“But he likes the car,” said Moreover. “Moreover, as many times as I carry him out, he sneaks back in. Don’t know how.”
Arthur knew how. He looked down at the floor and saw the road through several large holes.
“Here we go!” shouted Moreover. The car coughed and began moving. Arthur turned to look out the back window. He waved at Aunt Elda and Uncle Wrisby, and watched as Pauline flew from the side yard and began chasing the car.
“How do you say ‘go home’ in French?” asked Moira, laughing. “Wish I had a French dictionary.”
Pauline stopped running then and pecked at the road, the car forgotten.
Arthur looked at the mouse now sitting on the seat beside him.
“I wish I had my journal,” he said fervently.
And he and the mouse stared at the road as it moved in gray swiftness beneath the car.
Mouse
By the time they reached the Hotwater house, the mouse was sitting in Arthur’s hand. Its nose twitched, and its fur was flat and smooth. He could feel the heartbeat when he closed his fingers around it.
“Here we are,” said Moreover, and the car skidded sideways in the gravel road. The mouse ran up Arthur’s arm and hid in his shirt pocket.
Moreover disappeared, bag in hand, inside a large white house with yellow gingerbread trim. And Arthur was left in the sudden silence of the car, a captive with Moira, the starling. She turned around and looked at the mouse in his pocket.
“What do you do, Mouse?” she asked.
“Arthur,” corrected Arthur. “What do you mean do?”
“I mean Mouse,” said Moira with a beady stare. “What do you like to do?”
“I write,” said Arthur, sighing.
“Write,” repeated Moira thoughtfully. She turned around and pulled up her socks. “I wrote a school theme once about my uncle who was an orphan and murdered three goats.”
“He what? He really?” Arthur sat up with alarm and the mouse burrowed down further in his pocket.
“I made it up,” said Moira. She pushed her hand across her nose, snuffling. “I got an A. Except for spelling, that is.”
“You made it up?”
“Sure. Don’t you make things up?”
Arthur thought. “Not usually. I write the things I think about—the things that happen to me.”
Moira stared at Arthur for a moment. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
“Maybe,” she said, “you ought to try making something up for a change. Sometimes it’s more interesting.”
It was Arthur’s turn to stare at Moira.
“But it’s not real then,” he said.
“Oh, real,” scoffed Moira, turning around and bouncing impatiently on the seat. “What’s real?”
A sudden memory of the mockingbird poem went through Arthur’s head. Which one’s the mockingbird? which one’s the world? He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak Moreover opened the door of the car, and a large yellow-haired dog jumped in the backseat. He looked at Arthur, nosed Arthur’s hand, then collapsed across the seat, burying his head in Arthur’s lap.
“He smells bad,” said Moreover behind the wheel.
Arthur smiled slightly. The dog did smell bad. Terrible. He looked up at Arthur, his eyes dark. The mouse moved in Arthur’s pocket.
“You’ve got a way with animals,” said Moreover, looking over the front seat. “Moreover, that mouse is yours now. A gift from me to you. Ever thought about being a vet?”
Arthur hadn’t, but he had a sudden vision of himself surrounded by sick animals. Some with bandaged legs, some on crutches. No. Arthur stifled a laugh. Not crutches. Broken legs, wings, perhaps.
“He smells like garlic,” said Arthur, who rather liked garlic.
Moreover turned his head to one side, sniffing, and the car barely missed a large gray boulder by the road.
“I think you’re right,” he announced. “Moreover, that means he’s been getting into garbage.”
Moira turned around again and peered at Arthur.
Does she always, he thought, ride backward in the car? My parents won’t let me ride that way. It’s dangerous. But she never bumps her head when the car stops. And she’s about to say something. Again.
“You know what you look like?” asked Moira. She bent her head to one side. “I mean who you look like with the dog’s head in your lap? Just like your uncle and Bernadette.”
Arthur knew that. He had just been thinking the same thing. He moved uneasily beneath the dog, and the dog wagged his tail, thumping it loudly against the door. And Arthur rode to Moira and Moreover’s house with a smelly dog in his lap, a mouse in his pocket and a vague, uneasy feeling in his head.
The MacAvin house was mostly porch and was half white and half brown.
Arthur looked at Moira, and she shrugged her shoulders, sensing his question.
“Can’t remember,” she said, “whether Moreover was painting a white house brown or a brown house white. It was a long time ago.”
Arthur was impressed. His family never left anything undone. His father always put his tools away. Always picked up his work clothes. His mother always washed the dishes right after eating. Always. Always.
Inside, the house was full of homemade furniture and braided rugs. Arthur knew the furniture was homemade because of the way the tables and chairs leaned. He’d made a bench once out of old pine that leaned just the way all the furniture did in the MacAvin house.
Moira opened the door to her room.
“What happened?” cried Arthur.
“What do you mean what happened?” asked Moira, frowning. “Nothing happened. This is my room.”
Sturnus vulgaris, thought Arthur, remembering the Latin words for starling in his bird book. The starling’s nest, he remembered, is filled with messes of weeds, twigs, string, feathers, cloth . . .
Moira’s room was littered with books, clothes, tools, paintings, pieces of wood and piles of yarn and food.
“Shovel a place to sit, Mouse,” said Moira.
“Arthur,” said Arthur. He moved a plate with part of a dried-up cheese sandwich on it and sat on the bed. Moira plunged under the bed and came out with knitting needles and blue yarn. She began casting on stitches.
“I’m making a bedspread,” she said to Arthur. “How many stitches do you think I’ll need?”
Arthur looked at the cluttered bed.
“Hundreds,” he said, smiling. “Hundreds of thousands, maybe.”
“Fourteen hundred and thirty-six,” said Moira positively, her tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth. She smiled back at Arthur.
“Why that number?” he asked.
“I like it. Don’t you have a favorite number?”
“A favorite number?” asked Arthur slowly. “I guess I never thought about it.” He watched her cast on stitches for a minute. “That’s a lot.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” said Moira, suddenly serious. “I’ll never finish it, you know.” She put down her knitting and got up to look in the mirror. “Actually,” she said, peering intently into the glass, “I’m thinking about making braces for my teeth. I have some silver wire here.”
“Making braces!” exclaimed Arthur. “You can’t do that!”
“And why not?” asked Moira, turning around. “Just you tell me why not,” she repeated a bit fiercely.
“Moira,” called Moreover. “Time to start supper.”
“Let’s go,” said Moira. “You’ll like my goosh pie.” She hurried out the door. “Come on,” she yelled from the hallway.
Arthur got up and looked in the mirror. And why not? Arthur asked himself. Why not?
“Actually,” he began softly, talking to himself in the mirror. “Actually,” he called louder as he went out the door to find Moira, “I’ve always liked the number forty-two.”
Moira and Arthur made braces, and Moira practiced talking, teeth clenched and grinning. Arthur kept his in his pocket. They ate Moira’s goosh pie, which
was really beef stew, in bowls that tilted sideways on the slanted kitchen table. Moira’s braces slipped, and they laughed into their mugs of milk.
At home that night, Arthur watched his mouse disappear and appear again from its new home, a hole beside the fireplace. Then Arthur took his braces out of his pocket and slipped them around his teeth. He grinned at himself in the mirror. His hair was uncombed, and with his smiling face, he didn’t look much like Arthur anymore.
I look, he thought happily, a little bit like a mouse.
Secrets
Aunt Elda saw life up close. Arthur watched her gather flowers, clutching them close like secrets, her face buried in the blooms. He saw her with her hands wrist deep in bread dough, kneading, patting and caressing; her fingers fluttering like small birds, lighting on Pauline, touching Arthur’s hair, Uncle Wrisby’s arm.
Aunt Elda also had a close and personal battle with the devil, whom she called Ears. He lurked behind every door and woodpile and within every misfortune. She shook her fist at him, whispering, cajoling, threatening.
“You tell him, Arthur,” she said while Arthur stood smiling self-consciously. “Arthur knows you’re here, Ears, you red rascal.” She put her hands on Arthur’s shoulders, enlisting him in her war.
Arthur was intrigued. He found himself peering behind doors and walking cautiously through the hallways at night, fancying more than once that he glimpsed the whisk of a long red tail.
Ears’ home, thought Arthur, if he did live at Aunt Elda’s, was her mammoth iron stove; her fiercest foe, her adversary. Sometimes Aunt Elda was the victor, baking lemon meringue pies with tops untouched by ugly black specks. Sometimes the stove won, sending off billows of smoke that sat on the cloud-white windowsills and dulled the leaves of Aunt Elda’s plants.
Of all the chores that Arthur did, opening up the door at one end of the stove and feeding slabs of wood to the fire was the most exciting. He pictured Ears there, crouched and grinning, ready to be refueled. Arthur stared into the fire twice, and once slammed the door with such a sudden rush of fright that Aunt Elda gave the stove a kick with her boots.
“Himself is right behind you, Ears,” she admonished. “Beware.”
Himself was Aunt Elda’s name for God. Arthur’s parents never talked about God as a “Him.” Arthur’s mother talked about trees, earth and sky in a most confusing way. As someone who only prayed in emergencies, Arthur felt absurd saying “Please make Piggy Rathbone stop beating me up” or “Make my parents stop arguing” to a tree. He felt better having an honest-to-goodness devil around with Himself close behind.
Before every meal Aunt Elda had a chat with Himself. Uncle Wrisby read the newspaper, rustling it when she took too long.
“Okay,” said Aunt Elda, settling down to business. “We could use some hot weather, we’ve had enough rain. But not too humid, please.” Nothing was beyond the realm of Himself. “And keep watch over . . .” A list of names followed, including Arthur, Arthur’s mother and father, Arthur’s cousins and aunts and uncles, Uncle Wrisby, Moira, Moreover, Bernadette, Pauline, and with extra feeling she would add, “And do what you can about Yoyo Pratt.”
“Beans have stopped steaming,” prompted Uncle Wrisby, peering around his newspaper.
“Church tomorrow,” said Aunt Elda, unruffled. “And no making change from the collection plate, you hear?”
“But a whole dollar, Elda!” protested Uncle Wrisby.
“A whole dollar and pass the applesauce,” said Aunt Elda firmly.
“Do I go to church, too?” asked Arthur.
“Of course. Everyone goes.”
“Even Moira?”
“Even Moira and Moreover.”
“Can I take my mouse?”
“Sure,” said Aunt Elda. “Himself doesn’t care.”
“How come Himself cares about my whole dollar?” boomed Uncle Wrisby.
Moreover came the next morning to pick them up for church, but Aunt Elda insisted on driving, and she sat behind the wheel dressed in a flowered dress, a small white hat with one of Pauline’s feathers sticking in it, and her low-topped walking boots. Pauline perched up in the back of the car to look out the rear window.
The church was small and white, with a spire painted green. Swallows flew out from the belfry, swinging down over the crowd and wheeling up to disappear in the louvers.
Reverend Railbaugh stood on the steps, greeting his congregation. He had a shiny, bald head and a small, jutting-out chin beard that bobbed up and down as he spoke. Arthur watched it, fascinated. The sermon was long and Reverend Railbaugh spoke very precisely—so precisely that no vowel escaped his close attention, no consonant was left unspoken to its fullest.
“Lettt usss sssing hymn numberrr one twenty-sixxx,” spat Reverend Railbaugh.
Arthur thought about the Reverend’s garden laid out in paths as precise as his sentences. Moira and Arthur kept count of his beard bobbings on their church bulletins. Arthur had the most.
“You counted salvation as three bobbings,” accused Moira in a fierce whisper. And they practiced saying sal-va-tion while feeling their chins.
“Neitherrr cassst ye yourrr pearrrls before sssswine,” intoned Reverend Railbaugh.
At the mention of swine, Moira poked Arthur.
“I have a book for you,” she whispered. “Later.”
After Uncle Wrisby was awakened and Reverend Railbaugh had hissed the benediction, Moira and Arthur ran off together. The sun beat down on the gravel road, and they stopped once to give Arthur’s mouse some water from the brook.
“Let’s cut in to the pond,” said Moira. “We can wade.”
She led the way, pushing suddenly off the road. Arthur put a hand over his pocket to protect the mouse as the branches swept back. Moira was a lone walker, not used to having someone follow.
Soon they came to a clearing. A meadow stretched out with a small pond at one side. It was the pond Arthur had seen through the binoculars, but up close it was different. Buttercups had not yet gone by, and there were forget-me-nots on the bank making a blanket of sky color. They lay down, trailing their feet in the cool water. Arthur wished he had brought the binoculars. He wanted to see the house. And he wanted to see if the tree outside his window looked smaller.
Moira pushed her feet down into the mud of the pond bottom, and slid her fingers through the plants of the bank. Arthur had a sudden vision of Aunt Elda. They’re the same. Moira always sits into the earth as if to root there. Aunt Elda becomes part of the bread dough.
Moira sat up and began putting her socks on wet, muddy feet. Arthur winced.
“Let’s go to my house for lunch, Mouse.”
“Arthur,” said Arthur automatically. He carefully wiped his feet on the grass.
“We can have sliced-strawberry-and-sugar sandwiches,” said Moira. “And I’ll get you the book I told you about in church. It’s a book on birthing pigs.”
“A book?” Arthur looked up at her. “Why do I need a book?”
“Because,” said Moira, turning to push through the path, “sometimes pigs need help.”
“Help!” exclaimed Arthur. “But Uncle Wrisby knows what to do!” He hurried after Moira, who had disappeared into the woods.
“He even sings to her,” called Arthur, nearly running into Moira, who waited patiently at the road.
Moira nodded.
“Sure he sings to her.”
“He loves her!” insisted Arthur.
Moira nodded again and began walking down the road, kicking a stone before her.
“I know, Mouse,” she said softly. “But just because he loves her doesn’t mean that he’ll do what she needs.” She stopped suddenly and looked at Arthur. “Look at my mom and dad. My dad left in the fall. ‘Be back before you know it, Moira,’ he told me. He never came back. My mom said she was leaving here forever. For better things.” Moira sniffed. “She comes back all the time. But only for money from Moreover.”
Arthur stood still, so still that he could hear the s
oft burbling sound of the brook. He had never thought about Moira with parents. Moreover seemed enough.
“Come on.” Moira’s voice intruded in Arthur’s thoughts. They walked awhile in silence until they came to Moira’s house. They walked through the animal room first. There was a cat with three kittens, all asleep; two young opossums with their noses poked curiously up in the air; and a dog with a cast on its front leg. The dog whined, and Moira put a small bowl of water in its pen.
“Not too much,” she told the dog, breaking their long silence. “It might make you sick.”
They went into the kitchen and Moira began slicing the strawberries. As Arthur watched, he thought about Moira’s parents and his own. Both leaving us. But not the same kind of leaving.
Mostly he thought about Moira telling him about her parents. Something important, shared. And suddenly, something inside Arthur seemed to move, to shift, to open up a bit like a door opening in a dark room and letting in a sliver of hall light.
“Moira,” he began, his voice firm and sure as if bestowing a gift of his own, “my mother is going to have a baby.”
Meaningful Questions
There was a long silence, a stillness in the room so that the ticking of the wall clock and the sound of Moira’s knife slicing strawberries became unbearable for Arthur. He held his breath, at the same time shocked and relieved that he had finally told someone about the new baby. Not just someone, thought Arthur. He had told Moira.
“And?” prompted Moira, looking up from the strawberries.
Arthur let out his breath. “And? And that’s it!” he finished lamely.
Wasn’t that bad enough? Or was there something more? Something worse about babies than he already knew from books. Something unprintable.
“I don’t want a baby,” said Arthur, suddenly angry.
“So don’t have one”—and she added pointedly, “when you grow up. This one’s your parents’.” She popped a strawberry in her mouth and screwed up her face. “Sour,” she said. She looked at Arthur thoughtfully. “Ever know a baby?”
“Of course. And I’ve written down all the things I’ve seen about babies.”