He whistled the melody through, and I reacted as I might if it had been John, or one of the kids at school. “I think that's awful. It's ghoulish.”
“Don't be naive, Vicky,” he said, and sang:
“But we can be tranquil
And thankful and proud,
For man's been endowed
With the mushroom-shaped cloud.
And we know for certain
That some lovely day
Some one'll set the spark off
And we'll all be blown away.
They're rioting in Africa,
They're striking in Iran.
What nature doesn't do to us
Will be done by our fellow man.”
He laughed gayly, the first real laugh I'd heard him give. “Cute, isn't it?”
I laughed, too, at the same time that I shuddered, the way you do when someone's supposed to have walked over where your grave's going to be. The melody was so pretty and gay and the words in such black contrast that I couldn't help thinking it funny at the same time that it scared me stiff. Sure, I was worried about war. We all were, even Rob, to the point of worrying about it in his God-bless. Who could help it, with parents listening to news reports, and current events and air raid drills at school, where you're taught how to hide under your desk to shield you from the worst effects of a nuclear blast? And all this stuff about building shelters or not building shelters. And do you stick a gun in your neighbor's face if he doesn't have a shelter and keep him out of yours? All that kind of business over and over until it runs out of your ears like mashed potatoes.
“So why not spend Pop's money now, eh, Vicky?” Zachary asked. “What're we waiting for? I have other reasons, too.”
“What reasons?”
“Tell you some other time. So you're moving to New York? Stinking city. Can't stand it. What're you going to do there?”
“Oh, the usual, school and stuff,” I said.
“What's your father?”
“He's a doctor.”
“Specialist?”
“Internal medicine and research. But he was pretty much a G.P. in Thornhill. What does your father do?”
“Real estate. As for me, I'm studying law.”
“You want to be a lawyer?”
“No, I don't want to be a lawyer, as you so naively put it, but I intend to be one. Therefore I suppose I'll have to pick up my high school diploma somewhere next year. It's a real bore having been booted, puts me back a stinking year. We live in a lousy world, Vicky-O, and the only way to get the better of the phonies who boss it is to outwit them, and law will help me do that. My old man's smart, but I'm going to be even smarter. If I know law I can protect myself. I can do pretty much anything I want and get away with it.”
“What do you mean? Get away with what?” Zachary excited me, and he disturbed me. I kept wanting to let my fingers touch that velvety black hair.
“My dear child, if you have money and you know law, there are legal gimmicks for every situation. How do you think my old man's done so well? He's a smart cookie and he's got good lawyers. I intend to skip the middle man and be my own lawyer.
Then I don't have to pay out huge lawyers' fees like my old man does and I can get away with anything I want.”
“But what do you want to do that you'd have to get
away
with?”
“My poor, innocent child. No wonder you're traveling in a cheap tent with practically no equipment.” My skin bristled at that, but he went gaily on. “I suppose you're taught the golden rule. Can't get along that way any more, Vicky-O. That's outmoded. Got to be smart today. And that's what I'm going to be. Have what I want, do what I want, go where I want, get what I want. Don't let anybody kid you that money isn't everything. I've seen plenty and I've learned that if you have enough money you can buy all the things that money isn't.”
“What about staying at Hotchkiss?” I asked. I knew it wasn't tactful, but I really wanted to know what he'd answer.
It didn't seem to bother him. “That was just a fluke. If I knew more about law I'd probably still be there. And money'll get me into another school next autumn I'd never make otherwise.” He looked at his watch. “Your old man said you had to be right back. I suppose I'd better return you if I want to see you again. Where are you heading?”
“Out west.”
“California?”
“Yes. We're going to stay with our uncle and aunt in Laguna Beach.”
He raised his eyebrows, but all he said was, “Same trail. I'll be seeing you then. Where're you going to stop on the way?”
“I don't know. That's the fun of this trip. We just go.”
“Haven't you
any
idea?”
“Well, Daddy said something about going to Mesa Verde and seeing the Pueblo remains.”
“Culture vulture, eh? Maybe I'll see you there. I don't object to anthropology.” He stood up. “Come on, Vicky-O. You're very refreshing for a change.”
I didn't really think refreshing was what I wanted to be, but I didn't say anything. I thought of a very plain black sheath Mother sometimes wears with a string of pearls, and wondered how I'd look in it. I'm almost as tall as she is. For once I was glad I wasn't a golden girl like Suzy.
“You've got an interesting face, Vicky,” Zachary said as we walked back towards our tent. “Not pretty-pretty, but there's something more. And a darned good figure. I'd say something other than darned only I might shock little unhatched you.”
“I'm not so unhatched as all that.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I'll bet you that nothing's happened to you all your life long. Your meals have always been put in front of you and if you skin your little knee you can run crying to Mommie and Poppie and they'll kiss it and make everything all right.”
Well, maybe I didn't have very much experience so far. But I was on my way to getting it. “Has so much happened to you?” I asked.
“I am as old as Methuselah, Victorinia. I am old beyond my time. Someday I shall tell you all. Don't want to shock you on first acquaintance.”
We got back to the campsite and Mother and Daddy and John were sitting around the table drinking coffee. Zachary
handed me over to them with a bow, making me feel about two years old. “Good as my word, sir,” he said to Daddy. “Here's your daughter, safe, sound, and unsullied. See you tomorrow, Vicky-O. Good night, all.” He waved, and bounded across the path and into their elegant tent.
“What'd you want to take a walk with that creep for?” John asked.
“I like him,” I said, sitting down.
Mother looked at me. “I made some cocoa for you, Vicky.” She poured me a cup, but didn't say anything else.
John went on. “For heaven's sake don't go getting interested in the jerk. It was from hunger as far as he was concerned. Nobody else here.”
Mother said, “I hardly think you need worry about Vicky's getting interested in him, since she'll probably never see him again. And as to its being from hunger, John, Vicky's not Zachary's sister, and he sees her with perhaps fresher eyes.”
John heaved a persecuted sigh. “I didn't mean that.”
“I know perfectly well what you think of my looks, John,” I said stiffly, “but in case you haven't bothered to notice, I've changed a lot in the past year.”
“Hold it,” John said. “Let's have no quibbling, sibling. You're a cute kid, and the trouble is I was just feeling protective about you.” He got up, yawned, and stretched. “Before I get into any more trouble around here I'd better hit the hay.”
“Let Vicky go first,” Mother said. “Suzy's waiting for her to go up to the lavatory.”
Even with our flashlights it was dark on the path when Suzy
and I went up to wash, and Suzy was sleepy, and cross because I'd gone off with Zachary and kept her waiting for so long. The lav itself was pretty well lit, not like the other camps where there hadn't been any lights at all, and we stood side by side brushing our teeth.
“For heaven's sake, Vicky,” Suzy growled, “what were you doing all the time with that spazz. Making out?”
“We were talking,” I said, stiffly.
“I bet,” Suzy said, and spat. She was using chlorophyl toothpaste, so she spat green.
“When you're old enough to know what you're talking about you'll have more right to shoot your mouth off,” I said.
Suzy spat greener and bigger.
I finished brushing my teeth, washed my face, and stared in the mirror. I contemplated putting my hair up, but I'd just washed and set it for the wedding, and it keeps its set pretty well between washings, so I was afraid I'd get too many comments.
“Quit staring at yourself and come along,” Suzy said.
“I'm not ready yet.”
“Then I'm going without you.”
“Okay, go ahead.” I didn't really think she'd go into that dark without me, but she swished on out in a huff, and left me there. I looked at myself in the mirror for a while longer, longer than I really felt like it, because I didn't want Suzy to think I was running after her. Then I left the bright wash-room and went out into the night. The path was tree-hooded and dark, and the trees still dripped when the wind blew them. The tent seemed much further off than it had when I'd walked up the path with
Suzy, and all my flashlight did was make the shadows move, and they were moving enough anyhow in the wind.
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, sort of beyond my left shoulder, I saw something dark moving towards me.
A
t first I thought it was one of the hoods, but then I realized that it was an animal, and I wasn't sure which was worse. I stood still in a panic, then made myself swing around and turn my flashlight in the direction of whatever it was. Whatever it was hadn't waited for me, but was disappearing into the darkness of the woods. I pelted the rest of the way down the leafy path to the tent.
“Vicky, what on earth's the matter?” Mother asked as I plunged in and went sprawling onto John's sleeping bag.
“I saw a bear!”
“Nonsense,” Daddy said.
“But I did!”
“It might have been a woodchuck or a raccoon.” Daddy spoke in his most reasonable voice. “Not a bear.”
“Woodchucks and raccoons don't stand on two legs, and they aren't as big as people. I thought it was one of those JDs at first, but it wasn't, it was an animal.”
Rob sat up in his sleeping bag excitedly. “I want to see the bear! Where was it, Vicky?”
“Near the lavatories.”
“It was not a bear,” Daddy repeated. “Let's read our chapter and get to sleep, kids. Tomorrow we cross Tennessee.”
Mother read to us, and then we said prayers. I kept my voice very low. I could imagine Zachary laughing.
Suzy and Rob went right to sleep as usual, but I was wide awake. I lay rolled up in my sleeping bag and thought about Zachary and the strange way he'd talked. He wasn't a bit like any of the boys I knew in Thornhill. In the first place he was older than the kids in my grade, the ones I knew really well from the time they were in short pants, and he wasn't in the least like any of John's friends, who never have anything to do with me anyhow, except to insult me in a friendly sort of way, or dance with me at school dances. I didn't think Zachary'd get on very well with the kids in Thornhill, but I was beginning to realize that Thornhill isn't the whole world. It used to be, for me.
Mother and Daddy had the lantern on between them, and were reading, Mother a paperback book, Daddy a medical magazine. I rolled over and sighed heavily. Mother looked at me over the book. “Still awake, Vicky?”
“Um hm. What're you reading?”
“
Anna Karenina
. I haven't read it since I was about your age.”
“Would I like it?” I peered down over the tail gate.
“I remember enjoying it very much, but I obviously didn't get a lot of it. I think you might wait a couple of years.”
Suzy gave a kind of mutter, and Mother said, “We'd better not talk any more or we'll wake Suzy and Rob. Good-night, honey.”
Mother and Daddy turned out their light before I went to sleep, but right after that I drifted off, still thinking about Zachary, and if I was going to see him in the morning, maybe, and then I was deep dark asleep.
CRASH!
I was so sound asleep that I was still half in the middle of some dream, and I thought it was an atom bomb, I guess because of Zachary's stinky old song. Then I realized that Daddy and John were out of the tent with the lantern and Mother was standing in the door. I heard Zachary's voice, kind of cross.
Daddy and John came back.
“What
was
it?” I squeaked, sure the hoods had managed to sneak back in the park, locked gates or no.
Mother said, “Shh. Suzy and Rob are still asleep.”
“It had nothing to do with those boys.” Daddy said firmly in a low voice. “It was only the ice box. Evidently a coon or something knocked it off the bench onto the ground. I looked all around, but I couldn't see anything. So I put the ice box up on the table, right in the center. It ought to be okay now.” We had the box of food in the front seat of the car, but had left the cooking things, and the ice box, which shuts tight, out by the table, so they'd be more convenient in the morning. “Go to sleep, Vicky.”
I looked at my watch, and it was around midnight. I snuggled down in my sleeping bag and went to sleep.
CRASH!
I opened my eyes and struggled to wake up. John was crawling out of his sleeping bag, and Daddy was just going out of the tent with the lantern. This time I was pretty sure it was the ice box again, so I wasn't so scared. I heard Zachary's father sounding
sort of disagreeable, and Zachary saying, “For cripes sakes, Pop.” I looked at my watch and it was almost two. “I bet it's the bear,” I said to Mother, “the bear I saw when I went to brush my teeth.”
Daddy stuck his head through the tent door. “It's the ice box again. All the way down from the table and onto the ground. It must be a coon.”
“It's a pretty heavy ice box,” Mother said. “Vicky thinks it's a bear.”
Daddy pooh-poohed that, put the ice box in the front of the car, and we all went to sleep again.
I slept so soundly that I didn't hear anybody getting up in the morning, and Mother let me sleep until breakfast was ready. When I emerged Daddy came to me, grinning. “Look at this, Vicky.” He showed me a large paw mark on the tent, more paw marks on the table and bench and on the ice box, and a big dent in the ice box. “We measured the paw prints,” he said, “just for future reference, and they're exactly the size of Suzy's hand. I hate to admit it but I think you were right. It may have been a bear after all.”
I looked over at Zachary's fancy tent, but there wasn't a sound, and when we sat down to breakfast Mother told us to be quiet because the Greys were still asleep. We were packing the car, still trying to be quiet, when the ranger came by in his green truck and stopped.
“Sorry about those kids last night,” the ranger said. He looked where the Coke bottle had made the dent in the fender. “That's not so good. You want to take action?”
“It would delay us too much,” Daddy said. “But I hope it won't happen again to someone else.”
“Ah'll see that it doesn't,” the ranger promised. “Ah've got
something to go on, now.” He had a nice kind of drawl, not snarly and nasty like the kid who asked for the Coke bottle back.
Daddy asked, “What kind of an animal might have been trying to get in our ice box last night?”
“A b'ar,” the ranger answered without hesitation. “A black b'ar. They come around the campgrounds looking for food. Won't bother you if you leave 'em alone and don't try to feed 'em. Wall, hope yawl had a good night.” He waved at us and drove off.