The TV Kid (2 page)

“Real good, sir.”

“Then join me over here at the Vacation Wheel. Now, Lennie, I don’t have to remind you that up there on the wheel are twenty all-expense paid vacations to places all over the world, do I?”

“No, sir.”

“You can go to Rome, to London, to Paris. You can go to beautiful Hawaii, exotic Mexico, or sunny Spain. All in all, there are twenty wonderful all-expense paid vacations up there on the wheel. But, Lennie, as you know, there are also what we call our zonk trips. How do you feel about those, Lennie?

“Well, I hope I don’t get one.”

“And that’s what we’re hoping too, aren’t we, folks? Hear that applause, Lennie? They’re all with you. Now the three zonk trips, as we call them, are here, here, and here. Try not to land on them.”

“I will, sir.”

“All right, put up your hand now, Lennie, right here on the Vacation Wheel, and, Lennie,
give it a spin!
”

“Here goes!”

“Good boy! Lennie really gave it a good spin, didn’t he, folks? Where do you want to go, Lennie?”

“Any of those places is all right with me.”

“Except the zonk places, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s still spinning, and now it’s beginning to slow down. Watch the wheel, folks. Where is Lennie going? To Paris? Rome? London? It’s almost stopped. It looks like
Egypt!
No!
Rio!
No!
Oh, no!
Look at that! Lennie, you have landed on Number Thirteen. One of our zonk trips, and I don’t have to tell you what that means.”

“It means I’m going to have to take a zonk trip.”

“Right.”

“Where?”

“Well, let me look in my zonk envelope. Oh, Lennie.”

“What?”

“
Oh,
Lennie.”

“What? What is it?”

“What? I want to know. What is it?”

“Lennie, you are going to have to spend one full night—are you ready for this?—in a
haunted house!
”

“A what?”

“Yes, Lennie, you heard correctly, you are going to Haunted House Number Thirteen, located right on the outskirts—that’s the dark, scary outskirts, I might add—of beautiful downtown—”

“But I don’t want to spend the night in any haunted house.”

“Of course you don’t, but you take your chances, Lennie, just like all the other contestants. Remember that paper you signed when you came on the show?”

“Yes, but I didn’t—I mean I couldn’t—I mean—”

“Oh, all right, Lennie, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You go to the haunted house, spend one night there, and if you survive—I say, if you survive—then you come back next week and we’ll let you spin the Vacation Wheel again. How about that?”

“But, sir, couldn’t I just take my three thousand in cash and merchandise and—”

“How many want to see him take the cash and merchandise and go home?”

Silence.

“How many want to see him go to the
haunted house?
”

Wild applause.

“But, sir—”

“See, the audience is with you. Hear that applause? Well, it’s time for a commercial break now, but stay with us, folks, for the second half of
Give It a Spin,
the show where
you
pick your prizes and we see that you take them....”

“L
ennie?”

His eyes snapped open as quickly as a puppet’s. He said, “Yes’m.”

“Have you finished your Science?” His mother was standing in the doorway, her hands in her jeans pockets.

“Practically.”

“You know all the parts of the leaf?”

“I think so.”

“And the stem?”

“I think so. I get mixed up on some of them.”

“Which ones?”

“These.” He made a circular motion that took in the entire page.

“Well, as soon as you’re sure of them, Lennie, you bring your book in the office and let me call out the questions.” She sighed. “I wish that man was still in three-fourteen—the one from Decatur, remember? Now, that was a smart man. He could have helped you with your Science.”

Lennie didn’t answer.

“And that man was a slow starter just like you, Lennie. He told me he didn’t learn a thing until he was eleven years old. He said people thought there was something wrong with him.”

Lennie didn’t answer.

His mom paused. Then she said, “I don’t want you getting another bad grade on your test tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to get one either,” he said.

His last Science grade had been 23 out of a possible 100. Staring down at that 23—it had been written in red pencil and circled—Lennie had for the first time felt the real meaning of numbers. His arithmetic teachers had been trying to get that across for years—numbers
mean
something. Well, the arithmetic teachers were right, he had thought. A number, just a
number,
could ruin a person’s whole day, week maybe.

Lennie had not started feeling like himself again until he was home watching a rerun of The
Lucy Show,
in which Lucy thought Mr. Mooney had turned into a monkey. When Lucy came back from lunch, saw the monkey sitting at Mr. Mooney’s desk, and staggered back with her mouth open—that was when Lennie had smiled for the first time since Science.

As Lennie’s mother went to the office, Lennie rested his chin on his hand and stared at the pictures. The leaf, like something in a dream, moved farther away. Slowly Lennie closed his eyes. His mind, like an unmoored ship, drifted to other shores.

The interruption by his mother was like a station break.... “And now,” the announcer said in Lennie’s mind, “back to
Give It a Spin
.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Dink McLeod again. Now that our young contestant is gone, I want to let you in on a little surprise we have planned for him.

“See, our staff has concealed in that haunted house—the haunted house where Lennie will be spending the night—thirteen of the scariest, most terrifying movie and television monsters of all time. We have Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. They’re in the living room. The werewolf is in the kitchen. The mummy is in the sewing room, and out in the back yard, folks, will be Godzilla, Mothra, Scorpo, and a Giant Behemoth! How about that for a scary quartet?”

Applause.

“We’ll have hidden cameras in every room of the house to catch Lennie’s reactions, so you won’t want to miss our next show. Remember now, tune in next week to see what it’s going to be like for young Lennie in Haunted House Number Thirteen.”

“Lennie?” his mom called from the motel office.

“Yes’m?”

“I’m taking some extra towels to three-sixteen. I’ll be right back.”

“Yes’m.”

“I’ll call out the questions then.”

“Right.”

He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want school-books and Science and his unfortunate position at the card table to intrude on his dream.

He smiled to himself. He was thinking of entering the living room of the haunted house. What a sight he would be! His knees would be trembling, his heart pounding. His eyes would be rolling around in his head like marbles. He would be holding out his hands in a blindly terrified way. He would bump into Dracula.

“Gut e-ven-ing!”

Lennie would glance up. He wouldn’t have seen Dracula because of the black outfit. Now he would see the white face.

“Velcome.”

Lennie’s eyes, bulging almost out of their sockets, would see that Dracula’s fangs were bared. His black cape was raised. Dracula would bend low, aiming for Lennie’s neck.

Lennie would scream, turn, run for the door, and crash right into Frankenstein’s monster. Before the huge, unmatched hands could close around Lennie’s throat, Lennie would scream again and make a headlong dash for the safety of the kitchen.

He would lean against the pantry, eyes closed, catching his breath. His hands would be clutched over his pounding heart. Suddenly Lennie would feel something furry beside him. He would open his eyes. At that moment he would look out the window and see the full moon. A werewolfs moon. And the something furry beside him had to be ... Very slowly, making no sudden moves, Lennie would ease to the door. Then, abruptly, he would rush into the sewing room and slam the door.

 

“I’m back, Lennie. Are you ready for me to call out the questions?”

“No, leave me alone for a few more minutes.”

“But—”

“I’m almost through.”

He began speeding up his dream. He thought of himself running out of the back door of the house into the yard. It would be dark despite the full moon, and in a panic Lennie would dash straight into Godzilla’s big toe.

He thought of himself falling back, gasping with fright. He would stagger around Godzilla’s instep, and plunge straight into Mothra’s wings.

After narrowly escaping being fluttered to death, he would have a long, panic-stricken dash to Scorpo, the scorpion as big as a Boeing 747. Lennie would cringe there, too scared to move, awaiting the fatal sting.

At that moment a voice would come on the loudspeaker concealed in the trees. “Lennie, Lennie, can you hear me?”

He would be too frightened to recognize his own name. “No, no, not Scorpo!” he would be sobbing. “Anyone but Scorpo! I’m allergic to stings.”

“Lennie, can you hear me? This is Dink McLeod, and I’m here with our
Give It a Spin
audience, and, Lennie, we have had hidden cameras on you ever since you got to the Haunted House.”

“You’ve had cameras on
me?
”

“That’s right, Lennie.”

“The whole time?”

“Lennie, we got the whooooooole thing.”

He would realize then what a pitiful sight he must be. Here he was cringing on the ground, sobbing at Scorpo’s feet like an infant. He would raise his head. He would give a shaky laugh. He would dry his eyes on his shirt.

“Did you have hidden cameras in the house too?” he would ask.

“That’s right, Lennie.”

“In the—er—sewing room too?” He would remember how he had come into the sewing room and tried to hide behind the mummy, which in the dark had looked like a ragged sewing form.

“The sewing room too. We’re just sorry you didn’t go upstairs, Lennie, because upstairs we had the Son of Frankenstein, and the Blob, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

“Gee, I’m sorry I didn’t get up there too.”

“And now, Lennie—”

 

“Lennie!” It was his mom. “Bring the book out on the porch. These two schoolteachers from Wilmington checked in, and they say they’ll help you.”

“In a minute.”

“They haven’t got all night, Lennie.” She sounded impatient.

“I’m on my way.”

He sat with his eyes closed, speeding up his dream even more.

 

“And now, Lennie, we have a car waiting to bring you back to our studio to collect over three thousand dollars in cash and merchandise. How does that sound to you?”

“Real good, sir.”

“And, more important, you get another spin of the Vacation Wheel.”

“Oh, well, never mind about that, sir. I’ll just take my cash and—”

“We’ll leave it up to the audience. How many want to see Lennie come in and take his cash and merchandise?”

Silence.

“How many want to see him spin the Vacation Wheel?”

Wild applause.

“See, the audience is all with you, so come on in, Lennie, and
give it a spin!
”

 

“Lennie! These schoolteachers are leaving for Nashville at seven o’clock in the morning!”

“Yes’m.”

Lennie rose. He picked up his book. As he carried it through the motel office to the porch, he went over the strange words for the first time ... petiole ... stipule....

L
ennie leaned over his desk, pencil in hand, waiting for the Science tests to be passed out. He always got a worried feeling when he was waiting to take a test. Even if he knew everything there was to know about a subject—something that had never happened—he knew he would still be worried.

He erased a mark on his desk and then penciled it back. He beat out a rhythm from
The Addams Family,
snapping his fingers when he got to the two clicks. He jiggled his leg. He turned to the boy sitting next to him and said, “Hey, Frankie, is the petiole the stem or is the stipule the stem? I’m mixed up.”

Frankie shrugged.

He turned around. “Letty Bond, is—”

“The petiole is the stem,” she said in a bored voice, “the stipules are extra leaves.” She clicked open her ballpoint pen.

Lennie turned back to the front of the room and raised his hand. “Miss Markham?”

“Yes, Lennie.”

“Can we take our tests in pencil or do we have to have a ballpoint pen?”

“Pencil’s fine.”