Alexander Graham Bell: Master of Sound #7 Read online

  BY NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

  ANN HOOD

  In memory of Barbara Bejoian

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Text © 2013 by Ann Hood. Art © 2013 by Denis Zilber. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA).

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  Design by Giuseppe Castellano.

  Map illustration by Giuseppe Castellano and © 2013 by Penguin Group (USA).

  ISBN: 978-0-698-15985-3

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1: LOVEBIRDS

  CHAPTER 2: SOMEONE LISTENS AT LAST

  CHAPTER 3: BREAKING AND ENTERING

  CHAPTER 4: ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL

  CHAPTER 5: VISIBLE SPEECH

  CHAPTER 6: NUMBER 18 HARRINGTON SQUARE

  CHAPTER 7: ENTERING THE PARISH

  CHAPTER 8: CHIMNEY SWEEPS AND ORANGE SELLERS

  CHAPTER 9: MRS. DUCKBERRY’S BRILLIANT IDEAS

  CHAPTER 10: DINNER WITH MR. DICKENS

  CHAPTER 11: FINDING FELIX

  CHAPTER 12: RIVER GLASS

  Alexander Graham Bell: March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922

  Charles Dickens: February 7, 1812–June 9, 1870

  ANN’S FAVORITE FACTS:

  CHAPTER 1

  LOVEBIRDS

  “Married!” Maisie and Felix’s mother shrieked in disbelief. Her blue eyes widened as she surveyed Great-Uncle Thorne and Penelope Merriweather grinning at her like teenagers in love.

  Maisie, Felix, and their mother were in the Dining Room eating dinner—the bacon-and-egg spaghetti they loved so much—when Great-Uncle Thorne and Penelope burst in shouting their news. That is, Great-Uncle Thorne burst in. Penelope followed, walking slowly with her short, mincing steps

  Maisie and Felix sneaked glances at each other. They had only been back from their visit with their father in New York City for a few hours and had not yet broached the subject of him getting married.

  Great-Uncle Thorne lifted Penelope’s hand to show off a diamond so big that it looked like a fake one from a bubble-gum machine.

  “Is that real?” Maisie gasped.

  “Of course it’s real,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, stiffening. “It belonged to my mother, Ariane. It’s the Pickworth diamond.”

  “But why in the world would you get married at your age?” their mother said, her voice rising with each syllable.

  “Why?” Great-Uncle Thorne roared. “Because we’re in love! Isn’t that what lovebirds do? Get married—”

  “And have children?” Maisie and Felix’s mother interrupted.

  Maisie couldn’t stifle a laugh. Great-Uncle Thorne whipped his head toward her and knit his enormous white eyebrows together.

  “Don’t be impertinent,” he said.

  Maisie made a mental note to look up that word. Impertinent. Although she could guess from the context what it meant.

  “I haven’t been married since the Depression,” Penelope said with a sigh. She shook her head sadly. “He lost everything in the crash and had to be sent to a sanitarium.”

  “Poor bugger,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.

  “What crash?” Felix asked, trying to keep up.

  Great-Uncle Thorne groaned. “Don’t you imbeciles know anything?”

  “The stock market crash of 1929,” Penelope said. “So many people lost everything.”

  “Not the Pickworths!” Great-Uncle Thorne said gleefully.

  “When is this wedding?” Maisie and Felix’s mother asked unhappily.

  “I always wanted to be a June bride,” Penelope said dreamily. “Oscar and I eloped on New Year’s Eve. Very romantic. I wore a lovely pale blue dress.”

  “But you deserve to wear a beautiful white gown and walk down the Grand Staircase—”

  “You’re getting married here?” their mother asked.

  “My father always got married here,” Great-Uncle Thorne said dismissively.

  “How many times did Phinneas Pickworth get married?” Felix asked.

  “Five, six…who can remember?” Great-Uncle Thorne said.

  “I did like that aviatrix,” Penelope said.

  “The one Mom’s room is named for?” Felix asked.

  “The point is,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, clearly tired of all the small talk, “we are getting married and plans must be made. We need to organize an engagement party, plan the trip to Paris—”

  “Paris?” their mother said, looking more and more bewildered.

  “For the wedding dress,” Great-Uncle Thorne said.

  He took his black leather agenda and his gold pen from his inside jacket pocket and began to scribble furiously.

  “Wow,” Maisie said. “Everybody’s getting married.”

  “Maisie!” Felix hissed.

  Their mother turned toward Maisie as if she was in slow motion.

  “Everybody?” she said softly.

  “Uh…Penelope and Great-Uncle Thorne and…,” Maisie stammered.

  “And?” their mother said, waiting.

  “Have you spoken to Dad lately?” Felix interjected.

  “He called, but I didn’t call him back,” she said. She chewed her bottom lip, the way she did when she was nervous.

  “Maybe we should finish dinner, and then you can call Dad back?” Felix offered.

  Maisie brightened. “Great idea!”

  She sat back down and dug into her spaghetti with exaggerated gusto.

  “I think this is the best batch ever, Mom,” she said with her mouth full.

  Penelope helped herself to some. “I haven’t had carbonara since I was in Rome with Mussolini,” she said.

  Felix and Great-Uncle Thorne sat, too, and Felix made a great show of taking more spaghetti and sprinkling Parmesan on it.

  But their mother didn’t sit down. She didn’t even move. She just watched them all for what seemed like forever to Felix, who shoveled forkfuls of spaghetti into his mouth to avoid having to say anything more.

  “Are you telling me,” their mother said finally, her voice quivering, “that your father is getting married?”

  Felix kept eating.

  Maisie pretended to be chewing.

  “Maisie? Felix?” their mother said in the tone that let them know she meant business.

  “He is not getting married at Elm Medona,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. “He is not a Pickworth.”

  “Answer me,” their mother said.

  “Did he say something about that?” Felix said to Maisie.

  Maisie clutched her stomach. “I think…,” she began.

  “Uh-oh,” Felix said. His sister had the look she got right before she threw up, which she always did when she was upset.

  “I think…,” Maisie said again, getting to her feet.

  She didn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she ran out of the room, their mother close behind her.

  “This answers my question,”
their mother muttered as Maisie disappeared out the door.

  Maisie and Felix’s mother had planned a big homecoming for them. She’d picked them up at the train station, so happy to see them that she couldn’t stop hugging them.

  “I missed you guys,” she kept saying.

  She made bacon and egg spaghetti, even though Cook glared at her as she moved about the Kitchen.

  “I rented a movie for us,” she announced. “Family movie night!”

  The movie was My Fair Lady, which Maisie and Felix used to love to watch with their parents when they were younger. The whole time she cooked the carbonara, their mother hummed the song “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly” from the movie. Maisie and Felix knew that My Fair Lady was a play first, and that their mother had played the lead, Eliza Doolittle, the summer she’d met their father. When all four of them watched the movie, their parents always made private jokes about that summer, the kind of jokes that only needed one word to send one of them into a fit of laughter.

  Now Maisie and Felix wondered if their mother would watch the movie at all.

  After Maisie threw up, their mother gave her some ginger ale and a cool washcloth for her forehead. Then she went into her room and called their father. From all the way down the hall, Maisie and Felix could hear her, first yelling, then crying.

  “Why did you have to open your big mouth?” Felix groaned, flopping on the bed beside his sister.

  “Why didn’t she call Dad back so he could tell her himself?” Maisie grumbled.

  The door to Maisie’s room flew open and their mother stood there, her face all blotchy and her eyes red and puffy.

  “I guess there are lovebirds everywhere,” she said. “I guess everyone is getting married.”

  “You aren’t, are you?” Felix asked anxiously, imagining his mother marrying Bruce Fishbaum.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not.”

  “You’re not?” Maisie said hopefully.

  Their mother dropped onto the pink pouf.

  “Do you feel well enough to watch the movie?” she asked Maisie.

  “We don’t have to watch—” Felix began.

  “I want to watch the movie,” their mother said. “I made a plan for your first night back home, and no one is going to mess it up. Not Thorne or…anyone.”

  “Great,” Maisie said weakly.

  “It is great,” their mother said.

  The three of them sat miserably watching My Fair Lady as Henry Higgins tried to teach Eliza Doolittle how to speak proper English, all the while falling in love with her. No one made jokes. Their mother didn’t sing along with Eliza. Instead, they sat in silence, munching popcorn and Twizzlers and feeling all mixed-up.

  When the movie ended, they watched the credits roll, none of them moving.

  “Thanks, Mom,” Felix said. “What a terrific homecoming.”

  “I never understand why Eliza falls in love with Henry Higgins when he’s so old,” Maisie said.

  Their mother sighed. “Who knows why people fall in love with each other?”

  The television screen went dark.

  “Do you like her?” their mother asked.

  “Who?” Felix said, his heart sinking. He didn’t want to make his mother feel worse.

  “You know,” she said. “Agatha.”

  “She’s okay,” Maisie said.

  “Maybe…,” Felix began slowly. “Maybe you and Dad can get married again. Before it’s too late.”

  His mother tousled his hair gently. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said.

  Suddenly the overhead light flashed on and Great-Uncle Thorne walked in, tapping his walking stick as he moved.

  “Plans, plans, plans!” he said happily, waving his black leather agenda at them.

  He studied their faces. “Why so glum?” he asked.

  Their mother shrugged.

  “General malaise?” Great-Uncle Thorne asked her.

  “Something like that,” she said.

  Maisie made a mental note to look up that word, too. Malaise. Unlike impertinent, she couldn’t guess what malaise might mean.

  “You three need to start making arrangements so that everything will go smoothly,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, opening his agenda.

  “Of course,” their mother said agreeably. “We’ll do whatever you need.”

  “Good, good,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, flipping pages.

  “When’s the big day?” Felix asked him.

  “June sixth. Penelope wants to be sure to be married under the sign of Gemini. Her last one was a Capricorn wedding, and we know how that turned out.”

  He tapped a page with his long finger.

  “Ah! Here we are. The engagement party is one month from today,” he said.

  “How can we help?” their mother said.

  The idea of making plans seemed to cheer her, Felix thought, relieved.

  “Well, Jennifer,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, “I think if the party is one month from today, then you can take…let’s see…two weeks, yes, two weeks, to move out.”

  “Move out?” Maisie repeated because their mother seemed too dumbfounded to speak.

  “I suppose you could move back to the servants’ quarters,” Great-Uncle Thorne said, flipping more pages.

  “Back upstairs?” Felix said.

  “Have you all gone deaf?” Great-Uncle Thorne boomed. “Obviously I need all of the rooms for the guests. And then after the wedding, Penelope will move to Elm Medona, and she certainly can’t be expected to have a ragtag group of relatives living here once she becomes lady of the house, can she?”

  “You’re throwing us out of Elm Medona?” their mother said to Great-Uncle Thorne.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said.

  Their mother smiled with relief.

  “That’s good,” she said. “I thought you just said we needed to move out.”

  “I did!” Great-Uncle Thorne said, thumping his walking stick. This one had a diamond and sapphire tip that glistened in the glow of the TV. “Can’t you hear correctly?”

  “But—” their mother said, confused.

  “I’m not throwing you out. I’m asking you to leave. Two entirely different things, Jennifer. You and your charming children have been my guests here, and now it’s time for you to move on.”

  Great-Uncle Thorne and their mother stared at each other.

  “Well,” their mother said at last.

  “Good,” Great-Uncle Thorne said. He snapped his agenda shut. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have so many details to attend to. Must get started.”

  They watched him walk across the room and out the door.

  “This,” their mother said, “has been a terrible day.”

  “I like it upstairs,” Felix said truthfully.

  Maisie and his mother glared at him.

  “I do,” he said.

  “I suppose it’s better than sleeping…on the street,” Maisie said in a huff.

  With that, she too walked out.

  “I’m glad you’re an optimist,” his mother said. “Always seeing the glass half full.”

  Felix smiled. He almost recited the rhyme his father used to say at times like this: The optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut and the pessimist sees the hole.

  But then he thought better of it. This was the perfect time to just be quiet.

  CHAPTER 2

  SOMEONE LISTENS AT LAST

  M uch to Maisie and Felix Robbins’s surprise, when they returned to Anne Hutchinson Middle School after spring break, two new students started class. And those new students were twins.

  Felix watched as the new girl walked down the aisle, directly to Lily Goldberg’s empty seat. He almost shouted for her to sit somewhere else, as if he could hold that seat for Lily, as if Lily might come back from Cleveland. But Felix knew that was ridiculous. He stared sadly as the new girl sat there trying, he thought, to look invisible.

  “Class,” Miss Landers said, “this is
Rayne Ziff. She and her twin sister have moved here from San Francisco.”

  Everyone turned to stare at Rayne Ziff, impressed. San Francisco was about as far away as a place could be, an exotic city with fog and hippies and the Golden Gate Bridge. In fact, Miss Landers was asking the class what they knew about San Francisco and in reply, they were shouting these very things.

  “Earthquakes!” Jim Duncan called out, and Miss Landers wrote that on the board, too.

  Felix remembered how she had done this on his first day, and it made him feel wistful.

  Bitsy Beal was bragging about her trip to San Francisco, where they stayed at some fancy hotel called the Mark Hopkins and ate Crab Louis and sourdough bread.

  “I,” Bitsy Beal said in her braggiest voice, “know a lot about San Francisco.”

  “Rayne’s father is here for just a few months to teach at the Naval War College,” Miss Landers said, to change the subject.

  The Naval War College was on the other end of Newport, a serious-looking compound that Felix had never seen closeup; you had to be in the US Navy to get past the gate.

  “Do you know Ghirardelli Square?” Bitsy Beal was asking the new girl. “And Fisherman’s Wharf?” She glanced around to be sure she was impressing everyone with her sophisticated knowledge of San Francisco.

  “Well,” Rayne said, “I know them but I never, like, actually went there. If I could help it,” she added under her breath.

  Bitsy looked at her, surprised. “Why not?”

  “Because that’s where all the tourists go,” Rayne said.

  Someone tittered.

  “I think we should read a book that takes place in San Francisco,” Miss Landers said, saving the day as usual. “Now let me see if I can think of one…”

  Across the hall, Mrs. Witherspoon was introducing Hadley Ziff to Maisie’s class, but she didn’t let Hadley sit down. Instead, she made Hadley stand in front of the class and tell them where she was from and why they had moved here.

  Maisie studied Hadley carefully as she talked about San Francisco and the Naval War College. It was as if Maisie was looking at a photographic negative of herself. Maisie had curly dirty-blond hair; Hadley had curly jet-black hair. Maisie had green eyes; Hadley’s were a startling light blue. Maisie’s skin was golden; Hadley’s was so white that the word alabaster from three vocabulary tests ago came to mind.