Lost in Cyberspace (14 page)

Her drawing room was vast and full of interesting stuff, like the Museum of the City of New York. Marble busts, high-backed furniture, old-time lamps glowing, pictures all over the walls.

She was looking away from us and aiming her cane at the picture of a man over the big stone fireplace. “That is Camilla's late grandfather,” she said, “my husband, Gilburtus Van Allen, the handsomest man you ever set eyes on. We defied the world to marry.”

She pivoted slowly on her cane. I was standing there. She leaned nearer and examined me. “I married the boy next door,” she explained, “and we lived happily ever after.”

She looked past me at Mom and Heather. “I won't keep you. But I get so little company these days. Of course, I treasure my privacy. And memories are the best companions. But you must come again soon. To tea. Cucumber sandwiches, I should think, and hot buttered scones with strawberry jam.”

They didn't know her. How could they? Her face was all webbed with wrinkles, and her glasses hid her eyes. But I knew who she was. I couldn't believe it. But I knew. She was Phoebe.

It was really late when we got home. Mom was worn out. Heather was still sulking. I was stunned speechless. We all went straight to bed. So it wasn't till the next morning we realized Phoebe was gone.

When I woke up, no cup of tea was steaming on my bedside table. Instead there was a note. I'd never seen Phoebe's handwriting. She'd had very good penmanship and a steady hand when she was young.

She didn't sign her name. She might have left before she had the ... time.

The rest of the weekend was all downhill from there. Heather told me she was never speaking to me again because I'd ratted on her. In fact, she kept on telling me. Mom told Heather that her party dress was going back to Bloomingdale's, but she wasn't going anywhere. She was grounded until she was thirty. Heather told Mom it didn't matter because she was shamed for life. It was as simple as that. Camilla Van Allen would drop her like a hot potato. And we were all lost without Phoebe.

Then on Sunday night, Dad didn't call from Chicago. You wait and wait for weekends, but they're not always that great.

 

Aaron wasn't on the bus Monday morning, but I found him in the Black Hole before homeroom. I showed him Phoebe's note. After all, it was really for him too. I told him all about Phoebe, then and ... now.

He was interested, but not that much. He was already word-processing something on one of the computers, and his mind was basically on that. He's always up to something.

“Josh, are you losing total track of time?” he said. “Tomorrow's Parents' Night. We've got to get our act together about the history of Huckley School. Mr. Thaw will be all over us. He told us our entire grades were riding on this.”

“They took Mr. Thaw off to Lenox Hill Hospital,” I said. “Remember?”

“But he's back,” Aaron said, not looking up from the screen. “He was the first teacher in school this morning. He probably thinks Cuthbert in the classroom was a figment of his imagination or whatever. He probably thinks he was some kid wandering in from public school to clean Buster's clock. Anyway, he's back.”

“Is Buster back?”

“I don't know about Buster. He'll probably take the week off. After all, he got punched out with witnesses. What's that going to do for his self-esteem? If he's here, he'll be down with a counselor. Forget that. Concentrate on our report.”

His screen was filling up with a report. But he hadn't printed out anything yet.

“So what have we got here?” he said. “Once upon a time there was a row of townhouses just off Central Park, with four families living in them.”

“The Havemeyers, the Huckleys, the Van Allens, and the Vanderwhitneys,” I said. “We don't know squat about the Havemeyers and the Huckleys.”

“We'll get Mrs. Newbery on that,” Aaron said. “What are media specialists for anyway? And in 1929 these four townhouses were recycled as Huckley School, right?”

“Works for me,” I said.

The bell for homeroom rang. “I hate being interrupted by school,” Aaron muttered. But then he came out of his chair. “Yessssss!” he said, doing his war dance.

“No, Aaron,” I said. “Forget about it. We're not doing a demonstration of your cellular-reorganization formula for our history report. We're not doing our vanishing act with witnesses. And what if we got Cuthbert again?”

“You kidding?” he said. “That's top secret. That's not information you put into the hands of parents and teachers. But we already have somebody from the past—a living legend.”

“Not Phoebe,” I said. “Not Mrs. Van Allen. She's real old, and she treasures her privacy. It wouldn't be fair.”

“Not Phoebe,” Aaron said. “Mr. L. T. Thaw. He'll be at the meeting anyway, won't he? Parents' Night isn't required for parents, but it's required for teachers. Am I right? We'll just call on him.”

“You call on him,” I said. “I'm not calling on him.”

“Boys,” Mrs. Newbery said from the door, “it's time you cut along for Mr. Headbloom's homeroom. Why do I have to remind you of this every morning of my entire existence?”

 

Parents' Night was in the auditorium of Huckley House, and there was a good turnout. Aaron's parents were there somewhere in the throng. Mom and Heather came. Heather had plea-bargained to be let out of the apartment for school-related events. By the weekend she'd probably be a free woman. She'd already been on the phone with Camilla. I knew because it was my phone.

Aaron and I had to sit in the front row with the rest of the people taking bows, doing acts, and making reports. Mr. Thaw had made sure we were on the program, and in it:

The president of the parents' organization and the headmaster sat right behind us. Aaron and I were in freshly pressed dress code. We weren't the first item on the program. There were introductions and rounds of applause while the upper-school squash team, lacrosse team, and hockey team held up their trophies. An all-school string trio sawed out a couple of selections from
Beauty and the Beast.
A chorus of lower-school first graders in ball caps and long shirts did an original rap:

The whole lower school seems to be turning into rappers.

“Kids,” Aaron said.

We finally got around to middle-school reports. But then Aaron and I still had to sit through a long science-class demonstration with pig embryos. Fishface Pierrepont gave his lecture on

Then it was time for Aaron and me. It was getting late, and the audience was restless. We speeded up our presentation and charged through it.

“Picture it,” Aaron began, looking around the too-tall podium at the audience. “Four high-profile New York families whose fortunes were amassed before confiscatory income tax. Picture them in the 1920's in four hard-to-heat white-elephant houses and about to make the move into the modern, climate-controlled grandeur of new Park Avenue buildings even then rising along their eastern flank.”

“The Havemeyers,” I said, taking over. Then I gave a rundown on this family from sources Mrs. Newbery looked up for us.

“The Huckleys,” I said, “who gave their name and a bunch of money to our school.” Then I went over them and moved on to the Van Aliens. When we came to the Vanderwhitneys, I let Aaron take over.

“No name rings louder in the annals of American wealth and privilege,” Aaron said in a ringing voice, “than the Vanderwhitneys.”

He summed up a century or so of their family tree, working up to Mr. and Mrs. Osgood Vanderwhitney.

“Mrs. Vanderwhitney's second husband,” Aaron explained, “was the once well-known man about town, Mr. Thaw. We are honored to have on Huckley School's faculty a man who was born a Vanderwhitney and is the adopted son of Mrs. Vanderwhitney's second husband.”

The audience of parents was getting a little confused by this, though there are plenty of second marriages among them too. And in the Zimmers' case, third.

“And so Josh and I introduce to you the last living link between Huckley School and the families who founded it, Mr. Lysander Theodore Thaw, our old—our history teacher. Step up and say a few words, Mr. Thaw.” Aaron blinked out into the auditorium. Then he and I filed off the stage and went back to our seats.

From the back of the room came the sound of creaking joints. Then Mr. L. T. Thaw began to stalk down the aisle to a growing wave of polite applause. He limped to the podium.

From behind us, the president of the parents said to the headmaster, “The poor old duffer. We really must find a way to retire him.”

Mr. Thaw frowned over the audience like they were history class. But this was his moment, maybe his last. Pulling on his beard, he launched into his boyhood in Vanderwhitney House. He dealt briefly with his mother running off with Mr. Thaw. He left out how his father had taken a dive onto Wall Street. But the more he talked, the more he remembered. He even recalled a pretty nursery maid from England who married the Van Allen boy from next door.

His old hands gripped the podium, and now he had the audience listening and interested. After all, he's a living legend. Then he was winding down.

“And last but not least,” he said, “I remember my dear brother Cuthbert, gone to his reward these many years, but as clear in my mind as if I'd seen him last week. Cuthbert is gone but not forgotten as the fire commissioner of the City of New York.”

Mr. Thaw even took a bow. Then he tottered off the stage to more applause.

So that was Parents' Night. Our entire grade in History depended on it. But Aaron and I weren't worried.

“Now I can get back to my formula,” he said on our way up the aisle. “We're talking new windows of opportun—” But then his voice broke. He went from high alto to baritone and back again. It was like cracking the sound barrier.

“Yikes,” he said. “My voice is beginning to change. What's puberty going to do to my Emotional Component?”

A lot of the dads in the audience had gone to Huckley School. They made a ring around old Mr. Thaw because he'd been their teacher too. They must have forgotten how crusty he is because they were shaking his hand. They seemed to be thanking him. His old pink eyes were moist.

The crowd parted, and I was looking for Mom and Heather. But then I saw Dad. My dad.

He was there beside Mom, and they were kind of looking at each other. Heather was beside them. In fact, she was beside herself. “This is just like
Oprah,”
she breathed, practically jumping up and down.

Dad spotted me. I wasn't sure what to do. I thought maybe we should shake hands. But he put out his arms and gave me a big hug. We gave each other a big hug.

“Have you grown?” He looked me over.

“Not an inch,” I said.

“Plenty of time,” Dad said.

“But how did you even know about Parents' Night?” I asked him. I hadn't told him about it. I didn't think he'd fly in from Chicago.

“I got a phone call late last Friday night. Must have been midnight your time. A young lady called me. She told me you had a report to give for Parents' Night. She told me it was my responsibility to be here. She was pretty definite about it. English too, I think.”

Phoebe. I could picture her looking up Dad's number in Mom's address book. I could picture her young finger punching up Dad's area code.

Phoebe, one last time.

The four of us went home together. Mom and Dad, Heather and me. I don't know if Dad's home for good. We'll see. Plenty of time.

Richard Peck
was born in Decatur, Illinois. He attended Exeter University in England and holds degrees from DePauw University and Southern Illinois University.

In 1990 he received the American Library Association's Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors “an author whose book or books, over a period of time, have been accepted by young adults as an authentic voice that continues to illuminate their experiences and emotions, giving insight into their lives.” His other books include
Are You in the House Alone?, Ghosts I Have Been, The Ghost Belonged to Me, Remembering the Good Times, Princess Ashley,
and, most recently,
The Great Interactive Dream Machine.