Dave at Night (16 page)

Chapter 32

A
GIFT!
I didn't just like to draw, I didn't just have the beginnings of an eye, I had a gift! I watched him go down the path to the gate. He had a funny walk. His right shoulder was higher than his left, possibly because of all the stuff he was carrying. I tried to memorize the way he looked from behind. When I got back to our classroom I wanted to draw it.

I couldn't wait for Thursday. I couldn't wait for every Thursday!

Wait for every Thursday!
But I wouldn't be here every Thursday, not after I got the carving back. I'd miss out on the special class.

I stopped walking. Didn't I want to get out of here as soon as I could? Sure I did. But I also wanted to be in that class. And I wanted to go on being with my buddies. But I'd sworn to get the carving and leave. I couldn't do both, stay and leave. I hated it here. Well, I hated the HHB. My buddies and Mr. Hillinger weren't the HHB, and I didn't hate them. I liked them—a lot, a whole lot.

I started walking again. I had to figure it out.

Back in class, Mike was drawing violins. Mr. Cluck was babbling. I tried to draw Mr. Hillinger walking away from me. You'd think it would be easy to show he was going the other way, but it kept looking like he was coming toward me. You'd think I could get it right, since I had a gift.

The bell rang for morning recess. Time to get ready for Moe.

In the courtyard, Eli explained my idea to all the elevens. Harvey said he'd thought it over and it would never work. Nobody listened to him, and we started rehearsing, all of us except Danny and Louis, who would be watching Mr. Doom's office during lunch. I concentrated on the rehearsal, but every so often I'd remember what Mr. Hillinger had said, about my having a gift.

And then I'd see us elevens in my mind, the way we were standing right now, the expressions on our faces. And I'd imagine a drawing, a gesture drawing of all of us.

Then I'd be back in the middle of the rehearsal again.

There were a few tricky moments in the plan, and it might not work, and it might get Moe mad at us, which would make everything worse. But if it succeeded we'd get to eat our entire lousy meals from now on.

“What about the eights and the nines and the tens?” Mike asked. “Can't we help them?”

“They'll have to think of their own nutty plan,” Harvey said.

I usually sat next to Mike at lunch, but today Eli was on my right and Mike was across the table next to Jeff. I didn't want Mike too near me, because Moe was going to pick on somebody, and I didn't want it to be him.

Eli and I sat close together, hoping our bullies would sit on the other side of each of us. If one of them sat between us, we'd have to wait till supper to try again.

Moe came in and sat on my left, and Eli's bully sat on Eli's right. So far so good. Moe kissed his rabbit's foot and picked up his fork. A lady began dishing out the food at our table. She served Moe. He took a bite. She served me. His fork headed my way.

“Wait!”

He hesitated for a second. It was enough. I passed my plate to Eli. Eli's bully was eating Eli's food. All the elevens were watching Eli and Moe and me, but they were eating at the same time.

Eli spread his hands over my plate and started humming. I don't know how he did it, but the hum had an echo. It sounded round and full. He closed his eyes and swayed. The hum rose and fell.

He wasn't a bad gonif. He was doing fine.

He stopped humming and nodded his head three times. “Thank you, oh Phantoms of the Just.” When he said
phantoms
he hummed the
m
so it sounded like
phantom-m-ms
. He returned the plate to me.

“Now you can eat it,” I told Moe. I folded my hands in my lap. “It's all yours.”

Moe stuck his fork in, lifted it.

I held my breath. It was all over if he ate.

He stopped an inch from his lips. “What's wrong with it?”

“The wizard said I shouldn't eat it. He said it's for you.”

Moe put his fork down and reached around me and grabbed Eli's shoulder. “Wha—”

Eli didn't even look scared. He waved a hand in front of Moe and started humming again.

Moe let go. “Stop that.”

Eli kept humming.

Mike's bully reached across the table and started to take my food.

Moe grabbed the edge of the plate. “Watch yourself.”

The other bully let go. “I thought you didn't want it.”

“You thought wrong.” Moe looked over at Eli, who had stopped humming and was sitting with his head down, swaying. Moe looked around at all of us elevens. Mike moved and caught Moe's eye. “You. I mean you.” He pushed my plate toward Mike and lifted the fork loaded with my food. “Hungry?”

We were in trouble.

Mike shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“Eat it.” He handed Mike the fork.

“Don't eat it!” I yelled.

“Don't,” Eli said. “The Phantom-m-ms will be angry.”

“Eat.” Moe stood up. “Eat.”

Mike put the food in his mouth, which was what he was supposed to do if this happened. Then he was supposed to fall backwards off the bench and lie still. But when we rehearsed he couldn't lie still. Nobody in a million years would have believed he had fainted.

Mike chewed once and swallowed. He started to smile, but the smile froze and he pointed wildly at his throat. His eyeballs rolled back so only the whites showed. Then he fell backwards, but he didn't lie still. His hands clawed the air. He rolled from side to side. He made choking noises.

He was the best gonif of us all.

I looked at Moe. He was clutching his rabbit's foot with both hands. Boys from nearby tables were gathering around Mike. Then I saw Mike's bully laugh, not believing any of it. His fork was heading for my plate. If he ate, Moe would know we had tricked him and he'd murder us.

Jeff also must have seen the bully go for my plate. He leaned on the table as if to see Mike better. When he put his hand on the table, he knocked his water glass into my plate, sending them both flying. The glass broke, and the food slid all over the floor. And Mike's bully looked very disappointed.

Mr. Meltzer pushed through the ring of boys around Mike. He picked Mike up and carried him to the nearest stairway, probably on the way to the infirmary. I wondered what Mike would do when the nurse examined him.

A serving lady started cleaning up the broken glass and spilled food. Moe leaned away from Eli. With both hands, Eli traced Moe's outline in the air. He started humming again.

“Don't!” Moe yelled. “Stop!”

Eli went on shaping the air around Moe. His humming got louder and deeper.

“Stop it!”

“Hum-m-m-m. He will change his ways.” He put a hum into the
n
too so it sounded like
chan-n-nge
. “He will chan-n-nge, or bad luck will follow him-m-m everywhere. Hum-m-m. Nothing will go right for him-m-m ever again-n-n. Now will he obey me?”

“What? How?”

“Feed me!”

Moe looked confused. We had all finished eating. “There's no food.”

“You have taken-n-n the food of others. The Phan-n-ntom-m-ms are an-n-ngry.”

“I didn't! You saw! I didn't eat it.”

“Before this meal. The Phan-n-ntom-m-ms wan-n-nt reven-n-nge.”

“No, they don't. They couldn't!” Moe's voice cracked. “I'm sorry. I didn't know.”

“These are the Phan-n-ntom-m-ms' wishes.” Eli paused.

“What? What wishes?”

“You will take no more food from-m-m an-n-ny eleven-n-n. When-n-n we are twelve you still will take no food from-m-m us. You will forbid an-n-nyon-n-ne to take food from-m-m us. These are the wishes of the Phan-n-ntom-m-ms. Do you hear an-n-nd will you obey?”

“Tell them not to be mad. Uh, I hear and I will obey.”

It was torture not to laugh. I looked down at the floor. If I looked at any of the elevens I'd never stop laughing. If I looked at Moe I'd die from-m-m laughing.

I stared at the floor. I didn't want to leave this. I didn't want to leave my buddies.

Chapter 33

W
HEN WE LEFT
the dining room, Bernie and Reuben went to take over Mr. Doom patrol duty from Louis and Danny. Moe walked with us to our classroom. It's a good thing he didn't peek inside, because there was Mike, looking healthy and only twitching as much as he usually did.

“Did it work?” Mike asked when I sat down.

Fred passed by, laughing. “Uh, what are your wishes, wizard?”

“It worked,” I told Mike. “You were terrific.”

“Tell them-m-m not to be mad,” Jeff said, following his brother down the aisle. “Tell the phan-n-ntom-m-ms.”

Mr. Cluck picked up his lecture where he had left off before lunch. I opened my notebook and started doodling, writing
gift
in different fancy letters. Of course I would leave. I had sworn that I would, and I would. When I got the carving back.

And I would get it back. Someday. It would take a while to get into Mr. Doom's office. It could take a month. Or a year. But when I did and I got my carving, then I'd say farewell to the Hell Hole for Brats.

Meanwhile, I would make the best of it. I turned the page in my notebook and started to draw Danny, who was chewing on the end of his pen and staring up at the ceiling.

The classroom door opened, and Louis, Reuben, and Bernie came in. But Reuben and Bernie were supposed to be watching Mr. Doom's office. Something had happened.

On the way to his desk, Louis stopped by me and whispered, “At lunchtime he goes out and leaves the door open so the maid can clean his office.”

I could get Papa's carving. Tomorrow I'd have it. “Thanks,” I whispered back. “Swell!”

It
was
swell. But the lump in my throat was bigger than ever.

 

I skipped going to the courtyard during evening recess. In our room I sat on my bed and opened my notebook. “Dear Papa,” I wrote. “Soon I'll have your carving. I won't have to be a prisoner here anymore.”

I tried to picture Papa smiling while he read the words. But he wouldn't smile. I couldn't make him. He didn't want me to live in a basement, no matter how fine the house above it was.

That got me mad. He'd left me in this mess. What right did he have to tell me where I should live? What right did he have to tell me I should stay in a place I hated?

In my imagination he laughed. “You're making trouble for yourself, rascal. You don't hate it.”

“You're wrong, Papa,” I wrote. “I hate being locked in. I hate freezing all the time. I hate Mr. Doom, and Mr. Cluck, and Mr. Meltzer.” I stared at the words. They were true, but they weren't the whole story.

I pictured Papa's carving. And, at the end of the line, after all the animals and after Papa and Mama and Gideon and me, I pictured the elevens and Mr. Hillinger lined up, waiting their turn to board the ark.

I didn't want to leave them behind. I didn't want to sail off without them.

 

After lights-out I sat up in bed. “Hey, buddies,” I whispered.

They started to crowd around.

“This better be good,” Harvey said. “I was drifting off.”

Harvey! I had forty-one reasons for staying, and he was the only one of them who annoyed me most of the time.

“Tomorrow I'll get my carving back, and I want to thank everybody for risking your—”

“We always help a buddy,” Harvey whispered. “We never—”

“When are you going to run away?” Mike was scratching his side and hopping.

“That's what I was going to—”

“Don't tell us,” Harvey said. “That way Mr. Doom can't torture it out of us.”

“I'm trying to—”

“We need to know when,” Eli said. “We may have to cover—”

I almost screamed. “I'm not leaving! For ten minutes I've been trying to tell you that—”

Mike started pumping my hand. “You're not leaving!” He slapped me on the back. “You're staying!”

“How come?” Harvey sounded suspicious.

“Um . . . It's because . . .” I swallowed. “I'll never find buddies like you anywhere. Um, there's no point trying. Uh, and I'd just miss—”

“Good,” Eli said. “I hate to lose a buddy.”

“You were crazy to want to live with the shvartzehs anyway,” Harvey said.

“They're better than you,” I said.

“Take that back!”

“I won't!”

“Cut it out,” Eli said. “Somebody will hear you. You can fight tomorrow.” He started laughing. “You two love each other so much you want to kill each other.”

I laughed too, and Harvey joined in.

“I don't want to fight you,” I added. “You just don't know anything about colored people.”

“What's to know?”

Irma Lee. Jazz. Mrs. Packer. Irma Lee. Rent parties. People having fun together. Aaron Douglas. Langston Hughes. A painting of Noah's ark. Irma Lee. I didn't say anything. I just got the rope out of my suitcase and started getting dressed.

“You're going out?” Mike said.

“Yeah.” I was going to meet Solly. But it was too early to leave. I sat on my bed and waited. My buddies went back to bed.

Would Irma Lee be mad when I told her I wasn't going to live in her basement? She'd been so excited about having me there. But I'd still be her friend. I'd still get out and see her.

The clock struck eleven. I stuffed my bed with my pajamas and my towel and Mike's towel, which I borrowed without waking him up to ask. Buddies could do stuff like that.

The prefects played poker in a classroom on the first floor, according to Mike. I heard them laughing and yelling as soon as I opened the door from the stairwell. They were making too much noise to hear me, but they'd catch me if one of them decided to go to the toilet. I raced to the lobby, feeling like a hunted rabbit. I made it.

For the first time, it was colder outside than in. I climbed the oak tree. When I reached the branch that hung over the street, I tied my rope to it and let the end hang down on the street side of the fence. I used it to shinny down, and then I climbed back up, just to be sure. It worked. I was out, and I could get back in.

I walked off whistling the song about Sadie Lou. Everything was going my way.

Solly wasn't at the Tree of Hope. It was the right tree, because a man with a clarinet told me it was.

“Are you a musician, sonny?” he said. “You're short on years and pigmentation to be looking here for a job.”

I said I was just waiting for someone.

“That's good.” He started playing softly.

I was probably early. Solly had said he'd wait for me from twelve to one, and it might not even be midnight yet. I stamped my feet to keep warm.

A man walked by, touched the tree, and kept walking. Two more people came and did the same. A gray Cadillac—a V-8—pulled up at the curb. The chauffeur got out and opened the back door, and a white woman got out.

I knew her. She was the maid who'd led us through the crowd at Irma Lee's party.

“Mr. Dave?” She came toward me.

Me?

“Mrs. Packer would like you to be her dinner guest tonight.”

My mouth watered. Dinner.

And Irma Lee. “Okay.”

“Come with me.” She turned back to the car.

Hold on. “Can I come later? I'm supposed to meet somebody.”

“Mr. Solly is waiting for you at Mrs. Packer's residence.”

Then it was all right. “Can I ride in front?”

“Certainly.”

The chauffeur led me around the car and opened the door for me. The seats were dark green leather, and the whole inside smelled of leather. I slid behind the wheel. The top of it was even with the bridge of my nose. If I ducked down a little I could see the road and my feet could reach the pedals. There was the key. You didn't have to crank a Cadillac. I put out my hand—and the chauffeur opened his door. I slid back.

“Nice car.”

“Glad you like it.” The silver buttons on his uniform clicked against the steering wheel as he got in. He turned the key and pushed a button, and the motor started. We pulled out into the street. “Do you want to steer?”

Nah. I could steer a Cadillac any old time. Sure I did! I slid close to him, but I couldn't see the road, so I got up on my knees. I leaned across him to take the wheel.

“You have to let me see too,” he said, slowing down and moving me over. “There.”

I held the steering wheel steady, even though it vibrated like anything. We drove slowly down the street. I wished Irma Lee lived in California.

How fast were we going? Only fifteen, but the speedometer went up to a hundred and twenty.

“Turn right at the corner.” He slowed down even more.

I started turning. Not enough. The wheel wasn't easy to turn. I pulled harder, putting my whole body into it. There. No—too far. We were going to go up on the sidewalk. The chauffeur turned the wheel back, but I could have done it. We were going straight again. There was Irma Lee's house.

“Pull up here.”

I turned the wheel and got it right this time. We stopped.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said.

The house seemed strange without the crowd outside and the hundreds inside. The front room was nice, now that I could see it, with purple wallpaper and a mahogany electric fireplace.

“Follow me,” the maid said. In the doorway to the dining room she stopped and announced, “Mr. Dave is here.”

I went in. Irma Lee was near the end of the table. Part of her face was blocked by a silver candleholder. Mrs. Packer was next to her. Irma Lee was wearing a yellow dress, and her hair was in braids tied with yellow ribbon. Seeing her made me want to dance the Charleston.

Solly was on Mrs. Packer's left with his back to me. The parrot flapped its wings and squawked, “Mazel tov.”

I smiled at Irma Lee and waved, but she looked away.