Zeely
Authors: Virginia Hamilton
Zeely
Virginia Hamilton
Illustrated by Symeon Shimin
FOR
LEIGH HAMILTON ADOFF
AND
ETTA BELLE HAMILTON
Contents
A Biography of Virginia Hamilton
ZEELY
THERE WAS AN
awful racket and swoosh as the books John Perry carried slipped out of his arms and scattered over the floor.
“Wouldn’t you know he’d do it? Wouldn’t you just
know
it!” The voice of his sister, Elizabeth, echoed through the huge waiting room. Her mother shushed her.
“After all,” said Mrs. Perry, “it’s not so terrible to drop an armload of books. It could happen to anyone.”
“But why does it happen to us?” Elizabeth cried. “And always when we’re in a hurry to go somewhere!”
John Perry stood close to his father. He wanted to pick up his books, but the effort of running after them and bending down where they lay was more than he could make. He could not get his legs to move. Never had he been in a train-station waiting room. It was full of quiet people quietly going places. Now all of them stared at him. He lowered his head, trying to hide his face.
“No harm done, John,” Mr. Perry said. “Next time, you needn’t carry so many books.” In a moment, he had gathered them up, giving half to Elizabeth to carry and half to John.
“No harm done!” Elizabeth whispered. “Goodness sakes, everyone in the whole place will think we’re just little babies!”
“Elizabeth, stop that whispering,” her mother said.
Elizabeth clapped her hand over her mouth. She didn’t know she had spoken out loud to herself. She hadn’t meant to. But she often talked to herself when she was nervous or upset. Like John, she’d never been in a train station. Before, her father and mother had driven them to the country. This time would be different.
“Aren’t train stations just grand?” she said. “Look at those pillars—I bet they’re all of three feet around. And the windows! Did you ever see anything so very high up?”
The windows were enormously wide and high. John Perry forgot his fear and lifted his head. He smiled up at the windows. Sunlight streaming down exposed sparkles of dust in a shaft to where they stood. Mr. and Mrs. Perry looked up, too. They all stood there, separated from the busy waiting room by the peaceful light and shadow.
It was Mrs. Perry who remembered there was a train to catch. “Oh, my! Hurry, you two!” she said to John and Elizabeth.
Elizabeth fell in step beside her father, who had started toward the train platform. Mr. Perry carried both John’s and Elizabeth’s suitcases. He urged them along more quickly, for the gate to the train had opened. Most of the people had gotten aboard.
“Elizabeth, I want you to sit and act like a lady,” said Elizabeth’s mother.
Elizabeth did not look back to where Mrs. Perry walked with John. “Goodness,” she said to herself, “do you think I don’t know what’s what? Leave me alone and I’ll do what I’m supposed to do!”
Elizabeth heard her mother talking to John. “Remember to comb your hair,” she was saying, “and don’t bother people with questions.”
“You can tell him not to open his mouth for the whole trip.”
“Elizabeth,” her father said, “calm down.”
“Just tell him not to bother
me!
”
“Elizabeth!” her father said.
“Mind that you do whatever Elizabeth says . . .” It was Mrs. Perry talking to John.
Elizabeth heard her. She smiled and held her head up like a proper lady.
When Elizabeth first saw the train, she stopped. Mr. Perry shifted the luggage to one hand so he could take Elizabeth by the arm and lead her along. “I’m about to drop a suitcase,” he said to her, “so you’d better hurry.”
“Is that it?” Elizabeth said. “Is that the train? How do we find our seats?” The train was quite long. Billows of steam rose from beneath the engine.
“I bet it weighs a ton!” said John, coming up behind Elizabeth. He walked around, looking at the engine. “I bet I could climb it,” he said. “I bet I could make it go fast!”
Mrs. Perry hurried them aboard. Mr. Perry found their seats for them without any trouble. He put their suitcases in a rack overhead. When John and Elizabeth were seated, Mr. Perry stood a moment, looking down at them.
“Now remember,” he said to Elizabeth, “after the midnight stop, the train will not stop again until morning. And the first stop of the morning, you and John gather your belongings and get off.”
“Where do we get off?” Elizabeth asked. “Which is front and which is back?”
“Where’s the bathroom?” asked John.
“Is there a water fountain?” asked Elizabeth.
“You can get off at either end,” Mr. Perry said. “Where you find a door open and the conductor waiting, get off.” Then, he showed them where the bathrooms and water fountain were.
Seated again in her seat, Elizabeth made her fingers dance on the window. “Do I have to tell anyone when I’m getting off?” she asked her father.
“Just get off at the first stop of the morning,” Mr. Perry repeated. “You’ll find Uncle Ross waiting for you there on the train platform.”
There was little else to say. Mrs. Perry leaned down and kissed Elizabeth and John. She told them to be good and to have a good time. They were to remember to obey Uncle Ross and not to play too hard. Mr. Perry kissed them and then looked carefully at Elizabeth.
“And now,” he said to her, “I leave it all to you.”
Elizabeth smiled at her father, tossed her head and looked as though she could take care of anything.
Mr. and Mrs. Perry hurried off the train. They had only a few seconds to wave at Elizabeth and John before the train pulled out of the station.
ELIZABETH FORGOT ALL
about sitting like a lady. She sat on her knees with her head pressed against the window. The glass cooled her hot face and hands and she was able to put her thoughts together.
“Well, the school term’s over,” she said. Her lips moved against the window but her voice made barely a sound. “We’ll spend the whole summer on the farm with Uncle Ross. I ought to make up something special just because we’ve never ever gone alone like this!” She began figuring out what she might do that would be as important as travelling to the country without her father and mother.
John Perry leaned around Elizabeth to see out the window. He was terribly excited about making the trip but his manner was not as sure as his sister’s. He was smaller than Elizabeth, but otherwise he was enough like her to be her twin. His eyes were black, like hers, and his skin, brown, with a faint red hue. He had a shock of dark, curly hair that tumbled over his forehead just as Elizabeth’s did.
“You know what I’m going to do?” he said to Elizabeth. “I’m going to take off my shoes and socks. I don’t see why I have to wait until we get to Uncle Ross’ before I go barefoot.”
“You’d better not,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll tell mother and you’ll be sorry.”
“You’re the meanest girl I know!” John said. He sat back glumly in his seat.
Elizabeth wore short pants and a shirt for the train ride. There were seven strands of bright beads looped around her neck. She would have loved making the trip without John. She liked being by herself. Alone, she could
be
anybody at all and she would have only herself to take care of.
The train swept through a long tunnel. Elizabeth sat very still. She could feel John, rigid, beside her. “Are you scared, John?” she giggled. “Don’t be afraid. It’s just a mean, black, spooky tunnel!”
John held on tightly to the armrests of his seat. “I don’t care for tunnels,” he said. He had never been in a tunnel on a train and he did not like it at all.
By the time the train entered the open air again, Elizabeth had figured out what special thing would be as important as travelling alone to the country.
“I want you to listen,” she told John. “From now on, you are to call yourself Toeboy—understand? No more John Perry, and not just for the train trip but for the whole summer.” He was Toeboy, she told him, because at the farm he could go around without shoes all the time if he wanted to.
“I’m going to be Geeder,” she said. “I am Miss Geeder Perry from this second on. Horses answer to ‘Gee,’ don’t they? I bet I can call a mare to me even better than Uncle Ross!”
Toeboy whinnied and began to prance up and down, knocking into the pile of books stacked on the seat beside him. They clattered into the aisle. It took Geeder ten minutes to quiet her brother without raising her voice or hitting him.
“I could just give you a good smack, Toeboy!” she said. She was furious but didn’t dare touch him. In the last few weeks, Toeboy had become fond of letter writing. He would whip out his note pad and scribble off something to her father if she so much as looked at him.
“Now, I’m not going to yell at you,” she said, “because then people might stare. They’ll think I’m not old enough to take care of you.”
“You’re not,” Toeboy said. “I can take care of myself, thank you.”
Geeder ignored him. She made a neat pile of the books on the floor in the space between the seats. The train rushed on as the last sunlight of the day slanted into rows of tall apartment buildings.
“Why do you get the window seat?” Toeboy asked, after a while. He was tired of leaning around Geeder to see.
“Because I’ve
got
it,” Geeder said, “and I’m going to
keep
it.”
Toeboy could tell by the tone of her voice that she meant what she said. He decided to read his books.
Geeder pressed her face against the window. She knew Toeboy was beside her and that their coach was fairly full of people. But she felt cut off from him, from the train, as if she were outside with the scenery.
“I never thought there could be so many buildings, with so many windows and people.” Geeder’s lips moved, making the slightest sound.
The train moved along an elevated track and she could see building after building for what seemed miles. The train went so fast she felt lonely for all the people left behind. Long streets looked like spokes of a wheel connected to nothing and going nowhere.