Family Sabbatical (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

  George couldn’t believe that he would look undressed without a necktie. “They choke me,” he said pitifully. But the girls were two against his one, and Susan promised that she would help him tie the necktie so that he would not feel choked, so finally he agreed.

  Even Mother put on her best dress for dinner that night, although anyone could see that the Princess Adelaide Louisa had already become more of an idea to her than a real person, and that, as Father said, she would not mind very much if she never really set eyes on the princess.

  The Ridgeway family made a fine sight as they walked down all the flights of stairs to dinner (the ascenseur was still not “marching”). Father was the only one who had not particularly adorned himself for the benefit of the princess, but he was always handsomest when he made the least effort. Susan had put on her blue nylon dress that didn’t need to be ironed after it was unpacked, and she wore her bead necklace. Dumpling’s red hair ribbons looked crisp and fresh on the ends of her pigtails, and George was strangling heroically in his green necktie with the yellow polka dots. They all walked with dignity, as befitted people who were living under the same roof with royalty.

  “Dumpling,” Susan whispered into her sister’s ear, at the same time squeezing her hand, “Dumpling, isn’t this nice?”

  Dumpling’s eyes sparkled with excitement, but she replied as usual, “Susie, this is nice, but home is better.”

  “Oh dear!” Susan said.

  They all swept grandly into the dining room and took their places at their usual table. They looked around the dining room, but only the usual people seemed to be there. It was a fine room with high ceilings, and crystal chandeliers, and faded red satin draperies at the windows. But only half the room was used because there were so few people. The unused part was in darkness, to save electricity.

  The food was often strange but nearly always good. It was only when they had eel or fried octopus or snails that Mother drew the line. But Father and the children ate everything and told Mother that she didn’t know what she was missing.

  “That’s the whole point,” Mother said. “I’d rather not know.”

  Tonight the meal began with pumpkin soup, which was really very much better than it sounds. Sometimes instead of soup their meals began with hors d’oeuvres variés. Susan translated this at first as “various horses’ hooves,” but Father explained that hors d’oeuvres meant a little something extra, or “outside the works,” and the variés just meant that it was varied. It turned out to be a wonderful collection of little dishes filled with bits of sausage and salad and pickled fish and radishes and sardines and herrings and all sorts of delectable tidbits. Usually the Ridgeways cleaned all the little dishes and smacked their lips, but if any of the bits of fish or sausage were left, George put them in his pockets for the stray cats whose acquaintance he was always making.

  “It’s nice for the cats, I know,” Mother said patiently, “but it does give George such an odd smell, like a fisherman or the proprietor of a very old and not very clean grocery store.”

  “It’s the smell of George that makes the cats like him,” Dumpling said.

  But George was sure that the cats loved him for himself alone and not because he had a perfume of hors d’oeuvres variés.

  While the Ridgeways ate their soup they kept looking around at the door to see if the princess might be coming in. The soup went out, and the veal stew and vegetables came in. After that there was cheese, and next there would be the basket of fruit. Still no princess.

  “We might as well give up,” Susan said. “The princess is dining in her room.”

  “But the godmother is here,” Dumpling said.

  They all turned around to look at Dumpling. Then they looked where she was looking. At a small table beside the faded red satin curtain, not far from the darkened end of the room, sat a very small old lady, eating her dinner. She was dressed all in gray, and had white hair piled in a knot on top of her head, and her face and hands were covered with hundreds of tiny wrinkles.

  “When did she come in?” everybody wanted to know. “Did you see her come in, Dumpling?”

  “No,” Dumpling said. “She was just there when I looked.”

  “The godmother!” everybody said, except Father.

  “Rubbish!” he declared. “You’re making far too much of all this. We get some kind of circular by mistake, and immediately you have a princess. Now a simple little old lady comes into the dining room to eat her dinner, and you have a godmother. It’s unreasonable.”

  But nothing Father could say now could alter their opinion that this was the princess’s godmother. It was the next best thing to seeing the princess herself. Even George, tugging at the green and yellow necktie that was strangling him, felt rewarded for having made the sacrifice.

  A Secret from George

  Anyone who knew the Ridgeway children well at all knew that there were two very important dates for them in October. George saw to it that everybody knew about the first, because it was his birthday. The second, of course, was Halloween.

  “Now, George,” Father said, “you must not expect a great fuss for your birthday this year, because our trip to Europe and the governess and all are costing us quite a lot of money.”

  “We could get along without the governess,” George suggested hopefully.

  “I like Mademoiselle,” said Dumpling.

  “No,” Father said, “you need the governess. But what I wish to say is this: our trip to Europe this year will have to be birthday present, Christmas present, and every other kind of present. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Daddy, very clear,” the children said.

  So George stopped reminding people about what day was coming. It made Susan just a little sad to see George restraining himself this way. He’s growing up, she thought. Last year he simply couldn’t have kept quiet about his birthday. It would have made Susan even sadder if she had thought that George was really not going to have a birthday celebration. But she knew that Mother was knitting him a pullover sweater, and that Father would probably relent at the last minute and go out and buy him something. As for herself and Dumpling, they would certainly not forget George’s birthday even if they were not reminded every day.

  “We’ll have to put our money together and see what we can do,” she said to Dumpling. “I’ve only got a little bit left of my allowance, and I haven’t had any baby-sitting salary since the Terrible Torrences grew up and we came to Europe. How much do you have, Dumpling?”

  “Not much,” said Dumpling.

  “Not much,” Susan said, “won’t go far, but we can shop around and see.”

  “But, Susie,” Dumpling said, “we can always give him rocks.”

  “Rocks?” said Susan absently. “Oh yes, there are always rocks.”

  “But not turtles,” Dumpling said, remembering her last year’s present, “and not lizards either. Let’s not have anything alive, shall we, Susie?”

  “No,” Susan said, “nothing alive.”

  “But if we could find some very unusual rocks,” Dumpling continued, “I think he’d be pleased.”

  “That’s right,” Susan said. “I don’t know where he would pack them or what Mother would say if he tries to carry any more. But it’s certainly an idea.”

  “We can keep watching for them,” Dumpling said.

  So now, besides watching for the Princess Adelaide Louisa, they were watching also for unusual rocks. The unusual rocks seemed to keep themselves as well hidden as the princess.

  Sometimes in the evening just before dinner they saw the godmother walking very slowly back and forth on the terrace at the end of the garden. She walked with a cane, and her back was bent like the godmothers in all the fairy stories.

  “I think she has been reading aloud to the little princess all day, and now she is tired,” Dumpling said.

  “Perhaps she has put the princess to bed and now she is free to walk in the cool evening,” said Susan.

  “The prin
cess goes to bed awful early,” George remarked.

  Susan was suddenly struck by a dreadful thought. “Perhaps the princess is an invalid. Maybe that’s why we never see her. She’s like the Little Lame Prince or the little girl in The Bird’s Christmas Carol.”

  “Oh dear, Susie, do you really think so?” Dumpling asked.

  “Yes, I really think so,” Susan said. “How else can you explain it?”

  “Maybe Daddy’s right, and there isn’t any princess at all,” said George.

  But Susan couldn’t bear to think that. “No, it can’t be that,” she said. “I’m sure the princess is confined to her bed, her golden hair all spread out on her pillow, and her eyes looking very clear and blue in her thin, pale face.”

  “Brown, Susan!” cried George and Dumpling. “Her eyes are brown!”

  “Well, we won’t quarrel about it,” Susan said. “Are we agreed that she’s pale?”

  “Yes, pale!” they all agreed.

  “If we knew for sure,” Susan said, “we might take her a bouquet.” They thought about this, but no one felt sure enough to begin planning where they would get the bouquet.

  In the meantime, of course Mademoiselle came every day as usual, and they had to go on learning about the cats and the balls and the dogs and the baskets and the little boy who saw the dog run and the cat play with the ball.

  All of them grew very tired of the queer little French reader.

  I’m sure Madmuzelle must have learned to read out of it herself about a hundred years ago, wrote Susan in her diary. It is quaint, like a thing in a museum.

  George was particularly annoyed by these long mornings indoors. He enjoyed school at home, but that was quite different—it was full of interesting ideas. Here he felt bored and kept thinking about the lizards on the wall, and about the tennis courts down the street, and about the sun that was just as warm and sweet as summer, if only he could go outside.

  So one day he began kicking his heels on the floor in a drumlike kind of rhythm. This put a tune into his head, and he began to whistle softly through his teeth.

  “Shorsh,” said Mademoiselle, “I must beg that you will remain a little silent, if you please.”

  “What?” said George, pretending that he didn’t hear and kicking his heels harder than ever.

  “I wish,” said Mademoiselle politely, “that you will kindly desist from zis creatings of noise, Shorsh.”

  “Je ne comprend pas,” said George, who had learned enough French to say that he did not understand.

  “I am acquaint wit ze fact,” said Mademoiselle sadly, “zat my Engleesh, she is not of ze best. But I will try to say it yet more of clarity. Shorsh, will you very kindly make a leetle more silence if you please?”

  “If you mean ‘shut up,’ ” said George rudely, “you must learn to say it, Mademoiselle. ‘Shut up’ is what you want to say.”

  “Why, George!” said Susan, very much shocked.

  But Mademoiselle was always eager to learn good English. “Shut up,” she repeated. “Sank you, Shorsh. I have not heard zis ‘shut up’ before. I sink it is a colloquialism, yes?”

  “It’s not nice at all, Mademoiselle,” Susan said.

  “Not nice?” said Mademoiselle. “But Shorsh would not say a sing zat is not nice. ‘Shut up!’ I find it much more simple zan to say ‘desist from creatings of noise’ or even ‘make a leetle more silence if you please.’ I remember now, and I say always ‘shut up.’ ”

  “Really, Mademoiselle, you’d better not,” Susan said.

  But Mademoiselle was too happy over learning a new expression to notice Susan’s anxiety. “Now I haf learn somezing,” she said. “Shut up please, Shorsh. Shut up.” Perhaps the fact that George had suddenly become quiet and anxious to please her strengthened Mademoiselle in her opinion that “shut up” must be a very useful expression. “I will tell you what we do now,” she said brightly. “We take a small vacation and go onto ze balcony. Now we stand on ze balcony in a row and wave ze arms like ze flying of ze leetle birds.”

  So there the four of them were, standing on the balcony and waving their arms wildly in the air, pretending they were birds.

  This is really dreadful! Susan thought to herself. What if the princess saw us? Dumpling was quite happy, but it would not do to write George’s thoughts down here in a book. They would not look well in print.

  “Mademoiselle,” said Susan, “how would it be if you took us down into the garden and told us in French the names of all the things we see there? Wouldn’t that be just as good as studying in a book? And it would be a change.”

  “You sink?” said Mademoiselle doubtfully.

  “I’m sure,” said Susan.

  “Tiens!” said Mademoiselle. “We can make ze attempt and see if you are of a good behavior.”

  “Now, George,” hissed Susan in George’s ear as they went clattering downstairs, “please, please be of a good behavior.”

  “Okay,” said George.

  Things really did go much better out-of-doors. George became quite cheerful, and they went all around the garden, learning to say in French, “This is a tree,” “This is a flower,” “This is a rock grotto.” Mademoiselle even let them play for a while in the rock grotto without making them learn anything. She took her knitting out of her pocket and sat on a bench nearby, murmuring gently to herself, “Shut up. Boyoboy. Abyssinia,” so that she would not forget all this interesting English that was not in the dictionary.

  The rock grotto was really a wonderful place. It was half overgrown with vines, but whoever had built it, long, long ago, had certainly had adventurous children in mind. Rocks had been piled up and stuck together with cement to form a kind of cave, with a stairway going up over it to two smaller caves or rooms above. The rocks stuck out in all directions quite fantastically, and there were windows and doors in the caves, and at the back of the big cave there was a carved lion’s head that had once been a fountain. Now it dripped only a little bit, and the basin below the lion’s open mouth was covered with moss and little green ferns. It was cool and dark in the caves, and everywhere there was wonderful climbing.

  When you had climbed to the very top of the grotto, and pushed aside the vines and bushes, you could look over the wall and see the railroad tracks beyond. Sometimes, as you watched, a train would go whizzing by. When George went into the grotto he always climbed straight up to the top to look for trains, but Susan and Dumpling were not so keen on trains, so they preferred to poke about in the caves.

  That was how the girls happened to find the pile of unusual stones at the back of the main cave before George did. The stones were covered with dust and dirt, and they had apparently not been noticed for years. It looked as if someone might have been making a collection years ago—as George was doing now—and then had gone away and left the stones hidden there.

  Dumpling wanted to begin pulling the stones out at once, but Susan whispered, “No, no! Leave them until sometime when George isn’t around, and then we’ll come and look them over. I’m sure we’ll find something choice for George’s birthday.”

  “Okay, Susie,” Dumpling said.

  Just then Mademoiselle began calling, “Come, mes enfants. It is necessary zat one studies, is it not?” And so they had to go and learn more names for things.

  Fortunately that same afternoon Professor Ridgeway took George to play tennis at the courts down the street. George wanted them all to come watch how well he was learning to play, but Mother said, “Please excuse me this time, George. I’ve got the princess into an awful situation in my story. She went up into the Eiffel Tower for lunch and the International Spies are closing in around her and planning to hurl her off into space. I’ve got to get hold of Angus McAngus and hurry to the rescue or I shan’t be able to sleep a wink tonight.”

  And Susan and Dumpling looked at each other and smiled. “We’ll stay in the garden today,” they said.

  So of course, as soon as George had left, they went out to the rock grotto and
began to examine the pile of stones at the back of the lower cave. Some of the stones were common ones, but others turned out to be quite unusual when they were dusted off or washed in the drip from the old fountain. One was full of bits of sparkling mica. Another had streaks of greenish-blue that Susan thought would be copper. Another was a lovely shade of dark red.

  “George will like these,” Dumpling said.

  “Yes, he will,” said Susan. “You know, I’m sure some child must have put these here and forgotten them—perhaps a very long time ago, because they’re so dirty and pushed so far back under this ledge. Wouldn’t you like to know who put them here?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t touch them, Susie,” Dumpling said.

  “I wonder,” Susan said. “Maybe not.”

  But when they asked the old gardener about the stones, he did not seem interested or surprised that they had found them, and he told them that they could certainly have them if they wished, only they were please not to make a mess on the floor of the grotto or on the garden paths. Part of their conversation was in English, part in French, and part in sign language, but they all understood one another, and the girls returned to their stones with the certainty that they could do anything they liked with them, as long as they left things neat.

  “We must choose just the very best ones,” Susan said, “because George already has so many rocks that we’ll have to buy a new trunk if he carries many more.”

  “I’d like to give him the sparkly one, Susie,” Dumpling said.

  “All right,” said Susan. “And I’ll give him the coppery one. And, oh—look at this one! It’s a kind of crystal rock. There are even more back here under the ledge. Look, here’s one with warts on it!”

  “It’s like finding buried treasure, Susie,” said Dumpling, “isn’t it?”

  Susan drew her breath in sharply, for, just as Dumpling said “treasure,” she had caught a glimpse of something slender and shining like a golden thread back among the stones. She put her hand in quickly and caught the shiny thread, and it came away from the stones and was smooth and pliant in her fingers. It was a long, fine chain, and it had been broken, but still fastened to one end of it was a small locket encrusted with dirt.