“That’s my mother,” he told the copper man. “And that rat was in our kitchen in the new place. But she didn’t keep hitting at it and hitting at it like that.”
“She is only hitting at it once,” the copper man said, “but that once is over and over again. That’s why she always misses it. But if you try to go any farther down this path, her broom will kill you and sweep you away. Unless I stop it.”
“I could run between the swings,” Little Tib said. He could have too.
“The broom is bigger than you think,” the copper man told him. “And you can’t see it as well as you think you can.”
“I want you to stop her,” Little Tib said. He was sure he could run between the blows of the broom, but he was sorry for his mother, who had to hit at the rat all the time, and never rest.
“Then you must let me look at you.”
“Go ahead,” Little Tib said.
“You have to wind my motion key.”
The lowest keyhole was labeled MOVING ACTION. It was the largest of all. There was a big key hanging beside it, and Little Tib used it to wind the moving action, hearing a heavy pawl clack inside the copper man each time he turned the key. “That’s enough,” the copper man said. Little Tib replaced the key, and the copper man turned around.
“Now I must look into your eyes,” he said. His own eyes were stampings in the copper, but Little Tib knew that he could see out of them. He put his hands on Little Tib’s face, one on each side. They were harder even than Nitty’s, but smaller too, and very cold. Little Tib saw his eyes coming closer and closer.
Little Tib saw his own eyes reflected in the copper man’s face as if they were in a mirror, and they had little flames in them like the flames of two candles in church, and the flames were going out. The copper man moved his face closer and closer to his own. It got darker and darker. Little Tib said, “Don’t you know me?”
“You have to wind my thinking key,” the copper man said.
Little Tib reached behind him, stretching his arms as far as they would go around the copper body. His fingers found the smallest hole of all, and a little hook beside it; but there was no key.
A baby was crying. There were medicine smells, and a strange woman’s voice said, “There, there.” Her hands touched his cheeks, the hard, cold hands of the copper man. Little Tib remembered that he could not really see at all, not anymore.
“He is sick, isn’t he,” the woman said. “He’s hot as fire. And screaming like that.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Nitty said. “He’s sick sure enough.”
A little girl’s voice said, “What’s wrong with him, Mama?”
“He’s running a fever, dear, and of course he’s blind.”
Little Tib said, “I’m all right.”
Mr. Parker’s voice told him, “You will be when the doctor sees you, George.”
“I can stand up,” Little Tib said. He had discovered that he was sitting on Nitty’s lap, and it embarrassed him.
“You awake now?” Nitty asked.
Little Tib slid off his lap and felt around for his stick, but it was gone.
“You been sleepin’ ever since we were on the train. Never did wake up more than halfway, even when we got off.”
“Hello,” the little girl said. Bam. Bam. Bam.
“Hello,” Little Tib said back to her.
“Don’t let him touch your face, dear. His hands are dirty.”
Little Tib could hear Mr. Parker talking to Nitty, but he did not pay any attention to them.
“I have a baby,” the girl told him, “and a dog. His name is Muggly. My baby’s name is Virginia Jane.” Bam.
“You walk funny,” Little Tib said.
“I have to.”
He bent down and touched her leg. Bending down made his head peculiar. There was a ringing sound he knew was not real, and it seemed to have fallen off him, and to be floating around in front of him somewhere. His fingers felt the edge of the little girl’s skirt, then her leg, warm and dry, then a rubber thing with metal under it, and metal strips like the copper man’s neck going down at the sides. Little Tib reached inside them and found her leg again, but it was smaller than his own arm.
“Don’t let him hurt her,” the woman said.
Nitty said, “Why, he won’t hurt her. What are you afraid of? A little boy like that.”
He thought of his own legs walking down the path, walking through the spinning flowers toward the green city. The little girl’s leg was like them. It was bigger than he had thought, growing bigger under his fingers.
“Come on,” the little girl said. “Mama’s got Virginia Jane. Want to see her?” Bam. “Mama, can I take my brace off?”
“No, dear.”
“I take it off at home.”
“That’s when you’re going to lie down, dear, or have a bath.”
“I don’t need it, Mama. I really don’t. See?”
The woman screamed. Little Tib covered his ears. When they had still lived in the old place and his mother and father had talked too loudly, he had covered his ears like that, and they had seen him and become more quiet. It did not work with the woman. She kept on screaming.
A lady who worked for the doctor tried to quiet her, and at last the doctor herself came out and gave her something. Little Tib could not see what it was, but he heard her say over and over, “Take this; take this.” And finally the woman took it.
Then they made the little girl and the woman go into the doctor’s office. There were more people waiting than Little Tib had known about, and they were all talking now. Nitty took him by the arm. “I don’t want to sit in your lap,” Little Tib said. “I don’t like sitting in laps.”
“You can sit here,” Nitty said. He was almost whispering. “We’ll move Virginia Jane over.”
Little Tib climbed up onto a padded plastic seat. Nitty was on one side of him, and Mr. Parker on the other.
“It’s too bad,” Nitty said, “you couldn’t see that little girl’s leg. I saw it. It was just a little matchstick-sized thing when we set down here. When they carried her in, it looked just like the other one.”
“That’s nice,” Little Tib said.
“We were wondering—did you have something to do with that?”
Little Tib did not know, and so he sat silent.
“Don’t push him, Nitty,” Mr. Parker said.
“I’m not pushing him. I just asked. It’s important.”
“Yes, it is,” Mr. Parker said. “You think about it, George, and if you have anything to tell us, let us know. We’ll listen.”
Little Tib sat there for a long time, and at last the lady who worked for the doctor came and said, “Is it the boy?”
“He has a fever,” Mr. Parker told her.
“We have to get his pattern. Bring him over here.”
Nitty said, “No use.”
And Mr. Parker said, “You won’t be able to take his pattern—his retinas are gone.”
The lady who worked for the doctor said nothing for a little while; then she said, “We’ll try anyway,” and took Little Tib’s hand and led him to where a bright light machine was. He knew it was a bright light machine from the feel and smell of it, and the way it fit around his face. After a while she let him pull his eyes away from the machine.
“He needs to see the doctor,” Nitty said. “I know without a pattern you can’t charge the government for it. But he is a sick child.”
The lady said, “If I start a card on him, they’ll want to know who he is.”