"Get the gate, Jane," Tim said, and she pulled it open. "Now, one, two, three: HOIST!" Together the boys lifted the basket containing the baby from the wagon. They carried it to the sagging, dusty porch of the mansion and left it there.
The Willoughbys walked home.
"What did you add to the note at the end, Tim?" Barnaby A asked.
"Another P.S."
"What did it say, Tim?" asked Barnaby B.
"It said, 'Her name is Ruth.'"
Jane pouted. "Why?" she asked.
"Because," Tim said with a sly smile, "we are the ruthless Willoughbys."
2. A Parental Conspiracy
Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby were seated in front of the fireplace after dinner. He was reading a newspaper, and she was knitting something out of beige wool.
The four children, in flannel pajamas, entered the room.
"I'm making the cat a sweater," Mrs. Willoughby told them, holding up the knitting, in which one small, thin sleeve had already been formed.
"I was hoping maybe you were making a second sweater for me and B," Barnaby A said. "It's difficult taking turns with a sweater."
"I've explained and explained," their mother said in exasperation. "A, you wear it on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. B, you have Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. On Sunday you can fight over it."
She turned to her husband. "It's disgusting," she said, "the way children today all want their own sweaters." She knit a few more stitches industriously.
"Children?" Mr. Willoughby said in an impatient voice, putting his newspaper down. "Did you want something?"
"We were hoping that perhaps you would read us a story," Tim said. "Parents in books always read stories to their children at bedtime."
"I believe the mother usually does that," Mr. Willoughby said, looking toward his wife.
"I'm busy," Mrs. Willoughby said. "The cat needs a sweater." Hastily she knit another stitch.
Mr. Willoughby scowled. "Hand me a book," he said.
Tim went to the bookcase and began fingering the volumes that were lined on the shelf. "Make it fast," his father said. "I'm in the middle of an article about interest rates."
Quickly Tim handed him a volume of fairy tales. His father opened it in the middle as the children arranged themselves in a semicircle by his feet. They looked like a painting on a Christmas card. "God bless us, every one!" murmured Barnaby A, but Tim poked him. Mr. Willoughby began to read aloud.
Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor woodcutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he groaned and said to his wife: "What is to become of us? How are we to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for ourselves?" "I'll tell you what, husband," answered the woman. "Early tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be rid of them.
"
Jane's lower lip trembled and she gave a small sob. Barnaby A and Barnaby B looked very nervous. Tim scowled.
"The end," said their father, closing the book with a snap. "Bedtime"
Silently, though Jane was still sniffling, the children scurried away and up the staircase to bed. Mrs. Willoughby turned to her needles and began a new row of stitches. Mr. Willoughby picked up his newspaper but did not begin reading again. Instead, he stared into space for a moment. Then he said, "Dearest?"
"Yes, dearest?"
"I need to ask you a question." He chewed his lip briefly.
"Yes, dearest?"
"Do you like our children?"
"Oh, no," Mrs. Willoughby said, using her gold-plated scissors to snip off a bit of yarn that had made a snarl. "I never have. Especially that tall one. What is his name again?"
"Timothy Anthony Malachy Willoughby."
"Yes, him. He's the one I least like. But the others are awful, too. The girl whines incessantly, and two days ago she tried to make me adopt a beastly infant."
Her husband shuddered.
"And then there are the two that I can't tell apart," Mrs. Willoughby went on. "The ones with the sweater."
"The twins."
"Yes, them. Why on earth do they look so much alike? It confuses people and isn't fair."
"I have a plan," Mr. Willoughby said, putting his paper down. He stroked one eyebrow in a satisfied way. "It's thoroughly despicable."
"Lovely," said his wife. "A plan for what?"
"To rid us of the children."
"Oh goodness, do we have to walk them into a dark forest? I don't have the right shoes for that."
"No, this is a better plan. More businesslike."
"Oooh, goody. I'm all ears," she replied with a malevolent smile, as she meticulously dropped a few stitches to make a hole for the cat's tail.
3. Contemplating Orphanhood
"Shouldn't we be orphans?" Barnaby B asked.
The Willoughby children were seated on the front steps playing a complicated game to which only Tim knew the rules.