“Hi, Pop!” he sang as he began untangling the insect. “Hi, Evie. Hi, Francine. Hi, Fatty.” He moved to the fountain and launched the June bug again.
Rose twisted around on the stool and fixed him with a poisonous glare. The tired June bug landed on her arm. She shrieked and jumped. Finney quickly pulled the insect from danger. “Finney, you little cross-eyed ape,” she hissed.
“Phineas,” Mr. Bowen said reproachfully. “That’s no way to talk—and you’re not any better, Rose.”
“Aw, Pop.” Finney groaned. “My old June bug didn’t hurt her. I bet Evie wouldn’ta had a fit.”
Rose grinned. “You know we’re only kidding, Mr. Bowen.” She hopped from the stool and grabbed Finney in a bear hug. He squirmed but couldn’t break her hold. “Deep down, we’re very fond of each other.” Unseen by Mr. Bowen, she gave Finney a hard pinch on his bare back. He yelped and broke away.
“When you go to the Wonder Show, Rosie,” he said haughtily, “be sure and take a good long look at Medusa.”
“Stop calling me Rosie,” she snapped and sat on the stool again. “And we’re not going to the freak show. We’re going to the talkie.”
Finney was aghast. He stared at her and climbed on another stool—well out of her reach. “You crazy or somethin’? You’d rather see a dumb old picture show than the Invisible Woman?” He groaned. “Girls?”
Rose grimaced at him in disgust. “If I remember correctly, you’ve been jabbering about seeing this dumb old picture show for the last solid month.”
“But that was before!”
“Besides, you can’t see an invisible woman,” Rose said with finality.
“Oh, yes, you can,” Finney said, trying to convey to her the magic of everything. “You can see her if you know how to look. You don’t know how to look, Rose.”
“Finney,” Mr. Bowen called, holding up a small paper bag. “Take this medicine over to old Miss Sullivan.”
Finney slid off the stool. “And Electro, the Lightning Man. He pulls lightning from the sky just by waving his arms and he eats it and never singes a hair. And Medusa wasn’t really killed by that Greek guy. She’s been alive all this time still turning people to stone. And the Snake Goddess who’s been hiding for a million years under an old Egyptian pyramid.”
Mr. Bowen handed him the bag. “Take it right straight there and don’t dawdle, then your mother wants you home.”
Finney didn’t break his stride. “And the Little Mermaid who’s the last mermaid on earth, but that’s all right ’cause she’ll never die. And the Minotaur who’s still mad because they destroyed his maze. And Tiny Tim… and Henry-etta… and the Magic Boy who can do anything… and the Curator who was smart enough to find all these marvelous people and was smart enough to talk them into sharing their secrets with us! Isn’t it absolutely phantasmagorical? Something’s finally happening in this old town!”
He sprinted out the door, rattling the magazine rack again. “Sumbitch! Something’s finally !” he yelled as he clattered across the wooden sidewalk and leaped into the street.
“Finney!” his father shouted. “What have I told you about…” He didn’t finish; he just sighed, shook his head, and sank down behind the prescription counter.
Sonny and the three girls stared after Finney’s running figure flickering in the sunlight.
Rose sighed clinically. “I think that kid’s lost what few marbles he started out with. You got any insanity in the family, Mr. Bowen?”
Mr. Bowen frowned at her slightly. Just because her father is the county judge, he thought, she thinks she can say anything she wants to.
“I think I know how he feels,” Evelyn said thoughtfully. “I had a little bit of the same feeling myself. Wouldn’t it be… phantasmagorical…” she chuckled… “if they were real? If it really was the Minotaur and the Medusa and a mermaid and a snake goddess, if the Magic Boy really were magic? If it all weren’t just a trick of some kind?”
She looked meditatively at the floor. Her reverie was disrupted when Francine’s soda straw gurgled in the bottom of her empty glass.
“I don’t think I’d like it very much if it was really the Medusa,” Francine said. “Put this on the charge account, Mr. Bowen.” She destroyed the mood completely. “I wish I had a charge account at the picture show; then I wouldn’t have to make these decisions.” She sighed.
They heard the train whistle as it pulled into the depot. “Well, there goes Eula May,” Rose said.
“I’ll pick you up right after supper, Evie,” Sonny said and smiled.
“It isn’t necessary, Sonny. I can meet you at the Majestic.”
“If I don’t pick you up”—he grinned—“I won’t have any reason to ask my father to let me use the car.”
“Okay,” she laughed. “I’d be happy for you to drive me to town.”
3.
Jack Spain, a tow-headed twelve-year-old and Phineas Bowen’s best and closest friend, sat bareback on Quicksilver, a bald-faced sorrel mare with a sweet and patient dispositon who usually occupied her afternoons pulling a plow for Jack’s father. But the plowing was done and Jack’s chores were completed with a speed that surprised his father—until he thought about the tent show coming to town. So, he smiled and remembered and let Jack have the old horse for the afternoon.
Jack wore a pair of faded overalls without a shirt and was as brown as Finney, though, unlike Finney, he was covered with freckles. He squinted from beneath the frazzled brim of his straw hat at the road stretched before him. He could see them coming, wavering in the afternoon heat, surrounded by dust, six magic circus wagons.
Jack yelled and waved his hat. He dug his bare heels into the horse’s flanks and bounced up and down. He slapped her with his hat and clicked his tongue frantically.
“Come on, Quicksilver, you old sumbitch! Move! Go! Go! You old sumbitch, Quicksilver! Haaaw!”
Quicksilver took a last bite of buffalo grass and turned slowly. She ambled back toward town, totally indifferent to the bundle of energy exploding on her back.
4.
Evelyn, Rose, and Francine strolled across the courthouse square, listening to the cicadas screaming from the sycamores. They smiled at the old men and paused when they saw Judge Willet descending the courthouse steps. He tipped his hat and bowed slightly.
“Miss Bradley, Miss Latham, Rose,” he said. “How are you girls this afternoon?”
“Just fine, Judge,” Evelyn said. “How are you?”
“Prospering, Miss Bradley, prospering.” He put his hat back on. “Give my regards to your folks,” he said and marched away.
“Have you ever noticed,” Francine asked, “that the Judge never perspires, even on a hot day like this?”
“His sweat glands wouldn’t dare,” Rose said, twisting her mouth. Francine giggled.
They walked on toward the Majestic;
RONALD COLMAN
in
BULLDOG DRUMMOND
THE ONLY TALKING PICTURE HOUSE
THIS SIDE OF DODGE CITY
proclaimed the marquee. The girls crossed the street and looked at the posters and tried to imagine what it would be like to hear the actors talking.