Nancy and Plum (14 page)

Nancy said, “Our Uncle John’s car? How do you know?”

Marybelle said, “Because Aunty Marybelle told me so this morning. She said that he was coming out this afternoon at four and for me to see that Miss Waverly didn’t bring you home early. That’s why I hid Eunice’s doll.”

Lowering her head, Plum butted Marybelle as hard as she could in the stomach.

Marybelle went “Ugh” and sat down on the grass.

Plum said, “You sneak, you horrible little sneak. Why didn’t you tell us Uncle John was coming?”

Marybelle, who had quite a time getting her breath, began to snivel and said, “Because Aunty Marybelle told me not to. She told me she would spank me if I told.”

Plum said, “Well, a spanking would be better than what I’m going to do to you.”

Nancy said, “You’re not going to do anything to her. You’re coming in with me to see Mrs. Monday.” She grabbed Plum’s arm and jerked her up the front steps, through the front door and to the door of Mrs. Monday’s sitting room. Nancy raised
her hand to rap. The door opened and Mrs. Monday, smiling broadly, said, “Did you have a nice time today, girls?”

Nancy said, “Why didn’t you tell us Uncle John was coming?”

Mrs. Monday said, “It must have slipped my mind. Anyway, didn’t you tell me that nothing would keep you home from the picnic?”

Nancy said, “Mrs. Monday, Uncle John is our only relative and we have been waiting over six years to see him.”

Mrs. Monday said, “You see, if you hadn’t carried tales to school and made trouble for me with the principal, you would have been home here when your uncle arrived.”

Plum said, “Oh, no we wouldn’t, Mrs. Monday. You would have arranged it some way.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Your uncle was terribly disappointed. He waited and waited.”

Then Marybelle came in rubbing her stomach and crying, “Plum butted me in the stomach. I think she’s broken some bones.”

Plum said, “You don’t have bones in your stomach, Woodenhead.”

Mrs. Monday said, “Go in and wash your face, Marybelle. Pamela and Nancy, go to your room.”

When Plum and Nancy got upstairs, all the children were waiting outside their door to hear what Mrs. Monday had said.

To their surprise, Plum asked them please to go away and
she and Nancy went inside and shut the door. As soon as the door was closed, Plum spread a handkerchief out on the bed and began going through her drawers, gathering up all her small treasures and tossing them in the handkerchief.

“What are you doing?” Nancy asked.

Plum carefully laid a large dried june bug and an empty snake’s skin on top of her blue beads and said, “I’m gathering up my things. We are running away tonight.”

P
LUM WHISPERED
, “Just sit on the window sill for a minute, Nancy, until your eyes get used to the dark, then I’ll tell you exactly where to put your feet. I’m so used to going up and down this old tree, I could do it with my eyes closed.”

Nancy said, “But my bundle of treasures is so bulgy I don’t think I can hold on to it and a branch, too.”

Plum said, “Here, hand it to me. I’ll take them both down and put them under the tree and then I’ll come back up and help you.”

Rather timidly and holding tightly to the edge of the window with one hand, Nancy leaned forward and handed Plum her bundle. Plum grabbed it and disappeared into the maple tree.

“How can Plum be so brave?” Nancy said to herself as she looked down fearfully into the deep scary darkness below her dangling legs. It was a very quiet night and the air was so heavy with the fragrance of summer that she felt as though she could reach out and get a handful of it.

The back door opened, squeak! shut, bang! and Nancy could almost see Katie reaching out with her fat red arms to get the mop. The pale yellow moon came up behind the barn and for a moment or two silhouetted the weathervane against it like an evil sign. The back door opened and shut again and Nancy knew that Katie had put the mop back, standing it upright with its thick strings flopped forward like a woman who has just washed her hair. Somewhere an owl said, “Whoo, whoo,” and far down the valley a dog began to howl at the moon. Nancy shivered and wished Plum would hurry.

Then suddenly at her feet she heard Plum whisper, “Nancy, hurry, I just saw Mrs. Monday go into the front hall and she may be coming up to our room.”

Nancy listened and sure enough, down the long hallway she could hear the approaching slap, slap of Mrs. Monday’s big black oxfords.

Plum said, “Here, hand me your foot. Now hang on to the window sill and turn around. See, I’m putting your foot on a big limb. Now reach above you and grab the branch that is just over your head. Hurry!”

Nancy did as she was told and with Plum guiding her, in a matter of seconds, was in by the trunk beside Plum and screened from the house by the thick maple leaves.

Plum said, “I hope she only opens the door a crack and shines her flashlight on the bed. Those two bundles of old clothes we put under the covers do look like us asleep but I keep thinking what if she goes over and tries to shake one of them by the shoulders.”

Nancy said, “Shhh, I hear her opening the door.”

Creak went the door. Slap, slap went Mrs. Monday’s feet. The beam of her flashlight skimmed across the wall. Then for one terrible minute Mrs. Monday’s gaunt black shape was framed in the window. She stood quietly, apparently looking out. Then lowering the sash a little, she turned and went out.

Plum said, “I wonder if she knows.”

Nancy said, “I don’t think so. Otherwise she wouldn’t have closed the window just a little. She would have shut it all the way or left it open.”

Plum said, “Well, whether she knows or not, we’ve got to hurry. Can you see all right now, Nancy?”

Nancy said, “I can see everything.”

Plum said, “Then follow me. Put your hands and feet just where I do and we’ll be down in a minute.” And they were.

They jumped the last few feet, picked up their bundles and as silently as shadows ran across the barnyard, slipped up the outside stairway and knocked on Old Tom’s door.

“Who’s there? What do you want?” Old Tom shouted, his voice frighteningly loud in the thick quiet.

“Hush, Tom,” Plum hissed at the crack of the door. “It’s us.”

Old Tom opened the door and Plum and Nancy stepped
back into the shadows away from the revealing rectangle of yellow light.

Plum whispered, “Tom, come down to the barn. We’re running away and we need help.”

Old Tom quickly closed the door behind him and said, “Running away? What’s this all about? I thought you went to the picnic.”

Plum said, “We can’t talk here. Come on down to the barn.”

They crept down the stairs and slipped into the barn and then by lantern light, in the safety of Clover’s stall, Nancy and Plum told him about the picnic and Uncle John’s visit.

He said, “If I didn’t think you were right, I’d tell you so. But I do think you should run away. It’s the only way you’ll ever get to see your uncle and learn the truth. The gates are all locked but if we take the big ladder out in back by the garden, I think I can help you over the fence. We’ll have to blow out the lantern and work in the dark though. Come on.”

Tom showed them where the ladder was and blew out the lantern. Then quietly, carefully he eased the long ladder through the door and carried it, with the little girls’ help, around the barn, out to the garden and stood it against the fence almost straight up and down so that a good third of it extended up in the air beyond the sharp iron pickets.

“Now,” he said, “you girls climb up clear to the top and hang on tight. Plum, you go first.”

They climbed up, up toward the moon, holding tight to
their little bundles and gripping the round, far-apart rungs with their worn-out shoes. They were trembling a little when they got to the top but they could see for miles and miles across the moon-washed valley to the smudgy black hills.

Old Tom hissed, “Hold on tight, now, you’re coming down.” Slowly and carefully he lifted his end of the ladder. Down they came like performers on a trapeze at the circus. When the ladder was level, Tom told them to turn around and face him, then walking forward and moving his hands from rung to rung, he let them down on the other side. When he was holding to the rung closest to the fence, he told them to hang by their hands and drop. Plum went first. Nancy threw her down the treasures. Then Nancy let herself down between the last two rungs of the ladder, hung for a minute and let go. She landed half sitting down, but it didn’t hurt.

Plum grabbed her hands and jerked her to her feet and danced her around and around in a circle as she sang, “Nancy, Nancy, we’re free, we’re free. We’ll never go back to Mrs. Mondeeee!”

Then they ran up to the fence, reached through, shook Tom’s hand and said, “Thank you, Tom. Thank you.”

Tom said, “There’s a farm about three or four miles up the road toward town that’s got a big haystack in the field. It would be a nice place to sleep. Just climb up on top of it and burrow in. Now I better be getting back before
she
smells a rat.”

Nancy said, “Don’t worry, Tom, if we get work in town we’ll come and see you.”

Tom said, “Are you going to work, Nancy?”

She said, “Yes, we’re going to work until we have enough money to go to Central City and see Uncle John.”

He said, “What kind of work could little kids like you do?”

Nancy said, “Oh, baby sitting, dish washing …”

Plum said, “Carpentering, coal shoveling, lawn mowing …”

Old Tom said, “Well, good luck, girls, and here’s a couple of dollars just in case you don’t find work right away.” He took two crumpled dollar bills out of his pocket and pushed them through the fence.

Plum said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Tom, but we couldn’t take your money.”

Nancy said, “Thank you just the same, Tom, but we’re going to earn our own money.”

Old Tom said, “Well, good-bye, good luck.”

Plum and Nancy said, “Good-bye,” then turned and went skipping off through the fields toward the road.

Plum said, “I feel just like a canary that’s gotten out of its cage.”

Nancy said, “I feel like a baby bird that is just going to fly. Oh, Plum, Plum, we’re free. We’ll never have to see Mrs. Monday again.”

Plum said, and her voice was a wail, “Oh, I forgot. I was going to pound Marybelle to jelly before I left. I almost feel like going back.”

Nancy said, “You don’t. You wouldn’t go back to Mrs. Monday’s just to get even with that little grub.”

Plum said, “Oh, I guess not. But when I think of her
hiding Eunice’s doll and deliberately making us miss Uncle John I get so mad my stomach aches.”

Nancy said, “Oh, Plum, let’s wave to Mrs. Monday’s…. Doesn’t it look dark and dreary and unfriendly?”

They turned and waved their little bundles at the Boarding Home. It was all dark except for a few squiggles of light seeping out around the drawn draperies in Mrs. Monday’s suite.

Plum said, “Good-bye, ugly, horrible, cruel, deceitful, dishonest Mrs. Monday! Good-bye, Woodenhead with the shaving curls Marybelle. I hope we never see you again.”

Nancy said, “I feel badly about leaving Eunice and the other children but I do think it is for the best. Now that we’re free we may be able to help them.”

Plum said, “Last one to that little bridge is an earwig.”

Nancy said, “Get on your marks, get set, go.”

Like a streak, the children raced down the road, their flying feet in the dust as quick and noiseless as raindrops. They reached the bridge at the same time and pounded across, their footsteps going boom, boom, boom. It was like running across a drum. So they ran back and forth and back and forth until finally, breathless and gasping, they fell against the railing.

There was a small stream running through the little gully below the bridge and when they had quieted down, they could hear the
plurk, plurk, shshshsh
of the water pouring over stones and wriggling along over the pebbles.

Plum tossed a stone into the stream and it went
plink
. She said, “Someday I’d like to have a little stream right beside my
bedroom so that at night I could lie in bed and listen to its funny little clurky, spinky noises.”

Nancy said, “I’d like to live beside the sea so I could hear the
swishshshsh, boom
of the surf. I’ve never seen the ocean but I know exactly how it will look and smell and sound.”

Plum said, “Night is funny. It’s scary when you’re inside but its soft and beautiful and fun when you’re out in it.”

Nancy said, “Oh, look, the lights of a car. We had better hide quick. Come on.”

They scrambled down the bank and crouched on the ground under the bridge. The earth smelled old and damp, the little brook sounded as loud as a torrent, and when the car went over the old loose planks there was such a terrible splintering, crashing roar that the girls put their hands over their ears in terror.

“It doesn’t sound to me as if that bridge is going to last another day,” Plum said as she climbed up the bank.

Nancy said, “Boy, I don’t want to be under it when it caves in. Come on, let’s get started toward that farm.”

So they walked and they walked and they walked. Once they saw a deer standing in an old orchard and he was as still as the trees. Once, right above their heads, a screech owl ripped the night to pieces with his strangled shriek. Once a rabbit almost hopped on their feet. Once a black mound behind a fence suddenly erupted with terrifying, snorting noises and turned out to be a cow. Once a little dog came running out at them, yipping and snarling ferociously, but when Plum
pointed her finger at him and said, “Be quiet!” he turned and fled back across the fields shrieking in terror.

It was a night of adventure. A night to remember.

Plum said, “You know, Nancy, we’re really awfully lucky. Not many children ever have a chance to take walks in the nighttime.”

Nancy said, “I know it. If children could only learn to know the nighttime and be friends with it they wouldn’t be afraid in the dark.”

Plum said, “I like the way things look different at night. See that tree there. What does it look like to you?”