The Daring Escape of Beatrice and Peabody (23 page)

We hurry out past a new kind of look-see booth, one I have never heard of before: Japanese Shrunken Head.

‘Woweeee,’ says Sammy. ‘Is it real?’

I shrug. A girl in pigtails and glasses and worn-through overalls stands inside a miniature circus tent with red, white and blue American flags blowing on top. She holds up a shrivelled head with its mouth sewn shut and a
bone-and
-feather necklace around its neck.

‘Come on over and feel the shrunken head of a Japanese soldier captured by real live cannibal headhunters on the Philippine Islands. Come touch for a nickel. You’ll never forget Pearl Harbor.’

I feel pain in my heart just from looking. I grab Pauline’s hand. Ruth Ellen’s mama pulls Sammy away. ‘Bee, would you get us out of here, please?’

I walk us all toward the ticket booth, taking another glance around to see if there might be a Little Pig Race at this show and if maybe another Cordelia is here, and that is when I see Ellis over by the Tilt-A-Whirl, sniffing the air.

Pauline sees him, too, and tugs on my arm. ‘Bee, let’s go.’

Before we can get anywhere, though, Ellis sees me, and
he rushes over, poking his finger out, straight at my face.

‘Well, looky, looky, looky. Look who’s wandered in.’ He pulls his cowboy hat back, and I check if there are snakes under there. I can’t see, although I think maybe his eyes are yellow.

A very large man sits stuffed inside the ticket booth. It is not Fat Man Sam, but it looks just like him. I pull my hair tight over my diamond. I pull my other arm across my chest. It is chilly in Poughkeepsie in early May.

Ellis’s eyes roll over Ruth Ellen’s brace. Her mama wraps her arm around Ruth Ellen and pulls Sammy close. Pauline is shaking like a leaf.

Ellis turns back to me. ‘You think you can just come back any time you want and work here? After you left me like that? Well, you’ve got another thing coming. I ought to …’

I am carrying Pauline’s suitcase, so he might be thinking I am coming back, rather than the truth of the matter. He steps closer and my legs wobble. I gulp in my breath and let Pauline lean against me. I pull my hair tighter over my diamond.

‘It’s gotten bigger, hasn’t it?’ He reaches for my hair but I turn away. He grins. I see sharp teeth. ‘You take a seat in the look-see booth and I’ll let bygones be bygones. Folks will pay a lot to see that diamond you got.’

Ruth Ellen’s mama sucks in her breath. ‘Now, see here,’ she says.

Ellis turns quick to Ruth Ellen’s mama and pushes his hat. ‘Thanks for bringing her back, ma’am. She owes me a lot.’

‘I’m not coming back.’ I say it while I am trying to hold Pauline up. She is very heavy on account of the watermelon.

‘You owe me money, sweetheart. You got to stay and work for me and pay it all back. Otherwise I’m calling the cops, saying you robbed me blind.’

Ruth Ellen’s mama pulls on Ruth Ellen and Sammy. ‘I think it’s time to go, Bee.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Ellis continues, ‘I took you on and let you stay here after your idiot mother and father got themselves killed. I could’ve dropped you off at an orphan house, but I didn’t, no siree. I kept you on, fed you and put a roof over your head.’

I chew on what he is saying, about him keeping me on and putting a roof over my head, but it is all bad meat. I can feel Pauline shaking under her thin sweater.

‘Bee, it’s time to go,
now
,’ says Ruth Ellen’s mama. She takes me by the shoulder, but I push her hand off without taking my eyes off Ellis. ‘I’m not hiding any more.’ I say it strong, feeling a mountain begin to rise within me.

Ellis moves closer. He drools over my diamond. That’s the worst part, the drooling.

‘I don’t owe you a nickel,’ I say, backing up. ‘You kept me on so one day you could sell my diamond to whoever
would look. And I don’t call a hauling truck a roof over my head.’

‘You owe me money, you got to stay and work for me.’

‘I don’t owe you anything.’

Ruth Ellen’s mama steps forward. ‘That’s it. Everyone to the car,
now
. You will leave us alone or I will call the police.’ She grabs hold of Sammy’s shirt and nearly lifts him off the ground. But Sammy struggles and gets loose and points to the shrunken head. ‘Is it real?’

Ellis laughs. ‘Of course not. Is anything real around here?’ He winks at me.

The mountain rises higher. Very slowly and carefully, I suck spit into my mouth. I whoosh it around, working up more, more, more, just like Bobby taught me. I gather a thick gob on the edge of my tongue and pucker my lips just as Ellis reaches for my diamond.

I step back, a girl eyeing a wolf.

He pulls his hat off so he can see me. I am surprised at his eyes. They are not yellow; they are thin and watery like he has the flu. There’s not a single snake under there.

I laugh inside myself. I am a lion, eyeing a mouse. I shoot the spit at the ground beside his feet.

‘Don’t ever touch me again.’ I say it sharp, my voice low and deep, and he must hear the mountain in my voice that he never heard before because he takes a step back.

I lift my chin. My diamond shines. I let the mountain rise higher and higher until it fills every part of me.

Then, slowly and carefully, I tuck my hair behind my ears. And I let Ellis have a good look at the girl he cannot have.

We all hurry Pauline as fast as she can go, rushing past Eldora and the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel, and Ruth Ellen’s mama is telling Sammy how they will never visit another carnival again, not in her lifetime anyway.

My heart soars when I see a Little Pig Race and I have to stop for just a moment and go over and wouldn’t you know it, a little pig that looks an awful lot like Cordelia comes running over to get her backside scratched.

When we finally reach the automobile, Ruth Ellen and her mama and Sammy sit in the front seat so I can have Pauline to myself. It is a very nice place to be, both of us wrapped up like that. Pauline naps quite a bit and I try not to think too much about Ellis or about the watermelon between us.

When we get home and Pauline and I walk in the front door, Peabody comes barking and barrelling down the stairs and it takes him all of two seconds to remember Pauline.

‘Bee, you still have the little dog!’

‘It’s Peabody,’ I say, and Pauline is trying to bend over and pat him, but it is not easy with the size of her belly.

‘Oh, Bee,’ she says, tearing up just looking around at everything: the library with all the books, the tall staircase with the railing just made for sliding down, the parlour with all the lace cloths so you don’t get the furniture dirty. It is a house a girl can call a home.

‘But how did you do this? Who lives here?’

‘We do,’ I say, leading her to the kitchen. ‘Plus my aunts, Mrs Potter and Mrs Swift.’

They are not in the kitchen. I put on some tea. I cut fat slices of spice cake and give one to Pauline and one to me and one to Peabody. I am going to have to cut back on sweets for Peabody, now that he is getting so tubby.

‘Where are they, Bee?’ Pauline is eating her cake and drinking her tea and looking around the kitchen. The room smells of roses.

‘They are very shy,’ I tell Pauline.

She raises an eyebrow. ‘Really?’ She eats the cake and rubs her belly. She is too tired to wait for my aunts, so I take her upstairs and show her the guest room, the one with the buttercup walls. We both lose our breath when we walk in, it is so beautiful. Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter must have found the strength to get very busy. I guess company coming can do that to you.

‘Oh, Bee. It is so pretty.’ Pauline goes over and sits on the four-poster bed and then lies back on the pink-
and-blue
quilt. She has four fat pillows just like me.

In the corner is a tiny crib all made up with white soft
sheets. Somehow my aunts already knew about the baby coming. I tap on the bed and Peabody jumps up. He isn’t so sure about things, but I tell him Pauline is someone he’s going to get very close to, I am sure of it, so he might as well get started right now. When he is settled up on a pillow, I lie down, too, and it is almost like we are playing the ha-ha game. Except we are in Pauline’s new bedroom now and not lying on the grass outside our hauling truck and there is a watermelon between us.

‘Bee, I’m so sorry,’ Pauline whispers in my ear. ‘I’m sorry about leaving you. I should have never gone with Arthur. I’m sorry about everything.’

I let the words pour over me and it is like I am getting washed in the kindness. It feels very nice to be apologised to.

‘Don’t you want to see Pauline?’ Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter are sitting at the table, both a little slumped over.

Mrs Potter gets up and tries to fill the kettle with water. It is very heavy and so I carry it to the stove. She tries to light the match, but she can’t get a spark. She never has gotten the hang of the stove. ‘Why are you both hiding in here?’ I ask as I light the burner and put the kettle on to heat.

‘We’re tired,’ Mrs Swift snaps. ‘We’ve been busy.’

‘The room is very beautiful. Pauline is very happy. Thank you.’ I smile at them. ‘Don’t you want to get to know her?’

The kettle whistles and I get up and make them both weak tea. I cut us all slices of spice cake. They both shake their heads at it. ‘Just a little?’ I ask. ‘You want to be strong when the baby comes. Don’t you want to be able to play with the baby?’

Mrs Potter looks at Mrs Swift. Mrs Swift looks at Mrs Potter. ‘They’re not the ones we came for,’ says Mrs Potter. ‘But we think it’s a good idea they stay. They will help you.’

‘We want to show you something.’ Mrs Swift struggles with a book on her lap. I help her put it on the table. It is very old with a worn leather cover that is as wrinkled as Mrs Potter’s skin. There is a large gold cross on the cover. Mrs Swift pushes it to me. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for this. I finally found it up in the attic while we were looking for that crib. Why your grandfather kept it hidden up there, I have no idea.’

The pages are brown as paper bags. In thin letters, the first page says
The Holy Bible.

‘Go to the next page.’

I flip it open. The page creaks. There is a handwritten list of names in faded ink, beginning with Josiah (1701–1753) and Beatrice (1710–1745) Bradford. The last name changes, and the ink turns to black, but the line is straight to Elizabeth Bradford Potter (1759–1839) and further on is Abigail Bradford Swift (1818–1893). My grandfather, Edward, is recorded, and he may have told my mama he was cutting her out of his life, but he didn’t, not really. Her name is beneath his: Bernadette. And beside it is my papa’s name, Tommy Lee Hockenberry. And under them both is me, Beatrice Rose Hockenberry.

‘You know what this means?’ Mrs Potter asks. She traces the line to her own name and then to Mrs Swift’s.

I shake my head because I don’t know what to make of everything yet.

‘I am your great-great-great-great-grandmother,’ says Mrs
Potter. ‘And Mrs Swift is your great-great-grandmother.’

I stare at the page. I look at both of them. Mrs Potter is grinning. She takes Mrs Swift’s hand and squeezes. ‘Abigail is my granddaughter. She always was rather forthright, to say the least. Even as a child.’

I hold tight to my chair.

Mrs Swift pulls an envelope from the back of the Bible and pushes it over to me. ‘Open it.’

It is a deed to the Josiah Bradford house, built 1732. There are house plans attached. Although much has been changed, like the porch added and all the gingerbread dripping over everything, you can tell it is the house I am sitting in.

‘What I’m trying to tell you’, says Mrs Swift, sipping her tea, ‘is that since there are no other living relatives, the house belongs to you, Beatrice.’

That night when I am all tucked in my own bed with Peabody nestled up beside me, and I am feeling all contented that I have found a home where I can stay, Mrs Swift and Mrs Potter come in for their good-night hugs.

If I wanted to, I bet I could wrap my arms around Mrs Swift twice, that’s how thin she is getting. Lately she is so tired that I have been doing a lot more than just looking up a word now and then. Now she has me flipping through book after book, reading chapters, cross-checking dates, confirming facts.

I hold her close, feel how thin she is. She nearly topples over from the weight of my arms, but she squeezes me back. I feel the tears on her cheek when she whispers, ‘You really are a cygnet among ducklings, Beatrice.’

I pull back and she sees the question in my eyes.

‘If you don’t know what
cygnet
means, look it up.’ Then she gives me one more hug and leaves me alone with Mrs Potter.

‘I found her. I found my Pauline,’ I say after a while. I have always been better at telling deepest-heart things to Mrs Potter.

‘That took a lot of courage, going back to that show, didn’t it?’ She reaches for my curls and braids them so they don’t fall all over my face. She rubs my forehead and down the sides of my eyes and then softly touches my diamond.

‘Seems to me you’ve found Pauline – and a whole lot more, Bee.’

I snuggle deeper in the pillows and Peabody snuggles closer to me. ‘Yes,’ I whisper. ‘Yes, I have.’

Pauline gets grumpy as the weeks go on and she gets more and more uncomfortable.

We do not talk any more about where my aunts spend their time. Pauline and I come to a truce of not talking about them. One night, though, while we are playing the ha-ha game on Pauline’s bed, I tell her how Mrs Potter is really the lady in the orange flappy hat.

‘Oh, Bee.’ Pauline groans and flips over, which is not easy to do now that she is a whale. ‘There’s nobody here but us. Now, go to sleep.’ Her voice is muffled and angry.

After that I show her the Holy Bible and the deed, just to set things right. She rubs her hand across the cover’s wrinkled leather and opens it and runs her fingers down the names. I whisper that she needs to stop so she doesn’t erase anything.

‘I just can’t believe that your name is here. And this is your mama, Bernadette. And that is your papa.’

She shakes her head and stares at the Bible, and then we settle into another truce of not talking about the house any more, either, because all Pauline can concentrate on is the new baby coming. She does say, though, that one day we’ll have to find a lawyer to look into everything.