The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

'Sorry!' called Caroline from under the table. 'Don't get up, Mr. Fiske. By mistake I spilled my milk. Here, let me help you get your shoes off so I can dry them with my napkin!' She grabbed one of his feet so that he couldn't stand up, and in an instant she had both of his loafers off.

'NOW, J.P.!' she yelled. And her brother's foot came down hard on the button.

There was a loud buzzing noise, a flash of sparks, and everything went dark.

Caroline groped her way through the maze of human legs and the folds of the tablecloth. She re-emerged into a room that was totally dark except for the two small sputtering candles on the table. She looked at the dim figures seated around the table, expecting to see Frederick Fiske slumped in his chair, zapped and stunned.

But Frederick Fiske was laughing. He was bending over to mop at his wet socks with his napkin.

'What on earth happened?' asked Joanna Tate. 'Where are the lights?'

'It must be the storm,' explained Gregor Keretsky. He stood up and looked through the window, out into the rainy street. 'The street lights are on. And the lights in other buildings. Could it be maybe just a fuse?'

Caroline peered through the darkness at J.P. He was sitting silently, with his head in his hands. 'I blew it,' she could hear him mutter.

'Well,' said Frederick Fiske, standing up, 'I can squish down the stairs to the basement, I guess, and see if I can find the fuse box.' He went to the door of the apartment, stumbling into a chair in the darkness, and opened it. They could hear him speak to someone in the pitch-black hall. In a moment he was back.

'Jason Carruthers is going down,' he said. 'All the lights are off in the whole building. He's going to find a flashlight and check out the wiring in the basement. He said we should just sit tight.'

Sure we'll sit tight, thought Caroline. Here we are in a dark room with a murderer, a thunderstorm outside, two candles that are just about to go out, and no other candles in the house.

I want my Stegosaurus, she thought suddenly. I want my stuffed Stegosaurus.

Then she reached into her pocket, remembering her mastodon bone. She held it tightly in her hand and found that it was just as comforting as the stuffed animal on her closet shelf.

One of the candles, no more than a stub now, flickered and went out. 'LIGHT FAILS,' headlined Stacy a little nervously. Outside another roar of thunder rumbled across the sky; heavy sheets of rain washed against the windows in the gusty wind.

The last candle flared briefly, hissed, and went out. Now the room was completely dark.

'I think,' said Joanna Tate cheerfully, 'that we should have a conversation. It's a little spooky, sitting here without saying anything.'

'Not spooky,' said Gregor Keretsky. 'It's cozy, being with other people. Most nights I am alone in my little apartment. For me it is more pleasant to be with friends, even in the dark, than to be alone with bright lights on. Don't you think so, Caroline?' Through the darkness he reached over and took Caroline's hand. Now she had the mastodon bone in one hand and Gregor Keretsky's firm hand in her other. She felt better, less terrified.

'I guess so,' she said uncertainly.

'Mr. Keretsky,' asked Stacy, 'why do you live all alone? Don't you have a family?'

He was silent for a minute. He sighed and shifted in his chair, still grasping Caroline's hand. 'I don't want to tell a sad story on such a pleasant night,' he said. 'So I will tell only a little of what happened to me, and you must not let it make you feel sad, because it is many years ago, and now you see how things are: we are all happy here together!

'When I was a young man—you will never believe this, Caroline, but it is true—I was a painter. I was not a great painter, but I was a good one, I think. This was in Europe. And then, in Europe, came the war.

'Now, I am not going to talk about the war, because you all know that war is a bad time. I lost my family.'

Caroline held tightly to his hand. 'Did you have children?' she asked.

He cleared his throat. 'A little girl. She was about your age, Caroline, though she was not as—what would the word be?—incorrigible? I don't mean that as a bad thing. In fact, if I may borrow your mama's way of speaking, it is the ninety-fourth thing that I love about Caroline, I think: that she is incorrigible.'

'Me too,' said Joanna Tate from the end of the table.

Gregor Keretsky went on. 'Now, that was the sad thing, that my family—my parents, my wife, my daughter —were gone. But it is long ago, and I will not dwell upon that. I will tell you of the other thing that I lost. Can you guess what it is, Caroline?'

She nodded in the dark. 'Colors,' she said, squeezing his hand. 'You lost colors. I think that's very sad.'

'I thought so, too, at the time, because of course I could never paint again. But as I told you, I was not a great painter. The doctors could find no reason that my colors had disappeared. They wrote about me, in journals and medical books.

'I had to find another profession. And this is the happy part. I had always been interested in science, and so I went back to the university, and after a long time of study I became a paleontologist. The bones I study—like your little mastodon chip, Caroline—have no colors. We don't have any way to know what color the great beasts were. Maybe the mastodon was pink? Yellow?'

Caroline giggled, picturing a Walt Disney version of the mastodon. 'Blue with yellow polka dots?' she suggested.

'Perhaps,' said Gregor Keretsky. 'We will never know. And this is my story: why I have no family, Stacy; why I am a paleontologist instead of a painter; and why, even, I have a funny pair of socks. You see it is a story with a happy ending, even though there are sad parts to it.'

'Maybe all of our stories are similar,' suggested Joanna Tate. 'I always wanted to be a poet. Instead, I'm a bank teller. I would never have been a great poet—'

'You're a good poet, Mom,' said Caroline defensively.

Her mother laughed. 'Well, I'm a better bank teller. And who knows? Maybe someday I'll be a bank president!'

'I never wanted to be anything but a paleontologist,' said Caroline. 'And I will be a paleontologist, I'm sure of it.'

'I'm sure of it, too,' said Gregor Keretsky.

'And me,' said Stacy from her side of the table, 'I've always wanted to be an investigative journalist. I will be, too: the best one in the whole world!'

'Good for you, Stacy,' said Gregor Keretsky. 'And how about you, J.P.? You are sitting so quietly.'

Caroline couldn't see J.P. through the darkness—only his outline—but she could tell that his head was still in his hands. He lifted it at Mr. Keretsky's question.

'I don't know,' J.P. said gloomily. 'I always thought I was an electronics expert. But right now I'm beginning to wonder.'

Frederick Fiske had been silent. She could see the outline of his tall figure, so Caroline knew that he was still there, but he hadn't said a word. Now he finally spoke.

'I have very wet feet,' he said. 'No offense, Caroline; I know it was an accident. But they're beginning to get cold. Maybe it will take my mind off them if I tell you my story.'

'TATE SPILLS MILK: FISKE SPILLS BEANS,' announced Stacy.

'Right,' said Frederick Fiske. 'I'm going to spill the beans. I'm involved in a project, and up till now I haven't told anyone.'

Caroline edged nervously away from Frederick Fiske, closer to Gregor Keretsky. She shuddered. Outside, the growling thunder and the drenching rain continued relentlessly.

14

'Is there any more coffee, by any chance?' asked Frederick Fiske.

'A little,' said Joanna Tate, 'but it's probably not hot, since the electricity's off. Here, I'll get you some, if you don't mind lukewarm.'