Two Futures
- While the Upstairs Cranstons prep for their big trip, the mice are being super resourceful, gathering scraps of fabric and extra crumbs.
- Helena decides it's time to see Aunt Fannie Fenimore, so she heads to the next door neighbors' house, where Aunt Fannie lives in the walls.
- Once she's with Aunt Fannie, Helena has some gifts to put the wise mouse in a good mood—she wants all the advice she can get from Aunt Fannie.
- When Aunt Fannie sees the fabric scrap Helena has brought for her, she says that the Upstairs Cranstons are not being sold the very best. And when she finds out that Mrs. Minturn has been advising them, Aunt Fannie says that Mrs. M is "a crook and a fool" (5.35)—she doesn't have any faith that Mrs. M will give the Upstairs Cranstons good advice on how to enter English society.
- Eventually Helena tells Aunt Fannie why she's there: Helena wants advice on what she and her siblings should do since the Upstairs Cranstons are leaving. Aunt Fannie says she'll consult her crystal ball (get this: it's actually just a child's marble) to look into Helena's future.
- The only trouble is that when Aunt Fannie looks into the marble, she sees Helena's past instead. Helena doesn't really believe that the marble works like a crystal ball—but even she's impressed when she looks into the ball and sees the rain barrel where her mom and sisters drowned.
- Then the crystal ball gets even weirder. It goes back in time to the days when the Dutch were in America.
- Finally Aunt Fannie says she can see one possible future for Helena and her siblings. If she and her bro and sisters stay in America, bad things are going to happen. Aunt Fannie says that Lamont will just get wilder, Louise is too attached to Camilla, and Beatrice has been sneaking out to visit Gideon McSorley. Oh yes—this is the same Gideon who acted as Lamont's so-called chum. With all this bad news, Helena is feeling pretty bummed out about her family's future.
- But then she gets some good news: Aunt Fannie sees another future in the crystal ball, the future Helena will have if she and her siblings choose to take a chance. Are you thinking this future might require a trip across the Atlantic in a huge ship? Because it does.
- Helena is scared as all get-out—she definitely doesn't want to cross the Atlantic—but she also doesn't want to stay and see her family go to ruin.
- Aunt Fannie has one last piece of advice for Helena. She says that Helena can keep her family together if she just stretches out her hands. Helena has no idea what this means. And we don't blame her—Aunt Fannie is being pretty mysterious.