Libby on Wednesday Read online

  “It’s all your fault, really,” she told him. “At least it was to begin with. None of it would have happened if you’d just been something normal, like a farmer or a businessman.”

  But now, perhaps because of her own feelings of resentment, Graham’s smile, which she had once thought kindly and understanding, seemed cold and mocking. Tossing her head, she glared at him angrily before she turned away and went on up the stairs, not even looking back, as she usually did, to watch the way the portrait’s eyes seemed to follow as you climbed upward. At the top of the stairway she turned to the left, down the long hallway to her own room.

  Libby’s room, like everything that Graham McCall built during his years of fame and fortune, was extremely large. But unlike the rest of the house, where everything was just the way it had always been except for dust and wear and cat scratches, Libby’s room was in a constant state of reorganization. Crossing the room, she wove a pathway between bookcases, tables, aquariums, terrariums, shelves, and easels, stopping only once to pick up Mercedes’ letter—the most recent of the letters that arrived faithfully every week during Mercedes’ absences and that, until recently, Libby had answered just as faithfully.

  The letter began, Hi there, my sweet sugar crumpet. (Libby and Mercedes had made a private joke of thinking up ridiculous pet names to call each other.) Why haven’t I heard from you?

  “You haven’t heard from me because it’s your fault most of all,” Libby said, giving the letter a punishing shake. “I wouldn’t even be going to Morrison if it weren’t for you. That’s why you haven’t heard from me. Because if you hadn’t come back here and told them that I needed to go out and learn about the real world and be ‘socialized,’ everything would be all right.”

  She shook the letter again, and her anger flared brighter, directed now most of all toward her mother, Mercedes O’Brien, who had gone away to live and work in New York City when Libby was three years old, returning only now and then—to criticize and interfere. Tossing the letter aside, she moved on to pick up a heavy jacket from the foot of her bed, shrug into it, and drop a small flashlight into its pocket. Then, prepared for the cool evening air and deepening dusk, she opened one of the French doors that led out onto the balcony.

  Just beyond the balcony, growing up to tower even above the rooftops of the three-story McCall House, was the great oak, the ancient tree that had been there, already tall and stately, when Graham bought the land to build his castle. And where years ago, when Christopher was a little boy, there had been built a wonderful Treehouse. At this particular moment the Treehouse was Libby’s destination—by a forbidden and dangerous route.

  There was, of course, another way to arrive at the Treehouse, by a curving wrought-iron staircase that circled the oak tree’s trunk. But the faster and more exciting pathway led up over the railing of Libby’s balcony and then by a rather daring jump directly into a network of small branches. From there, if one was small and light and agile, one could climb carefully down to the fork that supported the first level of the Treehouse.

  The Treehouse, Christopher’s Treehouse, as the family still called it, was as large and strange (as overdone, as Gillian always said) as everything else that Graham built. The ornate iron staircase ended at a platform that surrounded the lower level, and from there the multilevel structure climbed up the forking limbs in a jigsaw puzzle of angles, ells, and projections, its exterior covered with a crazy quilt of rough-hewn shingles and decorated with oddly shaped panels and shutters.

  Perhaps it was overdone and senseless, an enormous exaggeration of a treehouse, but it had been many strange and magical things to Libby: a bandit’s hideout, a roc’s nest, Tarzan’s or sometimes Mowgli’s jungle home, or even Baba Yaga’s magical hut. Or just her private hideaway and refuge.

  Today Libby made the climb down from the balcony quickly and carelessly. She was still breathing hard from anger and frustration as she pushed open the narrow door that led into the main room. Once inside, she shoved the door firmly shut behind her, leaned against it, and looked around. Here on the first level the interior walls were paneled and painted with scenes from myths and fairy tales; the paints faded, the figures dim and mysterious—even dimmer now in the evening light and faintly tinged with sunset purple. The few items of furniture in the room were mysterious, too, odd bits and pieces from Graham’s travels, a bamboo bookcase, a chair made from a camel saddle, a jungle-drum table, and a small wooden settee, its seat piled with velvet pillows. The three stained-glass windows were oddly shaped—a circle, a triangle, and an octagon. In the far corner of the room a tiny twisted stairway led to the next floor, the bird room—a small, triangular-shaped area surrounded by all kinds of birdhouses and feeders. And above that on the third level was the circular lookout tower.

  There was, there had always been, a feeling that went with stepping into the Treehouse and shutting the door behind her. A mysterious promise of good news—of magic to be revealed or wishes granted, or sometimes simply of peace restored.

  Libby leaned against the door and waited—but now even the Treehouse failed her. Even here there was no escape from the memories of what had happened and, even more devastating, what would be happening soon. Collapsing among the pillows of the settee, she curled herself up into a tense knot of pain and rage. Her eyes tightly closed, she repeated accusing phrases over and over, holding on to her anger, knowing that when it went, it would be replaced by something worse.

  Even when a plaintive yowling outside the door announced that Goliath had followed her to the Treehouse, as he often did, she refused to be interrupted or comforted by the big cat’s warm and friendly presence. And when the fat old walking furball tried to climb up beside her onto the pillows, she pushed him away impatiently and went back to hoarding her fierce resentment. But in spite of all she could do, the armor of anger slowly oozed away—and, just as she had feared, the truth was there waiting.

  4

  The truth was—it wasn’t really their fault. It wasn’t their fault that they didn’t understand. How could they, when she had been lying to them ever since her first day at Morrison Middle School.

  After a while she sighed deeply, opened her tightly closed eyes, and sighed again. Then she slid down from the settee and, pushing aside the pillows, lifted the heavy seat to reveal a small metal file box. When the box was unlocked—by a key that hung around her neck on a chain—she took out a dark green spiral notebook.

  She had many other journals. Some were the ordinary daily kind—reports on the progress of current projects, comments about books she was reading, and humorous accounts of the latest family battles, such as the endless one between Gillian and Cordelia, or Elliott’s hopeless one with the cats—over whether furniture should be used as scratching posts. Some other notebooks were more or less special and private—such as the ones that held her short stories and novels. And one or two were top secret. It was only the top-secret ones that were kept in the old file box.

  Leaning back against the settee, Libby pulled out her flashlight and, shining it on the green notebook—the one she had begun on the day she started school—she began to read, with her lower lip clenched between her teeth and her eyes squinted as if against a blow.

  Elizabeth Portia McCall at Morrison Middle School

  or

  THE SOCIALIZATION OF LIBBY

  First day:

  Well, it’s over. My first day “among my peers,” as Mercedes would express it. My peers, it seems, are in seventh grade. At least, more or less. The counselor, Mr. Grayson, said that I was “academically prepared for eighth but that my age and size made seventh seem more appropriate.” So it seems I’ll be in eighth grade math and English classes, and seventh grade for everything else.

  About size. I’m obviously not nearly large enough. It’s partly my age, I guess, but actually I’m only about a year younger than the average seventh-grader, so part of it’s just heredity. But for whatever reason, most of the boys are at least a foot taller than I am a
nd the girls are closer to two. The girls are enormous. And nearly all of them have figures. I’m obviously too small and the wrong shape. I don’t know why size should matter so much, though. Gillian says she has always liked being small.

  I don’t think I’ve made a great deal of progress on socialization yet. I tried to talk to a couple of people, but the conversation didn’t progress very far. When I inquired about the subject matter that would be covered in the class, they either just laughed and walked away or said something like, “Are you for real?” And one boy said, “Hey, everybody. Look at this,” and when everyone looked at me, he said, “I think you’re lost, kid. The kindergarten is over on Eighth Street.”

  We didn’t do much learning today. I guess that will occur later.

  I’m going to like it, I suppose. At least, I told everybody here at home that I was. I’ll just have to find some way to let my “peers” know that I’m more mature than I look. I’m going to have to work on that—showing them how mature I am.

  Libby winced and quickly turned the page. The second page began:

  I answered some questions in English today. Ms. Ostrowski, my English teacher—tall and willowy with beautiful cat eyes and a rather fiery temper—asked what a poet laureate was, and no one knew, even though the textbook tells all about it. So I explained about the laurel wreath and named a few of my favorite English laureates. And then I …

  This time she flipped the page so hard it almost tore. Stupid! How could she have been so stupid. Why hadn’t she been able to see right away what they were like? How much they hated anyone who knew more than they did, or was more talented, or who was different in any way. No wonder they’d started laughing and whistling every time she answered a question. And calling her McBrain. No wonder they started gathering around her between classes and asking her questions and then yelling and laughing when she answered. And taking her books and putting them up out of her reach on top of the lockers. If she’d only known enough to keep her mouth shut—from the very beginning, instead of waiting until it was too late.

  With her hands still covering the notebook she rocked back and forth, fighting down the angry waves. At herself this time, for being so STUPID! Stupid to think that she could impress people like that with how much she knew. People who didn’t know anything interesting or important, and didn’t want to. She shook her head hard. No, that hadn’t been it, at least not exactly. She hadn’t just been trying to impress them. What she had been trying to do was simply to make them realize that she wasn’t a dumb little kid, even though she might look like one. What she’d been trying to do, actually, was to make them like her.

  Libby smiled. A bitter, ironical smile. Ironical because all she had managed to do was to make them hate her. Not that she cared anymore. She hated them, too. No, not hated actually. Disdained was more like it. She disdained them for being so stupid and boring and uninterested in anything important, like the Great Depression, or the British in India, or poetry, or ballet, or anything—except each other.

  After a few minutes she lifted her hands and looked at what had turned up at random when she flipped the page.

  OCTOBER 10,

  Gary Greene imitated me again today during math class. Actually he does imitations quite often. When the teacher is late or if she has to leave the room, even very briefly, he always gets up and starts doing imitations. Usually he imitates Mr. Shoemaker, the principal, who walks in an odd way, with his toes turned outward. Or sometimes it’s one of the teachers. But once he hugged some books up against his chest and scurried to his seat in a crouching position. Then he pulled up his feet and sat on them and held a book up on end and hid his face behind it. And everyone looked at me and laughed, and ever since then he holds his book up and hides behind it quite often, sometimes even when the teacher is in the room. No one will tell her what everyone’s laughing about.

  I know I sit on my feet sometimes, so I can see the blackboard over the heads of taller individuals. But I didn’t realize I hid behind my book like that. And I DON’T walk that way!!

  Gary Greene always shouts at me in the halls, too. Sometimes he bellows things like, ‘Hey, McBrain. Want to do my homework for me? I’ll make it worth your while.’ Or, ‘Here comes Little Frankenstein. All brain and no body.’ Everybody laughs. By calling me Frankenstein he means, of course, that I’m a monster made of mixed-up parts, but that just shows how stupid he is. He obviously thinks Frankenstein was the name of the monster instead of the scientist who made him.

  He’s the monster. Gary Greene is a stupid monster!!!

  “Monster,” Libby whispered. “That’s what I should have told Christopher when he asked about Gary Greene. I should have said, ‘Gary Greene? Oh, he’s just a stupid monster I happen to know.’ ”

  She turned several more pages, skimming over the contents, and then on the fourth of November, there it was. The TRUTH. The real, true reason nobody, not Gillian, nor Elliott, nor even Christopher, was to blame for not understanding why she had to stop going to Morrison Middle School.

  NOVEMBER 4,

  Everybody was asking about school again at dinner tonight, and as usual I said everything was just fine. In fact I invented a new “best friend” to tell them about.

  Sometimes I think that Christopher doesn’t quite believe me. I’m not sure, because he probably wouldn’t say so, even if he didn’t. He’s just that way. When I was little and I used to fib about things, I’d notice that he was just being especially quiet. And then I’d find out later that he’d known I was fibbing all along.

  But the rest of them believe me, even Mercedes. Especially Mercedes. I guess she wants to believe that I’m doing just great at school because it was her idea in the first place. When she was here last month, she even gave me this little talk about how grateful I should be that she insisted on my starting public school, because I had made the transition so easily and well and if I’d waited another year or two, it would probably have been so much more difficult.

  I really wanted to tell her the truth. I really wanted to tell her that I wasn’t doing anything easily and well at Morrison Middle School and that all it was doing was making me miserable and that I wish she could be the one to be imitated and made fun of every day if she thinks that’s what it takes to be socialized. But I didn’t, of course. All I did was agree with her and say how much fun I was having and how glad I was she’d talked them into sending me to school. It was really ironic.

  I don’t like lying to them, but I have to or my plan for the future will never work. My plan is to convince all of them—especially Mercedes—that one school year was enough to completely socialize me, so there won’t be any reason for me to go back to Morrison next fall.

  I know what would happen if I told them the truth. If I told them what it was really like, they’d be sure that Mercedes was right all along and that I’m hopelessly unsocialized. And that would mean they’d all be positive that I should stay in school forever. And it would be forever, because I know now that it’s not going to get any better. At first I thought it might, but I know better now. They’re never going to stop hating me.

  Libby closed her eyes and shook her head. “Never,” she whispered. It was some time later that she got up and pulled the camel-saddle chair up to the table.

  It was almost completely dark by then, and it was necessary to hold the flashlight in her left hand as she opened the journal to the first blank page.

  I guess there’s no way out. I’ll have to keep going to Morrison Middle School, and next Wednesday I’ll have to go to the writing group. And I’ll to have to read one of my stories to Gary Greene and those others.

  She sat for a while staring blindly at the round spot of wavering light before she sighed deeply and went on writing.

  And then I’ll come home and tell everybody how it wasn’t so bad after all, and how I really liked it. Otherwise they’ll make me go on being socialized forever.

  5

  Recess had barely begun when Libby hurriedly op
ened the door to the reading lab. She had arrived early on purpose, reasoning that it would be worse to have to enter when the others were already there, just watching and waiting to stare and comment. The room was empty. She hadn’t been aware of holding her breath, but as she stepped inside, her starving lungs rebelled with a hungry gasp.

  The reading lab, a small classroom used for meetings and special lessons, smelled of books and chalk dust. There was a teacher’s desk near the pale green blackboard, a scattering of student desk-chairs, and along one wall a number of large storage cabinets. Libby’s only other visit to the reading lab had been on the day of the Literary Festival, when the winners of the writing contest had gathered there to meet with Arnold Axminster. Remembering that fateful meeting, Libby felt her teeth clench and her stomach tighten.

  She had picked out a chair and was hurriedly moving it away from its closest neighbor, when a voice said, “Oh, it’s just you.” Libby gasped and whirled around in time to see a shaggy brown head emerging from one of the supply cupboards.

  He came out of the cupboard in awkward angles, like an unfolding wooden puppet, and it wasn’t until he finally untangled himself and turned to face her that she recognized him as the winner of the second prize. The one from the special education class. The tall, thin, jittery one with the nervous smile, which he was doing at the moment—a strange, twitchy grimace.

  Sitting down in a clattering, loose-jointed collapse, in the seat closest to Libby’s, he gestured by tilting his head back toward the cupboard. “That was just in case,” he said. “In case of G.G.” His voice had a jerky sound, too, almost—but not quite—a stutter,

  Libby swallowed hard, and her own voice came out thin and wavering. “In case of what?”

  “Who—not what. Our fellow prizewinner. Just in case G.G. turned up next, before there was anyone else here to witness the crime, if you know what I mean. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you? G.G.! Gary the Ghoul. It’s not common knowledge, but old Gary and I go way back. Way back to second grade. Real buddies we were then—briefly. Until he lost his temper over a missing Tootsie Roll he thought I’d eaten. Actually I hated the things, but he didn’t believe me, so he pounded me into a pulp and threw me over the teeter-totter. And that was just the first time. The next time he really got rough. So you see why I wasn’t about to risk being alone in a room when he …” He paused as the door slammed open and then went on in a whisper. “Speaking of you-know-who!”