The Curious Adventures of Jimmy McGee (4 page)

"I don't see anything of that sort," said Clarissa. "All I see is ocean, sand ... oh, how beautiful it is here!"

"Yes!" agreed Amy. "And now we must show Little Lydia the sights!"

Amy picked Little Lydia up. She held her high above her head. "Breathe!" she said. But Little Lydia was a do-nothing doll. So naturally she didn't breathe, or blink, or say, "My goodness!" But her face had a pretty smile painted on it, and her eyes were as blue as the sea and the sky, so you would think they could see! The little dress she had on was of calico. It had a blue background with tiny little pink roses in its pattern. She was made of rubber so that she could sit or be put in any position.

"Pretty, very pretty," thought Jimmy McGee. So
that
was Little Lydia, the do-nothing doll with electric blue eyes that stared at the sky!

"We're going to make a castle for you," Amy told Little Lydia. "A sand castle, and more than just that. You'll see." She carefully laid Little Lydia down on the tiny blue shawl that she had crocheted for her, and she and Clarissa started on their construction.

Jimmy McGee watched them bring pails of water and pat the sand down firmly. About to leave to do his work, he took a last look at Little Lydia. A slight breeze had changed her position, so she was lying a little more on her side. Instead of staring at the sky, her electric blue eyes were now riveted directly on him!

Jimmy McGee rubbed his own eyes. "Am I seeing things?" It was as though Little Lydia could see through his grassy curtains and watch him.

"Nonsense!" he told himself. "A do-nothing doll is a do-nothing doll. She can't see with those electric blue eyes of hers, not me or anything else. But, bye!" he said in bebop code language. This was his own language that he had developed during his miles and miles of zoomie-zoomie traveling over electric telephone wires, train tracks, trollies, everywhere. So far as he knew, he was the only one who knew the language. But he had made a dictionary of this bebop code. It was in one of his scrolls, and he kept it in his language division.

Off he went now in six-sixty time. And Amy and Clarissa went about their business of creating a castle with rooms in it and a moat around it and turrets on top as a watch-out place for visitors, be they horseshoe crabs or whatever! Some unknown enemy! This was going to be Little Lydia's headquarters.

Now and then Jimmy McGee came back, curious himself, to see how things were going in the making of the castle. But he stayed only long enough to see the foundations being laid or a bedroom added. Then he would be off again. Sometimes, far away, he would hear the rumbling of thunder, and he'd head off in that direction! He always hoped that
this
time, during
this
storm, he would capture the tiny tip end of a lightning bolt and the final rumble of a thunderbolt, pop them in his tough little strong box saved for this very purpose. What a way to round out his already amazing collection of nuts and bolts that would be!

At first he had called his empty little box "the magic bolt box." Then he thought he might change the name to his "thunder and lightning bolt box" or even to the "bolt-out-of-the-blue box." He'd see what fitted in best when he caught these precious bolts and how he used them. He meant, if he ever did catch them, to use them for some, so far unknown, special occasion. Until then, he would always carry them in their safety box inside his stovepipe hat.

But he missed out on that storm. It petered out before he could get there even in his fast zoomie-zoomie-zoomie time.

Now, back at the beach, he saw that Amy and Clarissa were having a more successful time of it. They were creating a miraculous castle. Patting down the sand here, shaping it there, they formed rooms, a big hall, a banquet room, and a bedroom. They had propped Little Lydia up now against a fragile wisp of sea grass, fluttering slightly in the gentle summer breeze, where she could watch what was going on solely for her, the creation of Little Lydia's castle!

A sand castle with a moat and a drawbridge, all for Little Lydia, a do-nothing doll, but a princess now, with a castle all her own. By the end of the day Amy and Clarissa were pretty tired. They laid Little Lydia on the couch they had patted down for her in her big bedroom.

"Should we leave her here all night and let her listen to the swishing sound of the waves rolling in on time, rolling out on time?" Amy wondered.

"And hear the peepers up and down Cape Cod as though they were singing a concert, a lullaby concert?" added Clarissa.

"A lullaby for Little Lydia, stargazing," said Amy.

Soon the sun would set. Little Lydia would be lying there, gazing and gazing at the sky, blue eyes wide open all the time. Amy said, "You know, Clarissa, there is no roof to this palace. Little Lydia might get lonely. And there is no prince, no one to guard her. I think we should take her into The Bizzy Bee in the nighttime."

Clarissa agreed. "Yes. Much safer inside. Out here maybe a big bad monster, not a prince in white armor, might capture her."

"M-m-m," said Amy. "Each night we'll bring her in, and each morning bring her back out. Tomorrow we'll build a little town all stretching out beyond her castle, nestling at the foot of the dune. It could have little streets and houses."

"Oh, yes!" said Clarissa happily.

"And we could make little people out of hard sand," Amy went on.

"Oh, yes," said Clarissa, laughing. "And little peepers might come and live in the castle, keep Little Lydia company, and in the houses, too. Be pets for the little children!"

They picked Little Lydia up gently, brushed the sand out of her fluffy golden hair, and went in to dinner. Later Amy felt under the mattress for her book. It was there and safe. It didn't pop open to the L and M page. Being under the mattress may have cured it of that curious habit. She put it on her pillow with Little Lydia on top of it, so both were safe and sound.

Then, because it was such a star-studded night, Papa suggested they should all go out and look at the sky. Papa knew a great deal about the heavens and pointed out the constellations. Now they all knew how to locate the North Star and Cassiopeia's Chair and a great deal besides. They then began to look for and count the shooting stars.

"There goes one!" exclaimed Amy.

"Oh! I missed that one," said Clarissa. "Oh-oh! But there goes another one!"

Sometimes one of them saw a star streak across the sky, sometimes someone else did. It was a game. They began to keep track.

"There's one," said Amy.

"Oh! I missed it," said Mama.

By the time they went in, it was practically a tie. Amy and Clarissa had each seen four, Papa three, Mama, not sure, thought only two. "It's my eyes!" said Mama.

Then it was time for bed. Amy tied the little hand-crocheted blue shawl she had made for Little Lydia from one iron post to the next at the foot of the bed. Amy's
Who's
Who Book
was to be Little Lydia's mattress. But what do you know? The minute Amy laid it in the hammock, it sprang open, as it always used to, to the L and M page.

Amy closed it firmly, put an elastic band around it, and laid Little Lydia on top of it. "That will straighten you out, book!" she said. When Wags came in—he always checked on everybody—he poked the little hammock gently with his big paw and set it gently rocking.

Amy and Clarissa got into the bed they shared. The evenings were cool here in Truro. They snuggled under the warm, puffy comforter Mama put over them when she kissed them good night. "Go to sleep now, you two," she said. "Tomorrow is another day." Then she tiptoed out of the room as though they were already asleep.

They talked a little, in very soft voices, so Mama would think they really were asleep.

Clarissa whispered, "What do you think the piper, Jimmy McGee, is doing now? I mean the pipe man, the plumber, the banger-on-pipes man.

"Sh-sh-sh," whispered Amy. "I'm thinking ... thinking ... Tomorrow is ... another..."

"Day," finished Clarissa.

Both fell asleep to the exultant song of the peepers, rising louder and louder, an accompaniment to the lovely sound of the great waves of the ocean rolling in, breaking, and then rolling back.

As for Jimmy McGee, what was he doing? He, too, had been watching the shooting stars. But mainly he was musing about an idea he had, a nice one, that had to do with Little Lydia's sand castle.

This idea was more in his line of work, plumbing mainly, than aiming to somehow become a hero. He put the smallest tools he owned in his stovepipe hat. In the moonlight, he zoomie-zoomied down and stood beside the sand castle of Little Lydia. He had in mind to add his own touch to this pretty castle in the sand. How? What? Well ... he hadn't decided yet. Maybe a drawbridge that would really go up, go down?

In the end he did nothing. After all, this castle was the creation of Amy and Clarissa. He could admire it, but he could not put the Jimmy McGee touch on it. But wait. In his "found things" he remembered he had picked up a fragile, tiny piece of a child's silver chain. He laid it beside the moat, where he supposed the drawbridge would go. It could be part of the equipment for that. Help it go up and go down. Maybe Amy and Clarissa would think of that and use it that way, or use it any way they wanted.

Then off he went on his rounds.

In the morning, Amy and Clarissa did see the little piece of chain. Instead of using it for their drawbridge, they looped it around Little Lydia's neck. "Now the princess has some jewels," said Amy.

All up and down the beach other children were now building sand castles ... a long row of castles and palaces. Amy and Clarissa were busily creating their little princess's town, her townspeople, a pavilion for a concert. Wags was always beside them, having scraped the hot sand on top off until he reached cool, damp sand below, on which he would lie and then watch Amy and Clarissa or doze. Mama and Papa were talking and chatting and laughing with old friends a little ways away. Much laughter everywhere. And so one day slipped into the next, and many days went gently by.

Little Lydia, reigning princess over a vast domain, seemed oblivious to all of this. But somehow, no matter how Amy had placed her, no matter how the wind was blowing, her position always seemed to change so that her electric blue eyes became riveted on the top of the dune where Jimmy McGee had his headquarters. Could they penetrate through his lacy curtains?

Jimmy McGee made note of this and vaguely wondered. But he had other matters still to ponder. One, of course, was why hero? And the other was where, how, and when he could capture the tiny tip end of a lightning bolt and the rumble-rolling last sound of its thunderbolt. These were hard nuts to crack.

At the top of the dune
By the light of the moon
Jim, Little McGee,
May be writing a tune
Like a strange ancient rune
That sings the odd tale of
What will happen some
Afternoon soon...
Soon—very soon!

Every day when Jimmy McGee came home from his rounds, it made him happy always to see Little Lydia, that do-nothing doll, lying below him in her splendid sand castle gazing straight up at him at the top of the dune. He was glad to have something else to think about besides the hero business.

He wished he could think of something that would turn a do-nothing doll into a wide-awake, do-something doll. She was prettier than ever with the delicate, fragile necklace around her neck, sparkling in the sunshine.

Now it was early in the morning, and it was business as usual for him today. He slung his bombazine bag over his shoulder, clamped his stovepipe hat on his head, and shook his head to make certain his sturdy magic bolt box was bumping around up there, all ready for the tiny tail end of a lightning bolt and the last rumble of a thunderbolt to round out his collection of nuts and bolts. "Oh, let this be that day," he prayed, "for the capture of those bolts!"

First he zoomie-zoomied over to The Bizzy Bee to wake up the people there. He gave the pipes such a mighty thwack that the whole house shuddered. Then off he went on his rounds, having made a chart in his mind as to towns most likely to have a thunderstorm that day. As he left, he heard Amy's joyous voice.