CHAPTER 2—THEN COMES MARRIAGE

Abigail Redburn and Chris Fowler married in April. The exact date was April 1st, 1954. 

April Fools.

When Abigail got off the plane, and they stood hatless and coatless in the terminal, with paper-shred snow fluttering down, there wasn’t a question left between them.

As for the wedding…

There was no shower.

No cake.

No veil.

There were many hot tempers.

The only presents they got were from Chris’s mother, Alexandra: a vegetable slicer and an old pillow with throw-up stains from when Chris was a baby.

“How dare you marry that idiot girl??” Alexandra Fowler hollered over the phone. “She has no money. She is white trash! She is nothing and nobody. No, son, you won’t get anything but a swat with a broomstick for your ‘wedding!’”

“Abigail, what were you thinking?” Marilyn Redburn yelled in her daughter’s ear. “You met him only one night, slapped him across the face, called him an eggplant, and now you’re gonna run off and marry him?”

They were in Leap Toad, Kentucky and they caused an earthquake that shook Chicago.

“Let’s meet the judge tomorrow,” Chris said, “so we can get out this place!”

“You mean we can’t have a church wedding?” Abigail groaned as her little-girl wedding dreams melted away.

“We’re flat broke. We’ve got to save that money for our first house,” he explained. “Philosophers must learn delayed gratification. It will turn out better this way, I promise.”

They went downtown and got a ring, a cluster of seashell pearls around a center which read Faith, hope, love. Abigail’s palms were soggy and her heart shaky as they entered the courthouse, but the Eggplant’s grip tightened around hers, and she never thought of turning back.

“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Abby, no one but God can separate us now.”

Abigail wasn’t sure if that was a threat or a promise. When they stepped outside, they were husband and wife, for better or worse, in sickness and in health, till death did them apart. Rain poured in bucketfuls from Heaven, but Abigail’s siblings stood in raincoats and rubbers, flinging rice left and right.

They climbed into Chris’s trashy Ford Fairlane, christened Rust Princess, which sputtered and shook in protest, spewing oil. Finally, they were off. So that was that.

They got married because they were young, and stupid. Because they didn’t have anything better to do.

They got married because they were outcasts and didn’t even know their own selves.

They got married because they were angry.

They got married to make their parents angry.

Did they get married because they loved each other? Maybe. Maybe not. While they may not have been a fairy-tale love-match from the start, the years stuck them together. Their wedding march should’ve been “Semper Fideles.”

“Look at that,” Abigail whispered. The rain cut in half, and the sky was just one big smile—the rainbow to beat all rainbows.

“Abby and the Eggplant, here we come…we’re leaving this sick and tired old town!” she shouted excitedly.

“Red Harbor, Maine…here we come!”

For several days, the lovebirds meandered across the USA, stopping only at trashy hotels and restaurants to save their money. The hotels got worse and worse until there was one with a dead bat floating in the toilet, frayed electric cords, and beds crawling with lice. Chris cracked jokes about eating free bat meat at Sleazbag Inn. At one point, they broke down along a deserted highway because they forgot to fill up on gas, and Chris hiked twelve miles to the nearest town, and Abigail had to pull the ticks out of him.

Finally, they arrived at their first home: Red Harbor, Maine, an obscure sea-swept fishing village. Here in these far-flung parts, the sun hardly shone six months of the year, and snow runoff splattered the car—the rocky, rutted road was like driving through a muddy river, a long carsick journey.

“This,” said the Eggplant grandly, “this is life. Far away from cars and trucks and buses and civilization. Here, a philosopher can say what he pleases and the sea roars on and no one answers.”

“The sea!” She breathed the salt-heavy air. “You can taste it before you see it. Oh, isn’t it so romantic?”

The road signs grew fewer and fewer, and they all had odd Mainey names: Misquamicut, Snowshoe Ditch, Elk Neck, Blackfalls, Queen Anne’s Head. Grizzly bears skulked in the forests. The wind in the pines was the sigh of the ages.

The world was so beautiful that neither of them dared to speak.

Over the next few days, Mr. Fowler pawned away Rust Princess to buy their first home: a seaside cabin on stilts. They called it Sunshell Mansion. It looked so frail that a nor’easter might sweep it out to sea. Abigail watched as her husband shook hands with a gnarled, weather-beaten stick of a sailor.

“That was Captain Ahaz,” he explained later. “He’s loaning us Sunshell Mansion until I get my shellfish business up and running.”

“Is it shellfish season? How do you know? You’ve never caught shellfish before.”

“Captain Ahaz says catching shellfish will make me a rich man in five years. Add the numbers right, Abby. Our children will be living in luxury! You can’t even imagine.”

He swept Abigail off her feet, then yanked out a handkerchief and blindfolded her.

“EEK! Where in Heaven’s name are you taking me?”

“You’ll see.”

At the dock, Chris untied the blindfold, showed her Captain Ahaz’s sunfish boat, My Fair Lady. “Jump!” he yelled.

Abby stumbled, blundered, missed the boat…and landed in waist-deep water, spitting and shaking.

“You will pay for that, Eggplant!”

The Eggplant stood on the beach, laughter snorting out his nose. “Oh Abby, Abby! Don’t you know never to jump into an unanchored boat? Oh, don’t look at me! No harm meant, right?”

“Don’t look now, but there’s a giant squid behind you. It’s got fangs and blood on its teeth and—WATCH OUT!”

The Eggplant crashed overboard.

“Blast it all! Don’t you know I can’t swim?” he gasped. But now they were both laughing and snorting water like a couple of idiots.

“Gimme that blindfold!”

“What trick are you planning now? You wear the blindfolds around here!”

“Says who? I wash the clothes around here!”

They struggled up the beach toward Sunshell Mansion.

“I certainly hope that Chris Les Fowler the Second won’t be anything like you,” Abigail declared.

“No, we should start out with girls. Abigail the Second—she’s bound to have the same red hair and Irish temper as you.”

“What if I want boys? I’m not that hot-tempered! And I hate the name Abigail.”

“How about we have—what do you think—ten children? Ten little Fowlers, five boys and five girls. All exactly like us.”

“That sounds simply dreadful!”

“Never! Why, they’ll be wiser than any ten kids on the block. You think Chris Les Fowler the Philosopher would let them grow up to be dunces? Yes sirree, they will honor the noble name Fowler!”

“You never know…”

For hours, they sat out on the porch of Sunshell Mansion, watching the sun sink into the ocean like a king into his chariot… loving…dreaming…and talking. Talking about the little Fowlers. Talking about everything, and about nothing.

While the ocean roared against the rocks, in and out, in and out, like the years of their lives.

Abigail let Chris blindfold her one too many times.

That gray January day was just waiting for a blizzard, and a blizzard struck—only not like she expected. Removing a burnt lump of raisin pie from the oven, she jerked her head up, hearing the door slam. The clocks clanged in protest. Irritated, she dropped the pie. “What’s the matter now?”

            Breathless, the Eggplant snatched the dishtowel from his wife’s hands. He blindfolded her, quick as a tornado.

            “That’s enough! Don’t tell me you’re—”  

            “No time for arguments! I’ve got us a wedding present. You get three guesses.”

            “Is it bigger than a bread box?”

            “Approximately.”

            “Don’t tell me it’s a puppy. I will throw you out on the street! Is it a puppy?”

            “Approximately. But no…don’t guess anymore.” He was holding back guffaws of laughter. This could not be good.

            He dragged her outdoors, through the streets of Red Harbor, to the small firehouse.

            “Here goes. Are you ready?”

            The blindfold flew off. Abigail stared, dumbfounded.

            “A shellfish box?”

            Laughter was exploding out of the Eggplant.

“What am I supposed to do? Stand upon it and make a speech?”

            “Stop thinking outside the box, Abby! For Wisdom’s sake!”

He lifted a wrapped bundle from the crate, placed it in Abigail’s arms. The ‘present’ was warm and red and screaming. It was so small that it fit in the Eggplant’s one hand.

            Abby’s heart turned over. “Don’t tell me, Mr. Fowler! Is this your idea of a joke?”

            Mr. Fowler shook like a tree in the wind.

“Come on, just say it! It’s a baby. Don’t you get the joke? Too big for a lobster, too small for a puppy. This is better than getting us a washing machine or a toaster. Is it not? Happy belated wedding. The Fowler Family is complete! What should we name her? I propose that we call her after you, Abby. Behold, Abigail Fowler the Second! Chip off the old block!”

Silence. Abigail began slowly to realize that the baby was alive. At first, she was so furious that she planned to bestow the Silent Treatment on her husband for all eternity. But then the sleepy, swollen eyelids blinked open and a finger wrapped around hers. A hungry howl came from the bundle, like a starving kitten.

“Why are you looking funny? I thought all women wanted babies to take care of.”

            “The poor small miracle,” Abigail whispered reverently. “Who in God’s name could’ve abandoned a little one? And where did you find her? The orphanage?”

            “Orphanage, my foot! Found her two hours ago, hunting shellfish crates. I hollered as loudly as I could, ‘Did anyone misplace a baby?’ Fireman came out and said, ‘That baby is the lonesomest critter in the world. Folks abandoned it yesterday. Poor thing’s only two weeks old.’”

            “Who were those criminals?? There is no end of freaks and oddities in this world!”

            “The philosopher must remain silent. Bad things happen to bad folks, Abby. They try to fix a bad problem with a worse solution. Surely you know what I mean.”

            “Surely I don’t.”

            “Point taken. Less said, the better. We don’t want our daughter to grow thinking she’s—”

            “Did you legally adopt her yet? Or did you just pull a prank on me?”

            “What do you think? The baby hasn’t a soul in the world to care for her. The firemen were just glad to be rid of her.”

            “What will people think? Oh, deary me, what will people think?”

            Abby sank down beside the shellfish crate, like the sky had fallen on her head.

            “If you are telling the truth—in all seriousness—this is a very bad situation indeed. I wish I had told you sooner. Too late for that.”

            “What should you have told me beforehand?”

            “I’m pregnant.”

            Mr. Fowler nearly keeled over beside the Red Harbor Firehouse.

            “For Heaven’s sake, I might as well jump into a lobster trap and sail for Nova Scotia! This is enough to drive the sane husband to drink. Not to mention the insane husband.”

            “Well, it serves you right. You’re not the one only who can play tricks!”

            For a long time, they sat there like bums—the three Freaky Fowlers, plus one.

 “Just think.” Mr. Fowler’s voice trembled for perhaps the first time. “Just think, yesterday we were all alone. Now we’re a family of four. How far along is it, Abby? Did a doctor tell you? How did you find out?”

            “Do you really want to know?”

            Mr. Fowler let out a long whistle, studying the ocean sunset. He pulled out a cigar and blew it meditatively.

            “It’s a wonderful day. I’ll smoke to that—the Fowler Family, forever and ever!”

            “Abby! Does this baby come with a warranty?”

            The Eggplant sat in the dark kitchen at 3 PM, trying to wrestle a bottle into Shellfish Baby’s mouth. Colicky cries filled the room.

            “What are you doing with that poor child?”

            “Introducing her to Plato’s theory of forms. You take her, Abby; raising babies is women’s work. But I’ll put my oar in. Oh yes, I will! Our next baby will be Chris Les Fowler, Model #2!”

            “Philosophy won’t get her gas bubbles moving. Life isn’t easy when you’re abandoned in a shellfish box at two weeks. And then two crazy strangers adopt you and fill your little mind with nonsense! God help the poor child!”

She picked up the howling specimen from the kitchen table. “Look at the sweet sweet baby! Isn’t she Mama’s gal?”

            Chris chucked at her fat foot. “Young woman, be kind to your mother!” he said sternly, but with laughter lurking inside.

One month had passed since Shellfish Baby was discovered. She had a name—Abigail Ray Fowler, shortened to Abby-Ray to distinguish from her mother. Sunshell Mansion had turned into Baby Central, filled with cloth diapers, bottles, syringes, strollers, little pink booties that fell into the cat’s litter box. They just couldn’t give enough. Mr. Fowler staggered through the door, carrying a gangly pink mobile, droopy with butterflies, that read DADDY’S LITTLE PRINCESS. They used up reels of film, photographing that baby.

That first winter together, in Red Harbor, was one of the happiest the Fowlers ever had.

Blizzards and nor’easters howled, and the sea raged, but the fireplace burned inside Sunshell Mansion. Abigail was getting used to her housewifely duties—she seldom started more than one kitchen-fire every day. The Eggplant swaggered out the shellfish rigs with Captain Azbad, returning with few shellfish but lots of crazy stories. Whether they were true or not, Abigail listened and said, “That’s wonderful!”

Baby changed every day. Gumming her small pink toes. Rolling on the carpet in cat hair. Flashing a drooly toothless grin as she chewed Mother’s curling-iron. Mr. Fowler filled her pint-sized brain with Euclid and Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. If he understood these concepts at all, which is doubtful, Baby Abby-Ray was ready for high school before she was toilet-trained.

“She really is a beautiful baby,” Abigail would say, starry-eyed. “You could almost believe she came from us.”

“Brains are better than looks anyhow.”

“Darling, what if Abby-Ray finds out someday…about the shellfish box and all? What if she ditches us to search down her real parents?”

“Hope to God it won’t be till we’re both buried and gone. I don’t want to stick around for that scene. Heaven forbid that a child should curse us to our graves.”

            The Fowlers’ entertainment that winter didn’t just include boring philosophy lectures and shellfish stories. They started crashing the neighbors’ parties. People never invited them, of course, but no one could resist Baby Abby-Ray. Mrs. Fowler played piano—she could pluck out “The Blue Danube.” She plunked the night away while everyone stood around the punch-bowl, eating olives on frilly toothpicks and talking about liver surgery. But when Mr. Fowler drank a drop too much of Jell-O cocktail and started bawling, “Your Cheatin’ Heart”, the room emptied out like a bad smell. Abigail always asked worriedly, “What will people think?” You could always tell when Mr. Fowler entered a room. The air became charged with electricity. He smelled of shellfish and philosophy.

            In typical Maine fashion, winter raged through March and April. Then all the flowers tried to bloom at once. Gulls squawked, laying their eggs and feeding their young. Sunshine beamed on rocks. The Fowlers took walks on the seashore with Abby-Ray. The infant flapped eagerly at the seagulls, screaming “EEE-EEE-EEE!”

            “Look at Baby! Does Baby wanna fly away with the seagulls?” Abigail said, squeezing her button nose.

            “EEE-EEE-EEE!” Abby-Ray would shriek from her high chair, spitting pureed toast with soft-boiled egg across the wallpaper.

            “Smart baby!” Abigail smiled. “That’s Mama’s good girl!”

3 AM—Mr. Fowler’s typewriter clacked away in the darkness. Before him, his nocturnal rambling were titled, THE DUTY OF EXISTENTIALISM: KANT TO KIERKEGAARD; GO AGAINST THE FLOW; HOW THE EMPIRE WHICH SWALLOWED THE WHOLE WORLD SWALLOWED ITSELF; RELIGION AMONG THE AMAZON TRIBES, HUMAN SACRIFICE AMONG THE INCAS, ETC.

            He felt, rather than saw, Abigail enter the room.

            “Mr. Philosophy Brain never sleeps, does he? He only stops philosophizing to catch shellfish and stops catching shellfish to philosophize.”

            “How could I possibly sleep in this wasteland of a universe?”

            “Abby-Ray believes the same, poor lamb. She’s howling with an earache.”

            “Did you pour iodine liniment down her ear canal? That’s what Mama always did.”

            “You’ve been philosophizing her to death, that’s why!”

            “Now, now, Abby, don’t be angry! It’s only growing pains. She will turn out fine if you just let her be.”

            “I’m so worried. About everything.” The choke in Abigail’s voice made the Eggplant stop typing.

            “You can tell me now. It’s been six months. The shellfish rigging failed, didn’t it? You never let me see our financial records, but I know you’ve been borrowing money from Captain Ahaz to survive. Pretty soon, men are going to come, force us out of Sunshell Mansion. They’ll throw us out on the street!”

             “Now, now, Abby! What made you explode like that? Everything will be alright. Women don’t understand—”

            “Well, this woman understands!” Abigail wrenched away so fiercely that the Eggplant was shocked.

            “Abby, you’re not throwing me out on the street—are you? You don’t think I’m a screw of a husband and father?”

            She sank into the bed, crying hysterically.

            It’s true. Too true. He always thinks of his own reputation first.

            “Listen, I’m sorry! Abby, listen. Even philosophers make mistakes. Yes, the shellfish rigging failed. I thought it would work—really!”

            “It isn’t your fault,” Abigail moaned. Chris would never string her along, despite all his failings. For a moment, they were just two people staring into the darkness, into the unknown.

            “How long do we have?” Abigail hated the words. Leaving dear Sunshell Mansion, the sea, the rocks, the spruces. Everything she loved. Everything they had loved together.

            “You won’t want to hear the truth.” Mr. Fowler swallowed hard. “I think we had better start packing tomorrow.”

It was July, 1955, and the Fowlers left Red Harbor forever. Their belongings fit into five shellfish crates. Finally, they locked the door of Sunshell Mansion for Captain Ahaz, storm-tossed refugees headed for the unknown.

Mr. Fowler was tight-lipped and silent. Abigail was so pregnant that she couldn’t see straight. Abby-Ray kept up a steady whine all day, wriggling like Jell-O on the sticky train seat. As the rugged New England scenery flashed, Mr. Fowler looked like he might jump out the window.

“It’s a long, long way to Chicago. At least the folks in Chicago all know I’m a bum.”

“It’s not your fault about the shellfish scam,” Abigail said. “Captain Ahaz took our every penny, the old coot.”

 “I never want to hear about SHELLFISH ever again!”

They were headed for Chicago, to live with Alexandra Fowler. Miss Alexandra knew her son was a bum and never failed to tell him. They hadn’t exactly had time to send a letter. That was just too bad. She wouldn’t throw her own flesh and blood out on the street!

“She doesn’t know about the shellfish box,” Abigail said worriedly.

“Let’s not tell her. The less we have to explain ourselves, the better.”

In Chicago, a black-haired woman with a barbed-wire face flung open the door. “Where did that baby come from?? And why is she pregnant if she’s already got a baby??”

Manners were never Miss Alexandra’s trademark.

“My deepest apologies, Mother.” Mr. Fowler tipped his hat. “But I’m afraid we’ll have to board for a few months. We were cheated out of Red Harbor. Had to abandon our property, or else we’d be thrown out. You understand. With a new baby arriving so soon, we can’t drag ourselves all over Creation, and we had hardly a cent to pay our last bills—”

“I understand, alright. Beggar!”

While they walked inside her stuffy little European house, Miss Alexandra scolded, her voice unceasing, like buzzing mosquitos. Miss Alexandra could scold the head off a rooster, the Eggplant said. Miss Alexandra’s house was tiny and crowded, full of thousand-dollar knickknacks, Venetian carpets, and slipcovered sofas which no one was allowed to use. She was always bustling about, whipping up “messes” in her impeccable kitchen—masterpieces that no one was allowed to eat.

“You folks will stay here and get treated like kings while Chris lazes around and won’t pay rent!” she would holler above the electric mixer. “One week at the very latest—or else I’ll thrash you outdoors!” She flourished her spatula toward the door.

The worst part was poor little Abby-Ray. Miss Alexandra despised babies: “It’s nothing but drool, drool, drool, all the livelong day! That baby is spoiled like a rotten apple. If she were my baby, I’d give the Baby Treatment. I brought up my own kids fine on the Baby Treatment!”

Abigail looked horrified. “What is the Baby Treatment?”

“Three spoonfuls of cod liver oil each day. Morning, noon, and night. And three pinches each day. Tender spot behind the ear. Like this.”

Alexandra propped the baby on her lap. She administered a firm pinch with her sharp yellow fingernails. Abby-Ray flew into hysterics.

“Monster!” Abigail snatched the baby.

Miss Alexandra glared at her prize-winning crocheted pot-holders on the wall, incensed. Soon her fury found another vent—the Eggplant burst through the front door, singing for all the world, “Hallelujah, I’m a bum. Hallelujah, amen!”

There was only one bright, shining day in Chicago. September 27th. That was when Ina Hart Fowler, six pounds and five ounces, entered the world howling and screaming. Mr. Fowler was so excited that he went tearing through Chicago, telling the news to random strangers. “Who is this crazy fellow?” people muttered, stopping to stare.

“Who does she look like, you or me?” he demanded.

“She’s a Redburn, for sure. Got the Redburn temper. You should’ve heard her scream! We can tell already who will be Miss Prima Donna in this family. No offense, but Abby-Ray looks kind of plain next to her.”

“Cute. Abby. Good job. Another wee little philosopher to honor the Fowlers’ noble name. Now let’s go home and start Chris Les Fowler Model #2.”

“Think we will get kicked out on the street now?”

“I honestly have no idea…”

Prima Donna was an understatement. Little Ina believed herself a princess, and the whole household revolved around Her Majesty, twenty-four seven. Poor Abby-Ray, nine months old, ceased to be a novelty. For the rest of her life, Abby-Ray faded into the family furniture. Ina would slowly gobble every opportunity she had.

But Abby-Ray was too young to understand. Wasn’t she Mama’s baby? Why would Mama get a replacement?

The final straw came around Thanksgiving. When knocks came at the door, Abigail was so startled that she dropped Ina on the sofa and put up her hair to answer it.

 “Hello?” she said feebly. Abby-Ray was chewing her teddy bear’s knee on the Persian carpet; Ina was naked and unashamed, silky red curls plastered to her head, kicking about gleefully in a cloud of smelly baby powder.

“Ma’am, are you the lady of the house? This is the Chicago Area Child Abduction Investigator.”

“What?? Who got abducted?”

“That one.” He gestured with a clipboard toward Abby-Ray.

Abigail knew in a flash. The shellfish box. Someone knew. Terror flashed through her. She picked up Ina and said, “This one? This child was not abducted! Idiots! What is the meaning of this?”

“No, not that little one. Not the one with thrush in her mouth. The older child. On the carpet.” Why are we playing games?

“Please sit down, sir. Sit down and explain. I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Not on my prize-winning Venetian couches you don’t!” came Miss Alexandra’s voice.

Clipboard Man stared from his enormous height. Abby-Ray gazed with big brown eyes. “Da-da?”

“I am not your father, young lady. Be quiet while I talk with the lady of the house!”

The man clearly hated babies more than Miss Alexandra. Scowling, he plopped on the slipcovered couch like he owned the place and said “Our evidence shows that this baby was kidnapped amid mysterious circumstances from Red Harbor, Maine. Are you Mrs. Fowler?”

“You will have to deal with my husband. I don’t make the decisions around here.” Abigail grabbed her squirming namesake from the curtain-rod.

“How long do I have to stick around?” Clipboard Man seemed to ask himself. He looked at Abby-Ray’s red little mousy face and then said, “Good riddance. Who would want to abduct her?”

The door slammed behind him.

Miss Alexandra raced to the door, red-faced, her stiff black bun daring him to come back.

“Don’t you dare come back, or I’ll whip you with a spatula!”

Later, when Mr. Fowler reappeared jobless as usual, Abigail told him. They had a long conference that night and agreed that they had to move out of Miss Alexandra’s. They were just too crowded, always quarreling. “This house is not an orphanage!” Miss Alexandra barked at them. No one wanted to abduct Abby-Ray, but the police were still watching the Fowlers.

“I ran into a man on a bicycle today,” Mr. Fowler said.

“What’s the point of that?”

“Well, I struck up a conversation with him—his name was Bill Simpson. A newsboy for the Weekly Tornado in Minneapolis. I turned on the Fowler charm. He told me I’d make a good newspaper reporter, since I’m always parading with a WILL WORK—FREE PHILOSOPHY LESSONS sign. ‘Get out of Chicago,’ he said. ‘You’ll never do anything but panhandle, man, so long’s you’re in the big C. Hell, you can do anything if you leave Chicago! The world’s your oyster, man!’ Think, Abby, Minneapolis could be home! I could find a job!”

“We can’t move to Minneapolis! Do you know how hard it is to rent the sleaziest apartment? Abby-Ray won’t be tiny for long—she’ll be walking and running. And Ina will keep the neighbors awake. Did this Bill Simpson make guarantees? How do you know the police won’t follow us?”

“Have faith, Abby. Everything will turn out well. One way or another.”

“I’ve had enough of Mr. Platitudes! Why can’t you stop talking and find a job?”

The Eggplant looked so hurt that Abigail was ashamed. He told how he was would certainly find a job, while she stood before the mirror in her nightgown, twisting her hair on rag curlers. Then she exploded again.

It was the Fowlers’ first real family fight. On and on it went, the air hot and thick with verbal fists that they flung. Finally, in tears, Abigail said she’d pack a suitcase, take the babies, and go back to Leap Toad. The Eggplant jumped at that.

“I’ve got an idea. Here’s a map of the US on the wall, and I’ve got darts in the closet. Wherever the dart lands is where God leads.”

“As long as I get a turn throwing the darts,” Abigail said hotly.

“You probably want Abby-Ray to throw darts at the map.”

“No, she would poke her eye out.”

Chris hurled the first dart. It stuck in the Atlantic Ocean, so he had to try again. Voila—it landed smack-dab in southern Minnesota!

The next day, the Fowlers gathered their suitcases.

“Well… isn’t this beautiful?” asked Mr. Fowler, as they stepped into their apartment.

            Abigail sniffed the stale air. Cockroaches crawled under the rusted sink, behind the broken toilet. Paint peeled from the tired ceiling. Opening the refrigerator, she got hit with the stench so bad that she nearly passed out.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “There are petrified dead rats in there!”

            “Those aren’t the last dead things lurking. So, anyhow, what do you think? Have we found Heaven in Minneapolis?”

            “It’s beautiful,” Abigail gasped. “Utterly beautiful.”

            “Now all I need is a job,” said the Eggplant. “Just think, Abby—one day, maybe we’ll even have a car.”

            “Not a chance,” muttered Abigail. “Not with your philosophizing!”

            They both stared out the high-rise windows—smoke-clouds wafting into the muggy December sky.

            “Did you meet our neighbors, the Flagstaffs?” Chris asked. “They’re bonkers. Rafael and Rachel Flagstaff—they run the Peace Temple for Our Lady of Avocados. Can you fancy such a thing?”

            “Ma-ma! Da-da!” Abby-Ray’s voice made them jump.

“Ina did it!”

            Abigail turned pale. “Did you hear that? She said a sentence! The baby talked!”

            “Lord have mercy,” said the Eggplant. “I’ll telegraph Chicago! I’ll telegraph the whole world.”

            Then they heard baby laughter, and they rushed to the pantry, to find Abby-Ray on the floor. She was pigging out of a large Crisco jar. She smeared Crisco on Ina, like they were two cannibals preparing for war.

            “Whatever got into you, young lady?” Chris screamed, exasperated. “That’s a spanking waiting for you! You’re supposed to set a good example for your little sister!”

            Tears ran down her green face. “Baby hungwy,” she explained.

            Abigail looked angrily at her husband. “Did you hear that? Baby’s going to be very hungry—if you don’t get your lazy head out of the clouds and find a job!”

            The next day, Mr. Fowler set off into Minneapolis, looking inside every newspaper office: the Daily Hurricane, Bi-Weekly Tsunami, and Minneapolis Tidal Wave. There seemed to be a newspaper for every natural disaster. Finally, he found the Weekly Tornado and barged inside.

            “Just like always! Same suckers working the presses every day!” he hollered. Two dozen office girls spun around. Who is this crazy-eyed bum?

            “Excuse me, but I came here looking for a job. Bill Simpson recommended me. Where are all the empty slots he promised?”

            “Bill Simpson!” There was a cloud of cigar smoke as a fat little plutocrat entered the room, arms stuffed with papers. “Bill Simpson, my foot! He thinks I’m Mr. Magic, making jobs materialize. No, sir! If you’re lost, I can give directions to the nearest homeless shelter. Now, you’re wasting my time!”

            “That’s poisoning the well, gentleman!” Mr. Fowler raised a hand. “You haven’t asked me a single question. You don’t have a clue who I am.”

            “That’s right!” barked Mr. Plutocrat. “I couldn’t tell you from the Devil, if he applied for a job at the Tornado.”

            Mr. Fowler gazed around. He had the biggest fists of anyone in the room. He could take out Mr. Plutocrat with a couple swings. But violence was not the philosopher’s way. Violence would land him in jail, not in a job.

            Instead, he glared sternly. He backed the man into a doorway, where he stood shivering and furious. “Let me tell you one thing,” Mr. Fowler said.

            Silence. The man’s eyes bulged, like he was in a noose.

            “You have hard lessons to learn, you bourbon-sipping literary snobs. One thing you can’t understand—perseverance. I’ll show you perseverance! You’ll never see the end of me. If you knew what a fine little wife and baby daughters I’ve got at home, you’d hire me on the spot!”

            “This isn’t a charity-house!” Mr. Plutocrat roared.

            But Mr. Fowler’s motto, “Only fools deserve ground under their feet,” won over the Weekly Tornado. It took about three weeks. He barged in every day, spieled, and recited lists of Reasons Why You Should Hire Me. Daniels, the plutocrat, got so annoyed that he surrendered.

            “One thing you should know, sir Editor,” Mr. Fowler said, “is that people say I’m just plain unreliable.”

            “Can you type?” Mr. Daniels asked sarcastically.

            “Since I was three years old, sir Editor. I can type Pig Latin, shorthand, backwards, with a stick tied to my head, standing upside-down.”

            “Can you do weather reporting?”

            “My bad knee tells me when rain’s coming. I accidently shot myself playing with my father’s rifle at twelve, Sir Editor.”

            “That’s not a valid qualification. I’ll tell you what, Mr. Bum. You can take the Betty Brooker column. That’s one slot no one’s running.”

            “What’s the Betty Brooker column, Sir Editor?”

            “Household advice! There you go. You’re hired!”

            “But that’s women’s work! I’d have to ask my wife for all the answers. Why, that’s humiliating! I couldn’t—”

            “Serves you right,” said Abigail. “But don’t get notions, Mr. Fowler!”

            Several weeks later, she found him curled up on the floor, sucking on the vacuum hose.

            “No one will ever hire me for my philosophy,” he wailed. “What’s meaningful about cleaning lipstick stains off a bathroom mirror? The fools ask me relationship advice. See here: ‘I’m trying to make my husband quit smoking. What should I do, short of flinging him out a second-story window?’”

            “Light matches under his chin when he’s asleep,” said Abigail heartlessly.

            “Or ‘My husband leaves dirty socks everywhere. He barks “Fix food, female!” He throws coat-hangers out the window and howls at the moon. How can I make him stop?’”

            “Fling him out a second-story window.” Abigail laughed.

            Life was starting to look better for the young Fowlers. On October 23rd, they dumped Abby-Ray and Ina on the neighbors’ doorstep. Mr. Fowler borrowed the neighbors’ car and cut off five vehicles, a fire truck, and a hearse racing to the hospital. That was how Corry and Tee Jay entered the world—as Mr. Fowler stood outside and challenged the cops to a fist-fight.

            “They don’t look like much,” Mr. Fowler said critically. “Christopher Leslie Fowler the Second and Tyson Jacob Fowler. But who cares? Philosophers are always ugly men.”

            “Shame on you,” Abigail snapped. “They’re only one day old. And the doctor said that poor little Tyson Jacob might grow up to be an idiot. Can you fancy such a thing?”

            “How could he tell?”

            “Something about his earlobes. And he said Christopher Leslie might grow up to be a bank robber.”

            “What does he know?”

            “He kicked Tyson Jacob in the stomach.”

            Since the Fowlers were a family where ugly names were recycled, the twins’ names were shortened to Corry and Tee Jay.

            “Sure, sure. Fine. Whatever. I’ll run to the Flagstaffs’ and bring Abby-Ray and Ina to see their little brothers.”

            “No, you can’t do that.”

            “Says who?”

            “Behave yourself!”

            “That’s what fists are for, Abby. Don’t worry about anything. Just rest and get your strength back. I’ll steer clear of the police.”

            Abby-Ray and Ina were sneaked into the hospital. Ina ran the halls and dumped boxes of tongue depressors. Abby-Ray couldn’t stop staring at Tee Jay’s “plug.” At twenty-one months old, Abby-Ray had a hard time not licking electric sockets. She licked his umbilical stump and crowed, “Baby lick plug! Bad, bad, baby.”

            “Just look at the child! She thinks the baby isn’t human,” Dad said, amazed.

            “Is the baby human?” asked Mother.

            Abby-Ray had a meltdown when they took Corry and Tee Jay home. She thought they should have left the babies.

            Mr. Fowler couldn’t pay the neighbors for unwillingly babysitting Abby-Ray and Ina. They were furious at him for car-stealing. “I was just borrowing it, for Heaven’s sake!” he said. “Can’t they live and let live? What if their twins were about to be born?”

Abigail was constantly scared, however. “What will people think of us?”

“We are Fowlers. What the world throws at us, we throw back at them. Only fools deserve ground under their feet.”

The Fowler house was full of screaming now. Ina out-shrieked Corry and Tee Jay in the wee hours of the morning. Abby-Ray fussed because she threw her teddy bear in the toilet. Abigail wanted to curl into a little ball and sob all day. She didn’t dare close her eyes a minute for fear someone would need her to feed, change, or soothe the new babies.

            The embattled Mr. Fowler was ready to throw himself out on the street. He was still young and foolish and ambitious. But he had a wife and four children under two, and he wasn’t exactly a working man. He felt like an intruder in Baby Central. Abigail was so tired and hollow-eyed, listening to crying and babbling, that he could hardly spiel.

            They didn’t realize exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Flagstaff thought of them—until they got a Christmas surprise.

            That Christmas surprise was arson.

            When the firetrucks screamed all down the block, Abigail stood on the balcony with a twin under each arm. She hurled belongings to the sidewalk. A basket of diapers hit the firemen as they turned on the man-hoses. Smoke filled the air, billowed out the windows.

            “GET DOWN FROM THAT BALCONY, LADY!” a fireman hollered.

            “TELL CHRIS I SAVED THE DEED-BOX! AND HIS PHILOSOPHY BOOKS…AND ALL THE CHILDREN!”

            All the firemen did was keep flames from spreading to the neighboring apartments.

            Mr. Fowler dashed home from the Weekly Tornado, where he worked as a janitor. When he and Abigail explained it to the cops, they said that it was a grease-fire—though they both knew it wasn’t true. It was arson. But Mr. and Mrs. Flagstaff never went to jail. Heaven knew what they’d do if the Fowlers told.

Shell-shocked Mr. Fowler started a conversation with a fireman. Eugene Dogg told them they should move to Detroit.

            “Eugene Dogg’s the nicest man in Minneapolis,” Mr. Fowler explained, as they waited in the homeless shelter. “Eugene Dogg knows his snuff, Abby!”

            Abigail stifled a laugh. The Eggplant always said “snuff” instead of “stuff.”

            “You wouldn’t believe Detroit. It’s paradise. Gold-paved streets, practically!”

What Eugene had really said was, “Detroit is a city for freaks and outcasts. You’d fit in well, Mr. Fowler.”

“Maybe it’s good that we lost our home and all our possessions. It’s a great time to start new. You know what I’d like to do?”

            “Be a sewer-worker?”

            He sighed. “If only we can escape Minneapolis without getting arrested!”

            “The police are after us?”

            “I did the honorable thing, Abby. If the Flagstaffs think I’m a crook…well, the good Lord only knows.”

            “Eggplant, I saved the deed-box. And your philosophy books. And all four children. I think that’s enough.”

            She opened the deed-box and pulled out a string of microscopic pearl earrings, a string of rubies, and a diamond-crusted broach. “They belonged to my mother’s mother. They’re all I have. I’m sorry.”

            “Abby!” The Eggplant laughed. “Why are you crying? This is wonderful! By Jupiter.”

             “You wouldn’t think it was funny if women went to work and men took care of babies.”

            The Fowlers were running again. Abigail felt it with every weary inch of her. The twins were only two months old. They were practically fugitives. What if Abby-Ray suddenly realized that she didn’t look like her siblings? What if someone discovered the dirty truth of Abby-Ray’s parents and the Child Welfare kidnapped her?

But still…the Fowlers would win this struggle! She would give the children a better life. Someday. Her husband’s chances of finding work in Detroit were remote as men landing on the moon, but she would be strong for him. What else could an Abigail Fowler do?

            HAPPY NEW YEAR 1957!

The bus lurched to a stop in Detroit.

            “…and after I find a job, this will be our forever home!” Mr. Fowler was saying eagerly. “We’ll never move again!”

            “You sure we’ll find an apartment?” Abigail said worriedly.

            “Certainly! Lots of men would break their word, but not Eugene Dogg. No sir!”

            “He looks like a Commie to me,” Abigail said suspiciously. “His hands are always shaking, always clenched into fists.”

            “Come, now—'Judge not that ye might not be judged.’ Eugene Dogg is a good man—we’d be homeless if it weren’t for him.”

            After Abigail saw their new apartment, she thought that homelessness might be preferable.

            Their landlord, Mr. Elmer Slubb, led them up rusted stairs in the musty darkness. Elmer Slubb’s persistent smoker-cough kept them from getting lost. Slubb never said a word, just coughed, a dry and rattling cough like a jar of bones.

A moldy old shoe of a man, Abigail thought. I wonder if anyone in the world ever loved him.

            “MA-MA!” Ina wailed hysterically when she saw the apartment. “NO!”

            Mr. Fowler found a job the very next day. Carrying his sign, WILL WORK—FREE PHILOSOPHY LESSONS, he accidently ran in front of a Greyhound bus. Horns honked, tires squealed, and the driver hollered:

            “Hey, feller! How about you drive this bus?”

            He couldn’t believe it.

When he returned home, he announced, “Behold, the Philosophizing Bus Driver of Detroit!”

            “Watch where you’re going in traffic!” Abigail scolded.

            “Now, now! I have a story. Once upon a time, three philosophers were at a bowling alley. Socrates, Napoleon, and Hitler.”

            “Two-thirds of them weren’t even philosophers,” Abigail said. Her opinion didn’t matter.

            Let’s hope this one is better than the story about three rabbis on the bridge. Or the story about ten nuns in the hot-air balloon. Or that riddle, how many Buddhist monks it takes to screw in a lightbulb? I hate it worst of all.

            “Well, Socrates hit a gutter ball. Napoleon slugged Socrates. ‘You idiot gadfly, go drink poison hemlock!’ Napoleon shouted. ‘I don’t want any more of your nonsense. All that counts is power in this life!’ Then Hitler said, ‘Both of you should be exterminated, because you’re not Germans.’ Then Socrates said, ‘In the whole scheme of things, what does a gutter ball matter? I lived in ancient Greece. That empire fell. Napoleon’s empire fell. Hitler, your Nazi empire fell after twelve short years.’”

            “This is worst analogy I’ve ever heard. What’s the point?”

            “I don’t know. You tell me: what’s the point?”

            “That life is pointless?”

            “WRONG!”

            She stared, dumbfounded.

            “Because, just as a slugfest is about to explode, the door opens, and who walks in? God walks in and turns off the light switch. And voila! Socrates, Napoleon, and Hitler—they’re all the same.”

            “Well…of course. Doesn’t every idiot know?”

            “Apparently not. The world’s full of fools.” The Eggplant lit a cigar, flopped into a chair, and pretended to study the newspaper. “Inequality, racial or social or otherwise, is one thing I cannot fathom.”

            Abigail began beating eggs for egg meatloaf. Eggs spattered all over the walls.

            “You know what I’d like? Turn out some cosmic light switch. See how mankind looks together in the dark! Wouldn’t that be fun? Whoever we are…peasant boy, slave girl, sewer rat, baroness, Napoleon…we are alike in the dark. That’s why I philosophize.”

            “Whatever you say. Suit your—” She was interrupted by Corry’s screeching from the living room. Soon, three other voices joined the joyful chorus.

            “I’ll get that sucker of a boy,” The Eggplant said. He propped the red, howling baby on his knee and said, “What is the chief end and destiny of mankind?”

            “Give me that baby,” Abigail sighed.

            He surrendered the baby with a look of pure terror.

            The Fowlers’ four-year stay in Detroit began with tragedy; it ended with tragedy.

            But that jumps ahead too soon…

            Four years! Many changes came upon the Fowlers.

Abby-Ray grew into a tall, gangly, serious-eyed six-year-old. She looked plain and mousy next to Ina’s red corkscrew curls and blue eyes. Everyone told Abby-Ray, “I hope you’re a well-mannered, well-behaved little girl.” That was Abby-Ray’s lot in life. Her sentence. She was Ina’s drudge, even though she was nine months older.

            When the milk spilled, it was Abby-Ray’s fault. She should’ve known better. Didn’t she know that to set a good example for her little sister?

            Ina just giggled sweetly.

            On Ina’s first day of kindergarten, she threw sand on the playground. She threw finger-paints, cheated at Duck-Duck-Goose, and stood on her desk at naptime. Afterwards, the teacher told Mother, “What a darling, loveable girl!”

            On Abby-Ray’s first day of kindergarten, she had a nervous breakdown and vomited in front of the whole class.

            Whenever Ina had to take a bath, she streaked through the house. When Abby-Ray came home with head lice, she had to stand over the kitchen sink on a creaky stool to get her hair washed, and then she was a crybaby when soap got in her eyes.

            Corry and Tee Jay couldn’t have been more different. Someone had once told Abigail before her marriage, “Twin boys are good luck in a house. Double the joy. It’s adorable to have two little pairs of everything.” The thought made Abigail sick. Double the trouble was more like it.

Corry was a little Charles Atlas, hard-muscled and brown. He talked very clearly by age two. Mostly, he crashed around the house with toy trucks, shrieking and yelling. Something was bizarre about Tee Jay that no one could figure out. He was a blond and dimpled little angel, fat as a butterball. People said they’d never seen such soulful eyes. Mother found him sitting in a corner, talking to himself with the solemnest face.

“Look at that belly-button, Tee Jay. It’s so all around, just like a merry-go-round. Where’d ya get it? Did Corry give it to you?”

            Oh, and then…

October 17th, 1959. The last Fowler baby, Francesca Elizabeth, entered the world. The Eggplant couldn’t stand the smoke-filled waiting room another minute, so he wandered off and the cops didn’t find him until nightfall. He was passed out drunk behind a dumpster at a seedy casino. Aside from this ugly scene, he was a proud father that day.

Abigail was smitten. “Isn’t she just the most adorable thing? She’s God’s little miracle—we couldn’t survive another boy besides Corry and Tee Jay! Now they have a little sister. She’ll teach them to be gentlemen.”

Mr. Fowler was certain that it would be a boy, so he wrote Frank Leslie Fowler in the photo album. He was mistaken. So Francesca was soon shortened to Frankie.

            Wishful thinking. Frankie’s innocent cuteness lasted for approximately fifteen minutes.

            Frankie insisted not only on waking her mother, but half of Detroit. The apartment walls were so thin. Neighbors thought it was a nuclear air-raid siren. Frankie had no intention of letting up until she so pleased. Bear-Bear must be removed from the basinet, the door slightly closed, the butterfly mobile taken down, a blanket to suck…

            “Abby,” Chris gasped to his wife at 2 AM, “this is the living end!”

            “Don’t worry,” she said. “Frankie is our book-end. Our little red caboose.” She pulled out the picture album with their latest family photograph with Frankie. “Thank goodness it’s over. We’ve got ourselves a pack of fine-looking children. Think they’ll turn out like us?”

            “Children are blank slates waiting to be filled with wisdom. I’ve got an idea. From now on, I will hold the Fowler Family Philosophical Society. They’ll be wiser than any ten kids off the block!”

            At Thanksgiving dinner when Frankie was one, the Fowlers traveled to Chicago to Grandma Alexandra’s house. Three-year-old Tee Jay was screaming: “I WANNA GO IN THAT ONE!” Before Abigail could stop him, he’d smashed into the coffee table—the one with a jagged glass edge. Howls filled the house. After Tee Jay vomited blood silently and completely on Grandma’s pristine white carpet, Grandma gazed furiously at him. “What were you thinking, Tyson Jacob?? I’ll never get this bloodstain out of my carpet!”

From then on, when the Fowlers visited Grandma, the stain stayed there as a memorial. Grandma never failed to remind them over rubber turkey, canned lima beans, and Jell-O. On any account, Grandma shot odd glances at Tee Jay all day. She said, “That Tyson is a drooling idiot. Don’t say I’m wrong! That smell—”

            “Well, you don’t smell nice, either!” Abigail shot back.

            One a blizzardy, wintery December day, Abigail was scrubbing the kitchen floor, and she heard Abby-Ray shriek from the Kids’ Room. “MO-O-OMMY! COME QUICK!”

            She dropped her dripping Lysol rag and ran.

“Mommy, tell Tee Jay to stop!” Ina cried. “He won’t listen!”

She flung open the closet door. Smells of Pine-Sol, paint thinner, wood-stain, and rat poison. The closet was a chamber of poisons. Why didn’t I keep it locked? Tee Jay sat in the darkness, under gaping spot of bare wall. It looked like a rat had chewed the paint. While Abigail stared, Tee Jay peeled a paint-strip and chewed it in his small, sharp teeth.

“Tee Jay’s hungwy,” he said pitifully.

“Tee Jay, stop!” Abigail cried. Tee Jay’s blue eyes filled with tears. She jerked him away, smacking him furiously. “Paint is not good to eat. It will hurt Tee Jay! Bad, bad, boy!” She dropped him on the floor. “Tee Jay, what are we ever going to do with you?”

He rolled over, whimpering, “Tee Jay tummy hurt. Tee Jay head hurt.”

“What’s this purple stuff?” Corry inquired, gazing inside. “Does it taste yummy?”

“It’s not juice. AND DON’T YOU DARE DRINK IT!”

Abigail tried to steady herself. “Corry, don’t you go near that closet! Sit right here with Tee Jay and don’t move.”

Snatching Baby Frankie, Abigail found the telephone. It took forever to call an ambulance. Somehow, the people on the line wouldn’t believe her. And the Eggplant would not find out until he arrived home from work. Goodness knew when. Cars and trucks sprayed ugly exhaust across the snow-blurry world. Running into the Kids’ Room, she sobbed like Frankie into Tee Jay’s Mickey Mouse bedspread.

            The next morning, the children demanded, “Where’s Tee Jay?”

            “He is a very sick boy,” said Abigail. “You must be very good children. Your father will put you and Baby Frankie on a train for Grammy Redburn’s house—you’re going on a little vacation because Mommy has to stay with him at the hospital.”

            “Won’t be no fun without Tee Jay,” Corry mumbled.

            “We’re not going anywhere!” Ina stomped her foot.

            Grammy Redburn was less than overjoyed. Otherwise, the Fowler kids had a good time in Leap Toad, chasing Grandma’s cats in the dead winter wheat, whirling the spinning-wheel, and shooting catapults down the banister—even though there was no Tee Jay to flush toys down Grandma’s toilet, eating dirt and bugs in the backyard. Two weeks crawled by. Finally, the Fowler kids got to go home. But the little brother waiting at home was a very different boy.

            When Abigail jolted awake that night, she dashed into the Kids’ Room. All five kids were fast asleep, the Bugs Bunny nightlight shining faintly on their sweet baby faces. Tee Jay was curled up at Corry’s feet, a shred of a blanket in his mouth and snoring softly. Thank God. What would I do if I lost one of my precious, bratty children?

            For the first few weeks, Tee Jay mostly sat by the kitchen sink, pouring water in and out of tin cans. He used to color pictures of London Bridge and the Eiffel Tower. Now he just scribbled insanely until the crayon broke. Then he shredded the papers, flinging them like leaves to the wind. “A-EEE! A-EEE! Tee Jay did go shred it! Tee Jay did go shred it!” he cried.

 Mother had to follow him with a clumsy vacuum cleaner. Tee Jay’s shredding obsession seemed harmless. Until Mr. Fowler stupidly left the rent check out.

“Do you think Tee Jay really is an idiot? Is it true what Grandma said? If Tee Jay can’t enter kindergarten, we will find a way. Hold him back a year.”

“If anyone calls my boy an idiot, I’ll knock him down the street!” The Eggplant seethed. “Why, he’s got more sense than 90% of Detroit’s adult population.”      

            “But he talks about himself like he’s another person…Tee Jay did go this and Tee Jay did go that. It could drive a person crazy.”

            “We’re already crazy. Anyhow, a person could go crazy listening to Corry all day. The way he back-talks! Patience, Abby, patience. Give him time.”

            “Well, his obsessions are just weird, like wearing paper bags on his head and winter coats with flipflops. He tried on Ina’s ballerina skirt yesterday. He calls everyone “Daddy” now—he even called Elmer Slubb Daddy. Even I’m Daddy. People will whisper things about us. What will people think?”

            “Always that infernal question. What will people think? Heck, why do we even care about looking normal??”

            Whenever Mr. Fowler got home from work, an army of kids bombarded him. Abby-Ray and Ina held him down while Corry and Tee Jay punched and beat up his stomach, and Frankie got jostled on top of him when he laughed.

            Spring came, and Tee Jay got well enough to play on the rickety jungle-gym in the back alley. The Fowlers climbed on the tire-swing and made each other sick, sailing into the sky. They put Baby Frankie down the slide—WHEEE! —and caught her in a half-empty rain-barrel.

            “Frankie, see that blue stuff way up there?” Abby-Ray said. “That is called the sky.”

            “Frankie want sky!”

            “Frankie can’t have the sky. Now this green stuff, that’s called grass.” Abby-Ray showed her a handful of weeds.

            “Frankie want evewything!”

            “I’m gonna run away,” Ina declared.

            “What do you wanna run away for?”

            “So I can be real bad. No one can stop me. Not Mama. Not Daddy. Not even God.” She stomped in the gravel.

            “What do you wanna do that’s bad?”

            “Eat dirt and ice cream all day!”

            “I s’ppose you could run away,” said Abby-Ray. “Where’d you go?”

            “Gondwanaland.”

            “Where’d you hear about that?”

            “Daddy.”

            “Gondwanaland—hah. Maybe there are vampires and cannibals who feed on little girls. You never know.”

            “Daddy ought to know. He knows everything.”

            “I don’t think Daddy knows everything. Only God knows everything,” Abby-Ray said proudly.

            “Stuck-up you!” Ina wagged her tongue and scowled.

            “Meanie! Crabby Abby!”

            “I’m bigger than you.”

            “No you’re not! Na-nana-boo-boo! You’re it, hah, hah, and you’ll never catch me, not in a million years!”

            The Fowlers’ life in Detroit probably would have continued longer—if it wasn’t for the bodies stuffed in the walls of their apartment building.

            Everything crashed one dreadful October night. Not literally, thank God. They should’ve figured out the truth about Elmer Slubb. He spent many nights trudging the stairs, carried a toolbox with a crowbar, and snarled when he spoke.

Abigail rolled over in bed and seethed all over with shock and horror. Police lights flashed all down the block, reporters flocked like birds, and the Eggplant paced the hall. The children had no idea what was wrong, and the adults couldn’t respond to their pestering.

            “Go to sleep, Corry! And don’t come back. Nothing’s wrong!”

            The next day, the chaos was worse. The newspapers bannered the sordid story. Elmer Slubb was behind bars in disgrace.

            It all started three years ago, when a woman down the hall from the Fowlers died of cardiac arrest. Witnesses saw Elmer Slubb take her away. They’d all been paid not to tell the dastardly secret—Slubb ran a makeshift funeral parlor in a seedy back alley shed. Three years passed, three more cardiac arrests in the Fowlers’ building, and three more funerals. Now the drywall in the bottom-floor apartment began crumbling with age and pipe-damage. And the secret emerged.

            “Let’s move. I don’t want to live in this trashy town,” Abigail wept. “The poor children—poor, innocent children! They deserve better than this filth and disgrace!”

            “That wish may indeed be answered,” Chris said. “Why, it’s nothing but Providence why Elmer Slubb didn’t poison us all. Why he didn’t kidnap the children and throw us on the street. ‘Funeral parlor’ indeed!”

            “He was a grouchy, awful man.” Abigail shuddered and closed her eyes.

            “He’s lots worse than that. Abigail, they’re still hunting out suspects.”

            “Don’t tell me…are we suspects? Why on earth…?”

            As Abigail sank into the fuzzy sofa, she realized that they’d be running again soon. Mentally, she listed the family troubles—leaky roof, unpaid bills, only a gallon of milk and a few cans of vegetables in the refrigerator. Corry had cut his bare foot with a rusty wagon, Frankie had a rash around her eyeballs, Tee Jay still wasn’t feeling alright, and Ina was sent home from kindergarten after eating dirt on the playground.

At least Abby-Ray was quiet in the background. Things couldn’t get much worse.

            Or they could.

            Knocks at the door. “I’ll take care of this!” Mr. Fowler cried. A ramrod-straight policeman stood outside.

            “Is this the Fowler home? I am Sargent Bickham, and the Detroit police say all residents have seventy-two hours to leave this building, or will be forcibly evicted.”

            The Eggplant turned to Abigail. “Better start packing. And don’t forget any children.” 

            “Don’t worry, we won’t.”

The Diary of Abigail

June, 1961

            Goodbye, home. Again.

Once I thought I would travel to New York, writing bestsellers with golden ink pens under the Statue of Liberty. Now I am going to New York with five bug-eyed children and a philosophizing eggplant of a husband who washes windows.

            “No, Abby-Ray,” Chris said. “Syracuse is not New York City. And New York City is not the capital—that’s Albany. New York and New York City are two very different places.”

            Abby-Ray’s forehead scrunched. This world outside their new apartment windows had gone crazy. Why, she had lived in Detroit for four of her six years. This talk about Syracuse was like moving to Pluto. Why this grownup fuss? Moving meant leaving behind the jungle-gym, the orange poinsettias in their window-boxes, the alley-cats. And cute Tricycle Boy, three blocks down.

And moving meant first grade at a new school. Abby-Ray’s stomach twisted forebodingly at the thought. Six is a very important year: when a child’s teeth start falling out, he learns to read printed words, he stops wetting the bed, and begin to think for himself. Abby-Ray had reached the first milestone but not the two latter. So life was hard and grownups just didn’t understand her. They understood Ina just fine.

            “Un-ique New York,” Ina yelled, spinning in circles. “Nu-nique New Nork! U-nique Unork! Hah, hah, hah!” Echoes bounced off the empty apartment walls.

            “We haven’t brought much to fill this apartment.” Abigail plunked down their possessions, three bulging suitcases. “Chris, run down to the Jitney and fetch bags of groceries. Tell the cashier we’ll pay next week. Get something cheap and easy and kid-friendly, because I have no cooking utensils left.”

The house was already a war zone and the children were running wild. Fleeing a murderous psycho landlord will do that to a family.

Returning from Jitney, Mr. Fowler found a chipped, forgotten birdbath in the alley. He pitched it into a rusted dumpster. “ARRRGGGHHH!” The Fowlers heard him down the street.

            Moving day had gone on long enough.

After they rescued Corry from breaking his arm over the sofa and rescued Tee Jay from jumping off a CONDEMNED balcony, a thunderstorm hit and they realized they’d left Frankie behind. The toddler stood bewildered in the overflowing gutter, like a lost baby duck. Rain soaked her high-topped shoes and rainstorms of tears ran down her sweet face.

            “The poor, poor baby!” Abigail flew into hysterics and couldn’t stop hugging the reclaimed child.

            The Diary of Abigail

June, 1962

            We moved to 1905 Shabana Street, Brooklyn. The street has a beautiful sound and Chris the Eggplant says this is our forever home. Our flat has five rooms, the biggest we’ve ever had. The water is brown and putrid, so bad we have to boil everything from the faucet. I think the real reason we left Syracuse was because of his FREE PHILOSOPHY LESSONS sign.

            I know real trouble now—the wife of a declared Public Nuisance. No, don’t get me wrong. He’s a darling baby and I don’t regret marrying him, not for the world! The world’s already mine, in fact. Wonder where the Vagabond Fowlers Cross-Country Caravan will travel next?

We’d better get out the atlas and darts in case another scandal hits.

            Frankie yammers all the time now. Yesterday she showed me a scribble of a girl in underpants, an exploding fire hydrant, a hungry lion, a garbage truck, and a unicorn. “That’s Corry chasing Frankie in the truck, and she’s wearing Big Girl Pants!” she said. She showed me an ugly girl with a sour-lemon face. “That Fwankie eating Mommy’s dinner.”

            We enrolled Corry and Tee Jay in kindergarten. They sent Tee Jay home after one day for “indecent bellybutton exposure.” Chris said, “Those teachers—I’d like to thrash them. Everyone has a navel, and Tee Jay’s not afraid to show it. He’s miles ahead of the other children with their Runs and See-Spot-Jumps. They don’t know about Cicero. After all, I’m his father.”

Let’s hope this new era of our lives earns us a better reputation with the neighbors. The children are enrolled in Sunday School at Queen Street Presbyterian, so that ought to help. We hope. It’s frightening to see Corry turn into a little Jack the Ripper. He will filch Pop Rocks and squirt guns—he’s been doing it since age three or four. And he makes poor Tee Jay his accomplice. It’s our fault for living in trashy neighborhoods so long.

Oh, I don’t need anyone to remind me how I’ve ruined my kids’ lives!

            We have the Fowler Family Philosophical Society every Friday, which invariably degenerates into chaos. The Eggplant has posted the Fowler Family Rules above the front door:

THIS IS A HOUSE.

NOT A LUNATIC ASYLUM

NOT A NUCLEUR HAND GRENADE FACTORY

NOT A ZOO.

No person may enter or leave unannounced.

No child may get up after 9 PM for any reason without a parent-written permit.

No person under the age of 16 may attempt to operate Family Vehicle.

Falling out of windows is strictly forbidden. So is eating electrical sockets. Violators will be prosecuted.

Anyone caught eating in bed, raiding dirty-clothes hampers, tracking muddy footprints, etc. will be subject to a two-hour philosophical spiel in Daddy’s room for a minor offense; a four-hour philosophical spiel for a medium offense; and for a severe offense will have to copy the Seven Deadly Sins two hundred times.

THIS IS A HOUSE.

CHILDREN LIVE IN THIS HOUSE.

PARENTS LIVE IN THIS HOUSE.

CHILDREN: WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW, IT IS BETTER IF YOU JUST CUT IT OUT.

            On Mother’s Day, my darling children shut themselves in the kitchen and made Egg and Toast Surprise, crowned with eggshells and grape jelly and cat hair. Frankie gave me a picture frame, made from Scotch tape and a toilet-paper roll. Abby-Ray wrote me this poem:

            You’re my mother

            My mother, I have no other.

Your face is so pretty

            Just like a sunbeam

            Keep being my Mother

            Or else I’ll scream.

            Everyone had a nice time except Tee Jay. He cried and said, “I wanna buy a new Mommy!”

The Diary of Abigail

August, 1964

Queens is the Fowler Family’s destination. Just before we left Shabana Street, the Eggplant said:

“We deserve a vacation. A man who washes windows, scrubs floors, philosophizes, and falls off ladders all day, like I do, knows that the daily grind don’t solve nothing.”

            “Frankie will enter kindergarten next year,” I sighed. “May as well have fun, before the world ends.”

 “Yeah! Let’s visit Alcatraz!” Corry cried.

            “Quiet, young man! This is an educational experience. We are going to the World’s Fair. Right outside our windows!”

            “The world’s not fair,” said Abby-Ray darkly.

            “Take me to the fair! I wanna go fair!” Tee Jay shrieked.

            “That may sound nice,” I said, “but what little kid is going to stand an entire day visiting endless pavilions to see the world’s latest teletype machines?”

            “These are Fowler kids, Abby!”

            “They’ll get hot and tired,” I protested. “Frankie won’t walk and I’ll have to take the stroller.”

            “Baby!” Corry taunted. “She still sucks a pacifier sometimes!”

            “Cut it out, Young Expeditioners! We’ll take Tee Jay and Frankie in the Radio Flyer and everyone will survive!”

            That’s what we Fowlers are good at. Survival. We were shocked when we learned that they charge admission, even for children. Five people asked “Why does your oldest child look different?” Others asked “Why is your little boy twitching? Is he having a seizure? Is he part of an exhibit?”

            “None of your beeswax, fools!” Chris said gruffly.

             If we all had signs around our necks saying “FREAKY FOWLERS” we couldn’t have attracted more stares.

            What will people think?

            Ina skipped merrily, sunshine glinting off her red braids. She collected hugs and kisses from six clowns, one fat lady, a midget, an organ-grinder, and an elephant-trainer. Corry tried climbing a fence before the Eggplant caught him howling by the ear. Frankie’s ice cream cone melted and she dropped her baby doll Wanda in a gutter. We had to retrace our steps looking for poor Wanda.

A tantrum was brewing, so the Eggplant thought he’d pacify her with a trip on the Skyway Ride. I didn’t believe we should fling money around, but I relented reluctantly. Frankie disappeared into an endless line of little kids shrieking and mobbing like you never saw. Then the contraption broke in midair and they could hear Frankie hollering across New York. We stood frozen in terror on the ground. When the idiot Skyway Ride director finally got it fixed, Frankie was red-faced and in hysterics.

“Why, you poor little thing! Don’t make yourself sick. You’re safe with Mommy and Daddy,” I said.

“I wannn myyy bbbaaaby!” Frankie blubbered.

“Don’t cry, Frankiekins. We’ll get you a new baby doll,” I said desperately.

“Nnnooo! My baby doll loved me—if she loved me, she’d come back to me! Just wait and see! I’ll run away and find her!”

Well! That would make Frankie get out of the wagon and walk like a big girl!

“Wanda went to Dolly Heaven…”

“Don’t fill her head with nonsense!” Chris roared. “Where in the Bible did you ever read about Dolly Heaven? Tell me!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Abby-Ray muttered. “I don’t feel so good.”

“Let’s get out of here before we’re kicked out,” I said, hyperventilating. “Please. I need an oxygen tent or—something. What will people think?”

            “Here, Frankie! You can have my baby!” We all whirled around as a little girl about Frankie’s age threw Wanda back into the Radio Flyer.

            “My baby?” Ina said. “How did she know Frankie’s name?”

            “She stole that doll!” Corry said. “We oughta call the cops! Hey, kid, if you steal from my little sister, you got me to deal with!”

            “No one’s calling cops over a dirty baby doll,” Chris said wearily. “Let’s say this educational experience has lasted long enough. We’re all Plumb Tuckered Out.”

            “Especially Wanda. Poor thing,” Frankie crooned, wiping her red nose on the doll’s mud-stained dress.

            Two and a half years later, the Fowler’s Borough of the Year was Manhattan.

The Eggplant was getting restless, bored with New York, as he usually did when he lived in a place over one year.

Frankie was seven years old and in first grade. Tonight, the grownups were talking behind her back. Again. She pressed her ear to the heating vent. At the Fowlers’ other houses, she’d discovered this trick.

            “I can hear you! I know you’re talking about me!” Frankie hollered.

She braced herself for the scolding: Frankie, S.T.O.P. Frankie, stop being a noisy brat! Go back to sleep. Nothing. The mysterious voices continued.

They must be discussing something awfully important, if it had nothing to do with Frankie.

She gazed around her room. Baby dolls stared with sympathetic, glassy eyes from almost every surface. The girls in first grade had begun to renounce dolls, but Frankie was still going strong. She had her own bedroom to store the gang—she didn’t have to share Tee Jay’s snores, pick Abby-Ray’s and Ina’s underwear from her bed, or step in Corry’s model airplane glue.

That was one satisfaction, but the Tooth Fairy wasn’t coming soon, and that drove her crazy. She’d tied her tooth with thread to a doorknob and slammed the door, but it wasn’t loose. She could finally read real stories, though she still spelled things aloud. Better yet, she could write stories, about her dolls, their Very Important Adventures. But when she sneaked inside Daddy’s study and tried to read his Cicero volumes one by one, Mother said she shouldn’t, that those books weren’t for nice little girls. Why? People were always saying, “Frankie, act like a big girl!” That was life at seven: stranded between babyhood and Growing Up.

Frankie was a very devout little girl who prayed every night, “Please, God, don’t make me grow up. Because I can’t have fun and believe in unicorns.” Mother said everyone had to grow up sooner or later, but Frankie was taking her time.

She thought, I might be a bad girl, but I don’t like grownups talking behind my back! I want to know things. To know everything!”

“Well, I can be a spy when I grow up. I can spy now!” Her bedroom door creaking, Frankie sneaked down the hall to Mommy and Daddy’s room. She tried to step softly, but her coughing betrayed her.

Halfway to her parents’ room, she was collared. Daddy said sternly, “Frankie, you should be back in bed. You got sent home from school with a fever of one hundred two and you’re not going to catch pneumonia prancing around the house.”

“But Daddy, I’m not sick. What were you and Mother saying about me?”

“Eavesdroppers never hear anything good of themselves. Where did you get the idea that we were talking about you?”

“You always talk about me. Cause I’m a bad girl.” Frankie’s red eyes gazed accusingly. “Because I throw tantrums before school and suck my thumb sometimes and I talk about baby-dolls. Tee Jay and I, we’re laughed at every day in school. Why is that, Daddy?”

“Because the other kids wish they were smart like you. Remember the Fowler family motto: ‘Only fools deserve ground under their feet.’ Don’t let those fools pick on you. Stand up to the world, Young Expeditioner!”

That was his favorite nickname for Frankie. Like Admiral Byrd, she was on a quest, a quest for wisdom. It made her feel wise and important. Lots better than “Little Peanut” or “Frankie-kins.” Frankie hoped her father would take her into the living room to talk, but he dragged her by her nightgown into the kitchen and got out a bottle of nasty purple medicine. While she made faces, he said, “Do you what’s the most powerful force in the universe? Black holes. The largest black holes are millions of times bigger than our sun, and thousands of earths could fit into our sun. Think of how big that is.”

“Can we fly rockets into black holes? The guy on TV said we’re gonna send a man to the moon.”

“If you approached a black hole, you’d get torn to pieces and sucked away. No one returns to tell. Only God is strong enough to stop black holes. I could tell you for three hours—”

“Can you, Daddy? Pleaaase?”

“Not tonight. But I’ll let you in on a little secret—just the two of us.”

Frankie stared, astonished. Daddy staring a secret, just with her! Whatever happened to “In this house, we don’t keep secrets from each other?”

“I have this friend in San Francisco; that’s California, where the sun shines all year and palm trees sway. He offered me a job—it’s painting seascapes and photographing dolphins. Doesn’t that sound exciting? We get to live in a seaside house.”

“I dunno, Daddy. Tee Jay said he wants to live in a yellow submarine like the Beetles…”

 “We’ll never move again,” he said dreamily. “The reason I didn’t tell your mother is because she’s a tired woman and I move too much. You see, I don’t want her to throw me out on the street, like she threatened to years ago. Your mother would rather fly into a black hole than move to California. So you must not tell her, alright?”

“Yes, Daddy. Wild horses won’t make me tell,” Frankie promised smugly. “So if we live in San Francisco, we won’t see the Stash Shoe of Liver Tree?”

“That’s the Statue of Liberty, Young Expeditioner—and California is an entire world away.”      

 Frankie felt like she and her father were the only two people in the world—a cozy, satisfied feeling. At the kitchen table, they both sipped glasses of warm ginger ale, staring into the darkness and wondering what the future might hold. But even while the Eggplant dreamed away, he thought, This might mean the end…the end of the noble name Fowler.

“I’m leaving New York forever!” Ina declared, snapping the clamps on her suitcase.

            “Why aren’t you saying we?” demanded Corry. He’d stuffed his suitcase with his Most Important Treasures: baseball cards, comic books, lint-covered gum, crumbling bird’s nests, broken radios and model airplanes, and Nerf guns.

The Eggplant had said, “Pack only what we can stuff inside the Merry Mobile, because moving trucks ain’t coming from Manhattan to San Francisco. Only the very most important items.” His philosophy books went in the trunk, and so did Abby-Ray’s diaries, Ina’s record collection, Tee Jay’s plastic pizzas, and Frankie’s dolls. He had already thrown a birdbath over a fence, and it shattered—a good omen which meant they were ready.

“Don’t worry,” he kept saying. As though Abigail would stop hyperventilating. “Don’t worry. Our seaside cottage will have all the furniture and cooking utensils we need. When the children need new clothes, we’ll trash-pick dumpsters.”

Ina snooped in Corry’s suitcase.

“If you’re going to San Francisco without packing any socks or underwear, you can’t borrow mine.”

“That’s alright. I never change mine anyhow,” Corry grunted desolately. “Gosh, why does the Old Man have to move to California?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll find plenty of convenience stores to rob candy and windows to break in San Francisco.”

“The neighborhood kids won’t be the same. Gee whiz, the worst part of moving is meeting the punks who live next door.”

“The worst part of moving is school, and being a seventh grader is, like, the worst,” Abby-Ray said, but no one heard.

“Don’t worry,” Tee Jay chirped. “The Great Pizza Monster in the Sky will follow us. Bellybuttons are everywhere—just like the fireball sun up in the bright blue sky.”

“Silly Tee Jay,” muttered Abby-Ray. Tee Jay’s latest obsession was bellybuttons. He drew sketches of navels and inspected people’s abdomens to record in a notebook. This habit got the Fowlers kicked out of grocery stores and churches and earned them many stares on the streets.

Grandma Alexandra said, “Any nine-year-old boy in his senses would know better. That boy will be locked in the Crazy People Home!”

Actually, Tee Jay’s bellybutton obsession was what made Abigail say, “Let’s leave Manhattan forever!”

“G’bye, Stash Shoe of Liver Tree!” Frankie hollered, out the back window. The Merry Mobile, the Fowler’s crushed sardine can of a Ford Fairlane, groaned with suitcases, luggage strapped to the roof and hanging out the windows.

“I hope the children sleep most of the journey,” Abigail said. I hope I get to sleep for most of the journey, like I haven’t in ten years.

Mr. Fowler lit a cigar and said, “Keep your eyes and ears open, Young Expeditioners. We get to see the whole United States of America! ‘My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty…’”

“What I’m concerned about,” said Abigail, “is that the whole United States of America gets to see the Fowlers.” She pulled out her cross-stitch bookmark, an embroidered cow with MOO coming from its mouth in a balloon. Seeing stitch holes was hard after years of eyestrain from screaming at Corry, but she persevered.

While the United States of America flashed past, the Young Expeditioners played License Plates, Count the Farm Silos, Count the Volkswagens, Count the Fire Hydrants, Count the Gas Stations, Count the Ditches and Stop Signs, etc. This lasted for one boring day, until Mr. Fowler abruptly stopped in a field—maybe in Ohio, maybe in Pennsylvania—and hollered “Chinese fire drill!”

“Is the car on fire?” asked Frankie, anxiously.

“I’ve hardly driven a car in my life,” Abigail said, her palms swimming already. “How will I find a hotel in the darkness?”

“Hotel?” The Eggplant laughed, shaking the car. “You think we’re rich folks?”

Wherever they camped in a farmer’s field, parking lot, or abandoned quarry, they kept the raccoons of America well-fed with their trash: crushed juice boxes, ravioli cans, potato chip bags, cigarette butts. Once in Arkansas, they spilled the Merry Mobile at a bubbling creek to wash their rags of laundry. Splashing their hot feet with relief, they lost sight of Tee Jay, until Abigail yelled:

“Tee Jay Fowler, you cut that out right now!”

Flinging clothes happily aside, the maniac boy pranced through the creek, little silver fish nibbling his bare feet, singing with the birds— “A-EEE! A-EEE!”

“Why are you trying to stop him?” Corry said hotly. “He’s having a good time!”

“Have we no semblance of dignity?” roared the Eggplant. “I will thrash that lad till he wishes he had no backside to show the world!”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Abigail moaned.

After a long time, they found Tee Jay about a mile downstream. He was splashing and shrieking with a ring of long-tailed geese. Abigail could not believe her eyes. Was Tee Jay part of the human species after all?

“Let him be,” the Eggplant sighed. “Let him get tired of his game. Some things were always meant to run free.”

The Gateway Arch faded in the rearview mirror, Frankie asked the dreaded question:

“Are we there yet?”

“She’s caught the disease,” said the Eggplant. “It’s Are-We-There-Yet Syndrome. Invariably strikes schoolchildren who have to travel more than ten miles with their siblings.”

The only cure for Are-We-There-Yet Syndrome was letting Corry invent games to pass time. Which got dangerous, quickly.

He started with Pillow Tag and Grab the Handhold. Corry had the longest and strongest arms and always made Frankie cry, because why couldn’t she reach a handhold? Slammety-Wham was a brutalizing game where they had to write insults on notebook paper, fold them into paper airplanes, and fling them. “Thumb Sucking Baby” always belonged to Frankie, and “Streaking Goose Maniac” was Tee Jay’s. If Frankie wasn’t hysterical, Corry started Civil War. They had to leg-wrestle a throw pillow out of Corry’s iron knee-grip. This lasted until 1.) Someone’s arm or leg got broken or 2.) their father pulled over, bacon-paddle in hand, to “Teach them a lesson they’d never forget.”

Riding through Nevada in June with no air conditioning, poor Abigail was half-dead with complaining: “I’m hungry,” “I’m telling,” “Corry’s hitting me,” and “Frankie started it!”

“Corry, you apologize right now or we’re getting out.”

“Cut it out!”

“How’d you like me to leave you with a nice Mormon family once we’re in Utah?”

“Oh, whatever. I’m too exhausted to scold you rascals anymore!”

“Smack your lips shut, kiddos. Wait until my good friend, Mr. Javis Miles, sees you,” Mr. Fowler said. He had been threatening this throughout the trip.

“Who’s Mister Miles, Daddy?” Frankie asked.

“You will find out soon enough—in San Francisco. Fifty-two miles, Young Expeditioners!”

“You find out everything in San Francisco,” Ina said happily.

Ina’s excitement grew by the millisecond. San Francisco looked just like a postcard. Palm trees, flowers bursting from window-boxes, and peace-sign murals. Because it was June, the Summer of Love, and the Scott McKenzie song was topping the charts:

All across the nation

Such a strange vibration.

People in motion.

If you’re going to San Francisco

Summertime will be a love-in there.

            “How can winter ever come again, like it did a million miles away in New York City?” Ina wondered.

            “My good friend Mr. Miles will meet us outside, at the Rosewater Café,” Mr. Fowler said. “Of course, we’ll walk several blocks. Traffic out here is murder—I never saw such idiots for making traffic-jams. People in California do whatever they want.”

            “And that’s great, Daddy!” Ina crowed.

Abby-Ray stared enviously at her younger sister. The Fowler children looked as alike a marching band: stringy hair, ragged T-shirts and cutoffs, freckles, skinny elbows, bruises where they had bonked each other. But Ina was different—she walked with the careless grace of a flamingo, holding her tiny suntanned head high.

When she spotted a FLOWER POWER window-box blooming with orange geraniums, Ina swiped a handful and stuck them inside her headband. She smiled charmingly at the window-box’s owner, who waved back like they were old friends. Ina was a California person alright—she did whatever she wanted.

“Who needs Flower Power when we have Fowler Power?”

            “Hey, there, old Fowler! Long time no see, old boy! How’re you doing? I didn’t know you brought a circus. How was the trip, old boy? Neato! Gimme some skin, old boy!”

            Mr. Javis Miles lounged on a bench, red-faced and shirtless and long-haired, puffing a cigar and laughing himself silly. He handed Chris a cigar, and for a few minutes, the two shook hands and pounded each other and roared with laughter.

            “You should’ve come in time for the Monterey concert,” he said. “It was righteous!”

Abigail hung back, afraid and self-conscious as she always was in crowds. She did not like her husband’s friends.

            “Golly-gee,” Corry whistled. “The old man’s abandoned us with an FBI wanted undercover Mafia boss.”

            “Just look at that scuzz-bucket mop-top sweathog,” Abby-Ray said. “He looks like what would happen if John Lennon got inflated with a bicycle pump.”

            “I think he’s a pretty fab guy,” Ina said. “I never saw such long hair.”

            “I wonder what his bellybutton looks like,” Tee Jay mused.

            “You don’t want to know,” Corry said. “Gosh, my family disgusts me!”

            “C’mon over here, model children!” whooped Mr. Miles. “Lemme get a good look at you. Hey, old Fowler, what’s with that crushed-up grungy Ford Fairlane? Looks like you salvaged it from the boneyard.”

            “We did,” Mr. Fowler laughed. “We get all our cars from Mexicans. People who sneak across the border can’t be fussy about fashions, and neither can we.”

            “Groovy,” giggled Mr. Miles. “Penny-pinching is my specialty. Lemme show you the house down on Sand Bill Avenue. I declare, it’s the purtiest place I’ve ever seen. You’ll just love it—you’ll never leave.”

            “Good, we don’t plan on leaving.”

            “You’ve got yourself a fine-looking circus, old Fowler,” Mr. Miles said. “They’ll fetch you a good stock of cash—when they’re old enough.”

            “Cash?” Abby-Ray muttered. “Is Dad selling us into slavery?”

            “Naw, my kids won’t fetch as much cash as photographs and seascapes,” Mr. Fowler said. Both men burst into insane howls of laughter.

            “Give me a Kodak, an easel, and a box of watercolors, and we’re ready to get rich quick!”

“You’ll get the hang of this business, old boy,” Mr. Miles said, handing the Eggplant a ten-dollar bill. “Get the kids something to eat, and I’ll show you 'round town.”

“This is just like Sunshell Manor. Remember?” he said wistfully.

“Not so fast, Eggplant,” Abigail muttered.

“Mind your manners, Abby,” he whispered. “Isn’t Javis wonderful?”

“The beach bum!”

Afterwards, Moving Day was a holiday. Frankie tore all over the cottage like a seagull and christened it Santa Claus Manor. “Look inside these cupboards!” “Look, a balcony all my own!” “Does salt water run from the faucet?” “Ooo, looky, a window-seat!”

They spread out a picnic among the suitcases and topsy-turvy furniture, and Mr. Miles entertained them all with his merry witticisms. The man was a jolly barrel of laughs, and they became fast friends.

“I wanna float my baby dolls in the ocean,” Frankie said. “I’ll learn how to swim!”

“I’ll build a boat called the Trash Possum,” Corry said. “I’ll float it around the coast of South America, like this kid in a science fiction novel did.”

“Cut it out, kiddos,” Mr. Miles said. “Santa Linda Beach has dangerous rip currents. Last summer, punks went surfing and sharks mauled them so badly, they ended up in the hospital. Davy Jones doesn’t appreciate juvenile delinquents.”

“Davy Jones who? Where is he?” Frankie asked, and Mr. Miles rolled over laughing.

Frankie scowled. She did not like grownups who teased!

 The next day, when Frankie saw the sea, she didn’t walk—she flew, squawking with the gulls! Flinging seaweed, she threw herself into the waves that chased her from all sides. Small creeping things, shell-hidden, crept around her toes. Wind gushed in her face, from the roaring green beyond, which melted like ice cream into sun and clouds. She thought, I am a mermaid! I am the sea, and the sea is me. The sea is in me! Tee Jay stared awestruck and had the same idea. They threw wet sand, giggling and shrieking.

They buried each other up to their waists, until high tide nearly swept them to Dave Jones’s Locker.

Mr. Fowler stood at his easel, frowning. Frankie saw it. “Is that a dolphin?” she asked as paint dripped down the margins.

“Don’t try to be funny, young lady.”

Frankie felt sorry for him. That painting looked like something her first-grade teacher wouldn’t pin to the class board. “I could paint a better dolphin,” she offered.

He threw his brush in the sand. “Thank you. The philosopher can’t do anything useful. My career’s off to a great start.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” whispered Frankie. “Just wait, the museums will be begging for your artwork.”

 “That’s a good girl. Here’s a job for the Young Expeditioner—just holler when you see a dolphin. So I can catch a decent photograph.”

Wonderful! Hollering was Frankie’s best hobby.

When September arrived, the young Fowlers were unrecognizable from the pale, scrawny bunch who’d left Manhattan. They looked like a family of cannibals, Abigail said. School opened after Labor Day, and then the real cannibalism started.

“I don’t prefer to attend school,” Ina said casually, admiring her freckles in the china hutch. “Mama dear, I hope you understand.”

“Don’t say ‘Mama dear,’ and yes, I understand perfectly. But we don’t shelter fifth-grade dropouts here.”

“Seventh-grade boys are awful,” said Abby-Ray.

“You know the California punks will beat or maybe kill me,” Corry said darkly.

“Tee Jays don’t like school—Tee Jays like pizza and summer vacation.”

“I have a stomach-ache,” whimpered Frankie. “Don’t make me go to school, Mother! I’ll barf in front of everyone—”

“No more of this. Just leave me alone!” Abigail flung her hands in surrender.

            When Frankie opened the door of Room 200, she was a sniveling, insignificant thing. By the Pledge of Allegiance, Frankie was so small that she hardly stayed in her seat. The teacher, Miss Cribb, who had pencil eyebrows and beehive hair, said sweetly, “Dear heart, why don’t you introduce yourself to the Second Grade?” Frankie started across the room, but halfway to the blackboard, she melted right through the floor.

            That’s why everyone’s laughing. They were laughing at her. Not because she’d said something funny.

            “Who let the baby into class?”

            “Midget lady!”

            “Someone help! Get her out!”

            “Francesca!” The startle of her real name jolted Frankie. So she was still alive. Miss Cribbs scrapped her ruler across the blackboard, and the room went dead silent.

            “I am ashamed of you— Francesca might be a little peanut, but she’s just your age. Remember the Golden Rule? Here in Second Grade, we are all friends!”

            Frankie looked gratefully up at her rescuer. She saw butterflies swarm out of her wonderful towering hair.

            Meanwhile, when Corry got outside for recess, he was shark bait. Blood in the ocean. The sharks were a cluster of boys, with greasy hair and fake leather jackets and equally fake smiles, waiting arm-to-arm by the barbed wire.

            He scuffed a hunk of gravel with his ragged sneaker, tried to look tough, and said breezily, “Which way you gonna kill me? Fast or slow?”

            Several of the boys looked amused.

            “Hang loose, Little Boy, we ain’t shedding blood as long as you listen,” said the greasiest kid, who appeared to be leader. “You don’t got a bicycle, do you?”

            It’s a trap. They’re gonna steal my bike—lousy, brake-busted, trash-picked wreck. “Nope, never had one.” He crossed his fingers.

            “Little Boy still rides his Fire Chief!” said a short boy, giggling.

            “We ain’t letting him walk past alive,” decided another boy.

            “Why don’t you deuces beat it already?” Corry yelled. “Flake off! Go drink out of the toilet! I…I know all the latest cuss words!”

            “Look at the dove,” giggled the short boy. “He fights back with his mouth, like a coward.”

            “Your old man thinks he’s Socrates,” interjected a fat boy. “We couldn’t get you to fight.”

            “Try and attack me!” Corry spat.

            “Come with us, punk,” said the leader. He fingered a jackknife in his grungy pocket. With nowhere to turn, Corry followed the boys through a carved hole in the schoolyard fence.

            “See here, we discovered this boxcar,” explained the short kid, when they were on the street.

            “Abandoned,” stage-whispered the leader.

            “We’re gonna lock Little Boy inside!”

            “Shut up, Mike,” said the leader. “Little Boy will wait outside while we ‘explore.’ If the teachers come sniffing around, you guard our secret. Don’t trying finking us—or you’ll get a beating you’ll never forget. We’ll mash your brains!”

            “Yeah!” Mike whistled.

            He reinforced this with a stream of cuss words, and Corry reluctantly agreed. Flashing their pocket-knives, the boys scrambled like rats inside the Depression-era wreck of a Pacific Trailway. Rusted sheet metal and burlap sacks of moldy chicken-feed vomited out the opening.

Corry whittled his fingernails with his jackknife while fury churned inside him, searing like acid. I don’t stand a chance, attacking these seasoned punks. They can break open boxcars—why can’t I?

“Little Boy is our guard-dragon,” boasted Bartholomew, the leader. “He’ll do anything. He’ll even sniff armpits.”

Corry gnashed his teeth, balled his fists, and prepared to serve his sentence. Week after week…

Abby-Ray fended for herself at school. She sat in her usual dark corner, twisting her long hair hour after hour. The quiet darkness was fine; she didn’t need such luxuries as friends. At home, by the seashore, she wrote poetry—a long epic entitled The Cheese Curse: A Childhood Tragedy.

“Long time no see, old boy, old boy,” chirped Javis, bumping into the Eggplant at his makeshift painting studio. It had been two days since their lasting meeting, but Javis Miles always had too much time. No one really knew where his lavish money came from—he wore diamond rings on his fat fingers and designer flip flops and drove a silver Cadillac Eldorado.

“Take a break, old boy. Got any scratch to buy me cigars?” He slapped Mr. Fowler on the back like a horse.

“Sure, fine, whatever,” Mr. Fowler said, joining the game. He hopped inside the Eldorado and let Javis drive him to the Friday Palm Tree Inn.

            “My intellectual friends meet here,” he explained. “I want you to meet them…”

            Five or ten men sat around in the darkness, full of potted palm trees and hazy with peace-pipe smoke, laughing lazily and playing poker and plunking away on tambourines. One man was soliloquizing, “My, my, my, doesn’t the sky look green today? Seas roar like engines of tomorrow, like bricks thrown through bus windows which no one pays attention to. The answer, my friend, is blowing in the hurricane. There are too many avocadoes and children in the world.”

            Mr. Fowler was flabbergasted, so he said nothing.

            “Don’t judge these men,” said Javis, “because they’re about to admit you into the ‘brotherhood.’”

            Before he knew what was happening, the Eggplant had taken the oath, signed his name in blood, and recited their pledge.

            “I swear on my Grandmother’s Grave, I will never repeat anything said inside the Friday Palm Tree Inn.”

            Then he bolted outdoors into the sunshine, returned to the Santa Linda Museum, broke out in cold sweat, and couldn’t stop shaking.

            What have I just done?

            “Christmas is coming!” Frankie sat at the cluttered kitchen table, finishing her letter: Dear Santy Claws, Would you please bring me another doll, and I mean like a LIVE doll?

            “Frankie, please make yourself useful and set the table,” Abigail said. She peered over her daughter’s shoulder. “And no, I’m NOT having a baby for Christmas!”

            “Why not, Mother? I’m gonna throw a Christmas party for my baby dolls and Second Grade!”

Frankie pulled another sheet of paper from the closet and began writing names: “Tess, Julie, Patty, Missy. Of course, Missy’s little brother, Weenie and Tess’s little brother, Dump Truck. Maryanne, Suzy, Juanita and all the little Diaz children, but not Clara, cause Clara’s a meanie snob—”

            “Next year, Frankie-kins. This year, we get chaos.”

Gray strands in Abigail’s hair which Corry had discovered betrayed her frantic worry. Nearly six months in California, and the Eggplant was still frolicking on beaches with Javis and they weren’t getting any richer.

            “Daddy’s got a Christmas soup-prise for us! He told me.” Frankie fell to daydreaming, silverware in hand.

 “What could be a soup-prise? A big wet furry dog? Naw, Beethoven the Cat is enough. Vacation to the Solomon Islands? A birthday cake bigger than the house? Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory? It could be anything, Mother!”

            Now it was December 23rd. Mr. Fowler had recently sold his first seascape to the Museum, and three dolphin photographs were published in a local newspaper.

“We’re on a roll, no pun intended,” he said gleefully. “Success!”

No one laughed as they sat picking over Abigail’s Hotdog-Salmon Casserole. They distracted themselves with clichéd philosophy arguments, bantering back and forth.

            “The real question of life, Young Expeditioners—if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears, did it really fall?”

            “Daddy, what came first: the chicken or the egg?” Frankie squeaked.

            “Plutarch muddled over that very question in his essay ‘Symposiacs.’ Dilemma is a better word. And I’d like to talk about the regressive law of cause and effect…”

            Bang! Bang! Bang!

            “I shall answer the door,” Mr. Fowler said, but quick little Frankie arrived first.

            “Yes, Mister Policeman? Come in! You can eat my mother’s casserole because we’re all puking in our mouths. If you’ve come to arrest someone, arrest Mother,’cause she’s trying to poison us.”

            “Good Lord preserve us. Here they are again,” Abigail moaned.

            Two long-haired deputies strolled into the family room, their badges gleaming fiercely. The air felt thick and hot with the policemen’s stares.

            “Excuse us, sirs?” Abigail jumped, too quickly, her voice too high and chirpy. The deputies gazed right past her. They turned to Chris, their guns poised.

            “Get down to your knees!”

            He hesitated, eyes flashing dangerously. Then he sank to the floor, like the burdens of the world crushed him.

            “Why’s Dad under arrest?” Corry hollered. “I bet you skullheads don’t even have a warrant!”

            “Go to your rooms, all of you kids!” Chris commanded. “There is nothing wrong!”

            One of the deputies whipped into his pocket. He withdrew a newspaper, the San Francisco Times. Bannered across the front was news of a presidential assassination attempt, last Wednesday.

            “You think my dad is like Lee Harvey Oswald or something?” Corry had no intention of going to his room. “You’re idiots!”

            “There are many suspects the FBI is considering.” The deputy’s voice was like a telephone recording. More papers came out. “Fowler is a member of the organization that meets at an obscure hotel. That anarchist group, headed by Mr. Javis Miles, planned the assassination attempt. A raid at the Friday Palm Tree Inn uncovered hidden storage rooms—pounds of powerful drugs smuggled from Mexico. Our records show that he was planning the attempt for at least six months…”

            “I don’t care about your records!” Mr. Fowler gnashed his teeth. “What I want to know is, why in God’s name am I getting arrested?”

            “…The suspect Mr. Miles was seen boarding a Greyhound at a folk concert, where he gave his name as Beefsteak. He was followed by three men who wore black coats to conceal stockpiled Calibers. All four were bound for Washington, D. C.”

            “And then what???”

            “What do you think, rat?” He crumpled the papers in his hammy fist. “You tell me!”

            “I swore never to repeat anything said at the Friday Palm Tree Inn.” He face-palmed. “You were right, Abby—that Javis is roadkill. Why, if I were president, I’d try to assassinate him! Don’t fret your little head, Abby. Everything will be alright.”

            “These men hijacked the bus, bound and gagged the driver, took all the passengers hostage. While frantic negotiations flew back and forth with the FBI, the man who identified himself only as Beefsteak swore he would ‘Start a dynamite revolution—blow the White House into a million pieces and hand the pieces around so everyone gets some. We’re gonna send down fire from Heaven and start a revolution. Man, I like to see gunpowder fly!’”

            “This one will come with us, ma’am,” said the other deputy, looking into Abigail’s hurricane-struck face.

            Abigail’s gaze darted from the children to the Eggplant, who was handcuffed on the floor.

What have we become? If only I could’ve seen this when we eloped and moved to Red Harbor, twelve years ago. We used to be so happy together. We thought we would sing and dance in the sunshine, forever and always. Now, this…

            “If you’re taking him to jail, I come with.” Her chair scraped away from the table. “Don’t try to argue, Mr. Whoever-You-Are! Is he not my husband? I should’ve asked more questions—those nights he was gone. If he’s a wannabe assassin, I suppose I’m guilty just like him. We all are.”

            A blubbering sob burst from Frankie.

            “Abby, get back to that chair like a good girl!” Chris barked. “You must take care of the children.”

            As usual, Christmas in the Fowlers’ home was swallowed by scandal, bankruptcy, tragedy, and prison.

 The Eggplant returned on December 26th. He’d done so much yammering and philosophizing in jail that the cops said, “This one’s a lunatic for sure. He’s not smart enough to assassinate a sick rat. Why do we bother?”

Three of the four killers from the Friday Palm Tree Inn were apprehended, but Mr. Miles, now disguised as “Beefsteak,” remained missing, and the cross-country chase dragged on. Whenever the children turned on TV, they heard about nothing else.

            “Daddy!” Frankie wept. “You’re not a criminal anymore, are you?”

            “Abby,” he gasped, “We’ve got to leave California!”

            “So soon? Do we have a week to pack?”

            “I don’t know. When Mr. Javis Miles discovers my arrest, he’ll strangle me. Or worse. And I am not exaggerating.”

            “It’s the old story,” said Abigail, thinking of Eugene Slubb.

            “I remember Mr. Slubb,” Abby-Ray said absent-mindedly, looking up from her Seventeen magazine. “Didn’t he hide bodies in walls? Something like that?”

            “The Fowlers are one dysfunctional family,” said Ina. As though the words needed to be said.

            “Dysfunctional family? That sounds redundant,” said Abby-Ray. “I am Superintendent of the Fowler Family Lunatic Asylum.”

Abigail’s heart sank when she looked at her oldest, the Shellfish Baby. How many years had the poor girl simply faded into background noise, taking care of her younger siblings? Really, she wasn’t much to look at—a tall, scraggly, string-bean girl who was suddenly and awkwardly sprouting up into a young woman, who babysat her younger siblings, listened to Judy Collins records, and wrote bad poetry. She’d never asked questions about her birth. In a few weeks the Fowlers would drive cross-country and Abby-Ray’s thirteenth birthday would be lost in general confusion, buried under the smelly garbage-heap of life.

            Tee Jay put his arms around Abby-Ray’s neck. “Tee Jay loves you—Tee Jay loves everyone. No matter where we live, we are always the wonderful Freaky Fowlers!”

            At leas we have Tee Jay safe, Abigail thought. Whatever Tee Jay was missing inside wasn’t his soul.

Moving from Sand Bill Avenue took longer, complicated by many things. Mr. Javis Miles had given them the seaside cottage, free of charge, along with all the furniture.

“We ought to burn that furniture,” Mr. Fowler said. “Beautiful house! To think I trusted him!”

“But he gave it to us, and we haven’t any money. We’d better hide it inside a storage locker until we find a real house. Don’t you think that’s right?”

“Well, we can’t do much to fix this rotten situation. Let’s hope we find a house.”

“That’s what we Fowlers are experts in. Hoping. Only it never gets us anywhere.”

They stored their furniture and most of their garbage in a locker, hopped into the Merry Mobile, and waved bye-bye to California.

Ina was inconsolable. Corry was unusually sullen and silent. Even Tee Jay wasn’t his usual cheerful self. It was December 30th. They would’ve preferred a drizzly, gloomy day to leave, but the sun shone brilliantly on the Pacific Ocean. Sunshine just made them all crankier, especially Abby-Ray.

  “Daddy, where are we going?”

Frankie didn’t ask this question until they’d passed the Golden Gate Bridge. No had really cared to ask.

“Chicago,” the Eggplant said shortly.

“You mean, like, in Illinois?”

“Yes, Chicago like in Illinois!” he exploded.

“Chicago is where I was born,” Ina said importantly.

“Do we have to stay at Grandma Alexandra’s house again?” Abigail asked, shivering.

“Of course not! We’ll rent a cheap apartment. You think we’re bums begging for charity?”

Abigail held her peace and cross-stitched fiercely, trying to keep the tears away. She thought:

 Whenever you leave, you take part of a place with you, inside your soul. Like palm trees swaying outside my kitchen window. Like dolphins playing in the sunset. Or even little things, like rainbows on the kitchen cupboards, a crack in the ceiling, and a cuckoo clock. And every time we have to say goodbye, it hurts me so. Hope is all we have.

“You’re right, Eggplant” said Abigail. “We rented a really, really cheap apartment. You couldn’t find a worse neighborhood.”

            “We can thank Fritz Greggingham for this,” said Chris.

Fortunately, the Eggplant made another friend before leaving Santa Linda Beach unceremoniously—a German-accented police detective named Fritz Greggingham. He was helping track down Mr. Javis Miles and was very kind besides, lending them money to store their belongings and escape California.

“I’m glad Grandma Alexandra mailed me long underwear on my birthday,” said Frankie. “Chicago is the North Pole!”

“Where are the igloos?” asked Tee Jay. “Where are the Eskimos? Where is Santa Claus?”

“Don’t be stupid, Tee Jay,” said Ina. “Keep quiet, because the Chicago police are probably searching for us. Our dad went to jail.”

“The Chicago police spend all day picking frozen dead bodies off the streets,” said Corry.

“You’re still my Young Expeditioners,” said Mr. Fowler. “Braving the blizzard, you will reach the Summit of Wisdom, one day soon.”

He threw on his winter coat, stuffed his battered hat, and wandered the streets, looking for a job. After a while, he came back as a school janitor.

“Figures. I dragged my family across the country and halfway back again for nothing,” he grumbled. “Dreaming is all I’m good for. And scrubbing school cafeterias.”

 “He’s a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land…” sang the radio.

“Shut up,” he growled, slamming the blasted thing silent.

Abigail tried her best to comfort him, but he just wasn’t his usual philosophical self that long winter. Everyone was depressed and out of sorts. And it wasn’t just the windy, slushy, steel-skied winter.

“What’s wrong with us all?” Ina said. “I’m tired of this life!”

Frankie picked at her Quaker oats. “I don’t think I’ll go to school. My stomach doesn’t feel so nice.”

“Yes you will, young lady!” Abigail whipped frozen underwear from the tattered clothesline, spread it to thaw on the ironing board. This was a morning routine, along with making sure the children turned in their reports— “My Philosophy of Life: Life is Dumb” (Abby-Ray), “Land Regions in Korea” (Ina), “The History of Profanity” (Corry), and “The History of Anchovies” (Tee Jay). If the Fowlers wrote the worst reports of any America schoolchildren and didn’t get into good colleges when they grew up, well, it wasn’t her fault. She could only do thirteen things at once!

“Maybe Dad will find a new friend and we’ll move again,” Tee Jay said helpfully.

Abigail let out a shuddery sigh. “Don’t count on leaving Hades—I mean, Chicago.”

“But we’re Fowlers. We can’t help moving,” Abby-Ray reminded them. “Just like migraines and Jefferson Airplane, moving is something that never stops.”

Abby-Ray’s prediction came true several months later. They had to get kicked out of Chicago sooner or later.

In April, Martin Luther King Junior was shot dead in Memphis and the entire United States exploded. At first, they watched the chaos on TV, but then they looked outside the windows at Chicago and saw buildings in flames, smoke billowing down the street.

Horror-stricken, the Eggplant reached for the telephone.

“Get your suitcases,” he said, “and be ready to run outdoors if our apartment catches fire.”

Been there, done that, thought Abigail grimly, thinking of the Flagstaffs’ revenge.

“Abby-Ray, Ina, Corry, Tee Jay, Frankie—stay in your room! I’ll lock the door and put sheets in the windows. I am calling Fritz Greggingham from San Francisco.”

“What for?” Abigail asked timidly.

“We are leaving Chicago! Who knows, it might have been Mr. Javis Miles who assassinated MLKJ. They never caught the skunk—”

The wide-eyed children holed themselves in their room and didn’t dare talk above whispers. No one went to school the next day. But that evening, Mr. Greggingham arrived, knocking on their door. Just as he promised. Mr. Greggingham would never break his word. Mr. Fowler could not have been more pleased to see the Angel Gabriel.

“Do you bring good news and great joy?” he asked. “We’re simply desperate to leave Chicago—and after this week, we have to leave. Please, don’t leave us! We can’t live without you. You’re our only friend, our only hope in life!”

“Calm down, Fowler.” He mopped his large shiny forehead. “Calm down, I say! I have picked out a house for you. It’s in Silver Falls, Illinois. Ever heard of such a place?”

“No, I thought Illinois was all Chicago.”

“Silver Falls is a lovely little town indeed. Dear Gott, I hope and pray that you folks will stay out of trouble…”

“We try our best,” said Abigail. “But we usually fail.”

Then he told the news that made their heads spin.

“I’ve hired moving vans to take your furniture and other garbage to Silver Falls. The house is 550 Douglas Avenue. No arguing! That’s what friends are for!”

“WHOOPPPEEEE! We’re freeeee!”

The children burst from their room, as their six-foot-five father slammed the ceiling. Dancing and laughing and whooping, the Eggplant was one fantastic sight for sore eyes.

“Daddy!” Frankie hollered. He swept her up in his arms.

“How’d you like to move again, Young Expeditioner? We’ve got a house! We’ve got a house, I say!”

“I’ll go anywhere with you, Daddy,” said Frankie. Which settled the matter right then and there.

“Golly-gee! Look at all this abandoned stuff!” Corry yelped “That hospital—what’s it called?”

            “Old Hopeland Memorial Hospital,” said Abby-Ray, never looking up from her travel brochure. “Been abandoned since 1947.”

            “A hospital? Dude, I thought it was an abandoned mental asylum!”

            “Silver Falls has a mental asylum, too.”

            “It’s called 550 Douglas Avenue,” Frankie giggled, “because that’s where the Freaky Fowlers are gonna live!”

            “Atta-girl,” said the Eggplant.

            Dusk settled over the steamy Illinois sky, all shades of purple and pink and orange and gray. It was not Moving Day, because the trailers full of the Fowlers’ garbage hadn’t arrived from San Francisco. They were just passing by to look at the house.

            “You’re joking,” said Abigail. “Tell me the truth. You took us to the wrong address. Grow up already!”

            “This is no joke. This is 550 Douglas Avenue.”

            Abby-Ray said, “Whoever lived there before must’ve been Dracula’s relatives. It’s just…so cold and dark and gloomy.”

            “What’s wrong with that?”

Frankie’s eyes nearly popped. To an eight-year-old who lived most of her life in cramped city apartments, the stately Victorian house with sprawling porches was a palace. To think they would actually live there was too much! She nearly became sick with excitement.

“Can I get out of the car, Mother? Please, please, please, please?”

“Certainly, Frankie. You’ve been cooped up too long.”

Cannonballing from the Merry Mobile, she ran laps around the foundations, laughed and whooped, and leaped off the porch railing into the brilliant tiger lilies. Just for show, she banged the doorknocker. “Let me in! This is my house now!”

“I don’t know what to call the house—not beautiful,” Abigail said. “No, beautiful doesn’t describe this house. Proud doesn’t. It’s just…looking at the place, it has this rock-solid atmosphere. Something whispers, This is our forever home.”

“Of course, it is! I knew all along. I know everything, Abby!”

“This begins a new chapter of our lives,” Abigail said solemnly.

“Chapter? Like a story?” Frankie asked. She had recently begun reading chapter books. “Are we a storybook, Mother?”

“I always thought so.”

Frankie envisioned a giant volume emblazoned THE FREAKY FOWLERS. Each page told of different episodes. Happy times, like the World’s Fair, the sea in California, a new baby sibling, and the Fowler Family Philosophical Society. Tragedies were written there, like Grandma Alexandra’s Thanksgivings, Tee Jay’s disaster, bodies stuffed in apartment walls, and the wannabe assassin, and Abigail’s cooking.

Abigail was right: this new chapter in the books of their lives was called SILVER FALLS, ILLINOIS. 550 Douglas Avenue would be their forever home.