Things Hoped For Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  chapter 1 - THURSDAY

  chapter 2 - THE BRAVE ONE

  chapter 3 - TIGHTROPE

  chapter 4 - FAMILIAR FACE

  chapter 5 - FIELD TRIP

  chapter 6 - GWENDOLYN CRUSOE

  chapter 7 - BUYING TIME

  chapter 8 - HOUSEGUEST

  chapter 9 - MODULATION

  chapter 10 - IMPROVISATION

  chapter 11 - NO STEAK

  chapter 12 - SUSPECTS

  chapter 13 - TOO MUCH

  chapter 14 - UNINVITED

  chapter 15 - REINFORCEMENTS

  chapter 16 - COMEUPPANCE

  chapter 17 - GIFTS

  chapter 18 - GREATER LOVE

  Why did Grampa leave?

  “That guy sounds totally out of it today—yelling and swearing, and he says he’s got papers all ready to sign. And he says he needs to borrow some money against his half of this house or he’s going to lose his business. And he needs to get it settled right now. No wonder your grandfather wanted to get away.”

  I shake my head. “If you’re saying Grampa ran away and left me to deal with all this because he was afraid or something, that’s not true—that’s not like him at all. You saw those war medals in the parlor. He would never run from a fight.”

  Robert says, “Okay, but if he knew Hank was so nuts about needing some money, and he knew Hank was going to keep pushing, then why do you think your grandfather left all of a sudden?”

  That stops me cold. But then the answer comes to me so clearly. “Grampa must have been pretty sure that if he’d stayed, things would have been worse.”

  “Worse than this?” Robert makes a face. “How?”

  I shrug and I say, “I don’t know.”

  And on Saturday, that’s true. I don’t know how things could be worse. But I’m sure Grampa wouldn’t have made it hard for me, not on purpose.

  And then I think, Wouldn’t it be nice if everything always happened on purpose.

  And then I think, Maybe it does.

  I want to thank Kaoru Suzuki for his insights about violin audition repertoire; Charles Clements for his perspective on the classical audition process; George Clements for what his music has taught me about composition and jazz performance; my wife, Rebecca, for her support and unfailingly accurate appraisal of my work; the superb editorial and copy editing staff at Philomel Books; and my editor, Patti Gauch, the best writing teacher I’ve ever had.

  PATRICIA LEE GAUCH, EDITOR

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Philomel Books,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2006

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2008

  Copyright © Andrew Clements, 2006

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PHILOMEL BOOKS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Clements, Andrew, 1949-

  Things hoped for / Andrew Clements.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Seventeen-year-old Gwen, who has been living with her grandfather

  in Manhattan while she attends music school, joins up with another music

  student to solve the mystery when her grandfather suddenly goes missing.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-04274-8

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  for my sister, Frances Clements Fawcett

  chapter 1

  THURSDAY

  They say a sudden shock makes your whole life pass before your eyes. I can only speak for myself. In my case, they are correct.

  At this moment my mind is a DVD player, and all my days are there, scene after scene, cued up for easy viewing. Except the thumping in my chest makes the pictures crackle and hiss. I scan, and then focus. I see a steep ravine in West Virginia, and a young girl, me, running barefoot through a hickory grove, playing tag with my little sisters, not a care in the world. That was over ten years ago. I push Fast Forward, then Play, and there I am at age fourteen, three years ago, alone in my bedroom, sawing away on my violin, imagining myself in an orchestra on the stage of a grand concert hall. And outside my bedroom, scattered around the rest of the house, I can feel my parents and brothers and sisters being driven slowly insane by my constant practicing.

  I punch Fast Forward again to today, then Slow Advance. Because if I can get a better look at what happened this afternoon, maybe things will make more sense. Maybe my heart will stop pounding. Maybe I’ll be able to breathe.

  And on the small screen in my mind I see myself scurrying along 109th Street. I see myself arrive home from my violin lesson. It’s about three-thirty. I’m sure of that, because Manhattan School of Music is about thirteen blocks away, and my lesson ended a little after three. It’s a cloudy day in February with the wind whipping across the Hudson and into the city, so I want to get in out of the cold. I can feel the cold. My heart is racing and I can’t catch my breath and I’m sweating as I remember. But I can feel the cold.

  And I start up the front stoop of my grandfather’s brownstone. There are nine steps. One, two, three—but I stop. Because I can hear the yelling. All the way through the brick walls and the triple-pane windows, I can hear the yelling.

  I know that voice. It’s Grampa’s younger brother, my great-uncle Hank. There’s usually yelling when Uncle Hank comes over, which isn’t often, thank goodness. Not until recently. He lives on Staten Island, which is almost as far away as Connecticut. Grampa says he owns a recycling business down there.

  And within one memory I’m suddenly having another one, about the day I met my great-uncle Hank for the first time eighteen months ago. He said exactly five words to me: “You must be Gwen, right?”

  Right. I am Gwen. I was named after Grampa’s wife, Gwendolyn Page, my dad’s mom. She taught writing and literature at City College for thirty-four years, and to hear my dad tell it, she was the one bright light of Grampa’s life. And when Grandmother died three years ago, everyone thought Grampa would leave New York City, maybe move down to live with us in West Virginia. But Lawrence Page was tougher than that, and he stayed put. Daddy says he owns some rental properties in Queens. And then two years ago Grampa invited me to come north and stay at his home in Manhattan so I could study music here—an offer that seemed to come out of the blue. But I think my dad must have told Grampa about me and my violin. And maybe Grampa wanted some company too. All I know is that the invitation arriv
ed just in time to keep me and the rest of my family from going completely crazy.

  That first day I met Uncle Hank, when he asked me if I was Gwen, I didn’t answer him. I only nodded, and that seemed to set the tone of our relationship. Ever since, when we see each other, we nod. My dad told me that Hank was a great guy, but I thought he’d be warmer toward me, like a real uncle. In old photos of him and my dad and Grampa on fishing trips, Uncle Hank always has this big grin on his face, standing there between them with his arms across their shoulders. Must have been happier times.

  But I’m still reviewing the yelling scene. And me standing there on the front steps of my grandfather’s house. On Thursday, earlier today. In the cold.

  I shiver, and I see myself turn around, go back to the sidewalk, duck to the left of the stoop, take three steps down, and put my key into the lock on the iron gate. I swing it in slowly so the hinges don’t squeal, then close it softly behind me.

  And then it’s like I’m in a small jail cell below the steps. The iron gate is on my left, there’s a stone wall to my right, and in front of me is the door into the ground floor of the house.

  I unlock the door and push it open. I’m planning to slip inside, walk along the hallway back to the basement door, and then creep down underground to the place I use as a practice studio. I can go to that sound-proofed room and play my violin anytime I want to. During these past three months I have spent at least five hours a day in there, rehearsing for my college auditions. I need that quiet little room. The endless rehearsing is frustrating because the music is so difficult, but when I finally break through and get it right, then all those maddening hours melt away like a dream, and I’m wide awake, and it feels like Bach or Sibelius or Paganini is right there in the room with me.

  So at three-thirty on Thursday afternoon, I want to warm up my fingers and get on with my work. My whole life has been building toward these tryouts, and I wish I could go down to my studio and practice.

  But the look on my face shows that I can’t stand being home when Uncle Hank invades. During the past month he’s come at least twice a week, and he yells from the moment he arrives until the second he leaves. And he always yells about the same thing. He wants Grampa to sell the building, this house. It’s a four-story brownstone, like the places you see when they show the outside of the house on Cosby Show reruns. Grampa and Uncle Hank are joint owners of the building, but in their father’s will it says Grampa can live here and collect the rent money for as long as he wants to.

  So Uncle Hank yells that Grampa has to sell the house. That it’s unfair not to sell it. He yells that Grampa is a selfish, stubborn old man. That each of them—Lawrence and Hank—could walk away with a million dollars, maybe more.

  Uncle Hank isn’t exaggerating about the money. A building like this in New York City is worth plenty. So Uncle Hank yells and yells and yells.

  But Grampa doesn’t yell back. It’s never an argument. Grampa just says no. Quietly. The louder Hank yells, the more quietly Grampa says no. He won’t argue, and he won’t raise his voice. I don’t know if Grampa even could raise his voice. These days, just talking without coughing is hard enough for him.

  If I went down to the basement, and if I closed all the doors behind me, and if I shut myself into my rehearsal room, I wouldn’t be able to hear the yelling. But it would still be going on, and I would know that. I would still feel it. Like the cold.

  I see myself make a decision. I set my violin case just inside the door. I drop my backpack, unzip the front pouch, and grab a book. Then I go out the door, relock it, out the iron gate, relock it, step up onto the sidewalk, and turn right toward Broadway. There’s a café half a block away, a place where I can be by myself but still have people around. Hot cocoa and a good book and the smell of fresh coffee. Much nicer than yelling.

  And there I am alone at the café, on Thursday. I’m reading a collection of poems by William Butler Yeats. Again. For the third time this month.

  I don’t know why I’m stuck on Yeats.

  There are hundreds of books in Grampa’s study. It used to be Grandmother’s study too, and she’s the one who arranged all the books by genre, and then by the author’s last name. I only met this grandmother once, at Christmas when I was five. She wrote in some of the books, no words, just penciled check marks and sometimes an exclamation point. It’s not much to go on, but I think I would have liked to know her better.

  Reading is the perfect break from the caprices and the partitas and the sonatas and scales and arpeggios I’m preparing for my auditions. And a few months ago I decided it would be good to read my way through the novels. I started with A for Austen, and I read Pride and Prejudice, which was so good that I immediately read it again. Then came Wuthering Heights (B for Brontë), and I even got to Lord Jim (C for Conrad) and Robinson Crusoe (D for Defoe). But I am constantly telling my own story to myself, and these days, that’s about all the narrative flow I can handle.

  I think that’s why I shifted to poetry. And why am I hooked on Yeats? It’s the density that I love, even though I don’t get half his symbols. What I do get is that he looks at the life around him, and then he goes inward, digging until he finds something true. And I like how he’s always imagining the world coming to an end. And I love his sadness. And his loneliness.

  Thank you, Miss Page, for that sparkling literary commentary. While your heart is whomping away.

  Because I’m still viewing the afternoon scene, still trying to catch my breath. And I can see myself settled into a booth with my book and my cocoa and some lemon cake. And then I glance up because I hear a voice through the glass, out on the street: “Taxi!”

  I know that voice. I see Uncle Hank climb into a cab, see it turn across traffic and head south on Broadway. The yeller is gone. It is Thursday afternoon, and it’s safe to go home.

  But I don’t. I have decided I need this break. I read and I sip and I nibble, and almost two hours pass in the coffee shop while I sail to Byzantium, and then to the lake isle of Innisfree, and then I go riding with the banshees, with Niamh calling Away, come away. And the next time I look up from my book, I see it’s getting dark, and I need to get home and cook supper for Grampa. Because that’s one of the few things he lets me do for him.

  And in my mind I see myself go up all nine front steps this time.

  And my heart beats even faster now, because I already know what happens next. I unlock the heavy oak door with the frosted glass and let myself into the entry hall where the staircase leads up to the third and fourth floors. A tenant has sorted today’s mail, and after I unlock the door that opens from the hallway into Grampa’s parlor, I pick up our pile from the narrow table. There’s a letter to me from my mother.

  Inside there is only one light on, the brass lamp with the green glass shade that sits on Grampa’s huge desk in the study.

  I call, “Hi, Grampa. It’s me.”

  His bedroom door is shut, and there’s no answer.

  I walk through the parlor and into the study and put the mail on his desk. And I see the blinking light on the answering machine. So I push the button.

  And Grampa begins to speak. On Thursday. Today.

  Hello? Gwennie? I hope you had a good day. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to tell you, straight out. I need to go and stay somewhere else—for how long, I’m not sure. I know this is sudden, but I have to leave right now, today. And I have to ask you to do something for me. I want you to keep the house going for me while I’m away.

  Then Grampa coughs. A deep cough. I can tell he’s turned away from the phone, but it’s still loud. It hurts to listen. I’ve heard that cough a lot over the past three weeks, but he won’t let me mother him. I have to pretend I don’t see how he struggles.

  Grampa begins again. His voice sounds weaker, and there are pauses when he has to catch his breath.

  This is a lot to ask, Gwennie. I know that. But it’s the best I can do on short notice. I need to go, right now, and I know y
ou need to stay here. It’s a hard situation, but we’ve both got to make the best of it.

  Now, this is important. Please don’t tell anybody I’ve gone. Especially Hank. I haven’t changed my residence, but if he thinks I have, then he’ll try to make something of it. Just steer clear of him. And please, don’t judge him too harshly. Hank’s having a tough time right now. Even so, I don’t want him taking it out on you. And I don’t think we should let anybody know that a high school girl is living here all on her own. I know you’ll be fine, and you know it too. But others might not see it that way. So it’ll be best not to tell anybody for now. I know this is a lot to bite off, but if I didn’t think you could do this for me, I wouldn’t be asking. And I am asking. And I thank you.

  Grampa coughs again, and again it’s hard for me to listen. Then he goes on.

  You know where I keep my ATM card, and you know the PIN number. There’s money in the savings account if you need to transfer more. And I signed some checks, in the black folder, second drawer of my desk. Gas and electric, bills like that get paid straight from the bank. Can’t say what you’d need checks for—hard to know. But you treat that money like it’s yours and . . . and you get whatever you need. There ought to be enough to last you through this stretch.

  Well, I’ve got to get going. This business with Hank is tricky, so I’m not going to tell you where I’m staying, not just now. And I might be out of touch awhile. But don’t you worry. And that’s an order. You just keep about your own business and leave all the worrying to me. I love you, Gwennie. Good-bye now.

  I listen to Grampa’s message again, and then a third time, trying to understand. Trying to breathe slowly. Trying not to shiver.

  And now, the actual now, I am sitting at Grampa’s desk with one lamp burning. The streetlights are on outside, and a pale orange glow seeps through the tall front shutters.

  In this city of ten million people, I am alone.

  chapter 2

  THE BRAVE ONE