On Saturday Gilbert came over. It was the first time Anne had seen him since she'd told him her news.
He brought his geometry book- they were both having trouble- and with a test coming up, he thought maybe they could tackle it together.
Anne couldn't seem to concentrate, though, and finally he closed his book. He said, "Maybe we should do something else."
"I'm ready for a break," Anne agreed, stretching and closing her book, too. "I'm hungry. Let's have something to eat."
She got up and moved around the kitchen, trying to decide on a snack. "I still have some Victory Cookies. Do you want some?"
"Sure," Gilbert said. "Sounds good."
Anne put the cookies on a plate and set it on the table. She got two glasses of milk.
"Why are they called Victory Cookies?" Gilbert asked curiously. "What's in them?"
Anne smiled. "They're oatmeal raisin. I call them Victory Cookies because after I made them, Marilla said, 'congratulations, Anne- you've finally had a victory over the oven!' ...Because I normally burn them."
Gilbert laughed. He bit into a Victory Cookie. "Mmm, Anne- these are delicious!"
Anne smiled.
The cookies, which sounded good to her only a moment ago, no longer felt like enough.
"I wish Marilla were here," she said. "I'm hungry for real food- not just cookies- meat and potatoes, and onions, and..." she sighed wistfully. "She doesn't like me to use the stove when I'm by myself."
But then she brightened up. "I'm not by myself, though, am I? You're here."
Anne got a pan and buttered it.
"You don't think she'll mind?" Gilbert asked worriedly.
"No," Anne said, rummaging around for an onion. "She just doesn't want me to do it by myself because she thinks I'll burn down the house."
"Well," said Gilbert. "All right, then. I'll save you from the ravaging flames, if need be. What are you going to cook?"
"I want liver and onions," Anne announced.
Gilbert was not looking forward to the stench of liver and onions.
"Maybe you'd like beef again," he suggested. "We could go to my house. We've still got leftovers."
Anne felt her stomach turn. "No," she said, "No beef. Ugh. It sounds awful."
That was when Gilbert was reminded that Anne was expecting- he realized now that her adoration of beef stew and her subsequent repulsion of it, was probably pregnancy-related. ...The liver and onions might be, too.
"Well, if you have to have liver and onions, then you have to have liver and onions," he conceded.
Anne suddenly stopped and came back to the table. She sat down next to him, seemingly deflated.
"What is it?" Gilbert asked, worried.
Anne sighed. She rolled the onion back and forth between her hands. "I'm hungry all the time."
"Well, that's good, isn't it? You need to eat."
"No," she said, setting the onion down. "I'm probably hungry all the time because...because The Thing is eating all my food!"
Gilbert didn't know how to respond to this. "Shouldn't it? I thought all expecting ladies had to eat more than usual. What's that saying- you're 'eating for two' now?"
Anne looked depressed at that thought. "You don't understand. The more it eats, the bigger it will get!"
Gilbert thought that didn't make much sense- it was going to get bigger regardless of what Anne ate. But he said, "It won't grow any faster than it should."
"I suppose," Anne said with a sigh.
"Anyway, it must be very small, to not even be seen," Gilbert pointed out.
"But it keeps eating."
He tried to sound more convincing: "It's so small, Anne- even if it gets a little bigger, I bet you won't even see it. I bet you'll have a good long time before it gets big enough to notice."
They were quiet a moment.
"The thing is..." she began, feeling foolish. "The thing is, I'm...I'm sort of afraid of it."
"You mean, for it to be born?"
"No," Anne said. "Just...of it. The Thing. Just afraid of The Thing in general."
He wasn't sure what to say. He watched her. Finally he shook his head. "It's too small to be afraid of."
Anne sighed.
Gilbert looked around. What could he do?
He saw the onion. "Look, I bet it's no bigger than this onion! You can't be afraid of something as little as this onion, can you?"
Anne looked at the onion doubtfully.
Gilbert grabbed Anne's pen from where she'd laid it across the top of her inkwell.
"Now," he said as he worked, "There."
He showed Anne the onion. It had a face. Gilbert had given it a goofy face, with big bulging eyes, curly lashes, a nose shaped like a squash, and a big silly grin with a tongue hanging out.
Anne couldn't help laughing just a little bit at the face he'd drawn.
Seeing that she'd lightened up, he added to it: "Uh-oh. It hasn't got any clothes on. What a scandal. How can I fix this?"
He glanced around. He leaned out to grab a tea towel. "Is it a boy onion or a girl onion?"
Anne smiled. "I don't know."
"It'll be a girl onion," Gilbert decided. He pulled the tea towel around the onion.
"That's the longest skirt in the world," Anne laughed.
Gilbert accidentally dropped the onion and it rolled down into the tea towel. He fished around for it and pulled it out.
Retrieving it, he gave it a critical look. "Doesn't have any legs," he said with a frown.
"We have toothpicks," Anne said, jumping up to get them.
She watched as Gilbert gave the onion arms and legs.
"They're awfully skinny limbs," Gilbert said.
"That's all right," she answered. "Mine are, too."
"Hmmm," Gilbert said. "It's not quite done. What else does it need?"
"Hair," Anne told him.
Gilbert thought a moment. "Got any cinnamon? I can make it stick with butter."
"Cinnamon! No, I won't give you any cinnamon. You're going to make red hair!"
Gilbert smiled sheepishly. Anne laughed. "I'd rather it be bald than have red hair."
Gilbert admitted defeated. "All right, bald it is."
Anne seemed to deflate a bit, so Gilbert had to quickly think of something new.
He walked the onion baby across the table. "Hi, Anne," he said in a squeaky voice. He waved one of the toothpick arms at her.
The corner of Anne's mouth turned up.
"I'm an onion baby," he said in the same squeaky voice, when she didn't respond.
He waited. Then he said, "I promise I won't make you cry. Unless you peel me."
Anne told Gilbert, "I know how to keep from crying when you peel and slice up onions. You just do it in a bowl of water."
Gilbert answered back as the onion baby, "I think you'll find I'm very a-peel-ing."
Anne laughed.
Gilbert kept talking as the onion baby. "As an onion, I'll add zing to your life. I'm very sharp."
"Sharp is right- it makes my eyes water just from touching it!" Anne said. "All right, Gilbert- I feel better now. You don't have to keep playing dolls with an onion."
Gilbert grinned at her. Anne took the onion back to the counter and undressed it.
"...Almost doesn't seem right to eat it, now," she commented.
This made Gilbert laugh.
Anne looked back at him and smiled. He was so silly.
She came back to the table and sat down. "Well, I wish it could stay that little, then- no bigger than that onion. And never come out! ...I suppose I could accept having it with me, if it promised never to get bigger or to come out."
"It won't be so bad when it gets bigger," Gilbert said, holding her hand and squeezing it.
Anne wasn't happy. How could he make that better, too?
He had an idea: "You like the name Cordelia, right? You could have a little Cordelia."
She shrugged as if that might be all right, but she was biting her lip.
Gilbert needed to think of something else. "Hmmm...no. No, it needs more." He thought a moment. "How 'bout this? Cordelia Rosamund Lavinia Esmerelda Hyacinth Shirley-Cuthbert. What do you think of that?"
Anne couldn't help smiling at the long ridiculous name that she thought he'd picked quite nicely.
Gilbert, encouraged by the sight of her smiling, pushed the thought even further: "Are you sure it's enough? Maybe we need to add another name or two."
"She won't be able to write her name on her school papers," Anne said, laughing. "It won't fit!"
Gilbert smiled, relieved that he'd been able to move her from sadness to laughter.
When the moment of laughter passed and her eyes grew serious and troubled again, he was quick to say: "And people give new mothers presents. That'll be fun."
Anne nodded a little bit.
"...And...and with all the sewing, well...it would be a chance to make a little wardrobe of all the clothes you ever wanted...all the fancy gowns and bonnets and things all ruffly and full of frills...all those fluffed sleeves and whatnot-"
"Puffed sleeves," Anne reminded him again.
"Right. Puffed sleeves. Imagine all the pretty dresses lined up. ...It'll be just like when you were little and played with dolls."
Anne thought about this. "I never had a doll before," she told him. "I suppose when you get past the drudgery of diapers and crying, the rest of the time it might be like having a doll."
"Sure," he said enthusiastically. "And it'll sleep a lot, so most of the time all you'll have to do is just hold it and look at it."
"Maybe I won't want to look at it," Anne said hesitantly.
"You'll want to look at it- just wait until you see how cute it is," Gilbert told her. "With all that red hair it's going to have."
Anne finally laughed. "You're awfully stuck on red hair."
Gilbert looked up at her, a little smile, his eyes twinkling.
Then Anne said, "Well, I suppose I have to eat, even if that means it gets bigger! I'm going to make liver and onions- will you eat with me?"
"I'd rather have carrots," he said.