Penny Dreadful (4 page)

Dirk ran after her, pleading. “I’m sorry, Josie! I’ll wash my own coffee cups from now on! I’ll stop walking on your wet floors, I promise!”

But Josie was gone, and that was a problem, because while managing the staff had always been Delia’s job, managing the house itself wasn’t something
any
of the Greys knew much about. It was a very large house—four giant floors, full of rooms—and it got away from them. Dishes piled up in the sink, once-shiny floors grew dim, and small mountains of clutter multiplied in rooms all over the house, though nobody said a word about it. Penelope tried to see the mess as an adventure, but it was really just plain depressing.

As the mess got worse, Penelope tried not to think about the wishing well.
It was just a silly game
, she told herself.
I didn’t do this. I couldn’t possibly have done this
.

On top of everything else, as June wore into July, the house also became unbearably hot. Penelope wasn’t sure whether the air-conditioning was broken or Delia had shut it off to save money, but either way, Penelope didn’t want to complain about it. So when the temperature became absolutely intolerable, she went down to the cellar with a flashlight to read in the darkness beneath the stairs. Though it was cooler there, sitting alone in the basement was really just a different kind of sad.

Through all of this, the Greys didn’t snipe at each other or fight about whose turn it was to sweep up. Instead, Dirk and Delia walked around the house avoiding each other and closing the doors on any particularly messy rooms. Delia unplugged the phone and stopped singing to herself completely. In the evenings she sat on the couch in the dark and sipped what seemed to be an endless glass of white wine, alone. Dirk continued to mutter in his robe, read old newspapers, and drink cold coffee. Lightbulbs burned out, and the great stone mansion became a vast series of dark hallways and shut doors. It was as though the house had gone to sleep, and Penelope watched it all worriedly, wishing everyone would go back to their old, boring ways.

This might have remained the sorry state of things for a long, long time if, one afternoon, Dirk had not loaded the washing machine with seven towels, a pair of running shoes, and two bathroom rugs, so that it made an alarming
thumpity thumpity
noise and walked itself across the laundry room before it broke. At first Penelope and her parents simply ignored the piles of towels and clothes as they’d ignored everything else. They all pretended not to notice the gray mildewy smell hanging in the air. Then the piles of laundry turned into mountains, until
everything
in the house was dirty.

Penelope—worried into silence herself—tried very hard not to bother her parents, but the day she could not find a single clean pair of pants and was forced to wear the elephant costume from her dress-up trunk, she finally had to say
something
. She found her father, who was rooting through jars and bottles in the refrigerator looking for a snack.

“Daddy,” she said cautiously, “I—I kind of need some pants.”

“What’s wrong with the ones you’re wearing?” her father asked sharply, without removing his head from the refrigerator.

Penelope stared down at her wrinkly gray legs. She supposed Dirk didn’t understand her need for clothes since he himself hadn’t taken off his bathrobe in weeks. So she went into the upstairs study, where her mother was sitting at a rolltop desk staring blankly at a pile of long white envelopes.

“Mother, I could really use some—um—clean pants,” said Penelope. She spoke softly and tried not to sound too demanding. She hated to bother her mother, who was nervously twirling her hair with a finger, but she
did
need pants.

“I know, dear,” said Delia both guiltily and quietly, without looking up. “There are just so many things to
do—how
do
people manage it all? I’ve been trying to remember what it was like before I married your father and got used to having so much help.” She sighed. “I’m going to the Laundromat soon, I promise. Once I’m through making ends meet.” She bravely tore open one of the envelopes.

Penelope looked down at her elephant legs and took a deep, brave breath. “Mother,” she said gently. “I think maybe—maybe you need to do the laundry
first
. Maybe you need to do it
now
. Or at least show
me
how to do it.”

Delia glanced up and registered that her daughter was dressed as a pachyderm. Then she looked down at her own pink shirt, which had been slightly spattered with burnt spaghetti sauce the day before. Her chin began to quiver. Two tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away and tried to smile. “How did we come to this?” she whispered softly, setting down the envelope and looking at her lap. “How did this happen?”

Penelope wished she hadn’t said anything. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said. “It’s okay. I don’t really need pants. These are fine.” She swung her gray tail in what she hoped was a fun-loving gesture. “See?”

Delia stared at her daughter. Another tear dripped down her face.

“Are you okay?” asked Penelope, although the answer seemed horribly obvious.

Delia rubbed at her face, shook her head slightly, and then, with a strange, forced smile firmly in place, she said far too cheerfully, “Of
course
, dear. I’m always okay. Just a minute. I just need a quick minute alone.”

Delia ran from the room.

Penelope heard a door slam, followed by the sound of sobbing. She’d made her mother
cry
! What had she done?
Why
had she opened her stupid mouth?

She turned and stepped out into the hallway. She walked softly down to stand beside the door to her parents’ bedroom, afraid to knock. What if she said something and it only made things worse? Everything she’d done so far had only made a mess of things. Penelope stood by the closed door, willing her father to appear.

He didn’t come.

Where is he?
she wondered

He didn’t come and he didn’t come.

Penelope put a hand on the glass doorknob of her parents’ bedroom, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn it. How could
she
possibly help her mother? She had made her mother cry. She had done enough already.

Or
had
she?

What, exactly,
had
she done?

Penelope thought for a minute about the wishing well.

She let go of the doorknob.

She stepped away from the door, chewing her lip, deep in thought.

Then Penelope realized something.
Wait!
she thought.
If the well is magic, and this is my fault, then I can fix it. And if I can’t fix it—it isn’t my fault at all!

Straightaway she ran downstairs, grabbed a pencil and a sheet of paper from the kitchen table, and dashed out into the garden, where she stood by the well.
This might not work
, she told herself,
but it can’t make things any worse
. With a brief thought for how best to word her wish, Penelope bent over and scribbled a note.

Then she crumpled the sheet of paper, shut her eyes, and whispered into the wad of paper, “I know this is crazy, but
please please please
?” She kissed the wad of paper and tossed it into the well. Without even peering after it, she turned and ran back inside, to see …

But when Penelope got inside, nothing was better at all. Delia was still crying loudly enough to be heard throughout the main floor of the house, and Dirk was still missing.

Deeply disappointed, Penelope trudged down the hallway toward the stairs. She felt worse with each step. The well hadn’t worked. Her father was off in a bathrobe somewhere, muttering. Her mother was sobbing. Sobbing! Mothers weren’t supposed to sob, were they? It occurred to Penelope that she didn’t actually know anyone else’s mother.
Maybe mothers do cry
, she thought. She pushed the thought from her mind. It wouldn’t help. Nothing would.

Suddenly—the doorbell rang.

Dong!
went the deep chime just as Penelope entered the foyer. She paused.

Upstairs the crying stopped as if by magic.

Dong!
The bell rang again, deep and sonorous.

Penelope turned nervously to face the door.

Dong!
It rang a third time.

The deep sound echoed through the downstairs as Penelope flew toward the door. Although she wasn’t supposed to open it when her parents weren’t in the room, she didn’t even think twice about that today. Something was
happening
. She knew it. She could feel it.

As the bell rang out a fourth time, Penelope pulled on the heavy oak door and opened it just a crack.

“Hello?” she asked bravely.

“Telegram!” called out the boy on the other side of the door. He was a freckled kind of boy, almost a grown-up. He wore a funny red uniform and stood beside a silver bicycle.

“Really?” asked Penelope curiously, swinging the door open the rest of the way. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t a telegram.

When the boy caught sight of the foyer, with its gilded picture frames full of long-dead Greys, its antique carved chairs, and its inlaid marble floor, he whistled low and raised his eyebrows. “Whoa!” he said. “
Excellent
house! I’ve never been in one of these big old places before. You guys must have a blast here!”

Penelope tilted her head and thought about that. She was not sure what he meant by a
blast
, but she was fairly certain it didn’t describe the time they’d been having. “Not really,” she said.

“Well,” said the boy. “That’s too bad for you, I guess.”

“I guess it is,” said Penelope honestly.

The boy didn’t seem to know how to respond to that. “O-okay then,” he said. “So, here you go! Telegram for Delia Dewberry!” He held out a bright yellow envelope.

“Oh!” Penelope looked at the envelope. “Dewberry? You want my mother, I think. Though she can’t come down right now, and anyway, she hasn’t been Delia Dewberry for years and years. She’s Delia Grey now.”

“That’s cool,” said the boy.

“Who sends a telegram?” asked Penelope. “I’ve never seen one before.”

The boy gave a funny little grin. He had very large teeth. “Generally an old person from somewhere far away,” he said. “I just need your signature right here, please?” He held out a clipboard. “You can sign for your mom.”

Penelope had never signed for anything before, and she smiled as she reached for the pen. Even with all the terribleness around her, she enjoyed the feeling of holding the clipboard. She gave her name an extra curlicue or two, then handed the pen and clipboard back to the boy.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the envelope and beginning to close the door.

“Wait—aren’t you going to open it?” asked the boy, pushing back against the door. “I’d love to know what it says.” He looked very eager.

“Why?” asked Penelope.

“Well, because nobody sends an unimportant or boring telegram these days. Anyone who goes to the trouble of sending a telegram has something interesting to say. Plenty of easier ways to tell people regular things—what with e-mail and cell phones and text messages and
everything. If someone goes to the trouble of sending a telegram, it’s almost always worth hearing about.”

“But the telegram isn’t for
you,
” said Penelope.

“So what?” asked the boy. “
My
business isn’t especially interesting, so I like to know other people’s too. Don’t
you
ever snoop? Look through your dad’s sock drawer? Listen at doors?”

Penelope remembered lurking behind the French doors on the day of the
everything change
, but she wasn’t going to tell some stranger about that. She shook her head. “Not really.”

“Oh,” said the boy. “Well, you could start now!” He grinned even bigger and eyed the envelope in an obvious way.

Penelope frowned at him slightly. When she realized she was making a Delia face, Penelope crossed her arms and tapped her foot too. It was a funny feeling. For just a second she almost
felt
like Delia.

“Ah, well, you can’t blame a guy for trying,” said the boy.

“Why not?” asked Penelope, uncrossing her arms. But just as she spoke, the sobbing upstairs started back up. A loud wail made its way down the staircase and through the open door. Penelope cringed.

The telegram boy raised an eyebrow. “I hope the
news is good. News sometimes is, and it
does
sound like someone could use some cheering up. Have a nice day!”

With that, he tipped his hat and climbed on his bike. Then he rode off down the stone steps of the mansion. Penelope gasped as he bumped down the stairs and landed safely on the sidewalk.

A L
ITTLE
B
IG
N
EWS