‘Jim, look, you don’t give a darn about Miss Foley or what’s in her house!’
Jim said nothing. Walking arm in arm with Will he just looked over at his friend and blinked once, let the lids come down over his shiny green eyes and go up.
And again Will had the feeling about Jim that he had always had about an old almost forgotten dog. Some time every year that dog, good for many months, just ran on out into the world and didn’t come back for days and finally did limp back all burred and scrawny and odorous of swamps and dumps; he had rolled in the dirty mangers and foul dropping-places of the world, simply to turn home with a funny little smile pinned to his muzzle. Dad had named the dog Plato, the wilderness philosopher, for you saw by his eyes there was nothing he didn’t know. Returned, the dog would live in innocence again, tread patterns of grace, for months, then vanish, and the whole thing start over. Now, walking here he thought he heard Jim whimper under his breath. He could feel the bristles stiffen all over Jim. He felt Jim’s ears flatten, saw him sniff the new dark. Jim smelled smells that no one knew, heard ticks from clocks that told another time. Even his tongue was strange now, moving along his lower, and now his upper lip as they stopped in front of Miss Foley’s house again.
The front window was empty.
‘Going to walk up and ring the bell,’ said Jim.
‘What, meet him face to face?!’
‘My aunt’s eyebrows, Will We got to check, don’t we? Shake his paw, stare him in his good eye or some such ,and if it is him—’
‘We don’t warn, Miss Foley right in front of him, do we?’
‘We’ll phone her later, dumb. Up we go!’
Will sighed and let himself be walked up the steps wanting but not wanting to know if the boy in this house had Mr Cooger hid but showing like a firefly between his eyelashes.
Jim rang the bell.
‘What if he answers?’ Will demanded. ‘Boy, I’m so scared I could sprinkle dust. Jim, why aren’t you scared, why?’
Jim examined both of his untrembled hands. I’ll be darned,’ he gasped. ‘You’re right! I’m not!’
The door swung wide.
Miss Foley beamed out at them.
‘Jim! Will! How nice.’
‘Miss Foley,’ blurted Will. ‘You okay?
Jim glared at him. Miss Foley laughed.
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
Will flushed. ‘All those darn carnival mirrors—’
‘Nonsense, I’ve forgotten all about it. Well, boys, are you coming in?
She held the door wide.
Will shuffled a foot and stopped.
Beyond Miss Foley, a beaded curtain hung like a dark blue thunder shower across the parlour entry.
Where the coloured rain touched the floor, a pair of dusty small shoes poked out. Just beyond the downpour the evil boy loitered.
Evil? Will blinked. Why evil? Because. ‘Because’ was reason enough. A boy, yes, and evil.
‘Robert?’ Miss Foley turned, calling through the dark blue always-falling beads of rain. She took Will’s hand and gently pulled him inside. ‘Come meet two of my students.’
The rain poured aside. A fresh candy-pink hand broke through, all by itself, as if testing the weather in the hall.
Good grief, thought Will, he’ll look me in the eye! see the merry-go-round and himself on it moving back, back. I know it’s printed on my eyeball like I been struck by lightning!
‘Miss Foley!’ said Will.
Now a pink face stuck out through the dim frozen necklaces of storm.
‘We got to tell you a terrible thing.’
Jim struck Will’s elbow, hard, to shut him.
Now the body came out through the dark watery flow of beads. The rain shushed behind the small boy.
Miss Foley leaned toward him, expectant. Jim gripped his elbow, fiercely. He stammered, flushed, then spat it out:
‘Mr Crosetti!’
Quite suddenly, clearly he saw the sign in the barber’s window. The sign seen but not seen as they ran by:
CLOSED ON ACCOUNT OF ILLNESS.
‘Mr Crosetti!’ he repeated, and added swiftly. ‘He’s. . .dead!’
‘What. . .the barber?’
‘The barber?’ echoed Jim.
‘See this haircut?’ Will turned, trembling, his hand to his head. ‘He did it. And we just walked by there and the sign was up and people told us—’
‘What a shame.’ Miss Foley was reaching out to fetch the strange boy forward: ‘I’m so sorry. Boys, this is Robert, my nephew from Wisconsin.’
Jim stuck out his hand. Robert the Nephew examined it, curiously. ‘What are you looking at?’ he asked.
‘You look familiar,’ said Jim.
Jim! Will yelled to himself.
‘Like an uncle of mine,’ said Jim, all sweet and calm.
The nephew flicked his eyes to Will, who looked only at the floor, afraid the boy would see his eyeballs whirl with the remembered carousel. Crazily, he wanted to hum the backward music.
Now, he thought, face him!
He looked up straight at the boy.
And it was wild and crazy and the floor sank away beneath for there was the pink shiny Hallowe’en mask of a small pretty boy’s face, but almost as if holes were cut where the eyes of Mr Cooger shone out, old, old, eyes as bright as sharp blue stars and the light from those stars taking a million years to get here. And through the little nostrils cut in the shiny mask, Mr Cooger’s breath went in steam, came out ice. And the Valentine candy tongue moved small behind those trim white candy-kernel teeth.
Mr Cooger, somewhere behind the eye-slits, went blink-click with his insect-Kodak pupils. The lenses exploded like suns, then burnt chilly and serene again.
He swivelled his glance to Jim. Blink-click. He had Jim flexed, focused, shot, developed, dried, filed away in the dark. Blink-click.
Yet this was only a boy standing in a hall with two other boys and a women. . .
And all the while Jjm gazed steadily, back, feathers unruffled, taking his own pictures of Robert.
‘Have you boys had supper?’, asked Miss Foley. ‘We’re just sitting down—’
‘We got to go!’
Everyone looked at Will as if amazed he didn’t want to stick here forever.
‘Jim—’ he stammered. ‘Your mom’s home alone—’
‘Oh, sure,’ Jim said, reluctantly.
‘I know what.’ The nephew paused for their attention. When their faces turned, Mr Cooger inside the nephew went silently blink-click, blink-click, listening through the toy ears, watching through the toy-charm eyes, whetting the doll’s mouth with a Pekingese tongue. ‘Join us later for dessert, huh?’
‘Dessert?’
‘I’m taking Aunt Willa to the carnival.’ The boy stroked Miss Foley’s arm until she laughed nervously.
‘Carnival?’ cried Will, and lowered his voice. ‘Miss Foley, you said—’
‘I said I was foolish and scared myself,’ said Miss Foley. ‘It’s Saturday night the best night for tent shows and showing my nephew the sights.’
‘Join us?’ asked Robert, holding Miss Foley’s hand. ‘Later?’
‘Great!’ said Jim.
‘Jim.’ said Will. ‘We been out all day. Your mom’s sick.’
‘I forgot.’ Jim, flashed him a look filled with purest snake-poison.
Flick. The nephew made an X-ray of both, showing them, no doubt, as cold bones trembling in warm flesh. He stuck out his hand.
‘Tomorrow, then. Meet you by the side-shows.’