The Great Unexpected Read online

  When I returned with the eggs, Nula sat at the table with an oof. “You work, you talk, and I will sit for the first five minutes all day, won’t I?”

  First I told her about the buzz, buzz at Tebop’s General Store.

  “‘Dapper’?” Nula asked. “They said he was a dapper man? That wouldn’t be a Blackbird Tree man, now would it? Maybe a New York Big City man?”

  “They said he talked funny.”

  “Those New York Big City people talk funny.”

  “They thought his name was Doodle or Dangle or something like that.”

  “Probably a New York City reporter poking his nose into the ways of country folk. I don’t see why Mrs. Tebop gets in such a flap over the littlest things.”

  Then I told Nula about seeing Finn coming out of Witch Wiggins’s house.

  “Finn? Ah, yes, Finn, the boy who fell out of the tree. You shouldn’t call old Mrs. Wiggins a witch, Naomi, even if she does have that warty nose and earsplitting cackle and even if she does seem to affect the electricity in town.”

  Whenever Witch Wiggins gets in a tussle with someone, the power goes out for hours.

  Then I told Nula about Finn going on to Crazy Cora’s house.

  “That boy Finn gets around, doesn’t he? How does he know so many people here?” Nula leaned toward the bowl in which I had gathered the corn bread ingredients. “Naomi, did you put in that little bit of sugar the way I like?”

  “I did.”

  “That’s fine then. Now, where did you say this boy Finn went after the Wiggins place? Crazy Cora’s? You really shouldn’t call her crazy just because she has lost her mind entirely. She can’t help it.”

  Joe came in the back, letting the screen door slam shut. “Who can’t help it? Who are you talking about now?”

  Nula said, “Get on over here and rub my poor feet, old man.”

  “Your poor feet? What about my achin’ back?”

  “Tch, sit on down. Here is the scoop, according to Naomi: a big-city dapper stranger was nosing around in Tebop’s store, and that boy Finn—”

  “What boy Finn?”

  “The one that fell out of the tree. That boy Finn was over at Mrs. Wiggins’s place—”

  “Witch Wiggins?”

  “Mrs. Wiggins. And then that boy Finn went on over to Cora Capolini’s—”

  “Crazy Cora’s?” Joe slipped his hands inside the bib of his overalls and rested them on his chest. “I certainly am glad that all these strangers have time to go nosing around and visiting while the rest of us are hard at work. Yessir, that gives me great comfort indeed.”

  “Speaking of which,” Nula said, “work, that is. Naomi, it seems to me you’ve had enough lollypogging around this week and we need to settle on your summer chores.”

  “Rats,” I said. “Poor, pitiful me.”

  CHAPTER 15

  THE BARN

  In the middle of Nula and Joe’s property, between the house and the plowed fields, squatted an old red barn. No longer used for animals or hay, it was home to: Joe’s tractor; oil and gas cans; discarded furniture and appliances and saddles; a broken sundial; storage trunks; ladders; tools and gadgets of all shapes and sizes, including hoes, rakes, axes, hammers, shovels, screws, nails, tar pots, sandpaper, vises, saws, and much, much more—toilet parts and rubber washers and wire snakes—basically anything you might need to fix something.

  Joe did not lay claim to being the best fixer-upper, but he could probably take credit for trying the hardest. Every spring he climbed up on the house roof and replaced shingles that had blown off in the winter, and every winter they blew off again, and every spring he got back up there. The toilet was sometimes fixed with twine or dental floss or duct tape. Near every hook was a hole or two where he’d put a screw or nail in the wrong place first. Pretty much nothing hung level, but Joe said that was because one of his legs was shorter than the other and things that looked level to him might not look level to the rest of us.

  Nula and Joe had decided that, in addition to my usual indoor chores and my chicken chores, my summer job would be to clean out the barn.

  “The whole barn?”

  Joe said, “Yep.”

  “The loft, too?”

  “Yep.”

  “That spidery place where the old reins and saddles are?”

  “Yep.”

  Joe said he’d find me some help when it came to the bigger appliances and that we’d take those to the junkyard. Other things we’d sell in a big yard sale and I could keep half the profits.

  “Even if we get, say, a hundred dollars?”

  “Yep.”

  “I could keep half of that?”

  “Yep.”

  I had a sudden, sick feeling. “Wait. The loft. What about—you know—the trunks?”

  Nula put her hand to her mouth.

  “What about ’em?” Joe said. “Which trunks you talking about?”

  Nula patted his arm. “You know, the trunks. The trunks.” She blinked at him meaningfully.

  “Ahhh,” he said. “The trunks.” He tapped his fingers against his chest. “Maybe now is a good time to deal with those trunks. We’ll do it together. Not first, not right away. Maybe when everything else is done. How ’bout that? And if those trunks give us any trouble, we’ll just kick ’em. How ’bout that?”

  I was reminded of Joe’s tale of the poor man who won a donkey, and out of the donkey’s ears the man pulled astonishing things. One of my worries about the trunks in the barn was that they would be like my worst fears about the donkey’s ears: instead of something good coming out of them, we might pull out something bad.

  CHAPTER 16

  ACROSS THE OCEAN: THE REQUEST

  MRS. KAVANAGH

  Mrs. Kavanagh watched as Paddy McCoul approached slowly, tentatively, his hat in hand, looking down at his feet as if he had something to be ashamed of—which he did, he did. He was of middling height and stocky, with ruddy cheeks and thick, unruly, graying hair. His clothes were ill-fitting: his shirt and vest too tight, his pants baggy. He looked like a man who needed some tending.

  Serves him right, thought Mrs. Kavanagh. She waited for him to speak first. She was not going to make this easy for him.

  “Sybil—er—Ma’am—er—Missus—”

  Mrs. Kavanagh looked up at him, eyeing him as if he were a curious donkey who had wandered into the orchard.

  “Not sure what to call you. You was always Sybil to me, and then once’t you come up to the Master’s house—God rest his soul in heaven above—I didn’—I don’—”

  “Stop your yabbering, Paddy McCoul. You don’t need to call me anything at all. You don’t need to be here at all. State your business and be off with you.”

  Paddy twisted the hat in his hand. “Now, Sybil, er, Missus—is that any way to talk to an old friend?”

  “Pilpenny!” Mrs. Kavanagh shouted toward the house. “Bring the gun!”

  “Now, now, no need to let tempers flare—”

  “You’d best state your business quick, Paddy McCoul. Pilpenny! The big gun!”

  “Och. Yes’m, yes’m. I come for the trunk.”

  “What trunk?”

  “The one, ma’am, of me only son—” Paddy McCoul pulled a soiled rag—not even a handkerchief, Mrs. Kavanagh noticed—from his pocket and dabbed at his eyes.

  “Stop the foolery, Paddy McCoul. You won’t get my sympathy. You’re a useless wreck of a man and you don’t deserve even the dust that lies on that trunk. You’d best be off before—Pilpenny! Ah, here comes Pilpenny with my gun.”

  Paddy McCoul backed away. “This is no way to treat me, Sybil. You’d best think it over. I’ll be seeing a solicitor, I will.”

  “Fine indeed. Lovely, that. You see a solicitor, Paddy McCoul, and if he does not laugh you out of his office, I will be a dinneky doon.”

  “A what?”

  Mrs. Kavanagh took the gun from Pilpenny and placed it across her lap. With one end of her shawl, she dusted off the muzzle. She raised t
he gun.

  CHAPTER 17

  THE UNFORTUNATE SOULS

  Lizzie’s home chores were few because Mrs. Cupwright suffered headaches when “persons” were underfoot, and so Lizzie offered to help me clean out the barn if I would help with her community service. The target of her service to the community was going to be “the unfortunate elderly,” under the supervision of Mrs. Mudkin, from her church.

  Joe, Nula, and I did not go to an official church on Sunday, much to the botherment of others. Instead, we had “Sunday pause” time. After Sunday breakfast, we’d go outside and sit ourselves down wherever we chose—on the fence, the ground, or the metal chairs—and Joe would say something along the lines of, “Look at this green place we have landed in. It’s a beauty,” and Nula would say, “It’s almost as green as the green hills of Ireland,” and I would usually not say anything at all, merely listen to the chickens or the birds or the church bells in the distance. We’d sit there awhile, depending on the weather, until Joe would say, “There, now. That feels good and I didn’t even have to put on fancy clothes.”

  I used to enjoy these Sunday pauses, but for the past year they’d been making me itchy. What else? I wondered. What else is out there? And I would fly off, up into the air, through the clouds, over the fields, beyond the town, over the cities, over the rivers, over the ocean until I got to the green hills of Ireland, and when I heard Joe say, “There, now. That feels good …” I’d come home.

  On Sunday afternoon, I met Lizzie at her church so we could go over our duties with Mrs. Mudkin for helping the poor, unfortunate elderly. If you saw Mrs. Mudkin, you might wonder why she herself was not on the list of the poor, unfortunate elderly. Tiny and narrow as a stick, she had papery skin so thin you could see right through to her veins. On her face, as wrinkled as an old plum, were narrow glasses dotted with rhinestones. Her hair was violet and tightly curled; her brown-flowered dress fell to her tightly laced, sturdy shoes.

  She was not sure if I would be a good helper for Lizzie, seeing as I did not belong to their church, but Lizzie told her that I might be converted if I hung around her doing good deeds for the poor, unfortunate elderly.

  “Now, girls,” Mrs. Mudkin said, “here is a list of things you might do to help the poor souls.” She handed Lizzie a piece of paper on which she had written, in her shaky script, suggestions. She then proceeded to read the list to us:

  “You might assist with personal grooming (combing hair, tying shoes, washing)—”

  Lizzie interrupted. “‘Washing’? You don’t mean bathing them, do you? Because I don’t think that’s appropriate, do you?”

  “Well, now, no, dear,” Mrs. Mudkin said. “I mean maybe they want help washing their faces.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you saying some of these souls are so unfortunate that they cannot wash their own faces?”

  “Well, now. If they are bedridden, for example, they might need help with that, yes.” Mrs. Mudkin glanced down at her list and read the second item. “You might assist with household chores, such as dusting, sweeping, dishwashing, laundry, ironing.”

  Lizzie said, “Excuse me, ma’am, but that sounds like what a maid would do. Are we going to be maids for the poor, unfortunate souls?”

  Mrs. Mudkin eyed Lizzie over the top of her jeweled spectacles. “No, you are not going to be maids. You might only do one or two of these things for each person. Here, dear, why don’t you read through the list on your own, and I will meet you here Tuesday at noon and escort you to the first home. You’ll find a list of poor, unfortunate souls on the back.”

  Mrs. Mudkin seemed in a hurry to be rid of us, nearly pushing us out the door. At the bench outside of Tebop’s store, we sat down to read through the rest of the list. Most of the suggestions were along the lines of: reading aloud from the newspaper or Bible, feeding cats and changing litter boxes, that sort of thing. At the bottom, though, was a note about Things to Avoid, and these included:

  Discourage use of alcohol and tobacco.

  Discourage bad language.

  Discourage slovenly habits.

  Lizzie turned the page over. On the back was a list of four names and their addresses. The first two were elderly gentlemen, Mr. T. Canner of 12 Elm Street, and Mr. A. Farley of 23 Pork Street.

  “You know them, right, Naomi? The one with the pointy head—old man Canner? And the one who got hit by the train—one-armed Farley?”

  And then we saw the next two names.

  “No!” Lizzie breathed. “No!”

  But there they were, right there: both Crazy Cora and Witch Wiggins were on the list.

  “We can’t go there,” Lizzie said. “We are just going to have to tell Mrs. Mudkin, aren’t we, Naomi? We can’t be going into places that have a thousand alive birds and a bunch of coffins and crazy people running about. We certainly can’t be expected to go to those places, can we?”

  Once, when I was seven or eight, I climbed a tall oak tree at the far edge of our field. What a view! A breeze came in fits and starts, the leaves tickled my arms and legs, and I was at the top of the world. As I went to climb down, my foot slipped and my weaker arm wasn’t able to grab the nearest branch, and down, down I went. I remember thinking, I’m falling, falling. I came to at the base of the tree: scratched, bruised, and with a powerful headache. I made my way to the house, where Joe greeted me.

  “What got you? Have you been tangling with a bear? Fall out of a tree?”

  “That was the other Naomi.”

  “What?”

  “Not me, the other Naomi. She fell out of a tree.”

  Joe and Nula kidded me about that for some time. If I left the milk out on the counter, they’d say, “Who left that milk out? Must’ve been the other Naomi,” or “Did the other Naomi forget to feed the chickens?”

  After we left Mrs. Mudkin, I was wondering if maybe the other Naomi could visit the unfortunate souls.

  CHAPTER 18

  THE DANGLE DOODLE MAN

  I was on my way home that day when I heard, “Hey, tree girl!”

  I turned around. Finn was floating toward me. Truly, I think he floated on the air. My feet stuck to the ground and my mouth froze in an O.

  “Hey, tree girl, wait up.”

  Wait up? I couldn’t have moved even if I’d wanted to. Look at that nice hair, I thought stupidly. Look at those long legs. Look at that mouth—

  When he reached me, he said. “I’ve got a question for you.”

  I managed to form a few words. “For me?”

  “You seem to know everyone around here, so maybe you know this person.”

  He smelled very, very good. Clean, like soap. “Which person?”

  “Elizabeth Scatterding.”

  “Who?” I croaked.

  “Elizabeth Scatterding. Do you know where I could find her?”

  I wondered if a person could die standing up. “That’s Lizzie,” I finally managed. “The other tree girl.”

  Finn smiled and tapped my arm. “Ho! You don’t say! That’s great. Where does she live?”

  And so I, in my supreme mortification, had to tell Finn where my friend Lizzie Scatterdinghead lived, and then I had to watch him wave at me as he turned and headed in the direction of Lizzie’s house, and then I had to force my body to aim for home, picking up my leaden feet one at a slow, glompy time.

  My brain was shut down. It felt as if a fungus had infiltrated every little convoluted corner.

  In the distance, a man was coming toward me. Definitely not a Blackbirdy Tree critter. He was a rectangle man—tall and narrow—and dressed up as if for church, with a suit and tie and shiny shoes.

  “Hello there, miss,” he said in a most polite way. “Miss” sat aloft in the air a few seconds. “Charming day, don’t you think?”

  “Mm.”

  “I’m having a little stroll, obtaining my bearings.”

  “Mm.” This must be the Dingle Dangle man, I thought. Odd that he and Finn have come to town at the same time. I said, “Yo
u don’t happen to know a boy named Finn, do you?”

  His head jerked slightly to the left and then to the right, like a bird on a worm prowl.

  “What’s that? I beg your pardon?”

  “A boy named Finn—do you happen to know him?”

  His eyes switched from left to right. “Finn? Did you say Finn?”

  “I did.”

  “Goodness. Finn, you say?” With one finger he stroked the top of his head. “I’ve known a few Finns, more than a few to be precise.”

  “But did you bring a boy named Finn here with you to Blackbird Tree?”

  “Not that I recall.”

  “Mm. Well, if you’re looking for a Finn, he’s over at the Cupwrights visiting Miss Lizzie Scatterdinghead.”

  “How perfectly odd,” the man said. “And might I ask your name?”

  “No.”

  “I see. No matter. Ta.”

  Nula was standing on the porch, hands on hips. “Power’s out. Who is ole Wiggins mad at now?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t know anything today. Going up to the barn for a bit.”

  From the barn, from the loft, I went to the moon. It took me a while to get there, but when I arrived, I opened my eyes and looked back at the earth. I did not see a beautiful blue-and-green marble. What I saw was a giant blowup of Finn and Lizzie laughing together. Their faces were so big they blotted out the earth. I looked down at my feet. Red lava was swirling around them. Maybe I was on the wrong planet.

  CHAPTER 19

  A FAMILY

  On the wall in the barn loft was a faded drawing I’d made when I was five years old. Two tall stick figures with large heads were Joe and Nula; between them was me—a tiny child figure with a small head and an O for a mouth. To each side of the figures was a brown horizontal line to show the ground, and below that line on one side were two long gray boxes, colored with strong strokes going every which way. A single flower grew out of each box. Beneath the drawing, in my childish handwriting, was: My Family.