Mrs Murry gently touched Meg’s bruised cheek. Meg looked up at her mother, half in loving admiration, half in sullen resentment. It was not an advantage to have a mother who was a scientist and a beauty as well. Mrs Murry’s flaming red hair, creamy skin, and violet eyes with long dark lashes, seemed even more spectacular in comparison with Meg’s outrageous plainness. Meg’s hair had been passable as long as she wore it tidily in plaits. When she went into high school it was cut, and now she and her mother struggled with putting it up, but one side would come out curly and the other straight, so that she looked even plainer than before.
‘You don’t know the meaning of moderation, do you, my darling?’ Mrs Murry asked. ‘A happy medium is something I wonder if you’ll ever learn. That’s a nasty bruise the Henderson boy gave you. By the way, shortly after you’d gone to bed his mother called up to complain about how badly you’d hurt him. I told her that since he’s a year older and at least twenty-five pounds heavier than you are, I thought I was the one who ought to be doing the complaining. But she seemed to think it was all your fault.’
‘I suppose that depends on how you look at it,’ Meg said. ‘Usually no matter what happens people think it’s my fault, even if I have nothing to do with it at all. But I’m sorry I tried to fight him. It’s just been an awful week. And I’m full of bad feeling.’
Mrs Murry stroked Meg’s shaggy head. ‘Do you know why?’
‘I hate being an odd man out,’ Meg said. ‘It’s hard on Sandy and Dennys, too. I don’t know if they’re really like everybody else, or if they’re just able to pretend they are. I try to pretend, but it isn’t any help.’
‘You’re much too straightforward to be able to pretend to be what you aren’t,’ Mrs Murry said. ‘I’m sorry, Meglet. Maybe if father were here he could help you, but I don’t think I can do anything till you’ve managed to plough through some more time. Then things will be – easier for you. But that isn’t much help right now, is it?’
‘Maybe if I weren’t so repulsive-looking – maybe if I were pretty like you –’
‘Mother’s not a bit pretty; she’s beautiful,’ Charles Wallace announced, slicing liverwurst. ‘Therefore I bet she was awful at your age.’
‘How right you are,’ Mrs Murry said. ‘Just give yourself time, Meg.’
‘Lettuce on your sandwich, Mother?’ Charles Wallace asked.
‘No, thanks.’
He cut the sandwich into sections, put it on a plate, and set it in front of his mother. ‘Yours’ll be along in just a minute, Meg. I think I’ll talk to Mrs Whatsit about you.’
‘Who’s Mrs Whatsit?’ Meg asked.
‘I think I want to be exclusive about her for a while,’ Charles Wallace said. ‘Onion salt?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘What’s Mrs Whatsit stand for?’ Mrs Murry asked.
‘That’s her name,’ Charles Wallace answered. ‘You know the old shingled house back in the woods that the kids won’t go near because they say it’s haunted? That’s where they live.’
‘They?’
‘Mrs Whatsit and her two friends. I was out with Fortinbras a couple of days ago – you and the twins were at school, Meg. We like to walk in the woods, and suddenly he took off after a squirrel and I took off after him and we ended up by the haunted house, so I met them by accident, as you might say’
‘But nobody lives there,’ Meg said.
‘Mrs Whatsit and her friends do. They’re very enjoyable.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about it before?’ Mrs Murry asked. ‘And you know you’re not supposed to go off our property without permission, Charles.’
‘I know,’ Charles said. ‘That’s one reason I didn’t tell you. I just rushed off after Fortinbras without thinking. And then I decided, well, I’d better save them for an emergency, anyhow.’
A fresh gust of wind took the house and shook it, and suddenly the rain began to lash against the windows.
‘I don’t think I like this wind,’ Meg said nervously.
‘We’ll lose some shingles off the roof, that’s certain,’ Mrs Murry said, ‘but this house has stood for almost two hundred years and I think it will last a little longer, Meg. There’s been many a high wind up on this hill.’
‘But this is a hurricane!’ Meg wailed. ‘The radio kept saying it was a hurricane!’
‘It’s October,’ Mrs Murry told her. ‘There’ve been storms in October before.’
As Charles Wallace gave Meg her sandwich Fortinbras came out from under the table. He gave a long, low growl, and they could see the dark fur slowly rising on his back. Meg felt her own skin prickle.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked anxiously. Fortinbras stared at the door that opened into Mrs Murry’s laboratory which was in the old stone dairy right off the kitchen. Beyond the lab a pantry led outdoors, though Mrs Murry had done her best to train the family to come into the house through the garage door or the front door and not through her lab. But it was the lab door and not the garage door towards which Fortinbras was growling.
‘You didn’t leave any nasty-smelling chemicals cooking over a Bunsen burner, did you, Mother?’ Charles Wallace asked.
Mrs Murry stood up. ‘No. But I think I’d better go see what’s upsetting Fort, anyhow.’
‘It’s the tramp, I’m sure it’s the tramp,’ Meg said nervously.
‘What tramp?’ Charles Wallace asked.
‘They were saying at the post office this afternoon that a tramp stole all Mrs Buncombe’s sheets.’
‘We’d better sit on the pillow cases, then,’ Mrs Murry said lightly. ‘I don’t think even a tramp would be out on a night like this, Meg.’
‘But that’s probably why he is out,’ Meg wailed, ‘trying to find a place not to be out.’
‘In which case I’ll offer him the barn till morning.’ Mrs Murry went briskly to the door.
‘I’ll go with you.’ Meg’s voice was shrill.
‘No, Meg, you stay with Charles and eat your sandwich.’
‘Eat!’ Meg exclaimed as Mrs Murry went out through the lab. ‘How does she expect me to eat?’
‘Mother can take care of herself,’ Charles said. ‘Physically, that is.’ But he sat in his father’s chair at the table and his legs kicked at the rungs; and Charles Wallace, unlike most small children, had the ability to sit still.
After a few moments that seemed like for ever to Meg, Mrs Murry came back in, holding the door open for – was it the tramp? It seemed small for Meg’s idea of a tramp. The age or sex was impossible to tell, for it was completely bundled up in clothes. Several scarves of assorted colours were tied about the head, and a man’s felt hat perched atop. A shocking pink stole was knotted about a rough overcoat, and black rubber boots covered the feet.
‘Mrs Whatsit,’ Charles said suspiciously, ‘what are you doing here? And at this time of night, too?’
‘Now don’t you be worried, my honey.’ A voice emerged from among turned-up coat collar, stole, scarves and hat, a voice like an unoiled gate, but somehow not unpleasant.
‘Mrs – uh – Whatsit – says she lost her way,’ Mrs Murry said. ‘Would you care for some hot chocolate, Mrs Whatsit?’
‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ Mrs Whatsit answered, taking off the hat and the stole. ‘It isn’t so much that I lost my way as that I got blown off course. And when I realized that I was at little Charles Wallace’s house I thought I’d just come in and rest a bit before proceeding on my way.’