Georgia's Greatness Read online

  So that's what we did when we returned to our classroom after the Longest Recess the Whistle Stop Had Ever Seen Ever: we set to work, spending the rest of the day making cards for our absent teacher.

  As for our new teacher?

  She offered to mail the ten cards for us on her way home. She even offered to spring for the stamps.

  ***

  "I'm worried about what it will be like when we get home," Petal said as we boarded the bus.

  "What are you worried about?" Annie asked. She might have said "What are you worried about this time?" That's what Georgia and Rebecca would have said. Even Marcia might have said it on a bad day. But Annie was always the most patient of us with Petal and Zinnia.

  "Will our house still be there?" Petal fretted. "It's raining so hard. Maybe it's all under water by now!"

  "Don't you remember?" Rebecca pointed out. "We live in a magnificent stone house."

  "It's practically a castle!" Zinnia added.

  "And it's high on a hill," Jackie said gently. "Water tends to go downhill, not up, so our house won't be under water."

  "Yes," Petal said. "I remember all that now. But do you think the foundation of our house is strong? Because if it's not, with all this rain, and then the wind..."

  Really, sometimes Petal was a lot to take. We did worry what it would be like when the time came to have her take center stage for a month. She'd probably make us huddle with her under our beds for the entire month of June, never discovering her own power or gift at all.

  Poor Petal, we realized as she went on and on. She just couldn't help herself.

  It was a good thing then that when we arrived home from school something happened to make Georgia forget about her depression and Petal forget about worrying.

  One of the cats was missing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Usually, when we arrived home from school, we found all eight cats waiting for us right inside the door. The cats were hungry or they needed us to clean out the litter boxes for them or maybe they just wanted a good scratch behind their furry ears. Those cats: they were always after something.

  But on that day, there were only seven cats there to greet us: Anthrax, Dandruff, Jaguar, Minx, Precious, Rambunctious, and Zither. Greatorex, Georgia's cat, was nowhere in sight.

  "Where is she?" Georgia cried, concerned.

  Even the seven remaining cats looked concerned. They looked frantic too, more frantic than they had looked since the night back in January when our evil neighbor the Wicket had broken into our home and gone through Mommy's private study in search of her Top Secret folder.

  "I'll try to get information out of them," Zinnia offered, referring to the cats, "but it's very hard to talk to them when they get like this."

  "Why don't we all change out of our wet things," Annie suggested, "and put on our play clothes? Then we can search."

  "But if she were in the house," Georgia said, "then the other cats would have seen her and they wouldn't look so frantic. She must be out there." Georgia looked out through the window. "She must be lost in the monsoon!"

  "She will drown for sure," Petal said. "Cats hate rain. Plus, Greatorex doesn't have an ark."

  "Will you both stop it?" Rebecca said. She turned on Georgia. "You're beginning to sound as bad as Petal." She turned on Petal. "And you sound as bad as... you!"

  "I'll make hot cocoa for everyone," Durinda offered.

  At least she wasn't trying to serve us all tea again.

  "It will be fine," Jackie soothed Georgia. "We'll find your cat."

  "I don't see any evidence why that should necessarily be true," Marcia said, "but why don't we take Jackie's word for it anyway?"

  Normally, the first thing we did after arriving home from school was our homework, because Annie made us, but not on that day. There were two reasons for this: (1) we were all upset about Georgia's cat going missing—although no one was as upset about it as Georgia—because it reminded us of the night our parents disappeared, or died; and (2) Ms. Harkness, beautiful Ms. Harkness, hadn't assigned any.

  So we all changed out of our wet things and into our play clothes and had some cocoa in the dining room.

  By that point, the seven remaining cats had settled down a bit. In fact, Rambunctious had settled down so much, she was snoozing in the center of the table, her long tail circling around Rebecca's empty cocoa cup.

  It was then, just as everyone was starting to breathe a little easier—if for no other reason than that we were all dry and we'd drank something warm—that we heard a crash coming from the kitchen.

  "That's odd," Durinda said, jumping up to go see what had fallen down. We all followed her.

  In the kitchen, Carl the talking refrigerator and robot Betty were flirting again. This had been going on ever since Pete the mechanic had helped them work out their romantic differences, back in February. Seeing them together like that sometimes made us think, Eeew, gross, but mostly it just made us happy.

  It was no use asking Carl and Betty about the source of the noise—they were too wrapped up in each other—but anyway, we could see it for ourselves.

  Somehow, the huge tin of dried cocoa had been knocked out of the cabinet. The lid was off, cocoa was spilled all over the floor, and in the center of the cocoa were a few tiny paw prints.

  "Now, how did that happen?" Durinda wondered aloud. "I'm sure I put that tin far back in the cabinet. I don't see how it could have fallen out on its own."

  "And look at those paw prints," Marcia said. "All seven of the remaining cats were in the dining room with us. They couldn't have made those prints."

  "Look!" Georgia shouted.

  We looked.

  And as we looked, we saw little strips of dried cocoa disappear from the spillage on the floor. It was as though a tiny, invisible tongue were licking it up.

  "What's going on here?" Annie demanded.

  The cocoa stopped disappearing at once. As we looked, little cocoa prints in the shape of tiny paws appeared on the floor. We watched as the cocoa paw prints made their way to the door. We followed the cocoa paw prints, which kept getting fainter, until we reached the cat room.

  The cat room was like our drawing room, a place to hang out, but for cats.

  We stood in the doorway waiting to see what would happen next. It was tough to know what was going on because the cocoa paw prints had faded into nothing.

  Then we heard a sound:

  Lap, lap, lap.

  We followed the sound with our eyes, and our gaze arrived at Zither's water dish. We could tell it was hers because all the cats had their names on their water dishes: Daddy's doing. He had such nice handwriting.

  All the other water dishes were empty. We listened to that sound of lap, lap, lap, watching as the water line on Zither's dish dipped lower and lower, the water sloshing a bit with each lap sound.

  "What is going on here?" Annie asked again.

  "Just a moment," Zinnia said, holding up a finger and acting as if she actually expected us to obey her while she crouched down and whispered something in Zither's ear. Then Zinnia held her own ear to Zither's mouth, as though listening.

  A moment later, as promised, Zinnia was back on her feet. And she had a report for us.

  "That's Greatorex," Zinnia said, indicating with a jut of her chin the invisible space above Zither's water dish.

  "What?" Rebecca said. "What are you talking about now, you silly child?"

  "It's true," Zinnia said with rare firmness. "Zither says Greatorex has somehow figured out how to make herself disappear."

  "What?" Georgia said. If anything, Georgia sounded more outraged than Rebecca had.

  Zinnia went on as though Georgia hadn't spoken. "Zither says," Zinnia said, "that all day, ever since Greatorex figured out this trick, she's been tormenting them with it. She steals their food, their water. She bumps them out of the way whenever she pleases, and they can't bump her back because they can't see her. She even sneaks off with all the best toys."

  As if
to illustrate this last point, there was a thump in the area of a high counter. A moment later, there was a bat sound, followed by a ball of purple yarn sailing right over our heads. Annie, the tallest, had to duck a bit.

  "I don't believe it," Jackie said. "Or, I should say, I wouldn't believe it if I wasn't not seeing it with my very own eyes. I think Zinnia's right!"

  "You know," Marcia observed, "I've heard people say before that ours is a crazy house, and I have to say now: I'm beginning to believe them!"

  "Is anyone else thinking what I'm thinking?" Petal said.

  "I doubt it," Rebecca said with a sneer.

  Petal ignored her. "It's just that," Petal said, "Annie's power is that she can be as smart as an adult. Then, right after she discovered her power, we all noticed that Anthrax was getting bossier with the other cats. Er, I mean smarter," Petal hastily added, having caught the look on Annie's face. She went on. "Durinda discovers she can make people—except Zinnia—freeze by tapping her leg three times rapidly and then pointing her finger. Suddenly, Dandruff is doing the same thing, making the other cats freeze—except for Zither, of course. Now Greatorex discovers, somehow, that she can make herself disappear." She paused. "Do you see what I'm getting at?"

  It was shocking, to think that Petal was capable of making such an important point. And yet she had.

  Seven heads swiveled to stare at Georgia.

  "What?" Georgia said, perplexed. "What is everyone staring at me for?" Then a look of horror dawned on her face. "Oh, no!" she cried. "I don't believe it! This is so unfair! First, my gift arrives, borne under the wing of a carrier pigeon, but it's too early, so I send it away. And now my power— my power!— appears in my cat before it appears in me?"

  We had to admit: things weren't exactly working out for Georgia according to the usual plan. If we were her, we thought, we'd be upset too.

  "Aargh!" Georgia shouted. "I have the worst luck of anybody!"

  ***

  We retired to Winter to calm down.

  Winter was one of the four seasonal rooms at the back of the house that Mommy had created so we could go to whichever season we wanted. True, we should have been sick of the cold, but the rains of March were making us long for the pure whiteness of fresh snow. We did have to put on our parkas and snowshoes to go to Winter, but the man-made snow on the ground there, and the hills, and the great big sled, made it worth it.

  We dragged in a table upon which to set our drinks, as well as chairs to sit in while we drank.

  After we'd gotten Georgia calmed down—more cocoa would have been in order, but it had all been spilled on the kitchen floor and was dirty, so we had settled for a round of juice boxes instead—she had some practical questions.

  "But how did Greatorex make herself disappear?" she asked. "And, more important, can she make herself come back again?"

  "She's your cat," Zinnia pointed out. "Why don't you just ask her?"

  Georgia made a face at Zinnia. We all did.

  "Fine," Zinnia said. "Then you, as her mistress, command her to reappear, and I'll ask her."

  Georgia sighed. "I suppose," she said, "it's worth a shot." Then, in a much louder voice: "Greatorex, I order you to reappear!"

  In an instant, Greatorex was among us again. She leaped into Georgia's lap, and as Georgia petted her, she looked greatly relieved—Georgia, not the cat.

  We could understand this. Georgia had probably been worried that she'd never see her cat again. It would have been awful to be the only girl in our house without her own cat.

  Zinnia leaned over and whispered in Greatorex's ear.

  Greatorex shook her head, keeping her mouth firmly shut.

  "Fine," Zinnia said, loud enough for us to hear. "Then I'll ask Zither. Zither!"

  Zither came bounding through the snow to Zinnia.

  More whispering ensued.

  We didn't really believe that Zinnia could understand the cats, or they her, but Zinnia did come up with the most astounding things.

  At last, Zinnia spoke. "Zither says that Greatorex makes herself disappear by twitching her nose back and forth two times."

  "I'd try that," Georgia said dryly, "but how would I ever make myself come back?"

  "Zither says," Zinnia said, "that she's not completely certain, but she thinks that Greatorex reappears the same way."

  "That sounds like a rather iffy proposition," Georgia said.

  "Try it!" Jackie said.

  "Try it!" Marcia said.

  "What have you got to lose?" Rebecca sneered.

  "Oh, I don't know," Georgia said. "My whole body?" But then, in an act of amazing bravery, Georgia twitched her nose twice.

  In an instant, she was gone, leaving Greatorex suspended in thin air about six inches above the chair in which Georgia had been sitting with the cat in her lap. Then the cat leaped to the snowy floor. Three seconds later, Jackie felt a poke on her shoulder.

  "It's me," we heard Georgia say.

  Two seconds after that, Annie felt a tickle between her ribs.

  "That was me too," we heard Georgia say. "I thought you could use a good laugh."

  A full minute later, a can of pink frosting and a silver spoon came floating into the room; they landed on the table right in front of Rebecca.

  "I thought," we heard Georgia say, "a little pink frosting might improve your mood."

  And then, almost immediately, Georgia was with us again: her whole body and not just her voice.

  "How did you do all that?" Durinda asked, awed.

  "The double nose-twitch," Georgia said calmly, as though she'd been doing it her whole life. "It really does work, and it works both ways."

  Then Georgia found Greatorex under a chair and gave her a good scratch beneath the chin. "Thanks, Greatorex. I don't know if I could have figured it out without you. But please stop tormenting the other cats."

  "Hey," Rebecca said, "does anyone see what I see? Georgia must be just as crazy as Zinnia! She's talking to her cat as if she expects the cat to understand her."

  "Maybe she can," Georgia said with a shrug.

  "Oh, I'm worried," Petal said. "I am very worried now."

  "About what?" Jackie asked kindly.

  "What if Georgia makes herself disappear in the middle of the night?" Petal worried aloud. "What if she comes into my bedroom and starts pinching me in the dark and I can't see her? It will frighten me."

  "I promise I won't do that," Georgia said. It was as if she'd somehow grown older that afternoon. "A power is a great responsibility. I promise not to abuse mine." Then a gleam entered her eye. "But you never know. At the right time, in the right place, being able to make yourself disappear and then appear again could come in handy."

  Later that night, before going to bed, we remembered to check behind the loose stone in the wall in the drawing room. This time, the note there was the right note.

  Dear Georgia,

  Nice work... Finally! Five down, eleven to go.

  A half-hour afterward, even though we couldn't all see it, we were sure Georgia went to sleep with a smile on her face.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was one week later, so it was Monday again, the same day repeating itself being what happens when an entire week goes by.

  In the seven days that had passed since the last time it was Monday, Georgia had spent many hours practicing her new power. The rains hadn't completely stopped yet, and water did still trickle down from the sky. This meant that when Georgia went down to get the mail each day, invisible, we could see her umbrella bob its way down the hill and bob back up again with a stack of mail floating in the air below it. We all thought this looked very funny, but Annie put a stop to it.

  "What if the mailperson sees that mail floating with no body there to carry it?" Annie said. "It could give him a worse fright than the time Rebecca locked Rambunctious in the mailbox in order to see what mailperson and cat would do when mailperson opened box and cat leaped out at mailperson."

  She made a good point. Regarding the
mailperson and the cat, as Mommy always said, "It's always funny until someone starts to cry."

  "You probably don't need me to remind you of this," Annie reminded Georgia before school that Monday, "but you have to be careful about when and where you practice your make-yourself-invisible trick. It wouldn't do to suddenly disappear in front of Mandy's eyes or to suddenly reappear in a spot where you're not supposed to be."

  All the way in on the bus, we worried that Annie's warnings were falling on deaf Georgia ears, but when we got to our classroom, the only person who had disappeared that was supposed to be there was the McG.

  Our regular teacher was still absent.

  But that was okay! Because there was Serena Harkness, floating into our classroom on her usual sea of beauty.

  Mandy's hand shot up.

  "Yes, Mandy?" Ms. Harkness said.

  "Is Mrs. McGillicuddy still sick?" Mandy asked.

  "Obviously," Ms. Harkness said. "Why else would I be here?"

  "But it's been such a long time," Mandy said. "It's been a whole week!"

  "Don't you like me?" Ms. Harkness asked sweetly.

  We all looked at Mandy, wondering what she'd say. We knew for a fact that Mandy didn't like Ms. Harkness, that Mandy thought Ms. Harkness was A Bad Person, but Mandy never told lies. So what would she say now?

  "That's not the point," Mandy said.

  Nice side step! we thought.

  "A week is a long time for a teacher to be absent," Mandy went on.

  "But when Principal Freud introduced me, he told you she might be gone that long, even longer," Ms. Harkness countered.

  "Yes," Mandy said. "But we all wrote Mrs. McGillicuddy those get-well cards, and you sent them for us. And yet we haven't received any thank-you notes in reply. I think it is all very odd. Cards are very important to Mrs. McGillicuddy—I know this for a fact, and I'm sure she would have replied to ours by now."