Home Is the Place

  Georgia’s mother had smiled when she’d seen the music for the pageant. “You know, I grew up celebrating the Jewish holidays with Papa Matthew, and only going to church with Nana Dana sometimes.”

  “Why?” Georgia had asked. Before her mother could answer, she had added, “Am I Jewish, too?”

  “You are one quarter Jewish,” was the reply. “You’re one quarter African American, too.”

  Georgia had nodded. She knew that her great-grandparents, her father’s mother’s parents, were black. But she hadn’t given it much thought. Now she did the math. “I’m one quarter Jewish and one quarter black and three quarters not Jewish and three quarters not black. How come that adds up to more than one?”

  Her mother had laughed. “It does add up to one. It adds up to one whole Georgia Eleanor Goldberg Noble.”

  Georgia studied her music and then played through the songs for the pageant. She played them again and decided she knew them well — very well. She didn’t know them perfectly, but she had realized not long after starting her lessons with Mr. Elden that there was no such thing as perfection in music anyway. Georgia was satisfied with the performance she would give that night.

  She gathered the music into a folder and pulled her guitar onto her lap again. She had thought long and hard about a Christmas gift for her parents that year and, almost without realizing what she was doing, had eventually begun to compose a song for them. She played it softly now and was halfway through when she was interrupted by a knock on her door.

  “Come in,” she said.

  Richard and Henry entered the room, Richard dressed as a Wise Man, Henry as a lamb.

  “How do we look?” asked Henry.

  “Great. Your costumes are really good.”

  Richard slumped on the bed, his cardboard crown sliding off of his head. “Can I borrow some money? I don’t have a present for Mom and Dad yet.”

  Georgia shook her head. “I haven’t got a cent.”

  “What happened to all that money you made selling jewelry?”

  “Selling jewelry?! That was last year, in second grade.”

  “Well, don’t you have any more?”

  Allowances in the Noble household had been cut months ago.

  “No. What happened to your money?”

  Richard shrugged. “Spent it.” He was no good at thinking ahead. “Hey, if you don’t have any money, how are you going to get a present for Mom and Dad?”

  Georgia smiled. “None of your business.” She purposely kept her eyes from straying to her guitar. She had no intention of spoiling the surprise. This was the best gift she had ever thought of.

  Henry, the Velcro on his hoofs coming unfastened so that his lamb feet separated from his lamb body, said earnestly, “We made presents for our parents in school.”

  “Really?” said Richard. “What did you make? Hand prints?”

  “No,” Henry replied, sounding insulted. “I made a macaroni chain for our Christmas tree.”

  Georgia saw the look on Richard’s face and stepped in hastily. “You know what Henry and I decided this morning?” she said. “We decided that we’d better write our letters to Santa. Let’s do that now, okay? You guys take off your costumes. We’ll write the letters at the kitchen table.”

  Georgia tiptoed through the living room, where her mother sat in front of her computer, working away. She had a deadline, Georgia knew, which meant that she had a book due, and if her mother had a book due, then a check would be arriving in the mail soon. That was a good thing, considering the conversation Georgia had tried not to overhear the night before. The conversation, drifting down from her parents’ upstairs bedroom, had begun with her father saying that in the previous week the store had almost broken even, and ended with her mother saying that if the store continued to lose money she insisted they shut it down.

  This morning her parents hadn’t spoken a word to each other before Mr. Noble had left the cottage to walk to work.

  Georgia assembled paper and markers on the table and waited for her brothers. Eventually, they entered the kitchen, costume-free, Henry nearly vibrating with excitement. Before he even sat down he announced, “What I want is a dog and an emerald.”

  “What do you want an emerald for?” Richard asked as he settled himself in his chair. He didn’t sound scornful, just curious.

  Henry shrugged. “To be rich. If you have an emerald you must be rich.”

  “Good thinking!” said Georgia. “Okay, let’s get started. Henry, do you need help or do you want to spell everything yourself?”

  “Myself,” her brother replied, reaching for a red marker.

  They worked busily. Georgia composed a letter following the guidelines she was learning in school. She began with a greeting; inquired after the health of Santa, his wife, the elves, and the reindeer; filled Santa in on her life that year; asked for three books and a Nintendo; and finished with a thank-you and a formal closing.

  “All done!” Henry announced as Georgia was signing her name to her letter. “Look.”

  He held out his letter, which read: DER SANTE, THAT YOU AND MURY CRISMIS. PLES I WOD LIKE A EMREAL IF YOU HAV ONE IN YUR SLA. PLUS A DOG. PLUS A JEEP. FROM HENRY NOBLE.

  “Let’s mail them right now!” said Henry. “Please?”

  Georgia and Richard automatically glanced into the living room at their mother. Mailing letters to Santa involved the use of the fireplace, and therefore required an adult.

  “Mom’s busy,” Richard whispered to Georgia.

  “I know, but I think she’ll help us.”

  She did. Their mom seemed glad to take a break. She let Richard light the fire that had been laid in the hearth, and then one by one, she held the Santa letters lightly above the flames and allowed them to be carried up the chimney.

  “All right. Back to work,” she said, smiling.

  Henry turned to Georgia and whispered, “Let’s go outside and look for them.”

  Georgia and her brothers put their jackets on and ran outdoors.

  “Where are they?” cried Henry, his head tipped back. “I don’t see any letters in the air.”

  “Probably at the North Pole,” Richard replied.

  “No, it’s too soon. They couldn’t have gotten all the way to the North Pole already!” Henry dashed through the backyard and along a path that was a shortcut into town. Soon he veered off the path, Georgia and Richard at his heels, his face turned to the sunny sky.

  Henry ran and ran, and Georgia and Richard ran after him. By the time they returned to the cottage, Henry tearful because the letters had not been spotted, they were met at the door by their angry mother.

  “Where on earth were you? I didn’t hear you leave the house. Ava stopped by looking for you, Georgia, and I didn’t even know you were gone.” She paused to take a breath. “Great-Grandma and Orrin will be here soon, and your father’s on his way home. Go get ready for the pageant.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” said Georgia breathlessly. “Henry wanted to see our letters in the sky.”

  “And we couldn’t,” he added, bursting into fresh tears.

  Their mother sat on the couch, her eyes softening. “I’m sure your letters have reached Santa by now,” she said. “Truly. It’s all magic, remember? Now, scoot. Go get your costumes.”

  * * *

  Not long after darkness had fallen that night, Georgia paused before the Presbyterian church at the edge of Lewisport. The stained-glass windows glowed crimson and violet and indigo blue, and the front doors stood open, spilling light into the hushed yard. Georgia, her guitar slung over one shoulder, held tight to Great-Grandma’s hand and looked around at her family — her parents, who, she was relieved to see, were also holding hands; Orrin, his arm across Richard’s shoulder; and Henry, who was singing “Away in a Manger” so softly that his voice was like a gull feather in the night air.

  Georgia tipped her face up and looked at her great-grandmother. “Did you go to this church when you were little?” she asked.

&
nbsp; “Sometimes. It wasn’t our church, but sometimes I came here with my friend Sarah.” Great-Grandma’s eyes strayed to the tiny cemetery enclosed by a stone wall. Her chin quivered just slightly. “Well,” she said at last. “Well.”

  “Come on. Let’s go!” cried Henry.

  Georgia squeezed Great-Grandma’s hand and she and her family climbed the steps to the open doors just as the organ came to life and the first notes of “Silent Night” reached Georgia’s ears.

  Georgia, Ava, Penny, and Talia sat in a row on the top step of Georgia’s tiny front porch. Henry sat below them, on the bottom step, his face turned so that he could look up at them, one hand shielding his eyes from the blazing sun.

  “What should we do now?” asked Talia.

  “Yeah, what should we do?” echoed Henry.

  “It’s too hot to do anything,” Ava replied. “Too hot to do anything at all.”

  The August sun beat down on them. Summers in Maine weren’t usually hot, at least not this hot, and the afternoon stretched stickily ahead of them.

  “Let’s go to the library,” suggested Penny. “It’s air-conditioned.”

  “I don’t feel like the library,” said Talia.

  The Blue Harbor Lane kids had spent the morning playing Forensic Detectives. (Henry had twice asked what this meant, hadn’t understood either explanation, and had renamed the game Forever Detectives.) Eleven children had crept from house to house, tiptoed inside each one undetected (they hoped), and gathered hair from combs and made off with mugs containing cold swigs of coffee. They had analyzed their evidence in Ava’s backyard using a fingerprint kit and Penny and Talia’s grandmother’s reading glasses.

  “Whoever drank from this mug,” Richard had announced at last, “is definitely a criminal.”

  “That’s Mom’s mug!” cried Henry.

  Richard swatted his brother’s head. “Pretend!”

  “Use your imagination!” Talia had added.

  The game had continued as the heat had risen. One by one, the children had drifted away. Richard and his friends Austin and Alex had retreated to Austin’s air-conditioned house with a stack of comic books. The Quigley boys (twins named Doug and Sandy, but everyone called them simply “the Quigley boys”) had gone home to beg someone to take them across the street to the beach.

  For a while, Georgia had sat alone on her stoop while Henry played inside with Noelle. She watched the waves washing onto the beach and thought about fourth grade, which would start in a month. Then she thought about her lessons with Mr. Elden and how he had said she would probably need a new guitar soon. After that, her thoughts turned to A Doll’s House. The store was still in business, but just barely. It was still only limping along.

  “How long are we going to hang on to something that doesn’t turn a profit?” Georgia’s mother had asked her father after a disappointing Memorial Day weekend when Mr. Noble had sold exactly one dollhouse, one dollhouse family, and twelve pieces of dollhouse furniture.

  “Just give me the rest of the tourist season,” he’d replied. “Let’s make a decision in September.”

  They were now closer to September than to Memorial Day, and not much had changed.

  “Georgie Girl, lunch,” said a voice behind her, and Georgia had jumped.

  “Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Her mother stood in the doorway, cell phone in hand. “Where’s Richard?” she’d asked.

  “At Austin’s.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Georgia, Richard, Henry, and their mother were seated around their kitchen table eating sandwiches and grapes. Georgia swung her sandy feet back and forth and gazed into the living room at her mother’s worktable. It was littered with papers and books. She could see the blinking light that meant the computer had gone to sleep. Her mother was deeply involved in another book, this one her very first mystery.

  “I could help you with your book,” Richard said, setting down his sandwich. “I could do forensic research for you.”

  “Thank you,” said Mrs. Noble, smiling. “I appreciate it, but —”

  “Mom, how did you become a criminal?” asked Henry.

  “What?” Mrs. Noble frowned at him, then began to laugh. “Where did you —” Her phone rang then and she looked at the caller ID. “Sorry, guys,” she said. “I have to take this. It’s my editor. You finish up here and then let me work until dinnertime, okay? I have a deadline. Georgia, remember your lesson with Mr. Elden this afternoon. Two o’clock. When you’re at home, you’re in charge of Henry. Richard, you’re in charge of both of them,” she added hastily.

  Mrs. Noble left her half-eaten sandwich and sat down at her computer. Five minutes later, Georgia and her brothers had finished their lunches and cleared the table. Richard dashed out the front door.

  “Where are you going?” Georgia called after him.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Well, come back at quarter to two and get Henry, okay? He’s your responsibility while I’m at my lesson.”

  “Okay,” Richard shouted over his shoulder. The screen door banged shut behind him.

  This was when Georgia and Henry had sat out on their front stoop in the sticky heat.

  “What are we doing?” Henry had asked.

  “Waiting for something to happen.”

  What had happened was that Ava, Penny, and Talia had shown up, Penny had suggested going to the library, and Talia had rejected the notion.

  “Then what should we do?” whined Penny.

  “Let’s make an outfit for Noelle,” said Ava.

  “No, she hates wearing clothes,” said Georgia. “Besides, Mom says it isn’t fair to make animals wear clothes.”

  Talia stretched her brown legs in front of her. “This is the most bored I’ve ever been.”

  Georgia looked at her watch. “I have a lesson in twenty minutes,” she announced. “Richard had better come back soon. He promised he would.” She stood up. “I have to get my stuff ready.”

  “Okay. See you later,” said Ava, and she and Penny and Talia wandered off, still complaining of boredom.

  “Can I go with you?” Henry asked his sister.

  “What? To Mr. Elden’s?” (He nodded.) “Sure. I guess so. Just remember that you have to be quiet during the lesson, okay?”

  “Okay.” Almost everything was okay with Henry.

  Richard returned at the last possible moment, and Georgia told him that she was taking Henry along for her lesson.

  “Excellent!” said Richard.

  “We’ll be back in an hour,” she added, as Richard ran jubilantly down Blue Harbor Lane to rejoin his friends.

  They were back in one hour and five minutes.

  “That was really fun,” Henry was saying as they approached the cottage, even though he had done nothing but listen to his sister’s lesson. “Someday maybe I’ll —”

  The door of the cottage blasted open and Mrs. Noble appeared on the front steps, cell phone in hand. “Oh, thank goodness!” she exclaimed, although she looked angry, rather than relieved. “There you are.” She paused. “Where were you?”

  Georgia frowned. She pointed to her guitar. “At my lesson. Remember?”

  “I know where you were, but where has Henry been? I’ve been looking and looking for him. The Quigley boys came by asking for him, and I said he must be with Richard and they said he wasn’t, that Richard had gone off with Austin and Alex. Then I began calling the neighbors, and Ava said she thought Henry was with Richard, too, which by then I knew wasn’t true. No one knew where he was. No one had seen him. And I remembered a strange car I saw down the street this morning.”

  Georgia stepped forward. “Mom. It’s okay. Henry was with me. He wanted to go to my lesson. He’s right here. See? He’s fine.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me he was going with you? I was this close to calling the police,” Mrs. Noble went on, and Georgia heard a tremor in her voice. “This close, Georgia. You know better.”

  “Hey, this isn’t my fault!” s
he cried. She stepped around her mother and entered the cottage, slinging her guitar onto the living room couch. “You said not to bother you this afternoon, so I didn’t. But I did tell Richard where we were going. And you knew I was going to my lesson.”

  “But I didn’t know you were taking Henry with you.”

  “But I told Richard. You said Richard was in charge of Henry and me.”

  “Well, Richard didn’t tell me.”

  Georgia’s heart, which had begun pounding, began to slow down. She drew in a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry Richard didn’t tell you what we were doing. We didn’t mean to scare you.” Then she added, “It really wasn’t my fault. Anyway, nothing is wrong. Henry’s here and he’s okay.”

  Henry had sat down on the couch with the guitar. His lip was quivering. “Sorry, Mom,” he said.

  Mrs. Noble sat next to him, but Georgia remained standing. “You act like this is my fault,” she said, voice rising. “And you said Richard was in charge of —”

  “I know what I said, but you were irresponsible.”

  “You told us not to bother you!”

  “You could have left a note. That’s the least you could have done.”

  “Why is this my fault?” Georgia demanded. “I don’t understand.” Despite herself, she stamped her foot. She stamped it so hard that the floor shook and Noelle fled from the room.

  Her mother looked pointedly from Noelle’s disappearing tail to Georgia’s stormy face. Then she said, “You were the one who took Henry to your lesson.”

  “So?”

  “So, you kids have plenty of independence here, but you have to earn it. It isn’t a privilege. No one knew where Henry was this afternoon, and that’s unacceptable.”

  “I knew where he was!” Georgia exploded. “And so did Richard.”

  “So did I,” said Henry in a small voice.

  Georgia smiled, but her mother shook her head. “This isn’t a joke. No one told me about the change in plans and nobody I spoke to knew where Henry was. Georgia, your punishment is that you can’t play with Ava for a week.”