Molly and the Great American Family

Baxter

Chapter One

I realized back when I was about six years old that my family isn’t exactly the typical American variety. I’m talking about the kind you see on television commercials, the members smiling at each other over the breakfast table as they cheerfully discuss which cereal is the healthiest. In TV Land the father wears a suit and a tie, the mother hands out cookies and advice, and the most distressing thing that ever happens to the kids is that they miss the school bus.

My family, the Witherspoons, has never even come close to that. With one mother, one father, and five sisters rambling around in an oversized Victorian house, one minute is always more chaotic than the next. The Thursday evening in early September when Mom made the announcement that totally changed everybody’s life was the perfect example.

It was my oldest sister’s turn to make dinner. That meant potato chip casserole. A year earlier Lizzie had come across this really crazy recipe and was actually brave enough to try it. Since then, she’d made it every Thursday, her night to cook. Believe it or not, it wasn’t bad, even though it looked like somebody took a school lunch, popped it into the blender for a few seconds, and then spread out what was left in a baking dish.

Anyway, as the five of us gathered in the kitchen, Lizzie was in command. I, meanwhile, had gotten stuck playing assistant.

Okay, Molly, she said, running her hands through her wild dark blond hair, not that long but with a tendency to act as if it had a mind all its own. I know I can do this. All I have to do is concentrate.

Actually, she was talking more to herself than to me, acting as if this were something she’d never done before. She’s eighteen, three years older than I am. Even so, more often than not I end up feeling as if I’m her big sister.

Nervously Lizzie looked over the collection of ingredients she’d spread all over the kitchen counter. Eggs, milk, flour, a couple of cans of tuna, and, of course, a big bag of potato chips. They were the good kind, the ones that look like teeny-weeny mountain ranges. She let out a little whimper. What should I do first?

I’ll be in charge of smashing up the Crinklies, Clementine offered. She’s only seven, the youngest of the Witherspoon sisters. She also happens to be really cute, if I do say so myself. Big blue eyes, long shiny blond hair that reaches just below her waist, a turned-up nose...If I were casting one of those television commercials I was talking about before, I’d definitely pick Clem to be the star.

I reached over and took the bag of potato chips away from her. Sorry, I said. That’s a job for an experienced chef. I opened the bag and helped myself to a handful. Of course, it’s always important to test for freshness.

Hey, can I have some chips? My other younger sister, twelve-year-old Ralph, had just come into the kitchen.

Her real name isn’t Ralph, of course. It’s Raphaella. The day she was born and my father learned my mom had just given birth to another girl, he exclaimed, We’re running out of girls’ names! We’ll have to start using names like…oh, I don’t know, Raphaella! The name stuck, and the nickname followed soon afterward. Oddly enough, it suits her. She’s got a face full of freckles, short dark brown hair that’s always sticking up all over the place, and a terrific grin, one that invariably makes her look as if she’s up to something.

As she bounded into the kitchen, she was wearing her baseball mitt on one hand and carrying a battered gray ball in the other. If I ever saw her without sports equipment, I don’t think I’d recognize her.

Ralph is the only girl on West Hills’ sandlot baseball team, the Comets. I guess I’d better explain something about West Hills. On the surface our hometown looks like something out of a movie: a scenic New England university town complete with rolling hills, gorgeous maples, elms, and birch trees, and a quaint Main Street with cafes, bookstores, and an artsy movie theater that’s usually showing a foreign film, the kind with subtitles.

But the people who live here tend to be...well, quirky. The university brings in people from all over the country, professors who teach things like the History of the Battleship, Life and Customs of the People of Luxembourg, and, in the math department, Imaginary Numbers. No fooling; there really is such a thing as imaginary numbers.

Those are the parents of West Hills. And, I have to admit, my father falls into that category. He’s a biochemistry professor at West Hills University, spending nearly every waking minute deep in thought about organisms that are so tiny they can’t even be seen without a microscope. Dr. Quentin P. Witherspoon is kind of an absentminded professor, with a headful of graying hair that’s even more crazed than Lizzie’s and wire-rimmed glasses that are always slipping down his nose. His clothes never quite match, and they always look as if he just took a nap in them.

His mannerisms match his appearance perfectly. He’s never quite all there. He may be eating a bowl of spaghetti or listening to Clementine recite her favorite nursery rhyme, but somehow you always get the feeling that what he’s really thinking about are bacteria and viruses and other such teensy-weensy little guys, marveling over their zany antics.

My mother is also pretty impressive in the brains department, although she’s not on the faculty at the university. She’s a marketing manager for a big Japanese company called the Kiku Corporation. Its United States headquarters are a couple of hours outside of Boston, not too far from our house. Kiku makes electronic equipment, all the stuff that nobody ever heard of twenty years ago, but these days can’t manage to live without. The good news about my mom working for a company like that is that we always have the most up-to-date equipment around our house. Whatever Kiku’s about to flood the market with, we get it a few months ahead of everybody else.

Anyway, the point is that when you’ve got families in which the mothers and fathers are spending their days dealing with stuff most people can’t even begin to wrap their brains around, you’ve got to expect that their kids are going to be a little bit eccentric, too.

Which brings me back to Ralph. One summer a few years ago, right after Little League season petered out, the diehards around here, the real baseball fanatics, decided to keep the game going year-round. Abracadabra: the Sandlot League was born. West Hills formed a team, and so did half a dozen or so small neighboring towns.

At first, it was all boys. When Ralph wanted to join, they gave her a hard time. Then they realized my little sister was the best pitcher this side of the Boston Red Sox. In short, a star—a baseball star—was born.

Without waiting for an answer to her question about whether or not the Crinklies were available for general consumption, Ralph stuck her hand—the one without the baseball mitt—into the potato chip bag. Lizzie let out a squeal. Those will spoil your dinner! Besides, if you don’t keep your mitts out of there—no pun intended—there won’t be enough for the casserole.

You could substitute something else, Ralph said, chomping away. Pretzels, maybe.

Or corn chips, I offered, trying to be helpful. I reached over, hoping to grab another handful. But it was too late. Lizzie had already whisked them away.

I don’t think so. Her nose was back in the cookbook. I could tell that, just like every other week, she was finding the experience of trying to make dinner for seven totally frazzling. Having an audience didn’t help. She’d grabbed a handful of bobby pins out of her pocket and haphazardly pinned her hair all over her head, which made her look like an extra in a monster movie. The dusting of flour on her nose added to the effect.

Lizzie had just graduated from high school the spring before. She was taking a year off from her education to earn money for college. For the past two months, she’d been working at the university in a clerical job my dad had helped her get. But she’d just given notice, telling the chairperson of the art history department, Dr. Cornelia van der Blank, that she was moving on to the more exciting, challenging world of business.

To be exact, she’d gotten a job at the best bakery in town, LeBonBon Bakery. Wrapping up loaves of pumpernickel raisin bread and counting out a baker’s dozen chocolate chip cookies may not sound like the most fascinating job in the world, but Lizzie was looking forward to it getting her feet wet—or at least getting her hands coated with confectioners’ sugar. Still, I had my doubts—especially as I watched her scowl at the cookbook in her weekly effort to concoct something edible.

The truly creative mind knows no limits. Sixteen-year-old Emma had just walked into the kitchen. Actually, being Emma, it was more like she floated.

There’s something I’d better explain about my second-oldest sister. She’s definitely what you’d call eccentric. For example, on that particular day she was dressed in a full skirt that fell almost to her ankles. It was made of red satin fabric splashed with huge yellow and orange and green flowers. Wrapped around her shoulders was a fringed shawl. A red bandana was tied over her hair, which had been frizzed out somehow, giving her usually wavy dark locks a distinctively crazed look. The finishing touch was a pair of huge gold hoop earrings.

In one hand she held a pack of tarot cards. In the other was something that looked suspiciously like a crystal ball.

Emma is one of those people who isn’t content to be ordinary. In fact, being like everybody else is one of her greatest fears in life. One way she keeps herself from falling into the trap of normalcy—her words, not mine—is by becoming other people.

Not that she really believes she’s any of these people. Emma’s not that far gone. She simply likes to pretend. It’s like being an actress, sort of. Only instead of doing it onstage or in front of a camera, she does it in her own life.

That week, Emma was a Gypsy. Not only had she picked up the really annoying habit of carrying a tambourine practically everywhere she went; she was also going around pretending she could predict the future.

I don’t want to scare anybody, Emma announced, her tone ominous, but the sea of change is about to wash over the Witherspoon family.

Been looking into that crystal ball of yours again, Em? I asked pleasantly.

Lizzie looked up from the eggs she was beating. Actually, from the looks of things, it was more like the eggs were beating her. I noticed somebody had brought the Ouija board down from the attic and dusted it off.

What’s a squeegee board? Clementine asked, never taking her eyes off the butter sculpture she was working on.

A Ouija board, I pronounced carefully. It’s a big piece of cardboard with the letters of the alphabet printed across the front. You ask it questions, and it spells out the answers. With a shrug, I added, It’s kind of a game.

It’s not a game, Emma insisted, shaking her head so that her gold hoop earrings danced. It’s our link with the nether world.

The nether world? Ralph blinked. Isn’t that the place where people wear wooden shoes and grow tulips?

"That’s the Netherlands," Emma snapped before I had a chance to slip in a quick geography lesson. "The nether world is the Great Beyond. The Other Side …"

Oh, I get it, said Ralph. She popped her last potato chip into her mouth. You mean like heaven.

That’s one possibility, Emma said, casting her a meaningful look. Anyway, I was receiving a message from the Great Beyond a few minutes ago, and the word is—

I thought you were doing your math homework, Lizzie scolded.

The Gypsy fortune-teller ignored her. As I’ve already told you, the word is that change is in the air. Something’s brewing.

Brewing! Lizzie snapped her fingers. Thanks for reminding me, Em. I’ve got to brew tea, so I can bring ice tea to work tomorrow.

She hurried across the kitchen, grabbing the kettle and filling it at the sink. As she did Ralph reclaimed the bag of Crinklies, helping herself and then passing them around.

Munching away contentedly, I glanced around our kitchen. It was big and friendly...but you’d never in a million years see it in a magazine like House Beautiful. House Weird, maybe. If the Witherspoons’ lifestyle could be considered a bit unusual, our sense of home decorating would fall into the category of something from another planet.

The problem in the kitchen was that we could never agree on what color to paint the walls. Dad wanted blue. He loves blue. Mom, meanwhile, wanted peach. Ralph and Lizzie and I voted for yellow, and Clementine and Emma insisted upon lavender. Our family discussions got pretty intense. Heated, you might even say. In the end it seemed as if painting each of the four walls a different color was the only way to settle it. So there it was, an interior designer’s nightmare: one wall yellow, one wall blue, one peach, and one lavender.

Still, the room was homey. Along one wall ran a big wooden table that always looked to me like something French peasants would stand around while making fruit tarts. The sills of the large windows over the sink were covered with dozens of happy, healthy houseplants. And scattered about was enough artwork—Clementine’s, mostly, stuck to the refrigerator with magnets—to rival any museum in the land.

The kitchen has always been one of my favorite rooms in the huge tumbledown Victorian house where we live. But each and every room has something distinctive about it. In the big front parlor, there’s a huge fireplace. All six of the bedrooms have window seats. And everywhere there’s wonderful wallpaper, big splashy cabbage roses and intricate paisley designs and stripes that never quite look as if they’re going straight up and down.

What kind of change is in the air, Emma? asked Ralph, getting right to the matter at hand. Nothing bad, I hope. She frowned Hey, this doesn’t have anything to do with the team, does it?

It has to do with Mom. Emma’s dark eyes were glowing, and she was hunched over her crystal ball. I had to admit, she did look like a real Gypsy fortuneteller. If you squinted your eyes, that is.

You don’t need a Ouija board to know that! Lizzie exclaimed. I knew there was something up the minute she walked in the house tonight.

How? I asked.

Easy, Lizzie replied with a shrug. She brought Dad a bouquet of flowers. The only time she does that is on his birthday, on their wedding anniversary, and when she’s got either some goods news or some bad news to tell him. Frowning, she mused, "It must be something either very good or very bad. They were roses. Red roses. Long-stemmed."

We were all silent, each of us trying to figure out what me mysterious arrival of a dozen long-stemmed red roses at the Witherspoon residence might mean.

Maybe she won the state lottery, Ralph finally suggested. Gee, it’d be nice to have a few million extra dollars around the house.

Maybe she has a secret admirer, offered Lizzie. I know: he sent her the roses at her office, and she brought them home to brighten up the house.

As usual, I was the most practical. Maybe it’s because I’m the middle sister, with two older sisters and two younger, but I’ve always been the Witherspoon sister whose feet were planted the most firmly on the ground. Maybe Mom’s just trying to add a little romance to their lives.

Lizzie waved her hands at me. Those two lovebirds have enough already.

They’re always hugging and kissing, interjected Clementine. Yuck!

Well, whatever it is, I said, we’ll probably find out soon enough. You know as well as I do that Mom’s about as good at keeping secrets as Clementine.

I resent that! cried the baby of our family.

But nobody noticed. We were too busy wondering what was up, meanwhile working away on the potato chips, testing them over and over again to make sure that in the eight minutes since the bag had been opened, they hadn’t gotten stale.

* * * *

Lizzie’s dinner was a success. Somehow, at the eleventh hour, she always managed to pull it off. The table was set with all the silverware in more or less the right place. The salad she’d thrown together at the last minute looked, acted, and tasted like a salad. And the casserole came out exactly as it always did, even though it contained considerably fewer potato chips than the recipe called for. The seven Witherspoons sat around the long dining room table, one parent at each end.

The conversation started out the way it always did, with each of us talking about what we’d done that day. But somehow it didn’t feel the same as usual. There was a definite tension in the air. We were all waiting— waiting to find out what Mom had up her sleeve.

After we’d all filled our plates, commenting loudly on how appetizing Lizzie’s dinner looked, Mom spoke for the first time since we’d all sat down.

I have an announcement to make.

Her tone of voice made me put down my fork. She sounded a little nervous, for one thing. But she also sounded as if what she was about to say was very important.

The moment of truth was upon us. I glanced around the table. My four sisters all had their eyes glued on Mom. There were expectant looks on their faces. Even little Clementine was sitting on the edge of her chair. Of course, she always sits on the edge of her chair, mainly because that’s the only way she can reach the table.

Only my father looked calm. In fact, he had a strange smile on his face.

"What