McMummy (2 page)

She closed the door.

Mozie stood for a moment without moving. Then he walked quickly to the side of the house and looked up at Batty’s window.

Batty’s face was there, pulled into an expression of concern. He opened the window and leaned out. “I’m grounded. You heard her.”

“Batty, I’m really scared to go back to the greenhouse by myself.”

“I’m scared for you.”

“You’re not as scared as I am.”

There was a long silence as they looked at each other.

Mozie felt that the distance between him and Batty was more than one story of a house. Batty was miles away, up in an unreachable place that might as well have been the moon.

“If only you hadn’t given me the look,” Batty said.

“I didn’t!”

Batty shook his head with real regret. “If only I hadn’t thought you were giving me the look.”

“Yes. Good-bye, Batty.”

M
OZIE OPENED THE FRONT
door and stepped into the hall. He glanced at himself in the mirror.

His expression was, as usual, pleasant. The expression was built-in. He had an elf face. Everything turned up—his nose, the corners of his mouth, his eyes.

What would it take to make his face look pitiful? he wondered. Here he was facing a pod-shaped mummy—alone! And he was powerless against this pod! And yet he looked as if he was going to pull on a pointed hat and help St. Nick.

In the living room a voice said, “I’m going to say my philosophy of life for you, if you don’t mind hearing it again.”

Miss Tri-County Tech was practicing her philosophy of life in the living room as Mozie’s mother fitted her dress.

Mozie’s mother made a living sewing beautiful dresses for pageants. She didn’t make dresses for Miss South Carolina and Mrs. America. She was on a lower level of pageantry. She sewed for Miss County Fairground and Miss Goober and Junior Miss Buncombe County.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, did I stick you? Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Miss Tri-County Tech said. “My philosophy of life is this. Be not what you are, but what you are capable of being. Make every minute count. Spend time with yourself and your other loved ones. You will only pass this way wunst.”

“Once,” Mrs. Mozer corrected.

“I can never remember not to put a
t
on
once.
Once! Once! Once! You will only pass this way ONCE. I wonder why once doesn’t have a
t
on the end of it. It needs one. Doesn’t wunst sound better than once? It does to me.”

From the hall Mozie interrupted quietly but firmly. “Mom.”

“I’m in the middle of a fitting,” his mother reminded him.

“I have to talk to you.”

“Well, go ahead. I can listen from here.”

Mozie was not allowed in the living room while his mother was having a fitting, lest he see one of the beauty contestants in a state of undress. Actually, many of the contestants were not beautiful—some were even ugly—and Mozie was happy to stay out of the way.

Still, he had many conversations with his mother like this, back to the wall, looking up. By now he was familiar with every crack, every stain in the ceiling.

“Mom, I can’t go to the greenhouse because Batty’s grounded.”

“Well, you aren’t grounded. You can still go.”

“I can’t. I can’t go by myself. Mom, I didn’t want to tell you this because I knew you would either: (1) not believe me or (2) not care.”

In the living room Miss Tri-County Tech said, “Remember to make the dress real tight in the waist because I’m going to lose ten pounds by next Saturday.”

“We can always take it in,” his mother said sensibly, “but if I have to let it out, sometimes the stitch marks show, particularly in satin.”

Mozie ground his teeth in frustration. His mother was sensible about everything but him.

“Mom?”

“Mozie, are you still there?”

“Yes, I am still here.”

“Well, go on with what you were saying.”

“I was saying that—well, even when I first started in the greenhouse, I had an uneasy feeling. That was why I always took Batty with me. He was uneasy too. But we didn’t know why. It was just all these plants!”

“Mozie, that’s what a greenhouse is for—plants. You knew there would be plants there when you agreed to do this.”

“Yes, plants! Lettuces and radishes and cherry tomatoes—those kind of plants. These are P! L! A! N! T! S!”

“Don’t be dramatic,” his mother said.

Miss Tri-County Tech said, “If I win, I’m going to say, ‘I owe my success to God and to my country and to my boyfriend Bucky Buckaloo.’”

Mozie said patiently, “Mom.”

“Bucky doesn’t know I’m going to put him up there with God and country. It’s going to blow his mind.”

“Mom.” Still he was patient.

“Yes, Mozie, I’m listening. Go on about the greenhouse.”

Although Mozie could not see his mom’s expression, he knew exactly how her face looked when she was disinterested. It would look that way now. He continued anyway.

“Well, always the greenhouse has given me an uneasy feeling, but I didn’t say anything because we needed the money.”

“I appreciate that,” his mother said, then to Miss Tri-County Tech, “put this tissue in your mouth so we don’t get lipstick on the front of the dress.”

“But yesterday when I was there, I was alone—Batty was at the dentist getting braces—I got this strange feeling …”

Mozie paused because the feeling came back to him as he stood in his own hallway—a strange feeling of dread and fascination.

He had been deep in the greenhouse at the back, where the largest plants grew. He had been drawn there for some reason he couldn’t explain. He had never ventured back there before. Usually he came just inside the door of the greenhouse, where the controls for the sprinkler system were.

The instructions for him were posted there. The writing was in Professor Orloff’s thin precise script.

1. Make sure the timer is set for exactly three hours.

2. Open valve X. Put one vial of liquid Vita Grow into valve.

3. Close valve tightly.

4. Turn on sprinkler system. Wait to see it is operational.

5. Exit and lock door.

Each time before he had done exactly as instructed. He would come just inside the door while Batty waited behind him.

“I’ll wait outside,” Batty would say. “One of us has to be out of reach. Remember that movie with that plant that ate people? What was the name? It was a singing plant, but it ate people between songs. I think of that plant every time I come to the greenhouse.”

Mozie could not explain what had drawn him forward this time. He was afraid to venture into the greenhouse and yet he went anyway, as if he couldn’t help himself. Like a person sleepwalking, he moved down the aisle of greenery so overgrown that he had to bend to avoid the heavy leaves.

On either side grew tomatoes as big as basketballs. Squash that would take two men to lift drooped on their thick vines. Flowers like trumpets pointed at him as if to blow an alarm. Cucumbers as big as watermelons lay on the ground.

At the end of the greenhouse he had stopped. Here were the biggest, strangest of the plants. The heavy limbs brushed the top of the greenhouse. The stems were as big as Mozie’s body. The leaves were like flying carpets.

Mozie stood there, awed and afraid. His arms trembled at his sides.

And then he had reached out with one trembling hand and pushed the huge leaves aside. He drew in a breath. He almost choked as the thick, rich air hit his lungs.

His heart began to race as he saw what was hidden in the leaves.

There was a pod.

A pod as big as his own body—thick and heavy with a faint green hair covering it. The sunlight made it shiver and then—though it could have been a movement of the sun light—that’s what Mozie hoped it was—the pod seemed to turn toward him.

At that moment, Mozie himself had turned and run for the door. He started the hundred-yard dash toward the woods, stopped, turned, and ran back to the greenhouse.

He had left the door open and he leaned inside. With trembling hands he opened valve X, put in the Vita Grow, turned on the sprinkler system, closed the door, locked it.

This time, running for home, he didn’t stop for anything.

“M
OZIE, ARE YOU STILL
out there in the hall?”

His mother’s voice drew Mozie abruptly back to the present. “Yes, I am still here.”

“Are you finished with what you were saying?”

In the hall, Mozie’s heart was racing as it had yesterday.

“Mom, I’m not kidding about this. I really am afraid of going to the greenhouse. Because yesterday, I didn’t want to walk back there to that plant. I did not want to! And I did. That’s what really scares me. I was actually drawn against my will—I know you think I’m being dramatic, but …”

In the living room his mother said, “Now, Valvoline, let’s see if we can slip this over your head without sticking you again.”

“I wish my name wasn’t Valvoline,” Miss Tri-County Tech said. “That’s one reason I think I might not get it. You know what my mother told me? Ouch!”

“Sorry.”

“My mother told me she had named me for somebody in a romantic novel she read, which I believed. I was so proud of my name. I wouldn’t let anybody shorten it to Val. Then, then! I come to find out she got mixed up and named me for a motor oil.”

“Mom.”

“Yes, Mozie, I’m still listening.” Her tone implied she was still listening but she was more interested even in motor oil than plants.

“I cannot go back there by myself,” Mozie said in a reasonable, adultlike voice. “I need someone to make sure I do not go back to that plant!”

“Come in the living room, Mozie,” his mother said. “It’s safe.”

Mozie peered around the door of the living room. Valvoline was dressed. She was at the mirror, fluffing her hair.

Mozie’s face, he knew, would not reflect his concern. He actually feared for his life, and this little merry face …

He hated his face. He wanted to take his hands and remodel his face like clay, to force his features to reflect the panic that surged through his body.

“Don’t pay any attention to my face,” he began, “because—”

“Are you talking about that old greenhouse out on Sumpter Road?” Miss Tri-County Tech asked, turning toward him.

Mozie nodded.

“We used to go out there when we were in junior high. It was spooky back then. The big house had burned down and the plants in the greenhouse were all dried up and rattled like skeletons when the wind came in the door.”

She gave her hair an additional fluff. “Maybe it’s changed, but I would not let a little boy of mine go out there by himself.”

Mozie said, “See, Mom, everybody knows it’s dangerous but you!”

“Mozie, that was years ago. The greenhouse had been abandoned then. Now Professor Orloff’s taken it over. Everyone says that eventually his discoveries will save the world. That’s what he’s doing at the World Congress on Hunger right now. This man may single-handedly solve the problem of world hunger.”

“That doesn’t help me now,” Mozie said. He felt childish and selfish, standing in the way of the hungry, but he really was afraid.

His mother put Valvoline’s dress on a hanger. “All right, if you don’t want to go alone, get one of your friends to go with you—pay them if you have to.”

“Mom, Batty’s the only friend I’ve got.”

His mother sighed now, showing her irritation. “I guess I could go. But I’ll never get this gown finished by Friday.”

Miss Tri-County Tech said, “Look, I could drive him out there.”

His mother’s face brightened. “You wouldn’t mind, Valvoline?”

“I’ll drive him, only I’m not going into that greenhouse. I’ll park by the old Esso station and wait for him. And I’m keeping all the doors locked.”

Mozie broke into the conversation. “And if I don’t come back, will you call my mom?”

“I will. I’ll even call 911 if it’ll make you feel any better.”

“Is that agreeable, Mozie?”

“Yes. But Mom, you will listen for the phone?” Sometimes his mom forgot everyday life when she sewed.

“Yes.”

“Do I have time to call Batty?” Mozie asked Val. “I just want to let him know I’ve got help.”

“Yes, but hurry, Mozie, because I have to pick Bucky up at seven.”

Mozie ran upstairs and dialed Batty’s number. If Mrs. Batson answered, he would, of course, hang up immediately, but he wanted his friend to know he was not going to be devoured.

The phone was picked up by one of Batty’s sisters. Batty had three sisters, and they all sounded alike. Mozie hoped this one wasn’t Linda, whose piano recital they had attended with such disastrous results.

“May I speak to Batty, please?”

“He can’t come out of his room.”

“Well, could you give him a message for me?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell him that Mozie called—”

“Mozie?” She gave the name a distasteful ring. Though none of Batty’s sisters liked him, Linda hated him, and he thought with a sinking heart that this was Linda.

“Yes.”

“You want me to give a message to Batty?”

“Yes.”

“Moi? The sister whose piano recital you completely ruined?”

Mozie hated it when Batty’s sisters did their Miss Piggy routines.

“Linda”—he swallowed, making a sort of guttural sound—“I’m sorry about what happened.”

“You’re sorry all right.”

“Please just tell him that I’m going to the greenhouse, but a girl named Valvoline’s going with me and she’s going to wait out by the Esso station, and if I don’t come out, she’s going to call my mom. I just wanted him to know because he was worried for my life and … Hello? Hello?”

“I’m leaving now,” Valvoline called from below.

Mozie ran down the stairs.

“D
ID YOU HAPPEN
to hear my philosophy of life when I was saying it in your living room?” Valvoline asked as she made a left turn, using both lanes to complete it.

“Yes, I did.”

“How did it sound?”

“Good.”

“It’s the same philosophy of life I used in the Miss Dogwood pageant, so I hope no one will remember.”