Madeleine L'engle - Time Quartet 02 - A Wind in the Door

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W-in-Time - Wind in the Door, A
W-in-Time - Wind in the Door, A - L'Engle, Madeline.
1 Charles Wallace's Dragons.
"There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden." Meg Murry took her head out of the refrigerator
where she had been foraging for an after-school snack, and looked at her six-year-old brother. "What?"
"There are dragons in the twins' vegetable garden. Or there were. They've moved to the north pasture
now." Meg, not replying—it did not do to answer Charles Wallace too quickly when he said something
odd—returned to the refrigerator. "I suppose I'll have lettuce and tomato as usual. I was looking for
something new and different and exciting." "Meg, did you hear me?" "Yes, I heard you. I think I'll have
liverwurst and cream cheese." She took her sandwich materials and a bottle of milk and set them out on
the kitchen table. Charles Wallace waited patiently. She looked at him, scowling with an anxiety she did
not like to admit to herself, at the fresh rips in the knees of his blue jeans, the streaks of dirt grained deep
in his shirt, a darkening bruise on the cheekbone under his left eye. "Okay, did the big boys jump you in
the schoolyard this time, or when you got off the bus?" "Meg, you aren't listening to me." "I happen to
care that you've been in school for two months now and not a single week has gone by that you haven't
been roughed up. If you've been talking about dragons in the garden or wherever they are, I suppose that
explains it." "I haven't. Don't underestimate me. I didn't see them till I got home." Whenever Meg was
deeply worried she got angry. Now she scowled at her sandwich. "I wish Mother'd get the spreadable
kind of cream cheese. This stuff keeps going right through the bread. Where is she?" "In the lab, doing an
experiment. She said to tell you she wouldn't be long." "Where's Father?" "He got a call from L.A., and
he's gone to Washington for a couple of days." Like the dragons in the garden, their father's visits to the
White House were something best not talked about at school. Unlike the dragons, these visits were real.
Charles Wallace picked up Meg's doubting. "But I saw them, Meg, the dragons. Eat your sandwich
and come see." "Where're Sandy and Dennys?" "Soccer practice. I haven't told anybody but you."
Suddenly sounding forlorn, younger than his six years, he said, "I wish the high-school bus got home
earlier. I've been waiting and waiting for you." Meg returned to the refrigerator to get lettuce. This was a
cover for some rapid thinking, although she couldn't count on Charles Wallace not picking up her
thoughts, as he had picked up her doubts about the dragons. What he had actually seen she could not
begin to guess. That he had seen something, something unusual, she was positive.
Charles Wallace silently watched her finish making the sandwich, carefully aligning the slices of bread
and cutting it in precise sections. "I wonder if Mr. Jenkins has ever seen a dragon?" Mr. Jenkins was the
principal of the village school, and Meg had had her own troubles with him. She had small hope that Mr.
Jenkins would care what happened to Charles Wallace, or that he would be willing to interfere in what he
called 'the normal procedures of democracy.' "Mr. Jenkins believes in the law of the jungle." She spoke
through a mouthful. "Aren't there dragons in the jungle?" Charles Wallace finished his glass of milk. "No
wonder you always flunk social studies. Eat your sandwich and stop stalling. Let's go and see if they're
still there." They crossed the lawn, followed by Fortinbras, the large, black, almost-Labrador dog,
happily sniffing and snuffling at the rusty autumnal remains of the rhubarb patch. Meg tripped over a
wire hoop from the croquet set, and made an annoyed grunt, mostly at herself, because she had put the
wickets and mallets away after the last game, and forgotten this one. A low wall of barberry separated the
croquet lawn from Sandy's and Dennys's vegetable garden. Fortinbras leaped over the barberry, and Meg
called automatically, "Not in the garden, Fort," and the big dog backed out, between rows of cabbage and
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broccoli. The twins were justly proud of their organic produce, which they sold around the village for
pocket money.
"A dragon could make a real mess of this garden," Charles Wallace said, and led Meg through rows of
vegetables. "I think he realized that, because suddenly he sort of wasn't there." "What do you mean, he
sort of wasn't there? Either he was there, or he wasn't." "He was there, and then when I went to look
closer, he wasn't there, and I followed him—not really him, because he was much faster than I, and I
only followed where he'd been. And he went to the big glacial rocks in the north pasture." Meg looked
scowlingly at the garden. Never before had Charles Wallace sounded as implausible as this.
He said, "Come on," and moved past the tall sheaves of corn, which had only a few scraggly ears left.
Beyond the corn the sunflowers caught the slanting rays of the afternoon sun, then* golden faces
reflecting brilliance.
"Charles, are you all right?" Meg asked. It was not like Charles to lose touch with reality. Then she
noticed that he was breathing heavily, as if he had been running, though they had not been walking
rapidly. His face was pale, his forehead beaded with perspiration, as though from over-exertion.
She did not like the way he looked, and she turned her mind back to the unlikely tale of dragons,
picking her way around the luxuriant pumpkin vines, "Charles, when did you see these—dragons?" "A
dollop of dragons, a drove of dragons, a drive of dragons," Charles Wallace panted. "After I got home
from school. Mother was all upset because I looked such a mess. My nose was still very bloody." "I get
upset, too." "Meg, Mother thinks it's more than the bigger kids punching me." "What's more?" Charles
Wallace scrambled with unusual clumsiness and difficulty over the low stone wall which edged the
orchard. "I get out of breath." Meg said sharply, "Why? What did Mother say?" Charles walked slowly
through the high grass in the orchard. "She hasn't said. But it's sort of like radar blipping at me." Meg
walked beside him. She was tall for her age, and Charles Wallace small for his. "There are times when I
wish you didn't pick up radar signals quite so well." "I can't help it, Meg. I don't try to. It just happens.
Mother thinks something is wrong with me." "But what?" she almost shouted.
Charles Wallace spoke very quietly. "I don't know. Something bad enough so her worry blips loud and
clear. And I know there's something wrong. Just to walk across the orchard like this is an effort, and it
shouldn't be. It never has been before." "When did this start?" she asked sharply. "You were all right last
weekend when we went walking in the woods." "I know. I've been sort of tired all autumn, but it's been
worse this week, and much worse today than it was yesterday. Hey, Meg! Stop blaming yourself because
you didn't notice." She had been doing precisely that. Her hands felt cold with panic. She tried to push
her fear away, because Charles Wallace could read his sister even more easily than he could their mother.
He picked up a windfall apple, looked it over for worms, and bit into it. His end-of-summer tan could not
disguise his extreme pallor, nor his shadowed eyes; why hadn't she noticed this? Because she hadn't
wanted to. It was easier to blame Charles Wallace's paleness and lethargy on his problems at school.
"Why doesn't Mother have a doctor look at you, then? I mean a real doctor?" "She has." "When?"
"Today." "Why didn't you tell me before?" "I was more interested in dragons." "Charles!" "It was before
you got home from school. Dr. Louise came to have lunch with Mother—she does, quite often,
anyhow—" "I know. Go on." "So when I got home from school she went over me, from top to toe."
"What did she say?" "Nothing much. I can't read her the way I can read Mother. She's like a little bird,
twittering away, and all the time you know that sharp mind of hers is thinking along on another level.
She's very good at blocking me. All I could gather was that she thought Mother might be right about—
about whatever it is. And she'd keep in touch." They had finished crossing the orchard and Charles
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Wallace climbed up onto the wall again and stood there, looking across an unused pasture where there
were two large out-croppings of glacial rock. "They're gone," he said. "My dragons are gone." Meg stood
on the wall beside him. There was nothing to see except the wind blowing through the sun-bleached
grasses, and 'the two tall rocks, turning purple in the autumn evening light. "Are you sure it wasn't just
the rocks or shadows or something?" "Do rocks or shadows look like dragons?" "No, but—" "Meg, they
were right by the rocks, all sort of clustered together, wings, it looked like hundreds of wings, and eyes
opening and shutting between the wings, and some smoke and little spurts of fire, and I warned them not
to set the pasture on fire." "How did you warn them?" "I spoke to them. In a loud voice. And the flames
stopped." "Did you go close?" "It didn't seem wise. I stayed here on the wall and watched for a long time.
They kept folding and unfolding wings and sort of winking all those eyes at me, and then they all seemed
to huddle together and go to sleep, so I went home to wait for you. Meg! You don't believe me." She
asked, flatly, "Well, where have they gone?" "You've never not believed me before." She said, carefully,
"It's not that I don't believe you." In a strange way she did believe him. Not, perhaps, that he had seen
actual dragons—but Charles Wallace had never before tended to mix fact and fancy. Never before had he
separated reality and illusion in such a marked way. She looked at him, saw that he had a sweatshirt on
over his grubby shut. She held her arms about herself, shivered, and said—although she was quite warm
enough— "I think I'll go back to the house and get a cardigan. Wait here. I won't be long. If the dragons
come back—" "I think they will come back." "Then keep them here for me. I'll be as fast as I can."
Charles Wallace looked at her levelly. "I don't think Mother wants to be interrupted right now." "I'm not
going to interrupt her. I'm just going to get my cardigan." "Okay, Meg," he sighed.
She left him sitting on the wall, looking at the two great glacial deposits, waiting for dragons, or
whatever it was he thought he'd seen. All right, he knew that she was going back to the house to talk to
their mother, but as long as she didn't admit it out loud she felt that she managed to keep at least a little
of her worry from him.
She burst into the laboratory.
Her mother was sitting on a tall lab stool, not looking into the microscope in front of her, not writing
on the clipboard which rested on her knee, just sitting thoughtfully. "What is it, Meg?" She started to
blurt out Charles Wallace's talk of dragons, and that he had never had delusions before, but since Charles
Wallace himself had not mentioned them to their mother, it seemed like a betrayal for her to do so,
though his silence about the dragons may have been because of the presence of Dr. Louise.
Her mother repeated, a little impatiently, "What is it, Meg?" "What's wrong with Charles Wallace?"
Mrs. Murry put the clipboard down on the lab counter beside the microscope. "He had some trouble with
the bigger boys again in school today." "That's not what I mean." "What do you mean, Meg?" "He said
you had Dr. Colubra here for him." "Louise was here for lunch, so I thought she might as well have a
look at him." "And?" "And what, Meg?" "What's the matter with him?" "We don't know, Meg. Not yet,
at any rate." "Charles says you're worried about him." "I am. Aren't you?" "Yes. But I thought it was all
school. And now I don't think it is. He got out of breath just walking across the orchard. And he's too
pale. And he imagines things. And he looks—I don't like the way he looks." "Neither do I." "What is it?
What's wrong? Is it a virus or something?" Mrs. Murry hesitated. "I'm not sure." "Mother, please, if
there's anything really wrong with Charles I'm old enough to know." "I don't know whether there is or
not. Neither does Louise. When we find out anything definite, I'll tell you. I promise you that." "You're
not hiding anything?" "Meg, there's no use talking about something I'm not sure of. I should know in a
few days." Meg twisted her hands together nervously. "You really are worried." Mrs. Murry smiled.
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"Mothers tend to be. Where is he now?" "Oh—I left him on the stone wall—I said I was coming in for a
cardigan. I've got to run back or he'll think—" Without finishing she rushed out of the lab, grabbed a
cardigan from one of the hooks in the pantry, and ran across the lawn.
When she reached Charles Wallace he was sitting on the wall, just as she had left him. There was no
sign of dragons.
She had not really expected that there would be. Nevertheless, she was disappointed, her anxiety about
Charles subtly deepened.
"What did Mother say?" he asked.
"Nothing." His large, deep-seeing blue eyes focused on her. "She didn't mention mitochondria? Or
farandolae?" "Hunh? Why should she?" Charles Wallace kicked the rubber heels of his sneakers against
the wall, looked at Meg, did not answer.
Meg persisted, "Why should Mother mention mitochondria? Isn't that—talking about them—what got
you into trouble your very first day in school?" "I am extremely interested in them. And in dragons. I'm
sorry they haven't come back yet." He was very definitely changing the subject. "Let's wait a while
longer for them. I'd rather face a few dragons any day than the kids in the schoolyard. Thank you for
going to see Mr. Jenkins on my behalf, Meg." That was supposed to be a deep, dark secret. "How did you
know?" "I knew." Meg hunched her shoulders. "Not that it did any good." She had not really had much
hope that it would. Mr. Jenkins had been, for several years, the principal of the large regional high
school. When he was moved, just that September, to the small grade school in the village, the official
story was that the school needed upgrading, and Mr. Jenkins was the only man to do the job. The rumor
was that he hadn't been able to handle the wilder element over at Regional. Meg had her doubts whether
or not he could handle anybody, anywhere. And she was completely convinced that he would neither
understand nor like Charles Wallace.
The morning that Charles Wallace set off for first grade, Meg was far more nervous than he was. She
could not concentrate during her last classes, and when school was finally over and she climbed the hill
to the house and found him with a puffed and bleeding upper lip and a scrape across his cheek, she had a
sulking feeling of inevitability combined with a burning rage. Charles Wallace had always been thought
of by the villagers as peculiar, and probably not quite all there. Meg, picking up mail at the post office, or
eggs at the store, overheard snatches of conversations: That littlest Murry kid is a weird one. I hear clever
people often have dumb kids. They say he can't even talk.' It would have been easier if Charles Wallace
had actually been stupid. But he wasn't, and he wasn't very good at pretending that he didn't know more
than the other six-year-olds in his class. His vocabulary itself was against him; he had, in fact, not started
talking until late, but then it was in complete sentences, with none of the baby preliminaries. In front of
strangers he still seldom spoke at all—one of the reasons he was thought dumb; and suddenly there he
was in first grade and talking like—like his parents, or his sister. Sandy and Dennys got along with
everybody. It wasn't surprising that Charles was resented; everybody expected him to be backward, and
he talked like a dictionary.
"Now, children"—the first-grade teacher smiled brightly at the gaggle of new first-graders staring at
her that first morning—"I want each one of you to tell me something about yourselves." She looked at
her list. "Let's start with Mary Agnes. Which one is Mary Agnes?" A small girl with one missing front
tooth, and straw-colored hair pulled tightly into pigtails, announced that she lived on a farm and that she
had her own chickens; that morning there had been seventeen eggs.
"Very good, Mary Agnes. Now, let*s see, how about you, Richard—are you called Dicky?" A fat little
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boy stood up, bobbing and grinning.
"What have you got to tell us?" "Boys ain't like girls," Dicky said. "Boys is made different, see,
like—" "That's fine, Dicky, just fine. Well learn more about that later. Now, Albertina, suppose you tell
us something." Albertina was repeating first grade. She stood up, almost a head taller than the others, and
announced proudly, "Our bodies are made up of bones and skinses and muskle and blood cells and stuff
like that." "Very good, Albertina. Isn't that good, class? I can see we're going to have a group of real
scientists this year. Let's all clap for Albertina, shall we? Now, uh"—she looked down at her list
again—"Charles Wallace. Are you called Charlie?" "No," he said. "Charles Wallace, please." "Your
parents are scientists, aren't they?" She did not wait for an answer. "Let's see what you have to tell us."
Charles Wallace ('You should have known better!' Meg scolded him that night) stood and said, "What
I'm interested in right now are the farandolae and the mitochondria." "What was that, Charles? The
mighty what?" "Mitochondria. They and the farandolae come from the prokaryocytes—" "The what?"
"Well, billions of years ago they probably swam into what eventually became our eukaryotic cells and
they've just stayed there. They have their own DNA and RNA, which means they're quite separate from
us. They have a symbiotic relationship with us, and the amazing thing is that we're completely dependent
on them for our oxygen." "Now, Charles, suppose you stop making silly things up, and the next time I
call on you, don't try to show off. Now, George, you tell the class something . . ." At the end of the
second week of school, Charles Wallace paid Meg an evening visit in her attic bedroom.
"Charles," she said, "can't you just not say anything at all?" Charles Wallace, in yellow footed
pajamas, his fresh wounds band-aided, his small nose looking puffy and red, lay on the foot of Meg's big
brass bed, his head pillowed on the shiny black bulk of the dog, Fortinbras. He sounded weary, and
lethargic, although she hadn't noticed this at the time. "It doesn't work. Nothing works. If I don't talk, I'm
sulking. If I talk I say something wrong. I've finished the workbook—the teacher said you must've helped
me— and I know the reader by heart." Meg, circling her knees with her arms, looked down at boy and
dog; Fortinbras was strictly not allowed on beds, but this rule was ignored in the attic. "Why don't they
move you up to second grade?" "That would be even worse. They're that much bigger than I." Yes. She
knew that was true.
So she decided to go see Mr. Jenkins. She boarded the high-school bus as usual at seven o'clock, in the
grey, uninviting light of an early morning brewing a nor'easter. The grade-school bus, which had not
nearly so far to go, left an hour later. When the high-school bus made its first. stop in the village she
slipped off, and then walked the two miles to the grade school. It was an old, inadequate building,
painted the traditional red, overcrowded and understaffed. It certainly did need upgrading, and taxes were
being raised for a new school.
She slipped through the side door which the custodian opened early. She could hear the buzz of his
electric floor polisher in the front hall by the still-locked entrance doors, and under cover of its busy
sound she ran across the hall and darted into a small broom closet and leaned, too noisily for comfort,
against the hanging brooms and dry mops. The closet smelted musty and dusty and she hoped she could
keep from sneezing until Mr. Jenkins was in his office and his secretary had brought him his ritual mug
of coffee. She shifted position and leaned against the corner, where she could see the glass top of the
door to Mr. Jenkins's office through the narrow crack.
She was stuffy-nosed and cramp-legged when the light in the office finally went on. Then she waited
for what seemed all day but was more like half an hour, while she listened to the click of the secretary's
heels on the polished tile floor, then the roar of children entering the school as the doors were unlocked.
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She thought of Charles Wallace being pushed along by the great wave of children, mostly much bigger
than he was.
—It's like the mob after Julius Caesar, she thought,— only Charles isn't much like Caesar. But I’ll bet
life was simpler when all Gaul was divided in three parts.
The bell screamed for the beginning of classes. The secretary clicked along the corridor again. That
would be with Mr. Jenkins's coffee. The high heels receded. Meg waited for what she calculated was five
minutes, then emerged, pressing her forefinger against her upper lip to stifle a sneeze. She crossed the
corridor and knocked on Mr. Jenkins's door, just as the sneeze burst out anyhow.
He seemed surprised to see her, as well he might, and not at all pleased, though his actual words were,
"May I ask to what I owe this pleasure?" "I need to see you, please, Mr. Jenkins." "Why aren't you in
school?" "I am. This school." "Kindly don't be rude, Meg. I see you haven't changed any over the
summer. I had hoped you would not be one of my problems this year. Have you informed anybody of
your whereabouts?" The early morning light glinted off his spectacles, veiling his eyes. Meg pushed her
own spectacles up her nose, but could not read his expression; as usual, she thought, he looked as though
he smelled something unpleasant.
He sniffed. "I will have my secretary drive you to school. That will mean the loss of her services for a
full half day." “I’ll hitchhike, thanks." "Compounding one misdemeanor with another? In this state,
hitchhiking happens to be against the law." "Mr. Jenkins, I didn't come to talk to you about hitchhiking, I
came to talk to you about Charles Wallace." "I don't appreciate your interference, Margaret." "The bigger
boys are bullying him. They'll really hurt him if you don't stop them." "If anybody is dissatisfied with my
handling of the situation and wishes to discuss it with me, I think it should be your parents." Meg tried to
control herself, but her voice rose with frustrated anger. "Maybe they're cleverer than I am and know it
won't do any good. Oh, please, please, Mr. Jenkins, I know people have thought Charles Wallace isn't
very bright, but he's really—" He cut across her words. "We've run IQ tests on all the first-graders. Your
little brother's IQ is quite satisfactory." "You know it's more than that, Mr. Jenkins. My parents have run
tests on him, too, all kinds of tests. His IQ is so high it's untestable by normal standards." "His
performance gives no indication of this." "Don't you understand, he's trying to hold back so the boys
won't beat him up? He doesn't understand them, and they don't understand him. How many first-graders
know about farandolae?" "I don't know what you're talking about, Margaret. I do know that Charles
Wallace does not seem to me to be very strong." "He's perfectly all right!" "He is extremely pale, and
there are dark circles under his eyes." "How would you look if people punched you in the nose and kept
giving you black eyes just because you know more than they do?" "If he's so bright"—Mr. Jenkins
looked coldly at her through the magnifying lenses of his spectacles—"I wonder your parents bother to
send him to school at all?" "If there weren't a law about it, they probably wouldn't." Now, standing by
Charles Wallace on the stone wall, looking at the two glacial rocks where no dragons lurked, Meg
recalled Mr. Jenkins's words about Charles Wallace's pallor, and shivered.
Charles asked, "Why do people always mistrust people who are different? Am I really that different?"
Meg, moving the tip of her tongue over her teeth which had only recently lost their braces, looked at him
affectionately and sadly. "Oh, Charles, I don't know. I'm your sister. I've known you ever since you were
born. I'm too close to you to know." She sat on the stone wall, first carefully checking the rocks: a large,
gentle, and completely harmless black snake lived in the stone wall. She was a special pet of the twins,
and they had watched her grow from a small snakelet to her present flourishing size. She was named
Louise, after Dr. Louise Colubra, because the twins had learned just enough Latin to pounce on the odd
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last name.
"Dr. Snake," Dennys had said. "Weirdo." "It's a nice name," Sandy said. "We'll name our snake after
her. Louise the Larger." "Why the Larger?" "Why not?" "Does she have to be larger than anything?"
"She is." "She certainly isn't larger than Dr. Louise." Dennys bristled. "Louise the Larger is very large for
a snake who lives in a garden wall, and Dr. Louise is a very small doctor—I mean, she's a tiny person. I
suppose as a doctor she's pretty mammoth." "Well, doctors don't have to be any size. But you're right,
Den, she is tiny. And our snake is big." The twins seldom disagreed about anything for long.
"The only trouble is, she's more like a bird than a snake." "Didn't snakes and birds, way back in
evolution, didn't they evolve originally from the same phylum, or whatever you call it? Anyhow, Louise
is a very good name for our snake." Dr. Louise, fortunately, was highly amused. Snakes were
misunderstood creatures, she told the twins, and she was honored to have such a handsome one named
after her. And snakes, she added, were on the caduceus, which is the emblem for doctors, so it was all
most appropriate.
Louise the Larger had grown considerably since her baptism, and Meg, though not actively afraid of
her, was always careful to look for Louise before she sat. Louise, at this moment, was nowhere to be
seen, so Meg relaxed and turned her thoughts again to Charles Wallace. "You're a lot brighter than the
twins, but the twins are far from dumb. How do they manage?" Charles Wallace said, "I wish they'd tell
me." "They don't talk at school the way they do at home, for one thing." "I thought if I was interested in
mitochondria and farandolae, other people would be, too." "You were wrong." "I really am interested in
them. Why is that so peculiar?" "I don't suppose it is so peculiar for the son of a physicist and a
biologist." "Most people aren't. Interested, I mean." "They aren't children of two scientists, either. Our
parents provide us with all kinds of disadvantages. I'll never be as beautiful as Mother." Charles Wallace
was tired of reassuring Meg. "And the incredible thing about farandolae is their size." Meg was thinking
about her hair, the ordinary straight brown of a field mouse, as against her mother's auburn waves. "What
about it?" "They're so small that all anyone can do is postulate them; even the most powerful micro-
electron microscope can't show them. But they're important to us—we'd die if we didn't have farandolae.
But nobody at school is remotely interested. Our teacher has the mind of a grasshopper. As you were
saying, it's not an advantage having famous parents." "If they weren't famous—you bet everybody knows
when L.A. calls, or Father makes a trip to the White House— they'd be in for it too7 We're all different,
our family. Except the twins. They do all right. Maybe because they're normal. Or know how to act it.
But then I wonder what normal is, anyhow, or isn't? Why are you so interested in f arandolae?" "Mother's
working on them." "She's worked on lots of things and you haven't been this interested." "If she really
proves their existence, she'll probably get the Nobel Prize." "So? That's not what's bugging you about
them." x "Meg, if something happens to our farandolae—well, it would be disastrous." "Why?" Meg
shivered, suddenly cold, and buttoned her cardigan. Clouds were scudding across the sky, and with them
a rising wind.
"I mentioned mitochondria, didn't I?" "You did. What about them?" "Mitochondria are tiny little
organisms living in our cells. That gives you an idea of how tiny they are, doesn't it?" "Enough." "A
human being is a whole world to a mitochondrion, just the way our planet is to us. But we're much more
dependent on our mitochondria than the earth is on us. The earth could get along perfectly well without
people, but if anything happened to our mitochondria, we'd die." "Why should anything happen to
them?" Charles Wallace gave a small shrug. In the darkening light he looked very pale. "Accidents
happen to people. Or diseases. Things can happen to anything. But what I've sort of picked up from
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Mother is that quite a lot of mitochondria are in some kind of trouble because of their f aran-dolae." "Has
Mother actually told you all this?" "Some of it. The rest I've just—gathered." Charles Wallace did gather
things out of his mother's mind, out of Meg's mind, as another child might gather daisies in a field. "What
are farandolae, then?" She shifted position on the hard rocks of the wall.
"Farandolae live in a mitochondrion sort of the same way a mitochondrion lives in a human cell.
They're genetically independent of their mitochondria, just as mitochondria are of us. And if anything
happens to the farandolae in a mitochondrion, the mitochondrion gets—gets sick. And probably dies." A
dry leaf separated from its stem and drifted past Meg's cheek. "Why should anything happen to them?"
she repeated.
Charles Wallace repeated, too, "Accidents happen to people, don't they? And disease. And people
killing each other in wars." "Yes, but that's people. Why are you going on so about mitochondria and
farandolae?" "Meg, Mother's been working in her lab, night and day, almost literally, for several weeks
now. You've noticed that." "She often does when she's on to something." "She's on to farandolae. She
thinks she's proved their existence by studying some mitochondria, mitochondria which are dying."
"You're not talking about all this stuff at school, are you?" "I do learn some things, Meg. You aren't
really listening to me." "I'm worried about you." "Then listen. The reason Mother's been in her lab so
much trying to find the effect of farandolae on mitochondria is that she thinks there's something wrong
with my mitochondria." "What?" Meg jumped down from the stone wall and swung around to face her
brother.
He spoke very quietly, so that she had to bend down to hear. "If my mitochondria get sick, then so do
I." All the fear which Meg had been trying to hold back threatened to break loose. "How serious is it?
Can Mother give you something for it?" "I don't know. She won't talk to me. I'm only guessing. She's
trying to shut me out till she knows more, and I can only get in through the chinks. Maybe it's not really
serious. Maybe it's all just school; I really do get punched or knocked down almost every day. It's enough
to make me feel— Hey—look at Louise!" Meg turned, following his gaze. Louise the Larger was
slithering along the stones of the wall towards them, moving rapidly, sinuously, her black curves
shimmering purple and silver in the autumn light. Meg cried, "Charles! Quick!" He did not move. "She
won't hurt us." "Charles, run! She's going to attack!" But Louise stopped her advance, just a few feet
from Charles Wallace, and raised herself up, uncoiling until she stood, barely on the last few inches of
her length, rearing up and looking around expectantly.
Charles Wallace said, "There's someone near. Someone Louise knows." "The—the dragons?" "I don't
know. I can't see anything. Hush, let me feel." He closed his eyes, not to shut out Louise, not to shut out
Meg, but in order1 to see with his inner eye. "The dragons —I think—and a man, but more than a
man—very tall and—" He opened his eyes, and pointed into the shadows where the trees crowded
thickly together. "Look!" Meg thought she saw a dim giant shape moving towards them, but before she
could be sure, Fortinbras came galloping across the orchard, barking wildly. It was not his angry bark,
but the loud announcing bark with which he greeted either of the Murry parents when they had been
away. Then, with his heavy black tail lifted straight out behind him, his nose pointing and quivering, he
stalked the length of the orchard, jumped the wall to the north pasture, and ran, still sniffing, to one of the
big glacial rocks.
Charles Wallace, panting with effort, followed him.
ties going to where my dragons were! Come on, Meg, maybe he's found fewmets!" She hurried after
boy and dog. "How would you know a dragon dropping? Fewmets probably look like bigger and better
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W-in-Time - Wind in the Door, A
cow pies." Charles Wallace was down on his hands and knees. "Look." On the moss around the rock was
a small drift of feathers. They did not look like bird feathers. They were extraordinarily soft and
sparkling at the same time; and between the feathers were bits of glinting silver-gold, leaf-shaped scales
which, Meg thought, might well belong to dragons.
"You see, Meg! They were here! My dragons were here!" 2 A Rip in the Galaxy.
When Meg and Charles Wallace returned to the house, silently, each holding strange and new
thoughts, evening was moving in with the wind. The twins were waiting for them, and wanted Charles
Wallace to go out in the last of the light to play catch.
"It's too dark already," Charles Wallace said.
"We've got a few minutes. Come on, Charles. You may be bright, but you're slow at playing ball. I
could pitch when I was six, and you can't even catch without fumbling." Dennys patted Charles, a pat
more like a whack. "He's improving. Come on, we've only got a few minutes." Charles Wallace shook
his head. He did not mention that he did not feel well; he just said, firmly, "Not tonight." Meg left the
twins still arguing with him, and went into the kitchen. Mrs. Murry was just coming in from the
laboratory, and her mind was still on her work. She peered vaguely into the refrigerator.
Meg confronted her, "Mother, Charles Wallace thinks something is wrong with his mitochondria or
farandolae or something." Mrs. Murry shut the refrigerator door. "Sometimes Charles Wallace thinks too
much." "What does Dr. Colubra think? About this mitochondria bit?" "That it's a possibility. Louise
thinks the bad flu strain this autumn, which has caused a lot of deaths, may not be flu at all, but
mitochondritis." "And that's what Charles maybe has?" "I don't know, Meg. I'm trying to find out. When
I know something, I will tell you. I've already said that. Meanwhile, let me alone." Meg took a step
backwards, sat down on one of the dining chairs. Her mother never talked in that cold, shutting-out way
to her children. It must mean that she was very worried indeed.
Mrs. Murry turned towards Meg with an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Megatron. I didn't mean to be sharp.
I'm in the difficult position of knowing more about the possible ailments of mitochondria than almost
anybody else today. I didn't expect to be confronted with the results of my work quite so soon. And I still
don't know enough to tell you— or.Louise—anything definite. Meanwhile, there's no point in our getting
all worried unless we know there's a real reason. Right now we'd better concentrate on Charles Wallace's
problems at school." "Is he well enough to go to school?" "I think so. For now. I don't want to take him
out until I have to." "Why not?" "He'd just have to go back eventually, Meg, and then things would be
harder than ever. If he can just get through these first weeks—" "Mother, nobody around here has ever
known a six-year-old boy like Charles." "He's extremely intelligent. But there was a day when it wasn't
unusual for a twelve- or thirteen-year-old to graduate from Harvard, or Oxford or Cambridge." "It's
unusual today. And you and Father can hardly send him to Harvard at six. Anyhow, it isn't just that he's
intelligent. How does he know what we're thinking and feeling? I don't know how much you've told him,
but he knows an awful lot about mitochondria and farandolae." "I've told him a reasonable amount." "He
knows more than a reasonable amount. And he knows you're worried about him." Mrs. Murry perched on
one of the high stools by the kitchen counter which divided the work area from the rest of the bright,
rambly dining and studying room. She sighed, "You're right, Meg. Charles Wallace not only has a good
mind, he has extraordinary powers of intuition. If he can - learn to discipline and channel them when he
grows up—if he—" She broke off. "I have to think about getting dinner." Meg knew when to stop
pushing her mother. "I'll help. What're we having?" She did not mention Charles Wallace's dragons. She
did not mention Louise the Larger's strange behavior, nor the shadow of whatever it was they had not
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W-in-Time - Wind in the Door, A
quite seen.
"Oh, spaghetti's easy"—Mrs. Murry pushed a curl of dark red hair back from her forehead—"and good
on an autumn night." "And we've got all the tomatoes and peppers and stuff from the twins' garden.
Mother, I love the twins even when they get in my hair, but Charles—" "I know, Meg. You and Charles
have always had a very special relationship." "Mother, I can't stand what's happening to him at school."
"Neither can I, Meg." "Then what are you doing about it?" "We're trying to do nothing. It would be
easy—for now —to take Charles out of school. We thought about that immediately, even before he—
But Charles Wallace is going to have to live in a world made up of people who don't think at all in any of
the ways that he does, and the sooner he starts learning to get along with them, the better. Neither you
nor Charles has the ability to adapt that the twins do." "Charles is a lot brighter than the twins." "A life
form which can't adapt doesn't last very long." "I still don't like it." "Neither do your father and I, Meg.
Bear with us. Remember, you do have a tendency to rush in when the best thing to do is wait and be
patient for a while." "I'm not in the least patient." "Is that for my information?" Mrs. Murry took
tomatoes, onions, green and red peppers, garlic and leeks, out of the vegetable bin. Then, starting to slice
onions into a large, black iron pot, she said thoughtfully, "You know, Meg, you went through a pretty
rough time at school yourself." "Not as bad as Charles. And I'm not as bright as Charles —except maybe
in math." "Possibly you're not—though you do tend to underestimate your own particular capacities.
What I'm getting at is that you do seem, this year, to be finding school moderately bearable." "Mr.
Jenkins isn't there any more. And Calvin O'Keefe is. Calvin's important. He's the basketball star and
president of the senior class and everything. Anybody Calvin likes is sort of protected by his—his aura."
"Why do you suppose Calvin likes you?" "Not because of my beauty, that's for sure." "But he does like
you, doesn't he, Meg?" "Well, yes, I guess so, but Calvin likes lots of people. And he could have any girl
in 'school if he wanted to." "But he chose you, didn't he?" Meg could feel herself flushing. She put her
hands up to her cheeks. "Well. Yes. But it's different. It's because of some of the things we've been
through together. And we're friend-friends—I mean, we're not like most of the other kids.", "I'm glad
you're-friend-friends. I've become very fond of that skinny, carrot-headed young man." Meg laughed. "I
think Calvin confuses you with Pallas Athene. You're his absolute ideal. And he likes all of us. His own
family's certainly a mess. I really think he likes me only because of our family." Mrs. Murry sighed.
"Stop being self-deprecating, Meg." "Maybe at least I can learn to cook as well as you do. Did you know
it was one of Calvin's brothers who beat Charles Wallace up today? I bet he's upset—I don't mean
Whippy, he couldn't care less—Calvin. Somebody's bound to have told him." "Do you want to call him?"
"Not me. Not Calvin. I just have to wait. Maybe he'll come over or something." She sighed. "I wish life
didn't have to be so complicated. Do you suppose I'll ever be a double Ph.D. like you, Mother?" Mrs.
Murry looked up from slicing peppers, and laughed. "It's really not the answer to all problems. There are
other solutions. At this point I'm more interested in knowing whether or not I've put too many red
peppers in the spaghetti sauce; I've lost count." They had just sat down to dinner when Mr. Murry phoned
to tell them that he was going directly from Washington to Brookhaven for a week. Such trips were not
unusual for either of their parents, but right now anything that took either her father or mother away
struck Meg as sinister. Without much conviction she said, "I hope he has fun. He likes lots of the people
there." But she felt a panicky dependence on having both her parents home at night. It wasn't only
because of her fears for Charles Wallace; it was that suddenly the .whole world Was unsafe and
uncertain. Several houses nearby had been broken into that autumn, and while nothing of great value had
been taken, drawers had been emptied with casual maliciousness, food dumped on living-room floors,
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W-in-Time-WindintheDoor,AW-in-Time-WindintheDoor,A-L'Engle,Madeline.1CharlesWallace'sDragons."Therearedragonsinthetwins'vegetablegarden."MegMurrytookh\erheadoutoftherefrigeratorwhereshehadbeenforagingforanafter-schoolsnack,andlookedather\six-year-oldbrother."What?""Therearedragonsinthetwins'vegetabl...

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