Little Women and Me (9 page)

“You must be Miss Emily,” Laurie said to me as I entered, leaving me surprised.

How did he …?

“I realize we’ve never been formally introduced,” he went on, his cheeks coloring, “but I hear you all call to one another. And at night sometimes, when you forget to draw the curtains, I can see you.”

Okay
, I thought,
that’s just a little creepy
.

“If you enjoy watching us,” Jo said cheerfully, “if it entertains you, then I shall make sure those curtains are never drawn again.”

Oh, good one, Jo
, I thought to myself.
Way to enable the stalker
.

“But if Emily and I are to stay,” Jo went on, “one of us should really go back home to get Marmee’s permission.”

I remained standing where I was. Well, it was her idea.

“Emily?” she prompted after a long moment of silence.

“What?” I returned. I didn’t want to leave her alone with Laurie. What I really wanted was to have him all to myself. Even if he was a stalker.

To heck with the pact. If there was only one guy in the story, why should I be the one to go without?

“Well, you are younger than me by one—”

“Oh, fine,” I said through gritted teeth.

When I finally returned fifteen minutes later, not only had I gotten Marmee’s permission, but my arms were full.

The others had all insisted I bring something for the invalid.

Beth had insisted I bring three kittens to cheer him up, which seemed a weird thing to send to a sick person, plus they kept scratching me. Meg had insisted I bring a blancmange she’d made. I remembered reading about blancmange in the original book and not knowing what it was but thinking it sounded revolting. Now I knew. It was a sweetened dessert made from gelatinous or starchy ingredients and milk. And yes, it was
so
gross. The only thing that saved the disgusting white mess were the flowers and leaves from Amy’s pet geranium that she’d insisted I use to decorate the border. Leave it to one of the March sisters to have a geranium for a pet—a March Chia Pet! At least it didn’t scratch.

As for me, what did I bring? Myself. Wasn’t that enough?

“I’m back!” I called as I reentered the house.

“We’re up here!” Jo called from somewhere up above me. “In Laurie’s room!”

You fast mover, Jo March
, I thought as I took the stairs with determination, juggling cats and blancmange and geranium decorations.
Well, two of us could play at this!

“Laurie tells me they haven’t lived here long either,” Jo informed me as I entered the room, breathless, depositing the kittens and blancmange on the first available surface: the astonished invalid’s lap.

Wait a second. Did she just say “either”? But I thought we always lived here. At least I thought the Marches did.

“So I’ve been advising Laurie on how to make friends,” Jo said.

HA! For one who never took advice, Jo was awfully good at dishing it out.

“I told him how I’ve already gotten to know all the neighbors except for him,” Jo said. Hands on hips, she looked around the room. “Look at this messy room! I told Laurie it should be set to rights before I read to him.”

It really was amazing how much they’d managed to discuss in the time I’d been gone, although somehow I sensed Jo had done most of the talking.

“Emily?” Jo cocked an eyebrow at me.

“What?” I finally spoke. Sometimes it was tough to get a word in edgewise with Jo.

“
The room
.” She glanced at our surroundings with a meaningful look: the messy sheets, the scattered clothes, the disorderly bookshelves.

“You don’t mean—” I started to say. “But that’s wack!”

“ ‘Wack’?” Laurie asked, looking extremely interested in me all of a sudden. “I love words, and that’s one I’ve never heard before, or at least not quite in that way.”

“
Wack
means crazy,” I informed Laurie, thinking:
Yay! We have something in common! We both love words!

“Then why didn’t you just say ‘crazy’?” Jo pressed. “Or even ‘wacky’? Although there is no such word as
wacky
, it would make more sense than
wack
if you were looking for a synonym for
crazy
.”

Wait. No
wacky
? What kind of world was this? Oh, right. It was a world in which, not only was there no
wack
yet, there wasn’t even a
wacky.
I was going to have to get my hands on a good dictionary, I realized, and memorize the whole thing.

“So what you really meant to say was ‘wacky,’ “ Jo persisted.

“No,” I finally said, annoyed. Suddenly I didn’t care how wack it made me look in their eyes, I refused to let her win another argument. “I
meant
to say ‘wack,’ “ I informed her defiantly. Then I looked at Laurie, shrugged. “What can I say? I love words and I like inventing new ones.”

Laurie’s eyes lit up. “Miss Emily! How charming!”

“You can just call me Emily,” I said, “now that we’re friends.”

“Emily,” Jo said.

“Hmm?” Gosh, Laurie was cute.

“The room?” Jo said.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you silly goose,” I said, still gazing into Laurie’s beautiful dark eyes. “You know I spend all day every Thursday cleaning our home with Beth. If you think Laurie’s room should be cleaned so badly, clean it yourself.”

While Jo grumbled around the room, “setting things to rights,” it was my turn to learn a few things.

I learned both his parents died when he was little—sad.

I learned Brooke was Mr. John Brooke, his tutor—useful.

I learned his grandfather didn’t like him to play the piano—perplexing.

“Are you two just going to sit there and talk all day?” Jo huffed, plumping the last pillow and placing it on Laurie’s bed.

“I know!” Laurie clapped his hands on his thighs. Since we’d arrived, he already looked less sick than when we first saw him from the window. At least he was more cheerful. “I’ll show you Grandfather’s library!”

The library he led us to was even bigger than Aunt March’s, with a large portrait of Mr. Laurence dominating the room.

“What an amazing room,” Jo said. In moments like these, I didn’t resent her at all, because I was feeling the exact same thing—all those books to fall into.

“Grandfather lives among his books,” Laurie informed us.

HA! Don’t we all!
I thought half bitterly, suddenly tired of being a fly on the wall in someone else’s life. If this had followed the original book, Jo was meant to be alone here with him. I was just an extra in their play.

Well, at least by being here I could enforce the pact.

“Don’t you think Grandfather looks frightening in that picture?” Laurie asked Jo.

“No,” Jo said. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

And in that instant I realized she
wasn’t
afraid of anything and that that was part of her magic. Me? I was afraid of all sorts of things, always had been. I was afraid of remaining in this world, but now I was also afraid of going back to my old life. It’s not like I’d ever fit in so great there to begin with, and what with the changes in me since being here, that would probably only get worse. What if I started spouting “shall” at everybody? Kendra would think I’d gone nuts. Plus, if I left here too soon, how would I ever save Beth?

A servant came to inform Laurie that the doctor had come to check up on him.

How quaint—house calls!

A moment later, I was left in the library, studying the old man’s portrait with Jo.

“You know,” Jo said, “the old man knew our grandfather.”

No, I hadn’t known that, and it didn’t make much sense to me. Didn’t Jo say earlier that we and the Laurences were both relative newcomers to our houses? And yet now she was saying that our grandparents had been friends?

I heard a door open and click shut, a sound Jo appeared oblivious to.

“Of course, he’s not as handsome as our grandfather,” Jo said, comparing the portrait in front of us to some vision in her mind of a grandfather I’d never seen, never known.

I heard the sound of footsteps approaching, glanced over my shoulder.

“Jo?” I warned her.

“And that mouth,” Jo went on, “so grim!”

The footsteps drew nearer.

“Jo?” I tried again.

“I’ll bet he has a tremendous will,” Jo went on.

Oh, to heck with it
, I thought.
This could be fun.

Jo tilted her head to one side. “Although from this angle, he does look like he might be a little wack. But no. I’m not scared of him at all.”

I watched as the gnarled hand gripped Jo’s shoulder, watched the look of horror on her face as she spun around and saw the person I’d known had been in the room with us for some time: Mr. Laurence.

“Not scared of me, huh?” he demanded.

She may have blushed like crazy, but still Jo stood her ground. “No, sir.”

And she continued to stand her ground as he asked her about what she’d said about his mouth and his will. She may never have intended to offend him, but she’d meant what she said and, even having been overheard, wouldn’t back down now.

“And you think I look …
wack
?” the old man said, puzzling over that last word.

“I only said a little wack, sir,” Jo corrected, blushing even
more as she shot me a hard look. Clearly this was all to be my fault for having taught her that word in the first place. “Only a little, but yes, sir, in that picture I’m afraid you do.”

Good
, I thought.
Now he will kick her out, for her rudeness and her impertinence and for calling him a little wack. He will kick her out for good and then I will have Laurie to myself for—

That’s when the old man roared. Only it wasn’t in anger, I realized after a moment. He was roaring in laughter. And what was worse, he wasn’t laughing at Jo, he was laughing with her.

“How delightfully honest you are!” he said, struggling to control his laughter. “I wish there were more girls in the world like you!”

I glared at Jo.

I couldn’t help it, I was jealous. Jo had said all those things, and
still
the old man found her charming? Jo could get away with anything!

One thing Jo couldn’t get away with. Spotting the grand piano in the drawing room, she begged Laurie to play so that she could tell Beth about it, and Laurie played beautifully. The part she couldn’t get away with was that the old man, hearing him play and realizing she had urged him to, hustled us toward the front door.

“I think that in Theodore’s condition,” the old man said, “he has had quite enough entertainment for one day. But it would be wonderful if you March girls spent more time in the future with him. I think Theodore could benefit greatly from your society, so long as there isn’t any more piano playing.”

“I could come every Friday!” I offered. “I’m free every Friday!”

Jo glared at me.

“What?” I said as we trudged off toward home. “It’s the truth. I have every Friday free, and—”

“Oh, do be quiet, Emily. Sometimes I think you must be wack.”