The Colors of Madeleine 01: Corner of White (20 page)

A few days later, the Girl-in-the-World replied.

Elliot read the letter.

“Ah, for crying out loud,” he said mildly. He crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash.

Shelby was flexing her fingers, twisting her wrists in their studded leather armbands. The cast from her broken arm had been removed that morning. She was reacquainting herself with the arm now, gazing at it as she walked.

“It didn’t heal properly,” she said. “I tried to take a swing at someone earlier and I couldn’t connect.”

The six were walking down Broad Street, heading to the Town Square for cold drinks, Elliot swinging high on his crutches.

“It’ll take a while,” Gabe suggested, “to get your normal strength back. Maybe longer for you, Shelby, your normal strength being what it is.”

“Who’d you take a swing at?” said a voice.

They were passing Jimmy Hawthorn’s place, and the Deputy Sheriff was home, working in his front garden.

“Who’d you take a swing at?” he repeated patiently.

“Can’t say a thing around this town,” sighed Shelby, “without somebody hearing.”

Jimmy shrugged and went back to his trowel, and the six of them kept walking.

“What’s that whistling sound?” said Elliot.

“It’s me,” said Nikki. “Whistling.”

“No. It’s more than that — it’s like a lower sound, like the wind.”

“Ah, then, it’s probably the wind.”

They passed Isabella Tamborlaine’s place, and now they were on the commercial part of Broad Street. A door swung open just ahead of them, and out came Norma Lisle, town vet.

She was holding a program player to her chest, its cords and cables dangling.

“Just taking this next door,” she said. “Seized up in the middle of
The Greenbergs
last night —
right
at the bit where that plumber — the one that’s always so handy when the characters’ toilets block up — when he’s about to kiss the schoolteacher with the temperamental kitchen sink. Any of you kids see the show?”

“He went ahead and kissed her,” said Cody. “But don’t let it get you down that you missed it, Norma. It wasn’t such a great kiss. And I kept wondering if he’d washed his hands.”

“Ah, Cody,” laughed Norma Lisle. “It’s the best thing there is in the televisual waves, isn’t it, though I can see from your friends’ faces
here that we might be alone in that opinion. I’ll just pop in and see if the Twicklehams can fix this, but listen, Elliot, before I do, how’s that Butterfly Child?”

Elliot swayed slightly on his crutches.

“She doesn’t do much except sleep, Norma,” he said. “There’s butterflies and other insects hanging around day and night, and sometimes she heads out for a ride on one of them. But when she gets back she falls straight asleep. Couple of times she
has
been awake and I’ve tried to say, ‘Hey,’ and ‘How’s things?’ but she just stares at me.”

“Huh,” said Norma. “Well, I cannot
wait
for the crop effect to start working. Not that I
have
any crops, of course, but I’ve got my lemon trees and my little herb garden — just some pots on my patio. I’m that excited about the day they’re going to start thriving! For everyone else, of course, not just me,” she amended quickly.

“It’ll happen,” said Kala. “Always takes a while.”

Then, as Norma reached a hand toward the door of Twickleham Repair, Shelby said, loud and clear: “Give your program player to me.”

Norma stopped, surprised, and turned back.

They could see through the glass into the repair shop. Fleta Twickleham was standing at the workbench, leaning forward, ready with a smile.

“There’s a supermart in Sugarloaf does repairs cheap,” Shelby explained. “I’m heading out there later today — got a broken player of my own.”

She held out her arms, one paler and thinner than the other, ready to take the program player.

“Oh, well, now,” said Norma, and she turned away again, pressing on the door so that its bell jangled. “That’d just be a nuisance for you!”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Shelby wrenched the player right out of Norma’s arms. “You always take such good care of my dogs when they’re sick,” she added. “Least I can do is take care of your program player.”

Norma let the door thud closed.

She studied the faces of the six teenagers. Then she shrugged.

“Well, that’s kind of you, Shelby! Guess it’ll save me time, and I
have
got an arthritic pig crying quietly in my waiting room!”

The others all agreed that the pig needed Norma more than her program player did, said their good-byes, and waited while the door to her vet’s rooms closed behind her.

Then they turned to Shelby.

“You really taking a player into Sugarloaf tonight?” Nikki asked.

“Nah. Don’t even
have
one. I’ll fix this for Norma myself. Taught myself how to fly the crop duster, I can figure this out.”

“Call me later if you can’t do it,” Kala said. “I’ll see if I can track down a manual.”

“The way you took that thing out of her arms,” said Gabe. “Guess you got your strength back after all.”

They laughed, heading up the street again. Behind the glass of Twickleham Repair, Fleta’s face creased with confusion.

She slept on her side, the Butterfly Child, little hands clasped together, knees drawn up under the sapphire blue dress. Elliot wasn’t sure anymore that it
was
a dress; seemed like it might be part of her, a sort of skin.

It was late, past midnight, and he’d woken with the moonlight splashing on his coverlet and come downstairs. The moonlight was more composed here, shining in neat shafts and bars, lighting up the windows of the doll’s house.

She was maybe as long as his index finger, but the tininess was more in her features, and now, in his half-asleep state, Elliot felt a surge of something — of how confounding it was, that tininess. Those little hands, little fingers, little bare feet with their tiny, tiny toes. The lashes of her closed eyes, the sweetness of her nose, the soft breath of pale yellow hair across the pillow, the bend of her elbow, tilt of her chin.

What was it about littleness that made it catch at your heart like this? Elliot’s mind ran with little things — snowflakes, hailstones, raindrops, the pin you put through the hole when you clasped your
watch. You could say she was as tall as his finger, sure, but how to describe the size of that dimple in her cheek, and the knuckles of her hands?

He thought of raspberries — the separate little globes, or pockets, on a raspberry. He thought of the tiny bubbles that form around the edges of a glass of fresh-squeezed juice. The hesitant
x
that Kala added to her name when she wrote him notes. Smaller than that. The dot on an
i
.

It came to him, a memory of a day when his cousin, Corrie-Lynn, was just a few weeks old. So he, Elliot, must have been about nine. Uncle Jon and Auntie Alanna had been visiting, new baby in a sling around Jon’s shoulder, and they were talking about how they’d just cut the baby’s fingernails for the first time. How frightened they’d been of hurting those little fingertips.

Alanna had saved the clipping from the pinkie nail; she’d taped it to a piece of black notepaper, and they’d all laughed at her about that, but she hadn’t minded; and she’d taken it out of her purse to show. They’d all exclaimed. Just
look
how tiny that is. That little sliver of fingernail. Can it be real?

The Butterfly Child: She was that kind of tiny. She should be taped to a piece of black notepaper and folded, safe, into somebody’s purse.

His mind kept tumbling with thoughts of tiny things: those miniature nuts, bolts, screws, washers, springs — the ones that his father kept in empty margarine containers and used tweezers or magnets to pick up.

He rubbed his face hard with both his hands and looked at her sleeping face. Her eyelids! How small were those little eyelids? And could they be twitching a little? Was she dreaming behind those eyes?

It was wrong to keep watching; he was spying, but he wanted to look even closer. What he needed —

Then it came to him.

The thing that was missing from his father’s possessions, the thing that was wrong or askew.

In the Sheriff’s station, Hector and Jimmy were both typing at their desks.