Red Hart Magic (2 page)

Chris ate slowly, chewing as if he were counting the number of times his jaw must move up and down. Aunt Elizabeth fidgeted and kept looking at her watch.

“Chris,” she said at last, a fraction more sharply. “You must finish. We shall be late. As it is, I have to drop you off at the theater and get on to the hospital. And, remember, you are to wait in the lobby when you come out, unless you see me there already. With traffic as it is, I might just be delayed.”

Deliberately Chris drank the rest of his milk. “Yes, Aunt Elizabeth,” he answered.

It was when the taxi drew into the other lane so they could pause in front of the theater that Chris saw the red sign which was too big to be missed. Salvation Army Store! One of those! Once more he fingered the bill in his pocket. Last year he had discovered the treasure house that sign meant. All kinds of things were sold there. Why, he had gotten five books—good ones—for a dollar, and a transistor radio, old but fixed up so it ran fine. Then there was the time he discovered a box of all kinds of shells. Somebody had mounted them on cards with their names printed under them.

He shot a glance at Aunt Elizabeth. She was looking at her watch again. They must be pretty late. If he could just—

The taxi pulled to a stop, though the meter still clicked busily. Aunt Elizabeth opened the door with one hand and shoved the tickets at Chris with the other.

“Go right in. It must be just starting, so hurry. Remember, stay in the lobby until you see me.”

“Sure,” he agreed. Then he was standing next to Nan, and the taxi had again swung from the curb.

Chris held out one of the tickets in
her
direction.

“Here,” he said shortly, “you go on in.”

“Aren't you coming?”

To Chris this was too good a chance to miss. There was no telling when he might be able to get out alone again.

“Not now,” he answered curtly. “You go in.”

Nan made no move to take the ticket though he tried to press it into her hand.

“What are you going to do?” she demanded.

“Don't be so stupid.” His temper flared for an instant. “You go in. It's none of your business. Now is it?”

Slowly she shook her head. “But Aunt Elizabeth—”

“Go on!” He wanted to push her through the door. Throwing Aunt Elizabeth at him that way—

“All right!” Nan took the ticket.

Chris waited only long enough to see her reach the outer door of the lobby; then he turned and was gone, back up the street. Nan opened the door and let it close again, with her still outside. Chris was up to something. She had no intention of meekly going in to watch Disney, not now. She was going to see where
he
went and learn why.

2

Bargain Counter

Luckily Chris did not look back, so Nan did not have to dodge into any shop doorways but could trail him openly. Then he did turn to look into a big window. She caught a glimpse of the sign up above: “Salvation Army.” What in the world was Chris doing going in there? She scuttled ahead, not really understanding why she must follow him, but knowing that somehow it was important.

As she, in turn, peered through the big window she could only see the mass of things on display: furniture, a baby crib, a lamp. What did Chris want with old things like these?

Nan's curiosity was so aroused that, in turn, she dared to go inside. It was rather like a discount store, only a lot more crowded. There were three women by one counter. One of them kept reaching down to measure dresses against a little girl with a runny nose, who whined she wanted to go home. Another woman was pushing and pulling apart coats hung
along a big rack, fingering their material and looking at the tickets pinned to their sleeves.

But where was Chris, and
what
had he come here for?

No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. Nan sidled by the women at the dress counter, moving toward the back of the store where Chris must have gone.

There were counters here like in a real shop—cases with transistors, and toasters, a couple of boxes with jewelry lying on dark cloth in them, while on the tops of the cases balanced some handbags, beyond them some cups and saucers, each with a different flower pattern, a number of belts. Then she caught sight of him and stopped by the belts.

Chris was busy at a big table where there were piles of old books and magazines. Some of those were tied up in bundles with price tags stuck under the twine which held them together. Those he pushed aside to look at the books.

He thumbed down the line of volumes. There were some how-to-do-it books, but just about gardening and stuff like that. Nothing really useful. Old story books with the lettering on their backs so dim you had to look really close to read the titles—nothing but Hardy Boys and things he had already read, like
Tarzan
and
Huckleberry Finn.
Somehow Chris felt a strong disappointment. It had been so easy getting here, as if he were meant to find something really good. He pushed another pile of
National Geographies
to one side. There was only a battered
Tom Swift
—kid stuff.

As he worked his way around the table, Chris's frustration grew. But he
would
find something; he was determined on that. Now he moved to the next big table. Toys—there was
part of a railroad set. Not much good unless you had more pieces; anyway he did not care for trains. Two Panda bears, and a whole row of dolls. A pile of jigsaw-puzzle boxes caught his eye, and he glanced at the cover pictures. No good. Not when he had no place he could start a puzzle and just leave it out. Turn up with one of those, and Aunt Elizabeth might ask questions.

Impatiently he pushed past the toy table and reached the glass-fronted case at the very back of the store. Guns—old guns—and a sword! Again he realized there was no hope of ever keeping such a secret in the apartment.

There were some plates, cups—Oh, these were the antiques, the old things people collected. He lingered before a set of dull-surfaced coins laid out carefully on a strip of threadbare velvet. But he did not know anything about coins. There was a box of stamps all thrown together—

Chris knew what he longed to find, a buy so different that it would make this stay with Aunt Elizabeth worthwhile. He
had
to find it!

“Looking for something, son?”

Startled, Chris glanced up at the man standing behind the case. He was smiling but watchful. Maybe they watched all kids in here, thought they might grab something.

“Got any model kits?” He asked to prove that he was a prospective customer and not a shoplifter.

“Model kits? Let me see.” The man went to the wall shelves where there were boxes piled. Chris moved farther along the case. Beyond the box of stamps were three daggers laid out, one with a silver hilt. Chris regarded them longingly but knew
he had no chance of getting one of those. That man was not going to sell him a knife, not even if he could afford it.

Beyond the daggers was something else. At first glance Chris thought it a dollhouse, but a very small one. He would have passed over it, except there was something about it— He had never seen a house just like it, except in a book once. And that picture flashed into his mind. It was not a doll-house. It was the model of an inn! There was the high arch of an entrance, flanking the smaller door; that was where the old coaches drove through to an inner courtyard. The upper part of the building was a cream yellow with broad dark beams across it in an angled pattern. The tiny windows had threadlike markings on them, dividing their glass into bits of panes, diamond in shape.

“Here you are, Columbus's flagship, and a World War II bomber—”

Chris hardly heard what the man said as he slid two boxes onto the top of the case.

“That"—he pointed at the inn—"What's that? A doll-house?”

“That? Oh, you mean the peep show.”

Chris did not take his eyes from the inn as he asked, “What's a peep show?”

“You look in the windows, see?” The man slid open the back of the case after he had unlocked it. He lifted out the inn and put it down before Chris. “It's old, that. A real unusual piece.”

Chris fumbled for his money. “How much?” he demanded without taking his eyes from it. He knew he had found what
he had come for, something which would be his, transform this stay with Aunt Elizabeth into a period of time he
could
get through.

“It's not a toy.” The man sounded impatient. “Not now anyway. It's an antique.”

“How much?” Chris repeated doggedly. If Dad's gift was not enough, he would get the rest somehow. He had to have that! It was different from any model he had ever fooled around with, and he wanted to take it up in his hands, look through those tiny windows, just feel it.

‘Ten dollars.” The man's hand had already closed upon the inn. He was going to put it away again as if he were very sure that Chris did not have ten dollars.

“I'll take it.” Chris brought out his bill, smoothed it flat. “See, I have the money, more than enough. It's mine,” he added, guessing what the expression on the man's face meant now. “I had a birthday,” he improvised—no use going into the facts of why Dad might have given it to him—"It's a present, and I can spend it on anything I like.”

For a moment the man looked from Chris to the crumpled bill and then back again. Chris must have sounded convincing, for at last he nodded. Then he reached for a box and carefully slid the inn into it.

“Come up to the cash register, son.” He did not give the box to Chris; rather, he carried both it and the money as if he expected some difficulty over the sale might still arise.

Nan had just time to dodge behind a rack of suits as Chris turned. He had bought something. But what? And he seemed different somehow, as he passed without seeing her, as if he
had found something exciting. She wanted to know what made him look like that, so different from the sullen boy who had ignored her and made his dislike so plain.

She squeezed along behind the racks and by the counters on the other side of the store. Luckily Chris never looked in her direction, and she was able to reach the door and get out before he moved away from the cash register.

Surely now he would return to the theater, and she did not want him to know that she had followed him. She trotted back to the lobby but did not pass the ticket-taker. If Chris did not come, she would not go in alone.

But he did come. Only when he saw her sitting on the bench, he scowled. “What're you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” She hoped her voice sounded just as snappy as his. “I'm not going in by myself.”

“All right, I won't make you.”

He had the box under his arm, hugging it close to him. Now he marched straight past her, holding his ticket in one hand and heading toward the inner door.

Nan got up quickly and got out her own ticket. She wanted to tell him she knew where he had gone and to demand to know what he had in the box, but better judgment suggested that she keep her mouth shut. She was sure Chris was not going to answer any questions now.

He did not even wait for her, though she was certain he knew she was following him, but walked firmly on into the dark of the theater where the sound track was loud with rolling thunder. Nan trailed behind, her irritation growing with every step.

Surely when Aunt Elizabeth came, she would notice the box and ask questions. But later, as they emerged blinking into the lobby, Nan did not see the box. There was, she decided after a critical survey, a bulge in the front of Chris's jacket. What did he have to hide from Aunt Elizabeth?

Chris himself was faced with just that problem. He had wrapped the box in his scarf and left it under the seat, positive during all his efforts to disguise it that Nan was going to ask him what in the world he was doing. He had had the words, “Mind your own business,” on his lips all the time he worked to conceal his purchase. But Nan, caught in spite of herself by the story on the screen at that moment, had apparently not been aware of what he was doing.

He could not quite understand why he felt he must keep the inn a secret. There was nothing wrong in spending the money Dad had given him for something he wanted. Aunt Elizabeth might try to make something of his leaving Nan and going into the Salvation Army place. But he had not been told
not
to go, and after all, he was old enough to do something like that. Yet from the first the inn had seemed a secret which he did not want to share with anyone else. Peep show, the man had called it. Chris had had no chance to peep into the windows—What
was
inside? He was hot with impatience to get home and see.

Aunt Elizabeth was late, of course. Nan sat at one end of the lobby bench, and he at the other. And Chris was so filled with his need for secrecy he did not even notice she kept watching him.

Chris had that thing, whatever it was he had bought in the store, stuck under his jacket. Nan tried to guess from the lump what it might be. There had been a million things, maybe even more, for sale in that store. So what
had
Chris bought from that counter ‘way at the back? Not a book, because he had looked all over the book table and then gone on.

She had seen the toys on the other table, but he had not stayed there either. The case at the back—She was sure there had been guns there. A gun! Had Chris bought a
gun?
He would not dare, and she was sure that the man would not have sold him one either. So—

“I
am
late!” Aunt Elizabeth's voice caught Nan's attention. “I'm sorry! But Cousin Philip wanted me to make some phone calls for him, business matters. Come on—there's a taxi waiting. I stopped at Fung-How's and got us a Chinese dinner. That will be fun, won't it? And how was the show?”

She rattled on, urging them before her into the taxi. Aunt Elizabeth's life, Nan decided, was made up of waiting taxis. There were some big boxes on the seat giving out smells which Nan found queer; probably these contained the Chinese dinner. She shoved them aside and settled into the far corner. Chris sat down carefully, one arm up near his chest. He was holding that thing. Would Aunt Elizabeth notice?

“How did you like the Disney pictures?” Aunt Elizabeth repeated her question in a new way.

“All right,” Chris returned without enthusiasm. He wanted nothing but to get back to the apartment as quickly as possible. If he had any luck at all, he could then reach his room and
hide the inn (he would have to find somewhere good for that) before Aunt Elizabeth spotted that he carried something.

“It was fine.” Chris was surprised when Nan spoke up.

“The second picture was better—” She had seen all of that, while the first one had been something of a muddle because they had missed part. Now she remembered her manners; too belatedly, she knew. Grandma would not have been pleased.

“Thank you for the tickets, Aunt Elizabeth.” She rather stumbled over the “Aunt Elizabeth” part. “It was good of you to let us go.”

“I am glad you enjoyed it, child.” Aunt Elizabeth smiled. She might be waiting for some answer from Chris, too. But he was staring straight ahead and said nothing. After a glance at him, Aunt Elizabeth's smile narrowed a little. “Watch out for that carton, Nan. We don't want Egg Foo Yong all over the floor, now do we?”

Nan obently stead the carton, sniffing at the odor from it. She could not yet make up her mind whether she wanted to try Egg Foo Yong—whatever that was—or not. Mostly she and Grandma always had things one knew, vegetables and fruit from their own garden, meat from the butcher's. Grandma didn't like what she called “fancied-up” food.

A drizzle began just before they reached the apartment-house door. Aunt Elizabeth spoke sharply when Chris did not reach for his share of the boxes. And for some reason she could not understand, Nan herself took two, leaving him only one. He ought to be able to manage that, even holding on to whatever he had inside his jacket. Aunt Elizabeth lingered to
pay the taximan, but Haines held the door open for them to hurry through.

There was the ordeal of the elevator; then Aunt Elizabeth used her key, and they were back in the apartment, carrying the cartons through to the kitchen. Chris set his down with a thump on the table and was gone before Nan could turn around.

She went to her own room to shed her coat and head scarf. Only this was not
her
room—its tidiness made it Aunt Elizabeth's, not Nan's. All which really belonged to her was the picture frame—the double one—on the dressing table. One half of that was Grandma, taken last summer out by the big white rosebush. The other was the picture of Mother from the Cleaver Award Dinner—Mother who never was at home in Nan's room the way Grandma fitted in.

Nan looked at Grandma now. A feeling of loss came over her. She blinked twice hastily. If she was silly enough to cry, Aunt Elizabeth would want to know why. Think of something else—quick! Think of Chris. What had he brought back and mean to keep a secret?