A suburban tract house is not the sort of place that you expect to see an elaborate stained glass window, especially one the size of an entire front picture window. Yet there it was. But then Great-grandmother wasn’t the sort of person you expected to find in a suburban tract house – a split-level one at that. She belonged in a graceful old Victorian house, or perhaps even a little cottage surrounded by flowers, but not a cookie-cutter house in the heart of a cookie-cutter community. She often said that if she had know that Great-grandfather was going to die so soon after he insisted on moving into this architectural monstrosity, she would never have allowed it to happen.
But that had been thirty years ago, and in thirty years, even the roughest edges get at least a little smoother. And so, over the years, the yard and the inside of the house had become more suitable for Great-grandmother, with wall paper and flowers and trees and the old-fashioned furniture she had brought with her when they moved.
One of those more suitable things was the stained glass window. Great-grandmother had had it taken out of the old place, the house she had grown up in, piece by careful piece before they had moved. And once she had settled her furniture and books into the new house, she had restored the window, piece by careful piece, and had it put in place of the picture window that had dominated in the front room. There it glowed with color, bathing the whole room in shades of blue and yellow and red and green.
“Ridiculous!” Great-grandfather had grumbled. “Now I can’t look out at everything going on up and down the street. Besides, you’re just asking for a baseball to get thrown through it!”
“Nonsense,” replied Great-grandmother. “Now the world can’t look in at us as if we were goldfish in a bowl. And besides, if you want to watch the world go by, well, that’s what front porches are for. We used to have one, you know!”
And Great-grandfather had had the sense to know when to stop, and had gone out and bought some lawn chairs to put under the maple tree in the front yard, for when it got big enough to make some shade. Then he decided that he wanted to watch the world go by sooner than that, and had a small front porch added onto the house and called it good. Great-grandmother had sniffed and polished her stained glass window until it shone, and then put up some lacy curtains at its edges.
By the time Kate and Kevin came along, Great-grandmother was resigned to living in the tract house, even without Great-grandfather (although she still talked to him as if he were there).
Kate and Kevin loved to visit Great-grandmother. They only lived a few blocks away, and by the time they were in elementary school and were allowed to cross streets by themselves, they visited her most days after school and on Sunday afternoons, too.
Now, visiting Great-grandmother was truly a labor of love. Great-grandmother, at the age of ninety, was an old-fashioned sort of grandmother. She wasn’t the sort who was round and cuddly. She was sharp and angular. And while she did bake a lot, she also made sure that there were plenty of vegetables on the table that had to be eaten before the cookies and cakes came out. Sitting on her lap was like sitting on a bundle of sticks, and she always smelled of lavender water. She wore skirts, even in the dead of winter, and went once a week to have her hair “done” at Mildred’s House of Hair, where every now and then she had a blue rinse put on it. She wore heavy white stockings and sensible orthopedic shoes and walked with a cane. (Although the cane did have a dragon’s head carved on it.)
Children visiting Great-grandmother were held to the same standards she held herself to. Girls wore skirts or dresses, and never wore tennis shoes, only lace-up leather shoes or buckle shoes, with plain tights or knee socks. Hair had to be neatly brushed, and preferably braided if it was long enough. No perfume, no makeup, and no jewelry other than maybe a locket around the neck, were allowed. And Great-grandmother preferred that her great-grand daughters wore the sorts of dresses she made and gave them every birthday, Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, and start of school. They were always pretty and lacy and old-fashioned looking, but the girls, especially rough and tumble Kate, were often afraid to wear them for fear they’d spoil them.
Boys had to wear slacks, not jeans, and leather shoes, and button front shirts – and ties. As a result, Kevin was the only one in his class at school who could already tie a tie. Great-grandmother didn’t allow for clip-ons. On Sundays, a suit jacket was added to that. Clean hands, clean face, neatly combed hair and proper manners were always the order of the day at Great-grandmother’s house.
But it was worth it. Both Kevin and Kate thought so. Great-grandmother had a room in the downstairs that was full of wonderful old-fashioned toys, like real china tea sets and dolls with whole trunkfuls of clothes, and metal constructions toys like Erector sets, and stone blocks that could build all sorts of wonderful castles. There were old-fashioned games, like pick-up-sticks, and checkers, and Parcheesi. Great-grandmother was always happy to play a game with them, and she never lost at Scrabble just to make them feel good.
She had a huge bookcase full of old children’s books, too, and could almost always be persuaded to drop what she was doing and read a story or two or three. She told marvelous stories, too, about growing up almost a hundred years ago. (They sat beside her on the loveseat, though, since her lap wasn’t very inviting.)
Great-grandmother was very glad to have them join her in what she was doing, too, and taught them to cook and bake, and gave them knitting needles and crochet hooks and embroidery hoops and patiently sat with them until they understood what to do. All they had to do was be willing to listen. She always had time to spend with them. And when the weather was nice, she was always up for a game of croquet or badminton in the back yard – she usually won, since she was a ruthless player.
One rainy afternoon in spring, when Kevin and Kate were tired of building castles out of the stone construction blocks and attacking them with the toy soldiers, they went to see if Great-grandmother would be willing to read to them from a book of fairy tales that they were currently enjoying. For once, Great-grandmother was busy – if she stopped making the cake now, it would be spoiled, and even Kevin and Kate agreed that this would not be a good thing. After deciding not to help with the baking, they wandered off again to amuse themselves.
“I wish we could go out and play,” moaned Kate, peering out the stained glass window at the streaming world. It looked strange all in red.
“Me, too. We’ve been stuck inside for days!” said Kevin, leaning his head against the window and blowing on a green pane of glass. He wrote his name in the fog and sighed.
“Don’t leave nose prints on the window!” said Great-grandmother crisply, from behind them. She was looking through the kitchen door at them.
“Sorry, Great-grandmother.” Kevin flushed. “I won’t do it again.” He knew he needed to behave, or he would be going home. He didn’t want to go home yet. He grabbed the end of his tie and started to polish the fogged and smudged pane of blue glass.
“Here. If you’re going to clean it, do it right!” said Great-grandmother. She presented Kevin with some vinegar and newspaper. “Now polish that window correctly.” She walked back to the kitchen and the cake.
Kevin had polished windows for Great-grandmother before, so he knew what to do. He had never done the stained glass window before, though, and he made a game of polishing each and every different shaped and colored panel carefully. Kate grew bored and went to the kitchen, where she got a lesson in cake-making from Great-grandmother.
Kevin polished each of the lower pieces of the window, making them shine. Then he got a stepstool from the kitchen and started on the top half of the window. As he polished one particularly odd-shaped pane near the center of the window, he noticed something odd.
When he had been polishing a square red pane, he had seen Mr. Overholt from next door walking down the sidewalk with his dog. The dog had seen a squirrel, run between Mr. Overholt’s legs, and tripped him, landing him in a large mud-puddle. Kevin had thought this was quite funny and had moved over to look at the scene though the blue pane next to the red one for variety. Yet when Kevin looked through the blue pane, Mr. Overholt was standing up, dry, and the little dog was sniffing the maple tree at his side. Kevin looked back through the red pane. Mr. Overholt was in the puddle, pulling on the leash – in fact, Kevin could hear the dog barking. He looked back through the blue pane. Mr. Overholt was standing there, letting his dog sniff the tree. But Kevin could still hear the barking. He looked out the yellow pane on the other side of the blue one, and there was Mr. Overholt, climbing out of the puddle and looking angry. In the blue pane, he was smiling and dry. Kevin shook his head and looked again. The blue pane still showed something different.
Kevin climbed down from the step ladder and hurried to the kitchen door. “Kate, come here for a minute!”
The cake was just going into the oven. Kate took off her apron and said. “I’ll be back in a minute, Great-grandmother!” She laid the apron over the back of a chair and followed Kevin into the front room. “What are you so excited about?” she said. Kevin grabbed her and pulled her to one side, so Great-grandmother couldn’t see them through the open kitchen door.
“There’s something weird about the stained glass window!” he hissed in her ear.
Kate turned to look at him, confused. “Yeah? And? What?”
Kevin dragged her over to the step ladder. “Climb up and look through that funny looking blue pane and tell me what you see.”
Kate did, saying, “You’re being really weird, Kevin. I know you’re bored, but…” She paused and looked through the pane. “Okay, I see Mr. Overholt standing there by the maple tree with his dog.” She shrugged. “So what?”
“Just wait!” said Kevin in a low voice. “Now look through the red one and tell me what you see.”
Kate did as he asked and then said, puzzled, “I see Mr. Overholt, but he’s standing in a mud puddle looking mad, and his dog is barking at something in the tree. I can hear the barking. I could before, too.” She bobbed over to the yellow pane. “He’s mad and wet here too.” She looked back through the blue glass. “But here he’s not!” She looked down at Kevin, who was looking back at the kitchen door and frantically motioning her to be quiet.
Kate stepped down off the ladder and grabbed Kevin, hauling him over to the side of the room by one arm. “Kevin, that pane of glass is magic, or something!” she whispered loudly in his ear.
“I know! That’s why I called you!”
“We should tell Great-grandmother!” said Kate.
“NO!” shouted Kevin. Then he looked around quickly. Then he whispered, “I mean, not yet. What if it’s one of those magic things that won’t work if grown-ups know about it?”
Kate gave him a funny look. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything like that, Kevin. And anyway, it’s her window. I’ll bet she already knows about it, and if she doesn’t, she should.”
“Look, just let’s keep it to ourselves for now. I want to think about this. That window shows something other than what really happens, and I want to see how it works in case Great-grandmother says I can’t look through it anymore.”
“Wellll….okay, but just for a little while. I’m going back to the kitchen now, before Great-grandmother gets suspicious.”
But to her surprise, Great-grandmother didn’t ask what was going on. She just pointed to the sink full of hot, soapy water and batter covered cooking things, and Kate got busy washing the dishes.
Later that night, when they were at home again and getting ready for bed, Kevin knocked on Kate’s door. “Kate, I think I figured out that window. I watched it a lot while I finished polishing it. The blue pane shows what would happen if good things happen instead of bad, like if you make a different choice. I want to see if we can use it to make good things happen. That would be neat, don’t you think?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know – maybe finding money or something. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”
And Kate agreed.
Kevin and Kate didn’t get another chance at the window for several days. First Kevin got sick, and then Kate did. On Saturday, when they were both feeling better, their parents took them shopping for summer clothes in the morning and in the afternoon, it poured rain. On Sunday, everyone in the family was at Great-grandmother’s house for dinner and the afternoon.
Sunday was sunny and warm, and after a big potluck dinner (Great-grandmother refused to cook for the entire family anymore – she said in no uncertain terms that they could all help out, so they did) the whole family went out to the back yard with the croquet and badminton sets and lots of lawn chairs. The boys shed their suit jackets and all of the children ran around playing tag and hide-and-seek and getting in the way of the grown ups who were trying to beat each other at lawn games. Great-grandmother still beat everyone at croquet.
Kevin and Kate really did enjoy these Sunday afternoons with all of their cousins and aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles – all together, there were probably about forty people there, and ten of them were children. But this Sunday, all they could think of was the window. Kevin’s heart just wasn’t in showing his cousin Jack how high he could climb in the cottonwood tree in the back yard, and as much as Kate usually enjoyed playing with her cousin Beth, she just wasn’t having fun today.
The window called to them, a seductive siren song that was incredibly hard to resist. Kate and Kevin really wanted to see if it still showed a different outcome for things, or if they had imagined it all. But everyone was in and out of the house all afternoon, and there wasn’t any chance to go in and climb up on a stool to look out of the window without someone coming through and wondering what they were doing. Kevin tried. He used going to the bathroom as an excuse to go inside so many times that afternoon that he wasn’t allowed to have any lemonade and cookies with the others because his mother said he must have an upset stomach if he needed to go inside so much. Kate knew what he was doing, and snuck his lemonade and cookies to him later on.
“Kevin, if you’re going to be so obvious, we won’t be able to do anything, Someone will catch on and ruin everything. Stay out of the house!” Katie scolded him.
“All right. Next week Great-grandmother will be doing a lot of gardening. I heard her telling Aunt Patsy. We can do something then.” Kevin sighed miserably. “I really just want to check out that window again, and work out how we’re going to do this, though.”
Kate shook her head and went back to play with Beth some more.
Kevin stayed out of the house until it was time to clean up. Along with everyone else, he helped put everything away – dishes washed and put up, outdoor games and chairs in the basement. When the last lemonade glass was put away and the last lawn chair folded, all of the relatives except Kevin and Kate and their parents left. Since their family lived just a few blocks away, they always stayed later. Mom and Dad would help Great-grandmother with things she just couldn’t do anymore, like heavy lifting.
Mom and Dad had gone to the basement with Great-grandmother to help her re-arrange some furniture, leaving Kevin and Kate on their own upstairs for a short while. They looked at each other, and Kate grabbed the footstool from in front of one of the chairs. She carefully put a piece of newspaper on it to keep their footprints off of the fabric. (They had made that mistake one time before – they had thought that since footstools were for putting feet on, they could stand on them too, and had been playing super hero by jumping off one with capes on. They had left the footstool quite scuffed, and found that Great-grandmother didn’t like footprints on any of the furniture, not even the footstools.) Quickly they scrambled up on it and, side-by-side, peered out of the blue stained glass window. It was early evening though, and there really wasn’t much to see. Kate noticed that a bird that flew up into the tree through the rest of the window stayed on the ground in the blue window, but that was it. By the time they heard the adults coming back upstairs, they had already put the footstool back, thrown out the newspaper, and were playing checkers on the floor.
That night, Kevin and Kate made a few plans. They decide that one of them would stay inside and watch through the window, and the other would be outside and try to help passers-by. It wasn’t a sure-fire thing, but they might get a tip or two from someone whose dog didn’t run off or who missed stepping in a puddle. It was the best they could think of for right now.
Kevin found his old walkie-talkies and put fresh batteries in them. Then Kate dug around in the basement and found a little folding stool that would fit underneath Great-grandmother’s sofa where it couldn’t be seen when they weren’t using it. That way, they wouldn’t have to use the kitchen stepstool or the footstool that showed footprints too well. They were ready to go.
The next day after school, Kevin and Kate took the stool and the walkie-talkies over to Great-grandmother’s house and left them in the bushes by the front door. After Great-grandmother had gone out to work in her garden in the back yard, they brought the things in.
“I’ll watch first,” said Kate. “You go out with the walkie-talkie and tell me what people are doing as they come by. Then I’ll tell you what I see in the blue window.” Kevin agreed, and went out.
Things went along all right for a while, although Kevin got some strange looks for hanging around in the front yard by the sidewalk with a walkie-talkie. No one was doing anything they could do differently and Kevin got bored. He decided to observe things from a different angle, and scrambled up one of the trees by the sidewalk where he sat happily on a branch in the shade. Even if someone noticed him, Kevin was often found in trees, so no one would think it was odd.
He was leaning out, trying to get a better look at what was happening down the sidewalk when suddenly Kate shrieked into the walkie-talkie. “KEVIN! HOLD ON!” Startled, Kevin did just the opposite, and slipped off the branch he was on. The walkie-talkie went flying and Kevin found himself dangling from a rather skinny limb with his toes ten feet off the ground. The limb was drooping lower and lower, and Kevin could hear a cracking noise. To make matters worse, his tie was caught on the branch too and the hard cement sidewalk was below him. He was frightened. He didn’t know which would happen first – if the branch would break and he would fall to the sidewalk or if he would choke on his tie. He needed to get his legs up over the branch so he could untangle his tie and get down, but when he tried to wiggle and swing his legs up, the branch creaked like it was going to break. As he struggled to hang on and tried to think of a way down, Great-grandmother came around the corner of the house into the front yard.
“Kevin! What on earth are you doing?” she called. Just then, Kate came around the other corner of the house struggling with the awkward ladder, and together they put it up under Kevin. He got his feet on the top step just as the branch broke. His tie ripped and he quickly scrambled down, happy to be in one piece, but still shaken.
“Now Kevin, you know I don’t mind you climbing the trees, but you must be careful. And don’t climb over the sidewalk. It’s too hard for landing on!” She looked him up and down. “And your tie is torn.” Great-grandmother shook her head and went off to work on the flower beds by the front walk.
Kate hissed, “I told you to hold on!”
“You shouted and scared me! That was why I fell!” Kevin replied, furious.
“But I could see you falling, and then I said something!”
“Well, all I know is I didn’t fall ‘til you told me not to,” said Kevin, pulling the walkie-talkie out of a bush. He checked it to make sure it was still working, stuffed it in his pocket, and folded up the ladder. He crammed his torn tie into his shirt front and, glaring at his sister, he stomped off to the back to put the ladder away.
Kate’s feelings were hurt – she had thought she was helping him, but it all went wrong and now Kevin was mad. Head down, she wandered slowly back to the house.
As she passed Great-grandmother, Great-grandmother said, “His pride is injured, just like yours would be if someone saw you looking foolish. Leave him alone for a bit, and it’ll be all right.”
Kate nodded sadly and went to make sure the folding stool and walkie-talkie were put away before Great-grandmother came in. Great-grandmother didn’t know the half of it. Kate just hoped that Kevin would realize soon that she didn’t mean to make him fall.
By evening, Kevin had cooled off. At bedtime, he told Kate, “Tomorrow, it’s your turn to be outside. I won’t make you fall out of a tree!”
“No, because I don’t intend to climb one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some things I need to get ready for tomorrow.” Her nose in the air, Kate went off to find some things she thought she could use.
When Kevin and Kate stopped by their house to change into nicer clothing for Great-grandmother’s house, Kate gathered together the things she had rummaged out last night and stuffed them into her last year’s school backpack. Kevin teased to see what she had in the bag all the way to Great-grandmother’s house, but Kate wouldn’t show him. She put the back pack under the bushes by the sidewalk before them went into the house. Kevin was burning with curiosity. Kate had been annoyingly mysterious about what she planned to do.
Great-grandmother took her time going out into the back yard to garden today. She was in the middle of baking treats for a Garden Club meeting, and wasn’t in any hurry to go outside. Kate and Kevin, who normally enjoyed helping Great-grandmother bake, were fidgety. They even offered to do the dishes for her just so she would hurry. They were sure they were going to explode before she finally picked up her big sunhat and gardening gloves and went outside.
Finally, Great-grandmother was peacefully occupied in the back yard and the dishes were washed, dried, and put away. Kate and Kevin each had two cookies and a blueberry muffin, too.
Kevin pulled the step-stool and walkie-talkies out from under Great-grandmother’s couch and handed Kate her walkie-talkie. He set the step stool up by the window, and then turned to Kate, who was still eating her muffin. “I hope you have better luck than I did!” he said. “I’ll let you know who I see and what they’re doing.”
Kate swallowed her muffin and said, “Okay. Give me a few minutes to get ready!” Then she flew out the door before Kevin could ask what she meant by getting ready.”
Kevin sighed and settled the stepstool in the right spot, so that he could see people coming from farther down the street. Five minutes later, the walkie-talkie crackled and Kate said, “Okay, I’m ready!”
Kevin looked out the window, but he couldn’t see Kate. However, he did see old Mrs. Connors coming down the street. He changed his angle just a little bit, to try and see if there was anything she shouldn’t be doing, and Bingo! He saw a car coming by, splashing everything with muddy water. He quickly told Kate about the car – by experimenting, they knew they only had a few seconds of time in which to act. Then his mouth dropped as Kate stepped out from her hiding spot near the fence.
Kate was dressed in a long, colorful dress, had a silk scarf tied on her head, and was wearing big clip-on hoop earrings. She looked like the fortune teller at the Halloween carnival.
Kate swished her skirts as she went up to Mrs. Connors. Mrs. Connors looked like she was going to laugh out loud at Kate – Kevin could see it on her face. Well, Kate did look pretty funny, at that.
Then the look on Mrs. Connors’ face changed, and Kevin could see that she was annoyed. She pushed past Kate and stomped off down the street; the car had passed harmlessly by when Kate had delayed her.
Kate’s head drooped, and she came back into the yard.
“Kate, what happened?” Kevin asked her through the walkie-talkie.
“She thought I was telling her that if she didn’t give me money, I would get her all wet and muddy. She called it extortion.” Kate was almost crying. “She said she’d let it go this time, but if she heard of me doing such a thing again, she’d tell Great-grandmother. She said she might anyway.”
“Great-grandmother knows us better than that. Mrs. Connors is always grumpy anyhow.”
“Well, I ‘m going to do something different this time. Just tell me what’s going on, and I’ll take it from there.”
Kevin took up his post again. This time Kate was on the sidewalk, waiting for passersby.
The first few people were boring, with happening to them. Then Kevin got a hit.
“Kate, tell Mr. Jacobs to look in the gutter – he’s going to find something that makes him happy.”
Kate went up to Mr. Jacobs. “Mr. Jacobs, I am Madame Katerina. I see all. And for a quarter, I’ll tell you where to find something good!”
Mr. Jacobs had a sense of humor. “How do I know it will be worth a quarter?”
“Well, um…” Kate replied
“Never mind. I’m game. Here you go!” Mr. Jacobs fished in his pocket and came out with a quarter. “Now, where is this thing I’m supposed to find?”
Kate guided him over to the gutter, where the car had splashed by a few minutes before. There, lying in the mud, was a ten-dollar bill.
Mr. Jacobs leaned down and picked it up and then turned to Kate, smiling. “Well, you certainly short-changed yourself there! I think if I were playing at fortune teller, I’d “see” the ten for myself and not for the client! This is an expensive game!” He went off chuckling.
Kate sighed and picked up her walkie-talkie. “Kevin, this didn’t work so well. He found ten dollars and all I got for us was a quarter.”
Kevin sighed. “Yeah. Let’s try it some more, though.”
Five more people came along. Three were uneventful, one didn’t want to listen to Kate (and tripped over a crack in the sidewalk) and one was angry at being bothered.
She was turning to talk to yet another person when a police car pulled up.
“So, Miss Kate, what are you up to today? You do know it’s against the law to fortune tell without a business license, don’t you?” The policeman was a friend of their father’s.
“Um, no? I didn’t?” Kate’s voice squeaked.
“Well, now you do. I wouldn’t have said anything, but someone called us and complained. I know you and Kevin like to play your games, but you need to leave the public out of it. Run along now, and play somewhere else.”
Kate gulped. “Yes sir.” And she fled back to the house.
Kevin had seen the police car come up, and had looked through the blue pane, where Kate was running up to the house, crying. A few seconds later, that was what she did. Kevin had the door open for her as she stumbled in.
Kate ran to the bathroom and took off her costume. By the time she came back out, she was calmer but still hiccupping.
“I was so embarrassed, Kevin. He was really nice about it, but I guess we made someone really mad. I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Yeah. Maybe we should just do what Mr. Jacobs said and look out for things happening to ourselves. That ten dollars could have been ours!”
Kate went out to put the costume in her backpack and when she came back in, she said, “Tomorrow, we’ll do just that. We’ll try to make good things happen for us!”
It was a week before Kevin and Kate had another chance at the window. For three days it rained cats and dogs, and then Great-grandmother decided to do her gardening in the mornings and spend her afternoons in either the kitchen baking or in the front room, knitting.
“I think she’s suspicious, Kevin,” whispered Kate as they made their way to the basement playroom for the second day in a row.
“Nah. I bet she doesn’t even know about the window herself,” replied Kevin, adjusting his tie.
“Are you nuts? Great-grandmother not know about the window?” Kate glared at him, annoyed by the insult to Great-grandmother. She shook her head, and stomped off to the corner where the books were. She spent the rest of the afternoon reading and ignoring Kevin.
Finally, in the middle of the week, nice weather and Great-grandmother doing the gardening outside coincided and Kevin and Kate were free to try again with the window.
Things did not begin well. First they argued over who would get to be outside first. Then they argued over what they would do. Then Kevin, who had lost the first argument, climbed up on the stepstool and promptly fell off, knocking a framed picture off of a nearby table and cracking the glass in one corner.
“At this rate, you’ll tip off Great-grandmother and cost us money!” sniped Kate, as she opened the front door.
“Just do what I said, and we’ll be fine,” replied Kevin, who had won the second argument, as he moved the photo to the back of the table to hide the crack.
Huffily, Kate went out into the front yard as Kevin grumpily climbed back on the stepstool. They had put fresh batteries in the walkie-talkies, and after making sure they could hear each other, Kate set to work.
Since they had just missed finding money in a mud puddle the week before, Kevin thought that there was a good chance of finding money in the gutter today, especially with all the rain in the past week washing debris into a huge puddle in the street in front of the house. Kate pulled her rainboots out of the bushes at the front and began walking through the puddle. Kevin kept telling her that she didn’t look excited or happy through the blue window so she needed to wade in more.
Kate waded out farther and farther into the street, and was almost to the edge of the puddle when Kevin gave a happy shout through the walkie-talkie. “Kate! Look right around there. Through the blue window you’re waving something in your hand!”
Kate leaned over and began to poke around in the mud with a stick, and moments later was pulling up a piece of paper…She turned, laughing, to show Kevin that it was just a coupon for diapers when she heard, “Kate, look out!”
Kate turned just in time to get a face full of muddy water sprayed up by a car going past on the other side of the street. Spluttering, she slogged back over to the sidewalk and spoke furiously into the walkie-talkie, “I knew this was a bad idea. Just because someone else found money in the street doesn’t mean that there’s always money there. I’m soaked. I’m going home to change. You can tell Great-grandmother whatever you want.” And Kate stomped off.
Kevin came home a half-hour later, looking a bit put out. “I told Great-grandmother that you got something on your dress and came home to change. She looked at me kind of funny, though, and I don’t know if she believed me.”
Kate shrugged and scowled. “I don’t care. I couldn’t go back in all muddy like that, could I? That really was a dumb idea, Kevin.”
“Hey, you should know to watch out for cars in the street!” Kevin replied hotly. He slammed the door on the way out of Kate’s room. They didn’t speak for the rest of the day.
The next day, they stayed home because Great-grandmother was going to be out for the afternoon. They spent the entire time bickering and quarreling about anything they could think of, until their mother finally sent them to their rooms.
At supper, their parents asked them what was going on. “You two always get along so well. What is the matter with you?” they asked.
“Nothing,” replied Kate, glaring at Kevin.
“Nothing,” replied Kevin, glaring at Kate.
As they went back to their rooms after supper, Kate whispered to Kevin, “Tomorrow, we’ll do things my way!” And with her nose in the air, she went off to bed.
Kate did not get her chance the next day. In fact, it was quite a few days before she and Kevin got back to Great-grandmother’s house, and even then they didn’t have a chance to do anything with the window other than clean it. Great-grandmother was what she called, “a little under the weather.” In fact, she was sick for more than a week, and not up for the rather lively company that Kevin and Kate provided, for several days after that. When the children were allowed back to Great-grandmother’s house, it was on the condition that they be useful and do chores to help get Great-grandmother’s house back in order for her.
First the children tackled the outside jobs. Their father had taken care of the mowing; he did that anyway. But the gardens were full of weeds, so the children spent an entire afternoon weeding. Then they picked the ripe vegetables, although Kevin was all for just dumping the peas in the garbage and saying that they were over-ripe and rotten. Kate, who liked peas, vetoed that idea and then collected every one that she could find just to spite him.
While they were working the children talked. They didn’t fight, either, which was quite a change from the last few weeks. They agreed that what they were doing just wasn’t working, and that all they had really found was trouble. “And I’m tired of getting in trouble,” said Kate. She was thinking about the old metal detector of her uncle’s that she had unearthed for Kevin to use in the yard, and the trouble they would have explaining the holes she planned to have him dig.
“And did you see the way Great-grandmother’s neighbors are starting to look at us?” replied Kevin.
“Yeah, I know. That grumpy lady across the street, Mrs. Haley, actually asked me when we were going to stop messing around outside and bothering people and sit inside and play video games or watch T.V. like normal children.” Kevin shook his head. “Like Mom and Dad or Great-grandmother would let that happen.” Mom wouldn’t even let them spend more than a few minutes on the computer and she always said that the only way she would allow video games in the house was over her dead body. She wasn’t big on letting them watch T.V. either.
“Well, on the bright side, if she says that to Mom or Great-grandmother, maybe we can get some video games or more T.V. time!” Kate said cheerily.
“Fat chance.” Kevin laughed.
“Yeah,” Kate agreed and giggled.
When they brought the basket of peas in to Great-grandmother for shelling, she was standing at the window. Her hands were pressed against it, one to the blue pane. She turned when she heard the children, sadness showing in her eyes.
“Are you feeling okay, Great-grandmother?” Kate asked.
“Yes, darling, just a little tired. I’ll just sit down and shell these peas while you two tidy up a bit.” She smiled and then added mischievously, “There are more than enough here for you two to take some home for dinner!”
Kevin made a face and Great-grandmother laughed. “You know, peas were a favorite of your Great-grandfather’s. I always planted extras so that I would have plenty to put up for the winter so he could enjoy them year round.”
Great-grandfather had died before the children were born and they always enjoyed hearing about him. So while Great-grandmother shelled the peas and the children dusted and vacuumed, Great-grandmother told them stories.
When Kevin and Kate were done, and ready to go home, Great-grandmother went downstairs to find a scrapbook she had promised to send home with the children for their mother. The children looked at each other, and Kevin grabbed the footstool and dragged it over to the window. “Just one quick look,” he whispered, and Kate nodded.
The children climbed up carefully, side by side, and looked out the blue pane in the big window.
Right away, they noticed something strange. In the blue window, it was autumn. They could see the drifts of leaves on the ground under the bare trees. The front flower beds were full of fall flowers. There was a chair out there, too, that the children didn’t remember seeing before. As they watched, a man with a cane walked into the yard. But before they could see who it was, they heard Great-grandmother coming up the stairs. Quickly, they got down and put the footstool back where it belonged. By the time Great-grandmother came in with the scrapbook wrapped up in protective plastic, they were busy packing up some of the peas to take home for dinner – or rather Kate was. Kevin was making faces at the peas and trying to flick them into the garbage can.
The children ran down the front walk carrying the scrapbook and container of peas. Kate happened to look back. Great-grandmother was standing in the window, looking through the blue pane. Kate stopped and nudged Kevin. He turned to look too and then said to Kate, “She looks like she’s crying.”
Kate answered, “I know.”
As they walked home, they talked about what they had seen through the blue pane. “Do you think it was showing us something from a long time in the future, instead of different choice stuff?” Kevin asked.
“Maybe,” Kate said doubtfully, “But why would that make Great-grandmother cry?”
“I don’t know. But at least we know now that she knows about the window.”
“Yeah. But you know, really, how could she not know about it? I think we were fooling ourselves when we thought she didn’t.” Kate shrugged. “But I still don’t want her to know that we know. Especially now that she was crying.”
“But why?” asked Kevin.
“I don’t know. Let’s just wait, okay?”
“Okay. I wonder how you get it to show different times?” The rest of the walk home, they discussed ways to get the window to change the time it showed.
That night, after the dinner, which included the peas that the children had brought home (Kevin tried to hide his under his mashed potatoes), the children’s mother sat down with the scrapbook they had brought home from Great-grandmother’s house. “Do you two want to look at this with me?” she asked as she took the large book out of its plastic wrapper. “It has pictures from Dad’s and my wedding, and lots of other stuff from around that time. Great-grandmother has always been so wonderful about keeping all of this stuff together. I tend to put it in a box, but she makes it beautiful.” Mom patted the sofa on either side of her. Kate came right over. Kevin wasn’t really interested, but he came anyway. It was fun to see what his parents looked like when they were younger.
The first part of the book had Kate ooh-ing and ah-ing over things like the wedding dress and the bride’s maid dresses, but when they got to pictures of the reception, Kevin sat up and took notice.
“Mom, who’s that?” he asked, pointing to an elderly man in one of the photos.
“Oh, dear, that’s your Great-grandfather.”
“But it doesn’t look like that picture of him Great-grandmother keeps in her front room…” Kevin was puzzled.
“Yes Mom, are you sure?” Kate added. “Maybe it’s one of his brothers or something. Look, he’s lots skinnier than Great-grandfather was. And he has a beard.”
“No, that was how he looked not long before he died. He had been very ill for a long time, and he lost a lot of weight. He grew that beard because he said it just took too much energy to shave anymore. In fact, we moved up the wedding just so that he could be there.” Kate and Kevin traded glances over their mother’s lap. The man looked like the man they had seen in the yard, through the blue window pane.
Kate bounced up and grabbed Kevin’s arm.
“I take it you’ve seen enough for one day?” Mom asked dryly, raising her eyebrows.
“Yes-thank-you-come-on-Kevin-let’s-go-play!” Kate said, all in one breath. She and Kevin raced upstairs where they could talk.
“So it must show the past, too, then, instead of just what might happen?” Kate said as soon as they reached her room.
“Yeah – I wonder if it shows the might-have-beens, too, like it does for the future,” Kevin mused.
“Maybe. Maybe that’s why Great-grandmother was crying. Maybe she saw what it would have been like if Great-grandfather was still here.” Kate looked sober.
“Tomorrow we’re supposed to help Great-grandmother clean house again. Let’s see what we can figure out then.”
“Yeah, okay.” Kate looked troubled.
“What’s the matter, Kate?”
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. It just makes me sad to think about Great-grandmother crying at the window like that.”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s see what we can find out tomorrow.” said Kevin.
Kate did not get her chance the next day. In fact, it was quite a few days before she and Kevin got back to Great-grandmother’s house, and even then they didn’t have a chance to do anything with the window other than clean it. Great-grandmother was what she called, “a little under the weather.” In fact, she was sick for more than a week, and not up for the rather lively company that Kevin and Kate provided, for several days after that. When the children were allowed back to Great-grandmother’s house, it was on the condition that they be useful and do chores to help get Great-grandmother’s house back in order for her.
First the children tackled the outside jobs. Their father had taken care of the mowing; he did that anyway. But the gardens were full of weeds, so the children spent an entire afternoon weeding. Then they picked the ripe vegetables, although Kevin was all for just dumping the peas in the garbage and saying that they were over-ripe and rotten. Kate, who liked peas, vetoed that idea and then collected every one that she could find just to spite him.
While they were working the children talked. They didn’t fight, either, which was quite a change from the last few weeks. They agreed that what they were doing just wasn’t working, and that all they had really found was trouble. “And I’m tired of getting in trouble,” said Kate. She was thinking about the old metal detector of her uncle’s that she had unearthed for Kevin to use in the yard, and the trouble they would have explaining the holes she planned to have him dig.
“And did you see the way Great-grandmother’s neighbors are starting to look at us?” replied Kevin.
“Yeah, I know. That grumpy lady across the street, Mrs. Haley, actually asked me when we were going to stop messing around outside and bothering people and sit inside and play video games or watch T.V. like normal children.” Kevin shook his head. “Like Mom and Dad or Great-grandmother would let that happen.” Mom wouldn’t even let them spend more than a few minutes on the computer and she always said that the only way she would allow video games in the house was over her dead body. She wasn’t big on letting them watch T.V. either.
“Well, on the bright side, if she says that to Mom or Great-grandmother, maybe we can get some video games or more T.V. time!” Kate said cheerily.
“Fat chance.” Kevin laughed.
“Yeah,” Kate agreed and giggled.
When they brought the basket of peas in to Great-grandmother for shelling, she was standing at the window. Her hands were pressed against it, one to the blue pane. She turned when she heard the children, sadness showing in her eyes.
“Are you feeling okay, Great-grandmother?” Kate asked.
“Yes, darling, just a little tired. I’ll just sit down and shell these peas while you two tidy up a bit.” She smiled and then added mischievously, “There are more than enough here for you two to take some home for dinner!”
Kevin made a face and Great-grandmother laughed. “You know, peas were a favorite of your Great-grandfather’s. I always planted extras so that I would have plenty to put up for the winter so he could enjoy them year round.”
Great-grandfather had died before the children were born and they always enjoyed hearing about him. So while Great-grandmother shelled the peas and the children dusted and vacuumed, Great-grandmother told them stories.
When Kevin and Kate were done, and ready to go home, Great-grandmother went downstairs to find a scrapbook she had promised to send home with the children for their mother. The children looked at each other, and Kevin grabbed the footstool and dragged it over to the window. “Just one quick look,” he whispered, and Kate nodded.
The children climbed up carefully, side by side, and looked out the blue pane in the big window.
Right away, they noticed something strange. In the blue window, it was autumn. They could see the drifts of leaves on the ground under the bare trees. The front flower beds were full of fall flowers. There was a chair out there, too, that the children didn’t remember seeing before. As they watched, a man with a cane walked into the yard. But before they could see who it was, they heard Great-grandmother coming up the stairs. Quickly, they got down and put the footstool back where it belonged. By the time Great-grandmother came in with the scrapbook wrapped up in protective plastic, they were busy packing up some of the peas to take home for dinner – or rather Kate was. Kevin was making faces at the peas and trying to flick them into the garbage can.
The children ran down the front walk carrying the scrapbook and container of peas. Kate happened to look back. Great-grandmother was standing in the window, looking through the blue pane. Kate stopped and nudged Kevin. He turned to look too and then said to Kate, “She looks like she’s crying.”
Kate answered, “I know.”
As they walked home, they talked about what they had seen through the blue pane. “Do you think it was showing us something from a long time in the future, instead of different choice stuff?” Kevin asked.
“Maybe,” Kate said doubtfully, “But why would that make Great-grandmother cry?”
“I don’t know. But at least we know now that she knows about the window.”
“Yeah. But you know, really, how could she not know about it? I think we were fooling ourselves when we thought she didn’t.” Kate shrugged. “But I still don’t want her to know that we know. Especially now that she was crying.”
“But why?” asked Kevin.
“I don’t know. Let’s just wait, okay?”
“Okay. I wonder how you get it to show different times?” The rest of the walk home, they discussed ways to get the window to change the time it showed.
That night, after the dinner, which included the peas that the children had brought home (Kevin tried to hide his under his mashed potatoes), the children’s mother sat down with the scrapbook they had brought home from Great-grandmother’s house. “Do you two want to look at this with me?” she asked as she took the large book out of its plastic wrapper. “It has pictures from Dad’s and my wedding, and lots of other stuff from around that time. Great-grandmother has always been so wonderful about keeping all of this stuff together. I tend to put it in a box, but she makes it beautiful.” Mom patted the sofa on either side of her. Kate came right over. Kevin wasn’t really interested, but he came anyway. It was fun to see what his parents looked like when they were younger.
The first part of the book had Kate ooh-ing and ah-ing over things like the wedding dress and the bride’s maid dresses, but when they got to pictures of the reception, Kevin sat up and took notice.
“Mom, who’s that?” he asked, pointing to an elderly man in one of the photos.
“Oh, dear, that’s your Great-grandfather.”
“But it doesn’t look like that picture of him Great-grandmother keeps in her front room…” Kevin was puzzled.
“Yes Mom, are you sure?” Kate added. “Maybe it’s one of his brothers or something. Look, he’s lots skinnier than Great-grandfather was. And he has a beard.”
“No, that was how he looked not long before he died. He had been very ill for a long time, and he lost a lot of weight. He grew that beard because he said it just took too much energy to shave anymore. In fact, we moved up the wedding just so that he could be there.” Kate and Kevin traded glances over their mother’s lap. The man looked like the man they had seen in the yard, through the blue window pane.
Kate bounced up and grabbed Kevin’s arm.
“I take it you’ve seen enough for one day?” Mom asked dryly, raising her eyebrows.
“Yes-thank-you-come-on-Kevin-let’s-go-play!” Kate said, all in one breath. She and Kevin raced upstairs where they could talk.
“So it must show the past, too, then, instead of just what might happen?” Kate said as soon as they reached her room.
“Yeah – I wonder if it shows the might-have-beens, too, like it does for the future,” Kevin mused.
“Maybe. Maybe that’s why Great-grandmother was crying. Maybe she saw what it would have been like if Great-grandfather was still here.” Kate looked sober.
“Tomorrow we’re supposed to help Great-grandmother clean house again. Let’s see what we can figure out then.”
“Yeah, okay.” Kate looked troubled.
“What’s the matter, Kate?”
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. It just makes me sad to think about Great-grandmother crying at the window like that.”
“Yeah, me too. Let’s see what we can find out tomorrow.” said Kevin.
Kevin and Kate helped Great-grandmother for quite a while the next afternoon, but neither of them could figure out what to say to her or whether to say anything at all. They cleaned windows (but not the front window), washed the kitchen floor (they were both drenched by the time they were done with that job) and finally dusted the front room while Great-grandmother sat and mended some clothes for the children’s mother. (Most of them belonged to Kevin and Kate.)
Finally they finished the last of the chores Great-grandmother needed them to do, and she sent them downstairs to play. As soon as they were down in the playroom, they started whispering to each other.
” Well, were you going to ask her about the window?” Kate demanded.
“I don’t know. I thought we were going to wait,” Kevin replied.
“Yeah, I guess we were, but we aren’t going to learn anything that way. And as long as Great-grandmother can’t go out and work in the yard, we probably won’t get a chance to look out the window ourselves either.” Kate sighed.
“Maybe we could take up one of those scrapbooks of hers and see if we can get her talking about Great-grandfather or something and just kind of slip into talking about the window,” Kevin suggested.
“That’s a good idea, but that made me think of an even better one. There’s a scrapbook around here with pictures of their old house, and that same stained glass window that Great-grandmother brought here when they moved.” Kate ran into the next room and began rummaging in a storage closet.
A few minutes later and little bit dusty, the children came up the stairs with the scrapbook.
But when they got to the top of the steps, they stopped and stared. Great-grandmother, who was always very much in control of herself, stood at the window looking through the blue pane and crying. She was very quiet, but the children could see the shaking of her shoulders and the track of a tear sliding down her cheek from under her glasses.
Kate dropped the scrapbook and the children ran to the old woman.
“Great-grandmother, what’s wrong?” Kate asked as they both hugged her, one on each side.
“What are you seeing out of that blue pane that’s making you cry?” asked Kevin.
Great-grandmother sniffled and gave a little laugh, wiping her eyes with her lacy handkerchief.
“I thought you two had found out about the window.” She hugged the pair of children. “I was seeing Great-grandfather, and remembering, and missing him. I do miss him very much sometimes. Come and let’s sit down and talk. Great-grandmother led the way to the couch.
“How did you know we figured out about the window?” Kevin asked.
“That wasn’t hard, Kevin. You two aren’t nearly as sneaky as you think you are.” Great-grandmother was smiling as she said this, so they knew she wasn’t angry. “The way you insisted on playing in the front, some of the strange remarks I got from the neighbors, and the step-ladder you insisted on storing under this very couch,” Great-grandmother prodded backwards with her foot, “were all very good clues.”
“And,” she continued, “while you two can be a handful at times, you usually don’t bicker quite so much or get into quite as much trouble as you have lately. Really, Kevin, dangling by your tie!” To the children’s surprise, Great-grandmother laughed.
Kevin and Kate looked at each other. They hadn’t realized they were so easy to see through.
“But how does the window work, Great-grandmother? I mean, we saw the future the way things might be if people made other choices, but then the other day we saw Great-grandfather from when he was sick – and you see him in the window, too.” Kate was puzzled.
“And where did it come from?” added Kevin.”
“Let’s start with where it came from. A long time ago,” Great-grandmother began, “when my grandfather was a young man, he worked as a glass maker. He blew glass into wonderful shapes, and molded useful items out of it, and sometimes he would get an order for sheets of colored glass. He got one of these orders – and it was a very large one – from a man who lived in a huge mansion. People said that the man was a wizard, or a magician of some sort. Now my grandfather didn’t know whether this was so or not, but the man was willing to pay a lot of money for some very fancy sheets of glass to make into a stained glass window, so my grandfather agreed to fill the order.
“It took my grandfather and his apprentices a long time to get the order done, because the colors had to be just so and it was hard to get the large sheets of glass just right without fancy modern machinery. When they finally finished the order and delivered it, the man told my grandfather that he had had what he called a ‘reversal of fortunes’, meaning that he wasn’t wealthy anymore, and he couldn’t pay for the glass. So he offered a trade, instead.
“The man said that if my grandfather would let him keep the glass, he would make a magic window for my grandfather out of part of the glass. Moreover, he would make it a stained glass window, for that was something he was skilled at. The artistry of the window itself would be worth quite a bit, the man told him, and the magic in it would make it worth even more.
“Since my grandfather would be stuck with the special order otherwise, he reluctantly agreed. He thought that if nothing else, he could sell the stained glass window and get back some of his money.”
Kevin and Kate were listening as hard as they could as Great-grandmother continued.
“A few weeks later, the man sent word that my grandfather was to come and pick up his window. I remember my grandfather telling me that when he first laid eyes on it, he knew he had made the right decision. It was truly a thing of beauty, he said, whether it was magic or not.
“Then the man showed him the magic in the window. ‘Each pane will show you a different time or place,’ the man said. ‘If you want to see the past, for instance, think about when you want to see and look through here,’ and he pointed to a certain pane, ‘And if you want to see a city far away, think about the place and then look through here,’ and he pointed to another pane. Each of the panes had a certain magic in it, and he explained each one. ‘Last of all, if you want to see the future, look here.’ Again he pointed out a particular pane. ‘It will only go a very short time into the future, though, for the future is too uncertain.’
“My grandfather tried out each pane as he was directed to, and was amazed. ‘This is worth far more than the glass I made for you, sir!’ he told the man. But the man told him that the glass had been made and delivered in good faith, and that payment was due. This was the best payment he could manage since he no longer had the money.
“My grandfather took the window and put it in his house and kept it. He couldn’t even think of selling it. He and all of his children enjoyed it for many years. Then, one day, the neighbor’s house caught on fire and the fire spread to my grandfather’s house. The house was destroyed, and the window was, too. When my grandfather and his family went back to see what they could salvage from the fire, they found that most of the window had shattered into pieces too small to save. The one exception was a piece of blue glass.
“My grandfather made the blue piece part of a new window and soon discovered that although it was the only piece of glass left, it seemed to have the properties of all of the pieces of the window combined. He said that he thought the fire must have fused all the magic into that one piece.”
Kate and Kevin looked wide-eyed at the blue pane of the window. “So it’s really magic!” Kate breathed.
Kevin said, “How many people know about it? I mean, besides us.”
“My grandfather always let people find out about the window on their own. I don’t know why; probably because it was such an unlikely thing that he didn’t want people trying to steal it. His children, including my father, knew of course, but beyond that, not everyone found out about it. I did, and one of my brothers, a few of our cousins, and so on. Your father figured it out, too, but you two are the only ones since him to know about the window.” Great-grandmother looked at them and smiled. “I should have known that you two would figure it out.”
“So tell me,” she asked, ” what have you seen through the window?”
Kevin and Kate told her about seeing the future as it might have been, and trying first to help others and then to help themselves with it. Great-grandmother burst out laughing several times as Kevin and Kate turned red remembering their mistakes and accidents.
“That really does explain some of the comments I’ve received from people,” she chuckled. “And I think you two get the prize for the most creative use of the window of anyone in the history of the thing!”
“How come it always went wrong, Great-grandmother?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah, I mean even when we were trying to help other people, it went wrong,” Kate added.
“That’s probably because, like the man who made the window said, the future is such a changeable thing. Any action you take can make the future you saw change. The window is good for amusement, for making you thoughtful, for remembering things, but it won’t really change things in a desired way.”
Kate and Kevin looked thoughtful and nodded. “I think I get it,” Kevin said. “We tried to make the future go the way we wanted it to by using the window instead of thinking about what we were doing.”
“Yeah, and we were trying to change things we didn’t have any control over sometimes, too, instead of changing our own actions,” Kate agreed.
Great-grandmother hugged them again and said, “I think the window taught you something very valuable, children. Now let me tell you about some of the trouble your father got into with that window the time he used it to study history instead of using his history book…”
She Wolf © 2008
1 response so far ↓
Amie // September 5, 2008 at 2:11 am |
You have nothing to fear! This is amazing!!!!
You are really talented. I am thoroughly impressed.