Emmy and the Home For Troubled Girls (23 page)

Emmy looked around for inspiration. Her eyes fell on Sissy, standing straight and tall in her royal-blue robe.

“Sissy,” she said. “Sissy is the one who deserves it.”

The Underminers looked at one another with raised eyebrows, considering this.

“But she's not just a pretty princess,” said Buck thoughtfully. “She stands for something different.”

Joe nodded. “She was wounded and cold and wet for fifteen hours, and she still came out fighting to live. She's got guts. She's got grit.”

“She's … Princess
Gritty
of Rodent City!” said the Rat.

“That's it!” cried everyone at once.

“Except I haven't written a song,” Raston said worriedly.

Emmy threw an arm around his shoulders. “Just sing from your heart, Ratty, and make it up as you go.”

 

The audience were back in their seats. Mrs. Bunjee was seated in the front row with Sissy, Endear,
and the five troubled girls, who were not at all troubled anymore. And now, when Emmy looked at the rodent faces in the crowd, their expressions seemed kinder, too.

“It's because you were so brave,” said the professor, standing beside Emmy on the stage. “Your friends have been telling everyone what you've done.”

“It wasn't so much,” Emmy mumbled, embarrassed.

“Nonsense.” Professor Capybara fixed her with a penetrating eye. “You rescued four little girls, and stopped a robbery. You saved Merry from almost certain death, and you returned to face the terrifying Mrs. B in order to free Joe and Buck and Raston. After all that, no one can say that you don't care about your friends.”

Professor Capybara nodded approval as Buck and Chippy, arm in arm, announced the new princess. He winked at Raston, who stood nervously in the wings, scribbling last-minute changes to his song. And he smiled as the Swinging Gerbils swelled into the theme song of the evening.

“Go ahead,” he said to Emmy.

She walked slowly toward Sissy, carrying the precious tiara on its golden pillow. The professor was
right behind, and when they reached the gray rat with the gentle expression, he raised the glittering crown and set it carefully on Sissy's head.

The vivid sapphire blue and the wink of diamonds were all reflected in Sissy's bright eyes. With her silky gray fur and regal blue robe, she didn't look like a rat who had no education and couldn't read. She looked like a queen.

Emmy stepped back, filled with the kind of happiness that comes when you have come through great dangers with good friends, and been forgiven, too. And the Rat stepped up, handsome in his tuxedo, and sang:

The applause rang, echoing among the rafters. Gerry, with a nod and a grin to the Rat, launched the Swinging Gerbils into “You Ain't Nothin' but a Rodent”; and within three bars a striped gopher appeared at Emmy's side.

“May I have this dance?” asked Gus.

T
HE MORNING SUN LINGERED
just below the horizon, then popped up, big and pink, and patted the rooftops of Grayson Lake with melon-colored light. It fanned across the triangular green and shone a ray into the window of the Antique Rat, touching seven small boxes laid end to end on a counter.

In the middle box, a tiny Emmy yawned and sat up, rubbing her eyes.

Last night had been fun. After Joe had grown and gone to Mr. Peebles's attic, after Chippy had returned the jewels through the transit pipe (luckily, the plumbers hadn't yet appeared—the professor seemed to think this wasn't out of the ordinary), the professor had taken Sissy and the girls back to the Antique Rat. Emmy, whose mother wasn't expecting her, decided to stay small for one more night and enjoy a second slumber party.

The tiny girls had been wild with relief. Although they had begun by giggling and eating—the usual sleepover occupations—they were so jubilant that
they progressed to throwing cotton-ball pillows and running wildly between the test tubes until the professor told them, somewhat grumpily, to go to sleep.

Emmy gazed at the slumbering girls. She had gotten to know each one last night: Berit, athletic and impulsive; Lisa and Lee, friendly and almost impossible to tell apart; Merry, who was like the little sister Emmy wished she had; and Ana, the leader, the responsible one, who was more than ready to give up the job and be a kid again.

Had it been just a few days ago that Thomas had brought Miss Barmy's old cane up to the tree fort? Emmy had not wanted to look at the small carved faces then—but now she was deeply gratified to see those same faces in real life, happy and free.

Emmy felt free, too. The weight that had seemed to press down on her shoulders ever since Sissy had been wounded was gone. She glanced at the charascope, and wondered what a sample of her blood would show now.

 

There was a soft shuffle of feet in slippers as Professor Capybara came down the stairs and saw her looking in the charascope. “What are you studying?”

“Just a sample of my blood.” Emmy slid down the
pewter and brass scope, the metal cool beneath her bare feet. “You can look if you want to.”

The professor bent his head to the eyepiece. “Yes, yes—nothing unusual here—a good amount of courage, though.” He lifted his head. “Were you worried that you might see something else, my dear?”

“I did see something else yesterday,” Emmy said quietly. “It looked like an orange whip thing. With thorns.”

The professor took another look. “Ah, yes, now I see it. But it's only a shadow.”

He lifted Emmy to the eyecup, and there it was—a faint imitation of the shape she had seen before, thin and insubstantial, like a wisp of fog, or the ghostly pattern of a wake seen on the water, long after a boat had passed.

“What
is
it?” Emmy asked.

The professor shrugged. “Guilt? Shame? It's only a memory now, my dear.”

Emmy nodded. She was glad it was gone, whatever it was. “But, Professor, what's going to happen to the little girls now that they've been rescued?”

“Once Sissy makes them grow, I'll call the police and tell the truth—that they came to my door last
night, newly escaped from Miss Barmy, looking for shelter. And then we'll locate their families.”

“But Mr. Peebles said once that all their parents were dead.”

The professor nodded soberly. “Yes, perhaps—but think how glad their relatives will be, to have them back after so long!”

 

Emmy sat on a drooping swing in the schoolyard and swayed gently back and forth, scuffing at the worn earth as she waited for her friends to show up. It felt good to be her real size once more.

Across the street, the jewelry-store owner arrived to shake his head over the boarded-up window, unlock the door, and take down the sign that said “Closed.”

A moment later the door popped open again. The man dashed out, looked wildly up and down the street, and dashed back in.

Emmy grinned. He would be calling the police about now … She could just imagine the conversation. “No, I don't know how they got back in the case, officer … No, the alarm didn't go off … I'm telling you, the jewels have been reset into a doll's tiara … No, I am
not
crazy!”

She twisted the swing, winding herself up until the chain was as tight as she could make it. She let go and whipped around and around, her legs straight out and her head back, staring at the crazily circling sky. It was so much fun she tried it on her stomach, but that made her dizzy. She stopped at last, dragging her toes, and opened her eyes to see a small rodent with its paws on its hips, looking irate.

“Are you
quite
finished? You almost kicked me.”

Emmy regarded the mouse with awe, and thought carefully before she opened her mouth. She didn't want to accidentally speak a wish that she didn't mean.

“I have a question,” she said at last. “How do your wishes work? I mean, on Sunday, I asked for an invitation, Joe wished to break an ankle, and Thomas wanted to be a great kicker; and you gave us all our wishes. Then, yesterday, I wanted the flies to stop bothering me, and Meg wished for a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich—”

“And you each got half your wish,” the tan-and-white mouse interrupted. “And today you get exactly one wish—and only a quarter of it will come true—and then I'm free at last! No more wishes until next June!”

Emmy looked curiously at the small, bouncy mouse. “What happens in June?”

“The summer solstice, of course! Don't they teach you anything in school?”

“The solstice,” Emmy repeated slowly. “That's something to do with the sun.”

“Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner!” The wishing mouse turned a somersault and blinked up at Emmy, grinning. “See the sunburst on my head?”

Emmy looked at the light patch between its ears. “I always thought it was a star.”

“The sun
is
a star,” the mouse said in a lecturing tone. “And when the sun is at its highest point in the year (that's the solstice), and at the highest point in the day (that's noon), my wish-granting ability is at its highest. Now do you see?”

“Sort of,” said Emmy cautiously.

“Three full wishes at noon on the day of the solstice,” said the mouse impatiently. “Two half-wishes the next day, one quarter-wish the next. And after that, I suppose I could grant an eighth of a half-wish, and so on, but who would know the difference?”

Emmy frowned. “So, the day before the solstice, did you give two half-wishes?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What were they?”

The tan mouse fluffed up its fur as if bored. “Someone wished that it would be a sunny day—I gave him partly cloudy. And someone else—oh, who cares. Listen, I've got things to do.” The mouse ducked into a hole in the ground.

“Wait!” cried Emmy. “What about
today's
wish?”

The mouse popped its head out. “You want a wish, come back at noon exactly. And no wishing to change things that have already happened—that's against the rules.”

“Can I wish for something multiplied by four?” Emmy asked quickly, but the mouse had already disappeared.

“Times four what?” said Meg, jumping onto the next swing.

Emmy explained. Then when Joe appeared, swinging along on his crutches, and Thomas came trotting up, for once without his soccer ball, Meg told it all again, while Emmy looked up at the sky through green summer leaves and tried to decide on her wish.

“I know what I'd wish for,” said Thomas grumpily, after all had been explained. “That Dad wouldn't sign me up for sports camp.”

Joe propped his leg on the slide and chuckled. “Better you than me, buddy.”

“Are your parents back?” Meg asked, looking from one to the other.

“They drove up,” said Joe, “and right away Cousin Peter told them about the two windows Thomas broke.”

“Were they mad?”

Joe grinned. “Dad told Thomas he should go out for football, he had a gift, he should develop that leg, blah, blah, blah.”

Emmy wondered why Thomas had wished to kick so well if he didn't like sports, but her eye was caught by a movement across the street. Emerging from the alley were Mr. and Mrs. Benson, followed closely by Peter Peebles. They stopped to look at the boarded window of the jewelry store, and the owner came out.

The children watched as the adults talked back and forth, finally shaking hands.

“Dad's agreed to pay for the window,” murmured Joe. “And now … get ready, Tommy, here he comes.”

Thomas didn't look up from the sand, where he was building something with sticks. He ripped up a handful of grass and laid it carefully on the roof of
his structure. “See? If I catch any toads, they can live here, and eat the grass if they're hungry.”

“Thomas! Come here a minute!”

Thomas got awkwardly to his feet and went to the little group of adults, waddling slightly. “I hear you've got quite a kick,” his father said. “Want to show us?”

Thomas mumbled something that Emmy couldn't hear. She saw Mr. Benson set a ball down and point toward the far-distant soccer fields.

Thomas kicked. His father's mouth fell open.

“Incredible! Caroline, this kid's got a foot like I've never seen in my life! He needs to train it! We've got to map out a plan of action, before we waste any more time!”

“Now, Jack, calm down,” said Mrs. Benson soothingly.

“He'll go to football camp—soccer camp—we'll start right away. He's got to catch up. The other kids have been playing for a long time already.”

“I don't want to go to camp, Dad.” Thomas wandered back to the sand pile.

“What do you mean, you don't want to go to camp? This is a great opportunity for you, son! You can be a star, you can really go places!”

“But I want to stay right here.” Thomas smoothed out a road with the flat of his hand. “I want to play with turtles, and catch frogs, and play in the tree fort …”

“Now listen here, Thomas,” said Mr. Benson, his face growing red.

“… and dig holes, and find caterpillars, and ride my bike, and collect bottle caps …”

“Now,
listen
… to
me
…” The veins in Mr. Benson's neck pulsed. He passed a hand over his forehead, looking dazed.

“… and maybe get a puppy, and go fishing, and build a town for toads …”

Thomas's father, crimson to his collar, opened his mouth—faltered, blinked twice, and went down like a stunned buffalo.

“… and be a kid,” finished Thomas, looking down at his father, who was snoring blissfully.

“Oh dear.” Mrs. Benson fanned her husband with her hand. “He's been like this ever since California. I can't
think
why he keeps falling asleep. I've scheduled a doctor's appointment first thing tomorrow.”

“It seems to be going around,” said Peter Peebles thoughtfully. “Professor Capybara had the same
trouble just two days ago. He said it was some kind of virus.”

“Well, whatever it is, it only attacks him when he gets worked up about something. But Jack gets worked up an awful lot.”

The children exchanged glances. “Mom,” said Joe carefully, “did you see any animals in California? Like—rodents, for example? With bushy tails?”

“Oh, heavens, yes, they were all over Palm Desert. They were harmless, though. Jack even picked one up.”

Thomas looked up from the sandbox. “Did it sneeze on him?”

“How did you know?” Mrs. Benson was startled. “Oh, Jack, you're awake! Now, don't get all excited again, dear. Let's get you home, and you can lie down.”

“This is
awesome
,” said Joe fervently, as the adults moved slowly off the playground. “He'll never scream at my soccer games again.”

“Thanks to the Bushy-Tailed Snoozer Rat,” said Thomas happily.

“The professor said he might find a cure soon,” Emmy reminded them.

Joe grinned. “Yeah, but we don't have to mention that to Dad, right, Thomas?”

Thomas nodded, patting a sand mountain with his pudgy hands. “I don't want to play football and soccer, anyway. I just want to play kickball at recess. Billy Frank said I couldn't kick it farther than my grandma could spit, and I said I could kick it over the fence, and I bet him my favorite rubber snake, too. And now I'm going to win it back.”

He gave his creation a final pat and stood up. “Do you like it?”

“What is it, Thomas?” Emmy stood beside him, looking down at the hills and roads and small stick buildings. “Is that your toad town?”

“Yup.” Thomas put his sandy hands in the pockets of his shorts, looking satisfied. “I wish I had some toads to put in it, though. Some big fat ones.”

A lump of brown sand suddenly lifted its head, its throat pulsing, and resolved itself into a toad. It was immensely fat. It attempted a spasmodic hop, failed, and sat stolidly, blinking its yellow eyes.

“Oh,
no
,” said Emmy, with passion.

“I don't know what you're upset about,” said the wishing mouse, looking at the toad critically. “It's certainly big and fat. And though ‘some' isn't an exact number, I thought I was really quite generous to assume he meant ‘four.'”