She thought of Chub, but he, too, was in Mr. Nixon’s bad graces, and would probably refuse to help.
Well, she really couldn’t go back to the Journal, not even to save Tim. But Tim could. He needed the job, too. How could he build up his college fund without it? Maybe Mother would have to sell the house to get money for Tim’s education. She coaxed him to go back to the Journal, until he got peeved. He banged upstairs to his own room and slammed the door shut.
Deserted Joan turned to Mother and the housework. There was always that to fall back on. She made a new kind of pudding out of the cookbook and it turned out well. Mother was pleased to have something extra nice to cheer Tim up over the loss of his job. Mother was sorry about that, but she was glad that Joan’s duties, whatever they had been at the Journal, had mysteriously come to an end—though she had shown she was proud when Joan wrote up the Davis window.
Tim was impressed with the pudding. “Gee, I didn’t know you could make dessert in three colors,” he said, and Joan felt as though he had forgiven her for bothering him about going over to see Mr. Nixon. She still wished he would, but she did not refer to the matter.
The next day hung wearily on Joan’s hands. Amy did not even telephone. She must be good and mad, for she adored to hold telephone conversations. Joan tried not to look at the Journal windows across the way. She did the marketing, and straightened out her bureau drawers. Then she walked to the library and got one of the latest books, but somehow it did not seem half so thrilling as the mystery of the Journal office.
She was half through the book by bedtime, and the next afternoon she sat down on the side steps to finish it. Em rubbed against her ankles, so Joan stopped to fill a saucer of milk for the cat, and then she curled her feet under again and started to read.
Suddenly a familiar call broke into her reading.
“Yoo-whoo!” A window in the Journal office was pushed up and there was Chub’s red head. “Come on over, you and Tim. The chief says so.”
He meant Mr. Nixon, of course. But Joan only stared. Chub had nerve to try a joke like that, right when the office was the busiest, for the paper was going to press about this time.
“Say!” called Chub. “Can’t you hear? He wants you both, honest. The press is broken and everybody has to pitch in to get the paper out on time.”