The Four-Story Mistake (19 page)
Read The Four-Story Mistake Online
Authors: Elizabeth Enright
“But we're not grown up,” Rush observed briskly. “None of us. Not even Mona.”
“She almost is. Dances, radio acting, and all that. She even puts powder on her nose sometimes.”
Rush flipped the pages of his music. “What do you care? I'm still here.”
“You won't be long. Pretty soon you'll start going to dances yourself. With girls and things.”
“For Pete's sake, Ran. You know how I hate all that stuff.”
“You will, though,” persisted Randy, a soothsayer disliking her wisdom. “Pretty soon you'll always be slicking down your hair, and talking hours and hours on the telephone, and cleaning your fingernails without being told.”
“Oh, shut up. I will not.”
“Yes, you will. And you'll be careful of your clothes, and always play lovey-dovey music on the pianoâ”
But that was too much. With a yelp of rage Rush leaped from the piano bench and chased Randy, shrieking and laughing, all the way downstairs and out of doors before he caught her.
“I take it back, I take it back,” squeaked Randy in a cowardly way; and Rush released her.
Oliver was standing in the doorway wearing pajamas with blue Dumbos all over them.
“What was the running and the noise about?”
“Rush and I had an argument, that's all,” said Randy, hugging him in spite of his protests. “Oliver darling, I'm so glad you're only seven!”
When Mona came home at half past ten she found Randy waiting up for her. Or rather she found Randy asleep in her bed, with the lights on, and a note pinned to the sheet under her chin which said, “Wake me up and talk.”
“Wake up, wake up,” called Mona in a whisper, shaking her sister's shoulder; and Randy grumbled, protested, and finally pulled herself together and sat up.
Mona was wearing her dressing gown. The pink dress lay in a crumpled wreath on the floor, and she was pulling off her slippers impatiently.
“Ooh, my feet, my feet.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Oh, yes, wonderful. Everybody danced with me, even Mr. Coughing. I didn't step on anybody's toes either, but lots of people stepped on mine.”
“Are you glad you went?”
“Yes, it was an Experience. But I think I'll enjoy it more when I'm older. You know, sophisticated, with a permanent wave and all.”
Mona wiggled her bare toes luxuriously.
“Let's go out, it's a wonderful night, and I'm going to bathe my feet in the brook, they're so hot and stepped-on. Let's get Rush too. Oliver would only be walking in his sleep, so we won't bother
him.
”
Rush awoke with the alacrity of one to whom sleep is a tedious waste of time. “Let's go out via the kitchen,” he suggested.
Quietly, quietly they went down the stairs. For some reason they had all begun to laugh, and every now and then it was necessary to pause, holding back the wild laughter that struggled inside them, hugging their ribs, aching with it. It escaped only in short, stifled gusts, and hiccups. None of them could have told you what they were laughing at.
Recovered, but still gasping, they achieved the kitchen where there was so much moonlight streaming in through the screen door that they didn't have to turn on the light to find the cookie jar and the root beer.
“Don't let it slam,” cautioned Mona, arms full, holding the door open with her heel.
Beside the house the white peonies looked huge and pearly, shining out of their dark leaves. The air was full of their clean-clothes fragrance; and the honeysuckle was beginning; you knew it every time you took a breath.
Like ghosts the children walked across the lawn on their bare feet. The moon was full. Above the damp grass hung a veil of mist, luminous with moonlight and spangled with fireflies. There was no wind, and the sound of the brook was very distinct, tinkling, splashing, rushing softly. It made Mona think of an ancient fountain, shaped like a shell, covered with moss, and set in a secluded garden: something she half remembered, or imagined.
“How warm it is,” cried Randy, suddenly leaping and pirouetting across the dewy grass. “Oh, summer, summer, summer!”
A rank smell of fresh water and soaked maple keys came upward from the brook as they approached. It lay concealed, deep in inky shadow, with only an occasional glimmer of light wavering on its surface.
“Gosh!” said Rush appreciatively. “Imagine sleeping when you can be out in this!”
They walked carefully in the darkness, trying to avoid the places where they remembered rocks or poison ivy, and finally they came to the little pool above the falls. Rush put the root-beer bottles in the water to cool.
Mona felt that the moment called for a suitable quotation and thought of one after a brief scramble through her mind. She began it in a low hushed voice.
“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here we will sitâ”
“And bathe our aching feet,” said Rush, quickly nipping her in the bud. “Listen, Mona, we know you know ten city blocks of quotations from Shakespeare.”
“All right,” said Mona good-naturedly, and they sat down side by side on a rock with their feet in the dark cool water. After a while when it was cold enough they drank the root beer and ate the cookies. Occasionally they slapped at mosquitoes, but without these tiny flaws the hour would have been too perfect.
Against the shadows fireflies wrote their meaningless hieroglyphics. Rush caught one and held it gently in his closed hand, watching the cold light come and go, come and go, between his fingers.
“This is better than the city,” he said.
“Better than the other valley, or the lighthouse even,” said Randy.
“Better than anywhere we ever lived,” said Mona.
From under the canopy of leaves they looked across the lawn to the big, square house, blue-white in the moonlight. Its windows were black, and so were the sharp shadows under its eaves, and the heavy fringes of the spruce trees which swept the roof. They thought it looked very beautiful.
At last Randy stood up with a little splash. “I'm going to bed and write a poem,” she said.
“I've got some music beginning in my head right now that may be good enough for Opus III,” Rush announced, and Mona said that
she
planned to go back to her room and recite all the Shakespeare she wanted, far from the sensitive ears of her brother.
But as it happened the poem never got beyond a single opening phrase: “Oh, summer night!” The music for Opus III was completed only in a dream; and as for the quotations from Shakespeare, that evening, at least, they never were recited at all.
Out of doors the night lived out its life serenely and splendidly. Toward morning a small wind began to blow, as though it came from far, far away; as though it were the first ripple of an advancing tide. With its coming the night commenced to dissolve, to weaken, and though one could see no daylight yet, a rooster miles away knew better, and began to crow.
And now the birds were waking up: at first only one, with a drowsy, broken chirp, and then another and another till the air was spattered with a thousand different notes.
At a quarter to seven Cuffy opened the kitchen door and out flew Isaac and John Doe, running madly, careening in circles, flinging themselves upon the grass with their eyes rolling, like prisoners who had been pent up for a lifetime. A smell of coffee mingled with the honeysuckle.
At half past seven Cuffy herself came out, breathing the morning air and bending over to see how the rose moss was coming along. Funny none of the children are awake yet, thought Cuffy, straightening and looking up at the quiet windows. Well, school is over, summer is just beginning, and they are children. Let them sleep a little longer. Let them sleep.
Elizabeth Enright
(1909â1968) was born in Oak Park, Illinois, but spent most of her life in or around New York City. Originally envisioning a career solely in illustration, she studied art in Paris, France, and at the Parsons School of Design in Manhattan. In 1937, her first book was published, quickly proving her talent for writing as well as for drawing.
Throughout her life,
Elizabeth Enright
wrote and illustrated numerous award-winning children's books. Among those awards were the 1939 John Newbery Medal for
Thimble Summer
and a 1958 Newbery Honor for
Gone-Away Lake.
The first of the Melendy Quartet,
The Saturdays,
was published in 1941. It was followed by T
he Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five,
and
Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze. Ms.
Enright was also a highly regarded writer of short stories published in magazines, such as the
New Yorker
and
Harper's.
Her stories are assembled in four collections:
A Moment Before the Rain, Borrowed Summer, The Riddle of the Fly,
and
Doublefields.
Translated into numerous languages throughout the world, Ms. Enright's writings have been loved by many generations, and they continue to find an audience with young and old alike. You can sign up for email updates
here
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Spiderweb for Two: A Melendy Maze
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Contents
I. The Last Time and the First
