The Penderwicks in Spring (17 page)

And Rosalind did turn and, spotting Batty, smile, but before she could say anything, she was swept into the house with the others.

For five minutes Batty waited, in case Rosalind popped out again and summoned her for their private
talk. But the only person to appear was Jérôme, wandering up the driveway in search of Jane.

Batty ran away, back to Quigley Woods and solitude.

After an hour or so of sweet calm in Quigley Woods, coming home again was a shock for Batty. The front hall was full of people, like a packed elevator. It took her a while to sort them out. In the center were Oliver and Rosalind, his arm again—or still—around her. Ben, back from Rafael’s, was next to Oliver—oh, dear, had Oliver managed to charm Ben? By giving him a magic rock or something? Skye was sitting on the steps with Katy and Molly. Jane, Artie, Jérôme, Pearson, and a Donovan were jammed in around Oliver and Rosalind. On the outskirts were Batty’s parents—what was going on, anyway? Even Lydia was there, blissfully dancing through the crowd, her dandelion-bedecked crown bobbling past people’s knees.

Batty slid around the mob to get to her parents, safe and stable, and tried not to listen as Oliver spoke.

“I always say that the world exists only to end up in a good film. Not that I can take credit for that statement. Rimbaud said it first about books.”

“Excuse me, but it was not Rimbaud, but Mallarmé,” murmured Jérôme politely.
“ ‘Le monde est fait pour aboutir à un beau livre.’ ”

Oliver looked like a mosquito had just buzzed past his ear. “Rimbaud? Mallarmé? Does it really matter who said it?”

Batty thought that it might matter to Rimbaud and Mallarmé, whoever they were. At least this time she could be pretty sure they weren’t baseball players. And she decided to be fond of Jérôme, and hoped he would continue to keep watch over Oliver. But he’d gone back to staring at Jane, which was mostly what he seemed to do these days.

Rosalind had spotted Batty and was waving to her across the multitudes. “Oliver is taking us all out for Chinese food. Come with us, okay?”

Had Rosalind gone insane? She should have known that Batty would rather do anything—walk on broken glass, even—than go out to dinner with all those people.

“Can I go, too?” asked Ben. “I love Chinese food.”

“Sorry, Ben,” answered his dad. “It will be too late a night for you and Lydia.”

“Obviously it’s too late for
her.
” Ben was appalled to be categorized with Lydia, who happened to be going past him, waving her arms enthusiastically in his face. “Leave me alone, Lydia.”

“We’d take good care of Ben, Mr. Penderwick,” said Oliver easily.

“And it will be educational, too, Daddy,” Ben pleaded. “Oliver’s going to teach me about movies.”

Batty blanched. So that’s how Oliver had gotten to her little brother, by talking about movies. Would Ben soon start talking about Buñuel and—what was that other word—semiotics?

“Definitely educational,” said Oliver. “I can tell Ben about the Kubrick course I took last year. Everyone knows that he directed
2001: A Space Odyssey,
but his early career is where the interesting contradictions lie. He went from
Spartacus
in 1960 to
Lolita
in 1962, and though both movies are about power and the dangers of extreme subjugation—”

Iantha interrupted. “Yes, thank you, Oliver. That is indeed interesting.”

“Ben, you are staying home,” added Mr. Penderwick.

“But—”

“No buts.
Pater sum.
”

All of Mr. Penderwick’s children could translate
Pater sum
into “I am the father.” But they also knew that in this house it really meant that further arguments were pointless and could lead to unpleasantness.

“Anyway, I’m not going, Ben,” said Batty. “We can play Othello if you want.”

“Othello.” Ben repeated it with bitterness. A board game couldn’t match up to Chinese food at a restaurant.

“The children will put on a Shakespeare play this evening?” Jérôme asked Jane.

“Othello isn’t a Shakespeare play,
ce n’est pas un drame.
I mean,
c’est vrai
, of course it is a Shakespeare play. But Othello
est aussi un jeu.
”

“A game? About Shakespeare?”

“Speak English, Jane,” said Artie. “You continue to confuse Jérôme.”

“Oui!”
said Lydia, exhilarated by all the French being spoken. She spun and dipped, bumping into Pearson and Katy, singing la-la-la-la, and losing a few dandelions in the process.

Rosalind picked up the dandelions and took hold of Lydia as she waltzed by.

“Let me put these back into your crown, honey.”

“We should get her better flowers than dandelions.” Oliver reached out, not to help put dandelions back but to pluck those remaining from Lydia’s crown.

Lydia would have none of that. She made awful faces at Oliver and, to be doubly safe, leaned away until she was almost in a backbend.

“
Non
, Man,
non
,
NON!
” she said. “Princess Dandelion Fire.”

“Nick gave her the dandelions, and she’s very fond of him,” said Iantha, apologizing for her daughter.

“Of course,” said Oliver.

“Nick!” said Rosalind. “I’ll go ask if he wants to come to dinner with us.”

“Of course,” said Oliver again.

Batty watched as Rosalind disengaged herself from Oliver—with a slight tussle—and ran out the front door. If Batty hadn’t felt so overwhelmed, she would have stopped Rosy by explaining about Nick’s date with the high school girlfriend. Never mind. It was a relief to see that she could still separate from Oliver, if
only for a few moments. And now Oliver, outmaneuvered, was pulling Ben into the living room. Batty strained to see through the mass of people—it looked like Oliver and Ben were having a private conversation. She shuddered at the thought of having a private conversation with Oliver.

Moments later, after Rosalind returned without Nick, the mob shuffled out of the house, loaded themselves into cars, and drove off for Chinese food, leaving behind a quiet house and, a grand treat for Batty, an intoxicatingly empty living room.

She made splendid use of it, settling at the piano to play and play, both before and after dinner, and to softly sing, too, when she was sure no one but Lydia was listening. Lydia danced until she was borne away to bed, and Batty’s parents wandered in and out, telling her how wonderful she sounded. Eventually Ben was wandering in and out, too, not so much to praise Batty but because it had gotten too dark outside for rock-hunting and he’d decided he would be willing to play Othello after all.

“Since you fell asleep in the middle of our last game,” he said, resting the game box on the lower end of the piano keyboard. Batty played around it, transposing to higher octaves when necessary.

“Please,” said Ben.

After his fourth or fifth “Please,” Batty gave in, and they set up the game on the floor. Soon the room was filled with the clicks of pieces being flipped from
black to white and back again. Until their parents started up a conversation in the dining room, just loud enough for their words to drift across the hall and into the living room. It began with Mr. Penderwick.

“Have I ever told you about that arrogant Neil Somebody who dated Claire for a while in college? The one who was always talking about García Lorca—quoting his poems and making it sound like he knew the guy? When I finally pointed out that Lorca had been dead for decades, he asked me what point I was trying to make. Iantha, what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“If I were to take a guess, Oliver reminds you of this Neil Somebody.”

“Well, yes.”

“Then out with it.”

Batty nudged Ben and put her finger on her lips for him to be quieter at clicking. This could be important information.

“I mean, Mallarmé! Ha! And earlier, Oliver informed me that no one can appreciate films without a deep knowledge of Jean Renoir. He suggested we rent
Grand Illusion
and spend the weekend watching and discussing it.” Mr. Penderwick groaned. “Is he wooing our Rosalind, do you think?”

“I’m not sure it’s gotten to the wooing stage, if anyone has even used that expression in the last hundred years. What’s gotten into you, Martin?”

“Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni,”
he answered. “That is, I’m feeling old.”

“You’re not old, darling, either in English or Latin.”

“Hmm,” he said. “So is Rosy wooing him?”

“I don’t
know
, Martin. He is terribly attractive, though.”

“Iantha!”

“Well, he is. It’s just a fact. Something about his cheekbones, I suppose.”

Mr. Penderwick groaned again, even louder this time. “Can’t we just have Tommy and his normal cheekbones back? I don’t like all this change.”

“You’ll have to get used to change, my poor husband. Rosalind could have lots of boyfriends before settling on one, and then there are the rest of the children to get through.”

“It will kill me. I’m not ready to think about potential sons-in-law.”

“That’s good, because none of your daughters are ready to think about potential husbands. Martin, you really need to calm down.”

“It’s just that this Oliver—”

“Shh.” Iantha interrupted him. “He is our guest. Now, where can he sleep tonight? We could put him on the couch in our study, except that it’s covered with your botanical samples.”

“That’s what my study is for, since I am a botanist. Oliver can sleep on the living room couch. Maybe that will discourage him.”

Batty bent her head, hiding her smile from Ben. She felt less awful about Oliver, knowing that both her dad and Nick agreed with her about him.

“So Oliver gets the living room couch,” said Iantha. “How about Jeffrey tomorrow night? He was supposed to sleep in Rosalind’s room, but with Rosalind home—I suppose we could move Batty into Lydia’s big-girl bed and let Jeffrey sleep in Batty’s room. I don’t think she would mind.”

Batty definitely wouldn’t mind. She would have hated Oliver sleeping in there, but not Jeffrey.

“Jeffrey, I like. I’d build a new room for him,” said Mr. Penderwick. “But if any other young men show up this weekend, tell them they have to sleep in the garage.”

That must have been the end of her parents’ conversation, for Batty heard no more. She wasn’t sure whether Ben had bothered to listen, and when she looked back at the board, the number of white chips seemed to have mysteriously multiplied.

“Did you cheat?” she asked, since the white chips were Ben’s.

“Penderwicks don’t cheat.” He tipped over the board, spilling out the pieces. “Maybe a little. We can start over.”

“Last game, though. I want to get back to the piano.”

“Batty, what’s a son-in-law?” he asked.

So he
had
been listening to their parents. “Whoever marries Rosalind, Skye, or Jane—or me, too, I guess—will be Dad and Mom’s son-in-law. Also your brother-in-law.”

“What if I don’t like him?”

“He will be anyway. Like when Uncle Turron married Aunt Claire, he became Daddy’s brother-in-law.”

Ben couldn’t remember back before Uncle Turron and Aunt Claire were married. Uncle Turron was just Uncle Turron, big, beloved, and father to Marty and Enam. None of that seemed like a possible cause of trauma. Unlike—

“Even Oliver could be a brother-in-law?”

“I hope not. Though I know
you
like him—you were begging to go to dinner with him and talk about movies.”

“I thought I liked him, but then he gave me this.” Ben pulled a five-dollar bill out of his pocket. “Before they left, he pulled me into the living room—”

Batty interrupted. “I saw that! What did he want?”

“He asked me if I like Nick and I said everyone likes Nick. And he said, Rosalind likes him, too? And I said of course she does. Then he gave me that money and told me not to mention it to anyone.”

Batty eyed the money with distaste. Penderwicks didn’t need to be bribed to keep secrets. “Then why are you telling me?”

“I didn’t promise him I wouldn’t.”

“But you took the money.”

“I know.” He let it fall onto the Othello board. “I thought I’d use it for my movie studio, but now I don’t think I want it. You can have it to help with Skye’s birthday present from you, me, and Lydia.”

Jane had helped them pick out the present, a
Doctor Who
sweatshirt with a picture on the front of Skye’s favorite Doctor, the tenth. Their parents would have paid for the whole thing, but Batty had proudly chipped in half the cost from her dog-walking money, and Ben had followed her lead, putting in a dollar from his rock-digging money. He thought it was an excellent present and had been dying to give it to Skye.

“I don’t want Oliver’s money,” said Batty. Five dollars was a lot, but this was dishonorable money.

“We could give it to Dad to help with groceries,” said Ben.

“He definitely wouldn’t want it.”

They discussed several other options, including sending it to the president to help him run the government. But they didn’t think he would want money meant for a bribe, either. In the end, they snuck upstairs to the bathroom, where they ripped up the five-dollar bill and flushed the pieces down the toilet, laughing so hard they almost woke up Lydia.

Soon after that, their parents made Ben go to bed, and Batty went to her room to listen to music. And to wait for Rosalind to come home, hoping still to get in their talk. For hours Batty waited, cuddling on her bed with Funty and Gibson, the stuffed animals, until finally she turned off the music and went sadly to sleep.