Annie (13 page)

E
arlier that mornin
g, shortly after Annie and Mr. Warbucks had left for Washington, a milling and shouting crowd of couples that eventually numbered more than a thousand people began to gather on Fifth Avenue in front of Mr. Warbucks's mansion. Each of the couples claimed to be Annie's father and mother, and each loudly demanded to see Mr. Warbucks. There were fat couples, thin couples, tall couples, short couples, old couples, and young couples, but they all had one thing in common—a burning desire to get their hands on Mr. Warbucks's certified check for fifty thousand dollars.

When Drake opened the front door at eight o'clock that morning to find the couples shouting for admission, he hurriedly locked the door again and raced upstairs to tell Miss Farrell what was going on. She at once took charge of the situation. “Of course, they've all obviously got to be frauds—except one couple among them who might be Annie's parents,” reasoned Miss Farrell. “And that's the couple we've got to single out.”

“If Annie's parents are out there, you'll find them, Miss Farrell,” Drake assured her.

“You're darned tootin' I will!” said Miss Farrell, using an expression she'd picked up from Mr. Warbucks.

Miss Farrell set up a plan of action. She typed and had a thousand copies made of a questionnaire she'd quickly drawn up. The questionnaire consisted of ten questions, requiring such routine information as name, address, and age, but it ended with a crucial tenth question: “On the night that Annie was left at the orphanage, something was left with her. What was it?” Next, Miss Farrell had Drake and a platoon of other servants pass out the questionnaires to the horde of couples, who were now being confined to the sidewalks on either side of Fifth Avenue by a squad of policemen mounted on chestnut horses. The couples were told to fill out the questionnaires, form a line, and wait for their turn to be interviewed inside the Warbucks mansion by Miss Farrell. In the foyer, Miss Farrell sat in a Chippendale chair behind a cherry-wood desk and saw all the couples in turn as they were led in, two by two, like the animals filing onto Noah's ark.

It was a simple matter for Miss Farrell to dismiss almost all of the couples instantly, for they had incorrectly answered question ten, guessing wrongly that Annie had been left at the orphanage with everything from a grilled cheese sandwich to a Shetland pony. Occasionally, Miss Farrell came upon a couple who—by luck, as matters turned out—guessed that Annie had been left with a locket. But, upon closer questioning, none of them had come up with the vital information that it had been half of a broken silver locket.

Hour after hour, stopping only briefly to have a tuna-fish sandwich and a cup of hot Ovaltine at her desk, Miss Farrell carefully screened one fraudulent couple after another. As each new couple stepped up to her desk, she silently prayed that these two might be Annie's parents, but her prayers went unanswered. And by five o'clock, as dusk was coming down over the gray city, she'd seen the last of the false parents. There were no more couples waiting outside. Now exhausted, Miss Farrell put her head down on the desk and quietly wept.

Drake looked outside once more and then locked the huge, carved-oak front door. “I'm afraid, Miss Farrell, that was the last of them,” he said. “And there's still no sign of Mr. Warbucks and Miss Annie.”

Miss Farrell dried her tears with a blue silk handkerchief. “Drake, look at all these questionnaires,” she sighed, pointing to the enormous stack of papers piled on the desk in front of her. “Do you realize that I talked to six hundred and twenty-seven women who claimed to be Annie's mother and six hundred and nineteen men who said that they were her father? That makes, let me see—”

“One thousand two hundred and forty-six, miss,” said Drake instantly.

“All liars,” said Miss Farrell with a weary shake of her head. “Drake, I never realized that there were so many dishonest people on the island of Manhattan.”

“Some of them were from the Bronx, miss,” observed Drake drily.

A key turned in the front door and Annie and Mr. Warbucks came bursting in. “Grace, we're back!” cried Mr. Warbucks.

“Where are they, Miss Farrell?” asked Annie breathlessly, her eyes aglow with hope as she rushed up to the secretary. “Where are all the people who say they're my folks?”

“They're gone, dear,” said Miss Farrell, getting up from the desk and coming around to pull Annie into her arms. She tried not to start weeping again. “Come and gone. I'm sorry, Annie, but they were all liars and fakes, after nothing but the fifty thousand dollars.”

“Aw, gee,” said Annie, downhearted. For a moment, tears seemed to brim in her eyes, but she didn't cry.

“Are you certain, Grace?” Mr. Warbucks demanded. The front doorbell rang, and Drake went to answer it.

“Yes, sir,” Miss Farrell answered. “None of them knew about the locket. I'm so sorry.”

“Gosh,” said Annie, “I was sure somebody was gonna be my mother and father.”

Drake returned from the front door with the trace of a hopeful smile on his usually stony face. “Mr. Warbucks, this has just come by special messenger from the F.B.I.,” he said. He handed a large manila envelope to Mr. Warbucks.

“Ah, at last!” cried Mr. Warbucks, opening the envelope and taking out a letter that he quickly scanned. “Good news! The F.B.I. has located the manufacturer of Annie's locket. In Utica, New York.”

“Oh, boy!” shouted Annie.

“That sort of locket was manufactured between 1918 and 1924,” read Mr. Warbucks.

“Sort of locket?” asked Miss Farrell, puzzled.

“Yes,” said Mr. Warbucks. “Over ninety thousand were manufactured and sold.”

“Aw, gee,” said Annie.

Mr. Warbucks read through the rest of the letter with increasing disappointment. “Annie,” he said at last, “I'm afraid that the gist of it is that the F.B.I. doesn't think that there's a chance in a million of tracing your parents through the locket. I'm sorry.” Mr. Warbucks reached into the envelope and took out Annie's locket, returned by the F.B.I., and gently hung it back around her neck.

“That's okay, Mr. Warbucks,” said Annie, touching her locket. She walked to the window and stood looking forlornly out on Fifth Avenue. “I mean, gee,” she went on, “you did the best you could. And if you can't find my folks, nobody can. Anyway, I guess a kid can get along without a mom and a dad. You did, from the time you was ten, and, heck, you didn't turn out all that bad.”

“Thank you, Annie,” Mr. Warbucks said with a smile.

Sensing that Mr. Warbucks wanted to be alone with Annie, Miss Farrell murmured, “Excuse me, Mr. Warbucks, we'll go check on the dinner menu,” and she took Drake by the arm and left the room. Mr. Warbucks went to Annie at the window and put his hand on her shoulder. “Annie, you know, I've made me the greatest fortune in the world,” he said in an uncharacteristically gentle voice. “I've owned mansions and yachts all over the world. I've had two universities named after me, I've been on the cover of
Time
magazine four times, and I'm told that I'm one of the five most famous and powerful men in the world. But yet, always, I've had a nagging feeling that something very important was missing in my life. And now, in these last few days, I've finally realized what that something is.”

“What?” asked Annie, turning to him.

“You,” replied Mr. Warbucks quietly. “You're what's been missing in my life. Someone to care for.”

“Me?” asked Annie, a trifle bewildered.

“Yes, you,” said Mr. Warbucks. Then, as if to break the mood, he loudly laughed and tousled Annie's red hair. He strode to the archway and called for Miss Farrell. In a moment, she came running in. “Yes, sir?” she asked.

“Do you have those legal papers I gave you to file the other day?” asked Mr. Warbucks.

“Oh, yes, sir!” cried Miss Farrell happily, knowing that he meant Annie's adoption papers. “I'll get them right away!”

“No, wait, Grace, I want you to stay for a moment,” said Mr. Warbucks, sitting down in the Chippendale chair and motioning for Annie to come to him. Annie sat on Mr. Warbucks's knee, and he put his arm tightly around her. Now, as he spoke, he tried to sound as businesslike and unemotional as possible. “Annie,” he said flatly, “I want to adopt you.”

“Adopt me?”
Annie could scarcely believe what she'd heard.

“Yes or no?” Mr. Warbucks asked straightforwardly.

Annie was dazed. For a moment—as Mr. Warbucks and Miss Farrell nervously waited to hear what she was going to say—Annie couldn't speak. “Gee, if I can't have any real mother and father,” said Annie at last with a happy grin, “then there's nobody else in the whole world I'd rather have for a father than you, Mr. Warbucks!” She flung her arms about his neck and hugged him. And he hugged her back. Miss Farrell started to step forward to hug both of them, but then she saw that this was their moment, not hers, and stepped back to look at the two of them with tears of joy in her eyes.

“Grace,” said Mr. Warbucks happily, “call Justice Brandeis and ask him to come over here on Saturday night, Christmas Eve, to sign the adoption papers.”

“Yes, sir!” said Miss Farrell.

“And tell Mrs. Pugh that we'll be having a houseful of guests on Saturday night,” Mr. Warbucks went on. “We'll need flowers, music, caviar, champagne!”

“Yes, sir, I'll go tell her right now!” cried Miss Farrell, running off to the kitchen.

Mr. Warbucks stood up and took Annie exuberantly into his arms. “Annie, this isn't just going to be an adoption, it's going to be a celebration!” he joyously shouted, whirling her about. “And you can have anyone in the world you want to come to it. Who would you like? John D. Rockefeller? Clark Gable? Harpo Marx? Babe Ruth?”

“Anyone in the world?” pondered Annie as Mr. Warbucks put her down gently. “Well, I guess I'd like Miss Farrell, of course. And Mr. Drake. And Mrs. Pugh. And, well, I guess I'd like everybody here in the mansion.”

“Of course, that's who I'd like, too.” Mr. Warbucks smiled.

“Oh, and I'd like all of the kids from the orphanage, too,” Annie added.

“Oh, no, I'm afraid that it'll be a late party—way past their bedtime,” said Mr. Warbucks. “But I'll tell you what, we'll have everyone from the orphanage here on Sunday morning, Christmas, for the biggest and best Christmas party that any kids have ever had!”

“Oh, boy!” cried Annie, but then she suddenly remembered who “everyone at the orphanage” happened to include. “But . . . Miss Hannigan, too?”

“Yes, of course, Miss Hannigan, too!” Mr. Warbucks said expansively. “Why not? We'll forgive and forget!”

“Well . . . okay,” Annie reluctantly agreed.

“Annie,” cried Mr. Warbucks, once again sweeping her up in his arms, “I'm the luckiest man in the world!”

“And I'm the luckiest kid!”

I
t was Christmas Eve at 987
Fifth Avenue, and in the middle of the living room of Oliver Warbucks's mansion stood a Christmas tree more beautiful than and nearly as big as the one in Rockefeller Center. And spread beneath the tree were more gifts than any child had ever dreamed of getting—there were dolls, dollhouses, bicycles, tricycles, hobbyhorses, life-size stuffed animals, games, books, puzzles, and electric train sets, among scores of other toys. It looked as though Mr. Warbucks had bought out the entire stock of the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store. A thirty-piece band led by Paul Whiteman was playing “Jingle Bells” in the adjoining ballroom as servants moved through the crowd carrying trays of caviar and glasses abrim with French champagne. These were specially hired servants, for the regular servants of the house were, of course, the guests at tonight's very special party. Next to the holly-festooned fireplace, Miss Farrell, in a pale-lavender chiffon gown, was chatting with Justice Louis Brandeis, of the United States Supreme Court, who was wearing his black judicial robes and was on hand to sign the adoption papers that would make Annie legally Oliver Warbucks's daughter.

The clock struck eight o'clock and all applauded as Mr. Warbucks came smilingly down the marble staircase into the living room. He was elegantly got up in a Savile Row tuxedo with a glittering diamond stud in his shirtfront that was only slightly larger and more expensive than the Hope diamond. Mr. Warbucks signaled for the band to stop playing and addressed his assembled guests. He was about to refer to them as “ladies and gentlemen of my staff,” but then he thought better of it. He was no longer the cold employer of a faceless staff of servants he'd been until the time when Annie came into his life. Like the Tin Woodman in
The Wizard of Oz
, Oliver Warbucks had, late in life, gotten a heart. And so he instead now addressed his servants as “my friends.” “My friends, my dear friends, welcome to the happiest night of my life!” cried Mr. Warbucks exultantly.

Everyone applauded, and the band began playing “Joy to the World,” as the crowd laughed and ate and drank while awaiting the arrival of the party's guest of honor. Upstairs, for hours, Annette and Cécille had been fussing over Annie. First, they'd given her a long, leisurely, perfumed bubble bath in a huge sunken bathtub. Then they'd given her a new hairdo, using a curling iron to curl her hair on top of her head, French style, in little ringlets. And, finally, they'd dressed her in white silk stockings, black patent-leather Mary Jane shoes, and a new dress that Miss Farrell had bought her especially for tonight's party. The dress was red velvet, with white velvet piping at its V-neck and waist. It was the most beautiful dress that Annie had ever seen, and she had loved it at first sight. “I'll wear it forever!” Annie had exclaimed when Miss Farrell took it out of the Bergdorf Goodman box and showed it to her. When Annette and Cécille had finished, Annie looked at herself in the mirror—with her new hairdo and in the red dress, she scarcely recognized herself. “Wow!” breathed Annie.

Now Annie stood at the top of the marble staircase that led down to the living room. Her heart was beating wildly with excitement and joy—she was about to become Oliver Warbucks's daughter! As she started down the staircase, everyone noticed and began applauding. Annie grinned from ear to ear. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Mr. Warbucks rushed to her and picked her up in his arms. “Annie, you look absolutely beautiful!” he cried. And then, as he hugged her close to him, he whispered to her, “Together at last, together forever—I don't need anyone but you.” “And I don't need anyone but you,” she whispered back to him, kissing him tenderly on the cheek.

Justice Brandeis cleared his throat and called for silence as he stepped forward with the adoption papers. “Let us get this little bit of legal business out of the way, and then it'll be on with the party,” said the justice. Everyone gathered around in a large circle as Annie and Mr. Warbucks, hand in hand, stood before Justice Brandeis, looking almost like a couple about to be married. “Now,” said Justice Brandeis, “the adoption procedure is very simple—”

A strange sense of menace and cold fell suddenly over the room. A tall, shabbily dressed, gray-haired man and a plump, little, gray-haired woman had been ushered into the room by one of the servants. “Pardon us, folks, sorry to bust in on your party like this,” said the man in a cracking, elderly sounding voice. “Yeah, sorry,” croaked the woman. They were, of course, Rooster Hannigan and his girlfriend, Lily St. Regis, in disguise. After days of careful preparation, Rooster was now carrying out his nefarious plan. He was going to swindle Oliver Warbucks out of fifty thousand dollars, abduct Annie, and do away with her.

“Oh, Shirley, look,” said Rooster, pointing at Annie, “there's our Annie.”

“Who are you?” Annie asked. She didn't know who these people were, but she sensed immediately that there was something evil and dangerous about them.

“Honey, we're your mom and dad,” said Lily, her voice disguised as that of a middle-aged woman.

“Mudge. Mudge is the name,” said Rooster, shuffling meekly across the room to Mr. Warbucks. The guests and Justice Brandeis backed away. “Ralph Mudge. And this here is the wife, Shirley.”

“You never knew it 'til now, honey, but you're Annie Mudge,” crooned Lily, taking Annie's hand. Her touch felt cold and clammy to Annie.

“Annie Mudge?” asked Annie.

“Annie Mudge?” repeated Mr. Warbucks.

“Yup,” said Rooster. “You see, honey, we was sick and broke back in 1921, and we didn't know which way to turn. But then a man gave us a chance to work on his farm up in Canada.” Rooster's story had been rehearsed for days.

“But we couldn't bring along no baby,” added Lily, delivering her rehearsed line right on cue.

“We loved you, Annie, but we had to leave you behind,” said Rooster, pretending to wipe tears from his eyes.

Miss Farrell, who had, of course, already dealt with hundreds of frauds claiming to be Annie's parents, stepped between Mr. Warbucks and Rooster. “Mr. Mudge, is it?” she asked, suspicious, certain that this couple was yet another pair of frauds. “We have seen a great number of people who have claimed to be—”

“Ah, yes, proof,” said Rooster, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the false documents that his crony in Brooklyn had prepared. “I expect you'll be wantin' proof of who we are. Here's our driver's licenses and Annie's birth certificate.”

Miss Farrell took the papers and carefully examined them. “Baby girl, named Anne Elizabeth Mudge,” she read aloud from the birth certificate, “born to Ralph and Shirley Mudge, New York, New York, October twenty-eighth, 1921.”

“October twenty-eighth—that's my birthday!” cried Annie.

“It is, sir, it was in her note,” murmured Miss Farrell to Mr. Warbucks.

“Yes, I know,” said Mr. Warbucks, grave-faced and concerned. If they were frauds, October twenty-eighth could have been a lucky guess, thought Mr. Warbucks, and yet that didn't seem probable. Only he, Annie, Miss Farrell, and the F.B.I. knew Annie's date of birth. He didn't realize that one other person, Miss Hannigan, also knew it. And it was Miss Hannigan, of course, who had given it to Rooster. “In any case,” Mr. Warbucks went on, “even if the date of birth is correct, I still don't—”

“Please, mister, you gotta believe us,” pleaded Rooster, blinking his eyes to summon up phony tears. “We got in on the Greyhound bus this afternoon, and went straight to the orphanage to fetch our Annie. And the lady there, she said our baby was up here.”

Lily grabbed Annie and hugged her. “Oh, Annie, all the years I dreamed of holdin' ya in my arms again,” she cooed. Annie wriggled out of Lily's embrace and ran to Mr. Warbucks. Somehow she instinctively knew that this woman wasn't her mother.

Question ten, thought Grace, and she once again confronted Rooster. “Mr. Mudge,” she began, “on the night that Annie was left at the orphanage, something was—”

“Oh, here's something none of you would know anything about,” said Rooster, reaching into his pocket and taking out half of a broken silver locket that he'd had a jeweler on Staten Island fix up for him. “We left half of a silver locket with Annie, and kept this other half so we'd know when we came back for her that—”

“Oh, Ralph, look!” cried Lily. “Annie's still wearin' it—my old locket from Grandma!”

“Let's see if the part we kept fits together with it,” said Rooster, stepping up to Annie and forcing the two pieces of the locket together. They fit, more or less—the jeweler had done a good job from a description of Annie's half of the locket that Miss Hannigan had provided. “Yes, they fit perfectly!” cried Rooster.

“Oh, thank God, Ralph—this proves that she's our Annie, all right,” breathed Lily.

Although they didn't want to believe it, Mr. Warbucks and Miss Farrell were now unhappily convinced that Ralph and Shirley Mudge were indeed Annie's parents. “Yes, she seems to be your Annie,” said Mr. Warbucks quietly.

“Yes, she does,” Miss Farrell said sadly.

“Thank the good Lord we was able to prove to you that Annie is our kid,” said Rooster. “So if you'll get Annie's things together, we'll be takin' her along right now.” But we won't be taking her far, thought Rooster with an evil shudder, no farther than Sheepshead Bay, where we'll dump her body. He took Annie firmly by the arm and started to edge with Lily toward the front door.

“Take her? Now?” cried Mr. Warbucks.

“Of course,” said Rooster. “Why not? She's our kid.”

“But, Mr. Mudge, what about the money?” Mr. Warbucks asked.

This was the question that Rooster had been waiting for. Now he'd hook Warbucks for certain. “Money? Well, we ain't got much money, but we'd be glad to give you whatever we got for takin' care of our Annie,” said Rooster, reaching into his jacket as though to take out a wallet.

“You haven't heard that I've offered a certified check for fifty thousand dollars to any couple who can prove that they are Annie's parents?” Mr. Warbucks demanded, taking the check from his pocket. He'd planned to donate it tonight to the March of Dimes as part of the celebration of Annie's adoption.

“No, sir,” lied Rooster smoothly. “We don't know nothin' about no check. Anyway, we don't want no money.”

“Right,” Lily chimed in, “we don't want no money for our Annie.”

Mr. Warbucks and Miss Farrell exchanged glances of disbelief. If Ralph and Shirley Mudge didn't even want the fifty thousand dollars, then they were without doubt Annie's parents. Mr. Warbucks slowly began to put the check back in his pocket.

“Still, on the other hand, Shirley,” said Rooster quickly, not wanting to let his fish, Oliver Warbucks, off the hook, “maybe we could use a little money. For Annie's sake. Remember that little pig farm out in New Jersey, darling? With fifty thousand dollars, we could afford to bring Annie up right. In the country. With fresh air, fresh eggs . . .”

“Fresh ham,” said Lily pointedly to Rooster. She was afraid that he'd begun to play his part a little too broadly.

“Ah, yes, ha-ha, fresh ham,” chuckled Rooster, sidling up to Mr. Warbucks and deftly flicking the check from his fingers. “Certified, huh?” he asked, examining the check. “All I gotta do is make this here check out to myself, huh?” Rooster started to put it in his pocket.

“Yes, that's correct,” said Mr. Warbucks, taking the check back from Rooster and putting it in his own pocket. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow morning?” asked Lily, aghast at what she'd just seen happen. Rooster had had the check and now he didn't.

“Yes,” said Mr. Warbucks, “I'm sure that you wouldn't mind if Annie stayed here until tomorrow morning, Christmas. Then you can come back to pick up Annie
and
the check.”

“Oh,” said Lily.

Rooster didn't know what to do. But he knew that he mustn't appear too eager to get his hands on the check if he was to get away with his scheme. If he'd have to wait until tomorrow to get the check, then he'd have to—at least he'd successfully conned Warbucks into believing that he and Lily were Annie's parents. “Oh, well, yes—whatever you prefer, sir,” Rooster stammered. “So, Shirley, I think we oughta be getting back to our hotel now. Bye, Annie.”

“Yes, bye, Annie, love,” crooned Lily sweetly. Once they got outside, she was going to break Rooster's neck for letting that check slip through his fingers.

“Until tomorrow morning, honey,” said Rooster, backing away from Annie and Mr. Warbucks in the direction of Miss Farrell, who was standing behind him. “And then you'll be spending the rest of your life with us.” Your very short life, thought Rooster evilly. “Well, good-bye, all!” As he backed up, Rooster bumped roughly into Miss Farrell, all but knocking her off her feet. “Oops, pardon me, blondie,” he blurted, off guard, for a moment speaking not in the disguised voice of Ralph Mudge, but instead in his normal voice. And, by chance, he'd uttered the exact words he'd said to Miss Farrell when he'd bumped into her at the orphanage. “Merry Christmas!” cried Rooster, and he headed toward the front door. “Yeah, Season's Greetin's,” said Lily, following him out of the mansion.

Puzzled, remembering that someone, somewhere, had said those same words to her—“Oops, pardon me, blondie”—in that same voice, Miss Farrell stared perplexedly at the departing Mudges. But who had said that to her? And where? And when?

Once Mr. and Mrs. Mudge had left, an awkward silence fell over the room. Annie stood alone beside the Christmas tree, staring down at the floor. Mr. and Mrs. Mudge were her father and mother. But they couldn't be. She'd have known her real mother and father the instant they walked in the door. They just couldn't be. Everyone at the party stood silently, uncertainly, not knowing what to say.