It was a rare quiet morning. Jeff Tracy was engrossed in a new design for a maritime emergency escape hatchway and the telephone rang for a long time before it roused him sufficiently to induce him to answer it. With half of his mind still on the CAD display on his monitor he lifted the receiver.
“Jeff Tracy.”
“Good morning Mr Tracy,” came a refined female voice. “I’m so sorry to disturb you at work but I need to talk to you. I’m Wanda Feinstein – I teach at West Side School.”
“Oh yes, I remember you Mrs Feinstein – you’re Virgil’s teacher.”
“That’s right. Mr Tracy, I need to speak to you about Virgil.”
“Oh? Anything you can tell me about right now?”
There was hesitation at the other end.
“Well not really, Mr Tracy, I really would like to talk to you in private, when we could have some time.”
“Okay Mrs Feinstein, I’ll pass you to my secretary, she’ll look at my schedule for the week and make an appointment with you.”
“Thank you so much Mr Tracy. I’ll look forward to speaking with you.”
“Same here. Goodbye Mrs Feinstein.”
Absently he terminated the call and pressed the button which linked him directly with Rosemary’s office. When she answered he was staring at his monitor.
“You wanted me Jeff?”
“Oh… oh yes, Rosemary – would you look at my diary and schedule me in an appointment with Wanda Feinstein at West Side School please? The number’s the last call I received on my outside line.”
“Certainly. I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve fixed up a date.”
“Thanks Rosemary.”
For a moment Jeff continued to stare at his monitor, then he realised the design, which had been so clear to him five minutes ago, no longer made sense. He pushed his swivel chair away from his desk and rubbed his eyes. Now what was that all about? What is it all about? He needed a few moments to sort things in his mind. Wanda Feinstein wanted to talk to him about Virgil. He couldn’t think why. He wasn’t aware of any problems in that department. Now if it was Gordon he would be wondering what the Hell the kid had done… Maybe it was nothing to worry about. Maybe it was something positive rather than negative. Yes, that was it – she wanted to recommend moving Virgil up a year – he was clever enough – or perhaps allowing him extra time for piano lessons. With that satisfying thought on his mind Jeff resumed his labours knowing that Rosemary would send him an email with the details of his appointment as soon as she had made it.
***
West Side School was one of the better grade schools in Houston. When Lucille Tracy died, three years earlier, Jeff considered moving the boys back to his mother’s place in Kansas so that they would have a full-time substitute parent instead of a part-time father trying to juggle a responsible job with raising five sons. Then he thought better of it. He couldn’t think of any schools in the area where he had grown up which compared with West Side. So he kept the boys with him and did the best he could, assisted by his mother who left her home for long periods to live with them in the large house in Houston.
Jeff was warmly welcomed by the school receptionist; he took as active a part in school affairs as he could, given the constraints of his private life, and was well known among the staff. He was shown into Wanda Feinstein’s office.
“Good afternoon Mr Tracy,” she beamed. “Please sit down. Would you like coffee?”
“Yes please. No cream, no sugar.”
Wanda busied herself at the side of the office.
“I don’t think you have a lot to worry about, Mr Tracy,” she went on, “I’m sure this is something which can be sorted out very simply and easily.”
She placed a cup of coffee in front of him and another on her side of the desk and sat down.
“When the children came back after summer vacation,” she went on, “I set them a task – writing an essay about what they did during the holidays. I understand your sons spent theirs with your mother in Kansas.”
“That’s right. She has a farm there – the farm where I grew up; she manages it herself now, with assistance.”
Wanda opened a drawer and took several sheets of paper which she passed to Jeff.
“I’d like you to read this, Mr Tracy,” she said. “It’s Virgil’s essay.”
Jeff took it, recognising the rather untidy writing; like himself and Gordon, Virgil usually wrote with his left hand although in fact he was ambidextrous, as Lucille had been. Sometimes he switched hands as if experimenting with what felt most comfortable; Jeff had always thought it was an advantageous way of dealing with writer’s cramp. And he certainly was a writer. Virgil loved words and when his homework consisted of writing something there was never the battle which there was when any of the others had to write a composition or essay.
My summer vacation
by Virgil Tracy
For summer vacation we went to my Grandma’s house in Kansas. She lives on a farm. We all went but Dad was at work so he stayed in Houston. One day I was playing with my brother John and I tried to drown my younger brother Gordon …
The words jumped off the page at him. Surely not … not Virgil. Not any of them. Scott had a temper, yes, but he would never have done anything to harm any of his brothers. John was another unlikely candidate and Alan was too small so none of them could have put the idea in Virgil’s head. There was no more animosity than normal between the boys – it irritated Virgil when Gordon made off with his paints or his sketch pads but as far as Jeff was aware no punishment had ever been threatened. It could, of course, be delayed reaction from the loss of his mother; maybe Jeff, preoccupied with his responsibilities, had failed to notice anything. But Lucille had died over three years ago and all five of the boys seemed to have passed the most distressing stage and come to terms with her loss. He wouldn’t expect any of them to be exhibiting homicidal tendencies, especially not placid, gentle Virgil.
The rest of the essay was about what else the boys had done during they stay on the farm and there was no further mention of drowning Gordon, or anyone else. When he had finished reading Jeff tidied the papers and handed them back to Wanda.
“I don’t know what to make of this, Mrs Feinstein,” he said. “What I would like to do is talk it over with my mother. She’s very observant and she would have noticed anything unusual. I’ll contact you when I’ve had the chance to speak to her and we can take it from there.”
“Yes, that’s the wisest course, Mr Tracy. I’m sure there’s nothing seriously wrong, I just thought I should let you know about this and ask you what you thought.”
Jeff thanked Wanda for her time and the coffee, shook hands with her and left the office. As he walked to the parking lot his first thought was that if his mother had noticed something amiss and not told him about it he would not be pleased, even if she had done it with the best intentions, not wanting to worry him.
***
Later that evening, dinner over, Gordon and Alan in bed and Scott and John finishing their homework, Jeff waited until Virgil had done his piano practice then he called him into his office.
“I thought we could have a few minutes together,” said Jeff as Virgil jumped up onto a high stool which he always seemed to prefer to any of the chairs. “Is everything okay at school?”
“Yes Dad.”
“Any problems?”
Virgil looked puzzled.
“No.”
“No bullying from other boys or anything?”
Virgil shook his head. For a moment Jeff had to look away; that was Lucille’s gesture. After a while he turned back.
“Well if you’re sure there’s nothing wrong that’s okay then.”
“Why do you think there’s something wrong Dad?”
Another Lucille gesture – Virgil put his head on one side and looked at his father at an angle.
“Oh nothing, I just like to check up on you guys from time to time, make sure everything’s hunky dory. What time is it … hm; have you finished your homework?”
“Yes, Dad, I always do it before I play the piano. If I didn’t I’d keep thinking about it and it’d spoil the music.”
“Well how about you go up to your room and get in bed and I’ll allow you a half hour with a book before I come up to settle you down?”
“Okay Dad.”
With a cheeky grin (Lucille again) Virgil jumped down from the chair and made for the door.
“Love you Dad!” he called as the door banged behind him.
Jeff shook his head and muttered, “Virgil, leave the door on its hinges please Son ….”
So that was that. If there was anything wrong he was not going to learn of it through Virgil. He thought of carrying out a minor interrogation on Gordon but thought better of it; he had always discouraged the boys from telling tales and Gordon was a little young for KGB tactics. No, better to wait until all the boys were in bed then call Elizabeth.
***
Both Kansas and Houston were in the same time zone so Jeff had no worries about disturbing his mother – it was still early evening when having seen all five boys settled down in bed he went back to his office and closed the door. Then he picked up the telephone receiver.
“Jefferson – how good to hear from you.”
Elizabeth’s gentle southern tones never failed to calm him; he remembered how he had longed to hear her voice so many times during that terrible period when he had just lost Lucille and was battling with his own grief as well as that of his boys.
Having ascertained that she was hale and hearty he said, “Mother, I need to speak to you. While the boys were staying with you for their vacation did anything happen?”
“Anything like what?”
“Any disagreements, anything unusual … did Virgil and Gordon fall out over anything?”
“No more than usual. Gordon never stops pushing his luck with practical jokes and you know Virgil doesn’t have a lot of patience with silliness … why do you ask?”
She listened in silence while Jeff relayed the details of his meeting with Wanda Feinstein and the content of Virgil’s essay.
“Well I can’t think what he meant by that,” Elizabeth declared. “It’s my guess it’s something unimportant that happened while they were playing … now just you wait a minute … I do remember something ….”
***
It was a sunny day with a light breeze. Elizabeth had chased the boys outside, not that they needed much chasing – they all hated being cooped up indoors. They were only really happy when they were allowed to go out and run wild. Scott in particular loved these escapes as he loved all the times they spent at the farm – it was as if for a short time he could forget the responsibility of being the eldest and relied upon by his father to calm squabbles and make sure his brothers got up for school and put on the correct clothes and presented themselves in the kitchen in time to have breakfast before they all raced off to catch the school bus. The boys rarely played together, they generally divided into factions with Scott on his own doing whatever he wanted to do, John and Virgil amusing themselves and Gordon and Alan hatching some wild scheme that brought nobody any good.
Elizabeth was making pastry. The thought suddenly struck her that things were unnaturally quiet. She toyed with the idea of putting her head round the door to see if everything was safely quiet or ominously quiet then she dismissed it; she had asked the farmhands to keep an eye on the boys to ensure they did nothing dangerous and if she kept checking up on them it would look as if she didn’t trust Jed and Tom to do as she asked. So she stayed where she was, rubbing fat into the flour, calculating how many pies she would get out of this batch of pastry.
Suddenly something caught her eye. It flashed past the open kitchen door, accompanied by a great deal of shrieking and laughter. Elizabeth quickly rubbed pastry residue from her hands and grabbed a cloth. She reached the kitchen door in time to see John and Virgil racing through the yard, both pushing wheelbarrows which they had obviously ‘borrowed’ from one of the sheds. Alan was sitting in John’s barrow, Gordon in Virgil’s. John, who had the heavier barrow and was losing the race, shouted something, Virgil turned round and the front wheel of his own barrow collided with a large stone sticking up from the ground. It came to a shuddering halt, causing Virgil to be bent double over the handlebars while Gordon was catapulted into the air. With an almighty splash he landed in the pond in the centre of the yard. Because it had been dry for some time the pond’s level had dropped so that Gordon sank into several inches of honking, oozing mud. He rose from the depths like a monster in a horror movie, covered from head to toe in slimy, brown muck. Virgil, who had untangled himself from the handlebars, burst into raucous laughter. John, realising what had happened, did likewise. Alan was standing up in the barrow, jumping up and down, waving his chubby fists and squealing with delight. And Scott, who had been at the side of the yard doing something on his tablet, slid down from the pile of sacks on which he had been sitting and was now prostrate on the ground, shouting with laughter and incoherent. Gordon extricated himself from the ooze and began to run towards the kitchen. Elizabeth intercepted him before he could share his mud coat with everything indoors and dragged his tee-shirt over his head.
“Take your shoes and socks off,” she ordered, “and your shorts. Leave them here, I’m not having them in the kitchen. What did you two think you were doing?” she demanded, fixing John and Virgil with a steely stare. “I don’t think I need to ask who came up with the idea of a wheelbarrow race, do I?”
“No, Grandma,” said Virgil, looking contrite then suddenly bursting into uncontrollable laughter all over again.
“Were you trying to drown him?” Scott wheezed. “You see, Gordon, that’s what you get for messing with Virgil’s paints!”
By now Scott was clutching his ribs and saying it hurt when he laughed, John was rolling on the ground and nearly as dirty as Gordon and both Virgil and Alan had hiccups.
***
“The next day Virgil went out and bought me the biggest box of candy he could afford,” said Elizabeth. (That was typical – whenever she had cause to reprimand Virgil there was usually a peace offering in there somewhere.) “I didn’t think it was necessary to tell you – boys will be boys, you got up to plenty mischief when you were small. And I can’t remember a half of what they got up to anyway.”
“Well I’m mighty relieved, Mother,” Jeff declared. “I just hope next time Virgil has to write an essay about his vacation he tells the whole story rather than giving us a preview and expecting us to fill out the detail.”
They talked for a while about fairly unimportant matters then Jeff said he thought they should both get to bed. Feeling as if a great weight had rolled from his shoulders he switched off the lights of his office and went upstairs. On the way to his room he peeped into each of the boys’ rooms. They were all sound asleep. Satisfied, he took himself off to bed making a mental note to ring Wanda Feinstein in the morning and report the facts. There would be other misunderstandings, he knew, other occasions when something one of the boys wrote or said would need to be taken apart and analysed and the truth weeded out but for the moment there was no cloud on the horizon. And it was his guess that next summer vacation the wheelbarrows would be safely under lock and key.