Someday Angeline Read online

  The bell rang. He wondered if it was Angeline. He wondered what she was doing outside. He buzzed open the front door to the building and waited. It was Gus.

  “Where’s Angelini?” Gus asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is she home?”

  “She’s just hiding. Angelini, Gus is here.”

  “Then I’ll find her,” said Gus. “I happen to be the world’s greatest hide-and-go-seeker. Look out, Angelini! I’m gonna getcha!”

  “You have to search everywhere twice,” said Abel. “She watches you and waits until you’ve already looked in one hiding place, and then she hides there.” He bent down and looked under the sofa.

  “She couldn’t even fit under there,” said Gus.

  “You don’t know,” said Abel. “She can fit anywhere.”

  While Gus searched the apartment, Abel sat on the sofa and proceeded to tell a story. “Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was left all alone in a great big house. Suddenly she hears a very faint noise…rap…rap… rap.”

  “What are you doing?” asked Gus. “Why don’t you help me look for her?”

  “You’re not going to be able to find her that way,” Abel explained. “The only way to find her is to tell her a joke.”

  “How do you know she can even hear you?” Gus asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure she’s real close,” said Abel. “You don’t know her like I do. She’s probably on the verge of hysterical laughter.” He continued with the story. “So, Angelini, the girl walks down the hallway and the noise gets louder…rap!…rap!…rap! And she walks into the room at the end of the hall where the noise is even louder…RAP…RAP…RAP. And she opens the closet door and it is even louder…RAP!…RAP!…RAP! And she looks into the closet and what do you think she sees?”

  “What?” asked Gus.

  “What do you think she saw, Angelooni?” Abel asked.

  They waited.

  “Wrapping paper!” Abel announced.

  They waited. Angeline didn’t laugh.

  “That was a pretty good joke,” said Gus. “I’m glad to see that. You’re telling her jokes and playing with her and calling her Angelooni. You never used to do that.”

  Abel thought a moment. “You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t even realize.”

  “And you’re going out tonight, too,” Gus added. “I bet that’s why. See? That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along.”

  Abel smiled. “Yeah,” he said. He realized Gus was right. For the first time in a very long while, he felt like he could talk to Angeline. He wasn’t afraid of her, or worried about her anymore.

  Twenty

  Spoon and Prune

  When Melissa arrived for her date with Abel, she found him and Gus each drinking a glass of salt water. “Now I know where Angeline picked up that habit,” she said.

  “No, really,” Abel protested. “This is the first time I ever drank it. We wanted to see why Angeline liked it so much.”

  “And?” asked Melissa.

  Abel laughed. “It’s awful.”

  “I’m Gus,” said Gus as he held out his hand. “You must be Mr. Bone.”

  She shook his hand. “Melissa,” she said. “Where’s Angeline?”

  Abel and Gus looked at each other. “She’s hiding,” Abel said.

  “Oh, I hope she’s not upset because we’re going out tonight,” said Melissa.

  “I don’t think so,” said Abel.

  “What did she say when you told her?” Melissa asked him.

  “Nothing. I mean I couldn’t find her. She was already hiding.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” asked Melissa.

  “She was here when I came home,” said Abel. “She was lying on the floor reading a book.”

  “That’s good,” said Melissa. “I was afraid something might have happened in Mrs. Hardlick’s class.”

  “I think,” Abel muttered. “I don’t—she’s a great hider. She’s in the apartment somewhere.” He didn’t sound so sure anymore.

  “Have you tried the aquarium?” asked Melissa.

  Abel called the aquarium. “Angeline Persopolis,” he told them. “She’s eight years old, has black hair and green eyes.” He hung up the phone. “They know who she is,” he informed Gus and Melissa, “but they haven’t seen her today.”

  “She’ll be all right,” Melissa assured him.

  Abel wasn’t worried, but that’s not what he said. It was as if someone else spoke for him, someone who was eight years old, with black hair and green eyes. “You never know,” he said.

  “Gary!” declared Gus. “She said she had a friend named Gary. How about calling him?”

  “I don’t know his number,” said Abel, “or his last name.”

  “Boone,” said Melissa. “I know Gary.” She smiled. “Gary Boone.”

  Gus laughed. “Mr. Boone,” he said.

  Abel looked through the phone book. “There are over two pages of Boones in here,” he said. “I can’t call them all.”

  “Wait,” said Melissa. “I met his parents. What were their names? Oh…” She put her hands to her ears and shook her head, as if she were trying to shake their names out, like a gum ball from a gum ball machine.

  “You’ll just have to call up every Mr. Boone!” laughed Gus. Neither Abel nor Melissa knew why he was laughing, but he thought it was very funny that Angeline’s two friends were named Mr. Bone and Mr. Boone.

  Melissa hit her head. A name came out. “Spencer,” she said. And another. “Prentice. Spencer and Prentice Boone. Give me the number. I’ll call them.”

  Gary answered the phone.

  “Hello, Gary,” said Melissa. “This is…” She paused. “…Mr. Bone.” She explained the situation to him and asked him if he’d seen Angeline or knew where she was. He said he didn’t.

  “Have you tried the aquarium?” he suggested.

  “She’s not there,” she told him.

  Gary asked her what she was doing at Angeline’s apartment. She told him she was planning to have dinner with Angeline’s father.

  “With Angeline and her father?” Gary asked.

  “No, just her father.”

  “You mean like a date?” Gary asked.

  “I guess,” said his teacher.

  “You’re going on a date with Angeline’s father!”

  “Just cool it,” she replied.

  “Does Angeline know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She hung up the phone. “He’s coming over,” she told Abel and Gus, “to help look for her.”

  That was one reason. The other reason why he was coming over was because he wanted to see what Mr. Bone looked like when she went out on a date. He also wanted to be there when Angeline found out her father was going on a date with Mr. Bone, and hopefully he’d be the one who would tell her.

  When Gary arrived, all four of them searched the apartment.

  “You check that side of the bed, Mr. Boone,” said Gus, “while I check this side. That way she can’t switch back and forth.”

  Gary laughed. “Okay, Gus,” he said.

  Abel tried to organize the search very systematically. He locked the bathroom door so she couldn’t circle around them.

  “You sure look pretty tonight, Mr. Bone,” said Gary.

  “Thank you, Gary,” she said.

  “Do you always look so pretty when you go out on dates?” he asked.

  “Knock it off, Gary,” she replied.

  “Don’t you think she looks pretty, Mr. Persopolis?” he asked Angeline’s father.

  Abel blushed. Fortunately, just as he opened his mouth, the phone rang, with perfect saved-by-the-bell timing. It made everyone laugh.

  Abel answered it.

  “Yes, I’m her father,” he said. “Yes. Yes.”

  Melissa watched as he slowly turned pale. His whole body began to tremble. The sight of him made her feel like crying.

  Abel dropped the phone. It dangled on the cord. He
walked slowly across the room. His face quivered.

  Gary felt like crying, too. He now wished he had never come over. He held Miss Turbone’s hand.

  Abel opened his mouth, but all he was able to say was “Mitchell Beach,” as he tried to fight back his tears.

  Twent-One

  Pretty Feet and Green Her Eyes

  Gary squeezed Mr. Bone’s hand. He waited for Angeline’s father to say more, only he didn’t think he wanted to hear it.

  Abel’s face was now streaked with tears. “Hospital,” he whispered.

  “Let’s go,” said Melissa, still holding Gary’s hand. “I’ll drive.”

  They rode the elevator down to the street and climbed into her car. She and Abel got in the front and Gary and Gus sat in the back. And on the very rear of the car was a bumper sticker which said SAVE THE WHALES.

  “She fell off Mitchell Pier,” Abel uttered. He stared out the window at a billboard advertising chewing gum as if he were suddenly very interested in which brand packed the most punch.

  Gary was glad he got to go along. He thought that if anybody had stopped to think about it, they wouldn’t have brought him. Kids never get to go along on emergencies. They would have sent him home, instead. He felt terrible for feeling glad about this. He didn’t think he should be feeling glad about anything, when—and this suddenly occurred to him—when Angeline might be dead.

  He tried to think about something else, or better yet, not to think at all. He wondered why he was thinking so much. His brain was going a mile a minute. He didn’t think he usually thought so much.

  He wondered if Mr. Bone and Gus were thinking as much as he was, or if he was the only one, because he was a goon.

  He didn’t wonder about what Angeline’s father was thinking. He didn’t want to think about that.

  When they got to the hospital, they were directed to a waiting room where they were told to wait. There was somebody else already in the room, but he looked more like a patient than a visitor. He was dressed in a hospital gown and robe. Gary wondered who he was.

  He suddenly thought of a joke. “If we have to wait, does that mean we are waiters, like we have to serve food?” Then he felt awful for having thought of it. “How could I make up jokes, now?” he wondered.

  “Gary,” said Mr. Bone. She held out a tissue to him.

  He took the tissue from her. He hadn’t realized he’d been crying. “Angeline would have thought it was a funny joke,” he thought.

  The man in the hospital gown shivered.

  A doctor finally walked in. “Are you Angeline’s parents?” he asked.

  “I’m her father,” said Abel.

  The doctor took a deep breath. “Angeline was underwater a long time, I’m afraid,” he said, “before Mr., um—” He gestured toward the man wearing the hospital gown and robe. “Mr., um—” He pointed again at the man.

  The man shivered. “Cool Breezer,” he said in a high and raspy voice.

  “Before Mr. Cool Breezer was able to pull her out,” said the doctor.

  Everyone turned and looked at Cool Breezer. Cool Breezer looked away.

  “When she arrived, her lungs were almost completely filled with salt water,” the doctor said. “We’ve done all we can do. Now it’s up to her.”

  Melissa put her arm around Abel. “She’ll make it,” she said. “I know she will.”

  “Angelini’s tough,” said Gus.

  “I’ll take you to see her now,” said the doctor. “But before I do, I want to prepare you. She won’t be able to see or hear you. I think the earliest we can expect any kind of positive reaction from her won’t be for at least another twenty-four hours.”

  “Then will she—” Abel started to ask.

  “Her brain went a long time without oxygen,” said the doctor. “You just never know.” He led them down a long corridor, through several sets of double doors.

  “You never know,” Abel repeated.

  He led them into Angeline’s room, then left. Angeline lay on top of a bed, not under the covers. She was wearing a hospital gown, like the one Cool Breezer was wearing. There were bottles hanging above her, and there were tubes coming out of the bottles and sticking into her arms and neck.

  A nurse was stationed alongside her. The nurse stood up and moved out of the way as Abel approached.

  Abel silently stared at his daughter. “Mitchell Beach,” he said after a while. He looked around the room. “What was she doing at Mitchell Beach?”

  Cool Breezer shrugged.

  “Nina,” muttered Abel. “Her mother drowned at Mitchell Beach. I haven’t been back there since.” He looked back at Angeline. “What were you doing there, Angel Face?” he asked. He didn’t know why he had just called her that. He’d never called her Angel Face before. Nina used to call her that.

  Gary thought that he understood, sort of, why Angeline went to the beach, but he couldn’t explain it. “Mr. Bone, may I have another tissue please?” he asked.

  She gave him one.

  “Cool Breezer?” said Gus. “What—”

  Cool Breezer violently shivered, interrupting him. “May I have a tissue, Mr. Bone?” He didn’t seem to think that she had a strange name.

  She gave him a tissue and he blew his nose. Then he told them what had happened. “I was fishing off Mitchell Pier,” he said in his scratchy voice. “Cool Feet—I mean, Angeline walked up to me, and we talked, and—”

  “Wha’d she say?” Abel asked. “Do you remember what she said?”

  Cool Breezer thought a moment. “She said you drove a garbage truck.”

  Cool Breezer had rebaited his hook after he caught the boot. He had dropped the line back in the water, sat down, and opened a new can of beer. He hummed to himself and looked around for Cool Feet. He stood up. He didn’t see her.

  He threw his beer down and ran to the end of the pier. He looked over the rail and saw her being washed underneath it. The next thing he knew he was underwater.

  He hadn’t taken off his shoes until after he was in the water. He swam after her and managed to grab her by the shirt. He wrapped his arm around her waist and struggled to get her back to shore. The tide was pulling them out while the waves kept knocking them forward. He tried his best to hold her above the water as he kept being swept under.

  At last he was able to feel the ground with his tiptoes, but was unable to make any progress until a giant wave crashed directly on top of them. They tumbled in with the white water.

  He carried her onto the sand. Her face was covered with sand and her mouth was filled with salt water. He tried giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation but she didn’t respond, so he picked her up and ran in his wet socks across the beach to the liquor store on the other side of the street.

  “Howdy, Cool Breezer,” the man behind the counter said. “You look like you need some brew. Who’s your little friend?”

  “Call an ambulance,” Cool Breezer said, then collapsed on the floor.

  “I’m sorry,” he said when he finished telling them what had happened.

  “You have nothing to be sorry for,” said Melissa. “You saved her life. You’re a hero.”

  He had always wanted to be a hero. He thought about what he had done and he realized it did sound like something a hero would do. Still, as he looked at Angeline lying there, he didn’t feel like a hero. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. He looked at her feet sticking out from under her hospital gown. They were still the prettiest feet he’d ever seen. “Cool Feet,” he said sadly.

  Abel bent over and kissed Angeline on the cheek. “Someday, Angeline,” he whispered.

  Melissa held Abel’s hand.

  “She was all I ever lived for,” Abel told her. “All I ever cared about. I was always so afraid I’d blow it for her. Well, Abel,” he said, “you finally did it.”

  “No,” cried Melissa. “It wasn’t your fault. You mustn’t believe that.”

  Gus and Gary walked up to Angeline. Gus kissed her on the cheek. “Angelini,” he sai
d. He too was crying.

  Gary also kissed her. He wanted to rip all the tubes out of her. It seemed to him that the tubes were sucking life out of her, instead of giving it to her. “I heard a new joke,” he whispered. “You want to hear my joke, Angeline? Why doesn’t an elephant need a suitcase?”

  “Why?” Angeline whispered.

  Gary’s mouth dropped open. He couldn’t speak. All he could do was point, loudly.

  “I give up. Why?” Angeline asked again.

  Why wouldn’t he answer her? He just stood there, looking like a goon. She looked around the room and tried to figure out where she was, but it was too crazy to figure out. Nothing made any sense. Why was Cool Breezer jumping up and down and whooping and shrieking, she wondered. And why was he dressed so funny? What happened to his wool cap? Why did he just kiss her foot? And now the other one!

  “Stop that!” she laughed. “What’s going on here?”

  And who was that lady dressed in white coming toward her and shouting, “Doctor! Doctor!”

  “Why doesn’t an elephant need a suitcase?” she asked. Why wouldn’t anybody answer her?

  The lady in white shrugged. “Because it never takes a trip? Because it doesn’t own any clothes? Doctor!”

  That’s not even funny, she thought. “That’s not a joke!” she shouted. Why was everybody laughing? It wasn’t even funny. She saw her father, and Gus, and Mr. Bone. Were they laughing or crying? She was getting very angry.

  “What’s going on here?” she demanded, but the madder she got, the more she yelled, the crazier everyone acted. What were these tubes sticking in her? Why was Gus carrying Gary around on his shoulders?

  “Are you all crazy?” she screamed. Wouldn’t someone tell her what was happening. “Cool Breezer?” she pleaded, but all he did was yell and scream. And Gary was unable to talk.

  “Doctor!” the lady in white shouted. Why did she want a doctor? She looked too happy to be sick.

  And why—and this was what really didn’t make any sense at all—why were her father and Mr. Bone…kissing???