Read Alexander Graham Bell: Master of Sound #7 Online
Authors: Ann Hood
Alexander Graham Bell: Master of Sound #7
BY
NEW YORK TIMES
BEST-SELLING AUTHOR
ANN HOOD
In memory of Barbara Bejoian
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Text © 2013 by Ann Hood. Art © 2013 by Denis Zilber. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
Design by Giuseppe Castellano.
Map illustration by Giuseppe Castellano and © 2013 by Penguin Group (USA).
ISBN: 978-0-698-15985-3
CHAPTER 2: SOMEONE LISTENS AT LAST
CHAPTER 3: BREAKING AND ENTERING
CHAPTER 4: ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
CHAPTER 6: NUMBER 18 HARRINGTON SQUARE
CHAPTER 7: ENTERING THE PARISH
CHAPTER 8: CHIMNEY SWEEPS AND ORANGE SELLERS
CHAPTER 9: MRS. DUCKBERRY’S BRILLIANT IDEAS
CHAPTER 10: DINNER WITH MR. DICKENS
Alexander Graham Bell: March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922
Charles Dickens: February 7, 1812–June 9, 1870
LOVEBIRDS
“M
arried!” Maisie and Felix’s mother shrieked in disbelief. Her blue eyes widened as she surveyed Great-Uncle Thorne and Penelope Merriweather grinning at her like teenagers in love.
Maisie, Felix, and their mother were in the Dining Room eating dinner—the bacon-and-egg spaghetti they loved so much—when Great-Uncle Thorne and Penelope burst in shouting their news. That is, Great-Uncle Thorne burst in. Penelope followed, walking slowly with her short, mincing steps
Maisie and Felix sneaked glances at each other. They had only been back from their visit with their
father in New York City for a few hours and had not yet broached the subject of
him
getting married.
Great-Uncle Thorne lifted Penelope’s hand to show off a diamond so big that it looked like a fake one from a bubble-gum machine.
“Is that real?” Maisie gasped.
“Of course it’s real,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, stiffening. “It belonged to my mother, Ariane. It’s the Pickworth diamond.”
“But why in the world would you get married at your age?” their mother said, her voice rising with each syllable.
“Why?” Great-Uncle Thorne roared. “Because we’re in love! Isn’t that what lovebirds do? Get married—”
“And have children?” Maisie and Felix’s mother interrupted.
Maisie couldn’t stifle a laugh. Great-Uncle Thorne whipped his head toward her and knit his enormous white eyebrows together.
“Don’t be impertinent,” he said.
Maisie made a mental note to look up that word.
Impertinent
. Although she could guess from the context what it meant.
“I haven’t been married since the Depression,” Penelope said with a sigh. She shook her head sadly. “He lost everything in the crash and had to be sent to a sanitarium.”
“Poor bugger,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.
“What crash?” Felix asked, trying to keep up.
Great-Uncle Thorne groaned. “Don’t you imbeciles know
anything
?”
“The stock market crash of 1929,” Penelope said. “So many people lost everything.”
“Not the Pickworths!” Great-Uncle Thorne said gleefully.
“When is this wedding?” Maisie and Felix’s mother asked unhappily.
“I always wanted to be a June bride,” Penelope said dreamily. “Oscar and I eloped on New Year’s Eve. Very romantic. I wore a lovely pale blue dress.”
“But you deserve to wear a beautiful white gown and walk down the Grand Staircase—”
“You’re getting married here?” their mother asked.
“My father always got married here,” Great-Uncle Thorne said dismissively.
“How many times did Phinneas Pickworth get married?” Felix asked.
“Five, six…who can remember?” Great-Uncle Thorne said.
“I did like that aviatrix,” Penelope said.
“The one Mom’s room is named for?” Felix asked.
“The point is,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, clearly tired of all the small talk, “we are getting married and plans must be made. We need to organize an engagement party, plan the trip to Paris—”
“Paris?” their mother said, looking more and more bewildered.
“For the wedding dress,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.
He took his black leather agenda and his gold pen from his inside jacket pocket and began to scribble furiously.
“Wow,” Maisie said. “Everybody’s getting married.”
“Maisie!” Felix hissed.
Their mother turned toward Maisie as if she was in slow motion.
“Everybody?” she said softly.
“Uh…Penelope and Great-Uncle Thorne and…,” Maisie stammered.
“And?” their mother said, waiting.
“Have you spoken to Dad lately?” Felix interjected.
“He called, but I didn’t call him back,” she said. She chewed her bottom lip, the way she did when she was nervous.
“Maybe we should finish dinner, and then you can call Dad back?” Felix offered.
Maisie brightened. “Great idea!”
She sat back down and dug into her spaghetti with exaggerated gusto.
“I think this is the best batch ever, Mom,” she said with her mouth full.
Penelope helped herself to some. “I haven’t had carbonara since I was in Rome with Mussolini,” she said.
Felix and Great-Uncle Thorne sat, too, and Felix made a great show of taking more spaghetti and sprinkling Parmesan on it.
But their mother didn’t sit down. She didn’t even move. She just watched them all for what seemed like forever to Felix, who shoveled forkfuls of spaghetti into his mouth to avoid having to say anything more.
“Are you telling me,” their mother said finally, her voice quivering, “that your father is getting married?”
Felix kept eating.
Maisie pretended to be chewing.
“Maisie? Felix?” their mother said in the tone that let them know she meant business.
“He is
not
getting married at Elm Medona,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “He is not a Pickworth.”
“Answer me,” their mother said.
“Did he say something about that?” Felix said to Maisie.
Maisie clutched her stomach. “I think…,” she began.
“Uh-oh,” Felix said. His sister had the look she got right before she threw up, which she always did when she was upset.
“I think…,” Maisie said again, getting to her feet.
She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she ran out of the room, their mother close behind her.
“This answers my question,” their mother muttered as Maisie disappeared out the door.
Maisie and Felix’s mother had planned a big homecoming for them. She’d picked them up at the train station, so happy to see them that she couldn’t stop hugging them.
“I missed you guys,” she kept saying.
She made bacon and egg spaghetti, even though Cook glared at her as she moved about the Kitchen.
“I rented a movie for us,” she announced. “Family movie night!”
The movie was
My Fair Lady
, which Maisie and Felix used to love to watch with their parents when they were younger. The whole time she cooked the carbonara, their mother hummed the song “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from the movie. Maisie and Felix knew that
My Fair Lady
was a play first, and that their mother had played the lead, Eliza Doolittle, the summer she’d met their father. When all four of them watched the movie, their parents always made private jokes about that summer, the kind of jokes that only needed one word to send one of them into a fit of laughter.