go there together tomorrow.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Any girl mad enough to want to go out with my big brother that bad, or at all, I just have to meet!”
That was too much. I grabbed for her but she skipped out of the way, and I was the one who went headfirst into the fountain.
* * * *
“It’s Jodie’s fault!” I spluttered as my mother stood with her arms folded and shook her head slowly back and forth. “She provoked me!”
“Are you five years old?” Dad snapped, grabbing me by the arm. “Do I have to put you over my knee and spank you?”
Little sister, of course, was laughing so hard her eyes were streaming and she could only make little squeaky noises. And of course I was the one who was confined to the room, with nothing but the kinetoscope for company, and I had already seen all the flip-pictures the hotel had, while that rotter Jodie went out for gelato and a walk along Boathouse Row with Mum and Dad.
And yet the next morning, while Mum and Dad were still sleeping, she woke me up in typical charming fashion by flicking my earlobes and putting her hand over my mouth so I could not protest.
“Shh! We have to go to Gloria’s Gateway Books so we can find your girlfriend, remember?”
“She is not my girlfriend. I have never even met her! She may not even be real!” I said in a furious whisper. “And you have a lot of nerve, after what you did yesterday!”
“Quiet, you’ll wake Mum and Dad,” she said. “I already wrote them a note that you’re taking me to the Franklin Institute to see Sir Ben’s inventions. You know, bifocals, the glass harmonica, the carriage battery—”
“The little sister strangulation device,” I said. “All right, fine. But dress warmly. It is a long walk from here.”
I was not about to admit to her that I did not actually remember where the bookstore was located. She figured it out soon enough anyway. We headed south and east, in the general direction of Parliament Plaza. Soon we were lost in an unfamiliar, deserted part of town. There were neither moving carriages nor street signs. But after two visits to the bookstore one would expect a familiar sight. I looked around with increasing nervousness for some kind of landmark.
“You don’t know where we are, do you, Tom?” Jo asked. She pressed herself against me.
I put my arm around her. “It’s all right, Sis, we shall find it,” I said, trying to sound more certain than I was. Although the sun had been shining when we left, the sky was now covered with a seamless layer of blank grey clouds the shade of the suit my father had worn to Granny’s funeral.
I shivered as the wind got under my coat collar, and, though most of my classmates would have mocked me for it, I tried to remember the prayers the pastor had taught us for times of trouble. But nothing came to me, and I found myself whispering a lullaby Mum used to sing. The lyrics were written by the father of a friend of hers back in Liverpool—Paul something. McCurry, maybe?
Courage, lad
You’ll need courage for the road ahead
For the road full of dread…
“There it is!” Jo exclaimed, pointing.
I rubbed my eyes. The friendly, dusty plate-glass window was patrolled once again by Tiferet, who meowed as we opened the door and walked in.
“I am sorry, Tiferet,” I said, reaching down and ruffling the short soft fur on top of her head, “I came as soon as I could.”
She trotted away toward the back.
“That is where I found the notes from Teresa,” I said, pointing where the cat had run towards the secret back room, “but first we should check the countertop.”
“Check for what?” Jo asked, adding in a squeal, “Peppermint tea! My favourite!” And there was my favourite Ceylon tea, in a mug right beside it. I picked up the note that the two mugs had weighed down. Jo peered over my shoulder.
“Do you mind? It is for me!” I said, snatching it away.
“Not just you. See, it says ‘Welcome Jo’ right there.”
And so it did.
Welcome, Jo. Tom, it’s good to have you back. I think this time, you need not take anything with you, except of course for the note from Teresa. Jo, when you find what you need, you will know what it is worth and what you must leave in exchange.
I hurried off toward the back room, while Jo, her eyes gleaming, began browsing the music section. I found Teresa’s letter and the books she had promised, and I only vaguely heard Jo’s exclamations, absorbed as I was in Teresa’s explanation, most of which I did not really understand. But, meet her here Monday afternoon? I would need the pastor’s permission to skip out on advanced Bible studies. Perhaps he would allow me a break, just this once.
There was a clatter and thump of books falling down in the next room, and then Jo burst in.
“Look at this! Just look!” She was panting, and there was a wild look in her eyes.
“Jo, what is it? What did you knock over?”
“Never mind that. Look what I found!” And she thrust an oversize book into my hands.
I glanced at the elderly periwigged gentleman on the cover and shrugged. “Yes? ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, The Later Symphonies and Sonatas.’ So what?”
“So what?” I have rarely seen Jo at loss for words, but she was positively spluttering. “Mozart died at age thirty-five, in 1791! There were no ‘later symphonies and sonatas.’ The man in the picture has to be what, at least as old as Granny when she died?”
I winced. Our grandmother had passed away the day after her eightieth birthday after complaining of a bad stomachache. She ate too many oysters at her birthday party, Dad had said. Mum had fried them for her, and she had done as good a job as any from-here. Better, even.
“Did it matter?” Mum had retorted. “She died happy, did she not?”
“So he looks old in this picture,” I said, annoyed at Jo for bringing up the unpleasant memory.
“So here are two complete symphonies that Mozart never lived to compose? This book has complete scores for Number 67, ‘London,’ and Number 82, ‘Undiscovered Worlds.’ In real life, Mozart’s last symphony was Number 41, ‘Jupiter.’ Plus there are four violin sonatas in this book, which I could play myself!”
“I suppose you could, but how would you explain where you found them? Who would believe unknown works by Mozart exist?”
She lifted her chin. “I could say I wrote them myself.” But she withered at the look I gave her. “No, I suppose I couldn’t. But shouldn’t I bring this music into the world somehow? And what about this book here, the one that talks about colonies on the moons of Jupiter! Don’t you think that could help get people excited about what Dad and everybody are doing at the DRRAGON base?”
I
