A Stitch in Time Read online

  “She’s gonna haul me off to Boston,” said Donut, looking from Sam to Tiny.

  “Your aunt? What do you mean?” said Tiny. He relaxed his grip on the rope, the pulley squeaked, and the moose sagged a few inches.

  “Up. Up. Hold it steady,” said Sam. He rolled over and eyed Donut. “Can this wait? We’re right in the middle—”

  “No. You don’t understand. It’s for good. Forever.”

  Donut stood there in the parlor, glaring at the two of them, the muddy wet of her boots making puddles on the floor. What was wrong with them? Dumb moose wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Forever?” said Tiny, straining on the rope with both hands above his head.

  “Aunt Agnes and Aunt Jo, they want to move me to Boston. In two weeks. For good. And I’m not going.”

  Sam set his wrench down and sat up. He scratched at his ear.

  The pulley squealed, the moose sagged, and he turned away.

  “This is difficult news,” said Sam over his shoulder. “And I don’t want to put you off, but it’s a delicate moment. Weeks of work to get to this point.”

  “Boston. That’s a long ways away.” Tiny shook his head.

  “Miles and miles,” said Donut.

  “Just hold the femur, would you?” said Sam.

  The only way to grab Sam’s full attention was to get this blasted moose standing on his own four feet. Donut kneeled down on the floor and got hold of the leg bone with both hands. Sam picked up the wrench and tugged at the iron rod, trying to slip it into the hole he’d drilled in the spruce slab that was propped up on blocks.

  “Can your aunties really do that?” said Tiny. Donut could only see his legs from underneath the moose.

  “They’re Donut’s legal guardians now, I’m afraid,” said Sam. “Lower it just a tad. Good.” He slipped the rod into the hole and lay down on his back with the wrench.

  Donut moved around Sam to the back end of the moose and nudged and pushed the right leg rod.

  “Easy there. Gentle pressure,” he said.

  Donut scowled at the back of his head and looked up at Tiny, who winked. She had half a mind to cut the rope.

  “Sam, Pops made you my godfather. Doesn’t that give you a say?”

  “Your pops named Agnes as your godmother, so it’s pretty much a standoff. But none of that matters. It’s in his will—if anything was to happen to him, your aunts would be your guardians.”

  “But he didn’t say they could kidnap me, did he?”

  Sam didn’t answer.

  “Yeah,” said Tiny. “They can’t kidnap her.”

  The last leg took forever—there was no give anywhere. Finally, Donut jammed it through. Sam, wheezing a little now, secured the last nut and clambered up off the floor.

  Tiny, who was a head taller than Sam, untied the tangle of rope. The moose was very unmoose-like, almost dainty. It stood on tiptoe, six inches of bare iron holding up the leg bones all wired up to the body board. A moose ballerina until Sam attached the four enormous hoofs waiting on the workbench.

  “Good to have the old boy standing,” said Sam.

  “I’m not going,” said Donut.

  Sam leaned down and picked up his wrench. “I know this is very difficult. But I suppose your aunt wants to go home. Not many job prospects here, either.”

  “Let her go home. I’m just fine where I am. I’ll get myself a big dog and be loads happier.”

  “There’s gotta be something she can do,” said Tiny.

  “I’m afraid not. The law is such that Donut has no say in the matter.”

  “That’s just not right. What am I? A lamp or a chair she can cart around?” Donut kicked at the spruce slab, the moose rocked, and Sam cringed.

  She walked over to his workbench, pulled herself up on one of the stools and shoved her hands in her coat pockets. She’d put up with more than her fair share of rotten luck already, what with her mother dying before she’d even gotten a good look at her and then her pops, with the tire blowing out and the crash. Donut looked up. Sam was studying her with pinched-faced worry. Tiny was fingering one of his throwing rocks, looking for something to aim at.

  “You might try gentle persuasion,” said Sam. “She probably misses her sister.”

  “But what about me and my missing everything?” She was yelling now. “I never asked her to come here and take charge of me.”

  Tiny jammed the rock back in his pocket. Sam just shook his head.

  She could see that even if he understood how wrong it was, Sam was gonna flop right down on Aunt Agnes’s side. He had been her pops’ best friend. She’d known him all her life. But he was still an adult who’d forgotten what it was like to be a kid, all tied up in rules and schedules and punishments with no say.

  “Donut,” he said, “that temper of yours will make things worse.”

  “I thought you’d be on my side.”

  “It’s not about sides,” he said.

  “Says you.”

  “Donut.”

  She eyed Tiny. “I’ll meet you up the hill.” He nodded and she started toward the door.

  “Donut,” said Sam.

  “Gotta go.”

  In the mudroom Donut paused, surrounded by the stuffed birds—Sam’s flock, as he called them. When she was little, she’d lie down on her back in this room and talk to each one. Now, as always, they were perched in watchful silence. Time was stopped—all stitched up with needle and thread. The birds were fixed in their spots on the shelves and cabinets, earthbound. Donut wished deep down in her guts that today they’d decide to fly. She’d open the front door and they’d swoop out into the world in a rush of feathers and song.

  “Donut,” said Sam from the parlor door. “Stay awhile. Beryl made some stewed apples.”

  His soft voice nearly cracked her open like a walnut. Angry as a chained dog and so close to tears she could hardly breathe, all she could do was run. Donut blurted out a goodbye and got herself out the door and halfway up the hill before she slowed down. First Aunt Agnes, now Sam. She’d slammed the door on both of them, and the day had hardly started.

  “Hey, wait up.”

  She turned. Tiny waved, his dad’s cast-off red jacket slung over his shoulder. Donut pulled in a deep breath to steady herself.

  “You okay?” he said, joining her.

  “No.”

  “Is the launch still on?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure about this?” he said, giving her a friendly punch on the arm, throwing her off-balance.

  “Come on,” she said. “Worst that could happen is it’ll sink.”

  Tiny laughed. “No. Add to that the two of us drowning. That’ll win the prize for worst.”

  Donut gave him a good punch. “Don’t worry. She’s seaworthy.”

  They grabbed the paddles by the woodpile at her house, Tiny pulled on his jacket, and they started up Slapp Hill Road. Donut had to do a bit of trotting every few yards to keep up with him.

  “I’m not going to Boston,” she said, panting a little.

  Tiny leaned down and picked up a smooth stone. He pitched it at a maple tree and it pinged off the bark. “Of course you’re not,” he said.

  And that was that.

  With the cold air and the walking and Tiny beside her like always, side-arming rocks at maples and ash and poplars, Donut’s stomach settled down. Her main worry right then was how wet they were going to get. Her pops’ boat was a little thing, and Tiny was very big.

  4

  At the top of Slapp Hill, Donut and Tiny passed his house and the worn red barn. In the pasture alongside the road a herd of Guernseys grazed on the new grass, heads down, tails swinging.

  One cow, ears twitching, followed them in the narrow, muddy track on her side of the barbed-wire fence.

  “Hey, Winnie,” called Donut.

  Tiny jumped the gully, leaned over the fence, and gave her a scratch behind the ears.

  Donut joined him and ran her hand down Winnie’s soft brown nec
k.

  “No apples today, girl,” said Tiny.

  Every one of the Patoines’ Guernseys had a name, but Winnie had been raised up by Tiny, and she was his special favorite. When he was six years old his dad had trucked her to the Tunbridge Fair, and Tiny’d collected a blue ribbon for the finest heifer in the state. Winnie followed him around like a puppy—a very big puppy.

  Tiny gave Winnie a friendly slap on the rump. “Go on, girl.”

  Despite his urging to join the herd, she followed them the length of the pasture and watched as they continued on down the road.

  At the bottom of the hill they heard Ernie Mayo’s flivver coming up behind them. The old Ford backfired, sputtered, and coughed. He didn’t slow down as he approached, just held tight to the steering wheel with both hands, his police cap pulled down over his ears. They moved off to the side of the road and Ernie glared at them as he tore past.

  “What’s eating him?” said Donut.

  “Probably thinks you got a bottle of hooch in your sack,” said Tiny. “Thinks everyone and their granny’s running whiskey out of Canada.”

  “If liquor was legal maybe he’d be a little friendlier.”

  “No,” said Tiny. “My dad said Ernie was a cold fish long before Prohibition.”

  At the turnoff Tiny picked up a few more smooth stones and jammed them into his pocket. They left the road and headed along the footpath to the pond.

  “Water’s gonna be freezing. And even if your sardine can floats, we don’t know if it’s gonna leak or not.” Tiny whipped a stone into a stand of poplar trees.

  “It was Pops’ design. He built it. Won’t be any leaks,” said Donut. “We’ve just got to test how much weight it’ll hold.”

  “So, I’m your sack of rocks?” Tiny laughed.

  “Kinda.” Donut grinned.

  In the shadowy part of the trail she slowed down.

  “I gotta think of something, Tiny. Can’t live in a city, all bricked up, stuck in my aunties’ school for curly heads in petticoats.”

  The thought of it stopped her altogether. She leaned her paddle against a cedar tree and sat down on a low boulder by the path. Tiny sat next to her.

  “Your auntie’s not been too bad up to now. My mom thinks she comes across as kinda snooty, but it’s mostly all her book learning that puts people off. What’s she thinking with you and Boston?”

  Donut picked up a stick and busted it in two. “I don’t give a fiddlehead what she’s thinking. Just need to work up a plan. I’ve got almost five dollars from my poker winnings if I need it.”

  “That’s money for your new atlas. You’ve been saving forever.”

  “The Rand McNally World Atlas, third edition, might just have to wait.”

  “What about getting her married off to Mr. Hollis or André? Get her down to one of the dances at the Grange Hall and introduce ’em. Then she’ll have to stick around.”

  “Married? She’s too old for that—pushing fifty. Besides, Mr. Hollis is ancient and André’d be scared to death of her.” Donut stuffed her hands in her pockets. “We could take a shot at a little kidnapping, ourselves. We could get hold of something to make her sleep, like a bottle of chloroform or ether. You could help me pack her in a wooden crate. We’d put some straw in first, steal Sam’s truck, haul the crate down to the train depot.”

  “Now, that’s an excellent plan, excepting I’m not stealing a truck and your auntie is a solidly built lady. We’d be hard put to move her without busting one of her legs or a hip.”

  Donut kicked at the soft soil at her feet. “We’d be sure to drug her in the parlor so we wouldn’t have far to heft her. And it wouldn’t be stealing, just borrowing the truck. We’d ship her off to South America. Buenos Aires, maybe. With my poker winnings, I’ve probably got enough for the postage. We’d pack her up with jam jars filled with water, canned salmon, and crackers. And she’d need a pot to pee in. We’d throw in her knitting to pass the time. She could knit those old socks in the dark. Waking up in the crate would surely send her round the bend. She’d forget her name, join a convent.”

  “She’s gonna have to do more than take a whiz, what with the salmon and the crackers. Gonna smell like Lazy Leon’s barn in August.”

  “Those South Americans are gonna get a shock when they open up that crate and find a ripe auntie inside.”

  They both laughed, sitting on the gray boulder in the woods, the damp earth smell and the greenness coming on strong in the spring air. Donut could almost imagine Aunt Agnes long gone. But instead she was just sitting in the parlor, probably writing one of her letters to Aunt Jo with all her happy news about dragging their niece south to the big city to scrub the rough patches off and civilize her right up.

  “I’d rather run off and live in the woods than let her drag me to Boston,” she said in a louder voice than she intended.

  Tiny shook his head. “That wouldn’t do much good unless you could hold out for years and years.”

  “Maybe she wouldn’t wait that long.” Donut stood, brushed the moss and leaves off her backside. “Let’s get moving.”

  After about a quarter mile, the trees opened up and they came out on the rocky edge of Dog Pond. It was a big pond, a lake really, shaped like a kidney bean, with a few run-down cabins plunked down along the shore here and there. No one was on the water, it being so early in the spring, which made it seem all the bigger.

  They pushed their way through the scrub to where they’d hidden the boat in a patch of wild raspberry canes. Two weeks ago they’d lugged the tin boat here all the way from Mr. Daniels’ factory. Now, finally, a spell of warm weather had melted the last of the ice.

  It was a flat-bottomed skiff about eight feet long, squared off on both ends. And it folded. That had been her pops’ brilliant idea. Right across the middle he’d attached strips of oilcloth and cedar planks that latched down to make it watertight. Using the grab handles on each end Donut and Tiny hauled the boat down to the rocky shore. They opened it up like a clamshell, twisted the eight latches closed, and set the paddles inside.

  “Kinda windy,” said Tiny, shaking his head. “And cold. Perfect day for floating around in the Tintanic.”

  “It’s not the Tintanic. And we’re not gonna sink,” said Donut.

  Tiny sat on a rock and pulled off his boots and socks. “Don’t know why I listen to you.”

  Donut grinned. “Don’t worry. I got this all planned out.”

  5

  Donut studied the waves moving across the pond. “We’ll have to hold her with the rope tied to the front—that’s called the bow, you know. The back’s called the stern, and the rope’s called the painter.”

  “What kind of name is that for a rope?”

  “I got the correct seafaring lingo out of my Encyclopedia Britannica. They had a drawing with arrows.”

  “Thought a painter was some guy with a brush and a bucket, but what do I know?”

  Donut pulled the rope out from under the stern bench seat and tied it to the handle on the squared-off bow. Now that they were all set for the launch, she wasn’t feeling so confident. Maybe her pops had planned to make a few more adjustments to the oilcloth or the latches.

  “Come on.” Donut kicked a rock. “Let’s get cracking.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  They muscled the boat sideways into the shallows. It made a racket on the stones. Donut cringed at the thought of punctures and the worry that she hadn’t brought anything to bail water with if some of the pond happened to slip in. But the little tin boat bobbed up and down in the water in a cheerful way, all ready for passengers.

  “Looks swell,” said Tiny. “Just comes across awful delicate.”

  “Lightweight, not delicate,” said Donut.

  She pulled off her boots and socks and rolled up her pants.

  “Hold the painter tight,” said Donut. The rocks dug into her bare feet. She stepped into the icy water and gritted her teeth at the cold of it.

  She’d been in a can
oe with her pops, so she knew that getting in and out was the tricky part about boating. Donut held the side and stretched her right leg up, over, and in. The boat tipped, she pulled back a little, and the boat rocked. Thinking too hard on this was going to get her very wet. In one go Donut reached across and grabbed the far side of the boat as she hauled her left leg in. The boat rolled toward her and water sloshed over the side. Donut dropped onto the stern seat and squirmed around into a crouch. Any sudden move and it got to rocking again.

  “So far, so good. A little touchy, though,” said Tiny.

  Donut pressed her bare feet against the flat bottom. “Okay, I’m ready for you.”

  Tiny didn’t move. “It’s as good as walking the plank, me climbing into this thing.”

  “It’s not gonna sink.”

  Tiny just shook his head, stepped into the water, and got up alongside the boat. Donut gripped the sides. With Tiny right there, so darn big, it really didn’t look like the boat would hold him.

  “Don’t second-guess yourself,” she said. “Do it fast.”

  “Let me concentrate.”

  Donut bit her tongue and held her breath. Tiny reached across and grabbed the far edge, lifted his right leg, and plunked his foot on the bottom of the boat.

  “Steady,” he whispered. “Steady.”

  With Tiny halfway in the boat, it rocked like a bronco, and water sloshed over the side. He pulled his other leg up out of the pond and sat down heavily on the middle bench seat. His weight settled the tin boat right down, but it floated low in the water, low enough that an ambitious fish might jump right in.

  “I don’t know how I’m gonna get back out,” said Tiny, shaking his head, taking one of the paddles from Donut. “But sinking’s gonna solve that problem.”

  “We’re at sea.” Donut gazed out over Dog Pond, the breeze kicking up little waves. If her pops were here, sitting in his boat, he’d check the latches, laugh at the three inches of water sloshing around their feet while he cooked up ideas for the next model. Donut clamped her eyes shut, felt the waves swing the bow around.