The Curious Adventures of Jimmy McGee (2 page)

"So!" said Clarissa. "What I hear is Jimmy McGee, wham-banger of pipes, turner-on of water...?"

"Uh-huh!" said Amy.

"Listen, Amy," said Clarissa. "Why don't we race over to the cottage and try to look through the cellar window? If that little fellow named Jimmy McGee is down there, wham-banging like all get-out, well, maybe we'd see him. I'm in the book and out of the book ... maybe same thing about him!"

"Oh," said Amy. "By now he's not in the cellar. Listen!"

There came another wham-bang. "Now he's turned the water on in the kitchen, and now, as fast as that, he's turned on the outside faucet. He's letting them all run to get the rusty water out," said Amy.

"Well," said Clarissa with a sigh, "at least now I know
who
Jimmy McGee is, banger on pipes as you have it in your book. And hearing is almost as good as seeing."

"Believing is best of all," said Amy.

Another bang shuddered the cottage. "Goodness knows what pipe he is banging now!" Amy's eyes were shining with excitement.

"Tub, shower ... bathroom things," suggested Clarissa. "I like this game!"

"This is not a game," said Amy sternly. "You don't call Jimmy McGee and his way of fixing things in a jiffy a game! Gosh, Clarissa!"

"He's a great man." Clarissa corrected herself hastily. "A hero! So it is written in your great book on
[>]
, your
Who's
Who Book.
Wish I knew how to write books."

"You could try. Got all summer," said Amy. "But you're right. He's a little man, but great. Everybody doesn't know about him."

"Anyway, I wish I knew a little bit more than I do so far about Jimmy McGee. Besides being a banger on pipes."

"Oh," said Amy. "There's plenty to learn. Ever put your ear against a telephone pole? Hear the humming there? That's Jimmy McGee using his magic..."

"...his zoomie-zoomies," interrupted Clarissa.

"Yes," said Amy. "Going off on some curious adventure! As the summer goes on, we'll learn more about him."

Amy spoke absentmindedly. With her finger as if glued to the L and M page, she said, "You see that Little Lydia is right above McGee. There might be a curious connection here, Clarissa. We have to ferret it out. Two heads are better than one."

Clarissa smiled and looked happily at her friend. But then there was another slam-bang so loud that Clarissa was ready to fly down the twenty-six steps.

Amy grabbed her skirt. "Don't worry," she said calmly. "He's just zoomed off to the cottage next door. It echoes. All the way up and down the beach he'll be going from cottage to cottage on Cape Cod, and then on and on, to Maine even! Maybe even to Lebanon, where that real Lydia, who gave me the two Lydia dolls, lives. Maybe he'll even zoomie-zoomie over to some of the little islands in the ocean."

Clarissa liked that. She sat down again. "Zoomie-zoomie!"

They both began to laugh so hard that tears ran down their cheeks.

But Clarissa was persistent. "Amy," she said. "What
do
you think he looks like? Can't see him ... just hear him piping here, piping there. Well, what
do
you think he looks like?"

"Sh-sh-sh," said Amy. "I'm thinking about it ... what he might look like."

Amy placed her little book, open to the M page, beside her on the bench. She cupped her chin in her hands, looked out over the ocean, and thought about the little plumber, the banger on pipes ... Jimmy McGee.

Dreamily, Amy and Clarissa watched the big red sun being sucked down into the sea. Suddenly it went down altogether. Then such a lovely afterglow spread over the sky and the ocean that sky and ocean seemed to become one.

Amy's mother came out of the cottage. "My!" she said. "How beautiful! But come in now," she said. "The water's on, everything is fixed, and dinner's ready. Fish!"

"Fish!" exclaimed Amy. "Many bones in it?"

"Not too many," said Mama. "Imagine! Fresh mackerel, caught just this morning. I'll help with the bones."

As they walked to the cottage, Clarissa said, "In bed tonight please try to explain to me what you think Jimmy McGee looks like, what he wears, for instance, where he sleeps, eats, everything?"

Amy said, "Oh, yes. I thought about it while the sun was sinking. I'll tell you in bed tonight."

But when they went in, Amy forgot to tuck her little
Who 's Who Book
back in her pocket. There it lay on the gray wooden bench. A light breeze fluttered the pages, but always fluttered them back to the M page.

In bed that night, Clarissa asked sleepily, "Who ... where is Jimmy McGee? I might dream about him."

"I might, too," said Amy. "But I'm too tired now. I'm going to zoomie-zoomie to ... sleep."

"Me, too," said Clarissa. "I love that word ... zoo-ooom..." And she fell asleep.

So did Amy.

They both went sound asleep. But Jimmy McGee did not. When he came back to his summer headquarters near the top of the dune in front of Amy's house, he saw Amy's
Who's
Who Book
on the dew-moist bench. It was open as usual to the M page. What he saw was this:

McGee, Jimmy: a little fellow, a plumber, a banger on pipes, a HERO.

The rest of it was true. "But, hero?" he exclaimed. "Why hero?"

That's what puzzled him and why
he
didn't go to sleep.

That night Jimmy McGee certainly had not gone right off to sleep as Amy and Clarissa had. It was all on account of that book, the
Who's Who Book
by Amy.

Until evening, the day had gone as usual for him. When he had finished his usual rounds, turning on faucets, fixing broken things, banging pipes all up and down the beach and way, way away, he had to go back to his headquarters for a special tool for a special job.

It was then that on the little wooden bench at the top of the dune he spotted the little red-brown notebook, flipped open to a page where he saw his name. Puzzled, he picked it up, read the name of it, and what it said about him. While mulling over why he was mentioned in such a curious way ... hero ... he thought he should pick the book up and put it in his tool bag. Otherwise, it might blow away in the night, and Amy would never see it again. And neither would he! In the morning early, he would put it back, and Amy would never even know it had been on an adventure because it would be all nice and sunny and dry.

So he did that special hard job he had to do down Pawtucket way and came back to his headquarters. He really was very curious to see what else besides himself was in this book. He stretched out on a little hammock he had slung up in his headquarters, between two sturdy roots.

Jimmy McGee's summer headquarters were very near that platform at the top of the twenty-six steps where he had found this odd book. They were in a little cave under the hard, grassy ledge that ran along the top of the dune all up and down the beach. Sitting up there on the wooden platform, neither Amy nor anybody else would know that there was this snug little cave nearby, nor that Jimmy McGee, the little banger on pipes, had his summer headquarters in it. And no one could see in. Straggling roots of

tough sea grass made a tattered, lacy curtain that concealed the entranceway. Anyway, no one would even think to look there.

His summer headquarters were small. But they were big enough for him and his things because he and his things were little, too. If any creature at all should wander in, he or she might acquire a touch of magic because Jimmy McGee himself was magic. But he had few visitors ... now and then a wandering cricket or a curious beetle, but they would soon wander back out not knowing they had been touched by magic.

Jimmy McGee made himself comfortable in his hammock, and he chewed on a piece of beech plum root and prepared to read this book of Amy's. He wanted to see what a book like this that had him in it said. A leisurely rest of this sort was most unusual for Jimmy McGee. Generally he allowed himself only one-two sees from his rounds for a nap of one-two sees. This showed what a strong hold this little book had on him.

He opened it up with curious anticipation. Right away he saw that the book was written in alphabetical order. He knew the alphabet; in fact, he knew how to read, and in many languages. He tended the nuts and bolts and the pipes of the library in Washington, D.C., near his winter headquarters, which were in Mount Rose Park. If he read something that he liked, he would make a copy of it in his own bebop code and store it in his little pipe library.

To be really comfortable, he now took off his stovepipe hat and hung it on a handy grassy root to the left of his hammock. He had made this hat out of a small piece of black stovepipe that he'd found in the alleyway behind Amy's house in Washington, D.C. It must once have been part of a kind of parlor stove because it was so small, not big like a kitchen stovepipe would be. He had made a top for it out of a tin stove-flue covering, which he had had to cut down quite a little to make it fit. Although the middle of this flue covering had had a pretty picture of a waterfall, he had blackened it out because he wanted his whole hat to be black. He had bent up the bottom of the stovepipe hat neatly and rounded it so he could tip his hat if he wanted to. He kept the hat shined with stove polish from a nearly empty can he'd also found. His hat was really quite elegant ... a sort of evening hat, silky and shiny ... but he wore it almost all the time. It was a handy and safe place to put important things in.

Jimmy McGee had made everything that he wore. His coat had been made out of a piece of bombazine a tailor just threw out in the trash can. He had a cape, too, made of the same stuff, which he wore when he had work to do in the cellar of the opera house or way up in its round glass dome. There had been enough left over for him to make himself a regular work suit and this little hammock, in which he was now resting.

He'd also made a bombazine bag, which he slung over his shoulder to put found things in when they wouldn't go in his hat. It had a drawstring so you could pull it tightly together. This drawstring was made from leather and probably was a shoestring once used by some mountain climber in his sturdy footgear. And he had a little leather belt with brass studs on which he hung his tools when they didn't fit in the bag. The leather belt was probably from a little girl's roller skates. Maybe Amy's? He was like a miniature walking hardware store.

He also had a piece of bombazette, a more delicate fabric than bombazine, that he'd garnered from the same tailor shop. This finery he had stored in a piece of pipe all its own for some future unknown need.

But now, resting in his bombazine hammock, he felt the time had come for him to study this little book he had saved for Amy so it would not be soaked by fog or dew. It was a strange book. Though it always opened itself up to the M page, the book was in splendid ABC order, the way Jimmy McGee liked things to be. He himself kept his nuts and bolts in their proper bins arranged neatly and according to size and shape. So this book of Amy's was the way he liked to have things. But why did it always pop open to the M page?

This was a baffler. And yes, he saw his name again..."McGee, Jimmy: a little fellow, a plumber, a banger on pipes, a HERO!" That's why he was lying in his hammock and why he couldn't go drowsily off to sleep the way Amy and Clarissa had. All that Amy said about him in her book was true except the hero part of it. Where'd Amy ever get an idea like that about him?

He closed the book, but it wouldn't stay closed. Opened itself up all the time to the M page as though that page—it was
[>]
—said, "Read me!"

"Hero!"

This was more than a little unsettling to Jimmy McGee. To take his mind off this hero business, he sprang up, slung his bombazine bag over his shoulder, and went off on his regular nighttime affairs. Soon the Cape Codder would be puffing by with the cod and the lobsters, the catch of the day, on its way to Boston. He had to shoo the cats and the dogs and even, now and then, a cow out of the way. So, off he went, for all of this work was part of his real business along with pipes and plumbing. Leave hero work to heroes ... leave him out of it.

Then he returned to headquarters. He parted his fluttery curtains. The Amy book was still there, right in his hammock where he had left it, flipped open right to the M page. Might as well call it the Jimmy McGee page.

He scrutinized this page to see what company he was with. The name above his was:

Lydia, Little: a teeny, tiny doll with bright blue eyes, a do-nothing doll. Can't walk, can't talk, can't say "Mama." Has bristly, curly, long golden hair. Named after Lydia, Big.

In the book Lydia, Big, was above Lydia, Little.

Lydia, Big: Can do all the things Lydia,
Little, can't do. Too big to bring to Truro.
It was Bear or her. Bear won.

There were no N's on this page. But there was an empty space under McGee, Jimmy. Maybe Amy left it empty on purpose for the occasion when he really might become a hero and say how that came about?

All these things were confusing to Jimmy McGee, who was used to everything going along in an orderly way, not the way things were now, suddenly finding himself with the word
hero
attached to his name in a
Who's Who Book!
And with that blank space beneath him. Why?