Blima ran out into the woods. For forty-three days, they’d been happy, all of them, her mother included, but now there was a little boy who could ruin everything. She didn’t know what to do. She needed help. She needed something. Or somebody.
She skidded down into the clearing, and there he was, Harpo sitting on the dock with his pants rolled up and his feet in the water, sitting still with a letter in his hands, just like the last time Blima saw him. Except this time, he’d come to the lodge with an extra suitcase and a little boy, the blue-eyed one from before. Also, he was holding a pen and a paper. Who could write a letter at a time like this?
Harpo shifted and Blima froze, and suddenly, they were playing a game of red light green light, and that would be the answer. If she won the game, then that would be a sign, Harpo would be able to help her. Maybe he’d brought the boy by accident.
When Harpo looked down again, Blima crept forward. She was winning and he didn’t even know. When she got right behind him, she knelt. Maybe she’d be able to read the whole letter before he even noticed her, that would mean that she’d won for sure. But the letter was just an empty page, with a “Dear Susan” written at the top, and that was it. Blima sighed, sat down loudly and ended the game.
Harpo wheeled around. “I’ve been wondering when you would show up,” he said, pulling her into a hug. “I’ve missed you. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“You were looking for my mother,” said Blima. “I heard you when you came in.”
“I have presents for you. But I have something I need to give your mother also.” Harpo looked out at the lake. He looked sad. So probably he’d brought them socks. They lapsed into silence. Then, “I don’t want to be Harpo the Postman anymore.”
Blima felt a chill. “What do you mean?”
“I thought mailmen could choose to only deliver good news.”
Even though it was a warm day, Blima felt freezing cold. She scrambled to her feet. Harpo had a letter to deliver. She saw it now. He was holding it in his other hand, under the blank sheet of paper. The letter was a bad one, it had to be. She had to get to her mother first. She turned and tore back to the lodge.
Blima ran up to the attic, heaving to breathe, forcing her feet to go up and up and up. It wasn’t locked. Maybe she was still safe.
Blima threw the door open. Her mother wasn’t there. There was just a little boy sitting on the bed, staring at her with big blue eyes flickering like the shallows. The boy she remembered. She backed away.
By the time Blima got downstairs again, it was too late. They were standing together in registration, Harpo and her mother, looking solemn. Why was he doing this? He was supposed to be her friend.
Blima tucked herself into the space between the open dining-room door and the wall.
Harpo extended the letter to Ayala. Blima willed time to stop. But it didn’t. Her mother took the letter, read it, then turned and walked up the stairs.
Blima leaned her forehead against the wall. The next few days, she knew, would be punctuated by hammer bangs like exclamation marks after every panicky thought. Her father would try to pry open the attic room. Blima would be scared that her mother would die because of no food or water. Nobody would talk to anybody else, there would be no eye contact in the entire family. Nobody would see their mother at all. She knew how to stuff things between all the door hinges.
When the attic door closed with a pop, Blima fled. Harpo saw her come out of the hiding place, she knew, but she didn’t care. He called after her, but she didn’t even slow down.
Blima sat down on her bed. She needed a plan. She imagined that the whirlwind of God appeared in her bedroom. If Elijah came right now, she would kiss him right on the mouth, just like she saw Mr. and Mrs. Levi do that one time in the back of the kitchen, behind all the crates. She pictured kissing the boy called Moshe, and she felt that wave of dizziness she got on Passover sometimes when she took too many sips from her dad’s wineglass. She slid off the bed. That wouldn’t do. She couldn’t be dizzy for the rest of her life. Also, she wouldn’t let the family break apart like that little attic boy’s had. Moshe was the one they were all trying to give her away to.
Blima hopped off her bed and ran around the room, around and around again to see if she could cause the whirlwind herself and summon Elijah to come to her. Maybe this time it would work. If he came, then he would lead her mother out of the attic. Also, he wouldn’t let Blima be given away.
Then Blima heard a knock at the door. She froze.
“Blima?” came Harpo’s whispered voice.
Blima turned away. What if Harpo the Postman was here to deliver all the bad letters?
“Blima?”
She couldn’t let that happen. She’d been guarding the last one for years, forever, and her mother would be so angry if she found out she’d never posted it. She had to get to it first. She climbed up onto the windowsill. Then she scooted outside, banged her knee as she swung herself around the window frame. She froze again, perched and wobbling, but there wasn’t any response from outside the door. She hopped off the window ledge, right down to the garden. She ran around the lodgehouse and to the registration entrance.
Blima tore inside the lodgehouse again, ran from the mud room to the stairway to the dining room so fast that Mr. Echelstone the mailman, who wasn’t the normal kind of Christian, shouted that she was probably possessed. She skidded into the room of doors, and stopped. Nobody was around. She crawled under the table, retrieved the package, and slid it under her shirt, tucked it into her pants. She ran off again, but this time, she didn’t know where to go. She wheeled from hallway to hallway. Nowhere was safe.
When Harpo visited last, the world had opened up. Her mother had turned into her plain old mother again, weird but okay on the whole, not the pale ghost who hid from people and said things that were mean. And they’d had friends again, all of a sudden—Papa William, Mackie’s mother and Mackie. Mackie had freckles everywhere, even on the backs of her hands. She was perfect. She was Blima’s best friend now, it would even count in school, she’d said, in a promise that involved fingers.
Blima slid into the dining room. The package crinkled as she moved. Blima closed her eyes and wished for it to hush, please hush, someone might hear, and what if there were even more letters? Who knew what might be written in those things? Well Blima wouldn’t let this new life go. She’d get Elijah. She ran in a circle, all around the room, and she prayed hard.
She paused and looked back but nothing was happening yet. No wind was swirling, no funnel clouds descending. Maybe she wasn’t running fast enough. She made herself go faster, right into the room of windows. She whipped behind one chair and then another and then another, then dropped to her knees and scrambled behind the couches, and then she was blocked. There were people here, Harpo’s brothers. She shifted to listen. The letter crinkled menacingly.
“I need a nine-letter word for overflowing with happiness,” said one of the brothers from on the couch. Blima heard a newspaper sound. Crossword puzzles! They played those now, ever since Harpo.
“That’s easy,” said the other brother. “Chico Marx.”
“I don’t want to hear about your assignation last night.”
“You do want to hear about that ass.”
Curse word!
“Wait, I got it,” said the first brother. “Ebullient. Nine letters. Overflowing with happiness.”
“Now you have to use it in a sentence,” said the other.
“Now you have to get lost,” said the first brother, and there was a commotion, a rustling of newspapers, and then Blima heard her sister’s giggles, and the commotion sounds got louder and weirder and everyone was talking all at once so she took the opportunity to crawl out from behind the couch.
But she got caught.
“Well look what we have here,” said one of the brothers, a grown-up man who looked exactly like Harpo. This one was either Groucho or Chico.
Blima stood up. She held her shirt over the envelope.
“Hiya, monkey,” said the second brother. This one was kneeling down, already holding Sonja around the shoulders. “Did you happen to see the newspaper this morning?” He pointed to the paper that was splayed out on the floor, at the picture of two tanks like giant tin cans rolling over a cobblestone street. “Did you happen to see what’s on the front page?”
“Yes,” said Blima.
The man waggled his eyebrows. He was Groucho then. He was in disguise as a normal person, but the eyebrows always gave him away.
“What’s the picture on the front page?” asked Groucho.
“Tanks,” said Blima.
“You’re welcome!” said Groucho.
Blima giggled nervously, and then Sonja pressed her face to her ear. “That’s because tanks sounds like thanks.”
Blima turned. “I got it,” she hissed, and now she did.
“Harpo was looking for you,” Groucho said to Blima. “Last I saw, he was outside talking to your father. I think he’s pretending to be an architect. It’s going to be a disaster. If you go out there, make sure to put on a hard hat.”
When Blima got out to the hallway, Harpo was already there, hovering in a doorway. She hid. And so when Moshe walked by, Harpo knelt down in front of him instead.
“Wait,” said Harpo. “I know about you. Ayala was telling me. You’re Moshe, Blima’s friend. I think you should marry her.”
Blima pressed herself against the wall.
“Mister Harpo,” said Moshe. “I’m only nine.”
“I don’t mean right now. I mean eventually. I’m just telling you. Don’t wait too long. You shouldn’t let things get too complicated. I let things get too complicated.”
Blima tore out of the lodge, blinking tears out of her eyes. Nobody knew how much it hurt when everyone you loved was trying to give you away.
She grabbed onto a tree and used it to rocket herself forward. It was getting hard to make herself run now. But she had to go go go, so she stumbled onward. She was rounding a bend in the path, when she heard people talking. She crouched down behind the shrubs. Just to take a small break. Just to catch her breath. Plus she was curious. There were people in the woods, and they were holding things and talking in hushed voices. Blima edged nearer. And then she saw it. One of the men was holding an axe. The metal blade winked menacingly. These were bad men, bullies, Blima could tell by the tone of their voices, their rough laughter, why hadn’t she heard that boiling anger before?
She tucked herself behind the ferns and saplings. This was it, the danger that her mother was always telling her about, and it was exactly where she’d said it would be too, just past the equipment shed.
She backed away slowly. But then one of the men saw her. He whooshed toward her, grabbed her arm, and dragged her out into the clearing, squeezing tight.
Another man bent toward her. “Is she one of them?” he asked, his breath sour and terrible.
“Let’s see if they’ll Jew us out of the ransom,” said the first man. “She might not be worth that much to them.” Then he tightened his grip on her arm, and then they were moving, and Blima was trying not to cry. What was she worth to her family? They had told her not to wander away. She’d been disobeying rules all day.
Then there was a commotion, Blima couldn’t see what was happening. All of a sudden, she was sitting on the ground. Then the man who’d been holding her went wheeling into the trees, and he fell too.
Blima stood up. Harpo was there. That’s what had happened. Harpo had saved her. He’d pushed the man away.
Now the bad man was standing up again, and the rest of them were gathering around him too, all advancing on Harpo with their axes and bats of wood.
There was a sound like a shot, like an explosion. Blima fell to her knees again. The bad men wobbled on their feet too.
“He’s got a gun,” said the bad man.
“Um,” said Harpo. “Yeah. That’s exactly what happened.” He pointed his finger and raised it at them. “Get out of here, or I’ll shoot all the rest of you too.”
The men ran into the trees. Harpo ran over and hugged Blima tightly. “It’s okay,” he called out. “I’ve got her.”
Blima struggled out of his arms. “What’s happening?”
“Are you okay?”
“How did you get here? How did you know to come?”
“Thank God we did this,” he said. “Thank God I was looking for you. I sent my brothers on a walk with your little sister, but I needed to make sure you were safe. Your dad asked me not to evacuate the rest of the guests. He says he doesn’t want to disturb anyone’s stay. But I needed to find you, at least.”
“What would disturb their stay?”
“I can’t believe those men touched you.”
Just then, Blima noticed how pale Harpo was. His face was covered in sweat. That’s how her dad looked you know when, when he was kneeling with his head against the attic door, holding his pliers like the hidden old Russian men used to hold their Torah books.
“I’m okay, Harpo,” she said.
“If I’d really had a gun, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“You saved me anyway.”
Harpo put a hand on her head. Just then, Blima heard the sound again. There was a click, and then another sound, and then another.
There was a muffled noise and the ground seemed to drop away, like when you put your foot in a canoe and the canoe sinks into the water. Blima felt like she was falling, even though she was standing on the grass. She stumbled into Harpo. There was another deep shaking and Harpo dropped to his knees and pulled Blima close. And then Blima was curled up and Harpo was crouched on top of her, and the whole island seemed to rock.
Then there was another loud sound, a sound like a big explosion, and, for some reason, Blima looked up. She saw flights of birds like a blanket over the lodgehouse. They shifted and covered the entire sky, a squirming, writhing sheet, flapping and billowing out in sections just like a blanket caught in the wind. They stayed that way for a minute, two, and then they dispersed, and they were birds again, flapping and squawking around the island.
Then Blima looked back to the lodgehouse. There was a cloud of dust in the air, so thick she couldn’t see the bottom floor or part of the second storey. That was one half of the lodge, swallowed up and gone. But it couldn’t really be gone, otherwise the second storey would have tumbled down. Whole pieces of a house didn’t just hover in mid-air. There were laws against that. Plus now there was a stream of guests coming onto the porch and crowding onto the lawn, and they had to be coming from somewhere. Blima could hardly hear them though. She felt like she had cotton in her ears, like there were pillows pressed against both sides of her head.
Halfway between Blima and the porch, Dad and Papa William were hugging each other and whooping. And then Blima realized that Harpo was still crouched, still hugging her, hiding his face in her jacket. “Did the house cave in?” he whispered. “You can tell me. I can take it.”
“Everything is still there,” said Blima.
“Did it fall over? Did the first floor crumble?”
“What just happened?”
The wall of white dust began to settle, but now all the things were white. Everything looked ghostly, the shrubs, the trees, the stones leading out to the dock. All the people on the lawn even, they were covered in white dust and whispering. There were no sounds above a hush, and Blima felt that was okay because her ears needed to pop anyway.
That’s when she looked up at the attic. There was her mom’s face, pale as the moon. Her mother turned and walked away, and Blima couldn’t see her anymore.
Blima remembered the package, reached under her shirt to make sure that it was still there. It was.
“Is it a disaster?” asked Harpo.
“The lodgehouse looks exactly the same,” said Blima. “Except there’s dust everywhere.”
“Your dad and William just made a basement,” Harpo said, peeking around her. “And I think it might have actually worked.”
“A basement,” said Blima. “Wait, that’s the same as a cellar.”
“If it hadn’t worked, then I think the whole house would have fallen in.”
“They made a cellar in our house?”
“Monkey, it’s your job to make sure that your daddy never listens to anything I say ever again.”
“Okay.” But this was sort of a miracle too. A cellar. That would have to make her mother happy. “We can make root beer now.”
“How could I have known that William had explosives just lying around?”
“Also, we can make sauerkraut.”
They both watched Dad and Papa William and all the guests inspect the house. Dad looked around, and when he saw Harpo, he flashed him a thumbs-up. And even though her dad’s face was white with plaster dust, Blima could see that it was ebullient. Ebullient! Overflowing with happiness. She’d used it in a sentence. She’d have to tell Chico and Groucho.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” said Harpo. “It’s probably safer if you never let me tell anybody anything at all.”
But before Blima could answer, there was a clap, the sound of a door being thrown open. They both turned back to the lodgehouse. And just then her mom ran out the back door, holding the hand of the little boy. Ayala picked him up and walked down the steps, and she was covered in white, and Blima didn’t know what to think. She was outside. That was good. But she might be mad. She didn’t like being dusty.
Her mom turned back to the house, and her dad caught up to her, and whispered in her ear.
Then there was a silence.
Then Ayala laughed, high and loud and lilting. It was a musical sound. It was happy. Everyone turned to watch. Nobody pretended they didn’t see. And for a minute, that laugh was the only sound on the island.
Groucho and Chico staggered out of the lodge, down the stairs and right toward them. They looked like monsters, all streaked with dirt. Blima hugged Harpo’s leg.
“I thought you were going for a walk,” said Harpo.
“What happened here?” asked Groucho.
“I think I got a backer,” said Chico, interrupting. “Well, we’re in talks anyway. We’re thinking, the Marx Brothers take over an opera. You wanted to rip up letters, how about you rip off costumes instead? The dancers are running onto the stage, you catch them as they come in and you rip off all their skirts. You wanted to change around a story, we can mess up an opera plot, tear pages out of the score.”
They all walked back toward the equipment shed, Harpo, Chico and Groucho talking excitedly, and Blima trying to tug at Harpo’s shirt. It wasn’t safe in the forest. They both knew it now. And these were the brothers who’d left him all alone in the middle of a lake.
When they got to the equipment shed, the brothers stopped.
“Hey Harpo,” said Groucho. “We still haven’t been on a proper canoe trip, the three of us.”
“I had a premonition you would say that,” said Harpo.
“Premonition!” said Groucho. “Good man.”
Blima grabbed Harpo’s leg, thinking ‘danger!’ These brothers always left him on the dock!
“So what do you say?” said Chico.
“Of course,” said Harpo. Then he knelt in front of Blima. “I want you to watch this,” he whispered in her ear. “You don’t have to get your mother this time.”
Blima held a tree and watched as the brothers paddled Harpo to the middle of the lake and left him on the dock again. This was mischief. She was a witness. She didn’t know what to do about it though because both her mom and dad were busy now.
Then Harpo jumped off the dock and Blima heard the sound of a motor. It was Papa William’s motor-dock. He must have stashed it away there this morning. Harpo skidded out into the lake on the motor-dock, faster than the brothers could paddle, and he turned circles around them, whooping like a loon.