Face on the Wall (15 page)

Chapter 22

A
t Weston Country Day the girls in the fifth grade were studying the Greek myths. Mary had written a play about Pandora's box. Amelia Patterson was Pandora and Becca Smith was Prometheus. Everybody else was an evil spirit released from the box by Pandora.

The first rehearsal in the auditorium was noisy and successful. The evil spirits threw themselves into it. Mary laughed and stood back while they hopped and howled. “Good, good. Now, why don't you run off the stage and make faces at the kids in the audience? That's right, Carrie. Good, Julie. Good, good, Beverly. Oh, Mrs. Rutledge, welcome. I'm sorry, are we making too much noised?”

“No, no.” Mrs. Rutledge clapped her hands. “Sorry, you people. Charlene has just come in late and told us she won that big swimming meet last night in Danvers. We want to congratulate her in front of the whole school.”

It was an impromptu assembly. All the classes poured into the auditorium. The headmistress told her news, and everyone applauded. Then Mrs. Rutledge called Charlene to the stage and congratulated her. Mr. Orth, the athletic coach, presented her with a bouquet. Charlene thanked him prettily and said, “I hope everybody will come to the swimming meet at Harvard next Friday night. It's the semifinals.”

Mary sat in the back of the auditorium and clapped along with everybody else. She was interested in the way everyone in the school admired Charlene Gast. Already she was beginning to get a sense of the ruthlessness of ten-year-old tribal structure. It occurred to her that if all the fifth-graders in the school were to fill out a questionnaire ranking their classmates in order of popularity, Charlene Gast would come out on top. Even the outcasts would list her as number one. Even fat little Cissie Aufsesser.

The hierarchy was painfully visible on the playground. Young as she was, Charlene had perfected a system of total domination. She bound the others to her one at a time. She would take Becca aside and giggle with her and whisper in her ear. Next day Becca would be out and Carrie was the favorite. Then Carrie was forgotten and it was Joanna's turn. In the ongoing drama of the spring semester in Mrs. Rutledge's fifth grade, hearts were broken, mended, and broken again, as Charlene tossed her favors this way and that.

On the day when it was Beverly Eckstein's turn, Mary was monitoring the playground. She saw Charlene approach Beverly with a beaming smile, she saw Beverly's joyful surprise. She watched as Charlene admired Beverly's new bike, and ran her hand over the narrow blue fender that sparkled with flecks of gold. She saw Charlene take something out of her jacket. She saw Beverly start with surprise. But she couldn't hear what they were saying.

The magazine was Beverly's. She had found it under her big brother's bed. It showed two naked women and a naked man intertwined like snakes. Charlene had discovered it in Beverly's desk, hidden under her English workbook.

“I'm going to tell on you,” said Charlene.

Beverly's homely round face flushed purple. Tears ran down her cheeks. “No, no, oh, please, please. Oh, Charlene, please.”

“Give me your bike, then, or I'll tell.”

Beverly couldn't believe it. She clutched the handlebars. “Oh, I can't, Charlene. I just can't.”

“Okay, then. I'll tell.”

When the recess break was over, Beverly hurried back indoors ahead of everyone else. Mrs. Kelly spoke to her as she trotted past with a tear-streaked face. “Are you all right, Beverly?”

Beverly nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Inside the school, she ran down the basement steps to the building superintendent's office, next to the furnace. The room smelled of tuna fish and orange peel. It was dark in there, but Beverly did not switch on the light. For five minutes in the dim windowless room she tore out the pages of the dirty magazine one by one, wadded them up, and stuffed them in the big plastic waste barrel. Then she stirred the contents with both hands until the crumpled pages were thoroughly mixed up with greasy paper towels, dusty cleaning rags, used-up workbooks, and the remains of a hundred paper-bag lunches. Her bicycle was gone, but so was the magazine.

“Why, Charlene,” said Roberta Gast, “where did you get that beautiful bike?”

“Beverly gave it to me,” said Charlene. “She got a new one for her birthday, so she gave me her old one. You know, because I won the swimming meet.”

Roberta looked at the bike. “She got a new one? But this one looks perfectly new.”

“No, no.” Charlene pointed to a slight dent in the front fender. “See, it's old, really old.”

Eddy was excited by Charlene's new bike. He made enthusiastic noises and tried to grab the handlebars.

Charlene jerked it out of his grasp. “Get away, dummy.” She glowered at her mother. “If he so much as touches this bike, I'll murder him. I mean it.”

“Beverly,” said her mother, “why did you come home on the school bus? I thought you were going to ride your bike to school from now on.”

“I had this flat tire,” said Beverly in a small voice.

“A flat tire already? Well, then, jump in the car. We'll pick up your bike so Daddy can fix it.”

“No, no, Mummy. It's—it's in the gym, and everything's all locked up by now.”

“Well, tomorrow, then.”

After a miserable night, Beverly confessed that her bike was gone. “This big boy, he came to the playground and grabbed it and took it away.”

“He stole your bike? A girl's bike?”

“Right. Like maybe he had a sister or something.”

“What did he look like? We'll call the police.”

So Beverly had to go on telling lie after lie. At school there were more lies. “Isn't that your bike Charlene's got?” said Becca. “It looks just like it.”

“No, no, it's not my bike. I—uh—gave mine to my cousin. Didn't I, Charlene?”

“That's right,” said Charlene, smiling sweetly at Becca.

“Lord Fish, Lord Fish!” cried the fisherman, rowing in a circle, looking up anxiously at the dark clouds gathering in the sky.

The great fish appeared above the slowly heaving sea, and whispered, “Here I am.”

“Oh, Lord Fish, forgive me, but my wife would like to ride in a golden chariot drawn by six white horses.”

“It shall be as she wishes,” murmured the fish. Leaping in a great arc out of the water, he plunged back into the deep.

Chapter 23

“My grandmother, what big ears you have!”

“The better to hear you, my child!”

Charles Perrault, “Little Red Riding Hood”

“L
isten,” said Fred Small, “some guy was here the other day, wanted to look at a lot. I took him all the way to the end of the property, he said he'd talk to his wife.”

“Did you get his name?” said Bob Gast. “When the deal goes through we'll send him a brochure.”

“Kelly, I think. Homer Kelly.”

“Homer Kelly! No kidding? Hey, he's my landlady's uncle. Big professor. Listen, when's Pearl coming back? Where is she? She's got to sign on the dotted line, or we can't get going. I mean, my expenses are colossal. You wouldn't believe—”

“Don't get so upset. She'll sign. I—uh—had a postcard yesterday.”

“Where from? Where is she?”

“Albany, big hotel in Albany.”

“Albany? I'll bet she's at the Regency, right?”

“I don't remember. I handed it over to McNutt. He's got those gossip columnists on his tail. You know, MISSING
WOMAN WAS BATTERED WIFE.
This'll shut 'em up.”

“Well, great. Good for you, Fred.”

“Professor Kelly?” The voice on the line sounded familiar.

“Sergeant Kennebunk? Hey, how are you? Have you got the chief's job yet?”

Kennebunk cleared his throat. “Professor Kelly, Chief McNutt would like to speak to you.”

“His Honor, Rollo McNutt, he's right there?” Homer made a derisive blubbering noise. “Well, okay, put him on.”