PREPARE YOURSELF
FOR A SHOCKING EXPERIENCE
Mendal W. Johnson's
LETS GO PLAY AT THE ADAMS'
"The unbearable tension of a silent scream. Johnson is telling us some horrifying things
about the hidden recesses of the human psyche. Wonderfully skillful.''
-Detroit Free Press
"Proceeds at a breathless pace, as horror multiplies it· self in geometric progression.''
-Hartford Times
"A superb new novel of suspense, which will hold the reader in its grip of horror until
the last page."
-Atlantic City Presa
LET'S GO PLAY AT THE ADAMS'
Mendal W. Johnson
To my wife, Ellen Argo Johnson
This low-priced Golden Apple Book has been completely reset in a type face designed for easy reading, and was printed from new
plates. It contains the complete text of the original hard-cover edition.
NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITIED.
LET'S GO PLAY AT THE ADAMS'
A Golden Apple Publication I published by arrangement with Thomas Y. Crowell Company
Golden Apple edition I December 1984
Golden Apple i.J a trademark of Golden Apple Publishers All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1974 by Mendal W. Johnson.
Cover copyright © 1984 by Golden Apple Publishers.
Thi.s book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.
For information address: Golden Apple Publishers, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10103.
On the keyboard of a piano--in this case, it is an upright-are two neatly positioned pairs
of bands. To the right is the pair (at C above middle C) which may be fairly said to be
the hands of a girl. They are terribly slender-only girls, only the young have hands like
that-and they are firm and strong and tanned. There is a decorative ring on the right
hand but nothing on the left: the girl is not yet engaged or married. The hands are
spread into a C-major chord and waiting. They begin.
What they are playing-and well enough-is "The Happy Farmer." It's a rather insistent
small tune that goes, "Dum dum-boom, boom-dum dum boom, boom-dum dum dum
dum;" etc. It goes to a similar conclusion. It is an inevitable tune; people have been
toying with it for centuries.
The hands disappear. "OK, now you try it."
Now it is the tum of the other pair of hands, the ones to the left, the pudgy, sunburned
(but wellscrubbed) little hands. They strain awkwardly. They achieve the necessary
chord and begin: "Dum dum boom, boom (mistake).', They reposition themselves and
begin again.
"Come on now. You can do that after church." "Just let me. Just once more-now?''
"OK, but you come when I honk the horn. I don't want to be late." The longer, more
slender hands pull
1
on a pair of short white gloves that stop exactly at the wrist. "Now, where's Bobby?
Bob-eeef'
"I'm coming, But it's early. We never leave until-"
"Let me see your hands."
These hands are also more or less clean; but they are definitely boy's hands. Against
the white gloves that hold them, they look knuckle-barked, calloused and innately
grubby in spite of their recent washing. Nonetheless they pass inspection.
"OK, let's go, Cindy.''
"Com-ing, Miss Barbara." There is some trucu-
lence here.
"You don't have to use Miss with me." "Mommy said to."
"All right, if she said so."
The parents are in Europe, so that the children are driven to church by the baby-sitter.
They make a pleasant sight.
Cindy Adams, the smaller piano player, is an impish little girl of ten. She is pretty
enough, and she has brown hair cut rather short for summer, because with swimming
and moist heat, it wants to spring into curls and spirals and tangles and become
unmanageable. She
is the sort of child that grown-ups instinctively want to pat.
Bobby Adams, her brother, is oddly enough the beauty. He is about thirteen, thin and
fair, with high coloring to his cheeks and fine, blond hair that requires water and sticky
stuff to keep it from floating around his head in an unruly halo. He rarely smiles, and he
of- - ten stands in thought with his hands thrust straight down, as deep as they will go
in his pockets. This position, rare in a youngster, is an unconscious copy of the position
his surgeon father often takes in conversation.
The white-gloved hands that swing the family station wagon into the churchyard,
belong to the baby-sitter-pianist, Barbara. When she gets out of the car to let the
children out, it is with an athletic little leap. She is
2
probably twenty-not much more. She wears a white dress of extremely diplomatic
appeal. It is short enough to show off her legs and pass with her generation and yet
long enough to show her deference to the older generation and the social order of
things.
Barbara is also not pretty in the sense that movie professionals are pretty. She is better
than that: she is young and downy-or so you would say from looking at her face-and
she likes everyone. You can see it in the way she shepherds the children off to Sunday
School and in the way she is rather instantly accepted by the older, generally cautious
group in the churchyard, all of whom are strangers to her.
The morning passes easily enough. Downstairs in Sunday School-Cindy squirming,
Bobby sitting with that thoughtful look of his-they hear about how Our Lord cured
people. Upstairs they hear-Barbara sitting with white gloves folded neatly in her lap-
that in times ·of change and uncertainty the words of Jesus have even more relevance
than before.
Afterward they all sing. It is a pretty and simple sound: "Jesus, our God and Father," and
so on and so forth.
When services are over, everyone stands in the shaded yard-it will be paved next year;
now it is all dust-and discusses the county news. Call it gossip.
The Adams are well known here, for all the fact that they are not natives. Dr. Adams has
contributed to the paint, the piano, and the plantings. Mrs. Adams has participated in
the cake bakes and fund-raising affairs.
There is a little cynicism in this, and there is a certain amount of friendliness. For
cynicism, everyone knows that the Adams are not godly people, at least not in the
sense of this county of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It's all for show. Quite on the
other hand, everyone understands that by so participating in the church doings, the
Adams are doing their dead level best to be friends with their adopted community. Dr.
Adams' hand is extended and taken, and-in his absence-the hand of the community is
extended into the
3
4
slender one of the baby-sitter, Barbara, who stands daisy-white and bright outside beneath
the mimosas.
Tomorrow, or on some tomorrow, she will be a part of some community with children of her
own and plans and-well, sometimes we must-cake bakes. It is a soothing future, one which
she has considered all her life, or perhaps a picture instilled into her long ago. Nonetheless,
it is nice, and here she enjoys the vision.
Her thought-this is as close as it comes to - words-is, Who will he be who gives me all this?