The Romeo and Juliet Code (2 page)

I tried not to answer, but in the end I said, “Yes,” in a very solemn way. And I climbed the long stairs behind my uncle Gideon.

As I climbed those long dark stairs, so began my stay in Bottlebay, Maine, USA, where they didn’t have tea at night, they had supper, and no one said “jolly good” or “jolly right” or “I should think so, shouldn’t I.” Instead, they said “super!”

“Oh, that’s super,” said Uncle Gideon with one suitcase in each hand, looking nervously back at me over his shoulder to check that I was still there.

That was after I had said, “I think I am going to be staying here a while because there’s a war in England and a lot of the buildings are being bombed to pieces.”

Uncle Gideon said again, “Super! Oh, I don’t mean about the buildings, but super about your being here, staying here. We live on a sandy point which is unusual for this part of Maine. A lot of people like the ocean generally. I mean, sometimes they pay oodles of money to stay near it. I mean, do you like the sound of the sea? Maybe? Sort of?”

“No,” I said, “it’s a very lonesome sound, isn’t it.”

Uncle Gideon turned his head away from me then, as if he was trying suddenly to hide his face.

We were now up one flight. There were some bedrooms off the long hall and we passed a closed door near the landing. I was feeling ever so tired from the long stairs, so I stopped for a moment. Uncle Gideon said, “Wait. No. I mean, oops, would you mind staying away from that door over there? Could you kind of steer clear of it for me?”

“Oh,” I said, “sorry.”

“Well, now, about your aunt Miami,” Uncle Gideon said, clearing his throat. “Her room is just across the hall here. She loves flowers. Look at all the bouquets she’s got in there. And I’ll tell you something while she’s downstairs, to get things straight from the start. We are the Bathburns of Bottlebay. And your aunt Miami’s real name is Florence Bathburn, but she changed it a while back to Miami. And you can see why, being as she is a young woman and living way out here on the point on the ocean … Florence Bathburn sounded boring and old maid-ish, but Miami has a lot of pizzazz. Don’t you think?”

“I should think so,” I said.

“Oh, you should, should you?” said Uncle Gideon. “Now, don’t stop here. We’ve got to lug these suitcases up and around one more time to the third floor.”

I looked back at the door I was not to go near. It looked like a perfectly ordinary dark wooden door. I thought about The Gram standing in the shadows in the hallway. She didn’t come out to kiss my Winnie and Danny. Why didn’t she kiss them and hug them?

“Yes, this house gets blown about pretty badly now and again in the weather. But we usually stay put during storms. We Bathburns take pride in the fact that we have never gone to the shelter in town during a hurricane. Not once,” said Uncle Gideon, taking a deep breath and then looking over at me out of the corner of his eye.

Why did The Gram stay in the hallway? Why did Uncle Gideon push Danny away when he tried to hug him? How long would Winnie and Danny be gone?

I tried not to say one more word. I pretended my mouth was sewn shut like Wink’s. I was practically strangling that poor bear right now, my arm was so tight round his neck.

“So, what do you think? Do you like the house?” said Uncle Gideon in a hopeful, rather sheepish way. He closed his eyes and put a hand over his face and then he opened one eye and peeked at me through two of his fingers while he waited for my answer.

“Well,” I said finally, “it is rather tall, isn’t it.”

“It’s what you call a Victorian,” he said. “It was built in 1850. Hasn’t been touched since. But that’s no fault of mine. I guess we should get rid of some of the old Victorian furniture, but we’re used to it here. It’s cozy and lived in. Every year, Miami threatens to tear down the old wallpaper and put up something with some pizzazz. But The Gram won’t let her, because The Gram runs things around here. You’ll find that out.

“Now, what we’ve got here,” Uncle Gideon said, opening a short door at the top of the last flight of stairs, “is a little tower room we call the widow’s peak. Look at the height and the views and see the little porch around the outside? That’s called a widow’s walk. This was once a sea captain’s house, and his wife would stay up here to watch for his sailing ship to come over the horizon. All the families along the shore here waited for ships to come home. A lot of them never came back, you know.”

Once inside the room, there were many windows to the ocean, and I could see the hill behind the house, covered in scrub grass and tangled trees and wild rosebushes, and there was a small road leading away over the hill. I looked out on that small road, hoping to spot Winnie and Danny’s car, but by then, it was already long gone.

“This will be your room in a temporary sort of way, I guess,” Uncle Gideon said, frowning again and then pinching the bridge of his nose very tightly with his thumb and fingers. “Do you hear the wind? It talks to you up here all the time. Sometimes it moans, sometimes it calls, sometimes it sings. Do you like the sound of the wind? A little bit?”

“No,” I said. I was hoping to say only words like
yes
and
no
to Uncle Gideon whenever possible.

“Oh, we Bathburns love the sound of the wind. Every one of us, even The Gram. Perhaps it’s because out here the wind is all we have.”

I wondered then why my grandmother was called The Gram, but I soon got used to it. Just as I grew used to the constant sound of the sea and the tide crashing against the rocks, and the wet, damp smell of seaweed and salt and the forever-calling seagulls and the wind.

The next day, the sky darkened to a miserable gray, and endless sheets of rain fell and the ocean tossed about like something terrible and unhappy and restless. I had nothing to do but walk here and there, looking at the house. The dining room and sitting room at the front were dark, or at least there were long velvet curtains covering the windows, so you could hear the ocean all round you, but you couldn’t see it unless you peeked through the curtains, which I did. I stood behind them, looking down and out at the water and the rain. I was standing there missing Winnie and Danny. I was writing a letter to them, leaning my paper against the window, watching the rain blur over the glass.

Dear Winnie and Danny,

I miss you already. You didn’t exactly tell me when you are coming back. What does “soon” mean? I do wish you wouldn’t go home to London, because of the war and the bombs and all that. I know you said not to send letters to our flat
because they wouldn’t get through and to keep them in a box until you get back, but I should like to post this letter. Where should I send it? There’s a telephone on the landing here, but no one uses it. Will you ring me up? Please?

Love,
Felicity

P.S. To be cheerful, I should say I’ve been putting my hair in plaits, as usual. I’ve started calling them braids like you do, Danny. So far I’ve been hearing a lot of Danny words like flashlight and antsy. The Gram asked me yesterday if I’ve always been antsy by nature. Have I?

I wasn’t hiding, honestly, because British children on the whole never hide or snitch or lie, but it turned out no one knew I was behind the curtains. I was terribly sorry to be sneaking about by mistake. Quite by accident I heard The Gram say to Uncle Gideon in the hall, “So how are you holding up with the child being here?”

“Oh, I guess I feel like I’m being ripped to pieces,” said Uncle Gideon.

“Well, you better take this tray up to Captain Derek before she comes downstairs.”

I stood there ever so quietly behind the curtains, trying not to snore or sneeze or cry, hoping I wouldn’t get hiccups, thinking to myself,
Ripped to pieces because of me? And who is Captain Derek? Is there an old sea captain hidden away somewhere upstairs? Why didn’t Winnie and Danny tell me?

I pressed myself against the window until Uncle Gideon had gone upstairs, with the dishes clattering on the breakfast tray, and The Gram had disappeared into the back rooms behind the kitchen. How could Winnie and Danny have left me here with an uncle who was angry with them and a sea captain I knew nothing about tucked away somewhere in the house and a door I had to steer clear of and a sky that only rained?

I folded the letter and put it in my pocket and I went out into the hall and I opened the front door. I looked far off and away where the edge of the sky touched the water. Everything was all clouded and darkened and blurry with rain.

“Oh,
there
she is,” said The Gram. “You scared us. We didn’t know where you were.” I turned round, and The Gram and Aunt Miami were standing there behind me. Gideon was bringing the breakfast tray back downstairs, the toast and eggs on the plate, untouched. Gideon was so tall, with a great bunch of reddish-brown hair, and for some reason that made me notice his eyes. I tried to avoid them, but they seemed to be everywhere, watching me.

On the whole, I am quite shy until you get to know me and then, Winnie says, I can be rather “rambunctious,” whatever that means. I do try to be very proper the way my Winnie always said I ought to be, though sometimes I can’t keep myself quiet. Sometimes, whatever it is that wants to pop out of my mouth goes right ahead and pops. “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m frightfully sorry, but is there a captain of some sort upstairs somewhere?”

Uncle Gideon looked at me with sorry surprise then, as if I were a glass jar he had just dropped and broken by mistake.

Aunt Miami bit her lower lip. She was clutching a little book against her heart and wearing a lovely, soft, silk party dress. She seemed always to be ready to attend a party.

The Gram looked at Aunt Miami and then at Uncle Gideon. Their eyes all went round and round to each other and then back to me, like bumblebees stuck on the wrong side of the window glass, knocking against the same useless spot over and over again.

Then finally, Uncle Gideon said, “Um, well, yes, um, actually, Captain Derek is here.” He cleared his throat again. “Somewhere.”

“Oh, he’ll be coming out of his room soon,” said Aunt Miami.

“Perhaps he’ll be down for dinner,” said The Gram. “Of course, he will.”

“Or breakfast tomorrow,” said Uncle Gideon, nodding his head up and down. Then The Gram pushed her face into Uncle Gideon’s large shoulder, and he patted her hair gently and shut his eyes very tightly.

I put my hand on the letter in my pocket. I didn’t know how to send it, but I was not going to cry. I decided to look up at the ceiling, hoping to find something terribly interesting up there that would help. But ceilings never offer any assistance. They are usually very plain. This one was dark and too far away to see anything except shadows. I decided I was not going to talk anymore at all. I turned round completely so I was facing the wall.

“Never mind about Derek for just now,” said Uncle Gideon. “The Gram has made muffins this morning. Haven’t you, Mother?”

“Oh, well, have you ever tasted one of The Gram’s muffins?” asked Aunt Miami.

“Oh,” said Uncle Gideon, “there’s no other word to describe them.
Ohhhh
is the perfect word. Won’t you come and try one? Please?”

When I finally did turn back round, Uncle Gideon was looking at me with his brown eyes tilted down. Then he wiped his face nervously with a handkerchief. “They’re made with almonds and a secret ingredient that The Gram won’t divulge. She won’t tell a soul, not even the president of the United States.”

“That’s right,” said The Gram.

“Please?” Uncle Gideon said again.

“Very well, then. I’ll try one bite,” I said, looking up the long stairs for a sign of Captain Derek. But all I saw were endless steps going round and up, round and up to the next floor, and then beyond to my windy tower room at the top of the house.

Aunt Miami went over to the open door and leaned her head against the screen, looking out at the slapping, wet, rainy, gray sea. She sighed and then she opened her book and started reading aloud, “
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo. Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet
. Isn’t it a lovely passage?” she said. “So poetic, so dreamy.”

“There she goes again,” said Uncle Gideon. “She’s rather stuck on that play, in my opinion. Shall we have our muffins, then?”

I did finally go into the kitchen, but only because I
had
to.

Most British children generally believe that all Americans wear cowboy hats and cowboy boots and ride horses about and like to shoot at things. I hadn’t expected Americans to be like this. I don’t think any British child would have liked the Bathburns (myself included). They were too big and strange and sad. Well, Uncle Gideon was, anyway. And I hadn’t expected to be in such a dark house with an unseen sea captain roaming about and no mailing address for my precious Winnie and Danny.

And so it was on that very first miserable, wet morning in Bottlebay, Maine, USA, that I took a bite of The Gram’s secret almond and honey muffins. And I had to close my eyes afterwards, to keep my British balance. I tried not to say anything, but that didn’t seem to matter.