A Simple Case of Angels (6 page)

12

—

The next day
the Breams went skiing on the trails down by the lake.

“I'm freezing!” Jackson wailed. “I want to go home!”

“You'll warm up once we get moving,” Mina said.

They didn't bring June Bug, though Nicola had begged to. She hated the thought of her little dog shut up in the kitchen at home. Dogs were pack animals. They didn't like to be alone.

But it really was bitterly cold.

After a quarter of an hour of skiing, Nicola didn't feel any warmer. Her fingers and toes were numb, her nose a frozen strawberry. By then Jared and Mina were far ahead, Terence and Jackson far behind. Nicola may as well have been skiing alone in some vast silvery landscape. Everything was so quiet, except for her own breathing and the swishing of her skis.

She looked around and marveled how the world in winter seemed made of tiny stars — snowflakes — sunlight glinting off them. A million diamonds couldn't be as beautiful.

And out of the sparkling silvery whiteness of that picture, she remembered a face, even though she'd only seen it for a moment.

Mrs. Michaels.

A warmth seeped through her. Soon all her feeling was restored, even in her nose.

* * *

It was partly that face that made Nicola want to go back. Now that she'd seen the silver-haired three shut up in their rooms — Mrs. Michaels, Mr. Fitzpatrick and Mrs. Tanaka — she was curious about them. She knew Lindsay was, too.

Nicola also hoped that Mr. Milton would wake up enough to pay attention to June Bug's tricks. June Bug would be doing such a good deed then. It would make up for all the bad things she had done, if she could entertain him the way he'd asked.

But when they arrived the next day, Nicola's pockets stuffed with gingerbread she'd brought for Mr. Milton, Jorie told them, “Not a good day for Mr. Milton, sweeties. Something's upset him. He's been ranting about strangers all morning. Maybe Glenda messed up his medications. Anyway, he's finally sleeping now.”

“Why does he keep talking about the same thing?” Lindsay asked.

“He had a stroke. It affected his brain. That's why he can't move his right side or properly use his words. He wasn't speaking at all when he came here, so he's actually improved.”

“Can we visit Mrs. Michaels? Or Mrs. Tanaka? Or Mr. Fitzgerald?” Lindsay asked. “We met them yesterday.”

Jorie looked surprised. “Did you? Did Mr. Devon give his permission?”

Seeing the blush on their faces, Jorie's lips tightened and she shook her head. Then, after a nervous glance around, she whispered to the girls, “Aren't those three lovely?”

Pierre came down the hall carrying a tray with three plastic bowls on it.

“Is that my favorite dog?” he called, and June Bug pulled toward him on her leash.

“Oh, good,” Jorie said. “Can you let the girls out when they're ready, Pierre? They're just going to pop into the lounge for a quick visit.”

“You don't want to leave, do you, June Bug?” Pierre said, sinking down to the dog's level. He set the tray on the floor so he could use both hands to scratch June Bug all over. One of the bowls was still half full of some unappetizing beige mush.

“Was it hard to train her?” Pierre asked Nicola.

“No. She's so smart.”

Pierre gave June Bug one last vigorous scratch and stood. He began a long story about a friend who had taught his dog to Wipe Its Nose by putting a clothespin on its whiskers.

Lindsay nudged Nicola, who looked down just as June Bug licked out the last of the bowls on the tray on the floor.

“No, June Bug!” Nicola cried.

“June Bug!” Pierre said. “You can even wash dishes!”

They made their visit to the lounge. June Bug Waved at Miss Higgins and Mrs. Cream. Nicola lifted her up to Kiss Mr. Eagleton. Then Pierre buzzed them out.

Back in the cold, Nicola offered Lindsay some gingerbread. “I brought it for Mr. Milton. I saw what they gave him for lunch. He liked dog pepperoni better.”

June Bug showed no interest in the gingerbread now, which was strange. Even stranger was the way she walked so slowly beside Nicola all the way down the walk, as though Nicola had given her the command to Heel, which she hadn't. Nicola had long given up on Heel. Normally, June Bug either strained at the leash well ahead of Nicola, or had to be dragged behind.

Now she staggered beside Nicola, trying to keep up.

Nicola and Lindsay said goodbye.

“Thanks for coming,” Nicola said.

The rest of the way home, June Bug Heeled. Heeled and knocked into the side of Nicola's leg. When they got within sight of the house, instead of pulling Nicola up the walk, June Bug began to stumble. Instead of bounding up the steps three at a time, she sank onto the icy concrete and sighed as though Nicola was expecting her to climb Mount Everest.

“June Bug,” Nicola said. “Do you actually need me to carry you up the steps?”

June Bug looked at Nicola with black, dreamy eyes. So Nicola picked her up.

13

—

Normally when
anyone swept the kitchen floor, June Bug would race in from wherever she was making trouble to leap on the broom, her great enemy. Sweeping in the Bream household was all about pushing a little dog around on the end of a long stick.

But today when Terence swept the kitchen, June Bug didn't stir from her corner pillow. So he went ahead and
washed
the floor, too, which had never even been attempted with June Bug in the house.

Then Jackson set up his electric race-car track on the sparkling kitchen floor and sent his cars screaming around it for an hour not
three feet
away from June Bug. She didn't pounce like they were turbo-charged mice and chew their wheels off. On and on she slept, and none of the things that usually excited her — brooms or race cars or even the smell of pizza dough rising in the oven — had any effect.

Nicola lay partly on the pillow with June Bug, watching her dog's quiet panting. June Bug seemed to be dashing from dream to dream, her white legs twitching. Now and then soft little barks and whimpers escaped her.

“I think she's sick,” Nicola told her mother. “I think we should take her to the vet.”

Mina examined June Bug. She stroked her velvety ears.

“She's never slept so long before,” Nicola said.

Mina nodded. “It's so peaceful around here.”

“What if she dies?” Nicola asked. “What if she dies and goes to hell?”

“There isn't any hell,” Mina said.

“Are you sure?” Nicola asked.

“Actually, no. But what a funny thing to say. Why hell?”

“Because she's done so many bad things!”

“She's not going to die. She's going to sleep off whatever bug she has. While she's at it, we're going to have a lovely New Year's Eve with no one fighting about the dog.”

Mina was right. The Breams ate do-it-yourself pizza with all the toppings set out. Nicola did herself a cheese and dog pepperoni pizza and left a piece for June Bug, in case she woke up.

She did not.

After pizza, they played rummy. In the middle of the game, Terence snuck away and turned back all the clocks so they could have midnight at ten o'clock, for Jackson's sake.

As the false midnight neared, they put away the cards and set a bowl of cold water in the center of the table. Each of them took a candle. Terence lit his, then touched the flame to Mina's wick. She passed the flame to Jared. It traveled all the way around the table until the five candles glowed.

They took turns tipping them over the bowl so the melting wax dribbled into the cold water and hardened into blobs. By these wax blobs, the Breams predicted what the New Year would bring for each of them.

Jackson's wax blob was flat and round.

Mina said, “Money, Jackson!”

“Pancakes,” he insisted.

Jared's was a heart. He pumped his fist. “Yes!”

For Terence, a new car. For Mina, less stress at work. Her blob was sort of wedge-shaped, like a piece of cake.

Nicola's little blob had two wing-like bits sticking out.

“A dove? For peace?” Mina suggested.

“A bird is going to poop on you!” Jackson roared.

At ten o'clock, the Breams counted down the seconds and, cheering, drank a New Year's toast with sparkling apple juice. Except for Jared, who stayed up to play Inferno 2, they all went to bed.

Nicola tossed and turned, still worrying about June Bug. While she was worrying, she remembered something.

Two summers ago, the Breams drove to Nova ­Scotia to visit Grammy and Grampy. It was a long, long drive. Nicola took Gravol every morning, crushed and stirred into her yoghurt, or she'd get carsick. The Gravol yoghurt made her sleepy.

Almost as sleepy as June Bug today after she licked out the bowls of beige pudding stuff at Shady Oaks.

And Nicola remembered something else. All the pills lined up on the counter at the nursing station. On a bottle of bright blue pills, an orange sticker was fixed.

Warning: May Cause Drowsiness.

It was almost midnight. Nicola got out of bed, dragged her duvet to the kitchen and curled up on the floor with her dog.

“June Bug?” she whispered. “Was there medicine crushed up in that stuff you ate? Wake up. Please.”

June Bug dozed on, looking quite contented, which reassured Nicola.

At any moment the fireworks and pot-banging would start. Nicola went and stood at the living-room window, waiting. The tradition on their street was to welcome the New Year by stepping out on the porch at the exact stroke of midnight with pots and spoons.

But tonight the houses on Nicola's street looked as asleep as June Bug, the heavy blanket of snow drawn right up to their porches. No Christmas lights, no inside lights.

Oddly, all the icicles were hanging at a slant.

After what felt like a long time, Nicola returned to the kitchen and checked the clock. Ten past midnight. No pot banging. No distant pop and crackle of the fireworks at city hall.

“Happy New Year, June Bug,” she whispered.

At the sound of her voice, June Bug sat up and looked at Nicola with such a funny expression on her face.

“What is it, June Bug? What?”

June Bug lunged for her water bowl and lapped it up. Nicola refilled it, and June Bug drank the second bowl. Her tail twirled like a propeller, winding her up.

Off she shot, tearing through the sleeping house, around and around, hours of pent-up June Bug energy released at once.

14

—

Little bloody
spots of toilet paper were stuck all over Mr. Milton's hollow cheeks. He smelled like soap.

“Happy New Year,” Nicola and Lindsay told him.

Along with the treat container, Nicola had brought three pancakes. Lindsay, a mandarin orange.

The fresh tang of the orange made Mr. Milton's eyes widen in surprise. Lindsay put a segment in his hand, and he immediately lifted it to his mouth.

Gratitude filled his gaze.

Nicola said, “Last night we told our futures in melted wax. My little brother's already came true. We had pancakes for breakfast. Eat everything, Mr. Milton. But that mush stuff? It's got pills crushed in it. If they try to give it to you, don't eat it. And don't swallow the blue pill. Just pretend.”

Lindsay nodded and handed him another orange segment.

“I only pretend to eat celery,” Nicola told him. “Then I spit it in my napkin and drop it on the floor. June Bug takes care of it.”

Mr. Milton looked from Nicola to Lindsay in wonderment.

“I think you'll feel a lot better without those pills. But don't go around yelling about strangers. That's probably why they're giving you those pills. Try to stay calm. Then tomorrow, when you're wide awake, June Bug will show you her tricks. You'll really like it.”

What June Bug really seemed to want was one of Mr. Milton's pancakes. She stared at Mr. Milton chewing while Mr. Milton stared at Nicola and Lindsay.

Pierre came in with a pill cup and a glass of water.

The last pancake was still in Mr. Milton's hand. He seemed in a hurry to finish it. It was as though he was worried they would take it from him, the way June Bug gulped down the awful things she found on the ground that she wasn't supposed to eat, like cigarette butts and old chicken bones.

“That's got to taste better than the usual. Right, Mr. Milton?” Pierre said. He turned to the girls. “Except it's against the rules. So don't bring him anything else, okay?”

“Okay,” Nicola said.

Nicola watched Pierre feed the pills one by one to Mr. Milton. Mr. Milton's Adam's apple didn't move when he took the blue pill.

Pierre said, “Okay, girls. Mr. Milton needs to nap.”

“June Bug wants to do a quick trick before we leave.” Nicola took out the treats and got June Bug to Crawl across the bed.

They all laughed, except for Mr. Milton.

“We'll have a good visit tomorrow, right?” Nicola said, patting his speckled hand.

“Do not forget,” he gasped, and the blue pill fell out of his mouth into his lap. Nicola plucked it out of the covers and slipped it in her pocket.

“That's his favorite expression,” Pierre told them as they filed out. “‘Do not forget to entertain strangers.' Maybe he ran a nightclub or something.”

* * *

“Let's look it up,” Lindsay said when they were walking away from Shady Oaks.

“What?”

“The thing he keeps saying.”

“I have to take June Bug home. We can do it there.”

Going to Lindsay's would have been smarter. Lindsay didn't have an older brother. Nicola didn't think of this until they got there.

The girls stood like sentinels behind Jared. Nicola cleared her throat several times. It was pointless. She signaled to Lindsay to stay in the den while she got her mother's cellphone from her purse and called their home number.

In half a ring Jared answered, sounding desperate.

“Hi,” Nicola said in a giggly voice.

“Who's this?”

“Don't you know me?”

He bolted out of the den with the phone and tore upstairs to his room, passing Nicola in the hall.

Nicola returned to the den. Lindsay had already taken Jared's place at the computer and was closing Inferno 2.

“I might know you,” Jared said, breathing hard from running up the stairs in a way Nicola thought would probably disgust Julie Walters-Chen. “Is it Julie?”

Lindsay typed in
Do not forget to entertain strangers
.

Seeing the number of Google results, Nicola hung up. “Three million four hundred and eighty thousand?”

“There's a second part,” Lindsay said.

And both girls read it.

For by doing so, many have entertained angels unawares.

* * *

Mina looked up from the giant crossword puzzle when the girls came in the kitchen.

“How did it go with the old folks today?”

“The same,” Nicola said. “But Mr. Milton was calmer so we could visit him.”

“There's a Mr. Milton?” Mina asked.

“Yes.”

She laughed. “Look what I just filled in.”

Nicola and Lindsay went over. Nicola's eyes swam at the sight of the tiny black and white squares filling two whole newspaper pages.

Her mother pointed to a word.

“Milton,” Lindsay read.

“Really?” Nicola said. “What's the clue?”

“One thousand and fifteen across.” Mina turned over the sheet to find the clue. “‘He wrote
Paradise Lost
.'”

Lindsay said, “Mr. Milton is in the crossword ­puzzle?”

“A different Mr. Milton,” Mina said. “A famous writer.”

“What's
Paradise Lost
?” Nicola asked.

“A very long poem.”

“Maybe we should read it to him,” Lindsay said.

“Do we have a copy?” Nicola asked.

“I used to. I studied it a long time ago, in university.” Mina stood up and stretched. She took off her reading glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I've been at this puzzle all morning. I'm as addicted as Jared is to that computer game. Let's look in the basement.”

Mina found her old university books in a trunk in the storage room. “You'll have to dig through it. Put everything else back. Do you girls want lunch?”

“Can Nicola come to my place?” Lindsay said. “My mom's home.”

“Of course!” Mina told Nicola. “Have fun and take my phone and be home by three.”

“Wasn't that weird that Mr. Milton was in the crossword puzzle?” Lindsay said as they lifted the books out of the trunk and set them aside in mildewy stacks. “I shivered when your mom said that. Sometimes when I go to a wedding, I try to imagine what the bride's dress will look like and what kind of flowers will be in her bouquet. Sometimes I'm exactly right. I get that shiver then, too.”

Nicola changed the subject. “Poems are good. They're nice to read out loud. Mr. Milton will cheer up and want to see June Bug's tricks. Here it is.”

A thick paperback with a red and black cover, all dog-eared and written inside.

“June Bug is page-eared,” Nicola said. “Her ears fold down like pages.”

When they opened the book, it released a musty long-ago scent. Lindsay drew back, but June Bug stood on her hind legs to sniff it.

Prostration
.
Climb'st
.
Darksome
.

“Is this even English?” Nicola asked.

Lindsay turned the pages. “
Seraphim, Cherubim
,
Throne,
” she read, plugging her nose.

“Seraphim?” Nicola said.

She carried the book to the bottom of the basement stairs and shouted up, “Mom! Is this a poem about
angels
?”

* * *

Lindsay lived in an old brick apartment with its name in slanting gold writing on the front door: The Sheldon Arms Apartments.

Irene, Lindsay's mother, met them at the door. She had glasses with zebra frames.

“I've heard so much about you,” she told Nicola.

Over lunch, which was homemade vegetable soup, Lindsay told Irene about their discovery. “The thing Mr. Milton keeps saying is actually an expression.”

“What expression?” Irene asked.

“‘Do not forget to entertain strangers, because something something about angels.”

“And what does it mean?” Irene asked.

“We don't know,” Lindsay said. “But it had over three million results on Google. And then we found out that another Mr. Milton wrote a famous book about angels. Nicola's mom had it. We're going to read it after lunch.”

“Lindsay,” Irene whispered when the girls were clearing the table. “No box today, right?”

“She already knows about it,” Lindsay said. “I told her.”

They went to Lindsay's room, which was a lot like Nicola's messy room except for magazine pictures of brides taped all over the walls, and the cardboard refrigerator box that took up most of the floor space.

Lindsay said, “That's my Feel Better Box. Go on in.”

Nicola hesitated. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled inside.

“Lying down is better,” Lindsay said, so Nicola lay on her back on the sleeping bag that padded the floor of the box.

Taped on the ceiling and walls were more magazine pictures — flowers and sunsets and brides — as well as photographs of people Lindsay probably knew, and her bride drawings.

“Look under the pillow,” Lindsay told her.

A bottle of spray cologne. Lindsay told Nicola to spray some around, then close her eyes.

After a minute she asked, “How do you feel? Better?”

“Than what?” Nicola asked.

Lindsay squirmed in and lay beside her. Nicola felt worse.

“Which dress do you like the best?” Lindsay asked of the drawings taped above them. Nicola pointed to one at random.

“I love that one, too! I love the heart neckline.”

“I'm never getting married,” Nicola said. “I'm going to live alone in a big house with lots and lots of dogs. Can we read the book now?”

“Sure. I'll get it,” Lindsay said.

“I don't think I'll be able to read in the box. I'm starting to feel funny.”

“That might be the Feeling Better starting.”

“I don't think so,” Nicola said.