CHAPTER 6

Packing Up

AS TERPSICHORE ENTERED THE LIVING ROOM TO TELL HER parents good-night, they were still arguing over what to take. Her father said it was crazy to take records when they wouldn’t have the electricity for a record player. Her mother said it was crazy to move anywhere that was so uncivilized it didn’t have electricity.

Whenever Terpsichore woke up that night, she heard drawers sliding open and thunking shut as her parents sorted through everything in the house. When she woke up for breakfast, she halted at the kitchen door, agog at the mess. The table was stacked with dishes and silverware and Great-grandmother’s pitcher and Aunt Katrin’s flowered vase and all the things that had history enough to want to keep.

Mother was on her knees, wrapping teacups in old newspapers and fitting them into boxes.

“Teacups are hardly what we need most,” Pop said.

Mother looked up. “They hardly weigh a thing, and I’m not giving up every vestige of civilization, Mr. Johnson.”

Terpsichore cleared a path through the piles of pots and dishes that her mother had pulled out of the cupboards and piled on the floor so she could see everything she had to make choices about.

To their mother’s piles, the twins added their Shirley Temple bowls and mugs. They had eaten box after box of Wheaties to get them and they weren’t going to leave them behind.

Using some of the last of the flour, Terpsichore whisked in eggs, milk, and a dash of salt, poured the mixture into a greased cast-iron frying pan, and slid it into the electric oven for a puff pancake.

While it baked, Terpsichore surveyed the mess again. How could they be ready to leave by tomorrow? They could take a ton of stuff—literally a ton, two thousand pounds—to Alaska. But her father’s tools and the furniture he had built were heavy. Their books and records were heavy.

After eating, Pop whistled as he built crates out of scrap lumber for everything they were taking to the railroad station the next morning. Terpsichore hovered over her father as he worked on Tigger’s cage. He screwed hinges and a metal hook and eye latch to the front, and lined the bottom with wood shavings.

Once she was sure that Tigger would have a sturdy crate for the trip, she headed to Eileen’s house. Her feet moved slowly. If she had done nothing, she would be staying in Little Bear Lake with Eileen, at least until one of their families had to move. Why had she meddled in grown-up business?

The Reillys’ front door was open, so she climbed up the ladder to the attic. Eileen was sitting on the edge of her cot.

“Hi,” Eileen said. Her voice was flat.

“I’m sorry,” Terpsichore said. “I was trying to keep our pinky promise . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Her throat was too tight to let out any more words.

Eileen shrugged. “We wouldn’t have been together here for very long anyway, even if you were staying. We’re moving tomorrow morning to Uncle Patrick’s place in Chicago. Da says as long as we are packed we might as well go right away.”

“So I guess this is good-bye, then,” Terpsichore said. Her voice was raspy.

Eileen nodded. Then she looked up, and like a true friend, tried to cheer up Terpsichore, even though she was sad herself.

“Remember when we played Little House in the Big Woods last summer? Now you won’t have to pretend to be a pioneer. You can be a real pioneer in Alaska and you can write and tell me all about it.”

“Of course I’ll write. I’ll tell you everything.” Terpsichore sidled up to Eileen for a super hug, one that would last. “And you write and tell me everything about life in the big city!”

• • •

Still feeling the pressure of Eileen’s arms around her shoulders, Terpsichore ran home to fill her crate with her personal treasures, mostly books: the Anne of Green Gables series, Black Beauty, The Little Lame Prince, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret of the Old Clock, and, of course, Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy. When she had read and reread the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, she’d daydreamed about what it would have been like to live sixty-five years ago in pioneer times. Just like Eileen said, she was about to find out.

As she opened the kitchen door, her mother slapped her forehead with a howl. “My mother! I haven’t called her. She doesn’t even know we’re going!” She held out her hand toward Pop. “I need all your change—quickly!”

Pop emptied his pockets of quarters, nickels, and dimes, and Mother darted out the door.

“Where’s Mom going?” Cally asked.

Pop closed the door Terpsichore’s mother had left open. “The phone booth by the post office, I expect.”

• • •

When her mother returned, Terpsichore greeted her with a cup of mint tea from the mint-patch-that-would-not-die. Before she went to bed that night, she dug up mint roots, wrapped them in damp newspaper, and put them in a tin can. If mint tea had calming powers, they’d better have a ready supply. They’d all need it up north.

By eleven o’clock that night, everything they were taking but didn’t need until Palmer was crated and boxed up, ready to deliver to the train station in the morning. Tigger had hardly left Terpsichore for an instant all day, rubbing her shins and meowing questions about her future. That night, Tigger curled on Terpsichore’s chest to make sure she went nowhere without her. Terpsichore slept—or tried to sleep—on a bare mattress on the floor. May 12, 1935, would be her last night in Little Bear Lake.