Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls (18 page)

Emmy nodded grimly. She turned into the brightly lit tunnel with its brass wall sconces, and rolled down a passageway that grew darker and earthier the farther she went. At last a glow of daylight appeared, and the floor began to rise. Emmy shoved the wagon up the last incline to the surface of the green, and blinked in the sudden light of morning.

It seemed safe enough. Emmy was thankful for the low evergreen that screened her from anyone who might be sitting on the park bench. She grunted slightly as she yanked the squeaking wheel over a pebble and past a scrolled iron leg set in concrete.

Now she just had to figure out how to get to the Antique Rat without being caught by somebody's pet, or hit by a flying flowerpot. Emmy leaned her elbows on the edge of the concrete slab to get her bearings. Which way was the Antique Rat?

There was a sudden whoosh overhead—Emmy felt the push of displaced air—and a loud, leathery
smack.
Emmy shrieked and fell back as pounding feet
shook the ground. Get to the tunnel—she had to get to the tunnel—

The yew branches parted overhead. Emmy's breath caught in her throat. Staring right at her, not a foot away, was a pair of gigantic blue eyes.

“Hi, Emmy,” said Thomas, reaching for his soccer ball.

“S
O THE VET
couldn't help her?” Thomas looked from Brian to the professor.

Emmy was grateful that Thomas was asking the questions. She had tried to speak once or twice, but somehow the words wouldn't come out.

She stood on the counter at the Antique Rat, close to the lab equipment, and a little distance from Sissy in her blanket-lined box. She had already been close enough to see Sissy's closed eyes, and the paleness of her skin beneath her soft gray fur, and to smell the antiseptic beneath the bandage on her leg. Little by little, Emmy had edged away, and now she stood with her back pressing against the smooth, cool metal of the charascope.

Professor Capybara cleared his throat. “The veterinarian did what she could, but she said that I knew more about rodents, anyway. Apparently it's an unusual specialty.”

“When is she going to wake up?” Thomas stared solemnly at the silent gray rat.

The professor and Brian exchanged a quick glance. “We don't know, exactly,” said the professor gently. “Soon, we hope.”

“Did—” Emmy stopped to swallow, and tried again. “Did she break anything?” She had already taken a good look at Sissy's tail, which seemed intact, in spite of the rumors. But it was hard to tell about bones.

The professor shook his head. “The X-ray didn't show any breaks. But the skin was lacerated, of course—that's where the blood came from. And,” he added in a lower tone, “there's a little internal bleeding. We're waiting to see if it stops by itself.”

Emmy turned away. Internal bleeding was bad; it could kill. She wondered what a sample of her blood would look like in the charascope, now that she was practically a murderer.

As if through a layer of felt, she dimly heard Thomas explain about Mrs. Bunjee's soup, and the wishing mouse, and his own newfound kicking ability. After a while, the others went outside for a demonstration, and Emmy was alone on the counter except for the still, gray form on the ragged piece of blanket.

It took no time at all for her to prick her arm with a lancet and prepare a glass slide with some drops of
her blood. It took a little longer to climb up to the eyepiece of the charascope, but her bare feet gripped the smooth pewter with its brass fittings, and she inched her way up until at last she was looking down into a bright, swirling mass.

The shapes were similar to the ones she had seen before, flipping and joining and swimming in a vividly colored sea. Emmy was just beginning to feel relieved—maybe her character wasn't so bad, after all—when something new came into her field of vision.

It wasn't the green wormy ball of resentments and hate that she had seen in Miss Barmy's blood. But it looked equally difficult to untangle. There before her, wriggling in her very own blood, was a knotted orange rope, thick and barbed.

It looked like a whip, thought Emmy—a whip with thorns.

She looked at it for some time. At last she climbed down and rubbed off the blood with the edge of a paper towel until the slide was quite, quite clean. And then she waited, staring at nothing, until Thomas came in again with his soccer ball under his arm.

Emmy asked him if he would take her to the
art-gallery steps. She had agreed to meet Meg there, she said, around noon, and wasn't it almost lunchtime? Thomas nodded, put her in his pocket, and said his good-byes.

“Did Mr. Peebles wonder where Joe was this morning?” Emmy asked as the door slammed behind them. She felt uncomfortable with silence just then.

Thomas chuckled. “Nope. I turned on the shower and put Joe in the bathroom. Then, when Cousin Peter came up, Joe talked to him through the door. I said I'd bring Joe's breakfast up to him so he wouldn't have to go on the stairs with his ankle, and Peter said okay. And it was all true,” he added virtuously. “A Cub Scout never lies.”

“Good for you,” murmured Emmy, feeling a rumble in her stomach at the mention of breakfast. She hadn't wanted to ask anyone in Rodent City to feed her. Maybe Meg would bring a crumb or two for lunch.

Thomas's steps echoed in the alleyway, and Emmy thought of another question. “Did Joe and Ratty and Buck rig up the pulley and rope?”

Thomas nodded. “It goes between the two attic windows. They're gnawing a hole in the other attic's wall now, but it's taking a long time.”

Emmy considered this. “Aren't they worried about—owls and things?”

“One of them stands guard, and they dive for the gutter if they have to. Here's the art gallery. Do you want to wait inside Rodent City?”

Emmy looked out of his pocket at the loose pipes, the dug-up sidewalk, the crumbling crack in the gallery steps, and realized that she did not want to be anywhere near the underground city, or its scornful, whispering rodents.

“Let's go across the street. We can watch for Meg from the playground.”

 

It was high noon. A dull, steady
thwack
came from the schoolhouse wall as Thomas practiced his kicks. Meg, who had brought a bag lunch, sat in the shade under the kiddie slide and laid out pickles, grapes, and a wrapped sandwich. “Sorry if you don't like egg salad, Emmy. I wish my mom had made peanut butter and jelly.”

The hot sun beat down on the playground with its scrubby dandelions, but beneath the slide the grass was thick and cool. All around them were the subdued rustlings and chirpings of small creatures, flying and scampering and leaping.

“Egg salad's fine, but I can't eat this,” said Emmy, holding up a single grape. “It's like trying to eat a basketball.”

Meg cut the grape into quarters with her jackknife and poured some lemonade into a bottle cap. Two flies, each as big as Emmy's hand, went droning by, their shiny eyes staring, and Emmy flapped at them with a bit of waxed paper.

“Hey, this isn't egg salad!” Meg peeled back the top slice of bread. “It's straight jelly—no peanut butter.”

“I don't mind.” Emmy ducked as the flies circled her head. “I just wish these stupid bugs would leave me alone!”

One of the insects promptly flew off. The other, more persistent, made regular attempts to land on the jelly sandwich. Meg fanned it away as Emmy told her what had happened since the night before, leaving out the charascope. Meg, in turn, told Emmy how she had sneaked into her house, never waking the sleeping girls on the floor.

“Plus, I called your mom to invite you over for one more night, so you don't have to worry about going home!” Meg looked justifiably proud of this detail, but broke off as a small tan mouse bounced out of a patch of long grass, sat up on its haunches, and
nodded briskly. “That's two,” it said, dusting its forepaws together.

“Wait!” Emmy's heart picked up a beat as she saw the white star-shaped patch on the back of its head. “Aren't you the
wishing
rodent?” She turned to Meg, delighted. “This is the mouse that turned Thomas into a kicking machine, and then Joe broke his ankle when he wished for it, and it got me invited—” Emmy stopped, embarrassed. She didn't really want to tell Meg how much she had longed to be invited to her pool party.

“Anyway,” she said hurriedly, addressing the mouse, “what do you mean, that's two? We didn't make any wishes.”

“Yes, you did. For a jelly sandwich, and for a fly to go away.”

“But we wished for
peanut butter
and jelly,” protested Meg. “And there were
two
flies.”

“Don't complain,” said Emmy hurriedly, as the mouse showed signs of bouncing off in a huff. “We've got one more wish. Let's wish for Sissy to be all right!”

“Or for the troubled girls to be rescued,” suggested Meg.

Emmy hesitated. “Joe and Ratty and Buck might have rescued the girls already—and if they haven't yet, they will soon. I think we should help Sissy first.”

“Don't bother deciding,” snapped the wishing mouse. “Only two wishes today.”

“But we got three
yesterday
—”

“Just like a human,” said the mouse in disgust. “Are they grateful? No, they are not. Do they say, ‘Thank you, dear wishing mouse'—my name is Sunny, by the way, not that you bothered to ask—”

“Thank you—”

“Thank you—”

“—dear, dear wishing mouse!” said Emmy and Meg together, tumbling over their words.

“Don't mention it,” said Sunny grumpily, and dived back into the patch of grass.

Meg looked blankly at Emmy. “What's the good of a wishing mouse,” she said, “if it doesn't even get the wishes right?”

“Or give us some warning that it was listening,” said Emmy.

“Here's a warning,” said Thomas, ducking his head under the slide. “Look who's hanging around the art-gallery steps.”

Emmy scrambled out and shaded her eyes. Even from this distance, she recognized the dumpling posture and fuzzy white hair of Mr. B. But why was he dressed in a workman's overalls, and what was he doing with a lunch pail?

 

Meg, carrying a brown lunch bag, strolled casually across Main Street, glanced at the art gallery, and paused by a concrete planter filled with petunias and trailing vines. A white-haired man with a gentle, worried face saw her and suddenly closed his lunch pail.

“Gee, mister! What are you doing with those pipes?”

Inside the paper bag, Emmy stifled a snort of amusement. No one could beat Thomas for artless innocence, but Meg was making an excellent try.

“Oh … I'm just … checking.” Mr. B sat back on his heels and patted one of the copper pipes several times, as if it were a long metallic dog.

“Do you mind if I watch?” Meg set the lunch sack carefully in the planter.

“Yes!” said a small, emphatic voice from somewhere near the ground.

“I do?” The old man seemed befuddled.

“Tell her to
go away!
”

Mr. B looked unhappy. “Please, go away, little girl. I'm sorry, but …”

“I'm really very busy!” finished the commanding voice.

The scrape of Meg's sandals faded as Emmy pressed her eye to a small hole in the paper bag. She couldn't see much—a few petunia leaves, the back of Mr. B's overalls—but she could hear quite well. Was someone coughing?

“Now, then, Mr. B,” ordered the voice. “Step one—fit the pipe into the wall.”

Emmy poked her finger into the hole and made it bigger. Now she could see a glossy black rat pacing importantly back and forth, consulting a clipboard. A few steps away, where the sidewalk had been broken to bits, pipes were lying on the ground. Mr. B, his overalls sagging in back, pulled a large pipe off the pile with a clank and lifted the temporary flap that covered the hole in the jewelry-store wall.

“That's right—shove it in,” said Cheswick, looking up from his notes. “Step two—description.”

Mr. B's massive hand reached into his back pocket
and dug out a folded piece of newspaper. As he opened it up, Emmy caught sight of a familiar-looking picture.

Mr. B read in a dutiful voice, “‘Originally bought by William Addison as a gift for his bride, these spectacular Kashmir sapphires were worn by his daughter Priscilla when she entered the Miss Grayson Lake beauty contest, shortly before her untimely death—'”

“No, no.” Cheswick glanced nervously over his shoulder. “Read farther down.”

“‘The jewelry will be passed on to his daughter Emmy on her eighteenth birthday, according to James Addison, great-nephew of William and heir to the Addison fortune …'”

“Come on, get to the description! We can't stay here all day, it's dangerous!”

“‘The cornflower-blue gems, of exceptional quality, are valued at over one hundred thousand dollars, according to Carnegie Peters, local jeweler extraordinaire.'”

There was a creaking sound, as of small metal hinges. “Are you listening to this, girls?” demanded Cheswick.

The black rat had moved so close to the planter that Emmy could no longer see him. Carefully, slowly, she tore the brown paper all the way down until she could step out of the bag. The earth between the petunias was soft and lumpy. A rich smell of potting soil filled her nose.

“‘The necklace, a heart-shaped trio of three-carat sapphires surrounded by small diamonds, is suspended from a sterling silver chain—'”

Emmy pushed between the petunia stalks and peered over the edge of the planter. The lunch pail, open now, was just below. Four tiny girls looked up at her, startled.

“Who's that?” blurted one, and was immediately muffled.

“It's me, you nitwit,” Cheswick Vole snapped. “Shut up and repeat after me. ‘Necklace, silver chain, three blue stones set in diamonds, shaped like a heart.' Got it? That is what Miss Barmy wants you to take.”

“Take?” said one of the smaller girls.

“For Miss Barmy?” said her twin.

“He means ‘steal,'” said the middle-sized one. “Right, Ana?”

The oldest girl said nothing. She coughed again, her cheeks vividly colored.

“It's not stealing,” said Cheswick sharply, “if you're taking something that should have been hers in the first place. Now, step three. Go into the pipe, and drag the equipment behind you.”

“Why don't
you
do it?” muttered the middle girl, but the oldest shushed her. Mr. B lifted them out of the lunch box. The doll-sized figures crawled into the copper pipe that led to the hole in the wall, dragging a piece of string behind them.

Cheswick Vole tied the other end of the string to a small, lumpy cloth bag—and soon, jerkily, it was pulled into the pipe with a faint clanking.

Mr. B made an apologetic noise in his throat. “So … I'm just wondering. Why
aren't
you and Jane doing this yourself?”

Cheswick drew himself up rigidly. “You can't seriously imagine that I'd allow
Jane
to run such risks?”