Snyder, Zilpha Keatley (16 page)

his wife-and that was an interesting idea in itself-to think that the lonely old Professor had once had a wife. In the course of the conversation it occurred to April that this would be a good time to mention all the things that had been left in the land of Egypt. The six Egyptians had thought about them many times and wondered if the Professor intended to give them back. Toby, in particular, hated to lose Thoth-he was a sort of keepsake. Two or three times she was on the verge of mentioning it, but each time she lost her nerve. After all, they had put the things on the Professor’s property, and maybe that meant they were his now. And you just can’t go around demanding things of someone who’s just saved your life.

But, except for the fact that the Professor didn’t offer to give back their things, it was a very successful visit. As April was getting ready to go, she said, “Well, good-bye, and thanks again, Profes-I mean Dr. Huddleston. My grandmother says your name is Dr. Julian Huddleston. Are you really a doctor?”

“Not a medical doctor. A doctor of philosophy-a Ph.D. I once taught at the university, but that was a long time ago. I’d be most pleased if you and your friends continued to call me the Professor. I’d prefer it, in fact.”

“So do I,” April said. “Okay, good-bye, Professor. And thanks again.”

When April got back to the apartment, there was a

letter waiting for her. It was from her mother. It was the first letter April had had for over a month. Of course, Dorothea would probably have written if she’d known about April’s narrow escape, but she hadn’t known. For some reason, April hadn’t told her, and she’d asked Caroline not to either. When Caroline had asked April why, she’d just said, “I don’t know. What’s the use. It’s too late, now.”

But today there was a letter, and an invitation.

Darling,

Nick and I are planning on spending three or four days in Palm Springs over Christmas. We want you to hop on a plane and fly down to us. There’ll be swimming and sunning and lots of fun. We’ll meet you at the airport if you let us know when and where. We’re dying to see you again.

Love,

Dorothea

April took the letter to her room. She sat down, by the window and reread it three times and felt around inside herself for reactions. She found some, all right, both good and bad; but not nearly as much either way as she would have expected. Not as much happiness to be asked, and not nearly as much anger to be

asked so late and for so little. After a while she got out some paper and wrote an answer. Then she took both letters and went looking for Caroline. She found her in the kitchen sewing sequins on a Christmas stocking made of felt. Without saying anything, April put the letters down in front of her.

Dear Dorothea, (April’s letter said)

Thank you for inviting me to Palm Springs. It sounds like lots of fun. But Grandma and I have our plans all made for Christmas Eve and I have a date to spend part of Christmas Day with my friend, Melanie. So I guess I can’t make it this time.

Love,

April

P.S. You should see our tree. We decorated it yesterday and it’s great.

Caroline was such a quiet person it was hard, sometimes to know what she was thinking. But lately, April usually thought she could tell. Right then, Caroline only smiled and said, “That’s a very nice letter, Dear,” and bent her head back down over the sequins. And the sun coming in the little stained glass section of the breakfast room window made her smooth gray hair look just like a pigeon’s wing.

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ON THE MORNING OF CHRISTMAS EVE, CAROLINE

had a telephone call from the Professor, and afterwards she asked April to phone all the members of the Egypt gang and ask them to come to the Halls’ for just a few minutes that night after dinner. “The Professor wants to see you,” she said. “He said he knows you’ll all want to be with your families tonight and he won’t keep you long. But he wants to see all six of you for just a few minutes.”

“What for?” April asked.

“I think he wants it to be a surprise,” Caroline said.

So April called up all the other Egyptians and made the invitation sound just as mysterious and intriguing as she could. Personally, she had a suspicion that the Professor was just going to give back all their stuff, but as Toby said, there’s nothing like keeping things

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livened up.

After dinner Caroline made some hot spiced cider, and April arranged a plate of fancy Christmas cookies that she and Caroline had baked. Just about then the guests started to arrive. Ken and Toby came first, looking slightly embarrassed to be visiting where a girl lived. Then Melanie arrived with Marshall, and Elizabeth came a few minutes afterward. They sat around for a while drinking cider and listening to carols on Caroline’s hi-fi. They speculated about what the Professor had in mind, and had just about agreed that he was probably bringing back all their stuff, when he arrived-apparently empty-handed. So that was the end of that theory.

The Professor gave April his coat and said hello to everyone in his strange formal way. Caroline got everyone seated again and turned the hi-fi down very low; but for a while they all just sat there feeling uncomfortable. The whole situation was so unusual that nobody knew quite how to act.

At last the Professor put down his cup, looked around the room, and said, “I’ve come to tell you a story.”

Out of the corner of her eye, April saw Ken and Toby exchange raised eyebrows. She narrowed her eyes and nailed them both with her fiercest glare. When somebody saves your life, it makes him sort of your property, and nobody was going’ to make fun of

the Professor with April around, even if he was going to treat them as if they were little kids.

“A Christmas story?” Marshall asked.

“No-” the Professor began but then he paused. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose it is. I suppose it is a Christmas story, in a way. But it’s a sad story-a terrible story-too terrible for children, perhaps. And yet, I feel that it’s something the six of you ought to know.”

April felt, rather than saw, Ken and Toby prick up their ears. She gave an internal nod of approval. He had them now. The Professor was doing all right.

“The story begins when I was a young man. I was really a professor then, at the university. I was always a very quiet and reserved person and at that time my life, even my work, was beginning to seem rather dull and routine. But then one day, a young woman enrolled in one of my classes and changed my entire way of life. Her name was Anne.”

April and Melanie looked at each other and their eyes made extravagant comments.

“Anne was an artist,” the Professor went on. “My subject was anthropology, which, as you may know, is the study of all the various kinds and conditions of mankind. Anne was not particularly interested in anthropology, but she enrolled in a class I was teaching on primitive and ancient peoples because of her interest in primitive art. Anne used to tease me about

anthropology-she said anthropologists were only interested in people in general and she liked people in particular-and she did, too. All kinds of people. She was at ease with everyone-lighthearted, fun-loving, enthusiastic and optimistic. There was a hopefulness about her-Well, after we were married I began to see life in a new way.

“Anne was delighted when I decided to travel and do research. While I studied various tribes, she studied their art forms and collected samples of their crafts. And usually she managed to get involved in various efforts to improve the living conditions of the people of the area. The A-Z store was Anne’s idea, in the beginning. Her plan was to make it an outlet for some of the native handicrafts from areas where we had worked. It was on our last visit home together that she bought the building and made the first arrangements.”

The Professor paused as if he were trying to think what to say next. “On our last trip,” he went on at last, “Anne was visiting a mission where she was trying to set up a production center for native handicrafts. The people of the area were very poor and she thought it would provide them with a means of earning a better living There had been some unrest in the next province, but we thought-Well, there was an uprising, a small local rebellion. The mission was attacked and Anne was killed-by the very people she

was trying to help.

“I came back here. I had no desire to teach, so I sold our house and moved into Anne’s store. I had some idea of opening the store and operating it along the lines that Anne had planned, but I soon gave it up. I gradually broke off many of the contacts that Anne had made and let the store become a junkshop. I had a small income so I didn’t have to make the business pay, but for some reason I kept the store open.

“As the years went by, the store and I became dusty junkyards, and after a while I didn’t care.”

The Professor looked up and around the circle of intent faces, and his lips moved in their slight smile. “And then one day,” he said, “I heard a strange noise in my storage yard. At first, I told myself I was watching to make sure nothing was damaged and no fires were started. You know, sacred fires can be just as dangerous as ordinary ones. Then, after the murder, when my business dropped to almost nothing and I had little else to do, I watched more and more often.”

“You mean, you watched us do the Ceremony for the Dead and the oracle and all that stuff?” April asked.

“Yes, all of that.”

The Egyptians exchanged sheepish glances, and Ken hit himself on the forehead in an agony of embarrassment. “Sheesh!” he moaned.

“The oracle!” Toby said suddenly. “Hey! You didn’t have anything to do with-“

The Professor nodded. “I’m afraid I must plead guilty to that, too. I watched you leave that night and I saw the octopus left behind in the rain. I went out and pried open the old padlock and went into the yard. The wind was blowing the rain into the shed quite badly and under the altar covering seemed the driest place. I was getting wet and was in such a hurry that I didn’t stop to consider that it might be hard to find. Then, as I was watching the next day I suddenly conceived of a plan to direct you to the lost article by way of-” he paused and his lips moved again in his small stiff smile, “the oracle.

“What I did then, in behalf of Security, was done on the spur of the moment, and afterwards I tried not to think about it. I think I decided to play the part of the oracle because I felt obligated to let you know what I had done with Security, and the oracle offered a way to do it without any direct contact. And contact-involvement-was what I had spent years eliminating entirely from my life.

“I had begun to suspect, however, that one of you,” the Professor looked at Marshall, “knew that I was watching. But he was very careful in the way he watched back. I wasn’t entirely sure until the night of the attempt on April’s life.

“I was reading when I heard a sound in the storage

yard and of course, I went immediately to the window. When I saw-when I realized what was happening, my first reaction was the natural one. I grabbed up a block of wood-but then, twenty-five years of self-imprisonment took control. I couldn’t bring myself to break the glass and call.

“I stood there holding the block of wood in my hand, and then Marshall turned around and looked at. me. I could see that he knew that I was there and that he was asking me to help. And then I broke the glass-“

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The Professor’s voice stopped and everyone waited until, at last, it became clear that his story was over, even though it hadn’t sounded like an ending at all. For a long time no one moved or talked The room was very still except for a boys’ choir singing “Hark the Herald Angels” very softly on the hi-fi. ^ But then Marshall leaned over and poked Melanie, “Is that the end?” he whispered loudly.

“Shhh,” Melanie said, and nodded

“But what was the Christmas part?” Marshall whispered even more loudly.

The Professor must have heard Marshall but he didn’t answer. Instead he began to feel around in his jacket pocket. There was a jingling sound, and he brought out a handful of shiny new keys. The keys had long chains to wear around your neck, and on the head part of each one a name was engraved. The Pro—fessor read off the names one by one and handed out the keys. “Elizabeth, Toby, Melanie-“

“Is it-is it to Egypt?” Elizabeth whispered as she took her key, and at the Professor’s nod there was a storm of comment.

“Hey, neat!”

“Tough!”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Hey, yeah, thanks.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Of course, you’ll have to enter on the other side of the yard, now,” the Professor said. “I’ve had a new padlock put on the door-a padlock with just six keys-“

Caroline got up and went to the kitchen for a fresh round of cider and cookies, but everyone was too busy talking and planning to bevmuch interested in food. “No, not tomorrow/’ Melanie said. “Tomorrow’s Christmas and we’ll have to be home most of the time. But the next day-“

“Yeah,” Toby agreed, “we’ll be doing the togetherness bit at our pad tomorrow, too. My dad’s even

promised to stay out of his studio all day. But the day after’s okay by me.”

So the date was made-Egypt, the day after Christmas, right after lunch. Then everybody got up and started getting ready to go home. At the door Ken turned back. “Uh, Professor,” he said. “Are you going to-that is-are you still going to watch us all the time?”

Everybody laughed. “No, I’m afraid I won’t have time,” the Professor said. “I seem to have gotten myself involved in being a real storekeeper. I’m going to try to do some importing again, handicrafts and curios. I’ll be doing quite a bit of traveling for a while until I get my stock lined up. But perhaps, once in a while when I’m home, you’ll invite me to a special occasion.”

“Sure,” Toby said, “that’ll be great. And thanks again for the great present. I sure wish we had something for you.”

“Yes,” some of the others chimed in. “We should have brought something for you.”

The Professor held up his hand. “But I thought you understood,” he said. “You’ve already made me a gift-a very important one.” He smiled his strange solemn smile and put his hand on Marshall’s head. “That’s how I should have ended my story-if I could have explained it-with your gift to me. That would have been the Christmas part. That’s what makes it