"A Wrinkle In Time" Chapter 3

By Madeleine L'Engle

Transcript

A Calm Walk In The Woods

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A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline Le Ingle, Chapter Three, Mrs. Witch. In the forest, evening was already beginning to fall, and they walked in silence. Charles and Fortinbra gambleed ahead on ahead. Calvin walked with Meg, his fingers barely touching her arm in a protective gesture. This has been the most impossible, the most confusing afternoon of my life, she thought. Yet I don't feel confused or upset anymore. I only feel happy. Why? Maybe we weren't meant to meet the before this, Calvin said. I mean, I knew who you were in school and everything, but I didn't know you. But I'm glad we've met now, Meg. We're going to be friends, you know. I'm glad too, Meg whispered, and they were silent again. When they got back to the house, Mrs. Murray was still in the lab. She was watching a pale blue fluid move slowly through a tube from a beaker to a retort. Over a Bunsen burner bubbled a big earthenware dish of stew. Don't tell Sandy and Denny's I'm cooking out here, she said. They're always suspicious that a few chemicals may get in with the meat. But I had an experiment I wanted to stay with. This is Calvin O'Keefe, mother, Meg said. Is there enough for him, too? It smells super. Hello, Calvin, Mrs. Murray shook hands with him. Nice to meet you. Uh, we aren't having anything but stew tonight, but it's a good thick one. Sounds wonderful to me, Calvin said. May I use your phone so my mother will know where I'm where I am? Of course. Show him where it is. Will you please, Meg? I won't ask you to use the one out here if you don't mind. I'd like to finish up this experiment. Meg led the way into the house. Charles Wallace and Fortinbra had gone off. Outdoors she could hear Sandy and Denny's hammering at the fort they were building up in one of the maples. This way. Meg went through the kitchen and into the living room. I don't know why I call her when I don't come home, Calvin said, his voice bitter. She won't notice. He sighed and dowed. Ma? He said, Oh, Hinky, tell Ma I won't be home till late. Now don't forget, I don't want to be locked out again. He hung up and looked at Meg. Do you know how lucky you are? She smiled rather wryly. Not most of the time. A mother like that, a house like this? Gee, your mother's gorgeous. You should see my mother. She had all her upper teeth out and Pop got her plate, but she still won't wear it, and most days she doesn't even comb her hair. Not that it makes much difference when she does. He clenched his fist. But I love her. That's the funny part. I love them all, and they don't give a hoot about me. Maybe that's why I call when I'm not gonna be home, because I care. Nobody else does. You don't know how lucky you are to be loved. Meg said in a startled way. I guess I never thought of that. I guess I just took it for granted. Calvin looked somber. Then his enormous smile lit his face again. Things are going to happen, Meg. Good things. I feel it. He began wandering still slowly around the pleasant if shabby living room. He stopped before a picture on the piano of a small group of men standing together on a beach. Who's this? Oh, a bunch of scientists. Where? Meg went over to the picture. Cape Canaveral, this one's father. Which? Here. The one with glasses. Yep, the one who needs a haircut. Meg giggled, forgetting her worries and her pleasure at showing Calvin the picture. His hair's sort of the same color as mine, and he keeps forgetting to have it cut. Mother usually ends up doing it for him. She bought clippers and stuff, but he won't take the time to go to the barber. Calvin studied the picture. I like him, he announced judiciously. Looks like looks kind of like Charles Wallace, doesn't he? Meg laughed. When Charles Wallace was a baby, he looked exactly like Father. It was really funny. Calvin continued to look at the picture. He's not handsome or anything, but I like him. Meg was indignant. He is too handsome. Calvin shook his head. Nah, he's tall and skinny like me. Well, I think you're handsome, Meg said. Father's eyes are kind of like yours, too, you know, really blue. Only you don't notice his as much because of the glasses. Where is he now? Meg stiffened, but she didn't have to answer because the door from the lab to the kitchen slammed and Mrs. Murray came in carrying a dish of stew. Now, she called, I'll finish this up properly on the stove. Have you done your homework, Meg? Not quite, Meg said, going back into the kitchen. Then I'm sure Calvin won't mind if you finish before dinner. Sure, go on ahead. Calvin fished in his pocket and pulled out a wad of folded paper. As a matter of fact, I have some junk of mind to finish up. Math. That's the only thing I have a hard time keeping up in. I'm okay on anything to do with words, but I don't do well with numbers. Mrs. Murray smiled. Why don't you get Meg to help you? But I'm several grades above Meg. Try asking her to help you with your math anyhow, Mrs. Murray suggested. Well, sure, Calvin said, here, but it's pretty complicated. Meg smoothed out the paper and studied it. Do they care how you do it? she asked. I mean, can you work it out your own way? Well, sure, as long as I understand and get the answers right. Well, we have to do it their way. Now look, Calvin, you don't see how much easier it would be if you did it this way? Her pencil flew over the paper. Hey, Calvin said, Hey, I think I get it. Show me once more on another one. Meg Meg again, Meg's pencil was busy. All you have to do is remember that every ordinary fraction can be converted into an infinite periodic decimal fraction. See? So three sevenths is 0.428571. This is the craziest family. Calvin grinned. I suppose I should stop being surprised by now because you're supposed to be dumb in school, always being called up on the carpet. Oh, I am. The trouble with Meg and math, Mrs. Murray said briskly, is that Meg and her father used to play with numbers and Meg learned far too many shortcuts. So when they want her to do the problems the long way at school, she gets sullen and stubborn and sets up a fine mental block for herself. Are there any more morons like Meg and Charles around? Calvin asked. If so, I should meet more of them. It might help if Meg's handwriting were legible, Mrs. Murray said. With a good deal of difficulty, I can usually decipher it, but I doubt very much if her teachers can or are willing to take the time. I'm planning on giving her a typewriter for Christmas. That may be a help. If I get anything right, nobody will believe it's me, Meg said. What's a megaparsec? Calvin asked. One of father's nicknames for me, Meg said. It's also 3.26 million light years. What's E equals MC squared? Einstein's equation. What's E stand for? Energy. M, mass, C squared, the square of the velocity of light in centimeters per second. By what countries is Peru bounded? I haven't the faintest idea. I think it's in South America somewhere. What's the capital of New York? Well, New York, of course. Who wrote Boswell's Life of Johnson? Oh, Calvin, I'm not any good at English. Calvin groaned and turned to Mrs. Murray. I see what you mean. Her, I wouldn't want to teach. She's a little one-sided, I grant you, Mrs. Murray said, though I blame her father and myself for that. She still enjoys playing with her doll's house, though. Mother! Meg shrieked in agony. Oh darling, I'm sorry, Mrs. Murray said swiftly, but I'm sure Calvin understands what I mean. With a sudden enthusiastic gesture, Calvin flung his arms out wide as though he were embracing Meg and her mother, the whole house. How did all this happen? Isn't it wonderful? I feel as if I was just being born. I'm not alone anymore. Do you realize what this means to me? But you're good at basketball and things, Meg protested. You're good in school. Everybody likes you. For all the most unimportant reasons, Calvin said. There hasn't been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure I can function on the same level as everybody else. I can hold myself down, but it isn't me. Meg took a batch of forks from the drawer and turned them over and over, looking at them. I'm all confused again. Oh, so am I, Calvin said gaily, but now at least I know we're going somewhere. Meg was surprised and a little pleased when the twins were excited at having Calvin for supper. They knew about his athletic record and were far more impressed by it than she. Calvin ate five bowls of stew, three saucers of jello, and a dozen cookies. And then Charles Wallace insisted that Calvin take him up to bed and read to him. The twins who had finished their homework were allowed to watch half an hour of TV. Meg helped her mother with the dishes and then sat at the table and struggled with her homework. But she could not concentrate. Mother, are you upset? she asked suddenly. Mrs. Murray looked up from a copy of an English scientific magazine through which she was leafing. For a moment she did not speak. Then yes. Why? Again Mrs. Murray paused. She held her hands out and looked at them. They were long and strong and beautiful. She touched her fingers of her hand, of her right hand, the broad gold band on it, the third finger on her left hand. I'm still quite a young woman, you know, she said finally. Though I realize that's difficult for you children to conceive, and I'm still very much in love with your father. I miss him quite dreadfully. And you think all this has something to do with father? I think it must have. But what? That I don't know. But it seems the only explanation. Do you think things always have an explanation? Yes, I believe they do. But I think that our human limitations were not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don't understand, that doesn't mean the explanation doesn't exist. I like to understand things, Meg said. We all do, but it isn't always possible. Charles Wallace understands more than the rest of us, doesn't he? Yes. Why? I suppose he's well, because he's different, Meg. Different how? I'm not quite sure. You know yourself he's not like anybody else. No, I wouldn't want him to be, Meg said defensively. Wanting doesn't have anything to do with it. Charles Wallace is what he is. Different? New? Yes, that's what your father and I feel. Meg twisted her pencil so hard that it broke. She laughed. I'm sorry. I'm really not being destructive. I'm just trying to get things straight. I know. But Charles Wallace doesn't look different from anybody else. No, Meg, but people are more than just the way they look. Charles Wallace's difference isn't physical. It's in essence. Meg sighed heavily, took off her glasses and twirled them, put them back on. Well, I know Charles Wallace is different, and I know he's something more. I guess I'll just have to accept it without understanding it. Mrs. Murray smiled at her. Maybe that's really the point I was trying to put across. Yeah, Meg said dubiously. Her mother smiled again. Maybe that's why our visitor last night didn't surprise me. Maybe that's why I'm able to have uh a willing suspension of disbelief. Because of Charles Wallace. Are you like Charles? Meg asked. I heavens no. I'm blessed with more brains and opportunities than many people, but there's nothing about me that breaks out of the ordinary mold. Your looks do, Meg said. Mrs. Murray laughed. You just haven't had enough basis for comparison, Meg. I'm very ordinary, really. Calvin O'Keefe coming in then said, Ha ha. Charles all settled, Mrs. Murray asked. Yes. What did you read to him? Genesis? His choice. By the way, what kind of an experiment were you working on this afternoon, Mrs. Murray? Oh, something my husband and I were cooking up together. I don't want to be too far behind him when he gets back. Mother, Meg pursued, Charles says I'm not one thing or the other, not flesh nor foul, nor good red herring. Oh, for crying out loud, Calvin, you're Meg, aren't you? Come on, let's go for a walk. But Meg was still not satisfied, and what do you make of Calvin? she demanded of her mother. Mrs. Murray laughed. I don't want to make anything of Calvin. I like him very much, and I'm delighted he found his way here. Mother, you were going to tell me about a Tesseract. Yes. A troubled look came into Mrs. Murray's eyes, but not now, Meg, not now. Go on out for a walk, for that walk with Calvin. I'm going to kiss Charles and then I have to see that the twins go to bed. Outdoors the glass was wet with dew. The moon was halfway up and dimmed the stars for a great arc. Calched out and took Meg's hand with a simple with a gesture as simple and friendly as Charles Wallace's. Were you upsetting your mother? he asked gently. I don't think I was, but she's upset. What about? Father? Cal Meg across the lawn. The shadows of the trees were long and twisted, and there was a heavy, sweet, autumnal smell to the air. Meg stumbled as the land sloped suddenly downhill, but Calvin's strong hand steadied her. They walked carefully across the twins' vegetable garden, picking their way through rows of cabbages, beets, broccoli, pumpkins. Looming on their left were tall stalks of corn. Ahead of them was a small apple orchard bounded by a stone wall, and beyond this the woods which they had walked that afternoon. Calvin led the way to the wall, and then sat there, his red hair shining silver in the moonlight, his body dappled with patterns from the tangled branches. He reached up, pulled an apple off a gnarled limb, and handed it to Meg, then picked one for himself. Tell me about your father. He's a physicist. Sure, we all know that, and he's supposed to have left your mother and gone off with some dame? Meg jerked from the stone on which she was perched, but Calvin grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back down. Hold it, kid. I didn't say anything you hadn't heard already, did I? No, Meg said but continued to pull away. Let me go. Come on, calm down. You know it isn't true, I know it isn't true. And how anybody after one look at your mother could believe any man would leave her for another woman just shows how far jealousy will make some people go, right? I guess so, Meg said. But her happiness had fled, and she was back in a morus of anger and resentment. Look, dope, Calvin set shook her gently. I just want to get things straight. Sort of sort out the fact from f fiction. Your father's a physicist. That's a fact, yes? Yes. He's a PhD several times over? Yes. Most of the time he works alone, but some of the time he was at the Institute for Higher Learning in Princeton, correct? Yes. Then he did some work for the government, didn't he? Yes. You take it from there. That's all I know. Well, that's all I know too, Meg said. Maybe mother knows more. I don't know. What he did was, well, it's what they call classified. Top secret, you mean. Well that's right. You don't even have any idea what it was about? Meg shook her head. No, not really, just an idea because of where he was. Well, where? Out in New Mexico for a while. We were there with him. And then he was in Florida at Cape Canaveral, and we were there with him too. And then he was going to be traveling around a lot, so we came here. You always had this house. Yes, but we used to live in it just the summer. And you don't know where your father was sent? No, at first we got lots of leather letters. Mother and father always wrote each other every day. I think mother still writes him every night. Every once in a while the postmistress makes some kind of crack about all her letters. I suppose they think she's pursuing him or something, Calvin said rather bitterly. They can't understand plain ordinary love when they see it. Well, go on, what happened next? Nothing happened, Meg said that's the trouble. Well, what about your father's letters? They just stopped coming. You haven't heard anything at all? No, Meg said nothing. Her voice was heavy with misery. Science felt silence fell between them, as tangible as the dark tree shadows that fell across their laps, and that now seemed to rest upon them as heavily as though they had possessed a measurable weight of their own. At last Calvin spoke in a dry, unemotional vo unemotional vo unemotional voice, not looking at Meg. Do you think he could be dead? Again Meg leaped up and again Calvin pulled her down. No, they'd have told us if he were dead. There's always a telegram or something. They always tell you. What do they tell you? Meg choked down a sob, managed to speak over it. Oh Calvin, mother's tried and tried to find out. She's been down to Washington and everything, and they they'll say that he's on a secret and dangerous mission and she can be proud of him, but he won't be able to to communicate with us for a while. And they'll give us news as soon as they have it. Meg, don't get mad, but do you think maybe they don't know? A slow tear trickled down Meg's cheek. That's what I'm afraid of. Why don't you cry? Calvin asked gently. You're just crazy about your father, aren't you? Go ahead and cry. It'll do you good. Meg's voice came trembling over her tears. I cry too much. I should be like mother. I should be able to control myself. Your mother's a completely different person, and she's a lot older than you are. I wish I were a different person, Meg said shakily. I hate myself. Calvin reached over and took off her glasses. Then he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped her tears. This gesture of tenderness undid her completely, and she put her head down on her knees and sobbed. Calvin sat quietly beside her, every once in a while patting her head. I'm sorry, she sobbed finally. I'm terribly sorry. Now you hate me. Oh Meg, you are a moron, Calvin said. Don't you know you're the nicest thing that's happened to me in a long time? Meg raised her head, and moonlight shone on her tear stained face. Without the glasses, her eyes were unexpectedly beautiful. If Charles Wallace is a sport, I think I'm a biological mistake. Moonlight flashed against her braces as she spoke. Now she was waiting to be contradicted, but Calvin said, Do you know that this is the first time I'm seeing you without your glasses? I'm blind as a bat without them. I'm nearsighted, like father. Well, you know what? You've got dreamboat eyes, Calvin said. Listen, you go right on wearing your glasses. I don't want think I want anybody else to see what gorgeous eyes you have. Meg smiled with pleasure. She could feel herself blushing and she wondered if the blush would be visible in the moonlight. Okay, hold it, you two, came a voice out of the shadows. Charles Wallace stepped into the moonlight. I wasn't spying on you, he said quickly, and I hate to break things up, but this is it, kids. This is it. His voice quivered with excitement. This is what? Calvin asked. We're going. Going where? Going? Where? Meg reached out, instinctively grabbed for Calvin's hand. I don't know exactly, Charles Wallace said, but I think it's to find father. Suddenly two eyes seemed to spring at them out of the darkness. It was the moonlight striking on Mrs. Who's glasses. She was standing next to Charles Wallace, and how she had managed to appear where a moment ago there had been nothing but flickering shadows in the moonlight, Meg had no idea. She heard a sound behind her and turned around. There was Mrs. Watsett scrambling over the wall. My, I wish there were no wind, Mrs. Watsett said plaintively. It's so difficult with all these clothes. She wore her outfit of the night before, rubber boots and all, with the addition of one of Mrs. Buncombe's sheets which she had draped over her. As she slid off the wall the sheet caught on a low branch and came off. The felt hat slipped over both eyes, and another branch plucked at the pink stole. Oh dear, she sighed, I shall never learn to manage. Mrs. Who wafted over to her, tiny feet scarcely seemed to touch the ground, the lenses of her glasses glittering. Come te picalofalo amaramuso, Dante, what grievous pain a little fault doth give thee. With a claw like hand she pushed the hat up on Mrs. Watsett's forehead, untangled the stool from the tree, and with a deft gesture shook this sheet and folded it. Oh thank you, Mrs. Watset said. You are so clever. Un asano viajo masque on pantro a perez, an old ass knows more than a young colt. Just because you're a paltry few billion years, misses Watsett was starting indignantly with a sharp, strange voice when a sharp, strange voice cut in. Alright girls This is not time for bickering It's misses Witch, Charles Wallace said. There was a faint gust of wind, the leaves shivered in it, the patterns of moonlight shifted, and in a circle of silver something shimmered, quivered, and the voice said, I do not think I will materialize completely. I find it very tiring, and we have much to do.