Authors: Gary D. Schmidt
houses were and how much ice cream was in the brown bags—which made a lot of sense, since it
was already somewhere up in the eighties probably, and the white haze in the air said it was going to
be a whole lot hotter.
"Do you want to warn him about Mrs. Windermere now or later?" said Lil.
Mr. Spicer looked at her. "He doesn't have anything to worry about," he said.
Lil looked at me and mouthed,
Yes, you do.
"All the houses on this first run are within a couple of blocks of the deli," Mr. Spicer said, "so it
shouldn't take long if you put your mind to it. You better get going before the ice cream starts to melt."
So I got going. But I'm not lying, it wasn't so easy to match Mr. Spicer's hand-drawn letters to the
letters on the street signs, and so it probably did take a little longer than it would have for someone
who had lived all his life in stupid Marysville, which Mr. Spicer didn't seem to understand as well as
he should. "You'll have to pick up the pace if we're going to get all these orders delivered," he said
when I got back.
I nodded.
"Lil's got the next wagon all set. Right? Here's the map. You'll get to know all of these by heart, but
you have to keep your mind on it this time."
Terrific.
"Are you going to warn him about Mrs. Windermere yet?" said Lil.
I set out again, dragging the wagon behind me. After ten minutes, I had no idea how to find any of
the streets on the map, and so I had to stop and ask someone who was edging the lawn in front of her
house, like it really mattered to anyone if her grass was cut in a straight line. I held out the map and
asked if she knew where the street was for the first house.
She put down her edger, took off her garden gloves, and looked at the map. "That's Gardiner. That's
this street," she said. She pointed up at the sign on the corner. "Didn't you see it?"
No, I didn't see it, jerk. I wouldn't have asked you if I had seen it, would I?
That's what I wanted
to say.
"So number nineteen would be..." I said.
"A few houses down on the other side. Evelyn Mason's place." She pointed. "It's the bright yellow
one with the white impatiens under the porch."
I headed down to Evelyn Mason's place with the stupid white impatiens under the stupid porch,
knocked on the stupid door, handed over the stupid bags of groceries, showed her the stupid map and
said, "I have to get over to...," and she pointed the way.
That's how I got by the rest of that Saturday morning. I showed the customers the map, and they
pointed the way. It worked pretty well—until Ernie Eco drove by and he said what was I doing and I
told him and he asked if I needed help finding the houses and I said I did and he looked at the map and
told me the way to the house after the one I was already heading to, but he told me to go in completely
the wrong direction and by the time I got that figured out and turned around and found the last house,
their ice cream had mostly melted inside the foil bag and they wouldn't pay for it. So I took it back.
Mr. Spicer said it could happen on anyone's first day but I shouldn't let it happen again and next time
he'd have to take it out of my salary.
Ernie Eco probably thought he was a barrel of laughs.
He probably thought I was a chump.
Then Mr. Spicer nodded to the last wagon. "It's for Mrs. Windermere," he said.
Lil whistled kind of low, like something out of
The Twilight Zone.
"Mrs. Windermere," I said.
"This one's got ice cream too. Lemon ice cream, which is expensive. So pay attention."
I nodded. I wondered if he might hand me a cold Coke before I left. The mercury must have left
ninety behind a long time ago. And I sure did know what to do with a really cold Coke.
"Mrs. Windermere is supposed to pay you," Mr. Spicer said. "Cash on delivery. Sometimes she
tries to charge it, but then she forgets, and I have to drive over and she's forgotten that she didn't pay
and we have a really unhappy scene. So make sure you come away with"—he looked down at her bill
—"twenty-two dollars and seventy-eight cents."
"Okay," I said. Waiting for a cold Coke. Waiting for a cold Coke. Waiting for a cold Coke.
"And you won't even need a map for this one," Mr. Spicer said. "Go over to the library, take the
street that runs into it—that's Green Street—and head out until the houses stop and there's a big field.
Go across that, and you'll see this huge brick house. That's where she lives. Got it?"
"Twenty-two seventy-eight," I said.
Mr. Spicer nodded. "In hand," he said.
A Coke,
I thought.
A really cold Coke with ice coming down the sides.
He looked at me. "You waiting for something?"
"I wouldn't be in a hurry either if I was him," Lil said.
I set off on the last run of the Saturday deliveries. I decided that if I found any sprinklers going, I'd
jump through them, since everything I was wearing was already dripping wet anyway.
But there weren't any sprinklers the whole way. Are you surprised? There never are.
Do you know how many blocks there were before the houses started thinning out after the library?
Fourteen.
Do you know how many trees there are along the road once the houses started to give out?
Six.
Do you know how much shade they gave?
Maybe a tiny bit more than zero.
Do you know how big that field before Mrs. Windermere's house was?
Big. And the path that I had to drag the wagon on wasn't exactly mowed.
By the time I got there, I couldn't believe I was still sweating, since it felt like anything liquid must
have baked out of me. I couldn't believe there was still frost on the metal foil around the expensive
lemon ice cream.
Mrs. Windermere's house spread out at the end of a long brick path—and the bricks were baking
hot—that led up from the road through gardens on either side that had just been sprinkled with
sprinklers, which were turned off now, of course, and then past some tall evergreens and then into
some high trees that, finally, spread some shade down onto the world and then through some more
gardens with flowers that I would have died to bring home to my mother and finally more baked
bricks right up to the house. It was the biggest house I'd ever seen that one person owned. I mean,
there were pillars in the front. Pillars! More windows than Camillo Junior High. This green and
white ivy climbing up everywhere. And a doorway with a round window over it. That's right. Over it.
No one could even look out of it, it was that high up.
It was quiet under the trees. No wind. The only thing I heard was someone pecking at a typewriter
and then the little bell dinging when whoever was typing reached the end of a line. But nothing else. It
was like even the birds knew they had to be quiet, because I guess no one was supposed to disturb the
great Mrs. Windermere.
I left the wagon at the foot of the steps that led up to the door, and I rang the doorbell and stepped
back.
Typing not stopping. Little bell still dinging.
I waited for a while.
Typing not stopping. Little bell still dinging.
I went up and rang the doorbell again. Twice. Knocked. Twice.
Typing stopping.
I took a step back, which turned out to be a really good thing, because the door suddenly swung
open and there was Mrs. Windermere—at least, I figured it had to be her.
She had hair as white as clouds, and about as wispy too, and big. It was all gathered like one of
those huge thunderheads that rises on hot summer days. The top was in sort of a bun and tied tight with
red rubber bands. And in that top bun—I'm not lying—there were three bright yellow pencils stabbing
through. She wore a bluish kind of gown that shimmered—it looked like something that someone
about to go to an opera would wear (not that I've ever been to an opera, or would ever be caught dead
at one. Can you imagine Joe Pepitone ever going to an opera?). With the cloud on top and the
shimmering blue beneath, she looked like a rainstorm that could walk around all by itself. Which
wouldn't have been so bad on a day that wanted to be a hundred degrees.
All this, by the way, took about half a second to see, because she hadn't even finished opening the
door when she said, "Who are you?"
That's not really what she said. She used a word that I'd never heard a lady use before. It came
pretty close after
Who.
You can figure it out for yourself.
"Who do you think I am?" I said. I know: sounding like Lucas. But you have to remember that she
started it. And it was hot. And Mr. Spicer had never given me that really cold Coke. Ice coming down
the sides.
She looked behind me at the wagon. "I think you are a very skinny and very rude delivery boy, and
you are a very skinny and very rude delivery boy whom I have no time for right now. Go away and
come back later this afternoon."
She closed the door. Hard.
Typing starting up again. Little bell dinging.
I could almost hear Lil snorting, back at the deli.
I stood out there for a couple of minutes. To be as thirsty as I was, you'd have to be in the French
Foreign Legion and lost somewhere out in the Sahara for a week. I thought about dragging that wagon
back down the baking brick walk and through the field to the road. I thought about dragging that
wagon down all of those fourteen blocks back to Spicer's Deli. And then I thought about doing it
all
over again
in the afternoon.
I rang the doorbell.
Typing not stopping. Little bell still dinging.
I rang the doorbell again. Twice. Knocked. Twice. Stepped back.
Typing stopping, and this time the door opened even more quickly.
"Do you know what Creativity is?" Mrs. Windermere said.
You have to admit: this is not something you expect a normal person to say.
"I'm not sure," I said.
"I'm sure that you do not know, or you would not be ringing this doorbell. Creativity is a god who
comes only when he pleases, and it isn't very often. But when he does come, he sits beside my desk
and folds his wings and I offer him whatever he wants and in exchange he lets me type all sorts of
things that get turned into plays for which people who own New York stages are waiting. And right
now, he is sitting by my desk, and he is being very kind. So if you would go away and—"
"Suppose you offer him some ice cream," I said. "Would he stay longer?"
She looked behind me again, at the wagon. "Ice cream?" she said.
I nodded.
"What kind did I order?"
"Lemon."
She considered this. "Lemon?" she said.
I nodded again.
She looked at the wagon once more.
"Go around back. There's a door into the kitchen. Put everything away where it's supposed to go. If
you cannot figure out where something is supposed to go, for heaven's sake, don't come and ask me.
Leave it on the kitchen table. You better start with the ice cream. And do not make any noise."
She closed the door, again. Hard, again.
I followed the brick path around the house to the back. I should tell you that there was no shade
around this side of the house, so things were getting sort of desperate in the Thirsty Department. The
kitchen door was up three steps, so I grabbed the ice cream and headed up.
The door was locked. Of course. Of course it was locked.
I thought about going around and ringing the doorbell again.
I thought about walking away and leaving the whole thing right there. Melted lemon ice cream all
over the back steps.
Instead, I looked under the mat by the door, and there it was: the key! Pretty sneaky of Mrs.
Windermere. No one would ever think to look there if he wanted to break in while she was away at
the opera.
Here are the stats for Mrs. Windermere's kitchen:
The floor was white and yellow tile—twenty-four tiles wide, eighteen tiles long.
One rack with sixteen copper pots and pans hanging over a woodblock table.
Four yellow stools around the woodblock table.
Twelve glass cupboards—all white inside. You could have put my mother's dishes into any one
of these and you would have had plenty of room left over.
And the dishes! All white and yellow. And the glasses! Who knows how many? All matching.
Not a single one chipped.
You know who deserved this kitchen, right?
Before I did anything, I drank about a gallon and a half from the faucet. I put my head under and let
the water run. I didn't even care if Mrs. Windermere came in and saw me doing it. It wasn't like I was
using one of her glasses. And it tasted so good. Even better than a really cold Coke.
Then I put all the groceries away, starting with the lemon ice cream into the freezer. I left the fresh
beans and carrots and onions on the woodblock table, but everything else got put away in cupboards
that, if you asked me, were pretty full already. But no one was asking me.
I took another long drink for the road. Another gallon and a half, I'd say.
Then I started out the back door—and remembered: $22.78.
I could hear the typing and the dinging through the house. They were going pretty steady. Probably