“Oh,” Noah said. He hit his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Of course. Of course. I almost forgot. Ginger is the dog that invented E = mc2.”
“E = mc2 was not invented. It was discovered, and Einstein discovered it. Ginger is a genius of her genus. She is the best there is of Canis familiaris, and Alice is the best of her litter.”
“Alice,” Noah repeated. “Who named her that?”
“I did,” Nadia said. “I thought Julian would like the name because he sent me the invitation to tea in the book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
“I’ve never heard of someone giving someone a pet for a present without permission and then choosing that pet’s name without even asking.”
Nadia said, “Well, Noah, now you have. In a single afternoon you have heard of both.”
The large center hall of the Sillington house had a staircase that curved upward like a stretch of DNA. To the right of the hall was a living room that had a huge fireplace on the end wall; there was no furniture in the room, and the wallpaper was peeling from the walls. On the left of the center hall was the long dining room. I did not remember its having a fireplace, but it did. I was drawn into the room by the large, framed poster hanging over the fireplace mantel.
EXTRAORDINAIRE
SIMONETTA
Chanteuse
Taking up most of the space in the poster was a full-length picture of a smiling, dark-haired woman in a green satin gown. At the bottom was the information:
Appearing Nightly
November 14-29
The Stardust Room
Julian came up behind me. “That is my mother,” he said.
“Your mother is a chanteuse?”
“Yes, she was a chanteuse,” he said, pronouncing it shawn-tewz.
“What does a shawn-tewz do?”
“She sings.”
“I saw The Phantom of the Opera last summer. There was a wonderful chanteuse in that show.”
Julian smiled but said nothing.
“Has she retired?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “She died.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
Julian looked up at the poster. “That poster is quite old. From before my birth. The Stardust Room mentioned there is on a cruise ship. Mother performed there and on other cruise ships. Before it was necessary for me to start school, I used to travel with Mother and Father. Then I went to boarding school in the north of England in the fall and winter and traveled with them during one of the summer months. Until this year.”
“Are you an alien?” I asked.
“Actually, no,” he said. “Mother was an American by birth; Father is by naturalization. I was born on the high seas. That makes me American.”
“As American as apple pie,” I said.
Julian smiled. “Not quite,” he said. “Let us say that I am as American as pizza pie. I did not originate here, but I am here to stay.” He extended his arm in the direction of Nadia and Noah and took a small step back so that I could pass in front of him. “I think we must join our other guests,” he said. “Please,” he said. I crossed in front of him, and as I did so, I felt that I was crossing from stage right to stage left and wearing a tuxedo, and I did not mind the feeling at all.
The long trestle tables that are in the picture in the history museum were gone. The dining room was now furnished with two tables-for-two, three tables-for-four, and one larger table at the far end toward the back of the house. Around the tables were an assortment of chairs, none of which matched but seemed to.
The tea was very hot, so we could not gulp it down. We sat at the four sides of a table-for-four and slowly began not to hurry. We sipped the tea and ate small sandwiches that Mr. Singh brought out on a large round tray. Later he brought a three-tiered tray of small pastries. They were delicious, and after finishing hers, Nadia licked her forefinger and with it, picked up the crumbs from her plate. She licked her finger clean so delicately that not even Miss Manners would call it bad.
I, who always preferred silence to speaking, actually started the talking. I asked, “How many eighth graders does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”
Noah replied, “How many?”
I answered, “Only one. They all know how to screw up.”
Everyone laughed.
Noah asked, “Where did you hear that one?”
“I made it up,” I confessed. I had made that joke up when lightbulb jokes were popular, but I had never told it to anyone before. I was so pleased with their response to a joke I made up that I told them one I had thought of the day Ham Knapp and Mike Froelich had attacked Julian’s book bag.
“What is the difference between a pig sty and the sixth grade?” I asked.
Julian said, “I don’t know. What is the difference?”
“In a pig sty an ass is a ham.”
Julian quietly said thank you, and no one asked why.
After the tea was gone and the cakes were eaten, Julian opened his presents. Noah’s first. A bottle of black, black ink, a pen and a pad of paper marked with double and single lines, and a paperback book.
“For calligraphy,” Noah explained. “The ink is called India ink. I thought that would be appropriate.”
Julian laughed. “Yes, indeed it is.” (Indeed again.) “Calligraphy is a skill I have always wanted to acquire.”
“I can teach you,” Noah said.
Julian flashed his most dazzling smile at Noah. “I would appreciate that very much,” he said.
“Consider it done,” Noah replied.
Nadia said, “I have always wanted to write like that. You can teach me, too.”
“Do you have the pen?” he asked.
“I will get one.” Nadia looked over at me. “Ethan, I think you will feel very left out if you do not get one, too.”
“I will make each of you a list of what you need. I’ll make the list in calligraphy. Watch me, and it will be your first lesson.” Noah filled the pen. It was a very long process. “Filling the pen is not what you do before you begin. It is the beginning,” he said. “Learn to make a plus sign so that both the vertical and horizontal strokes are the same thickness. That is your second lesson. You can practice as soon as you buy your materials.” We waited and watched as Noah wrote out the two lists.
Before Julian opened up my gift, I knew that it was going to be just right. And it was. “A puzzle!” Julian exclaimed. “I love puzzles. Let’s do it now.”
So without bothering to clear away our cups and saucers, we took seats at the larger table toward the back of the room. As we began to spread out the pieces of the puzzle, Nadia said, “Just like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party—we all moved one place on.”
We worked on the puzzle, each one allowing himself a section of the table and the necessary quiet. Then when all the pieces were used up, we brought our sections together, pushing them left-to-right or right-to-left until they fit together. One piece was missing. We looked on the floor and around the legs of our chairs but didn’t find it. I was annoyed with the people who had sold me the puzzle. “They’ve got their nerve selling defective puzzles,” I said.
“But the box was sealed,” Noah said.
Julian said, “I think Nadia has it in her hair.”
“Do not be ridiculous,” Nadia said. “I do not.”
“Oh, yes, you do. I see it. Can you see it?” he asked me and Noah. Before we could answer, Julian reached across the table and pulled the last piece of puzzle from Nadia’s hair. He held it up between his thumb and forefinger and said, “Dear friends, may I present you with the final solution?” He reached down as if to place the piece of puzzle in the small lake of brown tabletop near the center of the puzzle. But when he opened his hand, out fell three red-and-white-striped mints. “Ah, yes,” he said, “I almost forgot our after-tea mints. Please help yourselves.” We each picked up a mint, and Julian said, “I think it’s time to wrap this up. Ethan,” he said, “would you please see if that pesky piece
is still in the box?”
I reached down on the floor, opened the box, and there it was—the last piece of puzzle. I took it from the box, put it in place and said, “I’m impressed.”
And I was. And so were we all.
The party broke up when Mrs. Gershom arrived to take Noah home. As Noah stood at the front door saying his thank you’s, Julian said, “Same time next week. But, please, your presence but not presents.”
Noah said, “I’ve heard that before. As a matter of fact, I’ve put it in writing.”
I left shortly after Noah. The days were getting short, and it was dark when I left Sillington House. Mrs. Gershom had offered to drive me home, but I wanted to walk. I wanted to walk the road between Sillington House and mine. I wanted to mark the distance slowly. Something had happened at Sillington House. Something made me pull sounds out of my silence the way that Julian pulled puzzle pieces out of Nadia’s hair.
Had I gained something at Sillington House? Or had I lost something there? The answer was yes.
The Monday morning following our tea, Julian boarded the bus and said “Good morning” exactly the way he had said it every other day. We did not speak again, and when the bus came to its final stop, we did not wait for each other or walk together into Mrs. Olinski’s classroom. That was the way I wanted it. And that was the way it remained.
On Saturday Mother asked me where I was going. I told her. She asked me why, and I said we were working on a project, and that turned out to be the truth.
Mr. Singh was stripping old paper off the walls of one of the bedrooms, and all of us got involved. Mr. Singh had a steamer to loosen the paper from the walls. Noah made a contest out of seeing who could pull off the longest strip. Working quietly on one side of the window, easing the paper off inch by inch, Nadia ended up with a piece that was almost as long as the room was tall. She won.
“What will be my prize?” she asked.
“Ask Noah,” I said. “He has a proven talent for thinking of prizes.”
“When will I know my prize?” Nadia asked.
“Before our meeting is over,” Noah said. “I think I need some tea to think.”
When we sat down to our afternoon tea, Nadia proposed that we give ourselves a name.
I thought it was a good idea and suggested, “The Gang of IV. I,V, the Roman numerals.”
Noah said, “No. Nadia gets to choose the name. And that is her prize for pulling off the longest strip of wallpaper. Besides, I think she already has something in mind.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “And swear that as my prize, you will accept my choice.”
We said we would.
“Good,” she said. “Then it is settled. We are The Souls.”
“I agree,” I said immediately.
Noah cocked his head to one side. “I … like … it … but … I think it ought to be The Sillington Souls.”
“I did not say that, Noah. I said The Souls. Besides, ‘Less is more.’”
“What does that mean?” Noah asked. “Less is more. Less is more what? Or less what is more? What does it mean? Less is more.”
“Think about it,” Nadia said. “If someone hands you a card that says that she is President, Clarion National Bank, it means more than if she hands you a card that says she is First Vice President, Loan Department, Clarion National Bank, Epiphany Branch. If you say Michelangelo, it means more than Michelangelo Smith, and just plain Leonardo means more than Leonardo Jones.”
Noah said, “I don’t think you can say just plain and apply it to Leonardo.”
Nadia said to Noah, “Noah Gershom, you may be smart beyond your years, but you are not wise.”
“All right. All right,” Noah said. “The Souls.” He smiled. “I like it.”
“Good,” I said, looking over at Julian. “What about you?”
“I agree. We will be The Souls. Let us shake on it.”
We rested our elbows on the table’s edge and reached toward the center of the table until our hands clutched. “We are now The Souls,” Nadia said. When we released our hands, each of us was holding a shiny new penny.
“Ah, yes,” Julian said. “If you’ll check the date on the coin, you will see they are new—minted in the year The Souls was born.”
One Saturday afternoon, shortly after The Souls was born, as we sat around the table-for-four where we had had our tea, I broke the silence by asking—I really don’t know why—except that it was something I had been thinking about, “If you could live one day of your life all over again, what day would it be? And why?”
Nadia said, “I would like to live over the morning my father and I helped my grandfather and Margaret rescue the turtles that had been blown ashore by the northeaster.” She explained about the turtles, their life cycle, and our walks along the beach up until the morning after the storm. “It was like a scavenger hunt. Ethan was there. Do you remember, Ethan?” I nodded. “For two whole days, we kept them safe in buckets, all covered with wet seaweed. And then Margaret, Grandpa Izzy and my dad, Ethan and I drove to Marineland. Ethan and I kept the buckets between us in the back seat, and the three adults crowded together in the front seat. We were crowded, wet, and messy, and it was fun.” She looked over at me, and smiled. “Even your grandmother laughed at the sight of us as we got out of the car.” I nodded again. “The marine biologist took us out to the Sargasso Sea, and allowed us to empty the buckets over the edge of the boat. We gave the turtles a lift, and we made it possible for them to continue that phase of their life. It was a most wonderful day. Remember, Ethan?”
I remembered.
Noah said, “I would like to live over the day I was best man at a wedding in Century Village that involved four grandparents—two of mine and one each of two other Souls.”
Noah had a knack for telling a story, and all of us laughed, even the two of us who already knew the details. Nadia, who had not found the details funny before, found them funny now.
Julian, ever polite, asked, “Is it now my turn?”
Nadia said, “Please.”
Julian picked up a deck of cards. He spoke as he shuffled. “If I could repeat one day of my life,” he said, pushing the cards across the table to Noah. “Cut them, please.” Noah did, and Julian nodded. “I would choose the time we were sailing back to England,” he said as he began to deal the cards, going round and round. “All during the journey from the Mediterranean, Gopal, who did close-up magic, had been teaching me how to play poker.” Julian looked over the table and counted the cards—three—at each place. Then he slowly dealt another round as he continued talking. “Finally on the day we docked at Southampton, the very day before I was to start boarding school …” Julian smiled, laid the remaining deck of cards in the middle of the table, and said, “Would you mind turning over your cards?”
We did. I, who was on Julian’s left had four two’s; Noah, who was next had four three’s; Nadia had four four’s. Julian said, “On the day we docked at Southampton, Gopal said something to me …” Julian turned over two of the top cards from the remaining deck: Aces. “On the day we docked, Gopal said that I had chops.” Julian turned over the next two cards: Two more aces. “That day when Gopal told me that I had chops, that is the day I would like to live over.”
We applauded.
“What are chops?” Noah asked.
“Chops,” Julian said, “is to magic what doing scales is to a chanteuse. Without it you cannot be a magician, with it alone you cannot be an artist.”
Something in Sillington House gave me permission to do things I had never done before. Never even thought of doing. Something there triggered the unfolding of those parts that had been incubating. Things that had lain inside me, curled up like the turtle hatchlings newly emerged from their eggs, taking time in the dark of their nest to unfurl themselves. I told jokes I had never told before. I asked questions I had never asked before. When it was my turn to tell what day I would like to live over, after Nadia had finished, after Noah and Jul
ian had, too, I told mine.
The Souls listened and were not embarrassed to hear, and I was not embarrassed to say, “I would like to live over the day of our first tea party. And, look,” I added, “every Saturday since, I get to do just that.”
4
Mrs. Olinski sat, waiting, until all the members of her class were seated. Then she introduced herself. “I am Mrs. Olinski. I am one of those people who gets to use all those good parking spaces at the mall.” She turned toward the blackboard and wrote in big, block letters:
MRS. OLINSKI
PARAPLEGIC
As she wrote paraplegic, Mrs. Olinski spelled it out, “P-A-R-A-P-L-E-G-I-C. It means that I am paralyzed from the waist down.”
Mrs. Olinski had thought about what she would say to this, her first sixth-grade class in ten years. She wrote it all down, revised, memorized, and rehearsed until she could deliver her lines with a light touch. Her voice held steady, but her hands did not, and the O of Olinski was the rough shape of an oil spill.
Then a student in the back—Hamilton Knapp—stood up. “Excuse me, Mrs. Olinski,” he said, hesitating slightly, mispronouncing her name. “I can’t see what you’ve written. Could you write a little higher on the blackboard, please?”
Mrs. Olinski replied, “Not at the moment,” and managed an embarrassed smile. The rest of her prepared remarks flew out of her head. She thought she had thought of everything. But here she was with a problem about sight lines to the blackboard. Given time, she would figure it out, but she wished it had not come up on the very first hour of her very first day back.
After Hamilton Knapp sat down, she laughed nervously. “I was about to tell you that being a paraplegic does not mean that there is anything wrong with my hearing or my eyesight, but I guess we’ll have to figure out what to do about the eyesight of those of you who will be seated in the back of the room.”
Mrs. Olinski decided that she would write nothing more on the blackboard for the rest of the morning but would leave what she had already written right there so that she could check it out after lunch. She would return before the rest of the class, wheel herself to the back of the room while it was still empty, and check out the sight lines.