The nutcracker figures were lined up on the mantel — it was supposed to be bad luck to put them away, but Jane always did so anyway. She got out the punch bowl and Christmas cups, the felt tree skirt her mother-in-law Thelma had made when Jane had Mike. Jane had always taken this gesture to mean that Thelma had acknowledged (grudgingly) that, having given birth to the first Jeffry grandchild, Jane was finally part of the family.
She filled the Santa bowl with candy canes, stuck the artificial wreath made of tiny foil packages on the refrigerator door, and set out the red and green candles all over the house. Mikecould set up the train and miniature village when he got home from college. It had always been his special job and he guarded it jealously. She hung the red tapestry stockings she'd gotten at the church craft sale the year before, put out the Christmas afghan, and stood back to admire her handwork. As if it were a signal, music started blasting from next door.
“O Little Town of Bethlehem" at 100 decibels.
She sighed heavily. Her activities had put both the dreaded Lance King and her very odd new neighbors out of her mind for several hours. Now reality and the present intruded and she went back to fretting about what the next couple days might hold in store.
Five
Jan e ran out and did some more of her shop- · ping and dashed home before Todd could get back from school and snoop into packages. As she turned onto her block, she saw a familiar little figure plodding along the street on her way home from the school bus stop. Jane pulled the station wagon to the curb, opened the window, and said, "Hop in, Pet. You look cold. I'll drop you at your house."
“Thank you very much, Mrs. Jeffry, but I'll walk. My father says I can't get in other people's cars," Pet Dwyer said precisely.
“I'm sure he meant strangers' cars, dear, and I'm not a stranger. But it's good advice. See you later.”
She was still shaking her head and chuckling when she pulled into the driveway. Shelley was just coming out to get her newspaper and followed Jane into Jane's house. "What are you grinning about?" she asked. "Did you win the lottery? Inherit fabulous jewelry from a long-lost aunt? Is your mother-in-law going on an around-the-world cruise for a year?"
“No, nothing that good. I just offered that little Pet Dwyer a ride and she turned me down because she can't accept rides. She's such a weird little girl. I've got to hide Todd's presents before he gets here.”
Jane disappeared into the basement for a moment and when she returned, Shelley asked, "Pet Dwyer?"
“Patricia, really. You know her, Shelley. Lives across the street and two or three houses down? The blue house with the white trim. She comes over at least three times a week to visit Todd."
“Oh, yes. Todd likes her? Are they a 'thing'?"
“I don't think Todd knows what to make of her. She's so bright and prim and grownup-talking. Like a very smart but repressed Victorian child. She doesn't drool over him, so he's not scared of her like he would be of any other girl. And she seems to genuinely like the same things he does. One day she brought over a microscope and a bunch of rather revolting slides of things like ant feet and fly wings. Nothing could have charmed him more. He's really not interested in girls yet, even though it's macho to pretend he is, and is sort of embarrassed at having one follow him around.”
Shelley nodded. "I heard my son and his friends using an extraordinarily rude word the other day for a part of the female anatomy. I eavesdropped for a bit and discovered they thought it meant a girl's hairdo. I explained, as tactfully as possible, that it didn't mean that and I would wash out the mouth of any child who said it in my house again."
“Did you tell them the real meaning?"
“Good Lord, no! Imagine if they went home and told their parents that Mrs. Nowack was educating them in gutter language.”
At that moment Todd came slamming into the house. "Mom, help me! That Pet is on her way here. I saw her coming down the street."
“I can't save you. Into each life some Pets must fall."
“Mom, I'm serious! She saw me come in the house. What'll I do?"
“You'll be nice to her," Jane said mildly. "Let her play with your hamsters."
“Every time she touches them she has to wash her hands afterwards like she was getting ready for surgery! Oh, okay. Okay.”
Pet was at the front door a few minutes later. "That house next door to yours is rather garish, isn't it, Mrs. Jeffry," she said. She made it sound as if it just might be Jane's fault.
“Garish," Jane said. "Yes, excellent word for it. Come in, Pet. Todd's just gone up to change his clothes. Come in the kitchen and have some milk and cookies with Mrs. Nowack and me."
“I can't eat sweets because I didn't bring along my toothbrush," Pet said. "But thank you anyway. I'm sure they're very good. And I can't drink milk from the grocery store. My father has special milk delivered."
“Soy or something, I guess," Jane said. "You know what? I have lemonade and also extra toothbrushes that haven't even been unwrapped. You can have a cookie and a toothbrush," Jane said, wondering how a real live child could be this proper and noble. She needed to be tickled or something."Thank you so much, Mrs. Jeffry.”
Her eating was as prissy as her speech. She munched the cookie in little rabbity nibbles, holding a napkin at chest level to catch any crumbs. Jane knew Pet was in seventh grade with Todd, but she was one of the late bloomers. Gangly, flat-chested, and looking like she had a larger person's teeth filling her mouth, she was still a knobby-kneed little girl. Jane could remember some of Katie's friends at the same age looking like twenty-five-year-old models. Or at least giving it a good try. But Pet, with her bottle-bottom glasses and tightly braided hair, had a long way to go and didn't appear to be in any hurry.
“It must take your mother ages to braid your hair every morning," Jane said as she poured Pet a glass of lemonade.
“I don't have a mother. She died in a car wreck."
“Oh, Pet. I'm so sorry," Jane exclaimed. "I had no idea."
“It's okay. I was little. I don't remember her, not exactly. But I have lots of pictures of her. My father braids my hair.”
Jane was saved from asking any more inadvertently awkward questions by Todd. "Oh, hi, Pet," he said as if he were surprised to find her there. "What's up?"
“My dad gave me a computer program about pyramids," Pet said. "I thought you might like to see it. You can build a sarcophagus with it and move treasures around inside to foil grave robbers and wrap up mummies."
“Do you want me to load it on my computer in the basement?" Jane asked. She had a small office in the basement where she worked on what she'd come to think of as the Endless Novel. She estimated that it was three-quarters done and was going to really, really work on it after the holidays. She remembered thinking the same thing last Christmas. But at least she was two hundred pages farther along now than then.
“I know how to load programs, Mrs. Jeffrey. I just hope you have enough RAM.”
For some reason, Pet's behavior made Jane want to be a child for her. Show her how it was done. She nearly said, "Ram, schram, bippity barn" with a girlish laugh, but forced herself to reply only, "I don't know, Pet. Can you tell when you turn it on?"