“What’s the real problem, you ask? How are we to distinguish between real problems and imaginary problems? When my real problems concern themselves with matters so entirely fictional, so utterly—”
“Hand me that trowel?” Meg tossed another handful of muddy grass.
Jo did. She squatted on her heels in front of Meg, rattling the bucket between them dramatically.
Meg let go of the root and wiped her hands on a rag. “The real problem, Jo. I’m still waiting.”
Jo shook the bucket in frustration. “Is my current poverty of imagination not a real problem?”
“Indeed,” Amy said, poring over the mirror.
“Indeed, Jo. And we shall help you fix it,” Meg said patiently, as she had to her little sisters a thousand times before.
“Indeed?” Jo rattled the bucket again. “How are you going to help me fix it, Meg? Will you pay a visit to Mr. Niles tomorrow? Write my pages for me, the day after?”
“I suppose so, if that’s what it takes. You’re my sister.” Meg picked up the trowel again. “I’ve been fixing your problems since the day you arrived. What makes you think I can’t fix this one?” She had a point.
“Weddings and balls and gardens and carriages, Jo.” Amy was quick to rattle off Meg’s particular specialties. “She’s written whole pages of them, in almost every issue of the Pickwick Portfolio—you know she has.”
The Pickwick Club had been their favorite childhood game of all, writing news articles and bits of ephemera for their homegrown newspaper in the style of the characters in Dickens’s novel The Pickwick Papers. They all had roles: Meg as Mr. Pickwick; Jo, Mr. Snodgrass; Amy, Mr. Winkle; and even Laurie as Mr. Weller. Beth had been Tracy Tupman. The old Pickwick nicknames still occasionally reappeared, a lovely reminder of when all four sisters had been together. But that was long ago, now.
Even so, every time any of them read a passage from Dickens—or “old Charley,” as Jo had a habit of calling him, as if he were a bosom friend rather than a writer she’d long idolized—it brought all those pleasant memories flooding right back.
“Not whole pages, Amy.” Meg blushed.
“Yes, pages, Mr. Pickwick,” Jo said, a bit shamefaced, because it was a truth among sisters—especially these sisters—that what could be said of one could be said at least partly of the others; Jo had dragged her sisters along into her writing attic garret, as often as not. “Old Winkle has a point.”
“Only because you insisted, Mr. Snodgrass,” said Meg.
“Very well.” Jo pulled herself to her feet. “It’s a story problem. Quite a lot of them, actually.”
Meg nodded. “About?”
“My sisters and their prospects. The March girls—I mean, the fictional variety.”
“Prospects?” Amy sat up. “Go on.”
Jo looked at Meg. “Am I really to do this with you? Here and now? In Vegetable Valley?”
“Why ever not? Was I not your champion editor, Mr. Snodgrass?” Meg smiled. “Of all Pickwick’s most esteemed editorial board?”
Jo’s face took on a suddenly grave expression. “Ah, most certainly, Mr. Pickwick! Most certainly, indeed.”
“Then, proceed, dear Snodgrass. If I may call you that.” Meg lay back on her elbows, despite the garden mud, which was unlike her.
“Very well, Pickwick. If we are not to stand on formalities.” Jo pointed to a nearby cabbage. “Let’s say that hideous deformed leaf-head is your future husband, John Brooke.”
“Not again.” Meg twisted to have a better look at her leafy green ball of a suitor. “Please don’t, Jo. It’s so awkward. I’ve hardly spoken to him, and now half of Concord believes him to be my intended!”
“Plus, he’s a cabbage!” Amy laughed.
Meg rolled her eyes. “Must he be?”
“Absolutely.” Jo plucked a long twig free from one of the saplings lining the muddy garden path. “Yes,” she repeated firmly.
“What prospects!” Amy shook her head.
“But that cabbage doesn’t look like Brooke.” Meg frowned.
“Not a bit,” Jo said, feeling a bit cheerier now. “But he is . . . rather serious, like your John.”
Meg looked distressed. “Jo, you know he is not my John and has never been! I can’t even look the man in the eye since your book was published.”
Jo shrugged and ripped loose a fat, many-stalked rhubarb plant, tossing it into the dirt next to the cabbage. “And that’s you, Meg. You’ve put on a few pounds since the wedding. I suspect . . . well, yes, you’re with child.”
“No!” Amy howled.
“Already?” Meg pursed her lips. “Are you certain?”
“As the grave.” Jo looked somber.
“Ah, very well. A baby’s a blessing, as Mama says,” Meg said.
“Babies. Twins, in fact.” Now Jo was almost enjoying herself.
“Twins? Oh, Jo, that won’t be easy.” Meg grimaced. “What a thing to do to your sister.”
“Horrid business.” Jo nodded.
“Do they at least have names?” Meg asked. “My babies?”
Jo picked up and swung a stick, beheading a daisy from the clipping garden on the other side of the path. “Daisy. That’s one.”
“Daisy?! Why Daisy?” Amy began drawing daisies along the page.
“I don’t know. I suppose because I could reach the daisies.”
“Why not Rose?” Meg asked.
“The roses are on the other side of the house. Do you really want to make me walk past the woodpile? It’s practically a mansion for spiders!” Jo swung the stick again, clipping off the tops of the basil bush.
Meg tossed her rag back in the bucket. “Fair enough. Daisy, then. What about the other twin?”
Amy scoffed. “The boy? Who cares?”
“John Brooke the second. After his father,” Meg said, blushing as she bent back over her weeds. “We could call him Demi!”
Jo pointed her stick at her elder sister. “Please don’t fall in love with your beloved imaginary baby’s fictional father, Meg. You’ll only regret it.”
Amy looked interested. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Perhaps he’s a terrible drunk. A terrible, stinking drunk!” Jo laughed.