Abby in Wonderland

  After Mallory and her parents left, Mary Anne and Dawn turned to each other. “Have you ever heard it so quiet in this house?” Dawn asked.

  “Never,” Mary Anne replied.

  They sat on the couch and listened to the ticking of the wall clock for a moment. So far, this was the opposite of what Mallory had predicted. In fact, it seemed that this might turn out to be the easiest sitting job ever. And the most boring.

  “This is too weird,” Dawn said after another minute or two. “I’m going upstairs to see what’s happening with those kids.”

  Mary Anne followed Dawn up to the second floor. Gloomy classical music wafted down the hall. They followed it to the room Vanessa and Mallory share. The door was half open and they could see Vanessa lying on her bed, intently writing something while the music played.

  “Hi, what are you doing?” Dawn asked in her most upbeat voice.

  Vanessa looked at her and sighed. “Oh, hello, Dawn, Mary Anne,” she said solemnly. “I’m writing a poem.” Vanessa’s goal is to be a poet. Sometimes she even speaks in rhyme. “Want to hear it so far?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Mary Anne said, taking a seat at the end of Mallory’s bed.

  Vanessa stood and snapped her paper as she cleared her throat dramatically. “It’s called ‘Ode to a Dead Vacation.’ ”

  Mary Anne and Dawn exchanged quick, amused glances. But in the face of Vanessa’s extreme seriousness they couldn’t laugh.

  “ ‘Oh, carefree days in the City of Sea,’ ” she began. “ ‘How I longed to be with thee/Sand and ocean; music and light/Days of happy, sunny delight/But the stupid car did sigh and die/And on the roadside would just lie/Curséd car that took away …/Our dreams of a vacation far away/Horrible car with busted fuel pump/You belong in the city trash dump.’ ”

  She looked up from her paper. “That’s only the first verse, of course. What do you think?”

  For a moment, neither Mary Anne nor Dawn knew what to say. Even though the poem was silly, it was very heartfelt. Vanessa waited, expecting some response.

  “It certainly lets a person know how disappointed you feel,” Mary Anne said.

  “Yes, it’s very expressive,” Dawn added.

  “Thank you,” Vanessa said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone to finish it.”

  “Want some lunch?” Dawn offered. “Come on down and we’ll make sandwiches for everyone.”

  “No, thank you,” Vanessa said. “I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”

  “Okay.” Dawn and Mary Anne left the room. “Poor Mallory,” Dawn said. “Can you imagine sharing a room with Vanessa right now?”

  “No way,” Mary Anne agreed.

  They heard voices and followed them farther down the hall. Byron, Jordan, and Adam were in their room, with the door open. Nicky was with them.

  They sat in the middle of the floor, building an enormous house of cards. Mary Anne and Dawn arrived just in time to see it collapse.

  The triplets and Nicky stared at their fallen house in dismay. “Too bad,” Mary Anne commented.

  Byron was the first to look up at them. “What can you expect from a dumb old house of cards? That was supposed to be a sand castle.”

  “Even a sand castle gets washed away by the waves,” Dawn reminded them.

  “Yeah, but not because you breathe a little too hard on it,” Adam said in disgust.

  Jordan flopped over on his back. “This is the most boring summer of my life,” he said with a sigh.

  Lying around and complaining wasn’t like the triplets and Nicky. They’re usually outside playing. Sure, it was hot out, but that had never stopped them before.

  Angry shouts came from across the hallway. Mary Anne and Dawn rushed to see what was going on. Claire was clutching something in two hands while Margo grabbed at it. “Give it back,” she shouted.

  “What’s going on?” Mary Anne asked.

  “She took something from my drawer,” Margo cried.

  “I only wanted to look at it.” Claire slowly uncupped her hands, revealing a medium-sized, fan-shaped shell.

  Margo snapped it up. “My shell from Sea City,” she cried. “I found it last year.”

  Tears sprang to Claire’s eyes. “I was going to collect shells this year, but now I can’t.”

  Mary Anne put her arm around Claire’s shoulders.

  Suddenly, Margo held the shell out to her. “Here,” she said kindly. “You can hold it.”

  “Thank you.” Claire accepted the shell as if it were a priceless treasure.

  Mary Anne and Dawn stepped out into the hall. “This is pathetic,” Dawn commented. “We have to snap them out of it.”

  “How?” Mary Anne asked.

  “I don’t know.” Mary Anne and Dawn walked downstairs, deep in thought. What would cheer up the Pike kids?

  Dawn walked past the stereo system and her eyes fell on a CD of songs by the ’60s rock band the Beach Boys. She picked it up and tapped the plastic case thoughtfully.

  Mary Anne noticed the growing gleam in her stepsister’s eyes. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “Maybe it’s a crazy idea,” Dawn began. “I was wondering if we could bring Sea City to Stoneybrook.”

  Mary Anne stepped closer to her, interested. “What do you mean?”

  “We could … I don’t know … we could set up a kiddie pool next to the sandbox outside.” She held up the Beach Boys CD. “We could play beach music. I think my mom even has a tape of wave sounds at home. Stuff like that.”

  Mary Anne looked up and saw Margo standing on the stairs, listening. “That’s a great idea!” Margo exclaimed. She turned and called up to her brothers and sisters. “Hey, everybody, come here.”

  Normally, a call like that would produce the thundering sound of running feet. Today, though, Dawn and Mary Anne heard only a slow shuffling of depressed footsteps.

  When the kids had assembled on the stairs, Dawn explained her idea.

  One by one, their faces were lit with enthusiastic smiles. “We could spread sand all over the lawn,” Nicky proposed.

  “And line up a bunch of little pools, side by side,” Jordan added. “We could make an ocean that way.”

  “Do they sell seagulls anywhere?” Vanessa asked. “A seagull or two would be nice.”

  “They don’t sell seagulls,” Adam scoffed.

  “We could catch one,” Margo suggested. “I always see them hanging out by the Dumpster near the supermarket.”

  Mary Anne ducked into the kitchen and returned with a pad of paper. “I’ll make a list of ideas,” she suggested. “We might not be able to do all of them, but I’ll write them down for now.”

  By the time Mallory and her mom returned two hours later, Nicky, Vanessa, Claire, and Margo, along with Dawn and Mary Anne, were sitting at the kitchen table, happily creating clay shells for their sandbox beach.

  The triplets had located an air pump in the garage and were in the backyard inflating a rubber pool that hadn’t been used yet this summer.

  When Claire saw her mother she jumped up from her seat and ran to her, waving her shell. “Mommy, Mommy, look what I made!” Her sisters joined her and eagerly explained the Sea-City-in-Stoneybrook plan.

  “I haven’t seen these kids so happy in days,” Mrs. Pike said as she joined Dawn and Mary Anne in the kitchen.

  “It’s like a miracle,” Mallory added.

  “Can you take us to the supermarket so we can capture a seagull out of the Dumpster?” Vanessa requested.

  “I don’t know about that,” Mrs. Pike said with a smile. “You might have to make one out of paper instead.”

  Mary Anne offered her the idea pad to read. Mrs. Pike laughed at some of the more outrageous suggestions and nodded as she read the more possible ones. “Great idea,” she said when she was finished reading.

  “It is a great idea,” I said to Mary Anne over the phone that evening.

  “Actually,” Mary Anne said, “I called you because I figured s
ince you’re at the beach, you might have some ideas for us.”

  I’d spent a gorgeous, sunny morning by the ocean. The sights and smells were fresh in my mind. “How about putting strands of green crepe paper around for seaweed,” I suggested. “And Wicks and Sticks at the mall sells a room spray called Ocean Wave. It really smells like the ocean. You could spray some of that inside the house.”

  Mary Anne wrote down my ideas. “Thanks,” she said. “If anything else comes to you, call us.”

  “I will. I guess I’m not the only one having a beach vacation this week.”

  “No,” Mary Anne said. “Not anymore, you’re not.”

  I love the beach. I could put my blanket on the sand and just live there. On Sunday, the weather was as gorgeous as Saturday had been.

  After breakfast, Anna went out on the porch to practice her violin. (She is so disciplined.) That morning she’d had a wonderful phone call. Her friend Corley, who used to be one of her best friends when we lived on Long Island, had phoned to say she would also be staying at her grandparents’ house in the Hamptons that week. Anna was super-psyched about seeing her.

  Mom said she’d had enough sun the day before and thought it would be better for her skin if she stayed inside for a while. She said she felt like reading a novel in her room. (I wondered if she was sneaking in contract work. But I didn’t ask.)

  There was no way Gram Elsie, Grandpa Morris, and I were going to be kept from the beach. The three of us are die-hard beach bums.

  By the front of the house, Gram and I piled her red wagon with beach chairs, an umbrella, a blanket, towels, magazines, sunscreen, and two lined pads of paper. “What are the pads for?” I asked, picking up one of them, which had slipped from the top of the heap.

  “Guest list, list for the caterer, costume supply list, list for the florist,” she replied. She tilted her head, thinking. “And for any lists I haven’t thought of yet.”

  “Your parties are so great,” I said. Gram knows how to throw a party. Her anniversary parties always have a theme. This year, it was going to be Alice in Wonderland.

  She patted my shoulder and winked at me. “This one is going to be the best yet. Wait until you see the costume I’m making myself — the White Queen.”

  “Awesome,” I commented.

  Gram leaned toward the open front door. “Morris, come on!” she called. “We’re leaving!” She began pulling the wagon out onto the dirt road that led to the water.

  Grandpa Morris bounded out the front door. “Give me that. Give it to me,” he said, taking the wagon handle from her.

  “I can pull it,” Gram Elsie objected.

  “What do you think I am, a weakling?” asked Grandpa.

  Gram laughed and let him pull the wagon. “No, you’re definitely no weakling. But remember your heart problem.”

  “What heart problem? I have a brand-new heart. I have a heart like a teenager now,” Grandpa Morris joked. I was so glad to see him feeling energetic again. In the time since his surgery, he’d often seemed a little weak. Gram had been taking extra-good care of him, not letting him strain himself in any way. Now it looked as if she didn’t have to do that anymore. At any rate, Grandpa had no intention of letting her continue.

  At the beach, we spread our blanket a few yards from the water. It was still early and only a handful of other people were on the beach, all keeping a polite distance from one another. “Okay, Abby, let’s hit the surf,” Grandpa Morris said, pulling off his shirt.

  “Sunblock first,” Gram Elsie insisted as she dug a tube out of the wagon. “You know you burn. You too, Abby.”

  “But I don’t burn,” I protested.

  “It doesn’t matter. The time to start protecting yourself against skin cancer is right now, while you’re young.” As she spoke, she waved to a couple who were setting up beach chairs a few yards away.

  “I’m not getting skin cancer,” I scoffed.

  “Young people never think they’re getting anything,” she argued. “But before you know it, you’re old. And then it’s too late to undo the damage you did. So take it from an old person — use the sunblock.”

  Obediently, I took the sunblock from Grandpa Morris, who had finished slathering himself with it. “You’re not old,” I said to Gram. Even though her hair is gray and her face has some wrinkles, she never seems old to me. She’s so active and full of fun. “Are you coming into the water?” I asked her.

  “Not yet,” she said. “I want to go over the guest list for the party. I need to see who’s coming and who’s not.”

  With a smile, Grandpa Morris stepped backward with his hand on his chest, pretending to be shocked. “Do you mean someone would actually turn down an Elsie Goldberg invitation to the gala event of the summer season?”

  I smiled, but Gram didn’t. “Jean and the girls aren’t coming,” she reported unhappily. She was referring to my mom’s cousin Jean and her daughters, Amy and Sheila. “They have some sort of scheduling conflict. And, of course, Leah isn’t coming.”

  Leah is one of Gram’s sisters, which makes her my great-aunt Leah. Last I’d heard, she still lived in New York City. But I hadn’t seen or heard much about her in years. She and Gram haven’t been on very good terms for a while.

  Once I asked Mom what the trouble was. Either she wasn’t sure, or she didn’t want to give me the details. Mom is excellent at keeping a secret. When she decides to clam up you can’t pry anything out of her. She said, “Oh, it had to do with Aunt Leah telling someone a secret Gram didn’t want anyone to know. Gram got mad at her, and then she got mad at Gram for being mad, and it’s been a mess between them ever since.”

  Gram reeled off the names of a few more friends and relatives who’d said they couldn’t come. When she finished, she pressed her lips together and stared off into the middle distance, deep in thought.

  “Who is coming?” Grandpa asked.

  Gram snapped out of her thoughtful trance and scanned her list. “The majority of people have said they’re coming, though some haven’t responded yet. Iris will be here. And Larry. Sam and Billy are bringing their kids.” She glanced up from the list and smiled. “That will be good. I can’t wait to see them.” (FYI, Iris is Gram’s sister, Larry is Grandpa’s brother, and Sam and Billy are Larry’s sons.)

  “I can’t wait to see them either,” Grandpa Morris agreed. He batted my shoulder playfully. “Come on, Abby. We’ll leave Gram to her lists. Let’s jump into that beautiful water.” He began running toward the ocean and I joined him. He was surprisingly fast.

  Together, we dove straight in. Mom, Anna, and Gram all like to dance around the surf and then ease in slowly. That’s like torture to me. Grandpa and I need to plunge into the cold water fast.

  We raced to the jetty, a man-made outcropping of rocks about ten yards down the shoreline. I won — by about one hand length. Grandpa laughed breathlessly as we climbed up onto the rocks and sat with our feet dangling in the water. “The party is especially important to Gram this year,” he said after we had sat in silence together for a few minutes. “She really wants the whole family to be together.”

  “It’s a shame some of those people can’t make it,” I commented.

  Grandpa frowned. “Gram is always doing for everyone. You’d think they could exert themselves a little to be here for her.”

  “Maybe they don’t realize how important it is to her.”

  He nodded. “I suppose.” He pushed himself off the rock, back into the water. I was right behind him. We swam back until we were in front of our blanket. Grandpa headed for his towel, but I wanted to stay in the water awhile longer.

  The waves were gentle, so I was able to float. I let my mind wander and thought about my grandparents. I couldn’t imagine being married to someone for so many years. But then, I couldn’t imagine myself being married to anyone at all. Not that I would mind being married some day in the far, far, far future. I simply couldn’t picture it.

  I thought about families, and how they fight
and make up, grow apart, and then come together again. For Gram’s sake, I hoped no one else turned down her party invitation.

  A small wave slapped me in the face and sent me sputtering out of my floaty thoughts. With a shiver, I realized I needed to warm up. I headed for the sand.

  Back at the blanket, Grandpa was stretched out with a towel over his face, snoring softly. Gram sat on a low beach chair beside him with a photo album open on her lap and a stack of letters. “He thinks he has the energy of a kid,” she said with a fond smile.

  I knelt beside her and toweled dry. “He seems like his old self, though.”

  “Almost. I wish he’d slow down, just a little.” She peeled back the plastic covering on an album page and positioned the letter beneath it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Gram smoothed the wrinkles of the plastic until it lay flat. “This is a letter from my mother, your great-grandmother Fanny Weiss, to my father, Ira Weiss. It’s a photocopy, really. So are the photos. I have the originals in a safe deposit box. I’m putting together a family history for future Goldberg and Weiss generations.” Gram’s family name was Weiss. Now she’s a Goldberg, since she took Grandpa’s last name. “I’d like to make a family tree, if I can find all the information I need.”

  “There’s a computer program that can help you assemble that stuff,” I volunteered. A girl in school once brought in a computer-generated family tree, and I thought it was pretty cool. “You’d need a scanner, though, to put in the photos,” I added, remembering all the old pictures she’d had in hers.

  “Our computer is back at home,” Gram reminded me. “For now I’ll do it the old-fashioned way, and in September I’ll look into the computer software. It sounds interesting.”

  Gram handed me a stack of papers on which she’d photocopied about fifteen old, brownish photos. Serious-faced women peered out from beneath gigantic hats. Men with heavy mustaches stood up stiffly, shoulders back, posing for the photographer.

  In one photo, a very small girl in a pleated sailor-style dress sat on a high stool. She wore a big bow in her dark ringlets. An older girl stood on either side of her. The one on the right appeared to be about five, and the other one might have been eight. They all had the same springy dark ringlets. Behind them stood a boy of about eleven or twelve, wearing a protective expression. “The baby on the stool there is me,” Gram told me.