Little Women and Me

Eleven


Poor Pip was dead!

Who the heck was Pip?

Turn back the clock five days, to June 1…



The Kings had gone to the seashore, leaving Meg with three weeks free. Aunt March was off to Plumfield, and while Jo had feared right up to the last minute that the old woman would either decide not to go after all or would insist on Jo coming with her, the carriage that took her away only contained one Aunt March, one driver, and about twenty-two trunks. Then, since Meg and Jo both had a vacation of sorts at home, Beth and Amy begged Marmee to let them take a break from their studies too.

And Marmee agreed to all of it, saying that while three weeks might be too long, she would allow her girls to experiment with one week of leisure, a life with all play and no work.

Funny, no one asked what I thought of all this, what I wanted to do.

The truth was, much as I might have grumbled about my duties, I’d grown used to my round of regular responsibilities. But now, with no King children or Aunt March to go to, no Beth and Amy to help with their lessons, I was out of a job. Or jobs.

The jack-of-all-trades had nothing to do.



They say that idle time is the devil’s hands.

Isn’t that what they say?

Well, something like that.

The others settled into their first day of leisure. Meg said she would just laze around the whole time. Jo intended to read in the old apple tree and go on “larks” with Laurie—well, we’d see about that! Who was violating the pact now? Amy was going to spend her time drawing, while Beth had her dolls to attend to.

That left me.

The Pickwick Portfolio/Twist Times having renewed my energy for writing, I spent my time working on the story I’d started about a girl who time travels to an earlier era. With no other distractions, I figured I could make real headway on it in a week.

Of course, I was finding there were problems with writing in this world. For one thing, there were no computers. Everything had to be done in daylight or by candlelight and by hand. It was all write, write, write with my right, right, right—I swear, my right wrist was getting muscular, at least two times larger than my left! If this kept up, my right wrist would be the equivalent of Amy’s nose: something to be self-conscious about and laughed over.

Okay, maybe I was getting carried away.

But it was awful not having a computer. I couldn’t move text around easily and the sheets of paper I worked on got muddled-looking with all the strikeouts and arrows indicating something should be moved here or there; never mind that there was no Internet for me to procrastinate with.

Then there was the added problem of finding a safe place to hide my increasingly large stack of pages. I didn’t want the others to see what I was writing. I mean, it wasn’t like I was giving away the secret recipe for Snapple, but some people around here might be … offended if they, oh, I don’t know … recognized themselves in any of my characters.

I snuck up to the garret, used a stick to pry loose a floorboard, and shoved the day’s pages inside, on top of pages I’d hastily stuffed in there on previous occasions.

There!

It was a good story, I thought. I wondered if, if and when I returned to my real life, I’d be able to take it with me.



Everyone was bored.

Of course, no one would admit it. But when Marmee asked at day’s end, “How was your first day of leisure, girls?” after a moment of silence Meg responded, “Wonderful! Although for some reason, the day did seem extraordinarily long.”

“Interesting,” was all Marmee said, but her smile struck me as smug.

I studied her. What a shrewd … Marmee she is! I thought. When she’d said we could try this “experiment” for a week, I hadn’t seen right away that she was the one conducting the experiment … and that it was on us! It was like she was some sort of mad scientist. “If I do X and allow the girls to do Y, I predict that I will wind up with Z result … and then I can have the pleasure of pontificating on it all!”

That would be a fun speech to endure!

I hadn’t realized, all those times I’d read Little Women when I was younger, how pompous Marmee could be.

Of course, unlike the others, I hadn’t been bored at all that day. I’d liked having so many hours to work on my short story that was really turning into more of a book. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I’d want to do all day long every day.

If I did, my right wrist would fall off!



It really was boring, I thought to myself the next day with a yawn, having no specific duties to fill my day with. When I was back home, I’d loved free time because there was so much that I could do for fun. But here? In the 1800s? There was no TV, no computers, no phones to talk or text on all day long if I wanted to. There was definitely no Twitter. There was just sitting around the house. For short periods of time, it wasn’t bad. But like this? It was too much quiet.

Marmee and her wretched experiments!

That’s probably why I felt so much excitement and relief when on the second day of the experiment, Jo walked in with a letter that Laurie had left in our post office.

“He says it’s going to be a perfect day for rowing on the river!” she announced, looking as relieved and excited as I felt.

I quickly hurried to get a bonnet, finally settling on Hannah’s because it was the largest by far.

The sun—I hated it as much as I hated winter, I thought as I tied a bow beneath my chin. With my auburn hair and fair skin, I burned easily, and I’d left my SPF90 back in the real world somewhere.

“Emily, what are you doing?” Jo demanded irritably. “Where do you think you’re going and why on earth are you wearing Hannah’s bonnet? You look ridiculous.”

I ignored the last part. “I’m getting ready to go rowing with Laurie,” I said brightly, sailing out the door before she had the chance to say anything else.

I knew what she’d say if I let her: that the invitation had been for her and I wasn’t invited.

But I wouldn’t give her the chance. I didn’t care what she said or thought about my going because: 1) as far as I was concerned, she and Laurie had already spent way too much time alone together—I’d lost one guy to an older sister and then a younger sister, back in my real life, and I wasn’t about to let that happen to me again, pact or no pact; 2) there was no way I’d spend a whole day in that house, unable to write because my wrist was sore, watching Meg laze on the sofa, Amy draw, and Beth play with her dolls.



You’d almost think that this rowing thing was yet another of Marmee’s little experiments …

So many things in life have a way of widening the gap between ideals and reality.

My hands were getting sunburned already—I hadn’t thought to wear gloves—plus there were so many flies out on the water! Not only was there no sunscreen in this world, but there wasn’t any bug spray either.

And was there a good reason, I thought as I watched my reddening hands pulling backward on the oars in a great heave, that I was the only one doing any rowing?

Oh, that’s right. I’d offered.

In my mind, I did a snotty imitation of my own voice: “ I can do all the rowing!” I’d said, figuring Jo couldn’t turn me away if I made myself invaluable to the expedition. “But I’ve never known you to row a boat in your life!” she’d said, sounding just as snotty, only for different reasons.

This rowing was hard work! There was no time to do anything else.

Like flirting with Laurie, which was exactly what Jo was doing right now.

“That post office you installed between our houses,” she said from underneath her wide-brimmed straw hat, which, I must say, looked cooler in every way than Hannah’s bonnet. “That post office is really such a marvelous thing!”

Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t seem like flirting to most people, but coming from Jo it was.

“I never knew a boy could be so inventive,” Jo said.

Honestly. She was practically throwing herself at him! Why not just jump in his lap and lick his face like a puppy? I thought grumpily.

Oh, that’s right. I’d already done that. Well, not the lap and licking parts.

And what was Laurie doing while I rowed us around the lake where Amy had nearly drowned and Jo now flirted? You’d think, being a boy, he’d want to do his share of the labor. But no. I was on one end of the boat, rowing, while he lazed indolently—PSAT word! Woo-hoo!—on the seat at the other end, with Jo on the middle seat, her back to me.

Maybe he was so lazy because he was used to having servants do things for him? Well, I thought, at least he isn’t insolent.

“Why?” Laurie said to Jo, a long blade of marsh grass dangling from the corner of his mouth. “You don’t think boys can be as inventive as girls?”

“I don’t think boys can do anything as good as girls.” Jo laughed, still in the Jo mode of flirting. I swore, I liked her better when she walked around with her hands shoved in her skirt pockets like she was a boy, saying “Christopher Columbus!”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Laurie said, not argumentative at all, but as though he were simply making a statement of fact. “Everyone knows that boys are superior to girls, in every way imaginable.”

Jo had her long chestnut hair tucked up under her straw hat and I saw her naked neck redden instantly.

And it wasn’t with sunburn.

“You take that back, Theodore Laurence!” she threatened, half rising from her seat.

I was surprised by her reaction. Was she really that upset about what he’d said? Or was she so bored after yesterday that she was mad at the world and picking a fight?

Whatever the reason, I decided I liked the mad Jo better than the flirting Jo.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Laurie said with a lazy smile, tilting his head back to catch the sun. He closed his eyes, happy. “I am bigger than you, stronger, I have greater speed, and I am smarter on every measure that matters.”

Yeah. I could have told you he thought that. Guys always do. That’s why they had to be humored, for example …

“I like that about you,” I called across the boat to Laurie, having to crane my neck around Jo. “Bigger-than-girls is a good feature in a boy.”

Laurie opened one eye and, I swear, winked it at me.

But Jo, apparently, didn’t know anything about guys or how to talk to them.

“Emily may be silly enough to agree with what you say,” Jo began.

Hey! I resented that.

“But not me,” Jo said hotly. “I know that I am superior to boys.” She paused. “At least most boys,” she added, showing that she had some sense if she was reluctant to insult Laurie completely. What guy would really want to be with a girl who kept saying “I am better than you, I am better than you, I am sooooo much better than you.”

That’s the guy’s job.

“So you take back what you said,” Jo instructed Laurie.

“And if I don’t?” he challenged, looking for once as though he might be getting a little angry. Maybe the heat was beginning to get to him too.

“If you don’t,” Jo countered, “I’ll throttle you … and then I’ll never speak to you again!”

I couldn’t have that, I thought as Jo rose from her seat, prepared to deliver on her threat. Oh, I didn’t care if she never spoke to Laurie again. That would be fine with me—welcome, even! Although she was such a chatterbox, I figured she’d never be able to stick to it.

It was the throttling part I couldn’t allow. Laurie was bigger than Jo, but she was still pretty big for a girl. Plus she had anger and scrappiness on her side. I was sure she could take him.

No, I couldn’t allow that: my poor, sweet Laurie, throttled black and blue by my crazed sister.

That’s when I saw my opportunity.

Not far from where I’d been rowing, a rock jutted out of the water. I swung the boat around, rowing toward it as fast as I could, keeping my eye on my goal all the time.

When we struck the rock with a surprising degree of force, we only teetered on it for a moment before all—Jo, Laurie, and Emily—were dunked in the water.

There! I thought. That would cool Jo off! It was certainly cooling me off, I thought, rolling onto my back for a moment and just floating.

“You did that on purpose!” Jo sputtered at me angrily, little drops of water spraying from her mouth.

I ignored her, turned on my stomach, and dog-paddled over to where Laurie was sopping wet, laughing.

“Did I mention,” I said, treading as water dripped from my lashes, “how much I like it that you’re bigger than I am?”



Four days later, the whole household was still bored, Marmee had decided she and Hannah would take the day off since the rest of us had already had most of the week off, Jo and Laurie had had their fight and were not speaking as far as I could tell, and my hands were only beginning to lose the lobster-red color they’d acquired that day on the lake.

Rotten rowboats.

And rotten Hannah for accepting Marmee’s offer of a day off.

Wasn’t anybody going to do any work around here anymore?

With Hannah off, there was no fire in the kitchen, no breakfast in the dining room. No breakfast?!

With that bracing thought in mind, I offered to help Meg, who’d wanted to surprise Marmee with breakfast in bed.

But even preparing a simple meal like breakfast proved a challenge in the 1800s. Meg had obviously never done so before, and while I had, there were no Pop-Tarts nor was there a microwave to be found.

Suffice it to say we burned everything, which Marmee didn’t seem to mind at all.

Then Jo informed us she’d make our dinner. Apparently, while we were busy upstairs delivering the burned breakfast to Marmee, Jo was busy putting a letter in the post office for Laurie. She’d invited him to dinner, I guessed to make up for the argument she’d instigated.

I didn’t offer to help Jo like I had with Meg.

But that was okay, Jo said, she had everything under control.

“I may not know how to make a salad,” Jo said, wrapping an apron around her waist, “but I’ve a book here that will tell me.”

“You don’t need a book to make salad,” I said. “Just rip up some lettuce and toss it in a bowl!”

“How would you know?” Jo looked down her nose at me. “And anyway, I’m fairly certain there’s a lot more to it than that!”

“Not much.” I grabbed an apple from the bowl on the table. “But suit yourself.”

As I exited the room, I heard Jo muttering something about lobsters and strawberries.

It was going to be a fun dinner.



And it would have been a fun dinner, if Pip hadn’t died.

“Poor Pip is dead!” I heard Beth scream, her voice trailing off into a heartbreaking sob.

With no clue what she was talking about, I raced through the house after the sound of her.

When I found her, she was using the hem of her skirt to wipe at her eyes as sobs shook her shoulders. In the room with her was a birdcage, inside of which lay a dead canary.

Huh. I hadn’t even noticed we had a canary!

“There, there,” I soothed.

Awkwardly, I fitted my arms around Beth. I’d never been very good at the whole hugging thing, but I was sad to see her so upset, even if it was only over a bird.

Then, before I knew it, the others were in the room with us. When Beth tried to blame herself for Pip’s death, because perhaps she had forgotten to feed him during her week of leisure, the others pooh-poohed this. One of my brain-surgeon sisters even offered to put Pip in the oven in the hopes of reviving him.

“We can have a funeral right after my dinner party,” Jo offered, a bit self-absorbedly I thought—after all, we’d had a death here!—but it seemed to calm Beth.

Sooooo …

Jo went to market, Marmee went out to dinner, a gossipy spinster named Miss Crocker—who was apparently a friend of the family even though I’d never met her before—showed up expecting to eat with us, Laurie came, Jo rang the dinner bell an hour late, and the food she made was gross.

Salt instead of sugar with strawberries?

I think not.

And then we had the funeral.

As we stood in the backyard, Laurie—being the only man and therefore the strongest, as he would no doubt want people to know—used a small spade and dug a hole in the earth where Beth could lay Pip before the cats got to him. In fact, she’d been carrying his dead body in her pocket all day to avoid the problem of the cats, in spite of my warnings that it might not be the healthiest thing to do. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her that any self-respecting health inspector would shut this place down in a minute for all the violations—Beth had gone from cradling a dead canary to the table without a hand-washing in sight!

But none of that mattered now as poor Pip was finally laid to rest.

It was as Beth bravely tossed the first clod of earth over his body that the first involuntary sob broke from me. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just that the idea of death itself—even if in this case it was only a canary—reminded me that there were more serious things in the world than the silly things I mostly thought about? Maybe it was just the reminder that anyone could die at any time?

What was going on back home, in my real life? Suddenly I missed my own world so much, and not the things, for once, but the people. I even missed Charlotte. And then a thought occurred to me, a scary thought: if I was so oblivious to things going on around me here that I’d failed to notice a canary in the house until that canary up and died, how in the world was I ever going to save Beth?

I began to cry harder.

“Huh.” Jo eyed me strangely as she offered me a handkerchief that looked none too clean. “I didn’t even know you liked Pip. As far as I could tell, you never even noticed he was there.”



It was a big job, doing the cleanup after dinner. Beth was still too upset over Pip to help, Meg felt she’d done enough that day in making breakfast, and Jo thought she’d done enough in making dinner, and so I had to do all the work, since Laurie had offered to take Amy for a drive in his carriage.

Hel-lo! I thought as I scraped dishes. What was up with that?

Then Marmee came home, Amy came back, we were all together again, Marmee asked how our day was, we confessed that it had been fast and awful.

And then Marmee gave a speech about the need for a balance between work and play, concluding with:

“Work is wholesome.”

That Marmee! I thought. What a sly boots!