FROM THE TIME THEY went looking for Lion, Martha and Ivy were together a part of almost every day, in spite of the problems that arose. There were problems, and one of the first ones started because of Martha’s sister, Catherine. That year, the year that Martha and Ivy were in second grade, Cath was in sixth grade, and Tom, Martha’s brother, was in fifth. Cath Abbott was always the prettiest and smartest girl in her class, and she had dozens of friends, but not any best friend, so it was hard for her to understand about Martha and Ivy. She complained about them quite a bit that year.
Of course, Cath usually had something to complain about. The Abbotts sometimes joked about Cath being a complainer. Mr. Abbott said that Cath had a great many talents and complaining was certainly one of them. “And there’s no use trying to shut her up until she’s made her point,” he said. “I guess she gets that from her lawyer father,” he said, rumpling Cath’s blond hair.
When Martha’s father said that, her mother laughed coolly. “Well, I have to agree that a tendency to complain runs in that side of the family.” Martha’s father didn’t laugh, and Martha had a notion that Grandmother Abbott wouldn’t have laughed either if she’d been there.
Anyway, Martha and Ivy were one of Cath’s favorite complaints for a while. For instance, one night at dinner, not too long after Martha and Ivy had met, Cath said, “Mom, I wish you’d do something about Martha. She and that friend of hers are always doing the nuttiest things at school. And everybody knows she’s my sister. It’s really embarrassing.”
“What kind of things?” Mrs. Abbott asked.
“Well, today they were running up and down behind the backstop when the sixth grade was out for P.E., and they were jumping into the air and flapping their arms and making squeaking noises. I just about died. Everyone was laughing at them.”
Everyone looked at Martha. Tom grinned at her and said, “What were you doing, Marty? Being Superman? I used to do that, Cath. I remember playing Superman with Clay Sutter when I was real little.” He put out his arms and pretended to soar across the table. “Marty the Supermouse to the rescue,” he said.
Cath grinned reluctantly, and asked, “What were you doing, Marty?”
“We were being the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz.”
“See,” Cath moaned. “Flying monkeys, right out in front of all my friends.”
“Well, I think that’s understandable,” Mrs. Abbott said. “Children Martha’s age often play make-believe games. After all she’s only seven years old.”
“Well I didn’t,” Cath said, “And the rest of the second grade doesn’t do things like that. At least not right out in public. And Martha never did, either, until she started playing with that Ivy. Besides, Mom, that Ivy’s a Carson, did you know that? I thought you and Dad didn’t want us to play with those Carson kids.”
Mom looked at Dad as if she wanted him to say something, but he only shrugged his shoulders and went on eating his dinner. Grandmother Abbott wasn’t there, or she certainly would have had something to say. As it was, it was left up to Mom, and it was easy to see that what Dad wouldn’t say, or the way he wouldn’t say it made Mom angry. She smiled a hard sharp smile at Dad before she said, in her silkiest voice, “I didn’t exactly say that, Cath dear. As I recall it was your father, and your grandmother, I might add, who thought it wasn’t a good idea when Tom brought that big Carson boy home last year.”
“Well, what do you think, Dad? About Martha and this Ivy Carson?”
Mr. Abbott sighed, “As I see it, Cath,” he said, “this is a slightly different situation. The Carson boy was quite a bit older than Tom, and he’d been in some trouble around the neighborhood. Besides Tom had dozens of friends to choose from. He didn’t need to choose a boy who—”
“Jerry’s all right,” Tom interrupted. “And he’s in the same grade as I’m in.”
“But he is older, dear,” Mrs. Abbott said. “I don’t really think a little girl like Ivy is anything to worry about. Besides I understand she lives with her aunt most of the time. It’s quite likely she’ll be going back to her aunt’s soon, and the problem will solve itself.”
“No, she’s not! No she’s not!” Martha yelled suddenly, and everyone stared at her in astonishment.
“Marty!” they said. “Don’t speak to your mother in that tone of voice.” “Marty. I’m amazed at you.”
They were amazed because nobody yelled in the Abbott family—and especially not when they were fighting. The rest of the Abbotts fought quietly and politely by using words that said one thing and meant another. It was a dangerous game with rules that Martha could never understand, and so long before she had started crying instead.
She cried that day. When everyone turned on her in amazement, she burst into tears and dashed from the room, headed in the direction of her favorite crying-place. No one was in the least surprised at that.
In those days, Martha was known as a champion crybaby. She knew that a crybaby wasn’t considered a good thing to be, but since she was one, she made the most of it. Not that she ever tried to start crying; but once she had gotten started, she put everything she had into it. The size and wetness of Marty’s tears was a favorite family joke.
“Oh, oh, get out your water wings. There she goes again.”
“Good night, Marty, what are you bawling for? I hardly touched you. Now cut it out before you drown yourself.”
“Marty’s crying again. Every hour on the hour. Just like Old Faithful.”
Martha had begun by crying anytime and anyplace, but after everyone got to talking so much about it, she had taken to doing most of her crying in one particular place. That was in a small luggage closet behind a larger closet. Martha had discovered she could push a tunnel-like passage among stacks of suitcases, to a low spot under the eaves behind a large steamer trunk. After she’d padded the spot with a favorite old quilt, it made a safe and comfortable hideaway for crying or hiding.
After a while, of course, Cath had discovered the hideaway and told the rest of the family, and it became another family joke. “Marty’s Mousehole” it was called. The rest of the Abbotts seemed to think it was just another of Marty’s imaginative games, but it had never seemed like a game to Martha. As it turned out, that evening when Martha yelled at everyone before she started crying was just about the last time she ever used the Mousehole.
With Ivy around, Martha had less and less time for hiding and for crying. Ivy changed a lot of things for Martha, and time was one of the most important. Before Ivy came to Rosewood Hills, Martha had never paid much attention to time, because there was always more of it than she knew what to do with. All the rest of the Abbotts kept very careful track of time, and they were very particular about what they did with it. “No, I just don’t have the time today,” they would say, or “You know that Tuesdays at 3:00 is my time for such and such.”
Martha didn’t keep a schedule, but if she had there wouldn’t have been much on it besides school, and perhaps working in Grandmother’s garden. The other things Martha did, such as eating and sleeping and reading and daydreaming, were not the kinds of things that had to be scheduled, and there was always more than enough time to do them in.
But time began to seem much shorter after Ivy came. There was never enough of it for all the things they wanted to do.