The Wonder of Charlie Anne (19 page)

I roll my eyes. Then Mirabel makes Ivy make me vinegar tea: one tablespoon vinegar, one tablespoon sugar, a cup of boiling water.

When my stomach’s upset from all the vinegar, she makes Ivy go out and pick some peppermint from the garden and steep me a cup of mint tea.

“Tea, tea, tea,” complains Ivy. “How much tea does one person need?”

“A lot,” I tell her.

“My goodness,” Mirabel complains when she sees Rosalyn and Phoebe and Old Mr. Jolly coming across the road, “here they come again.” But by the time they are on the porch, she already has water on for more tea. The curtains blowing at the window are mended and clean (thanks to Mirabel) and the table has a fresh cloth on top (thanks to Birdie). All the dishes are washed and stacked in the drainer and drying (thanks to Ivy, because Mirabel has noticed she hasn’t been doing enough chores). The floor is scrubbed (thanks to Mirabel), and there is another vinegar pie just out of the oven (thanks to me).

Mirabel cuts big chunks of pie and puts them on the table. Birdie hurries in from where she’s been playing down by the clothesline and goes over and climbs onto Phoebe’s lap. Mirabel turns a little red. “Get off of there, Birdie.”

“It’s all right,” Phoebe says, letting Birdie steal a piece of her pie.

“They like each other,” I say, taking a bite of pie so big my cheeks fill out like an old hornpout.

Mirabel stands there, not sure what to do. “Don’t fill your mouth so full, Charlie Anne,” she says, finally, and
sits down. “Where are your manners?” I wonder if she has ever eaten at a table with a colored girl before. I wonder if she knows about drinking fountains and white-people library books.

“I couldn’t get past the oldest Thatcher boy to see the mother,” Old Mr. Jolly is saying.

“Once a snake, always a snake,” I tell him, cramming another piece of pie into my mouth.

“I’ve been thinking about bringing food to the Morrell family,” Rosalyn says, looking at Mirabel. “Would you help me?”

Even before Mirabel answers, Rosalyn is rolling ahead with her next idea. “Phoebe has been wanting to learn how to make one of these vinegar pies. Perhaps she could come over and you could teach her how, Charlie Anne?”

I am nodding even before I see Mirabel’s frowning face. As easy as pie, Rosalyn has found a way for Phoebe to come back.

“Phoebe, come see my room,” I say, stuffing the last bite of pie in my mouth, and we are all running upstairs before Mirabel has a chance to do anything.

We fly onto our bed, and the feathers in the mattress sack are fluffed high because I just shook it out this morning. Everything is clean, the floor is swept, the window is washed.

“You all sleep in this bed?”

“Yes,” says Birdie, giggling. “But Charlie Anne snores and keeps me awake all night.”

“I do not,” I say, jumping up and pouncing on her. “Take it back.”

“No,” she says, squealing, her arms all pinned. “Charlie Anne snores louder than Papa,” she says before I can get my hand over her mouth, and then we are all shrieking and rolling around the bed, and pretty soon Mirabel is banging the top of the broom handle against the ceiling, which means quit it, or else.

“We need to do something to that Thatcher boy, to get him back,” I say, rolling over on my stomach and propping my head up with my arms.

“What should we do?” Birdie asks, her eyes big.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Something that teaches him good.” I watch a cow fly buzzing around our ceiling and remember the time the oldest Thatcher boy grabbed me on the walk after school and pulled me down in the dirt. “Eat it,” he said, pushing a fistful of gravel into my mouth, making me gag until I kicked him good.

“Maybe make him eat dirt. Something like that.”

Birdie looks a little doubtful. Phoebe looks a little doubtful. I feel a little doubtful.

“He’s awful big,” says Birdie.

“Maybe,” says Phoebe, “the way to get him back is to get the school open and show him we’re no quitters. That’s what my mama would tell us.”

Birdie and I just look at each other. You’ve got to hand it to Phoebe. She knows what she’s talking about.

When we come down, they are still sitting around the table, and Mirabel is brewing more tea. Rosalyn is saying she’d like to hear some of that manners book she’s been hearing so much about, and Mirabel takes it out of her pocket, and wouldn’t you know it, the section Mirabel reads actually makes a teeny bit of sense:

Mirabel pauses, and looks at Rosalyn. “I don’t know why Charlie Anne makes such a fuss about this book all the time.”

Rosalyn sips her tea and looks over at me. “Maybe girls should be a little noisy now and again, don’t you think? Otherwise, bullies like that Thatcher boy can do whatever they want.”

“This is how you make a vinegar pie,” I am telling Phoebe.

Mirabel is peeling potatoes. “Did you know vinegar pie makes the hard times better?” she asks Phoebe in her loud voice. I’ve noticed she uses this voice all the time for Phoebe, like maybe Phoebe can’t hear right or is a little slow-witted or something. Even my feet are embarrassed.

Phoebe’s got that ironing board down her back again. “My mama knew how to make things better, but not by baking pies.”

You can tell Mirabel doesn’t know what to say to that. She goes back to the cookstove and stirs the beans for a long time, even though we all know beans don’t need much stirring.

When the pies are in the oven, Mirabel shoos us outside, and Phoebe and I go sit on the porch. We watch Birdie run down through the sheets and look for something, then go back and sit by the shade of the barn, only to run back down again. She does it three times while we are sitting there.

“What’s she doing?” Phoebe shields her eyes with her hand to block the sun.

I shrug. “Let’s go see.” And then Phoebe and I go down to find out.

“What are you looking for, Birdie?”

Birdie is hunting between the sheets, snapping them off their clothespins. Her cheeks are covered with tears. She goes back to searching.

“What is it, Birdie? What are you looking for?”

Birdie looks behind the last sheet, pulling it down on the ground. “I keep seeing Mama,” she sobs. “But by the time I get down here, she’s gone.”

“Oh, Birdie,” I say, getting down on my knees so I can look in her face. “Oh, Birdie.”

I hold her and she cries my arm all wet. She looks up, sniffling. “Is Mama coming back, Charlie Anne?”

“I don’t know, Birdie.”

“If we wait long enough?”

“I don’t know. Maybe in different ways from what we had before. You look just like her, you know.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” I say, hugging her, and then Phoebe is there, too, looking like she knows all about losing your mama. Then we pick up the sheets and brush them off and hang them back up again. Anna May is telling me to thank heaven that it is not a muddy day.

When we walk up to the house, we do it just the
way Old Mr. Jolly and Rosalyn do it with Phoebe: we both take one of Birdie’s hands and we swing her up off the ground with every few steps and pretty soon she is shrieking and laughing and the tears that are clinging to her lashes from before are wondering what they’re still doing there.

That night I let Birdie sleep close to me and I don’t make her push over.

“Charlie Anne?”

“Yes, Birdie?”

“You spoil me with hugs. Just like Mama.”

The Morrell house is very dark when we get there. The door is shut up tight and the curtains are drawn. There is no smoke coming out of the chimney and even the chickens are still.

I am ready for Old Mr. Jolly to fly Phoebe and me out of the back of the truck, but he is already hurrying up the walk and knocking on the door, and Rosalyn is right behind him. Mirabel is carrying the basket of food: golden harvest soup, apple dumplings, her pot of baked beans and a vinegar pie made by Phoebe and me.

Pumpkins and squash are still sitting in the garden, and if somebody doesn’t come get them pretty soon, they’ll be good for nothing but the compost pile. There’s no rooster, no dog, no cats running around. When Old Mr. Jolly knocks again, I see a curtain move.

“Knock harder,” says Mirabel.

I go over and tap on the window. It is icy cold. “Sarah, it’s me, Charlie Anne. We brought food and stuff. Open the door. Please.”

Finally, after about a hundred years, the door opens just a sliver. Sarah Morrell looks out. Her eyes are big as Anna May’s.

“How you doing, Sarah?” I step closer. “We’ve got a big basket of things for you.”

She looks unsure if she should open the door any more. “My mama is sick.”

We are all just looking at Sarah. Her dress is hanging off her shoulders and she has no shoes and no socks.

“There’s apple dumplings in the basket Mirabel is carrying,” I say softly. “Can we come in and see your mama?”

Sarah gives me a long look and then steps out of the way so we can all go in together. The house is dark and cold, and there is a lump of blankets on the couch and there are two little girls standing near the table, which is covered with dishes. There is a bad smell coming from the kitchen.

“Oh my,” says Mirabel. “Bring me those dishes,” she says, pointing to the dirty plates, and she rushes off to the kitchen.

Old Mr. Jolly and Rosalyn go right over and kneel in front of Mrs. Morrell and ask how she is and she tries to smile, but she winces and whispers how she has surely seen better days. Old Mr. Jolly goes out and gets a big bucket of fresh water from the well, and Rosalyn squeezes out a cloth and starts wiping Mrs. Morrell’s face, and then Mrs. Morrell is crying.

It is a sad thing to see someone’s mama crying. Phoebe and I just stand there not knowing what to do,
and then Rosalyn looks over and says maybe we can lay out the food. Mirabel gives us a towel, and Phoebe and I wipe off the table and start unloading everything. We tell Sarah to get plates and forks, and I show her and the little girls how to put the forks on the left, and napkins under, and I tell myself to stop it because I’m sounding like Mirabel. Then we watch the Morrell girls all plow through the apple dumplings (it’s okay to have dessert first sometimes, Rosalyn says), and then they reach for the pie. Mirabel washes some bowls and some spoons and I ladle out the soup.

Rosalyn helps Mrs. Morrell with her soup, but she has to stop because Mrs. Morrell has started crying again. Rosalyn dabs at Mrs. Morrell’s eyes with a napkin and keeps saying, “There, there, things will get better very soon. You’ll see.” Old Mr. Jolly jumps up and hurries outside, and he brings in wood and starts a fire in the cookstove, and then he carries in bucket after bucket of water, and by the time Mirabel has heated it almost to boiling, Mrs. Morrell has stopped crying.

Sarah shows us where the broom is and the washbucket and the mops, and Phoebe and I and Rosalyn get to work helping Mirabel, all of us cleaning and scrubbing and putting everything away, and while we are doing that, we tell the girls all about the school.