(Mrs. Winterbotham, if you are reading this, I am sorry I made fun of your name. But of course you can’t tell me if you accepted my apology or not.)
Since I’m on the subject, here are some other things about my teacher:
1. Her name makes her sound older than she is.
2. Her husband is a hottie. (He rides a motorcycle!)
3. She has the world’s best handwriting.
4. If she would just stop busting me about my desk, I would really like her.
Monday, October 5 (morning)
I am now faced with the most daunting task of my life.
Where to begin?
With the evidence of my own eyes, I suppose. This room is a disaster, a catastrophe, a sty, a horror, and an abomination.
I am sure there must be more words, but I canna think of them right now.
There is STUFF everywhere, on every surface. Where does someone even get hold of so much stuff…especially someone so young?
Here is a partial list, to offer proof I am not shamming:
Papers
Papers, wadded up
Books
Pencils
Half pencils
Broken pencils
Pencil shavings
Bits of string
Globs of modeling clay
Tubes of paint
Clothes, clean
Clothes, dirty
Clothes, filthy
Clothes, fit only for burning
A half glass of orange juice
Three dead flies, floating in orange juice
Food (many kinds)
Moldy food
Food likely to kill anyone who tastes it
Cleaning this up will be hard, very hard. But the thought of how happy my new human will be when she sees what I have done gives me the strength to go on.
Monday, October 5 (evening)
I have never been so insulted in my life!
I doubt any brownie has ever suffered such mortification.
When this creature, this…this human came into her room after school today, was she delighted to discover it clean and tidy? (Well, partially clean and tidy. There’s much more still to do. Even so, I made enough of a start that it looks like a different room. For one thing, you can actually see several square feet of floor!)
Was she thankful for the enormous amount of work I had done?
HA!
I repeat: HA!
Instead of exclaiming in delight, the wretched girl let out a screech worthy of a banshee.
“Aaaaaaah!” she cried. “Who did this?”
Then she called the police.
TRANSCRIPT OF CALL FROM ALEX CARHART (AC) TO POLICE DISPATCHER (PD) REGARDING INTRUDER IN HER ROOM:
AC: Hello, police? I need to report a prowler.
PD: (alarmed) Is he on the premises? Are you in any danger? Do you want me to dispatch a squad car?
AC: No, I don’t think he’s here now. But whoever it was snuck into my room and cleaned it!
PD: I’m sure it was your mother, dear.
AC: NO! My mother swore she would never set foot in my room again until I had cleaned it up myself.
PD: Well, mothers can be strange, dear.
AC: Stop calling me dear! This is an emergency. I have some weird creeper sneaking into my room and organizing my stuff.
PD: Well, if you get tired of him—or her—send the perp in my direction. I could use someone like that.
AC: You’re laughing at me!
PD: No, no. Just jealous.
AC: So you’re not going to help me? Thanks for nothing!
Monday, October 5 (continued)
By the time Alex was off the phone, two young people were standing at her door.
One was a tall, redheaded lad—quite handsome except for the way that he slouched.
I despair of the posture of modern youth.
The other was a wee girl who looked to be no more than five or six. She was clutching a doll. Her long hair, also red, fell nearly to her waist.
“Alex, what the heck is wrong with you?” asked the boy.
“Look around!” she shouted in response.
“Hey, I can see your floor!”
“Very funny!”
“I think it looks nice,” said the little girl.
It was good to know there is one sensible person in this family! Alas, Alex’s response was to growl, “I liked it the way it was!”
“Then why did you clean it up?” asked the big brother. “Did Mom finally lower the boom?”
“I didn’t clean it up! Didn’t you hear what I just said to the police? Some creeper sneaked in here and cleaned my room while I wasn’t looking!”
The big brother smirked. “Okay, I got it. You cleaned it up but don’t want to admit it. Now you want us to forget it.”
With that rhyme, I felt my stomach clench. Was the curse I am supposedly doomed to carry with me taking effect? I felt sick at the thought.
“Maybe you have a magical friend, like Herbert,” said the little girl.
Big brother rolled his eyes at this, but it made me wonder if someone else from the Enchanted Realm is living in this house. Little as I like it here, lonely as I am, I’m not sure how I would feel about sharing the place with another magical being.
Just then we heard an unholy howling. A chill ran down my spine at the sound. Then I realized it was what they call a siren, as I’ve seen in the old movies I watched with Sarah.
Next came a knocking at the door.
All three children ran down the stairs. Oh, how I longed to run after them to see what was going on. I could not, of course, as I’m nae to be seen, except possibly by Alex, though right now I canna think of any reason I would want that to happen.
I learned soon enough what it was all about. That was because when Mrs. Carhart returned home, she came to Alex’s door and, with enough ice in her voice to freeze a small pond, said, “Did you really call the police today?”
The girl is made of sterner stuff than I thought, for she rose from her desk and said, “I certainly did!”
“Why?” asked the mother.
“Because you didn’t warn me that you hired someone to clean my room. I thought it had been done by some creepy prowler.”
Mrs. Carhart actually snorted, which was not very ladylike. Then she said, “The day we can afford a housekeeper, he or she takes on my work first!”
“Well, then who did…this?” sputtered the girl, waving her arm to indicate the beautiful tidiness I had imposed on the horrible clutter.
Mrs. Carhart rolled her eyes. “Look, Alex, I understand you take some perverse pride in having your room look like it’s inhabited by apes. I also assume that my threat to ground you for a million years has had some effect. But you can’t go calling the police just to create an excuse for having cleaned your room.”
“I did not clean my room!” cried Miss Alex, as if denying that she had just committed an ax murder.
Mrs. Carhart sighed. “You are the strangest child,” she said. Then she turned and walked away, muttering something about bigger problems in her life.
Alex returned to her desk. Growling savagely, she rammed a long metal tool through the chest of the clay man she had been working on.
I must admit, I flinched at that.
The girl seems infuriated by the idea of anyone thinking she cleaned the room herself and clearly takes an inexplicable delight in her messiness.
I fear she may consider it a mark of her “artistic temperament.”
My only hope is that when she begins to understand the joy of having a constantly clean room, she will change her mind.
Tuesday, October 6
Today while Alex was away at school, I continued my efforts to wrest order out of the chaos. By the time she arrived home, the clothes she had left strewn about the floor had been tended to…most put in her hamper, which she does not seem to know how to use. Also the bits of clay she had left here and there
had been gathered into a tidy ball and placed in the center of her desk.
The cat—curse the furry hide of the beast!—was lying on her bed, purring contentedly, as if it thought I had cleaned up this mess just for its benefit!
When Alex saw how pristine her room was, she looked at the cat and said, “Did you do this, Bubbles?”
Bubbles?
BUBBLES?!?
By the Queen and all her court, what kind of name is Bubbles for a creature like this? Lucifer or Bloodclaw Reddifang would be more appropriate.
As if the name of the cat was not bad enough, what Alex did next struck horror in my heart. She turned her backpack upside down over her bed! Out poured an appalling jumble of books, pens and pencils in various stages of usefulness, candy wrappers, rubber bands, sparkly bits of rocks, three crayons stuck together, an empty bag that once held some salty snack food, four used tissues, and several crumpled sheets of paper.
“Bubbles” hissed, then bounded off the bed and out of the room.
Even savage beasts are offended by the girl’s slovenliness!
With the foul creature gone, I couldn’t help myself. As soon as Alex went to her desk and started to fiddle with her clay, I darted out of the closet and went to work. I unstuck crayons, lined up pencils, and tossed trash from the bed into the wastebasket, all in perfect silence. Also, I uncrumpled the papers.
I was surprised to find she has very neat handwriting.
I wasn’t worried about her catching me. If you observe humans closely for over a hundred years and pay attention to what they do, it’s not hard to guess a movement before they make it. So it was no problem to scurry off the bed and be under it before she even turned around.
What WAS a problem was her shriek of “What is going on here?”
I felt a pinch in my heart at that. All I want is to do a good job and be appreciated a bit. But it seems that may be impossible with this girl.
Heart aching, I waited until she left the room, then returned to my closet hiding space.
Wednesday
Dear Mrs. Winterbotham,
Here is my book report that was due on Monday.
I am sorry it is late.
I am also sorry it is crumpled and has a stain on it.
I actually had it in my backpack to give to you on Monday, but it got buried under some other stuff and I couldn’t find it. And then I looked all over at home that night. But it wasn’t there, of course, because it was still in my backpack. I found it yesterday afternoon.
Your favorite student (I hope!),
Alex Carhart
Wednesday, October 7
Today I went out of Alex’s room with two thoughts in mind. One, to explore the house. Two, to do a bit of mischief.
I could do this freely because the cat, being like all cats lazy at heart, was sleeping soundly. I knew this for a fact because the insolent thing was curled up on Alex’s bed.
Here are the things I discovered:
The brother is neater than Alex. That said, his athletic shoes have a smell that would fell a lesser brownie. Also, he has a large collection of magazines with oddly costumed characters on the front. I opened one. The characters all spoke in bubbles coming out of their heads. Very strange.
The little sister has many stuffed toys. She seems especially fond of unicorns. I braided the mane of one of them as a wee bit of mischief.
Also to show my disapproval of unicorns with pink manes.
The remaining room on this floor I have heard Mrs. Carhart call the guest bedroom.
All I can say is a guest would have a hard time sleeping in it, given the mountain of stuff piled on the bed.
There is also a bathroom, but I have seen that already, as it is where I have been doing my personal business.
Downstairs is the kitchen, of course. They have a machine that washes dishes! How Sarah would have loved that.
There is also a dining room and a living room, which has a machine with an enormous screen. It looks like a television, but it is hard for me to imagine a television could be that big. If it really is a television, it must be terrifying to watch. You would feel like the horses were going to run right over you!
Finally there is Mr. and Mrs. Carhart’s room. Attached to it is the biggest bathroom I have ever seen! Their bedroom is not a sty like Alex’s, but it is no model of neatness, either. They hardly set a good example for the child.
I could not get into the cellar, for the door was shut tight.
Though it is to Alex I am bound, it is her household that I am to care for. After Sarah’s tiny cottage, this place is overwhelming.
Truly, it is a lot for one small brownie.
Thursday, October 8
Today the wicked girl got the better of me. Ah, weel. At least things are out in the open now.
The afternoon started much as it had yesterday, with young Miss Mess coming into her room and once again dumping her backpack upon the bed. Such disorder! Such disrespect for my efforts!
As the day before, I waited until she was busy at her desk, then climbed down from the closet and scurried across the floor. I scaled the bedspread and went to work, moving silently and keeping alert for any signs that she might be about to turn around.
A few minutes later, I caught a hint of movement. Blessing my keen ears, I scurried under the bed.
Being willing to enter the pit of chaos that waited below should be taken as a measure of my desire not to be seen. Oh, under the bed is a horrid place! The dust, all clumped and nasty! The abandoned toys, broken and crippled! The scatter of little plastic bricks, mismatched socks, crumpled papers, used tissues, broken crayons! ’Tis enough to make a decent brownie swoon.
Anyway, I heard her approaching and scrambled into an empty boot. Peering around the boot’s upper rim, I watched her lift the edge of the bedspread. When she looked in with her great human eye, I was tempted to leap out and give her a good scare, but managed to resist.
“Huh,” she muttered. “I could have sworn there was something down here.”
She dropped the cloth. After a bit I heard her leave the room. At once I scrambled out and went back to work.
I had only been at it a few minutes when footsteps told me she was returning.
Back under the bed I went.
I could hear her moving around my refuge but didn’t guess what she was up to—though if my nose hadn’t been clogged by all that wretched dust, I might have figured it out from the smell. After a few minutes, she went back to her desk.
I waited until all was silent, then crept to the edge of the bed and lifted the spread to look out. She was hunched over her desk, working on a drawing.
I should have been more careful. I should have been more alert. But I was eager to return to my task. So I lowered the edge of the bedspread, then crawled through the clutter and debris to the far side.
As I scooted out, I felt a sticky mess grab my feet.
I was stuck in molasses! The wretched girl had spread a line of the gooey brown stuff all the way around her bed.
What made this strange is that it was the very same trick my sweet Sarah had played on me so many years ago.
At least the girl comes by her sneakiness honestly.
I shrieked with rage.
“Aha!” cried Alex. I heard her chair fall as she jumped out of it and came leaping over to the bed. Next thing I knew, her head was hanging over the edge of the bed and I was looking at her upside-down face.
“What in the world?” she cried. She scrambled across the bed to my side, reached down, and picked me up.
SHE PICKED ME UP! Grabbed me right around the middle and snatched me from the floor.
“Let me down, ya great lumbering slob of a girl!” I bellowed, pounding my fists against her fingers.
She tossed me to the bed and shook her hand as if she had been holding a rat.
Waving my fists and leaping up and down, I cried, “What did you do that for, ya disorderly, messy, negligent, slapdash, untidy, unfastidious, unsanit
ary creator of disorder?”
Alex blinked at me. But instead of answering my question, she said, “Are you some kind of elf?”
“Elf?” I cried, still leaping up and down. “ELF? Do I look all tall and willowy? I’m a brownie, as any fool can plainly see. A brownie who has been forced against his will to journey—at great trouble, I might add—to this disgusting midden of a room to bring some wee bit of tidiness to your disordered and chaotic life! And what have you done? What have you done? You’ve trapped me wi’ molasses! Wretched girl. What’s the matter wi’ you?”
And after this cry from my heart, she had the nerve to reply, “What’s the matter with you? Sneaking into a person’s room and cleaning it up when you’re not invited is creepy.”
“I was too invited,” I said.
“What a liar you are!” cried she.
“What a Messy Carruthers you are,” I replied. “And you don’t know everything, miss. I was sent here by one of your blood, which counts as an invitation if she is close enough…which she is.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was passed to you by your great-great-great-aunt Sarah McGonagall. She, being upon her deathbed, sent the family brownie—that being me—to her youngest female relative of age to receive me, that being you.”
“Well, you’re clearly in the wrong place. I’m a Carhart, not a McGonagall. And you can’t be the family brownie because brownies don’t exist.”
“Rude! Rude, rude, rude, rude, rude! Sarah warned me about this. ‘She’s a modern girl,’ she said, ‘and may have a touch of the rudeness.’ And she was right. And if you don’t think I exist, then why are you talking to me? It must mean that you’re crazy, eh?”
She blinked and took a step back. “Oh my god! Maybe I really am going crazy. What if Destiny is rubbing off on me? She has an imaginary friend. Can that be catching? No, that doesn’t make any sense. But you can’t be real. You can’t be!”
“I’m real as toast, you great lolloping nonsense of a human!”