Little Women and Me (23 page)

Two weeks later, I was writing in the garret when I heard a racket outside. Going to the tiny window and peering out, I saw Jo and Laurie in the garden. He held something in his hands and Jo kept racing after him, trying to steal it away.

Soon, they came inside, breathless, and we all gathered around to see what the commotion was.

Jo held a copy of
The Eagle
and, flipping to an inside page, she began reading a story called “The Rival Painters.”

When she finished, I had to admit, the story did show
some
promise, but nowhere near the praise all the others were heaping on after seeing the byline “by Miss Josephine March.” Laurie
even declared Jo “the Shakespeare of our town,” which actually wasn’t
that
soaringly over the top, given the crummy fish-smelling paper it appeared in.

“Of course, Teddy’s known all along that I’d submitted some stories, because I ran into him the day I brought them to town,” Jo told everyone smoothly, neglecting to mention the glove, I noticed. “At first, he thought I was there to get a tooth pulled or something. Can you believe the silliness of such a thought?”

Well, I could.

“I hope to one day earn enough money to support myself and help out with the girls,” Jo went on self-importantly. “Of course, I wasn’t paid anything for this story and the other one I gave the newspaperman.”

“Not paid anything?” I may not have been published,
yet
, but even I knew you weren’t supposed to just give it away. Even if you were only paid a dollar—or, in the 1800s, a few cents—you were still supposed to get paid.

Jo shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her.

“The newspaperman said I should be happy enough if he liked my story sufficiently to print it,” she said happily. “Then, once I saw my name in print, and he saw what sort of a reaction the public had to my writing, we’d see about him paying me for subsequent stories.”

I got paid more than Jo.

Just barely.

The newspaperman gave me “two bits” for a short story after my inspired speech about money always flowing toward the writer.

When the next issue of
The Eagle
arrived, I waited impatiently
as Jo’s latest story was read aloud by its authoress and then breathlessly as she slowly paged through the rest of the paper to see what other short fiction she was competing with.

“ ‘The Woman from the Future,’ “ Jo announced the title before starting to read.

The others all looked at one another, puzzled expressions on their faces.

“But that makes no sense.” Amy wrinkled her nose when Jo was finished. “Why would someone from one hundred years plus in the future travel back in time to live in a town that sounds awfully similar to ours?” Amy turned to me then, as if I might be able to answer her question.

But I just shrugged, not wanting to give myself away.

“If there is such a thing as time travel,” Beth said, “which I don’t believe there is, I hope people get to take their cats and dolls with them.”

“Of course there’s no such thing as time travel.” Jo snorted. “Who does this Evelina Massachusetts think she is?” she asked, referring to the pseudonym I’d used. “What a preposterous name! Whoever wrote this tripe was undoubtedly embarrassed to attach her real name to it.”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Meg said. “Whoever she is, she’s no Jo March.”

Ohhh
,
go lose another glove
, I was tempted to tell her.

“If you’re done reading that,” Hannah said, “can I have that last story?”

Oh! I brightened considerably. My first fan!

Then Hannah added, “I have some fish I’d like to wrap in it.”

Fifteen

So what if no one in my entire family, in this entire stupid town, liked my story of a time traveler.

I’d still keep writing it. After all, I was living it.

November was the dreariest month ever.

At least that’s what all the others said, and they went on and on about it so much, eventually I decided to just put on a coat and go out, if only to get away from their complaining.

“But you don’t like the cold,” Amy said, when she saw me all bundled up.

“Yes, yes,” I agreed waspishly, “but I’m still going out in it.”

I went.

Knock, knock, knock.

I gave my request to the maid who answered the door and a moment later my request appeared before me.

“Emily!” Laurie sounded surprised, I hoped not unpleasantly. “What brings you out on such a miserable day?”

“A while back,” I said, “Jo told me that you have a pool”—I had to correct myself—“I mean, a billiards table here but that you don’t often play at home because it’s boring to play alone.” I took a brave breath. “So I thought I could remedy that for you.”

“
You?
I don’t mean to laugh,” he said, laughing anyway, “but what could you possibly know about billiards?”

I knew this question would come up, so I’d given the matter some advance thought and devised an answer.

“Oh, I read all about it in some book. There are pretty colored balls, you hit them with a stick called a cue, you try to get them in pockets. Don’t you know that you can learn a lot from reading books?”

Since no one had asked me to stay awhile, I took off my own coat, looked around.

“So,” I said. “Where do you keep your billiards table?”

C-RACK!

Laurie broke the balls on our second game.

Nothing went in and it was my turn.

As I bent over the table to shoot, trying to remind myself what ball I was supposed to be shooting at, Laurie interrupted.

Interrupting a player who’s about to shoot—back home, in the real world, a person could get beaten up for doing that.

But that didn’t stop Laurie.

“It is the most peculiar thing,” he said. “You are very good at putting the balls in the pockets when you shoot—and, I confess, you have even sunk some combinations that would never occur to me to even attempt—and yet you do not appear to have a clue as to how the game is played at all in terms of the rules.”

Of course I didn’t. That’s because the game he played bore no resemblance at all to my eight ball. When he’d said he had a billiards table, he meant a billiards table, as in English billiards, not a pool table. And instead of the rainbow of solid and stripe balls I was used to, all he had were white, yellow, and red balls.

And I couldn’t ask for help since I’d already boasted that—

“Didn’t you say you read a book about billiards?” he said.

“Maybe it was in German,” I said, “in one of those books Mr. Brooke is always giving Meg.”

“But it really is just so odd. I watch you play and you appear to be playing very well at some game, just not this one.”

I took another shot.

“Nice shot!” he cried. Then: “Too bad it was the wrong ball.”

Before either of us could take another shot, we were interrupted by a maid announcing Miss Josephine March.

Why’d she have to interfere with everything?
I thought. Well, at least billiards was a game I could beat her at. So what if I didn’t know the rules? Even Laurie admitted I had a great shot.

“What’s wrong?” Laurie asked immediately upon seeing Jo enter, breathless.

“A telegram has come,” she said, looking at me with concern.

“For me?” I said dumbly. Who would be sending me a telegram? And weren’t telegrams almost always bad things?

“No, not for
you
.” Typical exasperated Jo. “For Marmee. It was from some man in Washington saying that Papa is in the hospital and that she must come at once.”

Laurie was standing close to me and he grabbed on to my elbow then as though to steady me.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concern in his voice.

I swallowed, nodded.

The truth was, I felt numb. I’d registered that something potentially awful had happened to this man everyone in the household referred to as Papa, but he wasn’t anyone I knew.

“I’m fine,” I said at last.

“Oh, why did the others, why did we
all
complain so much of being bored?” Jo, a girl I could never have pictured wringing her hands, did so now. “We said if only something exciting happened—but this! There was a ring at the door, Hannah answered, then she came back with that wretched telegram. Why could we not have been content as we were?”

“What can I do to help?” Laurie asked. “Anything!”

“Oh yes,” Jo said, getting a grip on herself. She produced a letter. “This is for Aunt March. Marmee is to leave for Washington on the first train in the morning to go nurse him. She is already gathering supplies, says the hospital stores are not always good, but she will need money from Aunt March for the trip. Could you please deliver the letter?”

“At once,” Laurie said. “I’ll go get my horse now.”

“And I have an errand of my own to run,” Jo said, “so hurry on home, Emily. They need you there.”

It felt good, the idea of being needed.

I started to follow Laurie out but then I heard Jo’s annoyed voice.

“Emily, what
were
you doing playing billiards with Laurie? You don’t know how to play
billiards
.”

Apparently not.