Snyder, Zilpha Keatley (9 page)

There was no doubt about it, the enemy had faltered for a few moments, but they managed to regroup.

“We’re crying,” Ken said. “See the tears.”

“Yeah. We’ll come to your funerals,” Toby said.

Just then Elizabeth pushed her way between April and Melanie. Everyone looked at her in surprise-she’d probably never spoken to a sixth grade boy before in her life, but now she looked as if she meant to. “Please,” she said, in a feathery little voice. “Please don’t tell on us, and we’ll let you play, too.”

April cringed. It was such a corny, baby thing to say. She had a crazy urge to grab Elizabeth and drag her out of wisecrack range, before she got hurt. But seconds passed and nobody pounced. April un-squinched her eyes. Strangely enough, the boys were looking confused again. More confused than ever. Elizabeth was looking shyly hopeful, like an un-spanked puppy.

Then Ken blinked his eyes like someone coming to after a whack on the head. “Come on, Tobe, let’s get out of here,” he said. And then, to no one in particular, “Maybe we won’t fink on you guys. You never can tell. Maybe we just won’t be in the mood for finking. Huh, Tobe?” But Toby only nodded absently. Ken picked up Toby’s T.V. head and jammed it into his hands. “Come on, Tobe,” he said. “We’ve got to get back before my dad misses me.”

But Toby appeared to be thinking. He nodded again slowly and then walked around the girls to the temple. He looked for a moment at each altar and then around the yard. When he carne back his eyes had a faraway look.

, “Okay,” he said. “Okay. We don’t rat, and we get to join the game. Is it a deal?”

“Join the game!” Ken said. “This game? Are you kidding? We could make a deal about using the yard

no-like for-” he paused and glanced around, “-foursquare or handball or something, but-” He caught a glimpse of Toby’s face, and his voice trailed off. Toby was lit up like a pinball machine. Ken shrugged philosophically. “Okay,” he said. “So we’re Egyptians. It figures.”

From then on things happened fast. Toby made everybody take a solemn oath not to tell where they’d been, even if they’d been missed and people started asking questions. Then, there was a brief crisis over getting Toby out of the yard. He wouldn’t fit through the hole in the fence with his boxes on, and the big box the boys had used for climbing over was too big and heavy to throw into the yard. He couldn’t take his costume off because he didn’t think he could get back into it without his dad’s help, and it wouldn’t be wise to rejoin the Trick-or-Treat group in pieces. Finally he lay down on the ground and had everybody stomp on him, more or less gently (less, in the case of April who was still mad) until the boxes were flattened enough to squeeze through the hole. Afterwards, they tried to square him back up, but he never did look quite the same.

As soon as they’d carried off the boxes the boys had piled up to climb on, they started off after the Trick-or-Treat group. Fortunately Ken knew the line of march, and since they didn’t stop at any houses,

it wasn’t too long until they caught up. They even had time to collect a few more treats before it was time to go home.

But it would have taken more than a few pieces of cheap candy to console April and Melanie, After they got the two smaller kids uncostumed and sent home, they sat on April’s bed and stared at each other gloomily.

“What are we going to do?” April said finally. “We just can’t play with those-those-boys there.”

“I don’t see how we can, either,” Melanie said. “But what else can we do? You know what will happen if we try to keep them out. We can try to play it, anyway. Then, if they’re just too awful, I guess we’ll have to give the whole thing up.”

It was a terrible thought. For a few minutes the two girls contemplated the possibility in mournful silence. At last, in a more cheerful voice, Melanie said, “Well, at least we don’t have to give it up yet, thanks to Elizabeth. If she hadn’t had that idea, I’ll bet those jerks would have finked on us right away, just for the fun of it.”

“Yeah,” April said wonderingly. “How about that Elizabeth! How’d a little kid like that know how to handle those two creeps? I’m pretty good at handling adults and people like that, but boys! Yick!”

Melanie grinned. “You know? It’s sort of like what you do in ‘non-violence.’ My Mom says it’s appealing to their better natures.”

“Better natures, phooey!” April said, wrinkling up her nose.

Moods and Maybes

THE NEXT DAY AT RECESS TOBY ALVILLAR SIDLED UP

to Melanie and April. Before he started talking, he looked around quickly to be sure no one who mattered was looking. Ken and Toby didn’t believe in talking to girls. Of course, it was all right to make comments at girls-particularly if they were insults-but real conversations were out, at least in public places.

“When are you guys going ‘you know where’ again?” he asked, sort of out of the corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know,” Melanie answered. “We’re not supposed to go there at all, yet. They’re still not letting us play outside because of the murder and everything. But my folks are weakening, I think.”

“Caroline says I can start playing outside again as

Moods and Maybes

soon as Melanie can,” April said.

“Well look. Ken and I won’t go there until Friday,” Toby said. “Try to get your folks to spring you by then. Okay?”

April and Melanie exchanged surprised glances. “Oh, we’re not just being boy-scouty,” Toby said. “My Dad got mad at me and restricted me for three days. So I couldn’t go before anyway.”

April and Melanie tried not to giggle. “Yeah,” Toby said. “It’s all you guys’ fault, too. My dad got mad at the way you guys mashed up my costume. Parents!” Toby rolled up his eyes in an exasperated expression. “All I ask him for is an idea for a Halloween costume. At first he says he’s too busy to think about it. He’s an artist, and he can’t even think up a little old costume idea. Then, all of a sudden he gets this brain storm and he spends a whole day making the costume, plus a couple of hours putting me into it, and then he’s so hung up on the whole thing that he gets mad when I squash it a little.”

April and Melanie broke down and giggled and, sure enough, Toby was encouraged. “Yeah,” he said, “I just walk in the door, see, and my dad gives me this cold look and says, ‘How many were killed?’ I start saying what’s he talking about, and he says in this icy voice, ‘Well, obviously you’ve been hit by a truck and I was just wondering about the other casualties.’ After that he got louder and not so funny

-and it ends up I’m restricted for three days.”

Toby mugged an exaggeratedly exasperated look again and strolled off, leaving the girls absolutely devastated with giggles. It was all very well having a rule about not laughing at Toby, but it wasn’t always easy to stick to it.

That night at home Melanie brought up the subject of playing outdoors and got her parents started on an argument about it. Her father’s opinion was that “we can’t keep them cooped up forever/’ and fortunately he won-on the condition that Marshall and Melanie promise not to play alone. So it all had to wait until the Rosses could get around to talking with Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Chung and get everything all decided-and by then it was already Thursday.

On Thursday afternoon the three girls picked up Marshall at his nursery school and hurried to Egypt. They had just one day to spend there in peace and quiet before the coming of the “outsiders.” It was a nice sunny afternoon and everything was right where they’d left it, but somehow it was hard to keep their minds on The Game. They were all worrying about the next day. They were wondering if the boys really wanted to play, or if they just wanted to tease and make trouble. April said it wouldn’t surprise her a bit if they showed up with half the boys in the sixth grade and just smashed everything to pieces. In fact, April said she thought they might just as well give the whole thing up and go away and never come back. Later Elizabeth, with worried wrinkles in her forehead, asked Melanie if April really meant it. Were they really going to give up ? But Melanie told her not to worry. “She doesn’t mean it,” Melanie said. “She’s just in a bad mood about something. Can’t you tell?”

And April was in a bad mood. She had been in a bad mood since the day before when she’d gotten a letter from Hollywood. The letter was from Dorothea, and it was very cheery and chatty-and it said that Dorothea and Nick had gotten married. Dorothea chatted about how happy she and Nick were, and how she’d moved into Nick’s apartment and there really wasn’t much room. “Of course,” the letter said, “we’re both looking forward just awfully to the time when we can get more settled and have a bigger place and have you come to live with us. But in the meantime, darling, I’m sending the rest of your things on up to Caroline’s as the storage situation here is just terrible.”

There was a lot more about the big part that Dorothea was about to get-not the same one as she’d written about last time, which hadn’t really been her type of thing, anyway. But this new part-April hadn’t finished the letter. She had torn it up into little tiny pieces and flushed it down the toilet, so she couldn’t change her mind and paste it back together. Then she sat on the window sill and stared off up Orchard Avenue. She had still been sitting there when Caroline came in, but April hadn’t turned around.

“I got a letter from your mother today, too, dear,” Caroline had said. She put one hand very gently on April’s shoulder.

Hot tears had drowned April’s eyes and painful gulps climbed up her throat. She had hated the hand on her shoulder and she had hated Caroline because it was all her fault. She’d been all right until Caroline came in-just angry. Mad-mad-mad, but all right. And then Caroline had to come in and make her cry.

Caroline had just stood there, and once or twice she had made a little sound in her throat as if she were going to say something, but she never did. After a while the painful gulps wore themselves out and the tears running down April’s cheeks began to feel almost good, soothing like warm rain. Suddenly she had felt empty and very tired, and because she was so tired she let her head lean over towards Caroline just a little bit-not really touching, but almost. They stayed that way for quite a while and then Caroline had given April’s shoulder a squeeze, kissed her quickly on top of the head and gone out.

April, had sat there a while longer, tasting the tears on her face with the tip of her tongue and thinking how long it had been since she’d cried enough to

taste. And thinking, too, that a kiss on top of the head was okay, and didn’t make you want to rub it off the way a kiss on the cheek did. Things were better after that but April had gone on being in a bad mood.

Melanie didn’t know about the letter, but she knew something was wrong, and she was worried. Friday afternoon was going to be difficult enough without April’s being in one of her touchy moods. But by Friday April was in a much better frame of mind. Melanie could tell that she had gotten her mind off whatever it had been that was bothering her because she started making cheerful plans in school about getting the best of Ken and Toby.

That afternoon the girls and Marshall got to the storage yard first, and they were all sitting on the edge of the temple floor just waiting when Ken and Toby arrived. Ken had to do a certain amount of squeezing and inhaling to get through the fence, but skinny Toby came through almost as easily as the girls, now that he wasn’t wearing boxes. They didn’t say much at first, just “Hi,” and then the boys started looking around at the altars and the things on them. The girls watched warily, trying to figure out just what they had in mind.

After a few minutes Melanie decided that Ken really didn’t have anything in mind at all. He looked reluctant and puzzled and a little bit embarrassed. She decided that Ken was only there because Toby

was, so she started watching Toby.

It was easy to tell by looking at Toby’s dark eyes that something important was going on behind them. They almost gave you the feeling that you could hear things inside his head going “whirr-clank-buzz/’ but for once it didn’t seem to have anything to do with laughter. Melanie began to get the feeling that maybe Toby wasn’t just there to tease and cut up after all.

So when Toby started asking questions about the things on the altars and about Set and Isis, Melanie started giving straight answers. At first April poked her and frowned in a way that said not to give everything away, but after a while she changed her mind and started answering questions, too. She even took the secret scrolls out of their hiding place in the hollow base of the statue of Diana and showed the boys the list of things to do for different ceremonies and the partly finished hieroglyphic alphabet. Finally Toby left the shed and walked to the middle of the yard.

Ken looked relieved. “Well, I guess that’s all there is to see,” he said to Toby. “We might as well split, huh? We’ll still have time to get in the game up at school.”

But Toby shook his head. “I don’t feel like playing basketball,” he said. “Besides, I sort of dig this Egypt stuff. Let’s hang around a while. Okay?”

Ken shrugged. “Sheesh!” he said. “I don’t care. But the whole scene’s pretty kooky, if you ask me.”

It turned out that Toby wasn’t kidding-he really did dig . He wanted to hear and see everything, and that first afternoon he somehow managed to talk the girl Egyptians into doing all their ceremonies and rituals over for him to watch. At first they were still a little suspicious and embarrassed, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going to tease they became more enthusiastic. A couple of times he even made approving comments like, “Hey! Weird-O!” or, “Toughness.”

Ken was pretty respectful about the whole thing, too. He kept hitting himself on the forehead and saying “Sheesh!” but his tone of voice seemed to indicate amazement more than anything else.

As they were all leaving, a little before 5: 30, Toby asked the girls to write down the names of some of the best books about Egypt. He said he was going to the library that evening to check some out.

That night April and Melanie sat on Melanie’s bed and, feeling very pleased with things in general, they discussed the future. The first meeting of the enlarged Egypt gang had gone off much more smoothly than they had expected. They didn’t admit it, even to each other, but they had both been flattered by Ken’s and Toby’s respectful interest.