Margaret and the Moth Tree (6 page)

Margaret turned to Hannah and opened her mouth to explain, but before she could get even a single word out —

“Miss Switch!” Lacey bellowed from the top of the stairs. “Margaret has been
stealing
from you!”

At these words, five gasps sounded — four genuine ones from the ladies and the Sheriff and a theatrical one from Miss Switch. Lacey rushed downstairs, and handed something to the Matron. “I found this in that ratty bag under her bed.”

“I can't believe it!” As though she were on a stage, Miss Switch held up a beautiful pearl necklace. “This is a treasured family heirloom!”

“Well it certainly doesn't belong under a child's bed then,” said Prudie. “Jewelry belongs in a jewelry case.”

“Marjorie must have taken it!” cried Gertrude. “It's the only logical explanation.”

“There's nothing worse than a thief,” said the Sheriff, looking stern.

Hannah looked at Margaret very closely, a mixture of surprise and confusion on her face. “I don't understand,” she said. “Margaret, did you do this?”

Margaret shook her head frantically, then opened her mouth to defend herself.

“Margaret, how could you?” Miss Switch cut in loudly, bringing her hand to her forehead and turning back to the group. Hannah was staring at Miss Switch now with a slight frown on her face.

“I'm so sorry you had to see this, Sheriff,” Miss Switch went on. “I'm afraid the child must be starved for attention to be acting out like this. It's a matter for a mother's gentle touch, not the firm hand of the law.”

“Well, all right,” said the Sheriff. “I must say you're being very forgiving about the whole thing. And you,” he added sternly, turning to Margaret. “If I hear you're giving Miss Switch any more trouble, I can tell you that I won't be nearly so understanding.”

“Nor will we,” said Prudie, her plump face pink with annoyance.

“Please accept our apologies, Miss Switch,” said Gertrude. “If we'd known this child had criminal tendencies, we'd have sent her straight to the loony bin.”

“You can always tell the bad ones,” added Prudie, “because they're less adorable than the others. That is something I know to be absolutely true.”

“It's not!” Margaret finally managed to say, but no one was listening. Already Switch was ushering them all out to the porch and down the front steps. Only Hannah turned to look back before she climbed into the police car with the others and they set off down the dirt road.

Margaret looked wildly around at the other orphans, but none of them would even look at her.

It was over. Margaret had failed. And Switch, the horrible, beautiful Switch, had most definitely won.

PART TWO
THE MOTHS

CHAPTER 12
The Dreg Who Didn't Exist

When the mousy girl called Judy told Margaret to keep her head down and try not to get noticed, it was for a very good reason. Drawing attention to yourself when Miss Switch was around, whether through a tiny hint of cheekiness or a grand act of rebellion, meant you were in for punishment.

“So,” said Switch in her purring voice when she returned from the porch. “You like to blab, do you? You like to chit-chat with policemen?” Her glittering eyes pierced Margaret's, and the corners of her mouth turned slowly up. “Well, blabby dregs must learn to shut their mouths.”

She turned to the other orphans.

“Those are the last words anyone is to speak to this dreg,” she said coolly. “If any of you so much as whisper to her, I'll tape your mouth shut for a month.”

“Yes, Miss Switch,” said the orphans.

“And you,” she turned to Margaret, “had best not make another sound for the rest of your pitiful life, or I'll feed you to a pack of coyotes.”

Miss Switch unplugged the telephone and locked it away in her bedroom. And from that day on, the others acted as if Margaret wasn't there.

She was made to do her chores completely on her own. Instead of screaming their orders at her in the usual way, the Pets would silently swat her on the head, shove a rag or broom at her and point in the direction she was to go. Her bed was moved out of the dregs' room into the hallway, where it caught a very chilly draft. And at mealtimes her food was put out on the porch, where she had to sit and eat it all alone.

Through it all, no one spoke a single word to her, not even Judy. To add injury to insult, the Pets gave her extra pinches to make up for their usual name calling.

It is a very unpleasant thing, being treated like you don't exist. A person with a weaker disposition than Margaret might think that they'd turned invisible without noticing, and would have to check a mirror every five minutes to be sure they were still there.

Margaret, though, kept her wits about her. No matter how much she was pinched and poked and prodded, she was careful never to make the slightest peep. In fact, after going a full day without saying a word to anyone, she was beginning to think she could bear her punishment quite well.

On Margaret's second day of silence, however, word went round that the Hopeton Orphanage was to receive two very special visitors:
parents
.

The arrival of potential parents at the orphanage was always a momentous occasion, because the thought of parents awakened a flutter of hope in every orphan. Unfortunately for the dregs, this hope was short-lived.

Every time a new couple came calling, Miss Switch would arrange the orphans in neat rows in the front hall, placing all of her most charming Pets in the very front. That way, they were the first ones the visitors saw when they stepped into the room.

She would coach the Pets on how to smile in the most adorable way and to give proper bows and curtseys. Then, at the back of the room, she would arrange the dregs.

“They'd have to be dotty to look at any of you,” Switch would say with a glare. “But if they do, don't even think about saying something stupid. I can promise that you'll regret it later.”

On this particular day, as the orphans stood in their rows wearing their red and blue coveralls, Margaret was tucked away in the very farthest corner of the room behind lanky Phoebe Frizzleton, whose poufy hair was blocking Margaret's face.

As the sound of a car engine came drifting through the window, Miss Switch appeared in a plain brown dress and a frilly white apron and made one final inspection of the Pets in the front row. Peering around Phoebe's shoulder, Margaret could see the curly-haired boy called Christopher Thrashley standing front and center, with Lacey at his side.

Switch disappeared from the room, and a few moments later she returned with a sweet-looking woman in a polka-dot dress and a man with a neat mustache.

“These are the orphans,” Miss Switch said with a sweep of her arm, as she led the couple before the waiting children.

“Oh!” cried the woman, whose eyes immediately fell on Christopher Thrashley.

“Indeed,” said the man, who looked as though he thought this fact was rather obvious.

“Please take your time,” said Miss Switch. “And feel free to ask me any questions. I have the personal histories of each child available should you wish to read them.”

The couple walked slowly along the first row of children before the sweet-faced woman came to a stop in front of Christopher.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “What's your name?”

“I'm Christopher,” he said, with a charming little bow. “It's very lovely to meet you!”

The woman beamed with delight and cast a quick glance at her husband, who nodded approvingly.

Beneath their smiles, the other orphans breathed a sigh of disappointment.

But just at that moment, an unexpected thing happened. Phoebe Frizzleton's poufy hair, which had been hanging down in front of Margaret's face, tickled her nose in precisely the wrong way, and Margaret gave a very loud, very high-pitched sneeze.

Every face in the room, including those of the man and woman, turned to look at Margaret, who clapped both of her hands over her mouth.

“Bless you, child!” said the woman, sweetly. “Martin, your hankie.”

The man pulled a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and edged between the rows of children to offer it to Margaret. “Here you are, little girl.”

With a small curtsy, Margaret took it.

“And what might your name be?” asked the man.

Margaret opened her mouth to answer, but just at that moment, she caught a glimpse of Miss Switch. The Matron was standing behind the man and the woman, just out of sight so that neither of them could see her. And her face was wearing an expression so frightening that Margaret didn't dare utter a single sound.

She froze, looking up at the friendly man with her mouth half open, then pressed her lips tightly together and dropped her eyes to the floor.

“That child,” Miss Switch said in a mock whisper, the sweetness in her face restored, “has a history of loopiness, I'm afraid. Runs in the family. It's best not to upset her.”

“Oh!” said the man, staring at Margaret in shock and backing away quickly.

“Well, what about this one, Miss Switch?” asked the woman, pointing back to Christopher Thrashley.

Miss Switch smiled. “Christopher is one of our most popular and well-behaved children. You won't find a more adorable child anywhere, I assure you.”

At a final nod from the friendly man, the sweet-faced woman smiled with delight. “We'll take him!” she said.

But Margaret barely heard what happened next. As Christopher whooped and ran into the arms of his new parents, all Margaret could hear were the words she wished she could have said to the friendly man and woman.

“My name is Margaret Grey,” she would have said. “I'm not loopy, it's just that I can't make a sound or I'll be fed to the coyotes. Please take me far away from here.”

But of course, the man and the woman couldn't read minds.

The papers were signed. And as the new family said their goodbyes and climbed into their car and drove away down the dirt road, Margaret stared intently downwards, her eyes blurry with tears.

CHAPTER 13
Serendipity

Margaret's Great-aunt Linda had often said, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” which was her way of saying that you should try to make the best of a bad situation. However, a far more useful saying would be, “If life gives you lemons, water, sugar, a pitcher and a long spoon to stir with, make lemonade.” Everyone knows that if life gives you lemons alone it is just bad luck, and the most you can do is try to trade them for something better.

But if life gives you lemons and you are already in possession of water, sugar, a pitcher and a long spoon to stir with, that is something else entirely. That is
serendipity
.

Margaret Grey had lived in silence once before. And because she had once lived in silence, her new punishment — though she didn't realize it yet — was a stroke of serendipity.

Even though she was very lonesome without anyone to speak to, and even though her arms became bruised and sore from all the pinches, Margaret found that the quiet was strangely familiar. As day after day went by without even a hint of conversation, she began to notice a very odd thing.

The first time it happened, she was dusting the kitchen rafters from the top of a teetering ladder. As she swept her duster across a cobwebby beam, sending a great cloud of dust into the air, she heard —

Achoo!

Margaret nearly fell off her ladder, because for a split second, she thought she'd heard a sneeze coming from a spider's web.

That's ridiculous, she told herself, giving her head a shake. No one can hear a spider sneeze.

But a few days later, it happened again. She was sweeping under the kitchen table, cleaning up after Miss Switch's afternoon feast, when from somewhere in the walls —

Grumble
.

Margaret bumped her head on the underside of the table. She could have sworn she'd heard the growl of a tiny mousy stomach.

That's absurd, she reminded herself, rubbing her sore head. No one can hear a mouse's hungry belly.

But with every passing day, it happened more and more.

She would be scrubbing the front steps and hear a crow land on the roof. She would be cleaning the Pets' bedroom upstairs and hear two dregs whispering all the way down in the basement.

Margaret knew these events were ridiculous. She knew they were absurd. She knew that, in a sensible world, they simply couldn't be. But just because something is absurd or ridiculous doesn't stop it from being true. And as the very smallest of sounds continued to trickle in, she realized what was happening.

She was hearing things no one else could hear.

Without even noticing she was doing it, Margaret had started to
listen
again. You see, there are some talents that can never really be lost. They are only hiding, like a sleeping turtle in its shell, waiting to be coaxed out and used again.