GEORGINA WAS, IF POSSIBLE, more impressed by Walter’s treasures than Poco. Far from laughing, she picked up every one and examined it with a microscopic eye. The friends were all gathered in Poco’s room the next afternoon. Somehow Poco had persuaded Walter to come. He stood by nervously rattling a paper bag, as if he might, at any moment, take his things and leave.
“Beautiful!” Georgina whispered over the locket. “Amazing!” The hospital bracelet disappeared inside her hand. Walter watched closely until she put it down.
Next she alighted upon the socks and the doll-size sweater. Walter sucked in his breath and waited for her to snicker. But she examined them as seriously as the others.
“I guess someone has found out who Walter is.”
Walter nodded. “My mother. She knows I need to have these. George, promise you won’t tell? I don’t want anyone hearing at school.”
“Of course not!” Georgina’s voice took on commanding tones. “We will proceed in the strictest confidence. You know how the police keep evidence secret.”
“Evidence?” Walter glanced up in alarm.
“Well, yes. When we start our investigation …”
“Investigation! For what?”
“For finding out who is behind the Little Match Girl,” Poco told him. “It’s what you’ve been wanting to know all this time.”
Georgina added her vigorous nod. “Even you must admit that it’s starting to look as if a real person is doing this. And that’s a very good sign because …”
“A real person?” Walter cried. “What does that mean?”
“It means not a ghost, or one of your old spirits!” Georgina had begun to lose her patience.
“A real person is someone we can handle,” Poco explained. “We can make a real plan to find out who it is.”
“Or even who she is,” Georgina said. “Because who else but a mother would keep all this stuff?”
For one moment Walter’s eyes showed pure fright on their pale surfaces. Then he pulled his cap down and hid them from view. “No plans,” he said. “I don’t want any plans.”
“But why?” Poco and Georgina couldn’t believe it. “Don’t you want to know?”
“No.”
“Walter! Why?”
He would not answer. “I’m going home,” he announced, and put his treasures into the bag. “I need to see if there were any messages today. They’ve been coming slower, and I’m beginning to think …”
“Walter, wait!” Georgina and Poco followed him outside, stepping squarely on Juliette, who was asleep on the mat.
“I’m beginning to think there might not be many more. So please don’t come to see the Match Girl,” Walter told them as he went down the walk. “It’s very important. She must be left alone.”
“You can’t order us to do that!” Georgina cried. “The Match Girl belongs to us as much as you.”
Poco ran after him. “And what about the flowers …?”
“Stay away!” Walter shrieked in a strange, wild voice. “Stay away or you’ll end up wrecking everything.”
Never had Walter Kew acted so rude and crazy. After he rushed off, Poco and Georgina stared at each other, and then at Juliette, who had retreated to a corner of the porch to lick her wounds.
There seemed no earthly reason why the same Walter who had longed for his mother and waited for her voice and tried to contact her in every possible way would now, suddenly, call off the search.
“Just when we were getting close.” Poco clenched her fist. “When I think about the locket and those little socks … Someone kept those things for years because they cared about Walter. Someone hid those things away because they couldn’t forget. Why doesn’t he want to know who it is?”
Georgina shook her head. “There’s something else. If these things are so precious, why is this mother giving them up? And why leave them one by one in a park?”
They sat down on the porch steps. Juliette came padding over, and their hands were drawn like magnets to her silky back. The sounds of summer wafted in from all directions—baseball, outdoor voices, the screech of bicycle brakes. It was a perfect, lazy June afternoon, except somewhere close by a child was crying.
“I read the story of the Little Match Girl again last night,” Georgina said, as they patted the cat. “You know what? I still don’t get it. While hundreds of people are walking past, a girl like us quietly freezes? Why doesn’t she cry out and ask for help?”
Poco shrugged. “Maybe she’s ashamed. She feels bad to be poor. Maybe she thinks it’s her fault.”
“So she tries to stay warm by lighting her own matches? I would have gone and found a pile of wood.”
“I guess she’d already gotten too cold. And anyway, that’s when the magic begins. Whenever she strikes a match, a beautiful picture comes that makes her warm.”
“Except she’s using up the matches she should have sold. In the end, the Match Girl will be even poorer.”
“She knows that, but she can’t help it.”
“So she lights another match. And then another. One by one by one by one …” Georgina’s voice turned soft and thoughtful. “For some reason that reminds me of something.”
“Walter’s treasures!” They both said it at once. It was almost as if the Match Girl herself had spoken and made them understand after all this time. Below, on the step, Juliette stared at them.
Poco jumped to her feet. “Walter’s mother is alive, and she keeps watch in the park. Then one by one she leaves her treasures.”
“And then,” said Georgina, “she waits for Walter to come.”
“Because she wants to see him. Is that really all?”
“I think she’s as scared as Walter. She doesn’t dare to go any closer.”
“But it’s so strange,” whispered Poco. “She really is like the Little Match Girl. She uses matches to get Walter to come. Then she can watch him for a while and feel warm and happy. Do you think she knows the Match Girl’s story?”
“More than that. Remember how Walter said his presents were coming slower? It’s like the matches in the story. She’s using them up.”
“Oh no! What will happen when there aren’t any more?”
“She’ll get cold,” said Georgina. “She’ll get very, very cold.”