The Anybodies (12 page)

And so, once the Bone was asleep, she decided she would give the diary one spectacular shake, one enormously huge shake.

The house was quiet now. Mrs. Appleplum was probably already asleep, like the Bone with his loud snores. The Miser was the only one awake, and he was far off working in the barn with a miniature flashlight gripped in his teeth so he could dig with both hands. But Fern didn't feel at ease in the house. Her mother's appearance could be a noisy one.

So Fern slipped out of her bedroom, her mother's diary clamped under her arm. She walked down the stairs, through the parlor, through the kitchen, to a small back door.

The night was warm, but there was a soft breeze. Fern decided that she would need to be somewhere high, so she could jump down with all of her force. She saw the distant peach tree, its one peach swollen as full as the moon. Fern walked to it and shinnied up the trunk in her pajamas. She climbed out on a thick branch and paused a minute.

“You owe me a favor!” a little voice said. “You! Hey, you!”

Fern looked around. “I…I…”

“You owe me, I say, I say!” And there at the base of the tree was the redheaded fairy in the gray dress Mrs. Appleplum had sewn with one of Fern's pansies clipped to a belt. (Let me say right up
front that I'm not comfortable with this fairy. There's something, each time I write about her, that makes me feel a little silly, like this is a silly book, not one to be taken seriously. And,
I
think at least, that this isn't a silly book at all. But I have to be true to the story. That's what my old writing teacher told me, time and again: Be true to the story. Be true to the story. He'd go on and on with that line like he was beating a drum in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. (I'm not so sure he knew what he was talking about at all!) In any case, I'm going to be true to the story, and, unfortunately, the story has a fairy in it. An angry fairy, the kind of fairy who would put a bumper sticker on her car that said something like,
IF YOU CAN READ THIS
,
YOU'RE TOO CLOSE TO MY CAR
. BACK OFF! That is, if fairies had cars, which I don't think they do.)

“You shouldn't be out here, you know,” the fairy said. “You should be practicing. There are a lot of us here who are counting on you!”

“Counting on me?”

“Yes, you! Who else!” The fairy was angry. Her face was pinched as if she'd bitten into a bitter prune. “I can't understand how dense you
people
are!”

“Dense!” Fern said. “I'm not so dense that I don't know when someone's stolen something from me. Is that pansy yours? Where, then, are my barrettes?”

The fairy was furious now. “This pansy and those
barrettes were a gift from a friend! How dare you!” And she shook her tiny fist in the air, menacingly. “I could bite you when you least expect it, right on the ankle, and my teeth are sharp.” She stormed off, back toward the house.

Fern didn't care about the pansies or the barrettes at all, but she hadn't liked being called dense either. She hadn't been expecting to be confronted like this. But maybe the fairy was right and Fern did owe her something. She had shaken her from the comfortable confines of her book onto the floor, mid-bath, but she didn't understand who else was counting on her. And counting on her for what, exactly?

Fern felt nervous. She opened the diary and noticed that her hands were trembling. But she had to go through with it. She had to. If her mother came out of the book, oh, how she would thank Fern.
My angel! You saved me! You've brought me back!

Fern opened the book as wide as she possibly, possibly could. She drew the diary up over her head with one hand, and swung the diary down as hard as she could while jumping from the branch. Her hair lifted up over her head. Her pajamas billowed like a parachute. The night air was cool on her skin, and the diary was heavy, so heavy that Fern hit the ground hard, bruising her knees and the heels of her hands. The diary had come loose from her grip, but Fern wasn't thinking about that
now. At the same moment Fern had fallen, there had been another, louder thump. Fern's eyes were closed, but she knew something was before her, something alive, breathing. She whispered, “Oh, please, oh, please.” And when she opened her eyes she was blinded by a bright, bright light. There was an angry voice. “What is this? What have you done, Miss BIBB?” A dark figure rose from the roots of the tree. It was the Miser. He said the word “Bibb” like an accusation. “How on earth did I get here! I was just in the barn, and now I'm here. How…magical!” He lowered his voice. “You are in trouble, Miss Bibb. Deep, deep trouble!”

“Actually, I can clear all of this up. I can clear it right up!” Fern started rambling fast. This time she felt skilled at it and used the chatter, which might have once stayed stored in her head, to hold the Miser's attention. It worked for a little while…. “I'm very good at clearing things up. In fact, if there were awards for clearing things up, then I would have a ton of awards and trophies and medals. That's how good I am at it! And if you ask me, I think there should be awards for things like the ability to clear things up. It would be nice if things were, in general, clearer. In my opinion…” but then the Miser's interest started to wander. His flashlight glanced away from Fern's face to the diary on the ground.

“What, oh, what have we here? Is this a diary? Have
you shaken me through a diary? Who's been writing about me?” He picked up the book and opened to the front page.

“Don't,” Fern said.

But it was too late. “Eliza? My Eliza?” the Miser said. His voice became soft. His shoulders curled toward the book. He was astonished, suddenly wide-eyed with love. The Miser said, “Oh, how she loved me! She loved me!” And in a weird trancelike state, he held on to his flashlight and the diary, turned and seemed to nearly float across the yard to the back door.

Fern followed him, although he paid her no attention. “I need that diary,” she said. “Excuse me, but it's quite important that I have that diary!”

The Miser opened the screen door and it slammed before Fern had the chance to catch it. Just as she put her hand on the small metal handle, she heard Mrs. Appleplum's voice. Fern pressed her back to the side of the house and froze.

“What's this? Mr. Haiserblaitherness! What are you doing up and about? Are you okay? What's that glaze to your eyes? Have you been sleepwalking?”

“Yes!” Fern said, now tripping in the door. “He has been sleepwalking! I saw him from my window and I followed him around to the back of the house.”

The Miser snapped to. He glanced at Fern and then at Mrs. Appleplum and around the kitchen. “What? I
haven't been sleepwalking! That little girl, she, she—”

“Hush now,” Mrs. Appleplum said.

“No, you don't understand!”

“You've had a bad dream, dear,” Mrs. Appleplum said reassuringly. “You know it's quite dangerous to sleepwalk. Come. Come. Take my hand.”

The Miser shrank a bit, glowering at Fern over his shoulder. He took Mrs. Appleplum's hand with grave embarrassment. Mrs. Appleplum wasn't someone you could say no to. They filed through the kitchen maze, through the parlor.

“Here, I'll hold this stuff for you,” Fern offered, taking ahold of the diary and the flashlight.

“No,” the Miser said, snatching them back. “Don't you dare!”

“No, no, now, Mr. Haiserblaitherness! Don't raise your voice like that! You need to let go of these things. Ida is being courteous, and we have to encourage that in children or we'll raise a generation with no manners at all!”

The Miser sighed deeply. Mrs. Appleplum took the diary and flashlight and handed them to Fern. “Thank you, Ida,” Mrs. Appleplum said.

Fern grabbed on to the diary and the flashlight, feeling very relieved.

The Bone met them at the bottom of the stairs. “I heard a commotion. Isss everything all right?”

Mrs. Appleplum explained, “Mr. Haiserblaitherness has been sleepwalking. Will you two, Ida and Mr. Bibb, do me a favor and tie him down for the night? He could get hurt if he sleepwalks again!”

“No, no,” the Miser said. “Not necessary! I'm fine!”

“No problem,” said the Bone. “We don't mind! We'd be happy to tie Mr. Haissserblaithernesss down for the night!”

“See what good friends you've made? They don't mind helping you out in your time of need, Mr. Haiserblaitherness, not one bit! Stay here while I get some rope!”

MRS. APPLEPLUM WENT DOWNSTAIRS TO GET ROPE
from a utility closet next to the kitchen. It stored mostly books, of course, but there were also a few light bulbs, tulip bulbs, a screwdriver—the general utilities. She left Fern and the Bone and the Miser in the hallway together, where the Miser was unlocking his bedroom door.

“This isn't necessary!” the Miser said.

“Isn't it, Mr. Haiserblaitherness?” Fern asked.

“No, it isn't and you know it!”

The Bone said calmly, “Do you want to tell Mrss. Appleplum that you AREN'T Mr. Haissserblaithernesss, but you are, in fact, the Missser!”

Fern held on tightly to the diary. Her eyes darted between the two men. The Bone looked like Mr. Bibb, but tough. His chin jutted out defiantly.

Although Fern couldn't see the Miser's eyes beneath his enormous saggy eyebrows, she knew that he was glaring at the Bone, his cheeks flushed a deep red. “I could blow your cover too, you know that!”

“I would blow your cover firsst!” the Bone countered.

“And then we'd all be thrown out of this house,” Fern whispered. “Is that a good idea?”

Just then, Mrs. Appleplum was climbing the stairs with her brittle bones. “I've got it!” she sang out in a rippling voice. “Here.” She handed the rope to the Bone. “Now,” she said, sighing. “I'm going to bed. Best of luck! I'll be up early in the morning to untie you.” She gave the Miser a pat-pat on his shoulder.

And Mrs. Appleplum walked off to her bedroom at the end of the hall.

The Miser opened his bedroom door and rushed to a small writing table covered with a pile of what looked to be hand-scrawled notes on white sheets of paper. He stuffed them into his pockets. It was a small, hot room, also piled high with books. There was one dark window open just a crack. There was a black trunk, closed, and a large empty sack on the floor. Fern remembered that when they had first arrived, Mrs. Appleplum told them about another guest who had shown up with a
trunk and a large unusual sack, stuffed tight. Fern wondered what had been in it.

“Let's get this over with,” the Miser said bitterly, lying down on his narrow bed.

The Bone and Fern started to secure the ropes as best they could, but Fern wasn't so sure that it mattered. Couldn't he easily get out of ropes? He'd already turned into a bull, for goodness sake!

“I've still got my men working. My little army is shoveling through books in the barn at this very moment. And these ropes are a formality, you know,” the Miser said. “I've gotten to be quite a good Anybody, Bone. I've gotten better at transforming than you'd have ever imagined. You realize that your daughter here shook me from a book. Not just any book. She shook me from Eliza's diary.” The Bone glanced sharply at Fern, who didn't look at him but kept her head down, fiddling with the ropes. “Eliza loved me, Bone. She was writing about me. She was writing that she loved me! Think about it, Bone. Think!”

The Bone reared. He turned away from the Miser, but Fern kept maneuvering around with the ropes, tying this way and that. A breeze kicked up from the window, and there was a rustling noise under the bed. She wondered if anyone else had heard it. She didn't think so. The room was charged with angry tension between the Miser and the Bone.

The Miser kept at it. “And look at you! Mr. Bibb, ha! You can't even pull off a successful encyclopedia salesman. Is it slipping? That fake mustache of yours?”

“No!” the Bone said. “It'sss real!”

“Oh, and that lisp is real too? I can't believe you were once my teacher!”

Fern gave the ropes an extra angry yank and knotted them on a leg of the bed, which gave her the opportunity to peek underneath. There she saw a remarkable sight. A white fluttering sea of paper. Now she knew what had been in the stuffed sack. Envelopes. Some thin, some fat, but envelopes, envelopes, envelopes, addressed and stamped. Why didn't he just leave them in the sack? Fern wondered. Why did he put them under the bed? Was he the type who needed to unpack to feel settled—the Drudgers always unpacked their suitcases and folded their clothes in hotel bureaus, as a rule—or was it that, for some reason, he liked to go through the envelopes, sorting them? What was in those envelopes? Was it some evil that comforted him? The wind kicked up again and they rustled like birds.

The Miser didn't seem aware of Fern at all. “You're worthless now, Bone, and you were worthless then.” The Bone was turned toward the door, his back bristling. He couldn't look at the Miser. “How could she have ever truly loved you, Bone. I'll find that book first. I'm smarter than you. Think about it! I'll find the book
first…. Think about it! Think about it!” The Miser's voice was changing now. Fern recognized the singsong of hypnosis. Fern was scared suddenly. Was the Miser trying to hypnotize the Bone? She thought of grabbing a few envelopes, not many, just a few, but she couldn't. She didn't have pockets. She was holding the diary. How would she hide the envelopes? She wanted to know what was inside of them, but she didn't have time. She needed to get the Bone away from that voice!

She stood up. “Let's go!”

“Think about it, think about it, think, think. I'm close to finding that book. I'm so close. You'll never beat me to it. Think about it,” the Miser was saying.

“Stop it!” Fern said to the Miser. “Stop! It won't work.” She grabbed her father's arm, opened the door and shoved the Bone into the hallway.

“Ssssstop,” the Miser said. Fern wasn't sure if he was mocking her or the Bone or both of them. The Miser was shaking now, his whole body trembling under the ropes. “Sssstop. Sssssss,” he said. He gave one violent shake and his body writhed into the shape of a large gray snake, its scales glinting in the lamplight. The snake hissed at Fern as it started slipping from the ropes.

Fern grabbed the Miser's key off his small desk, jumped out the door. She slammed it, and locked the room up tight.

Fern and the Bone walked quickly down the hallway. They stepped into their bedroom and shut the door. The Bone looked rattled, worn-out, like a wind-beaten kite.

“Are you okay?” Fern asked. She felt giddy.

“What if he
is
close, Fern? His spies are digging right now!” the Bone said, glancing out the window toward the barn. “What if he finds
The Art of Being Anybody
first?”

“Are you sure you're okay? He didn't hypnotize you, did he?”

“Of course not! I know his tricks! I was humming a song in my head. I was blocking him out with it.”

Fern knew the song he'd been humming:
Sweet, sweet, my sweet darling angel, where have you gone, where have you gone?
It seemed to always be on his mind. “You know what was in that sack of his? Letters! That's what he does in there when he isn't looking for books. He's writing letters!” Fern said.

“He used to write letters when he was a good Anybody. He used to write the loveliest letters…invitations, apologies. He used to write love letters to your mother, and they made her cry, because she didn't love him back, but they were so beautiful. Can you imagine what kind of letters he's writing now? Hate mail. Blackmail. Who knows! But I can tell you this, I'm going to stay up late tonight and decode this diary. I'm
sure Eliza would have confided where she hid that book. I'm sure she would!”

“I hope so,” Fern said, sitting down on her bed. “I hope there are some clues. We have no clues!”

The Bone sat down next her. “Fern,” he said, “I wanted…,” but then he trailed off.

“What?” Fern asked.

“I wanted to tell you that I know.”

“What?”

“I know why you shook the diary so hard.” He paused. “It doesn't work that way.” He shook his head. His eyes were misty again, and Fern wondered if he would ever really cry. “She can't come back. She was buried in a cemetery. There's a tombstone with her name on it. She can't come out of a book. Your mother, she's gone.”

“Oh,” Fern said. She felt like crying, but she didn't either. She kind of knew that it wouldn't work. It had been a long shot. She said, “I just thought…”

“I know,” the Bone said. “I know what you thought.” He squeezed her shoulder, and then they both fell quiet, so quiet that the only thing they could hear was the Miser, hissing in his locked room down the hall.