The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline (7 page)

Mrs. Baurichter went on. "He had a party to celebrate his marriage. So we went and met his new wife, who was actually rather charming—though somewhat out of her element, I think. She's from the Midwest. I'm sorry, Caroline, I know you said your father lives in Des Moines. I didn't mean to disparage the Midwest."

Caroline wasn't even listening. She chewed her steak slowly, watching them actually
eat
those nauseating things. And hers was still sitting there in front of her. She focused all her mental powers on it, willing it to disappear. But it stayed right there.

"But
he
is a crashing, colossal bore. Wouldn't you say so, Paul?"

Mr. Baurichter nodded his head in agreement. Caroline glanced at Stacy. Stacy had stopped eating altogether. No wonder, thought Caroline. She finally came to her senses and realized that she had been chewing on a repulsive
object.

"We had to listen to him tell all about his work, which, frankly, was terribly dull, and then he told all about his courtship of this woman, which lasted, apparently, for years. He monopolized every bit of conversation at the party. I suppose we'll have to invite them here sometime, but—" Mrs. Baurichter continued to talk about Harrison Ledyard. Stacy was glowering.

Suddenly Caroline realized why. All those hours Stacy had spent wallowing through Ledyard's trash. She could simply have asked her parents; they
knew
Harrison Ledyard. They could have told her all about him. Poor Stacy. Life as an investigative reporter was filled with hazards and frustrations.

Finally Stacy shrugged and began to eat some more of the big round gray-green thing. Caroline looked at hers again. She looked away. She took another bite of steak.

"Hey, Caroline," said Stacy, "if you're too full to eat your artichoke, can I have it? I
love
artichokes."

Caroline smiled politely and passed the disgusting thing across the table to Stacy. Artichoke. So that's what it was called. She hoped her mother never discovered that they existed.

***

Later, after they had done their homework and gotten into their pajamas, Caroline and Stacy were lying on the beds in Stacy's room again. Miraculously, during dinner, a maid had come in and picked up Stacy's sweater, folded it, and put it into a drawer. Her backpack had been placed on her desk.

"Sometimes I really wish I were rich," said Caroline, staring at the ceiling. "But if I were rich, maybe I wouldn't ever have the motivation to be a vertebrate paleontologist. Maybe I would go to Asia Minor, and instead of digging in the desert, I would just want to stay in a Hilton Hotel. I wouldn't want that to happen."

"It wouldn't," Stacy answered. "Because look at me for Living Proof. My family's pretty rich—so I guess that makes
me
rich—but I still plan to work very hard. I
already
work hard at being an investigative journalist." She giggled. "Even if I go about it wrong, sometimes. Harrison Ledyard—what a bogus adventure
that
was! Me down there in his trash cans looking for clues, for heaven's sake, and the whole time he was upstairs practically sending out newsletters!"

"You know," said Caroline, "even if he's a colossal bore, like your folks said, I sort of wish that my mother had met him. There he was, an eligible bachelor, and my mother didn't even meet him. My mother never seems to meet any eligible men."

"Caroline," said Stacy in a solemn voice, "I am very worried about your mother."

"Oh, Stace, you don't need to
worry
about her. We're not headed for the poorhouse or anything. And she's not even miserably unhappy. It's just that she never gets to go out on dates or anything. Right at this very moment she's sitting at home, probably doing a crossword puzzle."

"That's why I'm worried. She's sitting at home—alone, except for J.P.—"

"Who is useless. He'll be in his bedroom, inventing something. He doesn't even play Scrabble."

"I'm not talking about games and entertainment and conversation, Caroline," said Stacy, who was sitting up now, talking in a low, hushed voice. "I'm talking about what might also be sitting alone, upstairs,
above
your mother." She paused dramatically.

"The Great Killer." Now Caroline sat up, too. "Frederick Fiske."

"Right. I'm sure he's there in his apartment at this very minute. Friends describe him as a loner, I'm absolutely sure of it."

"Stacy, can I use your phone?"

Caroline dialed the number of her apartment. When her mother answered, she said, "Mom, are you okay?"

"Sure." Her mother laughed. "I'm watching a dumb TV show and painting my fingernails, just for fun. I'll have to take the polish off, because they don't allow it at the bank, but it's kind of fun to try it out. How about you, Caroline? Are
you
okay? You're not homesick, are you?"

"I'm fine, Mom," Caroline said impatiently. "It's you I'm wondering about. How's the building? Is everyone in the building home tonight?"

"Caroline," her mother said and laughed again, "I haven't made an exhaustive study of that, the way you would. Let me see. Vinnie DeVito's at the Little Hungary, of course, because he never gets home till midnight. But Billy and his mother are home; I saw them coming in from the park about five-thirty."

"I wasn't really thinking of the DeVitos. How about—well, how about the other people in the building, Mom?"

"Nobody home on the second floor. Did I tell you that Miss Edmond is in the hospital? Nothing serious, though; she had some minor surgery, and she'll be home next week. I sent her a card and signed all our names."

Miss Edmond was the retired schoolteacher who lived alone on the second floor.

"Who else, Mom?" asked Caroline tensely.

Her mother said lightly, "The Carrutherses are definitely home. I can hear them. They're chasing each other around the apartment again."

Jason and Nell Carruthers were newlyweds who had recently moved into the fourth floor. Caroline liked them. Nell Carruthers was an actress who sometimes made TV commercials; she was very glamorous on TV, where she used a hair conditioner and then cantered on a horse along a sunny beach. But in real life
she wore jeans all the time, and her hair in a long pigtail. Her new husband was lighting director for a theater. They ran around their apartment, laughing and shrieking very noisily in the evenings, playing tag or something.

"And, ah, what about the fifth floor, Mom?" Caroline asked nervously.

"Fred Fiske? I don't know if he's home or not. I haven't seen him this evening. Why on earth are you interested, Caroline?"

"Stacy and I were watching TV," Caroline lied, "and they said that there was a burglar loose in the city. So I was worried."

Her mother hooted with laughter. "Caroline, there are a
thousand
burglars loose in New York City. You know that as well as I do. Remember J.P. had his lunch money stolen just last week? And by a little old lady? That was the weirdest thing, a little old lady—"

"Mom, be sure to lock all the locks on the door, okay?"

"I always lock all the locks, Caroline. You know that. Relax. Did you do your homework?"

"And the windows, Mom. Be sure to lock the windows."

"Homework, Caroline. Did you do your homework?"

Caroline sighed. "Yes," she said. "Bye, Mom."

She hung up the phone and looked at Stacy. Stacy had unfolded the letter to Frederick Fiske for the
hundredth time and was reading it once more, holding it close to the lamp between the beds.

"I think this is typed on a Smith-Corona typewriter," Stacy said, frowning. "What did your mom say?"

Caroline twisted her hair and then wound a strand around one ear. She chewed her lower lip. "It's very bad," she announced.

"What is? What's very bad? What did she say?"

"She called him 'Fred.' Not 'Mr. Fiske.' Not 'the guy on the fifth floor.' But 'Fred.' You realize what this means, Stacy."

"Right. It's bad," muttered Stacy, turning the letter over and over in her hands.

"She's met him. She
knows
him. She's in danger."

Stacy corrected her. "No, she isn't. You're forgetting what the letter says, Caroline. It doesn't say, 'Eliminate the woman.' It says, 'The woman's terrific.'"

"That's true, too," said Caroline miserably. "She is. My mother's terrific."

"It's the kids he's after. It says so right here. 'Eliminate the kids.' I'm pretty sure it's a Smith-Corona typewriter."

Stacy got into bed and turned off the lamp.

Caroline climbed under the covers and wrapped her arms around the pillow. She wished suddenly that she had brought her Stegosaurus. But not even a Stegosaurus was a match for Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Great Killer. "That's
me
he's talking about when he
says 'the kids,'" she whispered. "I'm sure of it. Me and J.P."

"Slare stoxtox," mumbled Stacy sleepily from the other bed.

"What?" Caroline lifted her head and peered through the dark.

"
SLAYER STALKS TOTS
," Stacy repeated. "Good night, Caroline."

Caroline dreamed. She dreamed the same dream three nights in a row: first when she was sleeping at Stacy's, and then again for two nights in her own bedroom, curled up with her soft Stegosaurus beside her again.

In the dream she was walking barefoot through thick foliage, in a warm, moist jungle where huge trees grew up out of mossy earth. Ferns and vines brushed against her face and arms as she made her way through the tangled undergrowth. Narrow beams of sunlight filtered down through the high branches; all around was the noise of birds calling in shrill cries, and the jungle floor was alive with small creatures scurrying and darting here and there.

She felt very happy in the dream. She knelt, pushing aside thick leaves, and watched some tiny creatures playing. One smiled at her, and she could see its tiny
teeth. It wagged its long, thin, scaly tail; she recognized it as a Compsognathus, the very smallest of the dinosaurs. With one finger she stroked its bobbing, three-inch head, and it scampered away to join its timid friends.

Looking up, she watched the flying creatures soaring among the thick trunks of the tall trees. There was the small Pterodactyl, its leathery wings outstretched as it moved from tree to tree, perching now and then on branches and nodding down to her. Much more clumsily, the awkward Archaeopteryx swooped by. She laughed.

Poor Archaeopteryx. It didn't really know whether it was a bird or a lizard. Its feathery wings propelled it from tree to tree, but its long snaky tail was in the way; again and again it lighted on branches, holding tight with the little clawed hands on the end of each wing, cocked its head, and nodded to Caroline below.

Splash! Caroline turned, in her dream, and looked at the pond behind her, laughing aloud in delight to see the huge, ridiculous Anatosaurus poking his duck-billed face out of the water to grin at her.

"You ought to have a dermatologist take a look at those warts," Caroline told him politely. But he grinned again, tossed his bump-covered head, and splashed off for a swim.

Suddenly the nature of the dream began to change. The jungle noises became quiet. The silly Anatosaurus blinked and submerged. Beneath her feet, the tiny
Compsognathus scuttled away to hide under a bush. The Pterodactyl and its friend, Archaeopteryx, gave brief cries of alarm and flew away.

A chill changed the warm, humid air and made Caroline shiver. The sunlight that found its way through the foliage disappeared, consumed by a monstrous shadow that darkened everything. The earth beneath her feet began to shake. Terrified, she looked up and saw the Great Killer moving slowly toward her: Tyrannosaurus Rex, his teeth exposed in an evil smile, his small claws moving in the air high above her head. Casually he ripped small trees and dropped them to the ground as he made his way closer and closer to where she stood.

"Run," Caroline ordered her dream-self. And she did, knowing as she did that it was hopeless, that the monstrous dinosaur could, with one or two lurching moves, catch up. She glanced back over her shoulder as she stumbled through the tree roots. He was closer. Now his face was clearly visible, even so high above her in the jungle growth. It had a small beard and bushy eyebrows. It was Frederick Fiske.

On Monday night and Tuesday night, she had the dream and woke in a panic. On Wednesday night, she had it again. But this time she didn't wake as quickly. This time the Tyrannosaurus with the face of Frederick Fiske was approaching, tearing the jungle growth aside, when something else appeared at her side and said gruffly, "I'll help you."

It was close to human size—about the size of a man, but it was bent over, supporting itself with a lengthy tail. With one of its thin arms, it took her hand and, in the husky voice, reassured her again. "I'm the one who can save you," it said.

Now she woke. This time she was not terrified, but felt calm and safe. The thin, long-tailed creature was the one who could protect her from Frederick Fiske, the Great Killer. But Caroline groaned, sitting there in her bed, watching the early morning light begin to appear through her window. She recognized, now that she was wide awake, who her protector had been. It was Coelophysis, her least favorite dinosaur, the one with bad posture and a bad temper. It was her brother, J.P.

Dressing slowly, even before her mother's newly repaired clock-radio alarm sounded wake-up time, Caroline thought about the dream. Maybe the nasty-tempered Coelophysis had a good side, after all. Maybe her brother did. Maybe she should tell him that a murderer lived upstairs.

But at breakfast, J.P., while slurping his orange juice with his usual gross manners, furrowed his eyebrows and stared at Caroline malevolently over the top of his glass.

"Why are you staring at me in that creepy way?" Caroline asked. It was unnerving.

J.P. gulped the last of his juice and put his glass down. He grinned. "Someday I'm going to invent a
pill that can turn eyeballs into lasers. Then you can incinerate someone just by staring at them."

"Why
me?
"

J.P. shrugged. "You're just a test case. A guinea pig."