Then There Were Five (26 page)
Read Then There Were Five Online
Authors: Elizabeth Enright
“Mark and Rush, make a chair of your hands. Carry him down quick. We have to get him home right away.”
But at this Oliver's mouth opened wide in grief. “The p-picnic!” he bawled. “I want to stay for the picnic!”
“Yes, and what about shock?” said Rush. “Keep the victim lying
down,
remember. Keep him warm, and all that. After all, who studied first aid?”
Mona had to admit that he was right.
There was a fire blazing in the old fireplace. They set Oliver down in front of it. They undressed him and wrapped him in their warm sweaters and the carriage blanket. They bound up his knees and scraped knuckles with handkerchiefs. They made much of him, and told him that he was a brave guy and a swell sport. After a while he stopped shivering, and by and by he began taking a personal interest in the hamburgers they were roasting over the fire. He sat up, watching hungrily, the blanket around his shoulders like an Indian brave's.
“I bet Billy Anton never fell down a well,” said Oliver thoughtfully.
There were no further mishaps. In fact, it was a good picnic. The hamburgers and everything else tasted delicious. After lunch Mark and Mona went off exploring, Rush disappeared, and Randy sat beside Oliver and told him a story. Oliver's clothes fluttered about them everywhere. Pants hung from the lilac bush, jersey stretched taut on two sticks, socks and underwear draped over the blackberry canes. Every time Randy paused to draw breath, Oliver would say, “Go on.” She was a little awed by the story herself, it came and came, like thread off a spool, and it was a wonderful story, all about an unknown volcano, near the North Pole, which was so warm that its sides were covered with flowering forests and warm streams, though it rose in the midst of a glacial waste of snow and ice. Marvelous people lived on this mountain: blond, strong, beautiful. Randy had a good time giving them names: Queen Tataspan, King Tagador, and Tatsinda, the heroine. Maybe I better be a writer too, thought Randy, as she told the story. A ballet dancer, an artist, and a writer. I'd like to be a fancy skater too, if I could ever learn how.
“Also Tatsinda was a wonderful ice skater,” she said aloud. “She used to go skating on the Arctic Ocean, on skates made of pure gold. The volcano had veins of gold and silver in it too, you know⦔
She turned and looked at Oliver. He was suddenly fast asleep. Randy sighed. She remembered that she had promised, in an unguarded moment, to give him her wonderful box of pastels. But here he was, safe and sound, full of hamburger and fast asleep, was it really, really necessary? She looked down at her brother again, with his still-damp hair, the dried-milk mustache on his upper lip, the bound-up hands resting pathetically on his chest. Yes, yes, it was necessary, Randy knew. Oliver was worth all the pastels in the world, and all the paintboxes too.
She got up and stretched and wondered where everyone had gone. She wandered along the ridge and suddenly came upon Rush sitting bolt upright on a stump with a very strange expression on his face.
“Why, what's the
matter?
Are you sick? You did eat an awful lot,” said Randy.
“Please shut up, would you?” said Rush beseechingly. “I'm thinking.”
“For heaven's sake. Why? What about?”
“Opus Three,” Rush said.
“You mean you're composing?”
“Yes. Please shut up.”
“All right. Only I bet Mozart never looked as if he was going to throw up when he was composing.”
Randy started to go away.
“Wait a minute, Ran. Have you a piece of paper? I've got a pencil, but no paper. And I'm scared I might forget this.”
“Would a paper napkin do? I'll get you one.”
“Sure, anything.” Rush sat there waiting and listening to the music in his mind. It was really beginning to come, and this time, by gum, it really looked as if it might be good. He must seize each little note by the tail as it went flying by. He must catch it, and he would catch it!
At four o'clock it was already cool, and they were on their way home.
Rush drove the surrey this time, and Randy rode home on Jess.
Oliver in his newly dried clothes curled up against Mona.
“Do you think Cuffy will be mad when she hears how I fell down the well? I bet she will, don't you? Don't you, Mona?”
“No, silly. If she is it won't be at you. And I don't think she'll be mad anyway. I think she'll be thankful to have you safe.”
“It was smart of you to think of the reins, Mona,” said Rush, from the front seat. “I don't know what we would have done⦔ He felt fond of her, and of his family. In fact he loved the whole world. He had Opus Three snared on a paper napkin in his pocket, and Lorna Doone was taking him home to his piano as fast as she knew how. He could hardly wait to hear how those notes would really sound.
Randy and Mark were the first ones home, though. Jess and Damon had had a lazy day, and now they took the road at a heavy, work-horse gallop. Randy's teeth shook in their sockets, sparks flew in front of her eyes, and she knew, beyond doubt, that it was going to hurt her to sit down for several days. She admitted none of this to Mark, but she was relieved and happy when they turned in at the gate of the Four-Story Mistake.
“Home again,” said Randy, as they rounded the bend and came down the slope. She said it as casually as if she had said, “It's a nice day.”
“Home again,” echoed Mark. But he felt as though it would be a long time before he was used to those words. Home ⦠Well, that's quite a word in itself if you're not used to it, but to have it followed by
again
!⦠It was a phrase he was to use hundreds of times from now on. But today it was still new.
“Home again,” repeated Mark. And he said it as solemnly and joyfully as if he had said the word “Amen;” and quickly followed it with the word “Hooray!”
Elizabeth Enright
(1909â1968) was born in Oak Park, Illinois, but spent most of her life in or around New York City. Originally envisioning a career solely in illustration, she studied art in Paris, France, and at the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. In 1937, her first book was published, quickly proving her talent for writing as well as for drawing.
Throughout her life,
Elizabeth Enright
wrote and illustrated numerous award-winning children's books. Among those awards were the 1939 John Newbery Medal for
Thimble Summer
and a 1958 Newbery Honor for
Gone-Away Lake.
The first of the Melendy Quartet,
The Saturdays,
was published in 1941. It was followed by
The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five,
and
Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze.
Ms. Enright was also a highly regarded writer of short stories published in magazines, such as the
New Yorker
and
Harper's.
Her stories are assembled in four collections:
A Moment Before the Rain, Borrowed Summer, The Riddle of the Fly,
and
Doublefields.
Translated into numerous languages throughout the world, Ms. Enright's writings have been loved by many generations, and they continue to find an audience with young and old alike. You can sign up for email updates
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Contents
III. Shakespeare and the Hot Spell
XII. The Principle of the Thing
XIII. The Best Birthday of All
An Imprint of Macmillan
THEN THERE WERE FIVE. Copyright © 1944 by Elizabeth Enright Gillham.
Copyright renewed © 1972 by Nicholas W. Gillham, Robert Gillham II, and Oliver Gillham. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address Square Fish, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Square Fish and the Square Fish logo are trademarks of Macmillan and are used by Henry Holt and Company under license from Macmillan.
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at
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ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37600-0 / ISBN-10: 0-312-37600-6
First published in hardcover in 1944 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Reissued in hardcover in 2002 by Henry Holt and Company, with an introduction by Elizabeth Enright from
The Melendy Family,
copyright © 1947.
First Square Fish Edition: February 2008
Square Fish logo designed by Filomena Tuosto
