Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze (18 page)

“I think maybe he might,” said Oliver.

A few minutes later Randy managed to slip into his room and read him the latest clue.

“Between two roofs and high and dry,

With dust and spiderwebs I lie,

And watch the winter creeping by.

(But think of speed and summer breeze,

Of winding roads and flashing trees,

New fields to conquer. Think of these.)”

“Hmmm,” said Oliver. “It must be in Carthage or Braxton or some other place where the houses are close together. How else could it be high up and between two roofs?”

“I think it's poorly worded,” said Randy critically. “How in the world can it be high and dry if it's out in the open like that?”

“Maybe they've put it in a tin can or a bottle or something,” said Oliver doubtfully.

“But goodness, there are hundreds of houses! We can't just go climbing up on all the roofs around here.”

“Anyway,” said Oliver, “we did all right tonight: two clues inside a minute, just about. Pretty good!”

“Yes, it's certainly a record. Oh, help, here comes Cuffy! Good night, sleep tight!”

Randy vanished down the hall.

CHAPTER XI

Between Two Roofs

Between two roofs and high and dry,

With dust and spiderwebs I lie,

And watch the winter creeping by.

    
(But think of speed and summer breeze,

    
Of winding roads and flashing trees,

    
New fields to conquer. Think of these.)

Shortly after the moonlight expedition, Oliver came down with German measles.

“I wondered how long you were going to overlook them,” Cuffy said. “You've made a thorough investigation of everything else from chicken pox to mumps to croup. Cheer up though, my lamb, it's best to get it over with, and it won't last long.”

She was right, as usual. After two uncomfortable days when he had a temperature, Oliver developed a fancy rash like red lace all over his stomach, and at once felt better. But it was boring to be in bed. Randy had had German measles long ago and was in school. Father was working in his study. Willy was building a new henhouse back of the stable. Cuffy was cleaning out the kitchen. Isaac was asleep on the floor nearby, busily dreaming of chasing rabbits. Oliver was left to his own devices.

First he mounted some butterflies left over from last summer (and got the bed full of pins); then he took apart an old alarm clock but could not put it back together again so that it would run, and after that he painted some pictures of sky battles and bombs exploding and got water color on the sheets and pillow case; and then he ate a few cookies and read some old comic books that he had, and after that he just tossed about among the pins and crumbs and groaned with boredom.

Isaac's paws twitched, and he whimpered in his sleep. Oliver groaned and thought about the clue. They had got no place with it. I wonder if it could be up on our own roof, he thought. Well, maybe it could be. I mean suppose it was up on our roof and at the same time just under the edge of the
cupola
roof. That way it would be between two roofs. I bet that's it! Yes, but what about the winding roads and flashing trees, and all? Well, it could mean that from the roof you'd get a good
view
of trees and roads and stuff. And I bet there's lots of dust and spiderwebs up there. Yes, but what about speed, though, and summertime?

Still, in spite of these unanswered questions, he became more and more hopefully convinced that he had solved the riddle of Clue Eleven's hiding place.

“And I feel perfectly okay,” he said to Isaac, who opened one eye skeptically and closed it again. “It's just this rash that doesn't itch much; and it wouldn't take me a minute, and I wouldn't make any noise.”

I better
not
make any noise, he told himself as, a second later, barefooted and in his pajamas, he sped up the stairs to the Office and then up the little steep stairs to Mark's cupola room. The windows had not been opened in a long time and they all stuck in their cases, but finally Oliver got one open and stepped out on the flat top of the mansard roof.

It was wild and windy, a day late in March. The spruce trees swept their boughs against the house, and the sky was full of big, hurtling clouds, and crows blown off their courses.

“I hope they'd have the sense to anchor down the clue,” said Oliver, “or it would have blown away long ago.”

There were little swirls of dust on the roof, and even some old rags of last year's cobwebs up beneath the eaves; but there was no clue. There was nothing of interest. Oliver walked all around the cupola and then to the edge of the roof where he stood still, with his teeth chattering, looking north to Carthage, where, across the empty fields, great cloud shadows were hurrying. Cold and windy though it was, it was good to be outdoors again.

“OLIVER MELENDY!!” shouted a terrible voice, and Oliver looked down into the upturned face of Cuffy, her arms full of dish towels and her face full of outrage.

He scuttled into the house and downstairs to his bed to await his scolding. He got it, too, and for several days Cuffy watched him like a hawk to see if he developed complications, but he didn't, luckily, and by the time he was entirely recovered Easter vacation had begun, and Mona and Mark and Rush were all at home again.

Another nice thing was that Mrs. Oliphant came for a visit; she had paid them a number of visits since Christmas. Added to her other virtues she believed in presents, and always brought them something that they liked: a pair of Javanese puppets on one occasion, a handful of peacock feathers on another, and once an old-fashioned, pretty music box with one note missing that made the tune limp; it had been her own in her long-ago childhood. On this particular visit she brought a chocolate rabbit two feet high, wearing a straw hat and carrying a basket full of hard-boiled eggs. Nobody could bear to eat it except Oliver who surreptitiously nicked off an edge of paw or ear whenever he found himself alone with it.

Easter Sunday was a beautiful day, though windy. The crocuses that Mona had planted two years ago came up and blossomed just in time. “Like little Easter egg cups,” Randy said. Mona made herself a new hat out of a spray of artificial lilac and some veiling from the dime store. She made one for Randy, too, using a piece of yellow ribbon, some cloth daisies, and one of Oliver's butterflies. Both were very pretty hats, but having been designed more for effect than for endurance the girls, while wearing them, moved their heads with extreme care as though they had stiff necks.

“Maybe I'll just give up acting and design hats when I grow up,” said Mona, with pins in her mouth. “Honestly, Rush, look at us; don't we look fashionable?”

“Uh-hunh, pretty sharp,” said Rush with mild enthusiasm; he hardly seemed to see the hats at all. But when, in all their finery, they went out to get into the Motor to go to church, the first thing they saw was Lorna Doone, the horse, greedily cropping crocuses on the front lawn, and on her head she, too, was wearing a new bonnet; a dashing creation made up of Cuffy's feather duster, some paper roses, and the family toothbrushes arranged in a cockade, all tastefully held in place with adhesive tape and the cord from somebody's pajamas.

“Rush, you scoundrel!” cried Mona, but she laughed as hard as everybody else.

“I think she looks kind of stylish, like a circus horse,” said Mark. “When we come home, let's hitch her to the surrey and go for the first ride of the season.”

The ride, however, was delayed; first by the large dinner they all ate, and then by the natural languor following upon the dinner, and then by the fact that the surrey had to be cleaned and dusted before they could use it. Rush even got up on a stool and swept off the roof with such vigorous strokes that clouds of dust descended upon Randy, and also, unexpectedly, a little wad of paper: pale blue paper.

She stared at it for a moment before she realized what it was and pounced upon it, screaming.

“Between two roofs!” she yelped. “‘
On
the surrey roof and
under
the stable roof. Oh, but I don't think that was quite fair—” she stopped abruptly. Mark was staring at her; so was Rush.

“You nuts?” inquired her brothers kindly.

“No,” said Randy. “It's just—it's just—oh, you wouldn't understand!” With that she fled from the stable, shouting for Oliver.

She found him astride one of the iron deer wearing his cowboy hat and reading the Sunday funnies which flapped and crackled in the breeze.

“Why didn't you answer me? Listen, I've got it!”

“Hm-m?” said Oliver. “Answer you? I was reading about this dumb character, a rabbit named Spoofy, and how he's having trouble with this other character, a woodchuck—” (Oliver had caught the word “character” from Rush.)

“Oliver, listen! It's the
clue,
dope; I've got the
clue!
”

“
Where?
Why didn't you say so?”

“It was on the surrey roof the whole time! Rush just knocked it off by accident.”

“But it said
between
two roofs, didn't it?”

“Yes, and so it was: on top of the surrey roof and under the stable roof. See? Though it doesn't seem just the right way to phrase it—”

“So that's what they meant by speed and winding roads. What does this one say?”

“It's sort of stately. It says:

‘Those which are broken, here achieve perfection,

    
Those which are scattered, here become as one;

Splendid as jewels arranged for our inspection,

    
Brilliant as dewdrops blazing in the sun,

        
And in design as fleeting as the dew.

        
Here, close to these bright changelings, find the clue.'”

“Gosh,” said Oliver.

“I know,” sighed Randy.

Instead of whooping and leaping as the occasion demanded, they crossed the lawn to the waiting surrey with lagging steps and preoccupied faces, to take the season's first ride.

Luckily, they soon forgot their cares. Lorna Doone enjoyed being in harness again and clip-clopped briskly along the country roads, her mane rippling and the sunlight flashing on her coronet of toothbrushes. And the weather was so lovely! It promised spring for the first time; and within the promise of spring lay the promise of summer, when the family would all be together like this for a long time, and make many, many such excursions.

CHAPTER XII

Bright Changelings

Those which are broken, here achieve perfection,

    
Those which are scattered, here become as one;

Splendid as jewels arranged for our inspection,