“WALTER’S MIND ISN’T RIGHT,” Georgina said to Poco as the two walked toward the park on Saturday morning. “I think he’s made up this ghost because he misses his mom. It’s sort of sad. I never know what to say.”
“Just look interested,” Poco advised. “There might be more to it.”
She was small and precise, but no one had ever accused her of being earthbound. Poco could detect the unknown at work in a blade of grass, not to mention birds and squirrels, with whom she regularly spoke.
“Walter has special antennae that pick up invisible signals,” she told Georgina now. “That’s why he acts so strange sometimes. Have you seen how his eyes suddenly lock open and he doesn’t hear when you speak to him?”
“Everyone’s seen that. What’s going on?”
“He’s watching out.” Poco raised her own head and gazed at the sky. “He’s checking ahead and looking behind. There are worlds out there that only Walter sees, and they aren’t exactly the safest places. If your parents had died and there was just one old grandmother left to take care of you, you might have had to grow special antennae, too.”
“Not me,” said Georgina, kicking a stone out of her path. “I’d have bought double locks and a burglar alarm.”
It was April, but the weather was still cold. Too cold, really, for a visit to the park. The friends would never have thought of going there if Walter had not phoned them the night before.
“I have something to show you,” he’d said in his cautious way. “In the park … if you want to see it.”
“Of course we want to see it!” Georgina had bellowed.
He was the sort of person who never gave orders, who never asked for anything and waited until the cookies were passed before taking one. Mothers loved him. He was so quiet and polite. They couldn’t resist patting his head, cap and all. Georgina’s mother was always asking him for lunch, though he rarely came. Quietly, politely, he’d say he had to go home.
But children his own age didn’t have time for quietness, and politeness was seen as giving in to the enemy. At school, he was mostly shoved aside. Only those who looked closely could see how he minded.
“Have you noticed how Walter never talks about his father?” Georgina said to Poco as they walked along. “His mother wasn’t the only one who got killed. Both his parents died in that terrible accident.”
“What happened anyway? No one ever said.”
“He’s never told. Lucky his grandparents could take him in. Otherwise Walter might have had to be an orphan.”
“He is an orphan.” Poco examined the sky again. “That’s what you are when your parents are dead. I guess Walter’s father isn’t the one haunting him. Walter thinks about him. He’s just got to find out what his mother wants first.”
“How could she want anything? She’s been dead for nine years!”
“She might have decided to come back and fix a wrong. The dead come back if they feel guilty.”
“Oh, sure.” Georgina snorted under her breath. But no sooner had she said this than an icy finger of wind slipped down her spine and she jumped and looked about uneasily.
Poco didn’t notice. She was checking her pockets. In the left one, she felt the package of crackers that she had remembered to bring for the poor cold ducks in the park’s pond. “So they won’t stare at us with their hungry duck eyes,” she’d explained.
“Only you could feel sorry for ducks!” Georgina had blustered.
There was also, in her right pocket, a small plastic bag of birdseed, in case someone interesting should happen to flap by. In particular, Poco was on the lookout for a robin she’d met last winter. He hadn’t come around lately and, as they walked, she kept glancing worriedly at the sky.
“I know you’re watching for that idiot robin,” Georgina said. “I hope you aren’t going to start talking to him again if he shows up. It’s terribly embarrassing to normal people like me.”
“Georgina! You are so prejudiced.” Poco shook her head. “This robin is a very intelligent bird. You should never judge a person only by his feathers. And there’s Walter,” she added, cutting off the next protest. “Come on, let’s run.”
He was standing on a small rise at the far edge of the grassy clearing that formed the park—Andersen Park, as it was named, in honor of the great storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. A hundred years ago a rich family had given this land to the town. Wanting it to be a proper place for children, they had commissioned a series of bronze statues in the shape of characters from Andersen’s most famous tales.
As Poco and Georgina ran toward Walter, they skirted a large model of the Ugly Duckling, frozen in mid-waddle near the edge of the pond. In a meadow to one side, Thumbelina danced stiffly on a swallow’s back. A sharp-nosed Steadfast Tin Soldier stood at attention near the park gates. In the swings area the Snow Queen surveyed the sandbox through flat, weather-worn eyes.
Posed motionless above this strange collection, Walter looked almost like a statue himself. He was gazing down at something in his hand. When Poco and Georgina came up, he stuffed it in his pocket.
“Well?” panted Georgina. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
“Hello,” Walter said in an uncertain tone.
“Aren’t you supposed to show us something?” Georgina demanded. “We didn’t walk all this way to stand around doing nothing!”
Under his baseball cap, Walter’s pale eyes grew paler. Georgina always scared him a little. He turned toward Poco for help, but she happened to be looking just then at the sky.
“He’s around here somewhere,” she was muttering. “He told me once he hangs out in the park on Saturdays. He’s a friendly type and doesn’t mind crowds.”
“Walter!” cried Georgina, who often felt she was the only sensible person in the group. “You’ve got something in your pocket. You’re going to show it to us, right? Is it about your mother?”
He nodded.
“I thought so. You found a note she wrote before she died, explaining everything about her and your dad?”
Walter shook his head sadly.
“Your mother left you something in her will, and your grandmother finally remembered to give it to you?”
“Sort of. Without the will.” Walter glanced over his shoulder. Behind him, in the shadow of some trees, stood another Hans Christian Andersen statue. It was the Little Match Girl, half-huddled on the ground. She wore a ragged dress with wide front pockets, and a patched shawl over her shoulders. Her small bronze face was turned a bit to one side as if she wished to shield it from some assault. Perhaps an icy wind? The Match Girl’s story was one of abandonment in winter. Walter stared at her, then looked back at his friends.
“Last night my grandmother gave me a photograph.” Poco’s eyes were instantly on him. “She didn’t want to. She said I was too young. I told her I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to know something about my parents. I said it was strange there was nothing left behind. Not even any pictures.”
“It’s more than strange,” Georgina said. “It’s suspicious. People don’t just die and disappear without a trace. Didn’t they ever write letters?”
Walter shrugged. “My grandmother’s so old. She says she can’t remember. But suddenly, last night, she remembered this photo.”
He reached into his pocket and drew it out, holding the edges with the tips of his fingers. “It’s of me and my mother. The first picture of her I’ve ever seen.”
Georgina and Poco came around to stand beside him. The photo was in color, but faded.
“You look as if you were just born,” Poco said.
“I think I was. It’s winter in the picture. My birthday’s in September.”
“I can’t see your mother very well. Is that her back?” Georgina asked.
“Yes.” Walter sucked in his breath. “Isn’t it … amazing?”
Actually, the photo seemed very ordinary to Poco and Georgina. Though they dared not say so, it was the sort of picture that would certainly have been thrown away if a person were picking and choosing. It showed so little. In the foreground there was the shoulder of a plain cloth coat and the back of a woman’s head, dark and curly haired. Over her shoulder a baby’s face looked out from a bundle of blankets. The baby’s eyes were pale and gazed inquisitively toward the camera. One small arm was flung forward, showing a mitten attached by button to a tiny sleeve. The rest of the baby’s body was hidden. So was every bit of the woman’s face.
“I can see it’s you, Walter, because of your eyes,” Poco said. “Too bad your mother didn’t turn around.”
“She looks like she’s turning away on purpose. Maybe she didn’t want to be seen,” Georgina said. “What’s that behind her?”
Poco bent closer. “It’s—” She gasped. “It’s the Little Match Girl! This picture was taken here!”
Walter nodded, “That’s why you had to come. Look, the trees are bigger now, but they’re the same as in the photo. And there’s the same grass and the same clump of bushes. In fact, my mother was standing exactly on this spot when she … I mean when we …”
An odd little choke came from his throat. He turned toward the frozen figure behind him. Georgina and Poco turned around, too. All three stared at the sad little girl, who seemed suddenly more real and closer to them than before.
“If only she could speak and tell us what she knows,” Walter said. “She was here. She saw everything.” For a moment he seemed about to reach out and touch her.
“Maybe she will,” Poco murmured. “Maybe, in a way, she’s already begun.”