It's Not the End of the World Read online

  “Me neither,” I said. “You know something? I think if my father could see my mother now he’d move back in.”

  “Forget it. It’ll never work.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “You never even saw my mother.”

  “I’m telling you, Karen. Just forget it.”

  “I don’t see how you can be so sure,” I said. “My father’s very lonely.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he and your mother are going to get back together.”

  “Well, I still don’t see how it can hurt to try.”

  “Go ahead,” Val said. “Try … you’ll see … you’ll be the one who gets hurt.” She put out the light then. “Good night Karen,” she said.

  “Good night Val.” I’ll bet she doesn’t want my parents to get back together. Just because her father moved to San Francisco and never sees her. But I’m still sure it will work.

  Twenty-one

  When Daddy drove us home on Sunday afternoon he asked me to run into the house and get Jeff. “I have something to tell all three of you,” he said.

  Jeff was playing the piano. I heard the music before I opened the front door. He’s been spending a lot of time practicing lately. He writes his own songs. Most of them are in a minor key and sound sad. His newest one is called “Mary Louise … Please.” Those are the only words. Please what? I wonder. But I wouldn’t dream of asking him.

  I went inside and said, “Hey Jeff … Daddy’s out in the car. He wants to talk to you.”

  Jeff banged the piano with both hands before he got up and stomped out of the house. I followed him. We both got into the back seat of the car. Amy was up front with Daddy.

  My father turned around to face me and Jeff. “I’m leaving for Las Vegas a week from tomorrow,” he said. “I’m staying with Garfa for about six weeks and while I’m there I’ll get the divorce.”

  “You’re getting a Nevada divorce?” Jeff asked.

  “Yes,” Daddy told him.

  “But why?” I said. “Why can’t you just get it right here in New Jersey?”

  “Because that would take a long time,” Daddy said. “At least a year.”

  “So?” I asked.

  “Well, your mother and I want to get things settled now. This isn’t easy for either one of us.”

  What’s the big hurry? I wondered. Why can’t they wait? Why does Daddy have to go away for such a long time? Unless … unless there’s some other woman that he wants to marry! Thinking about that makes me sick. But it is possible. One night last week I called Daddy and there wasn’t any answer. Maybe he was out with her then, making plans! Or could Mom be the one who wants the divorce right away? Suppose she wants to marry Henry Farnum! No, that can’t be. We’d have met him by now. It’s got to be Daddy! I wonder who the woman is? I hate her already. I will never speak to her. Not as long as I live!

  That night I helped my mother do the dinner dishes. When we were almost through I said, “Is Daddy getting married?”

  Mom turned off the water and looked at me. “Where did you ever get that idea?”

  “Well, is he?”

  “No,” Mom said.

  “Are you positive?”

  “Yes. The divorce has nothing to do with anyone else. You know that, Karen.”

  “How can you be sure Daddy didn’t meet somebody last week and now he wants to marry her?”

  “I’m sure. That’s all. Besides, he’d have told me.”

  “Why should he tell you?”

  “Just because. I know him. And he’d certainly tell you and Jeff and Amy. He wouldn’t just run off and get married.”

  “Then why is he in such a hurry to get the divorce?”

  “Oh …” Mom said. “So that’s it!”

  “Well?”

  “He’s going now because he can get away from the store now. In a few months he might not be able to.”

  I thought that over. And I had to admit it makes sense. Maybe things aren’t as bad as I thought.

  Later I called Val. I said, “If a person goes to Nevada for a divorce, can he change his mind about it at the last second and tell the judge to forget the whole thing?”

  “Who’s going to Nevada?” Val asked.

  “Nobody special. But just suppose somebody did. Do you think the judge would understand and cancel the divorce?”

  “I don’t think anybody changes his mind at the last second.”

  “But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Karen …” Val said.

  “What?”

  “I know your father’s going to Las Vegas to get the divorce.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. He told my mother the other day. We’re going to take in his mail and newspapers while he’s gone.”

  “Oh.” No wonder Val tried to discourage me last night. She knew about Daddy all along.

  “So why don’t you just forget about him changing his mind?” Val said.

  “Listen … when he gets out there and sees how much he misses all of us I’ll bet you anything he will change his mind!”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  “I’ve got to go now,” I said. “I’ve got a ton of homework.”

  I hung up the phone and went to my room. Mew was asleep on my bed. I lay down next to her and rubbed my face against her fur. “I must do something, Mew,” I told her. “I must do something right away to stop the divorce! There’s only one week left.”

  Twenty-two

  I’ve got to get my mother and father into the same room. My new idea is this: I will ask Mrs. Singer if I can bring my Viking diorama home now, instead of at the end of the month. It’s in the showcase in the hall, near our classroom. We have a whole Viking display. Everyone stops to look at it. Since my diorama is very fragile, Daddy will have to come into the house to see it. I wouldn’t dare bring it out to the car or to his apartment. That’s what I’ll say anyway. He’ll be very proud of me. I made a Viking ship with twelve small Vikings sitting in it. There are pink and purple mountains in the background and I used blue sparkle for the water. Even Mrs. Singer said I did an excellent job. I’m glad she noticed.

  Once Daddy comes home and sees Mom, everything will work out fine. I just know it. First they’ll look at each other then they’ll touch hands. Finally Daddy will kiss her and they’ll never fight again. Daddy will call Garfa to cancel his trip to Las Vegas and I will write to tell him how I got them back together. Garfa will write back that he knew I’d be able to do it all along. And won’t Val be surprised! I’ll never tell my parents I planned the whole thing. Let them think it was all an accident.

  On Monday morning I went up to Mrs. Singer’s desk and said, “I’d like to bring my Viking diorama home this week.”

  “But Karen,” Mrs. Singer said, “it’s in the showcase.”

  “I know,” I told her. “But I have to take it home. So maybe we could put something else in the showcase.”

  “Like what?” Mrs. Singer asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. A picture or a book. Anything.”

  “I’d rather that you wait until the end of the month when we change the showcase.”

  “I can’t, Mrs. Singer,” I said, raising my voice. “I need it now!”

  “What for?”

  “For … for …” But I couldn’t tell Mrs. Singer why I needed it, even though I felt like yelling, “To keep my parents from getting divorced.”

  Instead, I turned around and walked to my desk. As soon as I sat down Debbie leaned over and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  I made a face and shook my head toward Mrs. Singer. Then my nose started to run and I knew I was going to cry. So I ran out of the room. I stood in the hall with my forehead pressed against the showcase window. My Viking diorama was in the corner, with a little sign under it that said Made by Karen Newman.

  Debbie came out into the hallway. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I guess.”

  “Mrs. Singer said I should take you to the nurse’s office.”
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  “I don’t need any nurse,” I told her. We walked back to our classroom together.

  I got through the rest of the day without doing any work. I made some plans though. If I could find the key to the showcase I could open it and take my diorama. That’s not stealing. After all, it does belong to me! Mrs. Singer keeps the key to the showcase somewhere in her desk. I’m sure of that.

  At two thirty I excused myself to go to the girls’ room. I wanted to get a good look at the showcase lock. Maybe I could pick it open with a bobby pin. But when I looked in the window I saw a big book with a Viking on the cover in the corner where my diorama used to be. I ran back into the classroom and told Mrs. Singer, “It’s gone! My diorama is gone. Somebody stole it!”

  Everybody in the room started to talk at once, but I didn’t care. Mrs. Singer shouted, “Calm down! No talking at all!” Then she reached into her bottom desk drawer and pulled out my diorama. “Nothing’s happened to it, Karen. I took it out of the showcase myself. If it’s that important to you, take it home.”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just nodded and took the diorama to my desk. I guess even witches have good days!

  Monday, May 3

  I am counting the seconds until Sunday when Daddy calls for us and I get him inside to see my diorama.

  Twenty-three

  My mother, Jeff, Amy and me are getting to be regulars at Howard Johnson’s on the highway. We go there every Friday night because of Mom’s English literature course.

  The Howard Johnson’s hostess knows us by now. She tries to give us the same booth every week. My mother likes it because it’s not near the kitchen and it’s away from the front door.

  Jeff has to sit on the aisle so he can stick out his foot. Next week the bandage is coming off his toe. If you ask me he likes his cane. It gets him a lot of attention.

  Amy and I always order the same supper—hamburgers and french fries. We drink Ho-Jo Cola too. I think that’s really Coke, even though the waitress won’t admit it. Tonight Jeff ordered fried shrimp.

  “You never eat fried shrimp,” my mother said.

  “So I’ll try it and maybe I’ll like it,” he told her.

  “I don’t think this is the place to try something like that.”

  “I feel like fried shrimp!” Jeff said. “So I ordered it. So now forget about it!”

  “Okay,” Mom said. “It’s just that you’ll have to eat them whether you like them or not.”

  “I said I’ll eat them, didn’t I?”

  “I just want you to be sure.”

  “Daddy always takes us out for steak,” Amy said.

  “Daddy can afford to,” Mom told her.

  This is the first time my mother has ever said anything like that. She looked at Jeff. “Would you go wash up, please. Your hands are filthy.”

  “I washed at home,” Jeff said.

  “I’m asking you to go to the men’s room and wash again.”

  Jeff stood up, grabbed his cane and left the table. When he came back our main course was served. He sat down, picked up one shrimp and nibbled at it. “Will you quit looking at me,” he said to me and Amy.

  I didn’t look at anything but my hamburger for the rest of the meal.

  When my mother finished her dinner she said, “Well, Jeff … how are they?”

  “Not great,” he said. “I didn’t know they’d be all breaded like this.”

  “I told you,” Mom said.

  “Oh, lay off, will you!”

  “Jeffrey …” Mom began.

  But Jeff stood up then.

  “Sit down,” Mom told him.

  “No.”

  “I said sit down!”

  “No. I said no. Are you deaf or something?”

  A lot of people were looking at us and my mother was embarrassed. So was I. I hoped we wouldn’t see anybody we knew.

  Jeff took his cane off the coat hook and walked to the front of the restaurant.

  “Where’s he going?” Amy asked.

  “Out to the car,” Mom said.

  “How do you know?” Amy asked.

  “Where else would he go?” Mom said.

  “You want me to go see?” I asked.

  “No,” Mom said. “We’ll have our dessert and when we’re through we’ll go to the car. Jeff’s not going to spoil our dinner.”

  We all had ice cream. When we finished my mother gave me the check and the money to pay the cashier while she took Amy to the ladies’ room.

  But when we went outside to the car Jeff wasn’t there.

  “Karen … check inside the restaurant again. He must be in there somewhere. Look in the men’s room too.”

  “Me?” I said. “Me … go into the men’s room?”

  “Just knock on the door and ask if anybody saw Jeff.”

  “Okay,” I said. I went back inside. I checked the counter. He wasn’t there. I walked all through the restaurant, pretending I had left something in our booth. I didn’t see Jeff anywhere. So I stood in front of the men’s room. I didn’t knock like my mother told me to do. I couldn’t. Suppose somebody came to the door and when they opened it I saw inside? No, I didn’t want to look inside the men’s room. Even though I’ve always wondered what it’s like in there. Tonight wasn’t the right time to find out.

  “You want something?” a man asked me.

  “No,” I said.

  “Then, excuse me, please. I’m trying to get in here.”

  “Oh,” I said, jumping away from the door. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Sure,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Would you see if my brother’s in there?”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “He’s fourteen and he’s got a broken toe.”

  “All right. Just a minute,” the man said.

  He went inside. I turned my back to the door. He came out right away. “Nobody’s in here,” he told me.

  “Well, thank you anyway,” I said.

  I went back outside and told my mother that Jeff wasn’t anyplace in Howard Johnson’s, including the men’s room. “Maybe he went home,” I said.

  “No. You can’t walk from here,” my mother told me. “There’s no way.”

  “Well, then, where is he?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Mom answered. “Now stop asking me questions and give me a minute to think.”

  “The one who asks the most questions learns the most,” Amy said.

  “Oh, shut up,” I whispered.

  “Why don’t you?”

  After a minute my mother said, “We’ll drive home now. Then I’ll decide what to do. I can’t think here.”

  When we got home Mom waited until nine o’clock before she did anything. Then she called Aunt Ruth and Uncle Dan. They came right over. Uncle Dan said the first thing to do was to call the police. But my mother didn’t want to. So Uncle Dan said, “Okay … but that’s what I’d do if he was my son.”

  Mom said, “Let’s try the hospitals first.”

  So Uncle Dan sat down by the phone in the kitchen and called all the local hospitals. Jeff wasn’t in any of them. I guess my mother thought Jeff got run over or something. Otherwise I don’t know why she wanted Uncle Dan to call the hospitals.

  Aunt Ruth said we should try his friends. So my mother asked me to make a list of all the kids Jeff might go to see. I couldn’t decide whose name to put first—Petey Mansfield or Mary Louise Rumberger. I decided that Jeff, being in such a bad mood, would pick Petey. I handed Uncle Dan a list of twelve names. He called every one but none of them had seen Jeff.

  “He could be at Bill’s,” Uncle Dan said.

  “No. How would he have gotten there?” my mother asked.

  “Maybe he hitched,” I said.

  “He knows I don’t like him to hitch rides,” Mom said.

  Maybe he knows it, I thought, but he hitches all the time. I’ve seen him do it. All the big kids hitch after school.

  “And Bill wouldn’t have been at the apartm
ent anyway,” Mom said. “It’s Friday night. The store’s open late.”

  “How about the store?” Aunt Ruth said. “Maybe he went to see Bill there.”

  “Want me to call?” I asked.

  “No,” Mom said. “I don’t want Bill to find out about Jeff.” She checked her watch. “Anyway, Bill must be home by now. The store closes at nine.”

  “He’s going to have to know, Ellie. He is the boy’s father,” Uncle Dan said.

  “Would you call him, Dan? I just can’t,” Mom told him.

  So Uncle Dan called my father and when he hung up he said that Daddy was on his way over.

  Twenty-four

  When my father got to our house I was hoping he would take Mom in his arms and kiss her and tell her not to worry, because everything was going to be all right. Instead he said, “Did you call the police yet?”

  And Mom said, “Oh, Bill … do we have to? Why get Jeff mixed up with the police?”

  “I suppose you have a better idea?” Daddy asked.

  “No,” Mom said. “I haven’t any ideas at all.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Daddy said.

  Mom looked around. I think she wanted to throw something at Daddy. But there were too many people in the room. I saw Aunt Ruth raise her eyebrows at Uncle Dan.

  My father walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone. He called the police. He told them his son was missing and gave them his name and our address. When he hung up he said, “They’ll be right over.”

  We’ve never had a policeman in our house. The only time I’ve ever been close to one is on the street. Sergeant Tice got to our house in ten minutes. He was chewing gum and he had a pad and pencil with him, just like on TV. Aunt Ruth showed him into the living room, where we all sat down. He started asking questions right away.

  “Name of the missing boy, please.”

  “Jeffrey Peter Newman,” Daddy said. “We call him Jeff.”

  Sergeant Tice snapped his gum and wrote that down. “Age?” he asked next.

  “Fourteen,” my mother said. “He’ll be fifteen in August.”

  Mew walked into the living room then. I called, “Psst … psst …” and she came to me.

  She jumped up on my lap, made herself into a fur ball and started purring.