “She’s not listening to me.”

  “Yes, well, she’s a chicken.” Natalie plucked the bird off the step. “Come on, old girl. Let’s get you back outside.”

  Lydia followed them into the kitchen, trying to avoid the chicken’s scowl—she obviously blamed Lydia for her capture. It was a cheerfully cluttered kitchen, full right now of delectable breakfast smells. Cagney was stirring pancake batter, Alice was rinsing raspberries, and they were in the middle of a discussion about whether or not it was Jack’s fault that Hatshepsut kept trying to get upstairs—Alice said yes and her father said no. Having no opinion either way, Lydia looked around and got a surprise bigger even than a climbing chicken—a tapestry hanging on the wall so skillfully and delicately made that Lydia thought it should be in a museum. She moved closer—it showed a meadow much like Bobolink Meadow Two, with a dozen shades of greens and yellows, tiny dots of pink for flowers, and—she stepp
ed closer—a bobolink perched on a long piece of grass!

  Alice noticed her looking. “Mom made that.”

  Lydia pointed at the tapestry. “That?”

  Lydia was very proud of her own mother, a brilliant astrophysicist, and of her father, too, a brilliant botanist, but neither of them—or any other Penderwick—had the ability to create something people would want to look at.

  “Yes. She’s an art teacher and also a great artist.”

  Natalie had come back inside, without Hatshepsut. “She’s exaggerating, Lydia.”

  “She’s not exaggerating,” said Cagney. “You are a great artist.”

  “Dad met her when they both started teaching,” said Alice, “and fell in love with her because of how talented she was, but then he had to beat out the math teacher, the gym teacher, and also Mom’s boyfriend from college before he could win her heart.”

  “Your father made up the part about the gym teacher,” said Natalie. “And, anyway, I had to compete with the two English teachers who were nuts about him.”

  “Not two, Nat, just Brayonna.”

  “And,” continued Alice, “he built her a tapestry loom as a wedding gift. Dad can build anything. He’s going to build benches and tables for Rosalind’s wedding, not that they’ll be as hard to make as a loom. A loom is possibly the most difficult thing to build ever.”

  “No, it isn’t, Alice,” said Cagney. “Now you are exaggerating.”

  Alice waved off his protest. “The loom is upstairs, Lydia. I’ll show you after breakfast, and I’ll show you my room, too. Dad says it’s where Batty slept when she was little. Rosalind slept in Jack’s room.”

  “That reminds me, Alice,” said her mother. “We got a message from Jack while you were going for Lydia. My phone’s over there on the table.”

  Alice pounced, then read the message out loud. “ ‘Forgot socks Aunt Carol bought me six pairs having a great great great time.’ Three greats. He’s rubbing it in. Look at this picture, Lydia. What a show-off.”

  Lydia saw a twelve-year-old boy in an ice rink, wearing a Bruins jersey and flourishing a hockey stick. Lydia liked his face—like a young version of his dad’s, friendly and used to smiling. But she thought it best not to praise Jack to Alice, and, indeed, Alice was once again downcast, but not as much as the day before, and pancakes topped with raspberries and syrup did an excellent job of perking her up. As did the photo of the girls eating pancakes that she asked her mother to take.

  “Thanks, Mom. Please send it to Jack—he loves pancakes,” said Alice. “Nyah, nyah, big brother.”

  * * *

  —

  Lydia had heard a lot about this room on the third floor, under the cottage eaves. Fifteen years ago, it had been Jane’s bedroom, where she wrote one of her best books about Sabrina Starr, the hero of Jane’s youthful writings. Now it was Natalie’s studio, and nothing like Lydia could ever have imagined. Color was everywhere, in great skeins of wool hanging from hooks, large spools of thread lined up on shelves, piles of bright fabric, and a half-finished tapestry—this one had sheep and was just as lovely as the one downstairs—on the big upright loom. On other shelves were rows of stuffed dolls and animals made of felt, each with its own expressive little face and wearing clothes with itsy-bitsy pockets and buttons smaller than that. The dolls were children of many races, and the animals of many species—an elephant, a fox, a donkey, a pig, a dog, and a chicken. Lydia peered closely—the chicken was wearing a black mask with pointy ears and a black cape. The chicken Alice had named Batgirl!

  In one corner was a sewing machine with two more stuffed animals sitting nearby—a baby sloth in a shirt that still needed buttons, and a giraffe in a tutu and one ballet slipper, waiting for the other.

  “I told you Mom’s a great artist,” said Alice. “Come over here—this is her leftovers box. We’re allowed to take whatever we want.”

  The box held scraps of Natalie’s raw materials, the hues and textures jumbled together, turning it into a treasure chest. Lydia couldn’t believe that such riches were up for grabs, but with Alice’s encouragement, she picked out the bits that spoke to her—thin yarn, thick yarn, scraps of silks, even a hank of dyed sheep wool. She didn’t know what she wanted to do with any of it, she just wanted it nearby, teeming with possibilities. When both girls had as much as they could carry, they went back down to the second floor, to Alice’s room.

  Batty’s old room now had bunk beds, and a blue dresser with one of Natalie’s dolls on top. She wore tiny overalls with ALICE stitched across the bib and showed signs of having been well loved—the hair had definitely been sewn back here and there. Next to the doll was a trophy, a statue of a girl kicking her leg sideways, with the inscription TAE KWON DO ALICE PELLETIER MOST IMPROVED. There was also a bookshelf, where Lydia was glad to see her favorite book—Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Back when she was too young to read on her own, her mother and father had teamed up to read this to her, splitting the characters between them, using special voices for each one. Her mother’s Red Queen and her father’s March Hare were, in Lydia’s opinion, of professional quality.

  But now Lydia looked farther along the shelf and saw that all the books there had been written by Lewis Carroll. They were of many different sizes, and with many different illustrators, and even in a few languages other than English—she recognized Spanish and German—but every single one was either Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking-Glass.

  “Isn’t that annoying?” asked Alice. “My relatives keep giving me copies, except for the relatives who send me the Disney movie. It’s like a curse, being named Alice. I’d rather be named, I don’t know, Margarita or Anastasia. Serafina! Wouldn’t it be fun to be named Serafina?”

  “No one would know how to spell it.” Lydia knew this because she herself wasn’t sure whether that second syllable was an e or an a. It could even be an i.

  “Look!” Alice flung open the door to her closet. “More Alice stuff.”

  On the floor was a large cardboard box full of more iterations of Alice’s adventures—plus several Alice coloring books and paper-doll sets that looked like they’d never been touched. But what was more interesting to Lydia was the back wall of the closet, a puzzling mishmash of scraps of thick cardboard taped together—several layers, it seemed, judging by the bulges and overlaps. Words had been scrawled here and there—Jack is a creep, for example, and I don’t want to be in your dumb room anyway—and rough drawings of female warriors, including Batgirl. There were also several holes that had been repatched and refilled from the back. Lydia could see the formerly sticky side of the tape, now covered with dust and lint.

  “Jack made that wall,” said Alice. “When we were little, we went back and forth into each other’s rooms through the closet, but he started closing it up a few years ago. I bet your brother wouldn’t do that to you.”

  “Ben guards his room like it’s Fort Knox.” Lydia looked down into the box of Alice stuff. “You told me Jack’s always telling Blossom stories about people named Jack, right? Let’s read the Alice books to her. They are truly excellent, you know.”

  “But I’m sick of them.”

  Lydia was certain that her idea was a great one, and Alice was just as certain that it wasn’t. This was the girls’ first argument, and it was a good sign for the future that they didn’t argue for long and even came up with a compromise. Alice agreed to read a book about an Alice to Blossom, but it had to be a different Alice than the Lewis Carroll one who fell down rabbit holes and climbed into mirrors.

  The girls searched through Alice’s parents’ books for possibilities, and soon were on their way to Blossom with two books, one about a real Alice who’d actually lived, and one written by an Alice, another real person. The girls also had some of their pockets full of oats, to help keep the sheep’s attenti
on on the books. Plus, a last-minute inspiration had them shoving Natalie’s yarn scraps into any pockets that weren’t full of oats.

  Blossom came to them more quickly today. She’d remembered Lydia and her high-quality petting. She had not, however, been expecting the yarn, and backed away when Alice tried to tie a blue bow around her neck.

  “You would look quite stylish,” Lydia told Blossom.

  “The other sheep will be jealous,” added Alice.

  Knowing that the other sheep would not only not be jealous but that they’d also tease her, Blossom backed away farther and was considering leaving altogether.

  “Don’t go!” cried Lydia. “We’re sorry, and we have books.”

  The promise of books had no effect, but when Alice took oats out of her pocket, Blossom reluctantly returned. Lydia decided that if any reading was going to be done, it had to happen immediately, while Blossom was still focused on Alice’s oats. She opened one of the books.

  “This book is called Alice: Alice Roosevelt Longworth, from White House Princess to Washington Power Broker, and it really happened. Here’s how it starts: “ ‘For nearly all of her ninety-six years—’ ”

  “She’s paying no attention, and I’m already out of oats,” said Alice. “Give me your oats and try the other book.”

  Passing the oats to Alice was tricky, as Blossom was eager to eat them during the transfer, and did manage to get hold of some. Now time was really of the essence. Lydia quickly opened the second book.

  “This book was written by a woman named Alice. It’s called The Moons of Jupiter, and I hope it’s not about science, because Blossom won’t understand it.” Lydia glanced anxiously at Blossom, who’d already eaten most of the oats. “ ‘Cousin Iris from Philadelphia. She was a nurse. Cousin Isabel from—’ ”

  “I’m out of oats again,” said Alice. “And that book didn’t sound very exciting.”