The Somebodies (5 page)

THE BONE’S CAR, AN ARTHRITIC JALOPY, WAS
noisy. It shivered as it rode along. It moaned for no reason. The engine, a wheezy growler, always sounded like it was about to give up completely. And so even though no one was speaking at first, the car was far from silent.

It was all a little hard for Dorathea and the Bone to take—Fern and Howard expelled. Everyone was just letting it sink in—the blank future, the
what now?
They were all taking stock of the situation. (Sometimes I do that myself nowadays. Was I once a giftless boy who played the turkey in the Thanksgiving pageant—not a role that is as glamorous as it sounds, as the turkey
always gets eaten in the end? And how did I become this enigmatic author, disguised as a Gypsy fishmonger just so that I can walk to the corner and buy a new electric toothbrush?)

Fern and Howard sat in the backseat, the pony in one of Fern’s pockets, the invitation in the other. They both had their Abstract Origami expulsion papers on their laps. Fern stared at hers. She squinted. It didn’t look like a young man who’d lost his art. It didn’t look like much at all. Dorathea was squinting out her window. The Bone kept his eyes on the dusty road.

Dorathea broke the silence. “Take it from the top. What really happened?”

Howard and Fern took turns telling the story. They explained how Lucess Brine had started it all with a pinch in Fern’s back, and how Howard had tried to help and how Fern had turned Mrs. Fluggery’s hair into a small pony, which Fern took out of her pocket and held up for everyone to see.

The pony frisked its mane and whinnied.

“But actually I saved Mrs. Fluggery’s life. I didn’t try to kill her.”

Fern was finished telling the story. Howard nodded secretively toward Fern’s pocket where the invitation was.

Fern shook her head no. She would have liked to tell
Dorathea everything—the humming, the gold trim, the name Ubuleen Heet, the Triple S, and the secret meeting place to be revealed. But she was afraid that Dorathea would take the invitation away, and although Fern was sure that she wouldn’t ever accept, she still wasn’t willing to give up the temptation.

“Well,” Dorathea said, “I think you handled yourselves very well.”

Fern sighed. This made her feel a little better.

“But we got expelled,” Howard said.

“It goes that way sometimes,” the Bone said. “But if you think about it, you two worked together. You did your best.”

Fern was relieved. She could tell that Howard was too. He wasn’t petting the pony quite so strenuously. She had a burning question, however. She opened her hand and looked at the name she’d written there the night before: Merton Gretel. She decided to try to steer the conversation toward him. “It was nice to have Howard there with me. He’s like a brother now.”

Howard looked over at her, a little shocked. They’d been through a lot, sure; and it was true, sure; but it wasn’t the kind of thing that either of them said out loud.

“I never had a brother. The Miser is as close as I’ve come,” the Bone said. “It’s a nice thing. I miss him.” The Miser and his friend the big-game hunter Good
Old Bixie had gone out in search of adventure. This was very good for the Miser, who’d lost much of his boldness and was in need of adventure. They were sailing one of the peach-pit boats that the Bone and the Miser had made that past summer. The Bone looked wistful. “They’ll be back at some point with good tales to tell.”

Dorathea was quiet. Fern wondered if she’d say a word or if she’d just let the moment pass. But Dorathea let out a sigh. “I miss my younger brother. I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Why not?” Fern asked.

“Because I should have saved him. That’s why.”

“Stop,” the Bone said gently. Obviously he knew the story. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You saved so many. And he knew. He did what he could in setting her up.”

“Setting up who?” Howard asked.

“He helped take down the Blue Queen,” the Bone said.

“This was years ago,” Dorathea said. “There are hard things about being royal, Fern.”

“What do you mean?” Fern asked.

Dorathea cleared her throat as if she’d lost her voice for a second. “I mean that there was a moment a long time ago in my fight with evil when I had the chance to
save my brother or stop evil for the greater good.”

“What did you do?” Fern asked.

“I stopped evil. I chose to protect all of the Anybodies.”

“How?”

“My brother was married to the Blue Queen, and when he recognized her lust for power, he agreed to help stop her. He set up a time when she would be at ease, her defenses down, when we could easily attack her without hurting her. She was pregnant at the time, you see, with her first, and I knew that the plan put my brother in danger.”

“He knew that too,” the Bone said gently. “He knew the risks.”

“What happened?” Fern asked.

“He disappeared. And the day after the battle, my brother’s name was on the list of those she’d killed…. It isn’t the crown and scepter that make you royal.”

“What is it?” Fern asked.

“I’ve had to find my answers for myself, and you’ll have to find your answers for yourself.”

Fern didn’t want to have to go looking for answers. Why couldn’t being royalty be as simple as the crown and scepter? It was hers. She had it. Why couldn’t that be the end of it?

“What’s the Blue Queen like?” she asked.

“She was a number of years ahead of your mother in school,” Dorathea said. “She was the kind of kid who didn’t have much going for her, but then I remember once she won an election for class recorder or something like that, and they gave her a ribbon that someone pinned to her lapel, and from that time on, she wanted more.” Dorathea sighed. “Greed for power can start in the smallest ways and then just grow and grow. Just a little blue ribbon on a lapel. That’s all.”

“Merton was a good man,” the Bone said. “A gentle soul. Gosh, I remember him at his wedding. He was so happy, this huge smile plastered on his face. But, well, she was already hungry for power then. She’d tried to run for mayor, but she didn’t win. She probably already had her evil plan in store by then. She was faking it, I guess.”

So Merton had married the Blue Queen without knowing what evil she was capable of. Fern felt sorry for him. She looked at the Abstract Origami expulsion papers and, for a moment, the papers looked sad, distraught, betrayed.
The heart of a young man who’s lost his love.
That’s what came to Fern. Merton had loved the Blue Queen. And had she loved him, too? What had gone wrong?

“I feel a little more sad this time of year. The anniversary of his death is coming up. Anniversaries are strange things,” Dorathea said.

“For Anybodies especially,” the Bone added.

“How are they strange?” Fern asked.

“An anniversary is when you remember the past event. In a way, the past is brought back. During anniversaries there’s a certain weakness and, well, it forms an opportunity for the past to be brought back in a more real way. You know, for Anybodies it’s easier on an anniversary to have the
idea
of the past come back as something
real
. Sometimes this is a good thing and sometimes it’s a bad thing. And sometimes both.”

Fern thought of the date that Merton died, the date when the Blue Queen lost her powers and the date that the invitation in her pocket would fall on. All the same day. Fern was putting it together. If the Blue Queen wanted to come back, she could use the souls of books for power, and she could pick the anniversary of her reign because on the anniversary it would be easier for the past to be not only remembered but brought back. The Blue Queen was planning on winning this time around. She wanted to rewrite history. “You defeated the Blue Queen,” Fern said. “Can I ask the time of day?”

Dorathea looked at her granddaughter in the rearview mirror. Fern knew that her grandmother was on to the fact that Fern’s mind was churning. “A little after midnight,” Dorathea said. “And it wasn’t easy.”

Fern patted the invitation in her pocket, the meeting time at midnight. The invitation was related to all this. It was a piece of the puzzle, but Fern wasn’t sure how it fit. She knew why she hadn’t thrown the invitation out. She knew that she was going to accept. She had to. She wasn’t sure when or how it would happen, but she knew it was her destiny. There was no way around it.

“Sometimes I still talk to him,” Dorathea said. “Merton.”

“How is that?” Fern asked, tipping forward in her seat.

“I shut my eyes and cup my hands together like I’m whispering in his ear, like we’re kids again and I’ve got a secret.”

“Does he answer?” Fern asked.

“Not as a voice in my ear. But he answers,” Dorathea said. “He does in his way.”

WHEN THEY PULLED IN TO THE BOARDINGHOUSE
driveway, passing some talking crows and the hobbit
mounds, the Bone said, “Now we wait for the Drudgers. You two should go straight to Fern’s room and reflect on the day. There’s a lot to unravel, a lot to learn.”

The day’s events were swirling in Fern’s mind so furiously that she wasn’t sure what she’d learn from it all.

“What’s going to happen next?” Howard asked.

“I don’t know,” Dorathea said. “I just don’t know. Go on now.”

Fern and Howard walked quickly into the house, happy not to have to talk to the Drudgers just yet. The Drudgers, they knew, would be terrified by the rantings of Mrs. Fluggery. They would think there was some truth in all the hysteria. They disliked hysteria and rantings, and being terrified only made them more terrified.

Fern and Howard walked up to Fern’s room. They propped their chins on their elbows and perched at the small grate covering the heating vent, where they’d be able to hear the conversation in the living room when the Drudgers showed up. They were quiet, both thinking their own thoughts. Next to them on the floor were their Abstract Origami expulsion papers. Fern was watching the miniature pony, its fur the skim-milky color of Mrs. Fluggery’s hair. The pony was nosing the nubs of the throw rug, nudging Fern’s backpack with its long muzzle. Every once in a while Fern would put her hand in her pocket just to make sure the invitation
was still there. What was the Secret Society of Somebodies? And who was its founder, Ubuleen Heet? Fern glanced at the fish in the pond often. Frozen in place, its sad eye was on her.

She pulled out
The Art of Being Anybody
to see if any more had been written about them. She turned to the page with the entry
Fern Battles the Blue Queen
. There was a full sentence now. It gave a date—that day’s date. Fern read on silently:
Fern and Howard, without his full will and desire, swam, thitherly, through an Invitation.

There it was in black and white. Fern looked at Howard. He was slouched against the wall, worn down, exhausted, his briefcase flopped down beside him. He popped a breath mint and chewed. Should she tell him that the adventure was just beginning? That they were going to swim through an invitation, and do battle tomorrow at midnight? No, she thought to herself, it would only make him anxious. She knew that he’d be able to handle it when it came; no need to rile him now.

She pulled out the foldout map. She couldn’t resist. She let it cover her knees and gazed at its winding streets. Dorathea came up with two bowls of soup and glasses of milk. They ate quietly. It grew dark. And finally there was the sound of a car in the driveway.

“They’re here!” Howard said.

The two kids raced to the window. There were the
Drudgers. They sat stiffly in their beige car, waiting there for a moment—bracing themselves?—the windows closed.

Eventually they walked through the yard. There was a series of short knocks. The door squeaked open on its hinges. The talking started up. Fern and Howard jockeyed for position over the vent. But the heat was on, blowing hot air in their faces, and it was impossible to hear a thing.

“I thought you said we’d be able to hear everything,” Howard said.

“It’ll click off.”

More waiting. Fern was anxious now. Howard was too. They sat there poised and restless. Howard checked his wristwatch.

Then the heater clicked off with a moan, and Fern put on her sweatshirt. The kids could hear the voices, at least faintly. The Drudgers were talking about work.

“The actuarial committee was still going. We’ve missed out on a lot of insurance discussions because of this, and we won’t be able to get those insurance discussions back,” Mr. Drudger was saying, obviously shaken.

“We don’t like things to disrupt our schedule,” Mrs. Drudger said anxiously. “We don’t like surprises of any kind, and especially not an awful surprise!” This was true. Once upon a time, they’d both been the kind of chil
dren who disliked Halloween because it makes everyone so fond of saying “Boo!” The kind of children to hide a jack-in-the-box in the back of a closet. The kind of children who never, not once, asked a trucker on the highway to blow his horn with that fist-pumping motion, because truckers and their horns are so unpredictable.

Howard looked at Fern warmly. “Aren’t they the best?”

“Shh!” Fern said. “Listen.”

“We are concerned,” Mr. Drudger said, “about the welfare of these two children.”

“The kids are fine. I mean, this isn’t the best situation, but they were doing the best they could. Good kids, after all,” the Bone said.

“Of course they’re good kids, Bone,” Dorathea said. “I’m sure that Mr. and Mrs. Drudger aren’t suggesting that they’re bad kids.” But the way she said this made Fern think that was exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Drudger had been suggesting in the part of the conversation they’d missed due to the heater.

“When the vice principal called,” Mr. Drudger went on, “we could hear that poor woman, Mrs. Fluggery, screaming about how they’d attacked her with a small, violent horse. Is that what good children do to their teachers?”

“It was a pony,” the Bone corrected.

“And what will it be next time, Mr. Bone?” Mrs. Drudger asked. “An alligator? A shark?”

“These children need restraint. They need a controlled environment. We can’t wait on this any longer,” Mr. Drudger said.

“What kind of controlled environment are you thinking about?” Dorathea asked.

“Gravers Military Academy,” Mr. Drudger said.

Fern and Howard both reared away from the heating grate, stirring the Abstract Origami expulsion papers. The pony let out a wild whinny. Fern felt sick. Gravers Military Academy! I once disguised myself as a cadet of no particular academy and, while just minding my own business, walking down the street, was mistaken for a runaway cadet and was sent back to a military academy that will go unnamed. I lived there for seven months until the whole mess was straightened out. So, I can tell you, Fern and Howard had every reason to be terrified. I still sometimes wake up in the morning and find myself saluting.

The idea of visiting the city beneath the city seemed farther away than ever. Was
The Art of Being Anybody
wrong? Fern folded up the large leathery map, one corner at a time. The rotund mosque gone, Bing Chubb’s Ballpark gone, Willy Fattler’s Underground Hotel gone. Finally it was all gone, even the castle’s dirty
bell tower. The map was as small and flat as an empty pocket.

Fern looked at Howard. Howard looked at her.

“I can’t go to a military academy!” Howard said.

They both edged back to the heating grate.

“We’ve already made the call. We will be driving Howard there immediately. The program is for both boys and girls. They have a spot for Fern as well.”

“You’re joking,” the Bone said. “Howard isn’t military. Howard is Howard. He likes to sit around and read math books and be, well, Howard.”

“And Fern! Ha!” Dorathea said. “She couldn’t possibly!”

Fern paced. The invitation chose that moment to start humming softly again. She pulled it out of her pocket. She looked at her palm. Merton Gretel. She thought of dead books and the Blue Queen. She wouldn’t be going to a military academy. She was going to the city beneath the city. This was it. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.

Mr. and Mrs. Drudger were silent. There was only the sound of shuffling papers. “Court orders,” Mrs. Drudger said.

“Court orders?” Howard whispered.

“What?” the Bone said loudly.

“We’ve got the necessary paperwork,” Mr. Drudger
said, as if that cleared everything up.

“You’ve got to do something!” Howard said. “Figure something out, Fern! We don’t have much time!”

Fern was staring at the invitation. She couldn’t help but think that it wanted an answer, and now she knew what the answer would be.

“What are you doing with that thing?” Howard was alarmed. “Put it away! It’s no good.”

Fern couldn’t put it away. This was her destiny. She belonged at the convention—it was written in the book. She would battle the Blue Queen.

As soon as Fern had this thought, she felt a tug toward the envelope. The envelope popped open. Fern stared into it, the invitation in her hand. She felt another tug forward, and the envelope grew wider, big enough for shipping a fat book.

“Look, Howard,” Fern said.

“What?”

“The envelope is growing.”

Howard stared at it. “We need a plan! Not a growing envelope. I don’t have time for any weird stuff now!” Howard was beside himself. Fern heard a slap of water. The toothy goldfish was swimming around in the painting now, the white lily pad flowers swaying over its head. The fish seemed to be urging her toward some
thing with its unblinking glare, or warning her against something—Fern couldn’t tell. The fish seemed to know her; she could sense it. It wanted to tell her something.

The conversation downstairs continued. “Fern is our daughter by law. You haven’t adopted her. And I’ve proven that Howard is our biological son,” Mrs. Drudger said. “We’ve begun the guardian process.”

“But,” Dorathea said. “But, but, Fern belongs here with us.”

“Here?” Mrs. Drudger said. “With all these stuffy books, with all these dangerous creatures and these awful habits? Fern has become a menace over the course of one short summer. She’s gone from straight-A student with us, to being expelled. She’s out of control!”

“The court is on our side,” Mr. Drudger said. “We’re doing this for the children’s own good.”

But Fern wanted to tell them that she wasn’t a menace. She’d been invited to attend the meeting of the Secret Society of Somebodies—maybe they would help her defeat the Blue Queen—and the more she thought about all this, the more she felt pulled toward the envelope, which was now the size of a plastic baby pool.

Howard couldn’t deny the weirdness anymore. “What do you think it means?”

Fern was being pulled so hard now toward the envelope that she was swaying. “It’s an invitation,” Fern
said. “It wants me to accept. It wants me, I think!”

“Do you want to accept?”

“I do.” Fern felt a strong pull forward. Just then she heard her grandmother’s voice below, and she knew that Dorathea would be disappointed in her. She’d told her that she couldn’t go. Fern didn’t want to defy her. “I’m scared. It might not be the right thing to do.” The pull loosened its grip, and Fern wobbled backward. “I think it’s letting me decide.”

“Don’t leave me here, Fern! Don’t go!”

Mr. Drudger’s angry voice rang up through the heating grate. “Well, we’ll just go up and get them ourselves.” Fern could hear the Bone and Dorathea saying, “No, no, no!” And then there were footsteps on the stairs.

Howard yelled, “They’re coming!”

“I’ve got to do it,” Fern said. “And you’ll have to come with me, Howard.”

“Where?”

“Into the envelope. Take my hand!”

“No,” Howard said. “I can’t. I don’t want to. I’m too scared, Fern. Don’t make me.”

“C’mon,” she said. She held tight to the growing envelope with one hand and reached for Howard with the other.

The fish was going wild, leaping and twisting. It
jumped out of the water and chomped a white lily pad flower. Petals flew out of the painting and drifted to the floor. Was the fish angry? Did it want her attention?

There was a sharp knock on the door.

Howard shook his head.

“Grab that book!” Fern shouted, pointing at
The Art of Being Anybody
on the bed. Howard was making a weird whine in his throat, an agitated and terrified whimper. But he grabbed
The Art of Being Anybody
and held on to Fern’s arm with both his hands. The door to the bedroom flew open. Fern saw the Abstract Origami expulsion papers gust up, all fluttery for a moment. And then she looked up into the astonished faces of Mr. and Mrs. Drudger. “What in the world?” Mrs. Drudger said, pointing at the enormous envelope.

Dorathea and the Bone charged up behind them. Dorathea’s mouth was a shocked “O.”

The Bone said, “What in the—”

“I’m sorry,” Fern said.

“My, my!” said Mrs. Drudger. Although that doesn’t sound terrified, it was as strong as Mrs. Drudger’s language got.

Mr. Drudger, not usually a man of action, lunged for Howard, but he was too late.

Howard shut his eyes tight as Fern shouted out, “I
accept your invitation!”