McMummy (6 page)

The heavy oaken door swung open and Mrs. Hunter’s face lit up at the sight of him. The only people in the world who were truly delighted to see him, Mozie thought, were Batty and the mothers of unpleasant children. And, so far, the parents with unpleasant children were the only customers for the Macho Baby-Sitters Club.

“Hi, Mrs. Hunter,” he said.

She peered out to check the porch. “Where’s Batty? I thought he was coming too.”

“He’s grounded.”

“Oh, my, well, at least we’ve got you.”

Dutifully he stepped through the doorway and inhaled the old air of the hall. Years from now, Batty had once told him, scientists would discover that inhaling old air was as bad for your lungs as cigarette smoke.

Batty claimed it would become part of standard health forms:

1. Have you ever smoked?

2. Have you ever inhaled old air?

Mrs. Hunter hugged him, to make up for the old house and the old air and the bad kid in the living room.

“You are so sweet to do this.”

Mozie waited out the hug.

“Richie’s in the living room. He’s been so excited all afternoon. ‘What time are they coming? Aren’t they here yet?’ Go right in.”

She turned Mozie in the direction of the living room and started him forward. Like someone in a game of blind man’s buff, Mozie moved toward his fate.

“Richie!” Mrs. Hunter called. “Guess what? It’s just Mozie, but he’s here!”

Mozie and Mrs. Hunter stopped at the sofa, where Richie lay watching TV and sucking his thumb. Mrs. Hunter said, “Richie, look at me.” He did this reluctantly. “You are to go to bed at nine o’clock. Don’t give Mozie any arguments.”

Richie took his thumb out of his mouth, said, “Yes,” wetly, and put it back in. Mozie knew Richie would promise his mother anything to get her out of the way of the TV.

Mrs. Hunter stepped aside and Richie’s eyes refocused.

“If you aren’t firm with him, Mozie, he’ll keep saying, ‘Just five more minutes, just let me watch five more minutes,’ until it’s six o’clock in the morning.”

“Six o’clock! Didn’t Mom tell you I have to be home by twelve? I thought you were just going to the movies.”

“Oh, we’ll be back early.” She went to the front door and opened it as quickly as if it were an escape hatch. “You kids have fun,” she called as she went out to join Mr. Hunter. Mozie moved to the window to watch.

As she opened the car door she said, “It is so good to get out. You just don’t know what that son of yours did this morning to my—”

The car door slammed, cutting off the rest of her words.

Mozie lifted his eyes and looked to the horizon. He could see the lightning flashing in the huge cauliflower-like clouds. The tops of those clouds seemed now to reach into the stratosphere. Thunder rumbled in their depths.

Mozie turned from the window and headed for the sofa.

“W
ELL, THEY’RE GONE,” MOZIE
told Richie.

He held up his hands like a magician completing a trick. He took a seat on the end cushion. Richie was stretched out on the other two.

“They’re off.”

Richie did not answer. His eyes stared unblinkingly at the television screen.

“You must like the Dukes.”

Mozie felt lonely. He had never before baby-sat alone. He realized now that Batty was the one who entertained the kids, who made them laugh. He was the silent partner.

He had not wanted to come tonight. All day, with each distant rumble of thunder, he had felt uneasy about the pod. He certainly didn’t need the uneasiness of being in charge of a child as well.

Mozie needed someone to talk to, so he said, “They don’t do their own stunts though. Batty told me that.”

No answer.

“Batty told me another interesting thing. There’s this school in California that teaches people to walk on burning coals. This is for real. They walk on red-hot coals and they go, ‘Cool moss. Cool moss,’ to themselves. Batty can imitate them perfectly. I’ll try, but I won’t be as funny.”

The sound of the phone ringing interrupted him and he got quickly to his feet. “That’s probably Batty,” he said as he crossed the room.

“Hello.”

“Mozie, is that you?”

Mozie recognized Valvoline’s voice. “Oh, hi,” he said, genuinely pleased.

“Your mom gave me this number. I hope it’s all right for me to call when you’re baby-sitting. My favorite part of baby-sitting used to be talking on the phone to my friends.”

“It’s mine too.”

“I’ll tell you why I’m calling. Do you remember a little necklace I had on yesterday? It wasn’t a necklace—like beads—it was this glass ball that had a mustard seed in it. Mustard seeds bring good luck, in case you didn’t know.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, anyway, I dropped it somewhere, and I’ve got to find it. I’m going to need all the luck I can get at the pageant. The other contestants can sing and toe dance—one of them is a real ventriloquist—and all I can do is twirl a baton—and half the time I drop that.”

“Oh.”

“So, I’ve been thinking back on yesterday, and I’m wondering if when I was jumping around that pod, I might have dropped it.”

“I don’t think so. I was over there this morning, smoothing out the earth, and I didn’t see it.”

“Well, will you look again tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

“And call me. Your mom has my number.”

“I’ll call.”

“Whether you find it or you don’t—I want you to let me know.”

“I will, Valvoline.”

“I’ve got to have that seed!”

Mozie hung up the phone and returned to the sofa. A commercial had just come on and Richie sat up. He said, “You know, you know what happened? My guinea pig died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I think he was dead when Batty and I were here last time, wasn’t he?”

“No.”

“Was he sick?”

“No.”

“Did he have an accident?”

“No.”

“Did you find him?”

“No, I dint.”

“Did your mom find him?”

“Yes.”

“And he was dead?”

“Yes.”

“That’s too bad. I never had a guinea pig, but one time I had a hamster. His name was Scrappy, and I know how you feel, because one morning I went in and there was no Scrappy. I went running around the house, going, ‘Where’s Scrappy? What happened to Scrappy?’ I thought he had gotten out of the cage, which he sometimes did, and that Flexie—that was our dog’s name—”

“Gimpy’s in guinea-pig heaven.”

“Oh.” Mozie hesitated, then he said, “I’m not sure there is a guinea-pig heaven, Richie. See, as I understand it—”

“There do too be a guinea-pig heaven!” Richie’s hands snapped, soldier quick, to his hips. “My mom said! There be soft grass in guinea-pig heaven and little puddles of water and clean straw for the guinea pigs to sleep on.”

“Oh.”

“My mom told me all the heavens. Dog heaven has bones and dirt holes already dug under the trees. Cat heaven has bowls of cream and little white mice.”

“That wouldn’t be heaven for the little mice though, would it?” Mozie said, smiling at his own remark.

Richie didn’t seem to like the smile. His hands lifted from his hips to take a boxing stance. He frowned so hard his eyebrows came together. Finally he thought of the answer.

“Little white mice don’t go to heaven! They’re bad!” To drive home his remark, he started kicking Mozie, hard, his pajamaed feet drumming against Mozie’s thigh.

“Stop that! Stop kicking!”

Mozie was already at the end of the sofa, so he couldn’t move out of range. He tried to catch one of the feet, but it was like catching a fish.

“I mean it, Richie. I don’t like to be kicked. If you keep on kicking, I’m going to turn off the TV. I mean it. If you kick me one more time … All right. That’s it! The TV goes off!
O-F-F
. Off!”

Mozie darted to the television and clicked it off. This action made him feel enormously better. He was in control after all.

There was a moment of stunned silence and then a wail that went all the way to the roof.

“My mom said I could watch till nine o’clock. You big dum-dum, you.” Richie came off the sofa with his hands made into fists.

Mozie turned sideways like somebody in a bullring and then moved back as Richie punched his way to the TV. Richie’s fists were lashing out, kung fu style.

Mozie moved behind an easy chair.

Richie stabbed the TV back on, glared at Mozie, and went back to the sofa.

He shook his fist at Mozie as he lay down. “And leave it like that, dum-dum!”

Mozie wanted to throw back his head and howl with helplessness. He couldn’t help McMummy, he couldn’t help himself—his thoughts broke off as the wind began whistling around the house—and he couldn’t stop the storm.

T
O TAKE HIS MIND
off his worries, Mozie was coloring a picture in Richie’s coloring book.

Mozie had not colored in years, had never actually been much of a colorer, and so he was now surprised that he had opened the book—
Jumbo Fairy-Tale Fun,
two hundred pages of pictures, puzzles, and games—and was totally engrossed in coloring a picture of Jack and the beanstalk.

He had always liked the story of Jack and his widowed mother fending for themselves. They were, it seemed to Mozie, the only real characters in the whole of fairyland. He had at first wanted to color a picture of Jack and his mother at the cottage door, with the mother’s arms outstretched to welcome him home, but he had decided on a picture of the enormous vine with Jack ascending through the leaves.

It was eight o’clock, and Mozie had been working on the picture for fifteen minutes, growing more and more pleased as he colored each leaf perfectly. The huge vine seemed to be coming to life on the page.

He drew back to admire his artistry. Then he selected a brown crayon from the stubs in the cigar box. Mozie was used to twenty-four perfect Crayolas, and this cigar box had held these stubs for so long the inside was dark with crayon marks.

Even with these imperfect crayons, he was doing a sensational job. He started on the stem. He began humming.

“You went out of the line,” Richie said at his shoulder.

“I did not.”

“You did too.”

“I did not. Where?”

“Right here.”

Mozie bent over the page. He had somehow colored between two leaves, and this had formed a sort of shadowy figure. “I did that on purpose. I wanted to give the effect of something behind the leaves.”

“Uh-uh! You went out of the li-ine. You went out of the li-ine. You went out of the—”

Mozie let the coloring book fall to his lap. “All right, all right. I went out of the line.”

He leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. Going out of the line on Jack’s bean plant suddenly depressed him. He felt so bad that he wondered if a mental illness could start this way.

He would see the school counselor in the fall. Mr. Franklin would go, “Of course you can talk to me, Mozie. You students are always welcome to talk over your problems. What is it, exactly, that you’re depressed about?”

“You’ll think it’s nothing, Mr. Franklin.”

“No, no. Sometimes these little problems turn into big ones. It’s easier to deal with them before that time.”

He’d hesitate.

“You can tell me anything, Mozie.”

“Well, all right. I went out of the line on Jack’s bean plant.”

He could feel Richie’s warm breath on his cheek. Richie was inches away, peering into his face. Mozie did not open his eyes. “It’s rude to stare at people,” he said.

Richie said, “What was behind the plant?”

“Nothing.”

“You said something was behind the plant.”

“I don’t know.”

“You have to know because you said it.”

“I really don’t know.”

“A monster?”

Mozie felt a chill on the back of his neck.

“There’s no such thing as monsters.”

“There do too be monsters.”

“There—are—no—monsters.”

“In the ground there be monsters.”

“No.”

“My friend Michael told me. They curl up down there. One time, one time we were digging and Michael’s shovel hit a monster and we had to run in the house before it got us.”

Mozie clamped his lips together and said nothing.

“Anyway, it be all right to go out of the line. I go out of the line a lot.”

Richie sounded so sorry that Mozie wondered if he had at last managed to look depressed. He would have to remember this moment, the way an actor remembers a personal experience to get a certain expression. For the rest of his life, anytime he needed to look depressed, he could remember the time he went out of the line on Jack’s bean plant. At funerals, at sad plays, when Batty wouldn’t baby-sit with him—

There was a trio of computer notes on the television and Mozie opened his eyes. The station played these notes when some sort of warning was going to be announced—a bad storm or no school or—

“You can color another picture,” Richie said in his contrite voice.

“Shut up, Richie, I want to hear this.”

“A line of severe thunderstorms is moving toward the following counties: Mecklenburg, Oconee, Columbia, Winterdale, Downs—”

“That’s us—Downs,” Mozie said.

“Hail and lightning and strong winds are associated with this line of storms. Winds, gusting to forty miles an hour—”

“You can color the whole book if you want to.”

“Shut up, Richie.”

Mozie leaned forward on the sofa, his body stiff with alarm.

Richie said, “It not be nice to say shut up.”

“Shut up! Here comes the bulletin across the bottom of the screen again. Oh, this is a new one: ‘A tornado watch has been issued until ten o’clock for the following counties—’

“See, that’s something new. Tornadoes.”

The same bulletin repeated, but Mozie watched it as intently as if he had never seen it before. These bulletins had become an instant addiction.

“Why did you say shut up?”

“Because I want to see this on TV.”

“Why do you want to see this on TV?”

“Because a storm warning is on.”

“Why is a storm warning on?”

“Because!”