Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree Read online

  It was late that night, as Colleen was about to fall asleep, that she remembered her talk with Emma-Jean Lazarus in the bathroom. A completely weird idea came into Colleen’s mind: Had Emma-Jean done something to make Laura change her mind?

  Colleen flipped over onto her back and stared at the hearts and stars mobile above her bed.

  But how could Emma-Jean have gotten Laura Gilroy to cancel the trip? Emma-Jean was in her own world and had probably forgotten all about Colleen’s problems. Colleen closed her eyes. No, she told herself, drifting toward a happy sleep, Laura probably just found something better to do for the weekend.

  Chapter 6

  There were strong indications that Emma-Jean’s plan to solve Colleen’s problem had succeeded. The first came on Wednesday before dismissal, when Emma-Jean saw Colleen and Kaitlin standing at Colleen’s locker. They had their hands on each other’s shoulders and were hopping up and down. It was clear they were celebrating something, since they’d done the same dance when they were voted co-vice secretaries of the seventh-grade class.

  Could Colleen and Kaitlin be celebrating Laura Gilroy’s decision to abandon the ski trip? Emma-Jean thought this was highly likely, yet she lacked conclusive evidence. On Friday afternoon, Emma-Jean noted that Colleen Pomerantz did not board her regular bus. She waited in the pickup lane with Kaitlin Vogel. Several minutes later, the Vogel station wagon drove up, with skis attached to the roof. Kaitlin and Colleen both entered the car, and Emma-Jean presumed that they were heading straight for Vermont.

  Still, Emma-Jean couldn’t be certain of the cause/ effect relationship between the letter she had sent to Laura Gilroy and Colleen Pomerantz’s presence on the Vogel ski trip.

  That evening, after helping her mother and Vikram with the dinner dishes, Emma-Jean announced that she wished to take a short after-dinner walk. The streets of the neighborhood were quiet and safe. She and her father had often ventured into the darkness, hand in hand, to observe their favorite trees in the moonlight, to listen for owls and skunks and other nocturnal creatures, to marvel at the star-lit sky that had so inspired Jules Henri Poincaré.

  Her mother reminded Emma-Jean to stay on the sidewalks and Emma-Jean zipped up her parka and set out into the cold night.

  It took just ten minutes to walk to William Gladstone Middle School. There was only one car in the parking lot, and not a person in sight. She concealed herself behind a boxwood hedge in front of the school, kneeling on a pile of wood chips.

  Five minutes later, a tan Ford Expedition sped through the parking lot and pulled up by the front door, a few yards from where Emma-Jean was hiding. The passenger door opened and Laura Gilroy hopped out, slammed the door, and ran into the school.

  Emma-Jean waited behind the hedge, leaning against the wall. She could feel the cold bricks through her parka. Just a few minutes later, Laura Gilroy reappeared. She fished a cell phone from her purse and jabbed at the buttons. “There’s been a total screwup,” she shouted into the phone. “And I need you to pick me up.” She stamped a foot. “No! Not fifteen minutes. I look like an idiot! Pick me up RIGHT NOW!”

  Laura stuffed the phone back into her purse and paced back and forth across the sidewalk, muttering profanities. She pulled violently on the rear end of her spandex pants, which looked very tight and uncomfortable indeed.

  Several minutes later, the tan Expedition reappeared, screeching to a stop where Laura stood, arms crossed, foot tapping. Laura wrenched open the car door, hurled her body up into the front seat, and slammed the door shut.

  After the car had sped away, Emma-Jean emerged from her hiding place. She brushed off the wood chips and pine needles that clung to her parka and adjusted the creases of her khakis. She stood very still as she tried to slow the flow of thoughts that rushed through her mind. Her heart was beating rapidly, and despite the cold, she was sweating.

  The sight of Laura Gilroy in distress had made Emma-Jean uneasy. Never before, as far as she knew, had Emma-Jean ever purposefully done something that had caused another person to be angry or upset.

  Emma-Jean stared into the darkness, processing her thoughts.

  It was not desirable to cause someone distress, even someone as thoughtless—perhaps even malevolent—as Laura Gilroy. But the facts were clear enough: Laura had created a problem. And Emma-Jean had solved it. Right now, Colleen was somewhere in the mountains of Vermont, enjoying her rightful place alongside her best friend. And though Laura had been upset, her pitiless spirit would rebound quickly.

  Slowly, the confusion in her mind dissipated like an early-morning mist. Emma-Jean’s heart rate slowed. Rational thought had returned.

  In a small way, Emma-Jean believed her actions had helped restore balance to the chaotic universe of the William Gladstone seventh grade.

  Emma-Jean reflected on these remarkable events as she walked along the quiet streets of her neighborhood and under the arching elms. When she got home, she made herself a cup of tea and ate an apple. According to her father’s book, this was how Jules Henri Poincaré marked the successful completion of a challenging mathematical problem.

  Chapter 7

  Emma-Jean was so pleased with the positive resolution of Colleen’s problem that she decided to lend her assistance to others should the opportunity arise. Fortuitously, another problem came to her attention the very next week.

  She was in the cafeteria. As usual, Emma-Jean was sitting at a large round table by herself, surrounded by the not unpleasant clamor and buzz of her fellow seventh graders. She had just opened her thermos and was enjoying the first spoonful of her tomato soup when the sound of Mr. Petrowski’s blustery voice broke her mood of calm. He was standing just a few feet away from Emma-Jean, speaking to Ms. Wright, Emma-Jean’s language arts teacher. They hadn’t noticed Emma-Jean, since they were separated from her by a vending machine.

  “What I’m saying is that Will Keeler stole my candy,” said the science teacher. “He went into the teachers’ lounge and took it right from my locker. I don’t know how he did it, but believe you me it was him, and I’m going to nail him.”

  “That sounds odd,” said Ms. Wright. “How do you know it was he?”

  “I caught him eating chocolate in class. Right in front of me.”

  “That doesn’t mean he stole your chocolate, Phil,” Ms. Wright said. “Really, Will Keeler doesn’t strike me as the criminal type.”

  “You kidding me?” Mr. Petrowski said. “He’s bad news, that kid. You know what he did to Brandon Mahoney, don’t you? Brandon could have ended up in the emergency room.”

  “Really, Phil,” Ms. Wright said. “Brandon Mahoney could make anyone throw a pear at him. And Will Keeler is a good kid.”

  “Well, I think you’re naïve.”

  Ms. Wright was much younger than Mr. Petrowski, and she was new this year to William Gladstone Middle School. Still, Emma-Jean knew that she was not naïve. She was intelligent and well traveled; in fact, she had recently visited her mother’s relatives in the African country of Ghana. Most strikingly, Ms. Wright was the only teacher who’d ever asked Emma-Jean if she had been named after Emma Lazarus, the woman who wrote the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. Emma-Jean had told her that indeed she had been, that her mother and father decided to get married while visiting the Statue of Liberty.

  “They also decided that should they have a daughter, they would always remember the day by naming her Emma.”

  “And where did the name Jean come from?” Ms. Wright had inquired.

  “My father’s name is Eugene,” Emma-Jean explained. “My mother put Jean on the birth certificate to surprise him.”

  “It’s a wonderful name,” Ms. Wright said. “Full of character.”

  “My parents had only known each other for two weeks when my father proposed to my mother,” Emma-Jean told her. “They got married a month later.”

  “That’s so romantic!”

  “They were very happy,” Emma-Jean said, thinking of the many stories her parents h
ad told her.

  The next day, Ms. Wright had asked her to stay behind after the bell rang.

  “Emma-Jean,” she said in a quiet voice. “Yesterday, when we spoke about your parents, I didn’t know that your father had passed away. I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”

  “He was very brilliant,” Emma-Jean said. “He wrote a book on Jules Henri Poincaré that won the David H. Dreyfuss Prize for Mathematics Scholarship. He taught me all I know about trees.”

  “I understand he was one of the most popular professors at the university.”

  “Yes. And he was the love of my mother’s life.”

  “Yes. It must be hard for you to . . .”

  “Thank you,” Emma-Jean had said as she walked away.

  Ms. Wright had not mentioned this topic again, though at Christmastime she had sent Emma-Jean a holiday card in the mail. The card was illustrated with a graceful watercolor of twin cherry trees, their lush blossoms glowing pink, like a sunset reflected on water. Emma-Jean had pasted it into her sketchbook, and still enjoyed looking at it before she went to sleep at night.

  Sometimes when Ms. Wright had lunch duty, she would join Emma-Jean at her table for a few minutes, and they could share insights into the book or poem they were reading in class. Emma-Jean hoped Ms. Wright would join her today, and peered around the vending machine to try to catch her eye. However, Mr. Petrowski had shifted his weight, and his hulking body now blocked the willowy Ms. Wright from view.

  Emma-Jean watched as Mr. Petrowski leaned closer to Ms. Wright. “Here’s what happened,” he said. “I went into the lounge and sat on the couch. I dropped my pen and it went between the cushions. I reached in to get it, and instead I pulled out something slimy and brown.”

  Emma-Jean made a face.

  “A fun-size Milky Way, slightly melted,” Mr. Petrowski clarified.

  “So?”

  “So I got suspicious. I keep a bag of candy in my locker . . . sweet tooth, you know? I got up to check in my locker, and sure enough, there was a hole in my bag and half the candy was gone.”

  “And you think Will Keeler went into the lounge, broke into your locker, and stole some candy?”

  “I do.”

  “And you think he ate some and put the rest in the couch cushions? That makes absolutely no sense, Phil.”

  “He probably sat down to have a little snack and dropped a few. A kid like that would have no compunction. ”

  Ms. Wright and Mr. Petrowski both turned and looked into the unruly crowd of boys. Emma-Jean followed their gaze. The boys appeared to be engaged in a lively display of belching.

  Belching was considered impolite, Emma-Jean knew, unless one happened to be in China, where a belch was a signal that one was satisfied with his meal. It was possible one of the boys had vacationed in China during February break and was sharing the country’s cultural customs with his peers. However, Emma-Jean was skeptical that the William Gladstone Middle School hot lunch could inspire a satisfied sound of any kind.

  “Just look at him,” Mr. Petrowski said, sneering at Will Keeler.

  Emma-Jean looked closely at Will, who was now standing up. He wore his yellow-blond hair shaggy around his ears. His basketball jersey was stained with what appeared to be chocolate milk. Emma-Jean studied Will, hoping to see hints of the Arthurian heart her mother was so certain he possessed. At exactly that moment, Will put his arms out like an opera singer reaching for a high note, and emitted a belch so loud that it rose above the shouts and giggles like a foghorn in a hurricane.

  “Phil, excuse me for saying so, but this all sounds a little crazy to me,” Ms. Wright said. “I know Will isn’t exactly an academic star, but I really doubt—”

  “A kid like that,” Mr. Petrowski said, shaking his head. “He has everything handed to him.”

  “What does that—”

  “Haven’t you seen the billboards up and down Post Road? Keeler Cadillac? That’s the old man. The family’s the biggest Caddy dealer on the East Coast. And you know I bought myself a pre-owned Escalade last year. The thing’s a lemon. First it was the transmission that went bad, then the air-conditioning, and now there’s this rattling noise. Driving me insane!”

  “Phil, are you feeling all right?”

  Mr. Petrowski did not seem to be listening to Ms. Wright. His eyes were glued to Will Keeler, and he was speaking very fast. “I’ve had the car serviced five times in three months. I’ve spent a thousand bucks. Do they care? Not a wink. An average Joe like me? Why would they care? That family’s made of money.”

  “Phil,” she said. “Look at me. I can practically assure you that Will Keeler had nothing to do with your missing candy. It’s obvious that you are riled up about your car, and . . . really. You need to calm down.”

  Mr. Petrowski shook his head and waved his hand at Ms. Wright. “You’ll see,” he said. “After a while you’ll get it. You’ll see things the way I do.”

  “I really hope I don’t!” Ms. Wright said, turning and walking out of the cafeteria.

  Emma-Jean found this conversation disturbing. Whether or not Will Keeler had the makings of a knight, it was clear to her that he was an unlikely thief. In fact, she very much doubted that any of her fellow seventh graders would commit such a crime. Emma-Jean had a hunch, and she decided she needed to stay after school to investigate.

  She waited until after the last bus had rumbled out of the parking lot and the hallways were quiet before knocking on the door of the teachers’ lounge. When nobody replied, she opened the door, closing it carefully behind her. The lounge was small, with a sink against the back wall, a worn black leather couch on the right, and a row of lockers running the entire length of the left-hand wall. Unlike the metal student lockers that lined the carpeted hallways of William Gladstone, the teachers’ lockers were made of wood and were joined together as one long cabinet.

  Emma-Jean went to the couch first. She lifted up one of the cushions and wrinkled her lip in distaste at what she saw: crumbs from many varieties of chips, cookies, and crackers. She lifted the other cushions. As she had predicted, there was a mini Snickers bar, still in its wrapper. Mindful of germs, Emma-Jean took a tissue from her pocket and used it to pick up the bar. She inspected it. The wrapper was gnawed at the corner. Emma-Jean wrapped it in the tissue and placed it in the pocket of her cardigan sweater.

  Emma-Jean found the locker with a rectangular metal tab engraved P. Petrowski. She then walked to the back of the room and tugged on the row of cabinets with both hands. It slid easily away from the wall. She walked slowly behind the cabinets, her eyes scanning the floor. And there it was, the proof she had been seeking. The floor was covered with hundreds of tiny brown beads, which Emma-Jean unmistakably identified as mouse droppings. The wood that backed Mr. Petrowski’s cabinet was marred by a hole, chewed around the edges. Emma-Jean judged that the size of the hole would enable a mouse to enter quite easily, and then exit carrying a fun-size Milky Way in his whiskered mouth.

  Emma-Jean came out from behind the cabinets. Just then, the door to the teachers’ lounge swung open. Emma-Jean froze, knowing that despite her honorable intentions, she was currently trespassing in the teachers’ lounge, a serious breech of school rules.

  It was thus a relief when the doorway filled with the large figure of Mr. Johannsen, the school custodian. He was, in Emma-Jean’s mind, one of the most important members of the William Gladstone Middle School staff. Emma-Jean disliked messes, and appreciated the care with which Mr. Johannsen mopped the cafeteria floor and swept the sidewalks in front of the school.

  Emma-Jean tried to make his job easier by picking up the candy wrappers and empty chip bags she often found in the school parking lot. She picked up lunch trays her fellow seventh graders left behind in the cafeteria and pushed in their chairs.

  “Well hello there, missy,” said Mr. Johannsen. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m aware that I am in violation of school rules, Mr. Johannsen,” Emma-Jean said. “However, I am currently w
orking to solve the problem of Mr. Petrowski’s missing candy.”

  “You are, are you?”

  “Yes. Are you aware of this situation?”

  “I am,” said Mr. Johannsen, smoothing down what was left of his fluffy white hair. “Crime of the century, you’d think, the way Petrowski’s carrying on. You’d think there were diamonds inside those candy bars.”

  “Diamonds are not edible, Mr. Johannsen. You must know that.”

  Mr. Johannsen chuckled. “You got me there, Emma-Jean.”

  “In any event, the candy was not taken by a student, ” Emma-Jean informed him. “It was taken by a mouse.”

  “A mouse?” he said, stepping forward.

  “Yes. We once had mice in our home, and I’m familiar with their behavior. When I heard about Mr. Petrowski’s candy, I suspected it was a mouse.”

  “You did, did you?” said Mr. Johannsen.

  “I found their droppings behind the lockers. I was going to sweep them up.”

  “You know how I appreciate all of your help.”

  Mr. Johannsen had once informed her that in all his thirty-four years working as a custodian, he’d never encountered a student as mindful of cleanliness as Emma-Jean.

  Emma-Jean motioned for Mr. Johannsen to inspect behind the lockers.

  “There’s a hole in Mr. Petrowski’s locker.”

  “A hole?”

  “May I borrow your flashlight?” she said, pointing to the one that hung from his belt, partially hidden by his large stomach. Mr. Johannsen unclipped his flashlight, turned it on, and handed it to Emma-Jean.

  Emma-Jean illuminated the area behind Mr. Petrowski’s locker.

  “Well, look at that,” Mr. Johannsen said.

  “And you should also see this,” Emma-Jean said, taking the candy bar from her cardigan pocket. “See how this is gnawed?” she said, holding it out to Mr. Johannsen. “I found it in the couch. Mice often move food from one location to another.”

  “They do, do they?” said Mr. Johannsen.

  “Yes,” Emma-Jean said. “In my experience they do.”