Short Stories 7.2

English Short Story Unit
Grade 11
Short
Stories
Short Story
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Cask of Amontillado”
Word Count: 2340
Published: Godey's Lady's Book, November 1846.
The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.
You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At
length I would be avenged; this was a point definitely settled - but the very definitiveness with which it was
resolved precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed
when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as
such to him who has done the wrong.
It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I
continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of
his immolation.
He had a weak point - this Fortunato - although in other regards he was a man to be respected and even feared.
He prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit. For the most part their
enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and opportunity, to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian
millionaires. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack, but in the matter of old wines
he was sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially; - I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and
bought largely whenever I could.
It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season, that I encountered my
friend. He accosted me with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore motley. He had on
a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to
see him that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
I said to him - 'My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How remarkably well you are looking today. But I have
received a pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.'
'How?' said he. 'Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the middle of the carnival!'
'I have my doubts,' I replied; 'and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price without consulting you in
the matter. You were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.'
'Amontillado!'
'I have my doubts.'
'Amontillado!'
'And I must satisfy them.'
'Amontillado!'
'As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchresi. If any one has a critical turn it is he. He will tell me -'
'Luchresi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.'
'And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your own.'
'Come, let us go.'
'Whither?'
'To your vaults.'
'My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I perceive you have an engagement. Luchresi -'
'I have no engagement; - come.'
'My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are
insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.'
'Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for
Luchresi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.'
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm; and putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a
roquelaire closely about my person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in hour of the time. I had told them that
I should not return until the morning, and had given them explicitly orders not to stir from the house. These orders
were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was
turned.
I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of
rooms to the archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him to be
cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together upon the damp ground
of the catacombs of the Montresors.
The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled as he strode.
'The pipe,' he said.
'It is farther on,' said I; 'but observe the white web-work which gleams from these cavern walls.'
He turned towards me, and looked onto my eyes with two filmy orbs that distilled the rheum of intoxication.
'Nitre?' he asked, at length.
'Nitre,' I replied. 'How long have you had that cough?'
'Ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh!'
'My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
'It is nothing,' he said, at last.
'Come,' I said, with decision, 'we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired,
beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you
will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi -'
'Enough,' he said; 'the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.'
'True - true,' I replied; 'and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily - but you should use all
proper caution. A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.'
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.
'Drink,' I said, presenting him the wine.
'He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me familiarly, while his bells jingled.
'I drink,' he said, 'to the buried that repose around us.'
'And I to your long life'
He again took my arm, and we proceeded.
'These vaults,' he said, 'are extensive.'
'The Montresors,' I replied, 'were a great and numerous family.'
'I forget your arms.'
'A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the
heel.'
'And the motto?'
'Nemo me impune lacessit.'
'Good!' he said.
'The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had
passed through long walls of piled skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of
the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.
'The nitre!' I said; 'see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops
of moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too late. Your cough -'
'It is nothing,' he said; 'let us go on. But first, another draught of the Medoc.'
I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave. He emptied it at a breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light.
He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement - a grotesque one.
'You do not comprehend?' he said.
'Not I,' I replied.
'Then you are not of the brotherhood.'
'How?'
'You are not of the masons.'
'Yes, yes,' I said; 'yes, yes.'
'You? Impossible! A mason?'
'A mason,' I replied.
'A sign,' he said, 'a sign'
'It is this,' I answered, producing from beneath the folds of my roquelaire a trowel.
'You jest,' he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. 'But let us proceed to the Amontillado.'
'Be it so,' I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it
heavily. We continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of low arches,
descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our
flambeaux rather to glow than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious. Its walls had been lined with human
remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. Three sides of this interior
crypt were still ornamented in this manner. From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay
promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the
displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior crypt or recess, in depth about four feet, in width three, in
height six or seven. It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the
interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their
circumscribing walls of solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his full torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess. Its
termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.
'Proceed,' I said; 'herin is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi -'
'He is an ignoramus,' interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at
his heels. In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock,
stood stupidly bewildered. A moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two iron
staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the
other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too
much astounded to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.
'Pass your hand,' I said, 'over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed, it is very damp. Once more
let me implore you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little
attentions in my power.'
'The Amontillado!' ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his astonishment.
'True,' I replied; 'the Amontillado.'
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which I have before spoken. Throwing them
aside, I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with the aid of my
trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a
great measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It
was not the cry of a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second tier, and the
third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The nose lasted for several minutes,
during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon the
bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without interruption the fifth, the
sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and holding the
flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form, seemed to
thrust me violently back. For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier, I began to grope with
it about the recess; but the thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the
catacombs, and felt satisfied. I re-approached the wall; I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I re-echoed, I
aided, I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the clamourer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had completed the eighth, the ninth and the tenth
tier. I had finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone to be fitted and
plastered in. I struggled with its weight; I paced it partially in its destined position. But now there came from out
the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty
in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said 'Ha! ha! ha! - he! he! he! - a very good joke, indeed - and excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about
it at the palazzo - he! he! he! - over our wine - he! he! he!'
'The Amontillado!' I said.
'He! he! he! - he! he! he! - yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the
palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.'
'Yes,' I said, 'let us be gone.'
'For the love of God, Montresor!'
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew inpatient. I called aloud 'Fortunato!'
No answer. I called again 'Fortunato!'
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return
only jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick; it was the dampness of the catacombs that made it so. I hastened to
make an end of my labour. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new masonry I reerected the old rampart of bones. Of the half of a century no mortal had disturbed them. In pace requiescat!
W. W. Jacobs
“The Monkey’s Paw”
Word Count: 3959
Published: England, September 1902.
"Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it." -- Anonymous
Part I
Without, the night was cold and wet, but in the small parlour of Laburnum villa the blinds were drawn and the
fire burned brightly. Father and son were at chess; the former, who possessed ideas about the game involving
radical chances, putting his king into such sharp and unnecessary perils that it even provoked comment from the
white-haired old lady knitting placidly by the fire.
"Hark at the wind," said Mr. White, who, having seen a fatal mistake after it was too late, was amiably desirous of
preventing his son from seeing it.
"I'm listening," said the latter grimly surveying the board as he stretched out his hand. "Check."
"I should hardly think that he's come tonight, " said his father, with his hand poised over the board.
"Mate," replied the son.
"That's the worst of living so far out," balled Mr. White with sudden and unlooked-for violence; "Of all the beastly,
slushy, out of the way places to live in, this is the worst. Path's a bog, and the road's a torrent. I don't know what
people are thinking about. I suppose because only two houses in the road are let, they think it doesn't matter."
"Never mind, dear," said his wife soothingly; "perhaps you'll win the next one."
Mr. White looked up sharply, just in time to intercept a knowing glance between mother and son. the words died
away on his lips, and he hid a guilty grin in his thin grey beard.
"There he is," said Herbert White as the gate banged to loudly and heavy footsteps came toward the door.
The old man rose with hospitable haste and opening the door, was heard condoling with the new arrival. The new
arrival also condoled with himself, so that Mrs. White said, "Tut, tut!" and coughed gently as her husband entered
the room followed by a tall, burly man, beady of eye and rubicund of visage.
"Sergeant-Major Morris, " he said, introducing him.
The Sergeant-Major took hands and taking the proffered seat by the fire, watched contentedly as his host got out
whiskey and tumblers and stood a small copper kettle on the fire.
At the third glass his eyes got brighter, and he began to talk, the little family circle regarding with eager interest
this visitor from distant parts, as he squared his broad shoulders in the chair and spoke of wild scenes and dougty
deeds; of wars and plagues and strange peoples.
"Twenty-one years of it," said Mr. White, nodding at his wife and son. "When he went away he was a slip of a
youth in the warehouse. Now look at him."
"He don't look to have taken much harm." said Mrs. White politely.
"I'd like to go to India myself," said the old man, just to look around a bit, you know."
"Better where you are," said the Sargent-Major, shaking his head. He put down the empty glass and sighing softly,
shook it again.
"I should like to see those old temples and fakirs and jugglers," said the old man. "what was that that you started
telling me the other day about a monkey's paw or something, Morris?"
"Nothing." said the soldier hastily. "Leastways, nothing worth hearing."
"Monkey's paw?" said Mrs. White curiously.
"Well, it's just a bit of what you might call magic, perhaps." said the Sergeant-Major off-handedly.
His three listeners leaned forward eagerly. The visitor absent-mindedly put his empty glass to his lips and then set
it down again. His host filled it for him again.
"To look at," said the Sargent-Major, fumbling in his pocket, "it's just an ordinary little paw, dried to a mummy."
He took something out of his pocket and proffered it. Mrs. White drew back with a grimace, but her son, taking it,
examined it curiously.
"And what is there special about it?" inquired Mr. White as he took it from his son, and having examined it, placed
it upon the table.
"It had a spell put on it by an old Fakir," said the Sargent-Major, "a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate
ruled people's lives, and that those who interfered with it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three
separate men could each have three wishes from it."
His manners were so impressive that his hearers were conscious that their light laughter had jarred somewhat.
"Well, why don't you have three, sir?" said Herbert White cleverly.
The soldier regarded him the way that middle age is wont to regard presumptuous youth."I have," he said quietly,
and his blotchy face whitened.
"And did you really have the three wishes granted?" asked Mrs. White.
"I did," said the sergeant-major, and his glass tapped against his strong teeth.
"And has anybody else wished?" persisted the old lady.
"The first man had his three wishes. Yes, " was the reply, "I don't know what the first two were, but the third was
for death. That's how I got the paw."
His tones were so grave that a hush fell upon the group.
"If you've had your three wishes it's no good to you now then Morris," said the old man at last. "What do you
keep it for?"
The soldier shook his head. "Fancy I suppose," he said slowly." I did have some idea of selling it, but I don't think I
will. It has caused me enough mischief already. Besides, people won't buy. They think it's a fairy tale, some of
them; and those who do think anything of it want to try it first and pay me afterward."
"If you could have another three wishes," said the old man, eyeing him keenly," would you have them?"
"I don't know," said the other. "I don't know."
He took the paw, and dangling it between his forefinger and thumb, suddenly threw it upon the fire. White, with a
slight cry, stooped down and snatched it off.
"Better let it burn," said the soldier solemnly.
"If you don't want it Morris," said the other, "give it to me."
"I won't." said his friend doggedly. "I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don't blame me for what happens. Pitch it
on the fire like a sensible man."
The other shook his head and examined his possession closely. "How do you do it?" he inquired.
"Hold it up in your right hand, and wish aloud," said the sergeant-major, "But I warn you of the consequences."
"Sounds like the 'Arabian Nights'", said Mrs. White, as she rose and began to set the supper. "Don't you think you
might wish for four pairs of hands for me."
Her husband drew the talisman from his pocket, and all three burst into laughter as the Sergeant-Major, with a
look of alarm on his face, caught him by the arm.
"If you must wish," he said gruffly, "Wish for something sensible."
Mr. White dropped it back in his pocket, and placing chairs, motioned his friend to the table. In the business of
supper the talisman was partly forgotten, and afterward the three sat listening in an enthralled fashion to a second
installment of the soldier's adventures in India.
"If the tale about the monkey's paw is not more truthful than those he has been telling us," said Herbert, as the
door closed behind their guest, just in time to catch the last train, "we shan't make much out of it."
"Did you give anything for it, father?" inquired Mrs. White, regarding her husband closely.
"A trifle," said he, colouring slightly, "He didn't want it, but I made him take it. And he pressed me again to throw
it away."
"Likely," said Herbert, with pretended horror. "Why, we're going to be rich, and famous, and happy. Wish to be an
emperor, father, to begin with; then you can't be henpecked."
He darted around the table, pursued by the maligned Mrs White armed with an antimacassar.
Mr. White took the paw from his pocket and eyed it dubiously. "I don't know what to wish for, and that's a fact,"
he said slowly. It seems to me I've got all I want."
"If you only cleared the house, you'd be quite happy, wouldn't you!" said Herbert, with his hand on his shoulder.
"Well, wish for two hundred pounds, then; that'll just do it."
His father, smiling shamefacedly at his own credulity, held up the talisman, as his son, with a solemn face,
somewhat marred by a wink at his mother, sat down and struck a few impressive chords.
"I wish for two hundred pounds," said the old man distinctly.
A fine crash from the piano greeted his words, interrupted by a shuddering cry from the old man. His wife and son
ran toward him.
"It moved," he cried, with a glance of disgust at the object as it lay on the floor. "As I wished, it twisted in my hand
like a snake."
"Well, I don't see the money," said his son, as he picked it up and placed it on the table, "and I bet I never shall."
"It must have been your fancy, father," said his wife, regarding him anxiously.
He shook his head. "Never mind, though; there's no harm done, but it gave me a shock all the same."
They sat down by the fire again while the two men finished their pipes. Outside, the wind was higher than ever,
an the old man started nervously at the sound of a door banging upstairs. A silence unusual and depressing settled
on all three, which lasted until the old couple rose to retire for the rest of the night.
"I expect you'll find the cash tied up in a big bag in the middle of your bed," said Herbert, as he bade them
goodnight, " and something horrible squatting on top of your wardrobe watching you as you pocket your ill-gotten
gains."
He sat alone in the darkness, gazing at the dying fire, and seeing faces in it. The last was so horrible and so simian
that he gazed at it in amazement. It got so vivid that, with a little uneasy laugh, he felt on the table for a glass
containing a little water to throw over it. His hand grasped the monkey's paw, and with a little shiver he wiped his
hand on his coat and went up to bed.
Part II
In the brightness of the wintry sun next morning as it streamed over the breakfast table he laughed at his fears.
There was an air of prosaic wholesomeness about the room which it had lacked on the previous night, and the
dirty, shriveled little paw was pitched on the side-board with a carelessness which betokened no great belief in its
virtues.
"I suppose all old soldiers are the same," said Mrs White. "The idea of our listening to such nonsense! How could
wishes be granted in these days? And if they could, how could two hundred pounds hurt you, father?"
"Might drop on his head from the sky," said the frivolous Herbert.
"Morris said the things happened so naturally," said his father, "that you might if you so wished attribute it to
coincidence."
"Well don't break into the money before I come back," said Herbert as he rose from the table. "I'm afraid it'll turn
you into a mean, avaricious man, and we shall have to disown you."
His mother laughed, and following him to the door, watched him down the road; and returning to the breakfast
table, was very happy at the expense of her husband's credulity. All of which did not prevent her from scurrying to
the door at the postman's knock, nor prevent her from referring somewhat shortly to retired Sergeant-Major of
bibulous habits when she found that the post brought a tailor's bill.
"Herbert will have some more of his funny remarks, I expect, when he comes home," she said as they sat at
dinner.
"I dare say," said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; "but for all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I'll
swear to."
"You thought it did," said the old lady soothingly.
"I say it did," replied the other. "There was no thought about it; I had just - What's the matter?"
His wife made no reply. She was watching the mysterious movements of a man outside, who, peering in an
undecided fashion at the house, appeared to be trying to make up his mind to enter. In mental connection with
the two hundred pounds, she noticed that the stranger was well dressed, and wore a silk hat of glossy newness.
Three times he paused at the gate, and then walked on again. The fourth time he stood with his hand upon it, and
then with sudden resolution flung it open and walked up the path. Mrs White at the same moment placed her
hands behind her, and hurriedly unfastening the strings of her apron, put that useful article of apparel beneath the
cushion of her chair.
She brought the stranger, who seemed ill at ease, into the room. He gazed at her furtively, and listened in a
preoccupied fashion as the old lady apologized for the appearance of the room, and her husband's coat, a
garment which he usually reserved for the garden. She then waited as patiently as her sex would permit for him to
broach his business, but he was at first strangely silent.
"I - was asked to call," he said at last, and stooped and picked a piece of cotton from his trousers. "I come from
'Maw and Meggins.' "
The old lady started. "Is anything the matter?" she asked breathlessly. "Has anything happened to Herbert? What is
it? What is it?
Her husband interposed. "There there mother," he said hastily. "Sit down, and don't jump to conclusions. You've
not brought bad news, I'm sure sir," and eyed the other wistfully.
"I'm sorry - " began the visitor.
"Is he hurt?" demanded the mother wildly.
The visitor bowed in assent."Badly hurt," he said quietly, "but he is not in any pain."
"Oh thank God!" said the old woman, clasping her hands. "Thank God for that! Thank - "
She broke off as the sinister meaning of the assurance dawned on her and she saw the awful confirmation of her
fears in the others averted face. She caught her breath, and turning to her slower-witted husband, laid her
trembling hand on his. There was a long silence.
"He was caught in the machinery," said the visitor at length in a low voice.
"Caught in the machinery," repeated Mr. White, in a dazed fashion,"yes."
He sat staring out the window, and taking his wife's hand between his own, pressed it as he had been wont to do
in their old courting days nearly forty years before.
"He was the only one left to us," he said, turning gently to the visitor. "It is hard."
The other coughed, and rising, walked slowly to the window. " The firm wishes me to covey their sincere
sympathy with you in your great loss," he said, without looking round. "I beg that you will understand I am only
their servant and merely obeying orders."
There was no reply; the old woman’s face was white, her eyes staring, and her breath inaudible; on the husband's
face was a look such as his friend the sergeant might have carried into his first action.
"I was to say that Maw and Meggins disclaim all responsibility," continued the other. "They admit no liability at all,
but in consideration of your son's services, they wish to present you with a certain sum as compensation."
Mr. White dropped his wife's hand, and rising to his feet, gazed with a look of horror at his visitor. His dry lips
shaped the words, "How much?"
"Two hundred pounds," was the answer.
Unconscious of his wife's shriek, the old man smiled faintly, put out his hands like a sightless man, and dropped,
a senseless heap, to the floor.
Part III
In the huge new cemetery, some two miles distant, the old people buried their dead, and came back to the house
steeped in shadows and silence. It was all over so quickly that at first they could hardly realize it, and remained in
a state of expectation as though of something else to happen - something else which was to lighten this load, too
heavy for old hearts to bear.
But the days passed, and expectations gave way to resignation - the hopeless resignation of the old, sometimes
mis-called apathy. Sometimes they hardly exchanged a word, for now they had nothing to talk about, and their
days were long to weariness.
It was a about a week after that the old man, waking suddenly in the night, stretched out his hand and found
himself alone. The room was in darkness, and the sound of subdued weeping came from the window. He raised
himself in bed and listened.
"Come back," he said tenderly. "You will be cold."
"It is colder for my son," said the old woman, and wept afresh.
The sounds of her sobs died away on his ears. The bed was warm, and his eyes heavy with sleep. He dozed
fitfully, and then slept until a sudden wild cry from his wife awoke him with a start.
"THE PAW!" she cried wildly. "THE MONKEY'S PAW!"
He started up in alarm. "Where? Where is it? Whats the matter?"
She came stumbling across the room toward him. "I want it," she said quietly. "You've not destroyed it?"
"It's in the parlour, on the bracket," he replied, marveling. "Why?"
She cried and laughed together, and bending over, kissed his cheek.
"I only just thought of it," she said hysterically. "Why didn't I think of it before? Why didn't you think of it?"
"Think of what?" he questioned.
"The other two wishes," she replied rapidly. "We've only had one."
"Was not that enough?" he demanded fiercely.
"No," she cried triumphantly; "We'll have one more. Go down and get it quickly, and wish our boy alive again."
The man sat in bed and flung the bedcloths from his quaking limbs."Good God, you are mad!" he cried aghast.
"Get it," she panted; "get it quickly, and wish - Oh my boy, my boy!"
Her husband struck a match and lit the candle. "Get back to bed he said unsteadily. "You don't know what you are
saying."
"We had the first wish granted," said the old woman, feverishly; "why not the second?"
"A coincidence," stammered the old man.
"Go get it and wish," cried his wife, quivering with excitement.
The old man turned and regarded her, and his voice shook. "He has been dead ten days, and besides he - I would
not tell you else, but - I could only recognize him by his clothing. If he was too terrible for you to see then, how
now?"
"Bring him back," cried the old woman, and dragged him towards the door. "Do you think I fear the child I have
nursed?"
He went down in the darkness, and felt his way to the parlour, and then to the mantlepiece. The talisman was in
its place, and a horrible fear that the unspoken wish might bring his mutilated son before him ere he could escape
from the room seized up on him, and he caught his breath as he found that he had lost the direction of the door.
His brow cold with sweat, he felt his way round the table, and groped along the wall until he found himself in the
small passage with the unwholesome thing in his hand.
Even his wife's face seemed changed as he entered the room. It was white and expectant, and to his fears seemed
to have an unnatural look upon it. He was afraid of her.
"WISH!" she cried in a strong voice.
"It is foolish and wicked," he faltered.
"WISH!" repeated his wife.
He raised his hand. "I wish my son alive again."
The talisman fell to the floor, and he regarded it fearfully. Then he sank trembling into a chair as the old woman,
with burning eyes, walked to the window and raised the blind.
He sat until he was chilled with the cold, glancing occasionally at the figure of the old woman peering through
the window. The candle-end, which had burned below the rim of the china candlestick, was throwing pulsating
shadows on the ceiling and walls, until with a flicker larger than the rest, it expired. The old man, with an
unspeakable sense of relief at the failure of the talisman, crept back back to his bed, and a minute afterward the
old woman came silently and apathetically beside him.
Neither spoke, but lat silently listening to the ticking of the clock. A stair creaked, and a squeaky mouse scurried
noisily through the wall. The darkness was oppressive, and after lying for some time screwing up his courage, he
took the box of matches, and striking one, went downstairs for a candle.
At the foot of the stairs the match went out, and he paused to strike another; and at the same moment a knock
came so quiet and stealthy as to be scarcely audible, sounded on the front door.
The matches fell from his hand and spilled in the passage. He stood motionless, his breath suspended until the
knock was repeated. Then he turned and fled swiftly back to his room, and closed the door behind him. A third
knock sounded through the house.
"WHATS THAT?" cried the old woman, starting up.
"A rat," said the old man in shaking tones - "a rat. It passed me on the stairs."
His wife sat up in bed listening. A loud knock resounded through the house.
"It's Herbert!"
She ran to the door, but her husband was before her, and catching her by the arm, held her tightly.
"What are you going to do?" he whispered hoarsely.
"It's my boy; it's Herbert!" she cried, struggling mechanically. "I forgot it was two miles away. What are you
holding me for? Let go. I must open the door."
"For God's sake don't let it in," cried the old man, trembling.
"You're afraid of your own son," she cried struggling. "Let me go. I'm coming, Herbert; I'm coming."
There was another knock, and another. The old woman with a sudden wrench broke free and ran from the room.
Her husband followed to the landing, and called after her appealingly as she hurried downstairs. He heard the
chain rattle back and the bolt drawn slowly and stiffly from the socket. Then the old woman’s voice, strained and
panting.
"The bolt," she cried loudly. "Come down. I can't reach it."
But her husband was on his hands and knees groping wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If only he could
find it before the thing outside got in. A perfect fusillade of knocks reverberated through the house, and he heard
the scraping of a chair as his wife as his wife put it down in the passage against the door. He heard the creaking of
the bolt as it came slowly back, and at the same moment he found the monkeys's paw, and frantically breathed
his third and last wish.
The knocking ceased suddenly, although the echoes of it were still in the house. He heard the chair drawn back,
and the door opened. A cold wind rushed up the staircase, and a long loud wail of disappointment and misery
from his wife gave him the courage to run down to her side, and then to the gate beyond. The streetlamp flickering
opposite shone on a quiet and deserted road.
Short Story
“The Landlady” by Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl
“The Landlady”
Word Count: 3552
Published: The New Yorker, 28 November 1959.
Billy Weaver had travelled down from London on the slow afternoon train, with a change at Swindon on the way,
and by the time he got to Bath it was about nine o’clock in the evening and the moon was coming up out of a
clear starry sky over the houses opposite the station entrance. But the air was deadly cold and the wind was like a
flat blade of ice on his cheeks.
“Excuse me,” he said, “but is there a fairly cheap hotel not too far away from here?”
“Try The Bell and Dragon,” the porter answered, pointing down the road. “They might take you in. It’s about
a quarter of a mile along on the other side.”
Billy thanked him and picked up his suitcase and set out to walk the quarter- mile to The Bell and Dragon.
He had never been to Bath before. He didn’t know anyone who lived there. But Mr Greenslade at the Head Office
in London had told him it was a splendid city. “Find your own lodgings,” he had said, “and then go along and
report to the Branch Manager as soon as you’ve got yourself settled.”
Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy-blue overcoat, a new brown trilby
hat,
and a new brown suit, and he was feeling fine. He walked briskly down the street. He was trying to do everything
briskly these days. Briskness, he had decided, was the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen.
The big shots up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time. They were amazing.
There were no shops on this wide street 40 that he was walking along, only a line of tall houses on each
side, all them identical. They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it
was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences. But now, even in the darkness, he
could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and that the handsome
white façades were cracked and blotchy from neglect.
Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a street-lamp not six yards away, Billy
caught sight of a printed notice propped up against the glass in one of the upper panes. It said BED AND
BREAKFAST. There was a vase of yellow chrysanthemums, tall and beautiful, standing just underneath the notice.
He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer.
Green curtains (some sort of velvety material) were hanging down on either side of the window. The
chrysanthemums looked wonderful beside them. He went right up and peered through the glass into the room,
and the first thing he saw was a bright fire burning in the hearth. On the carpet in front of the fire, a pretty little
dachshund was curled up asleep with its nose tucked into its belly.
The room itself, so far as he could see in the half-darkness, was filled with pleasant furniture. There was a
baby-grand piano and a big sofa and several plump armchairs; and in one corner he spotted a large parrot in a
cage. Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself; and all in all, it looked to him as
though it would be a pretty decent house to stay in. Certainly it would be more comfortable than The Bell and
Dragon.
On the other hand, a pub would be more congenial than a boarding-house. There would be beer and darts
in the evenings, and lots of people to talk to, and it would probably be a good bit cheaper, too. He had stayed a
couple of nights in a pub once before and he had liked it. He had never stayed in any boarding-houses, and, to be
perfectly honest, he was a tiny bit frightened of them. The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage,
rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living-room.
After dithering about like this in the cold for two or three minutes, Billy decided that he would walk on and
take a look at The Bell and Dragon before making up his mind. He turned to go. And now a queer thing happened
to him. He was in the act of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye was
caught and held in the most peculiar manner by the small notice that was there. BED AND BREAKFAST, it said.
BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST, BED AND BREAKFAST. Each word was like a large black eye
staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was and not to walk
away from that house, and the next thing he knew, he was actually moving across from the window to the front
door of the house, climbing the steps that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.
He pressed the bell. Far away in a back room he heard it ringing, and then at once – it must have been at
once because he hadn’t even had time to take his finger from the bell-button – the door swung open and a
woman was standing there.
Normally you ring the bell and you have at least a half-minute’s wait before the door opens. But this dame
was a like a jack-in-the-box. He pressed the bell – and out she popped! It made him jump.
She was about forty-five or fifty years old, and the moment she saw him, she
gave him a warm welcoming smile.
“Please come in,” she said pleasantly. She stepped aside, holding the door wide open, and Billy found
himself automatically starting forward into the house. The compulsion or, more accurately, the desire to follow
after her into that house was extraordinarily strong.
“I saw the notice in the window,” he said, holding himself back.
“Yes, I know.” “I was wondering about a room.”
“It's all ready for you, my dear,” she said. She had a round pink face and very gentle blue eyes.
“I was on my way to The Bell and Dragon,” Billy told her. “But the notice in your window just happened to
catch my eye.”
“My dear boy,” she said, “why don't you come in out of the cold?”
“How much do you charge?”
“Five and sixpence a night, including breakfast.”
It was fantastically cheap. It was less than half of what he had been willing to pay.
“If that is too much,” she added, “then perhaps I can reduce it just a tiny bit. Do you desire an egg for
breakfast? Eggs are expensive at the moment. It would be sixpence less without the egg.”
“Five and sixpence is fine,” he answered. “I should like very much to stay here.”
“I knew you would. Do come in.”
She seemed terribly nice. She looked exactly like the mother of one’s best school- friend welcoming one
into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays. Billy took off his hat, and stepped over the threshold.
“Just hang it there,” she said, “and let me help you with your coat.”
There were no other hats or coats in the hall. There were no umbrellas, no walking- sticks – nothing.
“We have it all to ourselves,” she said, smiling at him over her shoulder as she led the way upstairs.
“You see, it isn’t very often I have the pleasure of taking a visitor into my little nest.”
The old girl is slightly dotty, Billy told himself. But at five and sixpence a night, who gives a damn about
that? – “I should've thought you’d be simply swamped with applicants,” he said politely.
“Oh, I am, my dear, I am, of course I am. But the trouble is that I'm inclined to be just a teeny weeny bit
choosy and particular – if you see what I mean.”
“Ah, yes.”
“But I’m always ready. Everything is always ready day and night in this house just on the off-chance that an
acceptable young gentleman will come along. And it is such a pleasure, my dear, such a very great pleasure when
now and again I open the door and I see someone standing there who is just exactly right.” She was half-way up
the stairs, and she paused with one hand on the stair-rail, turning her head and smiling down at him with pale
lips. “Like you,” she added, and her blue eyes travelled slowly all the way down the length of Billy's body, to his
feet, and then up again.
On the first-floor landing she said to him, “This floor is mine.”
They climbed up a second flight. “And this one is all yours,” she said. “Here’s your room. I do hope you’ll
like it.” She took him into a small but charming front bedroom, switching on the light as she went in.
“The morning sun comes right in the window, Mr Perkins. It is Mr Perkins, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said. “It’s Weaver.”
“Mr Weaver. How nice. I’ve put a water- bottle between the sheets to air them out, Mr Weaver. It’s such a
comfort to have a hot water-bottle in a strange bed with clean sheets, don’t you agree?
And you may light the gas fire at any time if you feel chilly.”
“Thank you,” Billy said. “Thank you ever so much.” He noticed that the bedspread had been taken off the
bed, and that the bedclothes had been neatly turned back on one side, all ready for someone to get in.
“I’m so glad you appeared,” she said, looking earnestly into his face. “I was beginning to get worried.”
“That’s all right,” Billy answered brightly. “You mustn’t worry about me.” He put his suitcase on the chair
and started to open it.
“And what about supper, my dear? Did you manage to get anything to eat before you came here?”
“I’m not a bit hungry, thank you,” he said. “I think I’ll just go to bed as soon as possible because tomorrow
I’ve got to get up rather early and report to the office.”
“Very well, then. I’ll leave you now so that you can unpack. But before you go to bed, would you be kind
enough to pop into the sitting-room on the ground floor and sign the book? Everyone has to do that because it’s
the law of the land, and we don’t want to go breaking any laws at this stage in the proceedings, do we?” She gave
him a little wave of the hand and went quickly out of the room and closed the door.
Now, the fact that his landlady appeared to be slightly off her rocker didn’t worry Billy in the least. After all,
she was not only harmless – there was no question about that – but she was also quite obviously a kind and
generous soul. He guessed that she had probably lost a son in the war, or something like that, and had never got
over it.
So a few minutes later, after unpacking his suitcase and washing his hands, he trotted downstairs to the
ground floor and entered the living-room. His landlady wasn’t there, but the fire was glowing in the hearth, and
the little dachshund was still sleeping in front of it. The room was wonderfully warm and cosy. I’m a lucky fellow,
he thought, rubbing his hands. This is a bit of all right.
He found the guest-book lying open on the piano, so he took out his pen and wrote down his name and
address. There were only two other entries above his on the page, and, as one always does with guest-books, he
started to read them. One was a Christopher Mulholland from Cardiff. The other was Gregory W. Temple from
Bristol. That’s funny, he thought suddenly. Christopher Mulholland. It rings a bell. Now where on earth had he
heard that rather unusual name before?
Was he a boy at school? No. Was it one of his sister’s numerous young men, perhaps, or a friend of his
father’s? No, no, it wasn’t any of those. He glanced down again at the book. Christopher Mulholland, 231
Cathedral Road, Cardiff. Gregory W. Temple, 27 Sycamore Drive, Bristol. As a matter of fact, now he came to
think of it, he wasn’t at all sure that the second name didn’t have almost as much
of a familiar ring about it as the first.
“Gregory Temple?” he said aloud, searching his memory. “Christopher Mulholland? ...”
“Such charming boys,” a voice behind him answered, and he turned and saw his landlady sailing into the
room with a large silver tea-tray in her hands. She was holding it well out in front of her, and rather high up, as
though the tray were a pair of reins on a frisky horse.
“They sound somehow familiar,” he said.
“They do? How interesting.”
“I’m almost positive I’ve heard those names before somewhere. Isn’t that queer? Maybe it was in the
newspapers. They weren’t famous in any way, were they? I mean famous cricketers or footballers or something
like that?”
“Famous,” she said, setting the tea-tray down on the low table in front of the sofa. “Oh no, I don’t think they
were famous. But they were extraordinarily handsome, both of them, I can promise you that. They were tall and
young and handsome, my dear, just exactly like you.”
Once more, Billy glanced down at the book.
“Look here,” he said, noticing the dates. “This last entry is over two years old.”
“It is?”
“Yes, indeed. And Christopher Mulholland’s is nearly a year before that – more than three years ago.”
“Dear me,” she said, shaking her head and heaving a dainty little sigh. “I would never have thought it. How
time does fly away from us all, doesn’t it, Mr Wilkins?”
“It’s Weaver,” Billy said. “W-e-a-v-e-r.”
“Oh, of course it is!” she cried, sitting down on the sofa. “How silly of me. I do apologise. In one ear and
out the other, that’s me, Mr Weaver.”
“You know something?” Billy said. ‘Something that’s really quite extraordinary about all this?”
“No, dear, I don’t.”
“Well, you see – both of these names, Mulholland and Temple, I not only seem to remember each one of
them separately, so to speak, but somehow or other, in some peculiar way, they both appear to be sort of
connected together as well. As though they were both famous for the same sort of thing, if you see what I mean –
like ... like Dempsey and Tunney, for example, or Churchill and Roosevelt.”
“How amusing,” she said. “But come over here now, dear, and sit down beside me on the sofa and I’ll give
you a nice cup of tea and a ginger biscuit before you go to bed.”
“You really shouldn’t bother,” Billy said. “I didn’t mean you to do anything like that.” He stood by the piano,
watching her as she fussed about with the cups and saucers. He noticed that she had small, white, quickly moving
hands, and red finger-nails.
“I’m almost positive it was in the newspapers I saw them,” Billy said. “I’ll think of it in a second. I’m sure I
will.”
There is nothing more tantalising than a thing like this which lingers just outside the borders of one’s
memory. He hated to give up.
“Now wait a minute,” he said. “Wait just a minute. Mulholland ... Christopher Mulholland ... wasn’t that the
name of the Eton schoolboy who was on a walking-tour through the West Country, and then all of a sudden ...”
“Milk?” she said. “And sugar?”
“Yes, please. And then all of a sudden ...”
“Eton schoolboy?” she said. “Oh no, my dear, that can’t possibly be right because my Mr Mulholland was
certainly not an Eton schoolboy when he came to me. He was a Cambridge undergraduate. Come over here now
and sit next to me and warm yourself in front of this lovely fire. Come on. Your tea’s all ready for you.” She patted
the empty place beside her on the sofa, and she sat there smiling at Billy and waiting for him to come over. He
crossed the room slowly, and sat down on the edge of the sofa. She placed his teacup on the table in front of him.
“There we are,” she said. “How nice and cosy this is, isn’t it?”
Billy started sipping his tea. She did the same. For half a minute or so, neither of them spoke. But Billy knew
that she was looking at him. Her body was half-turned towards him, and he could feel her eyes resting on his face,
watching him over the rim of her teacup. Now and again, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to
emanate directly from her person. It was not in the least unpleasant, and it reminded him – well, he wasn’t quite
sure what it reminded him of. Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?
“Mr Mulholland was a great one for his tea,” she said at length. “Never in my life have I seen anyone drink
as much tea as dear,
sweet Mr Mulholland.”
“I suppose he left fairly recently,” Billy said.
He was still puzzling his head about the two names. He was positive now that he had seen them in the
newspapers – in the headlines.
“Left?” she said, arching her brows. “But my dear boy, he never left. He’s still here. Mr Temple is also here.
They’re on the third floor, both of them together.”
Billy set down his cup slowly on the table, and stared at his landlady. She smiled back at him, and then she
put out one of her white hands and patted him comfortingly on the knee. “How old are you, my dear?” she asked.
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen!” she cried. “Oh, it’s the perfect age! Mr Mulholland was also seventeen. But I think he was a
trifle shorter than you are, in fact I’m sure he was, and his teeth weren’t quite so white. You have the most
beautiful teeth, Mr
Weaver, did you know that?”
“They’re not as good as they look,” Billy said.
“They’ve got simply masses of fillings in them at the back.” “Mr Temple, of course, was a little
older,” she said, ignoring his remark. “He was actually twenty eight. And yet I never would have guessed it if he
hadn’t told me, never in my whole life. There wasn’t a blemish on his body.”
“A what?” Billy said. “His skin was just like a baby’s.” There was a pause. Billy picked up his
teacup and took another sip of his tea, then he set it down again gently in its saucer. He waited for her to say
something else, but she seemed to have lapsed into another of her silences. He sat there staring straight ahead of
him into the far corner of the room, biting his lower lip.
“That parrot,” he said at last. “You know something? It had me completely fooled when I first saw it through
the window from the street. I could have sworn it was
alive.”
“Alas, no longer.” “It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been done,” he said. “It doesn’t look in the least bit
dead. Who did it?”
“I did.”
“You did?”
“Of course,” she said. “And have you met my little Basil as well?” She nodded towards the dachshund
curled up so comfortably in front of the fire. Billy looked at it. And suddenly, he realised that this animal had all
the time been just as silent and motionless as the parrot. He put out a hand and touched it gently on the top of its
back. The back was hard and cold, and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he could see the
skin underneath, greyish-black and dry and perfectly preserved.
“Good gracious me,” he said. “How absolutely fascinating.” He turned away from the dog and stared with
deep admiration at the little woman beside him on the sofa. “It must be most awfully difficult to do a thing like
that.”
“Not in the least,” she said. “I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away. Will you have another cup
of tea?”
“No, thank you,” Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.
“You did sign the book, didn’t you?” “Oh, yes.”
“That’s good. Because later on, if I happen to forget what you were called, then I can always come down
here and look it up. I still do that almost every day with Mr Mulholland and Mr . . .Mr...”
“Temple,” Billy said. “Gregory Temple. Excuse my asking, but haven’t there been any other guests here
except them in the last two or three years?”
Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him out of the
corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile.
“No, my dear,” she said. ‘Only you.'
© Roald Dahl Reprinted by kind permission of David Higham Associates ‘The Landlady’ first appeared in ‘Kiss Kiss’
Ray Bradbury
“The Emissary”
Word Count: 2728
Published: The October Country 1955, written 1947.
"'My name is Torry. Will you visit my master, who is sick? Follow me!" Torry was Martin's only link with the world
outside his sickroom, and he faithfully carried that message around his shaggy canine neck every day. He brought
back the scent of autumn leaves,the chill of snow, and the perfume of freshly cut grass. But then, one awful,
ominous night Torry came home reeking with a different kind of smell.
HE KNEW IT WAS AUTUMN again, because Torry came romping into the house bringing the windy crisp cold
smell of autumn with him. In every black curl of his dog hair he carried autumn. Leaf flakes tangled in his dark
ears and muzzle, dropping from his white vest, and off his flourished tail. The dog smelled just like autumn.
Martin Christie sat up in bed and reached down with one pale small hand. Torry barked and displayed a
generous length of pink, rippling tongue, which he passed over and along the back of Martin's hand. Torry licked
him like a lollipop. "Because of the salt," declared Martin, as Torry leaped upon the bed.
"Get down," warned Martin. "Mom doesn't like you up here." Torry flattened his ears. "Well . . ." Martin
relented. "Just for a while, then."
Torry warmed Martin's thin body with his dog warmness. Martin relished the clean dog smell and the litter
of fallen leaves on the quilt. He didn't care if Mom scolded. After all, Torry was newborn. Right out of the stomach
of autumn Torry came, reborn in the rm sharp cold.
"What's it like outside, Torry? Tell me."
Lying there, Torry would tell him. Lying there, Martin would know what autumn was like; like in the old days
before sickness had put him to bed. His only contact with autumn now was this brief chill, this leaf-flaked fur; the
compact canine representation of summer gone–this autumn-by-proxy.
"Where'd you go today, Torry?"
But Torry didn't have to tell him. He knew. Over a fall-burdened hill, leaving a pad-pattern in the brilliantly
piled leaves, down to where the kids ran shouting on bikes and roller skates and wagons at Barstow's Park, that's
where Torry ran, barking out his canine delight. And down into the town where rain had fallen dark, earlier; and
mud furrowed under far wheels, down between the feet of weekend hoppers. That's where Torry went.
And wherever Torry went, then Martin could go; because Torry would always tell him by the touch, feel,
consistency, the wet, dry or crispness of his coat. And, lying there holding Torry, Martin would send his mind out
to retrace each step of Tony's way through fields, over the shallow glitter of the ravine creek, darting across the
marbled spread of the graveyard, into the wood, over the meadows; where all the wild, laughing autumn sports
went on, Martin could go now through his emissary.
Mother's voice sounded downstairs, angrily.
Her short angry walking came up the hall steps"
Martin pushed. "Down, Torry!"
Torry vanished under the bed just before the bedroom door opened and Mom looked in, blue eyes
snapping. She carried a tray of salad and fruit juices, firmly.
"Is Torry here?" she demanded.
Torry gave himself away with a few bumps of his tail against the floor.
Mom set the tray down impatiently. "That dog is more trouble" Always upsetting things and digging places.
He was in Miss Tarkins's garden this morning, and dug a big hole. Miss Tarkins is mad."
"Oh," Martin held his breath. There was silence under the bed Torry knew when to keep quiet.
"And it's not the only time," said Mom. "This is the third hole he's dug this week!"
"Maybe he's looking for something."
"Something fiddlesticks! He's just a curious nuisance. He can't keep that black nose out of anything. Always
curious!"
There was a hairy pizzicato of tail under the bed. Mom couldn't help smiling.
"Well," she ended, "if he doesn't stop digging in yards, I'll have to keep him in and not let him run."
Martin opened his mouth wide. "Oh, no Mom! Don't do that! Then I wouldn't know-anything. He tells me."
Mom's voice softened. "Does he, son?"
“Sure. He goes around and comes back and tells what happens, tells everything!"
Mom's hand was spun glass touching his head. "I'm glad he tells you. I'm glad you've got him."
They both sat for a moment, considering how worthless the last year would've been without Torry. Only two more
months, thought Martin, of being in bed, like the doctor said, and he'd be up and around.
"Here, Torry!"
Jangling, Martin locked the special collar attachment around Torry's neck. It was a note, painted on a tin
square.
"My name is Torry. WiIl you visit my master, who is sick? Follow me!"
It worked. Torry carried it out into the world every day.
"Will you let him out, Mom?"
"Yes, if he's good and stops his digging!" "He'll stop; won't you, Torry?"
The dog barked.
You could hear the dog yipping far down the street and away, going to fetch visitors. Martin was feverish and
his eyes stood out in his head as he sat, propped up, listening, sending his mind rushing along with the dog, faster,
faster. Yesterday Torry had brought Mrs. Holloway from Elm Avenue, with a story book for a present; the day
before Torry had sat up, begged at Mr. Jacobs, the jeweler. Mr. Jacobs had bent and nearsightedly deciphered the
tag message and, sure enough, had come shuffling and waddling to pay Martin a little how-do-you-do.
Now, Martin heard the dog returning through the smoky afternoon, barking, running, barking again.
Footsteps came lightly after the dog. Somebody rang the downstairs bell, softly. Mom answered the door.
Voices talked.
Torry raced upstairs, leaped on the bed. Martin leaned forward excitedly, his face shining, to see who’d
come upstairs this time. Maybe Miss Palmborg or Mr. Ellis or Miss Jendriss, or–
The visitor walked upstairs, talking to Mom. It was a young woman's voice, talking with a laugh in it.
The door opened. Martin had company.
Four days passed in which Torry did his job, reported morning, afternoon and evening temperatures, soil
consistencies, leaf colors, rain levels, and, most important of all, brought visitors.
Miss Haight, again, on Saturday. She was the young, laughing, handsome woman with the gleaming brown
hair and the soft way of walking. She lived in the big house on Park Street. It was her third visit in a month.
On Sunday it was Reverend Vollmar, on Monday Miss Clark and Mr. Henricks.
And to each of them Martin explained his dog. How in spring he was odorous of wild flowers and fresh
earth; in summer he was baked, warm, sun-crisp; in autumn, now, a treasure trove of gold leaves hidden in his
pelt for Martin to explore out. Torry demonstrated this process for the visitors, lying over on his back waiting to be
explored.
Then, one morning, Mom told Martin about Miss Haight, the one who was so handsome and young and
laughed.
She was dead.
Killed in a motoring accident in Glen Falls.
Martin held on to his dog, remembering Miss Haight, thinking of the way she smiled, thinking of her bright
eyes,her closely cropped chestnut hair, her slim body, her quick walk, her nice stories about seasons and people.
So now she was dead. She wasn't going to laugh or tell stories any more. That's all there was to it. She was
dead.
"What do they do in the graveyard, Mom, under the ground?"
"Nothing."
"You mean they just lay there?"
"Lie there," corrected Mom.
"Lie there. . . . ?"
"Yes," said Mom, "that's all they do." "It doesn't sound like much fun."
"It's not supposed to be."
"Why don't they get up and walk around once in a while if they get tired of lying there?"
"I think you've said enough, now," said Mom.
"I just wanted to know."
"Well, now you know."
"Sometimes I think God's pretty silly."
"Martin!"
Martin scowled. "You'd think He'd treat people better than throw dirt in their faces and tell them to lay still
for keeps. You'd think He'd find a better way. What if I told Torry to play dead-dog?He does it awhile, but then he
gets sick of it and wags his tail or blinks his eyes, or pants, or jumps off the bed, and walks around. I bet those
graveyard people do the same, huh, Torry?"
Torry barked.
"That will do!" said Mom, firmly. "I don't like such talk!"
The autumn continued. Torry ran across forests, over the creek, prowling through the graveyard as was his
custom, and into town and around and back, missing nothing.
In mid-October, Torry began to act strangely. He couldn’t seem to find anybody to come to visit Martin.
Nobody seemed to pay attention to his begging. He came home seven days in a row without bringing a visitor.
Martin was deeply despondent over it.
Mom explained it. “Everybody’s busy. The war, and all. People have lots of worry over besides little begging
dogs.”
“Yeah,” said Martin, “I guess so.”
But there was more than that to it. Torry had a funny gleam in his eyes. As if he weren’t really trying, or
didn’t care, or–something. Something Martin couldn’t figure out. Maybe Torry was sick. Well, to heck with visitors.
As long as he had Torry, everything was fine.
And then one day Torry ran out and didn’t come back at all.
Martin waited quietly at first. Then–nervously. Then–anxiously.
At supper time he heard Mom and Dad call Torry. Nothing happened. It was no use. There was no sound of
paws along the path outside the house. No sharp barking in the cold night air. Nothing. Torry was gone. Torry
wasn’t coming home–ever.
Leaves fell past the window. Martin sank on his pillow, slowly, a pain deep and hard in his chest.
The world was dead. There was no autumn because there was no fur to bring it into the house. There would
be no winter because there would be no paws to dampen the quilt with snow. No more seasons. No more time.
The go-between, the emissary, had been lost in the wild thronging of civilization, probably hit by a car, or
poisoned, or stolen, and there was no time.
Sobbing, Martin turned his face to his pillow. There was no contact with the world. The world was dead.
Martin twisted in bed and in three days the Halloween pumpkins were rotting in the trashcans, masks were
burnt in incinerators, the bogeys were stacked away on shelves until next year. Halloween was withdrawn,
impersonal, untouchable. It had simply been one evening when he had heard horns blowing off in the cold
autumn stars, people yelling and thumping windows and porches with soap and cabbages. That was all.
Martin stared at the ceiling for the first three days of November, watching alternate light and dark shift
across it. Days got shorter, darker, he could tell by the window. The trees were naked. The autumn wind changed
its tempo and temperature. But it was just a pageant outside his window, nothing more. He couldn't get at it.
Martin read books about the seasons and the people in that world that was now nonexistent. He listened
each day, but didn't hear the sounds he wanted to hear.
Friday night came. His parents were going to the theater. They'd be back at eleven. Miss Tarkins, from next
door, would come over for a while until Martin got sleepy, and then she would go home.
Mom and Dad kissed him good night and walked out of the house into the autumn. He heard their footsteps
go down the street.
Miss Tarkins came over, stayed awhile and then, when Martin confessed to being tired, she turned out all the
lights and went back home.
Silence, then. Martin just lay there and watched the stars moving slowly across the sky. It was a clear,
moonlit evening. The kind when he and Torry had once run together across the town, across the sleeping
graveyard, across the ravine, through the meadows, down the shadowed streets, chasing phantasmal childish
dreams.
Only the wind was friendly. Stars don't bark. Trees don't sit up and beg. The wind, of course, did wag its tail
against the house a number of times, startling Martin.
Now it was after nine o'clock.
If only Torry would come home, bringing some of the world with him. A burr or a rimed thistle, or the wind
in his ears. If only Torry would come home.
And then, way off somewhere, there was a sound.
Martin arose in his covers, trembling. Starlight was reflected in his small eyes. He threw back the covers and
tensed, listening.
There, again, was the sound.
It was so small it was like a needle point moving through the air miles and miles away.
It was the dreamy echo of a dog–barking.
It was the sound of a dog coming across meadows and fields, down dark streets, the sound of a dog running
and letting his breath out to the night. The sound of a dog circling and running. It came and went, it lifted and
faded, it came forward and went back, as if it were being led by someone on a chain. As if the dog were running
and somebody whistled under the chestnut trees and the dog ran back, circled, and darted again for home.
Martin felt the room revolve under him and the bed tremble with his body. The springs complained with
metal, tining voices.
The faint barking continued for five minutes, growing louder and louder.
Torry, come home! Torry,come home! Torry, boy, oh, Torry, where've you been? Oh, Torry, Torry!
Another five minutes. Nearer and nearer, and Martin kept saying the dog's name over and over again. Bad
dog, wicked dog, to go off and leave him for all these days. Bad dog, good dog, come home, oh, Torry, hurry
home and tell me about the world! Tears fell and dissolved into the quilt.
Nearer now. Very near. Just up the street, barking. Torry!
Martin held his breath. The sound of dog feet in the piled dry leaves, down the path. And now-right outside
the house, barking, barking, barking! Torry!
Barking to the door.
Martin shivered. Did he dare run down and let the dog in, or should he wait for Mom and Dad to come
home? Wait. Yes, he must wait. But it would be unbearable if, while he waited, the dog ran away again. No, he
would go down and release the lock and his own special dog would leap into his arms again. Good Torry!
He started to move from bed when he heard the other sound. The door opened downstairs. Somebody was
kind enough to have opened the door for Torry.
Torry had brought a visitor, of course. Mr. Buchanan, or Mr. Jacobs, or perhaps Miss Tarkins.
The door opened and closed and Torry came racing upstairs and flung himself, yipping, on the bed.
"Torry, where've you been, what've you done all this week?"
Martin laughed and cried all in one. He grabbed the dog and held him. Then he stopped laughing and
crying, suddenly. He just stared at Torry with wide, strange eyes.
The odor arising from Torry was different. It was a smell of earth. Dead earth. Earth that had Iain cheek by
jowl with unhealthy decaying things six feet under. Stinking, stinking, rancid earth. Clods of decaying soil fell off
Torry's paws. And–-something else–a small withered fragment of–skin?
Was it? Was it! WAS IT!
What kind of message was this from Torry? What did such a message mean? The stench–the ripe and awful
cemetery earth.
Torry was a bad dog. Always digging where he shouldn't dig.
Torry was a good dog. Always making friends so easily. Torry took to liking everybody. He brought them
home with him.
And now this latest visitor was coming up the stairs. Slowly. Dragging one foot after the other, painfully,
slowly, slowly, slowly.
"Torry, Torry–where've you been!" screamed Martin.
A clod of rank crawling soil dropped from the dog's chest.
The door to the bedroom moved inward.
Martin had company.
Celia Rees
“Writing on the Wall”
Word Count: 4858
Published: 2004
Mark Banks had a tendency to act on impulse; otherwise he never would have bought the place. The house stood
back from the road, in the hollow of a hill. He glimpsed it through a haze of new green leaves, picked out by a
random shaft of sunlight on a bright spring day. He noted the FOR SALE sign and pulled in to take a closer look. It
was built from dull red brick, not particularly picturesque, but gable ends and steeply pitched roofs, banks of tall
chimneys, and a fancy turret gave it a certain grandeur. A Victorian gentleman’s residence. He liked the idea of
that. The FOR SALE sign had been up for so long that the post was rotting, but he didn’t question why that might
be. He merely noted the estate agent’s number and decided to give them a call. He had to smile when they told
him the price. He put in an offer right over the phone. He knew a bargain when he saw one.
There was something hidden about the house, tucked away in a nook of the landscape, folded in on itself as
if guarding a secret, the twin roofs of the gables rising like great arching brows frowning a warning, but Mark was
not a man given to fancy. His son, Sam, was far more sensitive. He felt a definite prickle of doubt the first time his
dad showed him the photographs, but he didn’t share his misgivings with anyone. Who’d listen to a twelve-yearold?
There was a lot of work to be done, Mark told his family, but it was going to be fun. The estate agent had
recommended a good local firm, and they were already transforming the place. The fabric was sound, the survey
said, and that was enough for Mark. There are other sorts of rottenness: kinds that can’t be detected by gauges
measuring dampness or gadgets that find dry rot or woodworm infestation, but Mark Banks didn’t stop to think
about that.
He was due some time off and had decided to oversee the work himself. He liked getting his hands dirty
and had definite ideas about how the place should be. There were interesting features, like a pretty little
summerhouse in the garden, and there had been some fascinating finds already. Just yesterday, one of the men
had found a little glass bottle, half filled with some dark, viscous liquid, hidden above the doorway. None of them
seemed to know what it was, or why it was there. Mark planned to take it to the local museum as soon as he
could find the time.
He’d fixed up a trailer in the garden, and now that school vacation had started, the kids would be joining
him. They were both curious to see the house. Kate was fifteen and had already picked out her room from the
photographs. She wanted the turret because it looked like a tower in a fairy-tale castle, and she’d wanted to sleep
in one of those ever since she was a child. Not that she’d be moving in for a while. She’d be staying with him in
the trailer. It was big enough for all of them, but Sam said he wanted to sleep outside so he could try out his new
tent.
Sam liked the idea of camping, but on the first night he found it hard to sleep. He wasn’t used to the quiet, and
each time he closed his eyes, there would be some unfamiliar noise: the hooting of owls or the sudden sharp
shriek of a fox. There were rustlings, also, and other odd sounds that were hard to identify. He stuck his head out
and shone his flashlight around, but the little pool of light only made the surrounding darkness blacker somehow.
He was aware of the huge bulk of the house looming above him. It seemed to grow outward, radiating blackness,
overshadowing, reaching toward the dim, tinny shine of the trailer. That seemed farther off now, like a toy.
Suddenly, it looked very small, as if seen through the wrong end of a telescope. He could knock on the door and
demand to be allowed in, but then they would know he was scared. That was not the only reason. He could not
leave the tent. He was gripped by a panicky feeling–he might not make it in time. Make it from what? There was
nothing out there, he told himself. It was a hot night, but he made sure to zip the flap tightly. He could make it
through just one night, he thought, as he huddled down into his sleeping bag.
Things look better in daylight. In the morning, Sam didn’t like to admit his fear. He moved his tent, pitching
it next to the trailer, rationalizing away his night terror, coming up with things Dad might say: too much
imagination brought on by difference, strangeness, a change in environment.
Eddie Mayer drew up in his truck, going through the jobs for that day in his head. He scanned the brooding
façade of the house. He knew all about its history. His great-grandfather had been one of the builders involved in
the Edwardian renovation. He’d been a bit of a cunning man. Eddie wouldn’t mind betting that he’d been
responsible for the witch bottle they’d found last week. It would have been put there to protect the building from
evil, and if anywhere needed protecting, this place did. Eddie had been surprised when Haslet and Jones sold it.
The house had been on the market for ages, and with good reason, but then this London chap comes along. Old
man Haslet had tipped him the wink, because there was a lot of work to be done, enough to keep Mayer & Son
busy for months. There were plenty of stories, all right. He would not like to be here at night. Not that he’d be
saying anything, and neither would his men. The new owner might take fright, and Eddie had already bought the
materials and taken on extra workers. He could do without a canceled contract.
Tom Mayer jumped down from the truck. He was tall and dark, well muscled and tanned from working with
his father. He knew the work, the business, but he was going to college, and after that he planned to get a whitecollar job. He had no intention of doing this for the rest of his life. Not that he’d told his father. It would break the
old man’s heart. What was more to the point, he might not hand any more money out, and Tom was always short
on funds. Eddie might even take away his car.
“Would you like some tea?”
Tom smiled down at the girl offering him a mug. Not very old. Fourteen? Fifteen? She’d be pretty if she wore
her hair different and lost the braces. Nice eyes, though, and those shorts and crop top really showed off her
figure. Things were looking up.
“Hi, I’m Tom,” he said. His smile grew wider and he crinkled his dark blue eyes.
“I’m Kate. Kate Banks.”
“Hi, Kate. You weren’t here last week.”
“No. I came on the weekend with my brother. We’re helping Dad. Spending the summer….”
“Bit boring for you.” Tom folded his arms and looked sympathetic. He made his mind up quickly about girls
and didn’t waste time. “Tell you what. There’s a barbecue tonight in the village. Want to come along–meet some
people?”
“Yes,” Kate said. She was so taken aback by his invitation, she’d agreed before she’d even thought about it.
“That’s if Dad says it’s okay.”
“He can come. Your brother, too. It’s a family thing.” Always a winner, that. He looked around. His dad was
shaking a shovel and pointing at the house. “That’s me. Gotta go. Thanks for the tea. See you later.”
Kate walked away, smiling to herself. He was all right! Only been here a day and she’d gotten a date. What
would the girls think about that!
Sam adjusted his facemask against the fine plaster dust billowing from the sitting room. The ground floor was
being systematically stripped. The house was far older than it looked, Eddie said, and Dad was interested in
uncovering some of the original building. If the theory was correct, there should be a bigger, more ancient
fireplace behind the Victorian grate. All work had stopped as everyone gathered to see if Eddie was right.
“Okay. Stand back!” Eddie spat on his palms and hefted the sledgehammer.
The thick muscles bulged in his shoulders and arms as he dealt the chimney piece such a mighty crack that
the whole house shook. Everyone jumped back as plaster and rubble poured across the room, sending up a great
plume of dust and soot.
“Come on,” Eddie shouted, appearing like a ghost through the choking cloud. “Get this lot shifted.”
“What the–”
The workman dropped his shovel, backing away form the thing as it bounced and skittered over the scree of
plaster. The dried-up body of a cat. Tufts of black fur still mottled the brittle blue-gray skin as it lay stretched, the
bone-thin back legs flexed, front paws extended, blunt head up, as if it had been set to hunt through eternity.
“Well, I’ll be…” Eddie removed his mask and licked his black-rimmed lips. “Haven’t seen one of them in a
while.”
“Where did it come from?” Sam asked, staring at the pathetic little corpse.
“From the chimney,” Eddie replied.
“How did it get there?”
“Dunno, son,” the builder said with a shrug. “These old chimneys are full of nooks and crannies. Probably
crawled up when the fire was out, for warmth, and died of fumes when someone lit the coals.”
It seemed a good enough explanation, but Sam could tell that he was lying by the way his eyes shifted, by
the way he licked his blackberry lips.
One of the men went to shovel up the remains with the rest of the rubbish, but Eddie ordered the thing to be
burned. Any protection the creature might have offered was gone now, but that was no reason to treat it with
disrespect.
Eddie set to work shoveling the rubble out, while the rest of his men dispersed to work in different parts of
the house. Tom had been sent upstairs to see what needed doing up there. Curiosity more than any instruction
from his father took him to the little turret room at the end of the second-floor corridor. The house was haunted, so
they said. This room was where it was supposed to kick off. He stepped inside and looked around. There was no
physical evidence of violence and sudden death. He stood, waiting. To his intense disappointment, he felt
absolutely nothing. Not even the slightest shiver. No sign at a ll of psychic activity that was supposed to circulate
from this very room.
He went to the window and looked out. Nice view. Kate was sunbathing on a patch of grass below. You
could see even more of her figure now. He’d seen the other men looking at her…
He pressed the window frame with his thumb. The wood was soft. Rotten underneath the paint. The whole
thing would have to be replaced. He blowtorched a patch of paint to find how bad it was, how far it spread. The
layers bubbled back, turning from yellowy-white to brown and then black. He scraped away at the goo and put
his mask up against the acrid fumes. His father was right to be strict about that–they’d used all kinds of poisons to
make paint back then: lead, arsenic, you name it. His eyes strayed back to the girl and stayed on her a long time.
He was finding it hard to concentrate. She shouldn’t be showing herself off that way where the other men could
see. It wasn’t right. Her dad should have a word with her. Or he would–he would tell her tonight…. He stood
there, brooding. Jealousy and anger growing within him. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He’d only just met
her, and he was thinking about her as though she were his girlfriend or something. Maybe the fumes were getting
to him. He pulled his mask tighter. It was almost as though his thoughts belonged to someone else.
He stayed only a little while longer, but by then the damage was done. No kind of mask could protect
against the poison that seeped from the fabric of that particular room.
Sam had been looking forward to the barbecue, hoping to meet some kids his own age there, but most turned out
to be younger, so he stayed with Dad. Sam wished he was old enough to join Kate and hang out with Tom and his
friends drinking beer. That looked like more fun–although he’d be annoyed if her were Kate. Tom had seemed like
a nice guy, pretty happy-go-lucky, but he obviously had another side to him. He kept her close, as if they’d been
going out forever, and he didn’t like it if she went away from him or talked to anyone else. She seemed okay with
it. When Tom’s friends moved to their cars, ready to go somewhere, she came to ask Dad if she could go with
them. He said that she could, as long as she wasn’t back late.
Sam didn’t know how late it was, but he was woken up by a door slamming and what sounded like a sob. A
car drove off, engine roar and wheel spin ripping through the silence. The trailer door opened and Dad called out,
sounding anxious. Kate replied to him, and Sam heard her go in. Or at least, he thought he did.
When Sam woke again, he was dying to pee. He crawled out of the tent, urgency quelling any fears he
might be feeling. He wasn’t scared anymore. Moonlight made tonight quite different. It was pleasant to be outside
after the stuffiness of the tent. He wandered up toward the top of the garden, looking at the stars.
That’s when he saw them.
They were in the ruined summerhouse. Lit by moonlight. Two people standing close enough for their
shadows to almost merge. Sam stood transfixed. One was taller, bending down toward the other. He could hear
them murmuring, whispering, and then the shadows joined into just one shape. He found it hard to tear himself
away. It must be Tom and Kate. Maybe they’d had a fight or something, and were getting back together. But he’d
heard her go into the trailer, he was sure. How had she sneaked out again without disturbing Dad?
Not that Sam had much of a chance to find out. The next day, Kate stayed in the trailer. When Sam asked
what was the matter, she refused to answer. Dad said he didn’t know either, but he looked as though he wished
Mom were here.
There was no sign of Tom.
“Stayed at his friend’s house and hasn’t turned up this morning,” Eddie said. “If he weren’t the son and heir,
I’d fire him.” The builder laughed and ruffled Sam’s hair. “You’ll have to do instead.”
Sam spent the morning with Eddie, but by the afternoon he had tired of the dust and noise. He mounted the
stairs to get away from it. The upper floors would be deserted and quiet. He hadn’t really explored up there.
Sam looked along the dark-paneled corridors leading off from the first landing and decided to take the lefthand passage, pushing doors open one by one. Most of the rooms were empty, with bare wooden floorboards and
chipped skirting boards. The old furnishings showed as darker patches on the wallpaper, like ghostly imprints of
the former inhabitants.
The room at the end was round, like a turret. Light shone through the open door, spilling bright into the
tunnel-like passage. Sam squinted, trying to see better. There seemed to be someone in there. A girl standing at the
window, facing out, away from him. She raised her arms, the light around her breaking into shafts in the dustladen air. It was hard to see because of this halo effect, but it had to be Kate. What was she doing up here? It was
the room she wanted, so perhaps she’d come to inspect it. But how did she get past him? He looked around, as if
to check his route again. When he turned back the room was empty. The girl was gone.
Sam went in cautiously, searching the room carefully, looking for a secret passage or stairway, but if there
was one there, he failed to find it. He was about to go, when he noticed something. Something on the wall. He
hadn’t noticed it before. It was as if it had suddenly appeared. Strange. Weird. He’d have to tell Kate.
He found her in the trailer, reading a book.
“How did you do it?” he asked.
“How did I do what?” she replied without looking up.
“Get out of the room without me seeing.”
“What room? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. The little turret room. I saw you up there.”
Kate looked up. “I’ve been here all afternoon reading this book.”
“Well, okay.” Sam didn’t believe her, but stopped short of calling her a liar. “But you better come. There’s
something you ought to see.”
“Aren’t you a bit old for writing on walls?”
“It wasn’t me! I swear it! It just appeared….”
The writing was a jagged scrawl, the letters at least a foot tall.
KATE
PLEASE
he–”
“And I’m supposed to think you’ve got nothing to do with this?” Kate turned on her brother. “Yeah. Right!”
“Tom was up here yesterday.” Sam spoke cautiously, sensing Kate didn’t want to talk about him. “Maybe
“No. Why would he?” Her tone was cold, dismissive.
The writing was malformed. There was something hideous about the straggling, spidery letters. Why would
Tom do that? It was easier to believe that Sam had done it, even though he was telling the truth and Kate knew it.
She grabbed a loose corner. The sheet came away, buckling to the floor. There was more underneath.
I AM TRYING
Kate worked away at the edges of the paper with her fingernails, pulling it off the wall in strips. On the layer
below was more writing in the same spiked hand.
LISTEN
TO ME
“The men are leaving,” Sam said as he looked out of the window at the sound of the truck. “It’s getting late.
Dad’s waving us down to go into town.”
“You go. I want to get to the bottom of this.”
Kate went to find some kind of scraper and came back with a chisel and a trowel. The writing both intrigued
and disturbed her. She’d thought at first that maybe it was Tom, but now words were appearing below the surface
layer. She worked in the still quietness of the deserted house with single-minded intensity, seeing only the patch of
paper before her. She put the curls of paper on the floor as she found them. Maybe a girl named Kate had lived
here once. It was a common enough name, after all. These messages must have been left for her by some other
person. That had to be the explanation. Someone who didn’t write very well. A servant, maybe. Lots of people
couldn’t write back then. Or someone who had to use his or her other hand for some reason, perhaps because of
a broken arm or something…. Sam had not wanted to leave Kate in the house on her own, but he knew it was no
use arguing.
“Where’s Kate?” his dad asked.
“She doesn’t want to come.”
Mark Banks shrugged, not surprised. Kate had been in a mood all day.
“I don’t think we should leave her–” Sam started to say, but his dad interrupted him.
“Why not? She’s a big girl now, and I don’t have time to argue. I’ve got things to do. I want to catch the
museum before it closes. They’ve got some news for me.”
“About what?”
“That bottle the builders found.”
Sam settled back in his seat. That sounded interesting. Some of his concern for Kate slipped from his mind
as his father headed into town.
The younger curator was there to meet them. She’d prepared a written report on their find. Sam craned to
read it over his father’s arm.
Witch bottles may be of glass or pottery and are usually found concealed beneath the hearth or threshold,
but sometimes in walls or beneath the floor. Upon analysis, these bottles have most commonly been found
to contain iron, in the form of pins or nails (often bent), human hair, and urine. All of these substances
have associations with folk magic and together would seem to constitute a kind of spell. The locations in
which these bottles were placed are significant. There is an emphasis on placing the objects at the entry
and exit points of the building to serve as protection against supernatural forces that might want to invade
the premises.
The curator held up their bottle, agitating it slightly.
“Your find pretty much conforms to the norm as far as contents are concerned. Have there been any more
finds of a similar nature?”
“They found a dead cat yesterday,” Sam said.
“Did they?” The young woman turned her vivid blue eyes on him. “Where exactly?”
“In the chimney.”
“Now that’s interesting. The finding of dried-up cats in buildings is quite common,” she said, addressing
both of them. “Some may have died naturally, but there is ample evidence to suggest that many of these poor
creatures were deliberately placed at significant points, particularly the chimney or hearth, and that they were put
there as some form of protective magic. Cats were widely believe to be gifted with sixth sense and to have psychic
awareness. So maybe they were put there so that they could exercise their psychic ability and hunting prowess as
spiritual protectors of the house. That’s what I think, anyway. Were the remains kept, by any chance?”
“No.” Mark Banks shook his head. “Disposed of, I’m afraid.”
“Pity.” The young woman frowned. “That’s the difficulty. People don’t hang on to them. Too yucky. They
usually end up in the trash.” She looked up at Mark. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to donate the bottle to the
museum?”
Mark smiled. “I’d be delighted!”
“Oh, good.” Her face cleared, and she smiled back at him. “Where is the house, by the way?”
“Just out of Stoneham. On Amershed Road. It’s set back a bit–”
“The Pearson house?”
“Why, yes.”
“Oh, that explains a lot. The house has something of a history. There’s a famous ghost story attached to it.
Didn’t you know?”
Mark shook his head.
“What happened? In the story, I mean,” Sam asked, gripped by a creeping dread.
“Well, you know the turret room?”
Sam nodded, his unease growing.
“A young girl died there in Victorian times. She was found below the window. Fell, apparently, but whether
she threw herself out or someone pushed her, nobody knows. Restless spirit, though. There have been sightings
ever since.”
Sam listened, a sense of terrible foreboding settling inside him, giving him a sick, cold feeling as if he’d
taken down a whole mouthful of ice cream in one big swallow.
“When…when there’s a sighting,” he asked, “what do people usually see?”
“Well, usually she’s standing by the window, with her arms raised, like so.”
“Come on, Dad!” Sam grabbed his father’s arm, pulling him toward the museum’s glass doors.
“What’s the rush?” His father looked down at him, thoroughly puzzled.
“I’ll explain in the car. We have to go!”
He knew where she was. He’d seen her come to the window. He’d been watching for most of the afternoon,
hidden in the trees, waiting for them all to go. Different thoughts turned and twisted in his head, braiding
themselves together until he knew what he would do. He couldn’t let it go. Rejecting him like that. It was too
humiliating. He’d show her. And her father. A tradesman’s son. She thought he wasn’t good enough. Well, he’d
teach her. A thin smile curled. But he’d have his satisfaction first….
Tom didn’t even question how he knew the staircase was there. He just did, that was all. He found the little
door to the servants’ passage at the base of the tower and crept up the winding stairway, feeling his way to the
room where she’d be waiting, his shuffling feet scraping on the gritty stone.
Kate rocked back on her heels, surveying the words that she had just revealed.
NOW
A WARNING
GO
What could that mean? The words were at odds with the previous messages, perhaps signifying a new twist
in the tale. Speculating about the possible story behind the phenomenon took some of the strangeness from it,
made it seem less sinister. She stared at the wall, so completely absorbed in her thoughts that she heard nothing.
His soft-soled footfalls were almost silent. Then there was a creaking sound from the corner, a tearing crack as
wood broke through paper and he was there.
She leaped up, whirling around, the trowel in her hand clattering to the floor.
“How did you get there?!”
“There’s more than one way up here.” Tom grinned, shutting the secret door behind him. “I’ve been
watching. Waiting for the others to go. For you dad and the brat to disappear. For a chance to be alone with you.”
He came across the room toward her, his tone changing to harshness. “I reckon we’ve got some unfinished
business.”
Kate moved away from him, backing toward the window. There was nowhere else to go.
“Careful.” Tom gave a frown of feigned concern. “The frames are rotten, and so is the stone around them.”
He laughed. “That was my job for today.”
Kate put her hand out, gripping the sill. It crumbled under her fingers like sand.
“This room’s got a history. The whole house does. Didn’t anyone tell you? S’pose not, or your dad never
would have bought it.”
He was close now, nearly upon her. She tried to make a break across the room.
“Don’t even think about it.” He grabbed her by the shoulder and pushed her back. “A young girl died. Here.
In this room. It’s a tragic story. Listen to me!” The thoughts were coming thick and fast, in no particular order. “She
had a lover. They used to meet down in the summerhouse. One night she told him it was all over; she couldn’t see
him ever again. He followed her back here, not prepared to believe it. She wouldn’t tell why, but he guessed it.
He knew her father was behind it, saying he wasn’t good enough. He begged her, he pleaded, but she came
across all haughty. Said she didn’t love him, never had. He was a…a dalliance. A dalliance, merely. Hardhearted
little bitch she turned out to be. Needed a lesson, see? She never should have done it. Never should have
rejected–” He broke off, a muscle jumping in his cheek. “There was a fight. I don’t know. Then she fell–fell from
the window.” A slight shudder ran through him. He paused to collect himself. “It doesn’t have to be like that, does
it? Not with you and me.”
“I–I don’t know….”
Kate shrank away from him. He was really scaring her. All that must have happened a long time ago, but he
was talking as though he were there. She was right up against the window now. She felt the whole frame shifting
in its mountings, bulging out, the rotting frame ready to crack.
“Yes, you do. You want me as much as I want you.”
He was really close now. She could feel his breath hot on her, see his face sweating above her. She
remembered how it had been in the car the night before, how hard it had been to resist him. He was so much
stronger. His arms were reaching for her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fight him off a second time.
“Come on, Katie.” His voice was muffled. “You know you want to.”
He hadn’t seen the chisel hidden behind her back. The black was thin, the wedge-shaped tip razor sharp.
Then there was noise, her name being called. Light feet running, followed by a heavier, adult tread.
“Sam! Wait!” Her father’s voice was shouting. “Leave it to me.” He was right outside now. The door was
opening. “Kate? Katie?”
Mark Banks found his daughter sitting under the window, the chisel still clutched in her hand. Tom Mayer’s
body lay stretched out beside her. Curls and shreds of wallpaper lay drifted about them, rustling like leaves on the
bloodstained floor.
Shirley Jackson
“The Lottery”
Word Count: 3773
Published: The New Yorker, June 26, 1948.
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were
blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between
the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took two
days and had to be started on June 2th. but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the
whole lottery took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in time to
allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.
The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling of liberty sat uneasily
on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before they broke into boisterous play. and their talk
was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full
of stones, and the other boys soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and
Harry Jones and Dickie Delacroix-- the villagers pronounced this name "Dellacroy"--eventually made a great pile of
stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The girls stood aside, talking
among themselves, looking over their shoulders at rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or
sisters.
Soon the men began to gather. surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain, tractors and taxes. They
stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than
laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one
another and exchanged bits of gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands,
began to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times. Bobby Martin
ducked under his mother's grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of stones. His father spoke up sharply, and
Bobby came quickly and took his place between his father and his oldest brother.
The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by Mr. Summers. who
had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced, jovial man and he ran the coal business, and
people were sorry for him. because he had no children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square,
carrying the black wooden box, there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called.
"Little late today, folks." The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three- legged stool, and the stool was put
in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The villagers kept their distance, leaving a
space between themselves and the stool. and when Mr. Summers said, "Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?"
there was a hesitation before two men. Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter. came forward to hold the box steady on
the stool while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been
put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the
villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black
box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one
that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr.
Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's
being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly
along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers
thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been
successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood,
Mr. Summers had argued. had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than
three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black
box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and
it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers' coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to
the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had
spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in
the Martin grocery and left there.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open. There were the lists to make
up--of heads of families. heads of households in each family. members of each household in each family. There was the
proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people
remembered, there had been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory. tuneless chant
that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used to stand just so when
he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the people, but years and years ago this part of
the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been, also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to
use in addressing each person who came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it
was felt necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good at all this; in
his clean white shirt and blue jeans. with one hand resting carelessly on the black box. he seemed very proper and
important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the Martins.
Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs. Hutchinson came hurriedly along
the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders, and slid into place in the back of the crowd. "Clean
forgot what day it was," she said to Mrs. Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. "Thought my
old man was out back stacking wood," Mrs. Hutchinson went on. "and then I looked out the window and the kids was
gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running." She dried her hands on her apron, and
Mrs. Delacroix said, "You're in time, though. They're still talking away up there."
Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children standing near the
front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make her way through the crowd. The people
separated good-humoredly to let her through: two or three people said. in voices just loud enough to be heard across
the crowd, "Here comes your, Missus, Hutchinson," and "Bill, she made it after all." Mrs. Hutchinson reached her
husband, and Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully. "Thought we were going to have to get on without
you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said. grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes in the sink, now, would you. Joe?," and
soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson's arrival.
"Well, now." Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with, so's we can go back to work.
Anybody ain't here?"
"Dunbar." several people said. "Dunbar. Dunbar."
Mr. Summers consulted his list. "Clyde Dunbar." he said. "That's right. He's broke his leg, hasn't he? Who's drawing for
him?"
"Me. I guess," a woman said. and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. "Wife draws for her husband." Mr. Summers said.
"Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?" Although Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the
answer perfectly well, it was the business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers
waited with an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.
"Horace's not but sixteen yet." Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. "Guess I gotta fill in for the old man this year."
"Right." Sr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, "Watson boy drawing this year?"
A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. "Here," he said. "I m drawing for my mother and me." He blinked his eyes
nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said thin#s like "Good fellow, lack." and "Glad to see
your mother's got a man to do it."
"Well," Mr. Summers said, "guess that's everyone. Old Man Warner make it?"
"Here," a voice said. and Mr. Summers nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. "All ready?" he called. "Now,
I'll read the names--heads of families first--and the men come up and take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper
folded in your hand without looking at it until everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?"
The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions: most of them were quiet. wetting
their lips. not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and said, "Adams." A man disengaged himself
from the crowd and came forward. "Hi. Steve." Mr. Summers said. and Mr. Adams said. "Hi. Joe." They grinned at one
another humorlessly and nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it
firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd. where he stood a little apart from his
family. not looking down at his hand.
"Allen." Mr. Summers said. "Anderson.... Bentham."
"Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries any more." Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs. Graves in the back row.
"Seems like we got through with the last one only last week."
"Time sure goes fast.-- Mrs. Graves said.
"Clark.... Delacroix"
"There goes my old man." Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went forward.
"Dunbar," Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women said. "Go on. Janey,"
and another said, "There she goes."
"We're next." Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the box, greeted Mr.
Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through the crowd there were men holding the
small folded papers in their large hand. turning them over and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood
together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip of paper.
"Harburt.... Hutchinson."
"Get up there, Bill," Mrs. Hutchinson said. and the people near her laughed.
"Jones."
"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the north village they're talking
of giving up the lottery."
Old Man Warner snorted. "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's good enough for them.
Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while.
Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed
chickweed and acorns. There's always been a lottery," he added petulantly. "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up
there joking with everybody."
"Some places have already quit lotteries." Mrs. Adams said.
"Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools."
"Martin." And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. "Overdyke.... Percy."
"I wish they'd hurry," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. "I wish they'd hurry."
"They're almost through," her son said.
"You get ready to run tell Dad," Mrs. Dunbar said.
Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from the box. Then he called,
"Warner."
"Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd. "Seventy-seventh
time."
"Watson" The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, "Don't be nervous, Jack," and Mr. Summers
said, "Take your time, son."
"Zanini."
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers. holding his slip of paper in the air, said, "All
right, fellows." For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women
began to speak at once, saving. "Who is it?," "Who's got it?," "Is it the Dunbars?," "Is it the Watsons?" Then the voices
began to say, "It's Hutchinson. It's Bill," "Bill Hutchinson's got it."
"Go tell your father," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring down at the paper in
his hand. Suddenly. Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers. "You didn't give him time enough to take any paper he
wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"
"Be a good sport, Tessie." Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same chance."
"Shut up, Tessie," Bill Hutchinson said.
"Well, everyone," Mr. Summers said, "that was done pretty fast, and now we've got to be hurrying a little more to get
done in time." He consulted his next list. "Bill," he said, "you draw for the Hutchinson family. You got any other
households in the Hutchinsons?"
"There's Don and Eva," Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. "Make them take their chance!"
"Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie," Mr. Summers said gently. "You know that as well as anyone
else."
"It wasn't fair," Tessie said.
"I guess not, Joe." Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. "My daughter draws with her husband's family; that's only fair. And
I've got no other family except the kids."
"Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it's you," Mr. Summers said in explanation, "and as far as drawing for
households is concerned, that's you, too. Right?"
"Right," Bill Hutchinson said.
"How many kids, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked formally.
"Three," Bill Hutchinson said.
"There's Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me."
"All right, then," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you got their tickets back?"
Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. "Put them in the box, then," Mr. Summers directed. "Take Bill's and
put it in."
"I think we ought to start over," Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. "I tell you it wasn't fair. You didn't give
him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that."
Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box. and he dropped all the papers but those onto the
ground. where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.
"Listen, everybody," Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.
"Ready, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked. and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his wife and children. nodded.
"Remember," Mr. Summers said. "take the slips and keep them folded until each person has taken one. Harry, you help
little Dave." Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came willingly with him up to the box. "Take a paper out of
the box, Davy." Mr. Summers said. Davy put his hand into the box and laughed. "Take just one paper." Mr. Summers
said. "Harry, you hold it for him." Mr. Graves took the child's hand and removed the folded paper from the tight fist and
held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.
"Nancy next," Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as she went forward
switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box "Bill, Jr.," Mr. Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet
overlarge, near knocked the box over as he got a paper out. "Tessie," Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute,
looking around defiantly. and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it behind her.
"Bill," Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his hand out at last with
the slip of paper in it.
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, "I hope it's not Nancy," and the sound of the whisper reached the edges of the
crowd.
"It's not the way it used to be." Old Man Warner said clearly. "People ain't the way they used to be."
"All right," Mr. Summers said. "Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave's."
Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it up and everyone
could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill. Jr.. opened theirs at the same time. and both beamed and laughed. turning
around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above their heads.
"Tessie," Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his
paper and showed it. It was blank.
"It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper. Bill."
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black spot on it, the black
spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it
up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
"All right, folks." Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly."
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still remembered to use stones. The
pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper
that had come out of the box Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to
Mrs. Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up."
Mr. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said. gasping for breath. "I can't run at all. You'll have to go ahead
and I'll catch up with you."
The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers
moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of the head. Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on,
come on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.
"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.
Edgar Allan Poe
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
Word Count: 2120
Published: J. R. Lowell's The Pioneer, January 1843, Vol. 1, No. 1. Drew and Scammell, Philadelphia.
TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad? The
disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I
heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then am I mad? Hearken! and
observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain, but, once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never
given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that
of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees,
very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have
seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work!
I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night about
midnight I turned the latch of his door and opened it oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening
sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern all closed, closed so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my
head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly, very, very slowly, so that
I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that
I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha! would a madman have been so wise as this? And then when my head
was well in the room I undid the lantern cautiously -- oh, so cautiously -- cautiously (for the hinges creaked), I
undid it just so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights, every
night just at midnight, but I found the eye always closed, and so it was impossible to do the work, for it was not
the old man who vexed me but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the
chamber and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed
the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed , to suspect that every night, just at
twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more
quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers, of my sagacity. I could
scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was opening the door little by little, and he not even
to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea, and perhaps he heard me, for he moved on
the bed suddenly as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back -- but no. His room was as black as pitch with
the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not
see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped upon the tin fastening , and the old
man sprang up in the bed, crying out, "Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear
him lie down. He was still sitting up in the bed, listening; just as I have done night after night hearkening to the
death watches in the wall.
Presently, I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief
-- oh, no! It was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew
the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom,
deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt,
and pitied him although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise
when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy
them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself, "It is nothing but the wind in the chimney, it is only
a mouse crossing the floor," or, "It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes he has been trying to
comfort himself with these suppositions ; but he had found all in vain. ALL IN VAIN, because Death in
approaching him had stalked with his black shadow before him and enveloped the victim. And it was the
mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel, although he neither saw nor heard, to feel
the presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time very patiently without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little -- a very,
very little crevice in the lantern. So I opened it -- you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily -- until at length a
single dim ray like the thread of the spider shot out from the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.
It was open, wide, wide open, and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness -- all a dull
blue with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones, but I could see nothing else of the old
man's face or person, for I had directed the ray as if by instinct precisely upon the damned spot.
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses? now, I say,
there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that
sound well too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates
the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I
could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker and
quicker, and louder and louder, every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say,
louder every moment! -- do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead
hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to
uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder!
I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me -- the sound would be heard by a neighbour!
The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked
once -- once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily,
to find the deed so far done. But for many minutes the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not
vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed
and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many
minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the
concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence.
I took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced
the boards so cleverly so cunningly, that no human eye -- not even his -- could have detected anything wrong.
There was nothing to wash out -- no stain of any kind -- no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that.
When I had made an end of these labours, it was four o'clock -- still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the
hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, -- for what had I now to
fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek
had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been
lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.
I smiled, -- for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The
old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search -search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the
enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues,
while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which
reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My MANNER had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat and while I
answered cheerily, they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone.
My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears; but still they sat, and still chatted. The ringing became more
distinct : I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness -- until, at length,
I found that the noise was NOT within my ears.
No doubt I now grew VERY pale; but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased
-- and what could I do? It was A LOW, DULL, QUICK SOUND -- MUCH SUCH A SOUND AS A WATCH MAKES
WHEN ENVELOPED IN COTTON. I gasped for breath, and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly,
more vehemently but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent
gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased. Why WOULD they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with
heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the men, but the noise steadily increased. O God! what
COULD I do? I foamed -- I raved -- I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon
the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder -- louder -- louder! And still the
men chatted pleasantly , and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! -- no, no? They heard! -- they
suspected! -- they KNEW! -- they were making a mockery of my horror! -- this I thought, and this I think. But
anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! -- and now -- again -- hark! louder! louder! louder!
LOUDER! -"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! -- tear up the planks! -- here, here! -- it is the beating
of his hideous heart!"
Guy de Maupassant
“Vendetta”
Word Count: 1706
Published: Le Gaulois, October 1883.
Palo Saverini’s widow dwelt alone with her son in a small, mean house on the ramparts of Bonifacio. Built on a
spur of the mountain and in places actually overhanging the sea, the town looks across the rock-strewn straits to
the low-lying coast of Sardinia. On the other side, girdling it almost completely, there is a fissure in the cliff, like
an immense corridor, which serves as a port, and down this long channel, as far as the first houses, sail the small
Italian and Sardinian fishing-boats, and once a fortnight the broken-winded old steamer from Ajaccio. Clustered
together on the white hillside, the houses form a patch of even more dazzling whiteness. Clinging to the rock,
gazing down upon those deadly straits where scarcely a ship ventures, they look like the nests of birds of prey. The
sea and the barren coast, stripped of all but a scanty covering of grass, are forever harassed by a restless wind,
which sweeps along the narrow funnel, ravaging the banks on either side. In all directions the black points of
innumerable rocks jut out from the water, with trails of white foam streaming from them, like torn shreds of cloth,
floating and quivering on the surface of the waves.
The widow Saverini’s house was planted on the very edge of the cliff and its three windows opened upon
this wild and dreary prospect. She lived there with her son Antoine and their dog Sémillante, a great gaunt brute
of the sheepdog variety, with a long, rough coat, whom the young man took with him when he went out shooting.
One evening, Antoine Saverini was treacherously stabbed in a quarrel by Nicolas Ravolati, who escaped
that same night to Sardinia.
At the sight of the body, which was brought home by passers-by, the old mother shed no tears, but she
gazed long and silently at her dead son. Then, laying her wrinkled hand upon the corpse, she promised him the
vendetta. She would not allow anyone to remain with her, and shut herself up with the dead body. The dog
Sémillante, who remained with her, stood at the foot of the bed and howled, with her head turned towards her
master and her tail between her legs. Neither of them stirred, neither the dog nor the old mother, who was now
leaning over the body, gazing at it fixedly, and silently shedding great tears. Still wearing his rough jacket, which
was pierced and torn at the breast, the boy lay on his back as if asleep, but there was blood all about him – on his
shirt, which had been torn open in order to expose the wound, on his waistcoat, trousers, face and hands. His
beard and hair were matted with clots of blood.
The old mother began to talk to him, and at the sound of her voice the dog stopped howling.
‘Never fear, never fear, you shall be avenged, my son, my little son, my poor child. You may sleep in
peace. You shall be avenged, I tell you. You have your mother’s word, and you know she never breaks it.’
Slowly she bent down and pressed her cold lips to the dead lips of her son.
Sémillante resumed her howling, uttering a monotonous, long-drawn wail, heart-rending and terrible. And
thus the two remained, the woman and the dog, till morning.
The next day Antoine Saverini was buried, and soon his name ceased to be mentioned in Bonifacio.
He had not brother, nor any near male relation. There was no man in the family who could take up the vendetta.
Only his mother, his old mother, brooded over it.
From morning till night she could see, just across the straits, a white speck upon the coast. This was the
little Sardinian village of Longosardo, where the Corsican bandits took refuge whenever the hunt for them grew
too hot. They formed almost the entire population of the hamlet. In full view of their native shores they waited for
a chance to return home and regain the bush. She knew that Nicolas Ravolati had sought shelter in that village.
All day long she sat alone at her window gazing at the opposite coast and thinking of her revenge, but
what was she to do with no one to help her, and she herself so feeble and near her end? But she had promised,
she had sworn by the dead body of her son, she could not forget, and she dared not delay. What was she to do?
She could not sleep at night she knew not a moment of rest or peace, but racked her brains unceasingly.
Sémillante, asleep at her feet, would not and then raise her head and emit a piercing howl. Since her master had
disappeared, this had become a habit; it was as if she were calling him, as if she, too, were inconsolable and
preserved in her canine soul an ineffaceable memory of the dead.
One night, when Sémillante began to whine, the old mother had an inspiration of savage, vindictive
ferocity. She thought about it till morning. At daybreak she rose and betook herself to church. Prostrate on the
stone floor, humbling herself before God, she besought Him to aid and support her, to lend to her poor, worn-out
body the strength she needed to avenge her son.
Then she returned home. In the yard stood an old barrel with one end knocked in, in which was caught
the rain-water from the eaves. She turned it over, emptied it, and fixed it to the ground with stakes and stones.
Then she chained up Sémillante to this kennel and went into the house.
With her eyes fixed on the Sardinian coast, she walked restlessly up and down her room. He was over
there, the murderer.
The dog howled all day and all night. The next morning, the old woman brought her a bowl of water, but
no food, neither soup not bread. Another day passed. Sémillante was worn out and slept. The next morning her
eyes were gleaming, and her coat staring, and she tugged frantically at her chain. And again the old woman gave
her nothing to eat. Maddened with hunger Sémillante barked hoarsely. Another night went by.
At daybreak, the widow went to a neighbour and begged for two trusses of straw. She took some old
clothes that had belonged to her husband, stuffed them with straw to represent a human figure, and made a head
out of a bundle of old rags. Then, in front of Sémillante’s kennel, she fixed a stake in the ground and fastened the
dummy to it in an upright position.
The dog looked at the straw figure in surprise and, although she was famished, stopped howling.
The old woman went to the pork butcher and bought a long piece of black pudding. When she came
home she lighted a wood fire in the yard, close to the kennel, and fried the black pudding. Sémillante bounded up
and down in a frenzy, foaming at the mouth, her eyes fixed on the gridiron with its maddening smell of meat.
Her mistress took the steaming pudding and wound it like a tie round the dummy’s neck. She fastened it
on tightly with string as if to force it inwards. When she had finished she unchained the dog.
With on ferocious leap, Sémillante flew at the dummy’s throat and with her paws on its shoulders began to
tear it. She fell back with a portion of her prey between her jaws, sprang at it again, slashing at the string with her
fangs, tore away some scraps of food, dropped for a moment, and hurled herself at it in renewed fury. She tore
away the whole face with savage rendings and reduced the neck to shreds.
Motionless and silent, with burning eyes, the old woman looked on. Presently she chained the dog up
again. She starved her another two days, and then put her through the same strange performance. For three
months she accustomed her to this method of attack, and to tear her meals away with her fangs. She was no
longer kept on the chain. At a sign from her mistress, the dog would fly at the dummy’s throat.
She learned to tear it to pieces even when no food was concealed about its throat. Afterwards as a reward
she was always given the black pudding her mistress had cooked for her.
As soon as she caught sight of the dummy, Sémillante quivered with excitement and looked at her
mistress, who would raise her finger and cry in a shrill voice, ‘Tear him.’
One Sunday morning when she thought the time had come, the widow Saverini went to confession and
communion, in an ecstasy of devotion. Then she disguised herself as a tattered old beggar man, and struck a
bargain with a Sardinian fisherman, who took her and her dog across to the opposite shore.
She carried a large piece of black pudding wrapped in a cloth bag. Sémillante had been starved for two
days and her mistress kept exciting her by letting her smell the savoury food.
The pair entered the village of Longosardo. The old woman hobbied along to a baker and asked for the
house of Nicolas Ravolati. He had resumed his former occupation, which was that of a joiner, and he was
working alone in the back of his shop.
The old woman threw open the door and called: ‘Nicolas! Nicolas!’
He turned round. Slipping the dog’s lead, she cried: ‘Tear him! Tear him!’
The maddened dog flew at his throat. The man flung out his arms, grappled with the brute and they rolled
on the ground together. For some moments he struggled, kicking the floor with his feet. Then he lay still, while
Sémillante tore his throat to shreds.
Two neighbours, seated at their doors, remembered having seen an old beggar man emerge from the
house and, at his heels, a lean black dog, which was eating, as it went along, some brown substance that its
master was giving it.
By the evening the old woman had reached home again.
That night she slept well.
James Thurber
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
Word Count: 2075
Published: The New Yorker. March 18, 1939.
“We’re going through!” The Commander’s voice was like thin ice breaking. He wore his full-dress uniform, with
the heavily braided white cap pulled down rakishly over one cold gray eye. “We can’t make it, sir. It’s spoiling for
a hurricane, if you ask me.” “I’m not asking you, Lieutenant Berg,” said the Commander. “Throw on the power
lights! Rev her up to 8,500! We’re going through!” The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketapocketa-pocketa-pocketa. The Commander stared at the ice forming on the pilot window. He walked over and
twisted a row of complicated dials. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!” he shouted. “Switch on No. 8 auxiliary!”
repeated Lieutenant Berg. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!” shouted the Commander. “Full strength in No. 3 turret!”
The crew, bending to their various tasks in the huge, hurtling eight-engined Navy hydroplane, looked at each
other and grinned.
“The Old Man’ll get us through,” they said to one another. “The Old Man ain’t afraid of Hell!” –
“Not so fast! You’re driving too fast!” said Mrs. Mitty. “What are you driving so fast for?”
“Hmm?” said Walter Mitty. He looked at his wife, in the seat beside him, with shocked astonishment. She
seemed grossly unfamiliar, like a strange woman who had yelled at him in a crowd. “You were up to fifty-five,”
she said. “You know I don’t like to go more than forty. You were up to fifty-five.” Walter Mitty drove on toward
Waterbury in silence, the roaring of the SN202 through the worst storm is twenty years of Navy flying fading in
the remote, intimate airways of his mind. “You’re tensed up again,” said Mrs. Mitty. “It’s one of your days. I wish
you’d let Dr. Renshaw look you over.”
Walter Mitty stopped the car in front of the building where his wife went to have her hair done.
“Remember to get those overshoes while I’m having my hair done,” she said. “I don’t need overshoes,” said Mitty.
She put her mirror back into her bag. “We’ve been all through that,” she said, getting out of the car. “You’re not a
young man any longer.” He raced the engine a little. “Why don’t you wear gloves? Have you lost your gloves?”
Walter Mitty reached in a pocket and brought out the gloves. He put them on, but after she had turned and gone
into the building and he had driven on to a red light, he took them off again. “Pick it up brother!” snapped a cop
as the light changed, and the streets aimlessly for a time, and then he drove past the hospital on his way to the
parking lot.
–”It’s the millionaire banker, Wellington McMillan,” said the pretty nurse. “Yes?” said Walter Mitty,
removing his gloves slowly. “Who has the case?” “Dr. Renshaw and Dr. Benbow, but there are two specialists
here. Dr. Remington from New York and Mr. Pritchard-Mitford from London. He flew over.” A door opened down
a long, cool corridor and Dr. Renshaw came out. He looked distraught and haggard. “Hello, Mitty,” he said.
“We’re having the devil’s own time with McMillan, the millionaire banker and close personal friend of Roosevelt.
Obstreosis of the ductal tract. Tertiary. Wish you’d take a look at him.” “Glad to,” said Mitty.
In the operating room there were whispered introductions: “Dr. Remington, Dr. Mitty, Mr. PritchardMitford, Dr. Mitty.” “I’ve read your book on streptothricosis,” said Pritchard-Mitford, shaking hands. “A brilliant
performance, sir.” “Thank you,” said Walter Mitty. “Didn’t know you were int he States, Mitty,” grumbled
Remington. “Coals to Newcastle, bringing Mitford and me up here for a tertiary.” “You are very kind,” said Mitty.
A huge, complicated machine, connected to the operating table, with many tubes and wires, began at this
moment to go pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. “the new anaesthetizer is giving way!” shouted an interne. “thee is no
one int he East who knows how to fix it!” “Quiet, man!” said Mitty, in a low cool voice. He sprang to the
machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began gingering delicately a row of
glistening dials. “Give me a fountain pen!” he snapped. Someone handed him a fountain pen. He pulled a faulty
piston out of the machine and inserted the pen in its place. “That will hold for ten minutes,” he said. “Get on with
the operation.” A nurse hurried over and whispered to Renshaw, and Mitty saw the man turn pale. “Coreopsis has
set in,” said Renshaw nervously. “If you would take over, Mitty?” Mitty looked at him and at the craven figure of
Benbow, who drank, and at the grave, uncertain faces of the two great specialists. “If you wish,” he said. They
slipped a white gown on him; he adjusted the mask and drew on thin gloves; nurses handed him shining–
“Back it up, Mac! Look out for that Buick!” Walter Mitty jammed on the brakes. “Wrong lane, Mac,” said
the parking lot attendant, looking at Mitty closely. “Gee, Yeh,” muttered Mitty. He began cautiously to back out of
the lane marked “Exit Only.” “Leave her sit there,” said the attendant, “I’ll put her away.” Mitty go out of the car.
“Hey, better leave the key.” “Oh,” said Mitty, handing the man the ignition key.The attendant vaulted into the car
back it up with insolent skill, and put it where it belonged.
They’re so damn cocky, thought Mitty, walking along Main Street; ;they think they know everything. Once
he had tried to take his chains off, outside New Milford, and he had got them wound around the axles. A man had
had to come out in a wrecking car and unwind them, a young, grinning garageman. Since then Mrs. Mitty always
made him drive to a garage to have the chains taken off. The next time, he thought, I’ll wear my right arm in a
sling; they won’t grin at me then. I’ll have my right arm in a sling and they’ll see I couldn’t possibly take the chains
off myself. He kicked at the slush on the sidewalk. “Overshoes,” he said to himself, and he began looking for a
shoe store.
When he came out into the street again, with the overshoes in a box under his arm, Walter Mitty began to
wonder what the other thing was his wife had told him to get. She had told him twice, before they set out from
their house for Waterbury. In a way he hated these weekly trips to town–he was always getting something wrong.
Kleenex, he thought, Squibb’s, razor blades? No, toothpaste, toothbrush, bicarbonate, carborundum, initiative and
referendum? He gave it up. But she would remember it. “Where’s the what’s-its-name?” she would ask. “Don’t tell
me you forgot the what’s-its-name.” A newsboy went by shouting something about the Waterbury trial.
–”Perhaps this will refresh your memory.” The District Attorney suddenly thrust a heavy automatic at the
quiet figure on the witness stand. “Have you ever seen this before?” Walter Mitty took the gun and examined it
expertly. “This is my Webley-Vickers 50.80,” he said calmly. An excited buzz ran around the courtroom. The Judge
rapped for order. “You are a crack shot with any sort of firearms, I believe?” said the District Attorney,
insinuatingly. “Objection!” shouted Mitty’s attorney. “We have shown that the defendant could not have fired the
shot. We have shown that he wore his right arm in a sling on the night of the fourteenth of July.” Walter Mitty
raised his hand briefly and the bickering attorneys were stilled. “With any known make of gun,” he said evenly, “I
could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.” Pandemonium broke loose in the
courtroom. A woman’s scream rose above the bedlam and suddenly a lovely, dark-haired girl was in Walter
Mitty’s arms. The District Attorney struck at her savagely. Without rising from his chair, Mitty let the man have it on
the point of the chin. “You miserable cur!” –
“Puppy biscuit,” said Walter Mitty. He stopped walking and the buildings of Waterbury rose up out of the
misty courtroom and surrounded him again. A woman who was passing laughed. “He said ‘Puppy biscuit’,” she
said to her companion. “That man said ‘Puppy biscuuit’ to himself.” Walter Mitty hurried on. He went into an A.
& P., not the first one he came to but a smaller one farther up the street. “I want some biscuit for small, young
dogs,” he said to the clerk. “Any special brand, sir?” The greatest pistol shot in the world thought a moment. “It
says ‘Puppies Bark for It’ on the box,” said Walter Mitty.
His wife could be through at the hairdresser’s in fifteen minutes, Mitty saw in looking at his watch, unless they
had trouble drying it; sometimes they had trouble drying it. She didn’t like to get to the hotel first; she would want
him to be there waiting for her as usual. He found a big leather chair in the lobby, facing a window, and he put
the overshoes and the puppy biscuit on the floor beside it. He picked up an old copy of Liberty and sank down in
the chair. “Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?” Walter Mitty looked at the pictures of bombing
planes and of ruined streets.
–”The cannonading has got the wind up in young Raleigh, sir,” said the sergeant. Captain Mitty looked up
at him through tousled hair. “Get him to bed,” he said wearily. “With the others. I’ll fly alone.” “But you can’t, sir,”
said the sergeant anxiously. “It takes two men to handle that bomber and the Archies are pounding the hell out of
the air. Von Richtman’s circus is between here and Saulier.” “Somebody’s got to get that ammunition dump,” said
Mitty. “I’m going over. Spot of brandy?” He poured a drink for the sergeant and one for himself. War thundered
and whined around the dugout and battered at the door. There was a rending of wood, and splinters flew through
the room. “A bit of a near thing,” said Captain Mitty carelessly. “The box barrage is closing in,” said the sergeant.
“We only live once, Sergeant,” said Mitty, with his faint, fleeting smile. “Or do we?” He poured another brandy
and tossed it off. “I never see a man could hold his brandy like you, sir,” said the sergeant. “Begging your pardon,
sir.” Captain Mitty stood up and strapped on his huge Webley-Vickers automatic. “it’s forty kilometers through
hell, sir,” said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. “After all,” he said softly, “what isn’t?” The pounding of
the cannon increased; there was the rat-tat-tatting of machine guns, and from somewhere came the menacing
pocketa-pocketa-pocketa of the new flame-throwers. Walter Mitty walked to the door of the dugout humming
“Auprès de Ma Blonde.” He turned and waved to the sergeant. “Cheerio!” he said.–
Something struck his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,” said Mrs. Mitty. “Why do you
have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?” “Things close in,” said Walter Mitty vaguely.
“What?” Mrs. Mitty said. “Did you get the what’s-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What’s in that box?” “Overshoes,”
said Mitty. “Couldn’t you have put them on in the store?” “I was thinking,” said Walter Mitty. “Does it ever occur
to you that I am sometimes thinking?” She looked at him. “I’m going to take your temperature when I get you
home,” she said.
They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed
them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, “Wait here for me. I forgot
something. I won’t be a minute.” She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain,
rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking.–He put his shoulders back and his
heels together. “To hell with the handkerchief,” said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took on last drag on his cigarette
and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect
and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.
Slawomir Mrożek
“The Elephant”
Word Count: 1187
Published: Słoń. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972.
THE DIRECTOR AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS HAD SHOWN himself to be an upstart. He regarded his
animals simply as stepping stones on the road of his own career. He was indifferent to the educational importance
of his establishment. In his zoo the giraffe had a short neck, the badger had no burrow and the whistlers, having
lost all interest, whistled rarely and with some reluctance. These shortcomings should not have been allowed,
especially as the zoo was often visited by parties of schoolchildren.
The zoo was in a provincial town, and it was short of some of the most important animals, among them
the elephant. Three thousand rabbits were a poor substitute for the noble giant. However, as our country
developed, the gaps were being filled in a well-planned manner. On the occasion of the anniversary of the
liberation, on 22nd July, the zoo was notified that it had at long last been allocated an elephant. All the staff, who
were devoted to their work, rejoiced at this news. All the greater was their surprise when they learned that the
director had sent a letter to Warsaw, renouncing the allocation and putting forward a plan for obtaining an
elephant by more economic means.
“I, and all the staff,” he had written, “are fully aware how heavy a burden falls upon the shoulders of
Polish miners and foundry men because of the elephant. Desirous of reducing our costs, I suggest that the
elephant mentioned in your communication should be replaced by one of our own procurement. We can make
an elephant out of rubber, of the correct size, fill it with air and place it behind railings. It will be carefully painted
the correct color and even on close inspection will be indistinguishable from the real animal. It is well known that
the elephant is a sluggish animal and it does not run and jump about. In the notice on the railings we can state
that this particular elephant is particularly sluggish. The money saved in this way can be turned to the purchase of
a jet plane or the conservation of some church monument.
“Kindly note that both the idea and its execution are my modest contribution to the common task and
struggle.”
“I am, etc.”
This communication must have reached a soulless official, who regarded his duties in a purely
bureaucratic manner and did not examine the heart of the matter but, following only the directive about reduction
of expenditure, accepted the director’s plan. On hearing the Ministry’s approval, the director issued instructions
for the making of the rubber elephant.
The carcass was to have been filled with air by two keepers blowing into it from opposite ends. To keep
the operation secret the work was to be completed during the night because the people of the town, having heard
that an elephant was joining the zoo, were anxious to see it. The director insisted on haste also because he
expected a bonus, should his idea turn out to be a success.
The two keepers locked themselves in a shed normally housing a workshop, and began to blow. After two
h ours of hard blowing they discovered that the rubber skin had risen only a few inches above the floor and its
bulge in no way resembled an elephant. The night progressed. Outside, human voices were stilled and only the
cry of the jackass interrupted the silence. Exhausted, the keepers stopped blowing and made sure that the air
already inside the elephant should not escape. They were not young and were unaccustomed to this kind of work.
“If we go on at this rate,” said one of them, “we shan’t finish by morning. And what am I to tell my missus?
She’ll never believe me if I say that I spent the night blowing up an elephant.”
“Quite right,” agreed the second keeper. “Blowing up an elephant is not an everyday job. And it’s all
because our director is a leftist.”
They resumed their blowing, but after another half-hour they felt too tired to continue. The bulge on the
floor was larger but still nothing like the shape of an elephant.
“It’s getting harder all the time,” said the first keeper.
“It’s an uphill job, all right,” agreed the second. “Let’s have a little rest.”
While they were resting, one of them noticed a gas pipe ending in a valve. Could they not fill the elephant
with gas? He suggested it to his mate.
They decided to try. They connected the elephant to the gas pipe, turned the valve, and to their joy in a few
minutes there was a full sized beast standing in the shed. It looked real: the enormous body, legs like columns,
huge ears and the inevitable trunk. Driven by ambition the director had made sure of having in his zoo a very
large elephant indeed.
“First class,” declared the keeper who had the idea of using gas. “Now we can go home.”
In the morning the elephant was moved to a special run in a central position, next to the monkey cage. Placed
in front of a large real rock it looked fierce and magnificent. A big notice proclaimed: “Particularly sluggish.
Hardly moves.”
Among the first visitors that morning was a party of children from the local school. The teacher in charge of
them was planning to give them an object-lesson about the elephant. He halted the group in front of the animal
and began:
“The elephant is a herbivorous mammal. By means of its trunk it pulls out young trees and eats their leaves.”
The children were looking at the elephant with enraptured admiration. They were waiting for it to pull out a
young tree, but the beast stood still behind its railings.
“... The elephant is a direct descendant of the now-extinct mammoth. It’s not surprising, therefore, that it’s the
largest living land animal.”
The more conscientious pupils were making notes.
“... Only the whale is heavier than the elephant, but then the whale lives in the sea. We can safely say that on
land the elephant reigns supreme.”
A slight breeze moved the branches of the trees in the zoo.
"... The weight of a fully grown elephant is between nine and thirteen thousand pounds.”
At that moment the elephant shuddered and rose in the air. For a few seconds it stayed just above the ground,
but a gust of wind blew it upward until its mighty silhouette was against the sky. For a short while people on the
ground could see the four circles of its feet, its bulging belly and the trunk, but soon, propelled by the wind, the
elephant sailed above the fence and disappeared above the treetops. Astonished monkeys in the cage continued
staring into the sky.
They found the elephant in the neighboring botanical gardens. It had landed on a cactus and punctured its
rubber hide.
The schoolchildren who had witnessed the scene in the zoo soon started neglecting their studies and
turned into hooligans. It is reported that they drink liquor and break windows. And they no longer believe in
elephants.
Gail Helgason
“Bluffing”
Word Count: 2474
Published: Imprints 11. Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing 2001. 71-76.
She reaches for her double-faced pile jacket in the hallway, opens the front door, and runs down the sidewalk as
fast as she dares. It’s only three blocks to the Jasper hospital. Wind- driven rivers of ice have formcd on the
hospital steps and Gabriella almost loses her footing. She grips the railing. She wonders what her grade ten
students would think if they could see her, clutching the rail, as if the slightest breeze could blow her down.
Inside the hospital, equilibrium returns. The tiled floor feels cold, even through her vibram soles. The hospital
is modern and all on one level. The corridors are eggshell white, full of promise, Gabriella thinks. She would have
preferred vomit green. Even the reassuring medicinal smell seems diluted. The scent reminds her of the
homemade cleaning solution she prepared at Liam’s insistence. She used the mixture for a week, until she noticed
that it took twice as long to remove grime as the concentrate she bought at the janitorial supply store. Liam hadn’t
noticed that she’d stopped using it.
The nurse at the station nods to Gabriella. “It will just be a few minutes,” she says. “Won’t you have a seat?”
She can’t be more than twenty-two, thinks Gabriella, three years younger than she is. She sinks into the vinyl
couch. Only three weeks since the accident, and it seems as if she’s been waiting forever.
On that morning three weeks ago, a light frost had silvered the club- moss along the trail. Ahead, the plumcoloured peaks of the Maligne Range cut razor-sharp silhouettes against the sky. Gabriella noticed how Liam’s
thick black hair was cut as fashionably as ever, unusual for a climber, although his face appeared lined and travelworn.
Gabriella hadn’t proposed the hike until the night before. She’d called it “one last outing before the snow comes.”
She didn’t want to let on that it might mean anything much to her. At the lake, she planned to bring up the subject
of the lease. The landlord said he’d have to know by October 31 if they would sign for a year. Housing was so
tight in Jasper; he had. at least three people who would take the house sight unseen. Would they sign the lease or
not? He always speaks to her about these matters, not Liam.
The morning sky began to cream with cumulus clouds. Below, in the valley, the dark greens of white spruce
and tarnished golds of the poplars wove an intricate montane tartan.
Liam stayed in the lead. At times, Gabriella had to run, the way her students sometimes did to keep up with
her on field trips to nearby bogs and meadows. But she didn’t mind Liam’s pace. She sensed a special energy to
the day. They’d be able to firm things up at the lake, the way they never could in town, knocking elbows, rushing
about. She couldn’t take the uncertainty much longer, now that Liam was talking about going off again for the
winter, and she couldn’t afford to keep the house herself. She thought that signing a one-year lease demanded a
certain courage, a certain faith that the earth will keep holding them up, a certain commitment. She planned to
introduce the subject in this way, as a challenge.
“Should get the lake all to ourselves,” Liam said.
His boots left the partial prints of an expensive trademark on the soft loamy trail. His jacket was new, too. He
spent most of his money on outdoor gear—the little he made guiding American and German tourists up easy
climbs in the Rockies. Liam liked to joke that one day he would have his photo in glossy magazines for high-tech
outdoor gear. Prestigious companies would seek his endorsement. He always laughed when he said this, but there
was a steel edge to his voice. He really believed it. She thought he was getting a little long in the tooth for this
kind of fantasy.
When they were half-way to the lake, they stopped for a short break on a fallen log. They heard a man’s
laughter from somewhere below. Liam turned to Gabriella, his eyes vigilant. She had seen that expression once
before, when Clive, one of the other mountain guides in the town, asked Liam if the rumours were true. Had he
almost lost his nerve on Mt. Robson last year, when he realized the American climber he was guiding couldn’t set
up a belay that gave Liam adequate protection? Liam told Clive to go to hell. But Liam was secretly jealous of
Clive. Liam has never been asked to join a big expedition; Clive was invited to Mt. McKinley last year.
“I’ll handle it,” Liam whispered.
Two young men approached. They looked to be in their late teens or early twenties. They took big elastic steps, as
if springs were attached to the soles of their boots. Grey jays emitted staccato cries into the spruce air.
“Planning on going up to the lake?” Liam asked.
“You bet,” one of them replied.
“Might not be such a good idea,” Liam said, his voice thick with sympathy. “We’re turning back ourselves.
Came across an elk carcass by the lake. Some grizzly had himself a dandy breakfast.”
“Grizzly, eh?” said the hiker. “Sure it was a grizzly?”
“Can’t mistake those long front claws,” Liam said. “They usually come back to the kill, you know.”
“Guess you’re right. Doesn’t sound like a great place to be.”
The pair turned around on the trail; the spring was missing from their step. When they were out of sight, Liam
and Gabriella continued on to the lake. The grey jays had stopped shrieking.
Gabriella hears footsteps in the hospital corridor and looks up from a Canadian Living magazine to see the young
nurse coming out of Liam’s room.
“He’s sleeping but I’ll wake him in a minute,” she says. Gabriella thinks she catches a quizzical look on her
face. The nurse seems to be weighing whether to say anything more, then shows her straight teeth in a smile. “He
really wants you to be here today, doesn’t he?”
Gabriella nods. She doesn’t know what to say. The nurse leaves her and pads down the corridor. Gabriella
draws her legs under her. Her feet still feel icy.
Tell us what happened, the strangers said, pressing in on her with their uniforms, badges, khaki jackets, and
pressed pants. All of them urged her to tell. “To aid in our understanding of how these attacks occur,” said one
warden, a safety specialist, with a smooth chin and a particularly insistent manner.
In the end, Gabriella felt she’d fooled them all. Oh, she’d answered all the questions, but that wasn’t the same
as telling the whole story. How could she, when it still wasn’t clear?
Gabriella watches as a merlin alights on a bare branch outside the window. Odd that he’d get so close. Then she
sees the streaky yellow plumage. Just a baby. He thinks the world is a nurturing place.
Where is that nurse?
Gabriella looks again at the merlin and remembers how she taught Liam to spot wildlife. He said he hadn’t really
taken much notice up till then, his eyes were always on the peaks. But he wanted to know more. This was after
they’d moved in together, before he’d gone off to Leavenworth with Clive for two weeks’ climbing that turned into
six weeks.
She and Liam had been looking for wildlife up on the Pyramid Bench. Liam couldn’t see anything. Gabriella
said the problem was that he was trying to focus on a single object. Instead, he should try to soften his eyes and
take in the entire horizon. Liam tried this. He wasn’t always willing to learn from people who might know more
than he did, but she hoped he’d recognize her authority here. After all, she was the biology teacher.
They crouched behind a stand of young spruce. In a few minutes, they observed movement at the edge of the
forest: a cow moose, holding her head high, ears up instead of out.
“Means she senses danger,” Gabriella said. “She probably has a calf around here. Better freeze. The worst
thing to do would be to run.”
They both froze. Afterwards, Liam said he’d learned a lot being out with her. It opened his eyes, he said.
At noon, Gabriella and Liam reached the lake. She found a rock of flat limestone along the shore and they spread
their foam pads to sit on. Liam dug into his pack and pulled out a small bottle of Remy Martin, French bread, a
wedge of Camembert, and chocolate-covered almonds.
She felt a small rush of pleasure. He never lost the ability to surprise her, sometimes through astonishing small
deceits, sometimes through extravagant gestures. In a way he reminded her of the plants and animals she so loved
teaching her students about: organized, coded, identifiable as a type, but ultimately unknowable. Gabriella
decided not to mention the foil-wrapped egg sandwiches in her day pack; she wouldn’t dream of spoiling his
surprise.
“To celebrate,” Liam said. He didn’t say right away what they would be celebrating, but Gabriella took this as
an encouraging sign. She planned to mention the lease after lunch. She imagined winter nights with Liam
hunkered over topographical maps at the yellow kitchen table. Only this time, she saw him studying places they
could explore together, high meadows and alpine lakes. She smiled up at him.
“Clive and I worked it out last week,” Liam said. He shook his crop of black hair and his voice pranced. “If
we pool our resources, live in his old van, we’ve got just enough to get by for three months over the winter. So
we’re gonna head down south.”
The words hit Gabriella like small, sharp rocks.
“I’ve had enough of this limestone,” Liam continued. “Three months of good, technical rock—I’m talking
Yosemite, maybe New Mexico—is gonna make all the difference for me.”
Gabriella grabbed for her pack and pushed herself off the rock. She strode as fast as she could without
running. She didn’t care where. Once she looked back. Liam was following her. Let him hoof it a little, she
thought. She willed herself to walk fast and stay angry, because she didn’t want to think about what might happen
to her if she relented one more time. Maybe there would be nothing left of her except endurance, maybe all her
other strengths would be sucked away. She’d seen it happen.
The sandy shore of the lake ended and Gabriella crashed through a thick stand of dwarf birch and rock
willows. A twig snapped and cut into her cheek. She hauled herself through one last bush to the end of the lake,
where the willows gave way to huckleberries.
The grizzly sow stood twenty paces ahead. The bear’s hump and dished-in face were unmistakable. There was
not a climbing tree within reach.
In that instant, every cell in Gabriella’s body yearned to turn and flee. But some inner force held her, a force
she’d never before sensed.
Gabriella dropped her eyes from the bear’s stare and slumped her body forwards. She noticed how scuffed
her boots were. She knew that if she retreated too quickly, the bear could be on her like a cat on a wounded
bumblebee. She tried moving one foot back. The bear stepped forwards a foot or two. Gabriella froze. The bear
stopped.
Behind her, she heard rustling in the shrubbery, and then Liam’s voice. “Geez,” he said.
It took all her willpower to stay where she was. “Try backing off slowly,” she said. “Bluff him, remember?”
And now, as Gabriella sits on the hospital couch, the part that was missing comes back. How she waited to
hear Liam take one or two cautious steps backwards. How instead, after one long minute, she heard the rustle of
footsteps through shrubbery. Liam wasn’t just stepping back. He was running away as fast as he could.
Gabriella hit the ground as the bear lunged forwards. She intertwined her fingers behind her neck, legs drawn up
over her vitals. But even as her forehead pressed against the gravelly earth, she felt the powerful sweep of the bear
hurtling past. It was giving full chase.
The nurse is back. She bends down to Gabriella.
“He’ll be counting on your reaction,” she says. “Are you sure you feel up to it?”
Gabriella nods, but as she is ushered into Liam’s private room, she is no longer so sure. He sits propped up in
bed beside a table brimming with gladioli, carnations, cards from the climbing team. He looks a bit like pictures
she has seen of mummified Egyptian princes. Bandages wind round his scalp, .over his cheeks and forehead and
chin. Only his blue eyes, nostrils, and mouth are visible.
What was it the doctor had told her after they airlifted him to the hospital? “No damage to the vital organs,
that’s the main thing.” Then he’d listed the injuries. Gabriella had to bite down on her fist to keep from screaming.
“Gabriella,” Liam whispers. She goes to his side. Broad beams of light penetrate the room from the west
window and hurt her eyes.
“I’m here,” she says. She places her palm lightly over one of his bandaged hands.
“I’m glad.” Liam stares at her unflinchingly. “I thought you’d be here before this.”
“I’ve been here every day for the last three weeks,” Gabriella says. “You’ve been sleeping most of the time. It’s
just hard for you to remember.”
“You know I wasn’t trying to run away up there,” Liam says. “You know that?”
“Of course.”
“I meant the bear to come after me instead of you,” he says.
Gabriella’s mouth feels dry. She looks at her outstretched fingers, the irregular roof her knuckles and joints
form over Liam’s bandaged hand. She wonders if she could move her hand if she tries. For a moment, she hears
Clive’s accusing voice and the bear’s low grunt.
The doctor sweeps into the room and the nurse announces that they are ready to begin. The nurse starts to
snip at the facial bandage. Liam’s forehead emerges, what is left of his eyebrows, just shadowy lines really, then
his cheeks and chin. Beneath the bandages, the skin is all puffed up, mottled, with ridges of shiny, rubbery scar
tissue crisscrossing like tributaries on a map. Gabriella’s eyes linger on her feet.
When the last bandage is removed, she pulls her chair closer to the bed and stretches her lips into a smile. She
knows in her bones that she can manage this way, for the rest of the afternoon, at least. She still has that much
bluffing left in her.
Lena Coakley
“Mirror Image”
Word Count: 2799
Published: Imprints 11. Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing 2001. 12-18.
If only there were no mirrors, Alice sometimes thought, although she carried one in her backpack wherever she
went. It was a silver-plated mirror her father had given her with the initials ACS on the back. Just you, Alice, she
would say to herself, looking the way you’ve always looked. Then she’d pull out the mirror. The surprise and
disbelief at seeing the reflection was a joke she played on herself over and over.
It was disquieting, however, to come upon a mirror without warning. She would say “excuse me” to her own
reflection in shop windows. Mirrors in unexpected places would make her start and lose her nerve. She avoided
the girls’ bathroom altogether. Alice took to wearing sunglasses all the time, to remind herself, to keep something
constantly in front of her eyes that would remind her that she looked different. Her teachers let her wear them.
Maybe the word had come down from the top that she wasn’t to be hassled for a while, but Alice thought it was
more than that. She thought they were all a little afraid of her.
Of course her mind learned to ignore the glasses. The human mind is incredibly adaptable. Her mother was
always telling her that.
“Do you think I move differently?” she asked her twin, Jenny, once identical. “Look how my feet kind of roll
when I walk. And my hips, my hips feel totally different.” Alice walked across the bedroom like a fashion model,
wearing nothing but black bikini underwear. “Actually, as bodies go, this one is a lot better. I mean, check it out,”
Alice grabbed a chunk of her thigh, “no cellulite.”
Jenny watched from inside her own body. “You looked okay before.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean ... You’re pretty. I can see that now. But I never used to think that I was. You know, my
old body used to weigh much less than this body weighs but I still wouldn’t have been able to walk around naked
in it. No one has ever told me that this body is ugly. For all I know it’s never had zits. I haven’t had one yet. I feel
like I could do anything in this body. Hey, did I show you, I can almost touch my foot to the back of my head.”
Alice had to re-learn how to move in the hospital, and to speak. At first the world was nothing but a mush of dark
images, disconnected voices and prickly feelings all over her skin. If someone touched her arm she wasn’t sure
from which part of her body the sensation came. Colours seemed different. People’s voices were pitched a tone
higher. When she tried to speak she bit her tongue, which seemed enormous in her mouth and tasted funny.
When she finally learned, the tone was different, but the inflections and the slight Maritime accent were the same.
She’d had an accident, they said. But long before the psychiatrist told her, she knew. These weren’t her hands. This
wasn’t her breath.
–––––
“Let me read your diary.”
Alice and Jenny lay on top of their beds supposedly doing homework. Above each bed hung a charcoal
portrait their father had drawn. He had finished them just before he died. Now, only Jenny’s was a good likeness.
“Not now,” said Jenny, closing the book and capping her ball point
pen.
“You can read mine.”
“I know what your diary says—Ooh, I found a new mole today on my new body. Ooh, don’t my new armpits
smell divine?”
“Come on. What do you have, some big secret in there? We’ve always read each other’s diaries.”
“I have to get to know you better.” Jenny slipped her diary between her mattress and box spring.
“Yeah, right,” Alice laughed. Then she realized her sister wasn’t joking. “What, fourteen years wasn’t enough?”
“You were in the hospital a long time, that’s all I mean.”
Alice swung her legs over the side of her bed and looked at Jenny. At one time looking at her was like looking
in the mirror, and Alice still found her sister’s coppery red hair and masses of freckles more familiar than her own
reflection. “Jenny, we’re still twins. I have the same memories: Camp Wasaga, moving to Toronto ... Dad. You
know, when I draw I can still make the shadows, just the way he showed us. Isn’t that amazing? Even though I
have a different hand. And my signature is the same too. This is me in here, Jenny. My brain is me.”
Jenny rolled over on her bed. “Whatever. You still can’t read it.”
Alice was in the hospital for months. She saw doctors, interns, psychiatrists, physical therapists, speech therapists.
Once a reporter, who had actually scaled the building, poked his head through the window to ask, “Hey, Alice,
how do you feel?” and snapped a few photos.
All the mirrors had been removed, of course, from her room and bathroom, but Jenny and her mother brought
the hand mirror with her initials when the doctors thought Alice was ready.
“They couldn’t have saved your old body,” her mother said. “This was the only way to keep you alive.”
“No one knows what it will be like,” said Jenny. “You’re the only one who’s ever survived before.”
“I know all that,” Alice slurred. The doctors had taken the precaution of giving her a mild sedative. It made
her feel like everything was happening to someone else, far away. She held the silver mirror in one hand. With the
other, she pulled at her face, squeezed it as if it were clay. Alice was mesmerized by the unfamiliar eyes, big and
brown and dark. Whenever her father painted her he’d spend most of his time on the eyes. The eyes are the mirror
of the soul, he used to say. Whose soul is that? Alice wondered. For a moment she considered screaming, but it
was too much trouble. Besides, it wouldn’t be her scream.
“It’s okay, Mom,” she said. “Maybe I’ll start looking like myself again. If I try hard enough. If I concentrate
hard enough. Very slowly, over the course of years, my eyes will change colour ... my face. It might ...”
Alice’s mother stroked her hair. “We’ll get through this,” she said, “the human mind is incredibly adaptable.”
–––––
“Mrs. Jarred’s on TV again,” Alice called.
“Turn it off,” her mother said, “it’s time for birthday cake,” but Alice and Jenny kept watching. Above the
television, the faces of the family portrait Alice’s father had painted smiled out into the room.
“A new development in the story of Girl X,” said the newscaster, “First surviving recipient of a brain
transplant . . .”
Alice’s mother stood in the doorway wiping her hands on a tea towel. She had fewer freckles than Jenny, and
the long braid which hung down her back wasn’t quite so bright a red, but the family resemblance was
unmistakable. “I don’t want you to worry about the Jarreds, girls. My lawyer says they don’t have a legal leg to
stand on.”
Mrs. Jarred, a middle-aged woman in a red checked coat, stood on a suburban lawn. She had dark hair just
beginning to gray and Alice’s large, dark eyes. A short man with a pot belly smiled self-consciously beside her.
“Is that your family?” Jenny asked.
“I don’t even know them.”
“Mrs. Jarred,” said a female reporter with a microphone, “has science gone too far?”
“She’s our daughter,” the woman replied with emotion. “When we signed the release form donating her body,
we didn’t know they were going to bring her back to life with some new brain. Our Gail is alive and living
somewhere in Toronto and I’m not even allowed to see her.” Mrs. Jarred began to cry and the camera cut away to
Alice and her mother leaving the hospital amid crowds of journalists. Since she was under eighteen, Alice’s face
was covered with a round, black dot. The girls had both seen this footage many times before.
“Gail. Wow. That’s so weird.”
“That’s not my name.”
The TV flashed pictures of the Jarreds before the accident. A girl with a dog. A smiling teenager wearing a
party dress.
“Ooh, nice outfit, Gail.”
“Darn those TV people,” said Alice’s mother. “They protect our privacy by not showing what you look like,
and then they show pictures of your body before the accident. That makes a lot of sense.”
“The Jarreds probably gave permission,” said Alice. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Everyone at school knows. The
whole world knows.” Alice’s mother continued as if she was talking to herself. “Those Jarreds ... If we start having
reporters all over the lawn again . . .” She twisted her face in disgust, strode across the room, and turned off the
television with a sharp flick of her wrist.
“Hey.”
“Come on, cake time. I made it from scratch. Alice’s favourite, chocolate with mocha cream.”
In the dining room a huge and elaborate cake was waiting on the table. Rich, white chocolate piping swirled
over dark mocha. Ornate candy violets decorated the cake’s tall sides.
“Awesome, Mom,” said Alice. She couldn’t remember her mother ever making a home-made cake before.
“You blow first,” she said to Jenny as she sat down. “You’re the oldest.”
“By two minutes,” said Jenny, “and anyway, maybe I’m not the oldest anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“You might be older than me now with your new body. You might be old enough to drive for all we know.”
Alice’s brown eyes widened. “Mom, if my body is sixteen, does that mean I can get my license?”
“Forget it,” her mother said as she lit the cake. “You could barely walk six months ago.” She switched out the
lights.
In the yellow glow of the candles Alice and Jenny followed a tradition that their father had started long ago.
First Alice and her mother sang Happy Birthday to Jenny. Then, after Jenny had blown them out, the candles were
lit again for Alice, and the song was sung a second time.
Alice blinked and squinted when the lights came on again. “I forgot to make a wish,” she said.
Her mother smiled and handed a slice of the beautiful cake to each of the girls. “I guess you have to share
your wish with Jenny.”
Alice and Jenny laughed. One year, when they were little girls, the suggestion that they would have to share a
wish sent them into fits of crying which their parents could only resolve by Fitting the cake slices back into the
cake and lighting the candles for a third and fourth time.
Alice cut the cake with the edge of her fork, happy that the tension brought on by the newscast had begun to
melt away. She put a large bite into her mouth. Bitter. Alice tried hard to swallow, tried hard not to let her face
show any reaction to the cake, but the taste of the mocha forced her mouth into a grimace. Jenny didn’t miss it.
“I guess Gail doesn’t like chocolate with mocha cream.”
“No, it’s good,” said Alice, forcing it down.
Jenny pushed her own piece away. “I’m not hungry.”
“Jeez, Jenny, why are you angry at me for not liking a piece of cake? I can’t help it.”
“Who’s angry?”
“I have different taste buds now, and they’re sending different messages to my brain. They’re saying, this cake
tastes gross. Sorry Mom.”
“Okay,” said Jenny. “You’re always saying that you are still you because you have the same brain, but who is
to say that your whole personality is in your head?”
“Where else would it be?”
“I don’t know; maybe there was some other part of your body where part of your self lived. Maybe it was your
big toe.”
Alice’s mother set down her fork. “Jenny, people have their big toes cut off and they’re still themselves. People
have heart transplants and they’re still themselves.”
“Right,” said Alice. She smiled at her mother, but her mother looked away.
“Maybe not,” Jenny said, “maybe they’re a little bit different but they just don’t notice. You’re a lot different.
You’re a morning person.
You never see your old friends. You hang out with Imogen Smith and those snobs. Now you’re going out for
cheerleading, for goodness sake. And what is with those sunglasses? Sometimes ... I don’t know … Sometimes I
think my sister is dead.” Jenny pushed her chair back and ran out of the room.
Alice sat where she was, poking at her cake with her fork, trying not to cry.
Her mother got up and began to gather the plates. “I think,” she began, her voice wavering, “I think
cheerleading would be very good for your coordination.”
Alice stared at her mother, but again her mother avoided her eyes. Suddenly Alice thought she understood the
elaborate cake. She made it because she felt guilty, Alice thought, guilty for thinking, way down deep, that I’m not
really the same daughter she knew before.
–––––
The first thing Alice saw when her eyes could focus was the white hospital ceiling, but the white had a slightly
unnatural blueness to it, the way white looks on TV. Sometimes things were exquisitely clear and sharp, although
she wasn’t wearing her contacts, and she hadn’t yet learned to ignore her eyelashes which seemed longer and
darker than they had been before. When Alice saw her mother for the first time she cried and cried. Her skin had
a different texture. Her hair hardly seemed red at all. She even had a different smell. And Jenny. Why was
everyone she knew so different? Why wasn’t her father there? Would he be different too?
–––––
When Alice met Mr. Jarred, it was in the middle of the street. A new sidewalk had just been poured on Bedford
Avenue, so Alice had to walk in the street to go around the construction on the way home from school. A light
rain was falling, preventing the concrete from setting. Mr. Jarred held an oversized umbrella, striped red and
yellow, above his head. He might have walked right by her, but Alice was staring hard at him trying to
remember something—anything—about him besides the newscast.
“Gail,” he said in a soft mumble and then, “I’m sorry ... I mean Alice ... Do you know me?”
“I saw you on TV.”
“Ah, yes.” The two stood in silence for a moment.
“You should have an umbrella,” he said. “This one’s a ridiculous thing, my wife’s. Here.”
“No, no, it’s just sprinkling, really,” but Alice took the umbrella Mr. Jarred offered her, holding it upside
down, its point in the road.
“This is very strange for me, very strange,” he said, staring at her. “We knew you were in Toronto, but, well, to
be honest, it was my wife who wanted to contact you. I ... I thought it would be better not to see you. It’s very
strange,” he repeated, then added, “You look so different.”
“I do?”
“Your hair. The way you stand, even. Our Gail, she was an early bloomer, always slouched. Your accent is
different too.” He paused. “I understand, you know. My wife, she thinks our daughter is still alive, but I ... I know.”
A car turned onto the street and honked at them. “I’d better go.”
On impulse, Alice grabbed Mr. Jarred’s hand. It was warm and big and rough and Alice knew she had never
felt it before. “I knew I wouldn’t remember you,” she said, “but I was hoping, when you walked by, that I’d know
you somehow.”
Mr. Jarred took his hand away. “But you don’t.”
“No.” Alice slid her dark glasses to the top of her head. “My dad—I guess you know he died in the accident.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes 1 think if he were alive, he would just look into my eyes and know who was in here.” The two
stood in silence. Then Alice said, “What will you tell your wife?”
“I’ll tell her,” Mr. Jarred’s voice began to falter, but he looked at her straight on, “I’ll tell her I looked into your
eyes and that I didn’t see my daughter.”
“I’m sorry,” said Alice. She didn’t ask the question that immediately came to her, but the words rang in her
mind: who did you see?
Alice gripped the umbrella as she watched Mr. Jarred hurry around the corner. She stepped up to the curb and
pressed her waist to the wooden barrier that protected the sidewalk. Then she folded the umbrella and secured the
strap. In a small corner of the sidewalk she wrote her initials, ACS, with the tip of the umbrella.
Alice was here, she thought. And then she walked towards home.
Cathy Jewison
“The Prospector’s Trail”
Word Count: 3988
Published: Storyteller’s. 2000. Reprinted: Imprints 11. Toronto: Gage Educational
Publishing 2001. 21-31.
“Noise! Traffic! Filth! Can’t stand the commotion of the city, that’s why I come out here,” said the grizzled old guy.
He leaned back in his lawn chair and stared at the campfire reflectively, taking a long pull of tea from a tin cup.
The light from the flames glittered off his creased face and greying beard. The old-timer stared upwards. Norman
and Jennifer followed his eyes, examining the dome of the northern night sky, which was still blue at nine-thirty
p.m. They could hear a loon call from the nearby lake and the lap of the waves on the shore.
A grumble emanated from the far-off heavens. Thunder? No—the grumble grew into a growl and then into a
roar, which gained intensity until it filled the air. Their eyes searched for the source of the clamour. Jennifer
covered her ears. Then they saw it. A jetliner, glowing gold with the reflected light of the night sun, made an
elegant curve over the city dump and moved in over Long Lake. It lined up with a runway and continued its
descent, swooping across Highway 3 for a perfect landing at the Yellowknife airport.
“Flight 592 from Edmonton, right on schedule,” Roy announced. He took another drink of tea. He winced.
“You know, when I invited you over for ‘tea,’ I actually meant we’d be drinking something stronger—you must
be thirsty after your long drive. But all the beer’s disappeared. Elsie must have had one of her damned card parties
this afternoon, while I was out in the bush. And now all the peanuts are gone,” he said, shaking the empty bag.
“Elsie! Elsie!” he screamed towards an immense camper a few feet away. A tall, skinny woman came to the door. It
was hard to see her features because an electric light was burning behind her.
“What?”
“We’re out of peanuts.”
“So go get some more. And get some beer while you’re at it.”
“You know I hate going into that damned city.”
“I’m missing my show,” she announced, slamming the door.
“Damned TV,” he muttered towards the fire. “Supposed to be enjoying the beauties of nature. Get away from
all that city stuff...”
He continued on, but the rest of what he said was drowned out by the whine of a semitrailer zooming past on
the highway a couple hundred yards behind them. He finished his diatribe about the same time the noise of the
semi faded into the distance. He rooted in his tin cup with a grubby finger, then flicked something onto the
ground. “Skeeter,” he stated. He turned to Norman.
“What kind of work you looking for?”
“Anything,” Norman replied. “For now, anyway. I want to start a tourist operation. An interpretive centre—old
buildings, dogsled rides in the winter, that sort of thing.”
Roy nodded sagely.
“It’s the old story. People been comin’ to Yellowknife since the thirties, hoping to strike gold. Some did. Giant
Mine’s that way, Con’s over there,” he said, waving vaguely in opposite directions. “Then there’s the others.
Business tycoons. Government people. All want a piece of it. Some make it, some don’t.”
“Can’t be any worse than southern Canada,” Norman said.
Roy snorted.
“Bet you think differently when you’re still living in a tent at forty below,” he said.
Jennifer shuddered.
“Well, Yellowknife is the end of the road for me—and I don’t mean just because the highway ends here,”
Norman said with a touch of bravado. “If I can’t make it here, I can’t make it anywhere.”
“It’s the end of the road for all true Yellowknifers. Place pulls a lot of people to it. The right ones stay.”
“Any chance you could dig up something for us, Roy?” Jennifer asked.
“What do you mean?” the old-timer snapped. “What have you heard?”
“Nothing,” Norman replied, jumping to his feet in alarm. His half- finished cup of tea, which had been
balanced on his thigh, catapulted across the fire and hit Roy in the chest. The old man leaned forward and pulled
the wet plaid flannel away from his skin.
“Good thing that wasn’t hot,” he observed. Jennifer stood up and strode away.
“Little missus gets a bit testy at times, eh? Know what that’s like,” Roy said, with a wink and a nod toward the
camper. “I’d better pack it in—gotta rise and shine tomorrow,” he added as he started to collect the tin cups.
Norman said goodnight and started off. Moments later, the old man heard a thud and turned to find Norman
splayed on the ground.
“Tree root,” he explained, hoisting himself upright and limping
away.
“Watch your step, son,” Roy said with a shake of his head.
Norman found Jennifer standing next to their tent, an artifact he’d bought at a garage sale in Winnipeg a
couple of weeks earlier. It consisted of mildew and, to a lesser extent, of beige canvas.
“Get in,” she commanded.
The tent came with an odd assortment of poles and guys that more or less kept everything in place. One of
the poles was a bit too short, however, and if someone brushed against it, the tent collapsed. Since it was
currently in its flattened state, Norman had to dive amongst the loose canvas and restore the poles. Jennifer then
went around the outside, refastening guys. She gingerly crawled in. Norman was lying on top of his sleeping bag.
Jennifer sat down on top of hers and shook her finger at him.
“Don’t move for the rest of the night. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Jennifer began to change into her pyjamas. The top was partway over her head when she was seized by
convulsions. She gasped. She panted. Her shoulders jerked.
“Achoo!”
The tent rocked ominously. Jennifer sat perfectly still. As soon as she was certain the tent would remain
upright, she popped her head through her pyjama top. She glared at Norman through the dim light.
“You realize I’m allergic to this damned thing.”
“It’s all we can afford.”
“No kidding,” she muttered.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on people.”
“It’s not my fault I’m allergic,” she replied, blowing her nose.
“I meant Roy. I think he can help us.”
“I know he can—that camper’s brand new.”
“Don’t push too hard, or you’ll scare him away.”
Jennifer finished pulling on her pyjama bottoms, then carefully tossed her clothes towards the few inches of
floor at the foot of her sleeping bag.
“You’ll never get ahead by pussyfooting around,” she said.
“We’ll just have to give it some time.”
Jennifer sneezed again. She wiped her nose. She turned to her husband.
“I’ll give it six weeks,” she said. “Until Labour Day.”
“That’s not much time to start a new life.”
“Norman. We’re living in a tent. This is not a life.”
“We’ve only been here a few hours and we’re already accumulating authentic northern experience.”
“That’s what you call drinking tea with that old guy? Authentic northern experience?”
“He’s a character. Local colour. It’ll be important when I set up the interpretive centre. Maybe I can get him to
work there.”
“If you can get something useful out of him, fine. But keep your distance while you’re doing it. I don’t want
you playing the role of hillbilly—trying to out-northern the northerners for the sake of your ‘interpretive centre.’
You’re going to be the owner, so you’ll have to show some decorum. Besides, you’re lucky you didn’t scald him.
Like before.”
“That was an accident.”
“It’s always an accident.”
Norman sighed.
“Six weeks!” Jennifer snapped. “Unless I catch you wearing a red plaid flannel shirt, in which case I’ll leave
you on the spot.”
She climbed into her sleeping bag and turned her back on her husband. Norman heard her sniffling well into
the night. He wasn’t sure if she was crying, or just needed an antihistamine. It could be hard to tell with Jennifer.
Norman and Jennifer had arrived at Fred Henne Territorial Park, located on the outskirts of Yellowknife, about
suppertime that day. It was, indeed, the end of a long road for them. A year earlier, they had received their tourism
studies certificates at a college in Winnipeg, then promptly got married. Norman still couldn’t believe it—Jennifer
had been a star student throughout the program, and he’d been flattered when she consented to date him because
she liked his sense of whimsy.
With a sharp mind and an eye for the big picture, Jennifer was a whiz at developing tourism marketing
programs. Norman’s first love was interpretation—dressing up and acting like historical personages for the
entertainment and edification of tourists. Jennifer’s appreciation of his sense of whimsy had evaporated, however.
She’d decided interpretation was undignified and convinced him to get into the corporate side of the industry.
Norman found a decent job shortly after graduation, but was unnerved by the formality and high expectations of
the office. Plagued by insomnia, he had become clumsy. His boss had laughed when Norman tripped on the
carpet in the waiting room and landed face first in the fish tank. He had been less amused when Norman spilled a
glass of Beaujolais on a client’s silk dress. He was livid when Norman gave another client second-degree burns by
dumping a pot of coffee on him. Norman’s reputation spread and he could no longer get work. Jennifer became
the sole breadwinner, but as a recent graduate, she couldn’t earn enough to support them both. Jennifer
halfheartedly agreed to let Norman pursue his dream of opening an interpretive centre, on the condition that he
did it far away from anyone they knew. They scraped together a few hundred dollars, loaded their sparse
belongings into Norman’s battered Chevy van, and headed north.
The morning after their arrival, Norman walked by Roy’s camping spot, where he found the old man seated at
a concrete picnic table. He was wearing tattered work pants and a murky T-shirt, his omnipresent red plaid flannel
shirt draped over the ensemble. The tea stain from the previous night was lost in a patchwork of grease and dirt.
Norman smoothed his own spotless rugby shirt, and adjusted his collar.
“Come have breakfast,” Roy called. “Can’t get Elsie out here. We’re supposed to be enjoying nature and all
she does is complain about the bugs. The simple life! That’s what it’s all about! Wanna Pop- Tart?”
“It’s okay—I have some granola back at the tent,” Norman replied, but he sat down anyway.
“Suit yourself,” Roy conceded as he ripped open a package and took a big bite out of one of the pastries.
“You’re supposed to toast them, but we’re roughing it, after all,” he mumbled around the glob in his mouth.
“Where’s the little lady?”
“Gone into town to look for work.”
“Why ain’t you with her?”
“She said she wasn’t ready to unleash me upon an unsuspecting population.”
“I see her point.”
Norman noticed a dark rock flecked with gold lying in the dirt. He kicked at it, but missed and jammed his
toe into one of the table’s concrete supports. He gasped. Roy leaned over and scooped up the rock. He examined
it closely.
“Fool’s gold,” he announced, tossing it away.
“Are you a miner, Roy?”
“You bet. A little prospecting. A little mining.”
“Mining pays well, doesn’t it?”
“Well enough,” he said. He cast a self-conscious look towards the shiny new camper. “Thought you were a
big tourism entrepreneur.”
“I need to build up a nest egg. I also need to get to know the place. Develop some authentic northern
experience,” Norman said. “I was hoping you could help me. I’d like to follow you around. I'o observe.”
Roy looked grim.
“What are you going to do today?” Norman coaxed.
“Prospector’s Trail, I suppose,” Roy replied with some reluctance.
“Prospecting? Excellent! Can I come?”
“Son! You don’t ask a lady her age, and you don’t ask a prospector to show you where he’s working,” the old
man said firmly.
“It’s just that I wanted to use you as the role model for the interpretive centre,” Norman said.
“Oh?”
“If you don’t mind being famous, that is.”
“Well, maybe I could help a bit. You can come with me this morning. But this morning only, hear? Better take
some provisions with you,” he said, tossing a foil pack of Pop-Tarts at Norman. “Just don’t try to walk and chew at
the same time.”
Roy set out across the campground at a rapid pace, with Norman close behind. They soon reached a huge,
uneven field of pre-Cambrian rock. Roy didn’t slow down. Norman teetered after him, but managed to stay
upright.
“What are those little footprints painted on the rock?” he asked when he finally caught up with the surefooted Roy.
“Directions.”
“This is a walking trail?”
“Of course. Didn’t think I’d really show you where I prospect, do you?”
Norman looked as deflated as his mildewed tent.
“I’m willing to share general knowledge, though. See that pillow of grey rock over there?”
Norman walked to the spot.
“Run your fingers over the surface. Feel the bumps?”
Norman nodded.
“What do you see?”
“Brownish-red granules.”
“Good. They’re garnets.”
“Wow,” Norman observed quietly, bending closer to the rock to examine them.
They continued on in silence for some time, until they reached the tumbledown remains of a cabin. The
skeleton of a bed frame, a rusted- out woodstove and a few pieces of decaying cutlery were scattered around.
“Reminds me of the shack I lived in when I moved up in the forties. Made of plywood and packing crates.”
Roy sighed wistfully.
“Elsie didn’t mind?”
“Living in a shack? Of course she did. But she saw the potential of the place—and of me.”
They later found a vein of white quartz that prospectors had blasted.
“Quartz is the key,” Roy explained. “Find it, and you just might find gold. Time for a rest.”
The old man sat cross-legged beside the mutilated rock and closed his eyes. The sky clouded over, and a
breeze came up. Roy’s red plaid shirt fluttered around him. Fie swayed with the wind. His breathing became
slower and deeper. Norman cautiously ripped open his pouch of Pop-Tarts and nibbled a corner. Finding that it hit
the spot, he gobbled both pastries in the packet. Then, exhausted after another sleepless night, Norman closed his
eyes. He, too, swayed with the wind. He drifted off, but jerked himself awake just as his head started to topple
towards the ancient and very hard rock. He started to worry about the old man.
“Roy,” he whispered. There was no reaction, so he said it louder. “Roy!”
“What?”
“I thought you’d fallen asleep.”
“Asleep! Ain’t you ever seen anyone meditating, son?”
“Meditating?”
“I thought you were educated. You know—meditating. Getting into the zone. Becoming one with the earth.
The earth don’t give up her secrets too easily. You gotta get to know her on a personal level.”
“Oh.”
“Time to go,” Roy blurted as he jumped to his feet. He completed the circuit of the trail, which led them back
to the campground. “Nice spending the morning with you,” he said. “Now I have to get on with business.”
Norman wiped a couple of drops of moisture from his arm. Roy had been generous towards him, but Norman
would prefer if he didn’t spit while he talked. Roy turned away. A large drop hit Norman’s face. Rain.
Norman sprinted towards his tent as the deluge began. Moments later, Roy heard a stomach-turning shriek.
The old-timer found Norman staring at the sodden puddle of his so-called shelter.
“You can stay in your van,” he suggested.
“It’s full of boxes and furniture,” Norman replied as he began to pace. “What was I thinking? This is never
going to work. Jen’s going to leave me. I have no money. I can’t earn any. It’s over.” He stopped moving and stared
at Roy. “It’s all over,” he repeated in disbelief.
“You’re packing it in? Just like that?” Roy demanded. “No interpretive centre?”
“I’m sorry, Roy. No interpretive centre.”
“Don’t panic. I’ll help you. Get in your van. We’re going prospecting.”
They stopped by the camper to pick up some gumboots. Roy instructed Norman to drive away from
Yellowknife, but they hadn’t travelled for more than a minute before the old man told him to turn down a wide,
well-maintained road that led past an industrial building. They were heading for the city dump.
“What now?” Norman muttered.
“Right over there,” Roy said.
Norman pulled up next to a row of a half-dozen vehicles. Roy climbed out of the van and slowly rambled
amongst the hills of debris, his eyes locked on the ground. Every now and then he would bounce on an
abandoned couch to test the springs, or lift up a piece of plywood to see what was underneath. Other people
were wandering in a similar fashion, but Roy ignored them. He motioned to Norman to join him, but Norman
couldn’t bring himself to leave the van. He fidgeted with the knobs on the radio. Then he realized someone was
peering through the back window. Norman got out.
“You going to dump that stuff, buddy?” asked a young man in ragged jeans and a grimy windbreaker.
“That’s my furniture. Back off.”
“Settle down. I can find better out here, anyway,” he said as he stalked off.
Norman carefully locked the van, put on Roy’s extra pair of gumboots and set out after his mentor, stepping
cautiously so as not to do a face-plant in the mud. He found Roy digging in a pile of garbage, a battered television
and some lengths of two-by-four stacked neatly beside him.
“I thought you hated the noise and traffic and filth of the city,” Norman observed.
“This ain’t the city,” the old man replied, surprised Norman hadn’t noticed. He paused to wipe the drizzle
from his forehead with a grimy hanky, then continued to root in the mud. “Eureka!” he shouted, as he extracted a
dirty orange tarpaulin with a long rip in it. “Can I read ’em, or what?”
“What’s it for?”
“It’s for you. A fly for your tent. We’ll wash it in the lake. Patch it with a little duct tape. Good as new!” he
said gleefully. He examined Norman’s face. “What’s with you, boy? I thought you wanted to accumulate authentic
northern experiences, and here you’ve been missin’ one of the most authentic of them all.”
“Can we go prospecting now?” Norman asked with as much patience as he could muster.
Roy beamed at him.
“Oh, no! 'Phis is how you made your money?” Norman demanded. “Prospecting and mining. At the dump?”
“After the first few years there was so much competition in the bush that I decided to use my skills here. You’d
be amazed what you find. Take it home, clean it up, sell it. Got so much now, I’m having trouble shifting it.”
Norman’s eyes misted over and his throat constricted, but the cause was neither the rain in his eyes nor the
stench in his nose. The rubble he saw before him was more than just the detritus of the Yellowknife dump—it was
the rubble of his future. Wifeless. Homeless. Hopeless. Suddenly, he bent over. He wasn’t sure why, since he
could see little through the blur of tears. He ran his fingers over a pile of mud. He felt a bump. He wiped his eyes
on the back of his sleeve and examined the mound more closely. A point of brownish-red was poking through. He
flicked at it with his finger. A little more red showed. He dug deeper. It was cloth. He grabbed it and pulled out a
red plaid flannel shirt, much like Roy’s. The old-timer whistled.
“Impressive,” he said as he examined it. “One little rip, but otherwise, good as new.” He held it close to
Norman’s chest. “It’ll fit you perfectly. Let’s see what else you can do. Try over there.”
Roy pointed him towards the back of the dump and gave him a little push. Norman meandered through the
piles. He saw a strip of white gleaming through the mud. He wiped at it with the shirt he had unearthed. Not
quartz this time, but porcelain. It was an old bathtub, the kind with feet.
“Excellent,” Roy said. “That’ll get you a couple hundred dollars. If you refinish it, you can get more. I’ll find
some packing crates—we can use them as skids to drag it out of here. Good thing I took you on that walk. Sure
got you into the zone.”
Norman slumped on the side of the bathtub.
“Don’t knock it, son. You have a gift. You’re in your element. Do you realize you haven’t fallen once since you
been out here?”
It was true. Norman felt himself relaxing. He took a deep breath and promptly choked.
“You’ll get used to it,” Roy assured him.
Norman surveyed the terrain through the mist. He instinctively headed towards the edge of the landfill. He
came around a hill of debris and found some freshly dumped computers.
“You’ve hit the mother lode!” Roy squealed.
Norman examined them. “Fool’s gold,” he announced.
“I thought computers were worth a fortune.”
“Nope. Too old. Got a screwdriver?”
Roy searched the pockets of his work pants and produced a rather nice multitool. “Found it here last week,”
he explained.
Norman used his sleeve to wipe the rain from one of the computers, then removed the case and looked
inside.
“You know about these things?” Roy asked him.
“A bit. I think this one’s a 486. Might work if it hasn’t taken on too much dirt and rain. Not high powered, but
we can use them for parts, if nothing else.”
“You know how to set up one of those web site things?”
“Yah. It’s not so hard.”
“A little e-commerce might move my inventory.”
“Who’s your market?” Norman asked skeptically.
“People who can’t come to visit, but want authentic northern artifacts just the same. You can make a planter
out of anything,” he said with a wink.
Norman smiled.
“Your little lady’s not going to like it. She’s more upscale than my Elsie.”
“You’re right. She won’t see the potential. But like I said—this is the end of the road for me.”
The sun was shining again when Jennifer returned to the campground with news that she’d landed a job. She
found Norman outside Roy’s camper. He was seated at the concrete picnic table, surrounded by computer parts.
Roy was peering eagerly over Norman’s shoulder, which was clad in a red plaid flannel shirt. Jennifer gasped.
“I found it at the dump. Elsie washed it for me,” Norman explained as he monkeyed with a partially
assembled computer.
“Me and your boy are going into business together,” Roy proclaimed. “First e-commerce, then the interpretive
centre.”
“I think I’ve got it,” Norman announced, as he connected the computer to an extension cord that stretched
from the camper. A puff of smoke rose into the air. The two men looked at each other.
“Planter,” they sang in unison.
“Grab me another,” Norman instructed Roy. Jennifer’s eyes shifted to the computers stacked beside the table.
“Found them at the dump,” Norman repeated, but this time he looked her straight in the eye. “You wouldn’t
believe the business potential out there.”
It was midnight when Norman wandered over to the tent, now protected with the freshly patched orange tarp.
His van was gone, and several boxes of his possessions were sitting outside the tent. She hadn’t left a note.
Norman sighed and crawled into the rickety tent. It swayed slightly but remained upright. He slept soundly for the
first time in months.
W. D. Valgardson
“Saturday Climbing”
Word Count: 3453
Published: Chatelaine and Rainshadow: Stories from Vancouver Island. 1990. Reprinted:
Imprints 11. Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing 2001. 52-59.
Sixty feet up the cliff, the toe of his climbing boot resting on a ledge no wider than a dime, two fingers curled
around a nubbin of rock, Barry was suddenly afraid that he would fall, “Rope,” he called.
At the foot of the cliff, his daughter let out the golden line of rope that joined them.
As Barry felt the rope go slack, he raised his right knee and pressed his toe into a shallow depression. Grunting
with the strain, he stood up on his right leg, then paused, uncertain of his next move.
The cliff had proven to be deceptive. The conglomerate, with its rough, gravel-like surface, had looked easy.
Close to the base, there were large handholds, so that at first the climbing was little more difficult than walking up
stairs. Then, unexpectedly, the surfaces smoothed; the places where he could get a secure hold were spread
farther and farther apart. At the same time, the numerous cracks dwindled until there was no place to set any
protection. Unable to go back because of his pride, he had continued on until he now found himself dangerously
far above his last piton. If he fell, he would drop twenty- five feet to the piton, then twenty-five feet past it before
his rope came taut and held him. There was, because of the elasticity of the rope, a chance that he would ground
out.
The thought flitted through his mind that it would be like falling from the top of a six-storey building. Tensing
his fingers, he straightened his elbow and leaned back from the rock so that he could search for his next hold.
Above him, there was a half-inch ledge. He reached up, got a good grip, then lifted his left leg higher than he had
ever imagined he could and set his foot on a rough patch that would provide the necessary friction to hold his
weight.
He had been scared many times but never like this. Never before had he been this close to paralysis, to a
sensation of letting go so that the tension and the fear would be over. The way he felt, he imagined, was the way a
wounded animal felt when it finally gave up fleeing and allowed itself to be killed.
Six inches from his left hand there was a vertical crack that seemed hardly wider than a fingernail. Cautiously,
he explored it with his fingers. Just within his reach it widened slightly. He ran his hand over his rack and
unsnapped the smallest chock nut. He forced the aluminum wedge deep into the crack. From the wedge there
hung a wire loop and from that a carabiner. Catching hold of the rope tied to his harness, he lifted it up, forced
open the spring-loaded gate of the carabiner and fitted the rope into the aluminum oval.
Once the gate snapped shut, he sighed with relief. The chock nut, the wire loop, the carabiner, the rope,
fragile as they looked, would hold ten times his weight. If he wanted to, he could let go and simply hang in space.
“You all right?” his daughter called. “Yeah,” he lied. “Just resting.”
His voice sounded faint and breathy. He was glad she could not see his momentary weakness. He could not
control the trembling of his legs. The muscle of his right arm jerked spasmodically. Ever since his wife had left
him, he had tried to compensate by providing unhesitating leadership for his daughter. He did his best to keep life
simple and uncomplicated. It was, he thought, the way to provide security.
He glanced down. Among the scattered grey boulders, Moira’s red hair gleamed like a burnished cap.
“You’re doing fine,” she hollered. The crosscurrents of air that played over the cliff face blurred her voice,
making it seem farther away than it really was. To hear what she said, he had to strain toward the sound. “You’ve
got another twenty feet to a big ledge. You can do it easy.”
He was grateful for her confidence. Before they had started climbing, there had crept into his daughter’s voice
a constant note of disparagement and disappointment. The times he had managed to overcome his own insecurity
and had asked her what was the matter, she had turned her back on him, answering, “Nothing,” with a tightly
controlled voice.
Bewildered, he had sought the advice of women at work who had teenage daughters. They had been no help.
Behind their competent, efficient professional selves, they too, he realized, were just as confused as he was. In
desperation, he had gone so far as to pose the question of the relationship of fathers and daughters to his class. He
had not been prepared for the reaction he got. From every corner of the room came cries of bitter disappointment
and resentment.
As he had left the classroom, one student had called to him. He had stopped to wait for her. She had frizzy
dark hair, wore long dresses that might have come from a western movie set, a rainbow assortment of beads, and
a nose ring. She always talked as if she was thinking in some exotic language and was translating it badly. She was
the only student he’d ever had who insisted on analysing War and Peace 1 by consulting the I Ching.2
“The caged bird proves nothing but the power of the captor,” she had intoned.
For a moment, he suffered vertigo, and the cliff seemed to sway as if in an earthquake. He pressed his
forehead to the cool stone and shut his eyes. Inside his flesh, his bones trembled.
Taking up rock-climbing had been an act of desperation. All the past activities Moira and he had done
together—going to foreign films, visiting Seattle, beachcombing—she dismissed with a contemptuous shrug of her
shoulders. At one time, they had played chess nearly every day. Lately, she pretended she had never seen the
game. When he had noticed an advertisement for rock-climbing, he remembered that she had spoken admiringly
of classmates who had hiked the West Coast Trail. He had registered them and paid their fees. Then he informed
her.
He hoped she would be pleased. Instead, she was incensed that he had committed her to something without
her consent. He knew she was right to be angry but he was too frantic to care. Over the previous month, she had
come home late a number of times. Each time, the sweet-sour smell of marijuana clung to her, and her pupils
seemed unnaturally large. He had not dared to accuse her of smoking dope. If he was wrong, she would never
forgive him for being unjust. Being right frightened him even more. If she said, “That’s right, I’m smoking dope, six
joints a day, and sniffing coke and participating in orgies,” he didn’t know what he would do. Ranting and raving
had ceased to work. Reasoning with her had no effect. He felt utterly helpless.
By emphasizing that the money was spent and there was no refund, he won the argument over rock-climbing.
However, he took the car to the first class while she took her bike. She went prepared to sneer at everything, but
once she saw her classmates, her attitude changed. Instead of Moira being isolated by her youth, Barry was
isolated because of his age. Of the fifteen members, eleven were under twenty. The instructor still didn’t need to
shave more than once a week.
By the time the three hours were over and he realized that rock-climbing wasn’t going to be rough hiking, it
was too late to back out. There were only three girls in the class. In return for the attention of one-third of the
young men, Moira was prepared to scale the Himalayas.
Barry began with an attitude that was typical of someone raised on the Prairies. Anything over three feet was a
substantial elevation. During the second class, he was expected to climb vertical cliffs. He gave some thought to
dropping out of the class but realized that, after the fuss he had made about the fees, he would look like a
dreadful hypocrite.
Gradually, as a dozen Saturdays passed, what had seemed impossible was reduced to the merely difficult.
Cliffs that had looked flat and smooth as polished marble became a series of problems and solutions. The names
of the unfamiliar equipment became a part of his vocabulary. Young men in climbing boots frequented his
backyard and kitchen. To his relief, Moira accepted him enough to spend an occasional hour practising knot-tying
with him.
This weekend there had been no class. In an attempt to heal a rift caused by an argument over her going
away to college—she was two years ahead of herself in school and, therefore, in spite of being in grade 12 was
only 16—he had offered to go climbing with her. To his surprise, she’d accepted.
“Climbing,” he called.
“Climb on,” Moira answered.
He stepped up, away from the safety of his perch. His life, he realized, was in her hands. If he fell, she was his
1
War and Peace: novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy
2I
Ching: ancient Chinese book used to foretell the future
protection.
The thought of giving her so much responsibility was like the prick of a thorn. In all other things, he had been
trying to keep her from rushing headlong into taking on too much responsibility at once. The result had been a
long series of disagreements. She did not have the decency to let one dispute finish before she began another.
Sometimes three or four overlapped.
On Fridays, when he went to the faculty club, he ordered double brandies and brooded over whether he
shouldn’t have insisted on Sunday school in a good fundamentalist church all the past years. His colleagues, the
majority of whom were the epitome of liberal tolerance about most things, when they talked about their teenage
children reverted to wistful fantasies about convents and boarding schools in inaccessible locations.
The weekend past, Moira had wanted to go to an all-night party with a boy he just vaguely recognized as
having drifted through the house two or three times. Barry was dumbfounded. At the same age, he’d had to have
his girlfriends in before midnight. If he had kept a girl out all night, her father would have met them with a
shotgun.
“Good girls,” he said, quoting something he’d heard in adolescence, “don’t stay out all night.”
“Good fathers,” she shot back, “don’t think the worst of their daughters.”
That afternoon was filled with slamming doors, weeping and raised voices. He found himself fighting so hard
against her staying out all night that he compromised on three o’clock and afterward, when he had calmed down,
wondered how it had happened. He had been determined to start with a deadline of midnight and let himself be
persuaded to accept one o’clock. Although Moira claimed not to remember the chess moves, he had the distinct
feeling that he’d been checkmated.
The final blow had been her insistence on going away to college. They had the money, he admitted. It just
wasn’t sensible, at sixteen, to travel 2,000 miles to attend a school when the local university was every bit as
good, even if it did have him on the faculty. He suspected the choice had more to do with her all-night-party boy
than with academic excellence.
Now, as he worked his way up toward the large ledge where he was to set up a belay station, it was as if Barry
were in danger of being pulled backward by the sheer weight of his memories. It was with a sense of relief that he
heaved himself onto the ledge. He paused to catch his breath, then anchored himself to a boulder.
“On belay,” he shouted down, giving Moira the signal that he was ready.
His daughter, eighty feet below, seemed so small that Barry felt he could lift her into his arms. She looked no
larger than she had been when, at three, she had eaten a bottle of aspirin. He had scooped her up and run with
her four blocks to the hospital. After that desperate race and the struggle to hold her down—it had taken both him
and a nurse to control her flailing limbs while the doctor had pumped her stomach–he was acutely aware of how
tenuous her life was, of how much he would suffer if he lost her. For a long time afterward, he thought of her as
being intricately constructed of fragile paper.
“Climbing,” Moira answered.
“Climb on,” he shouted.
From time to time, she paused to pull loose the chock nuts and
People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.
Chinua Achebe
pitons her father had left behind. These, since they would be needed later, she clipped to a sling that hung over
her shoulder. Once, when she deviated from the route her father had taken, she became stuck at an overhang.
Not having dealt with the obstacle himself, Barry could not help and had to leave her to find her own solution.
The climb seemed agonizingly slow, as if it would never be completed. Then, when it was over, and his
daughter, grinning, breathless, was climbing over the edge, it was as if hardly any time had passed.
They sat side by side, sipping orange juice, their feet dangling in space.
“I thought you were in trouble,” Moira said.
“I thought you were too,” he replied, matching his weakness with hers. Then, ashamed, he admitted, “I
gripped.”
Moira twisted about. Her red hair was snugged at the back with a rubber band. Being outside had sprinkled
her nose with light freckles.
She studied the cliff face. It rose another hundred feet. There was a crack that ran more than halfway, then a
small series of outcrops. He tried to see the route they should take, but the last ten or fifteen feet seemed
impossible.
“I’d come home for Christmas,” she said in a rush, “and classes are out in April. It’s not as if it was such a long
time to be away.”
She had caught him unawares, and none of his carefully prepared arguments were at hand.
“It’s just so unexpected,” was all that he could manage.
“I’ve got to leave sometime.”
The house will be so empty, he wanted to say. How will I get used to being alone? It is as if you lost your first
tooth only last year. As if I took you to kindergarten six months ago. You’re barely rid of your braces.
She lifted her index finger and rubbed the side of her nose. She had done it as long as he could remember. It
was her signal that she was going to impart a confidence or confess a wrongdoing—that she liked some boy in her
class, that she had got a detention or spent all her allowance before the end of the week and needed more money.
“I’m not innocent, you know.”
He wondered what she meant by that but was afraid to ask.
“I mean,” she continued, “Vic Hi’s a big school. You hear a lot. Everybody’s on the Pill. The dope’s there if you
want it. There’s lots of opportunity.”
He was tempted to let loose his anxiety in a lecture, but the memory of the frizzy-haired student in his class
stopped him. She had stood on one foot all the time they were talking, the sole of her left sandal pressed to her
right knee. She had passed her hand before his face in an affected arc. He’d heard her father was a prominent
lawyer in the East but found it hard to believe.
She had talked in aphorisms and riddles, then a silence had fallen between them. He’d wondered why she
had bothered to call after him, what she had really wanted to say. He had left her but, after a few steps, glanced
back. She had given up her storklike stance and was standing with feet together, shoulders slumped, her face slack
beneath her gaudy makeup. For the first time, he had seen how much younger she was than he had thought. If he
had not known better, he’d have said she was a lost child.
Just then, she had seen him watching her. Immediately, she had drawn up her shoulders, flung back her head,
given an exaggerated sway of her hips and pranced away. That had been the last time he’d seen her. She had never
come back to his class, and one day a yellow drop-slip with her name on it had appeared in his mailbox.
“I want to lead this pitch,” Moira said.
Barry was startled. She had never led. Always before she’d been second or third on a rope.
“I was thinking of rappelling down,” he answered. “I can’t see a clear route up.”
“There,” she said. “There and there and there.” She jabbed her fingertip at a series of holds.
“But where would you set your protection?”
Her hand wove a series of stitches in the air. “There. Up there. To the side. Back across. Up about six feet.”
His fear for her was not without reason. The climbing, after seeming so dangerous at first, had begun to lose its
aura of hazard. They all fell from time to time, but their ropes kept them from suffering more than bruised knees
and elbows. Then, one of the climbers who was leading had ignored instructions and, overconfident, had put in
only one piece of protection. He placed it improperly, and when he slipped and fell, his weight jerked it loose.
For a moment, no one had been able to move, then those who were not belaying or climbing had run toward the
boy who lay sprawled on his back. Bright red blood seeped from his nose and ear.
“Jackets,” Barry had demanded. Red Gross training that he’d not thought about in years came back with an
intense clarity. “Every piece of clothing you can spare. We mustn’t let him get cold.”
They all had moved automatically, clumsily, unable to think. Having done as he instructed, they all stood
stupefied. Their faces were shocked white beneath their tans.
He sent two of the students racing down the hill for help.
For an hour, they huddled in a ragged circle around the boy whose hair was paler than the sun-drenched grass
and whose skin might have been moulded from wax. He slipped in and out of consciousness. Each time his eyes
shut, they all tensed, afraid that he had died. But then, he would groan or let out his breath harshly, and the
moment would pass. Someone, Barry had not noticed who, had started collecting gear. One, and then another,
began to pack. They moved slowly, silently, as if any noise would disturb the delicate balance between life and
death.
Grounded out. That was what they called it. Because his safety had not been properly set, he had grounded
out. Barry remembered that the air force had been like that too. Pilots never failed. They washed out. They never
died. They bought it. Grounded out. 'The semantics covered up the fear.
Now, for a moment, it was as if, once again, he could hear the sharp startled cry; see the backward arc, the
body, falling without grace or beauty, the rope writhing and twisting, the red-shirted boy settling in a cloud of
unexpected dust.
“Ron,” Barry protested, surprising himself at remembering the ' boy’s name.
“Do you think I’d be so careless?”
It was asked in a tone that allowed no argument.
Stiffly, he stood up and tested his belay.
Don’t climb, he thought, it’s too dangerous. Let us go back the way we came and find somewhere that’ll
always be safe. But even as he thought it, he knew that it was impossible.
Once again, it was as if he were standing before the frizzy-haired girl, watching her long green nails sweep
slowly before his face. At the time, he had not wanted to understand. “The world seeks balance,” she’d said.
“Extremism begets extremism.”
“On belay,” he said.
“Climbing,” Moira replied.
His daughter, easily, with the supreme confidence of youth, grasped a handhold and pulled herself onto a
flake. Smoothly, she worked her way up one side of the crack, straddled it and crossed over.
Below her, her father, ever watchful, full of fear, smoothly payed out the rope, determined to give her all the
slack she needed while, at the same time, keeping his hands tensed, ready to lock shut, ready to absorb the shock
of any fall.
Gabrielle Roy
“Wilhelm”
Word Count: 2413
Published: Fantasy and Science Fiction. Feb. 1961. Reprinted: Imprints 11. Toronto:
Gage Educational Publishing 2001. 145-150.
My first suitor came from Holland. He was called Wilhelm and his teeth were too regular; he was much older
than I; he had a long, sad face...at least thus it was that others made me see him when they had taught me to
consider his defects. As for me, at first I found his face thoughtful rather than long and peaked. I did not yet know
that his teeth—so straight and even—were false. I thought I loved Wilhelm. Here was the first man who, through
me, could be made happy or unhappy; here was a very serious matter.
I had met him at our friends’ the O’Neills’, who still lived not far from us in their large gabled house on Rue
Desmeurons. Wilhelm was their boarder; for life is full of strange things: thus this big, sad man was a chemist in
the employ of a small paint factory then operating in our city, and—as I have said—lodged with equally uprooted
people, the O’Neills, formerly of County Cork in Ireland. A far journey to have come merely to behave, in the
end, like everyone else—earn your living, try to make friends, learn our language, and then, in Wilhelm’s case,
love someone who was not for him. Do adventures often turn out so tritely? Obviously enough, though, in those
days I did not think so.
Evenings at the O’Neills’ were musical. Kathleen played “Mother Machree,” while her mother, seated on a
sofa, wiped her eyes, trying the while to avert our attention, to direct it away from herself, for she did not like
people to believe her so deeply stirred by Irish songs. Despite the music, Elizabeth kept right on digging away at
her arithmetic; she still was utterly indifferent to men. But Kathleen and I cared a great deal. We feared dreadfully
to be left on the shelf; we feared we should fail to be loved and to love with a great and absolutely unique
passion.
When Mrs. O’Neill requested it of me—“to relieve the atmosphere,” as she put it—I played Paderewski’s
“Minuet”; then Wilhelm would have us listen to Massenet on a violin of choice quality. Afterward he would show
me in an album scenes of his country, as well as his father’s house and the home of his uncle, his father’s partner. I
think he was anxious to convey to me that his family was better off than you might think if you judged by him—I
mean by his having had to quit his native land and come live in our small city. Yet he need have had no fear that I
should form an opinion on the basis of silly social appearances; I wanted to judge people in strict accordance
with their noble personal qualities. Wilhelm would explain to me how Ruisdael had really most faithfully
rendered the full, sad sky of the Low Countries; and he asked me whether I thought I should like Holland enough
one day to visit it. Yes, I replied; I should much like to see the canals and the tulip fields.
Then he had had sent to me from Holland a box of chocolates, each one of which was a small vial containing
a liqueur.
But one evening he had the ill-starred notion of accompanying me back home, as far as our front door, though
it was only two steps away and darkness had not wholly fallen. He was chivalrous: he insisted that a man should
not let a woman go home all alone, even if that woman only yesterday had still been playing with hoops or
walking on stilts.
Alas! The moment his back was turned, Maman asked me about my young man. “Who is that great
beanstalk?”
I told her it was Wilhelm of Holland, and all the rest of it: the box of chocolates, the tulip fields, the stirring
sky of Wilhelm’s country, the windmills.... Now all that was fine and honorable! But why, despite what I thought
of appearances, did I believe myself obliged also to speak of the uncle and the father, partners in a small business
which ... which ... made a lot of money?
My mother at once forbade me to return to the O’Neills, so long, said she, as I had not got over the idea of
Wilhelm.
But Wilhelm was clever. One or two days each week he finished work early; on those days he waited for me
at the convent door. He took over my great bundle of books—Lord, what homework the Sisters piled on us in
those days!—my music sheets, my metronome, and he carried all these burdens to the corner of our street. Phere
he would lower upon me his large and sad blue eyes and say to me, “When you are bigger, I’ll take you to the
opera, to the theater....”
I still had two years of the convent ahead of me; the opera, the theater seemed desperately far away. Wilhelm
would tell me that he longed to see me in an evening gown; that then he would at last remove from its moth-proof
bag his dress clothes and that we should go in style to hear symphonic music.
My mother ultimately learned that Wilhelm had the effrontery to carry my books, and it annoyed her very
much. She forbade me to see him.
“Still,” said I to Maman, “I can hardly prevent his walking next to me along the pavement.”
My mother cut through that problem. “If he takes the same sidewalk as you, mind you cross right over to the
other.”
Now, she must have sent a message of rebuke to Wilhelm and told him, as she had me, precisely which
sidewalk he should take, for I began seeing him only on the opposite side of the street, where he would stolidly
await my passage. All the while I was going by, he held his hat in his hand. The other young girls must have been
horribly envious of me; they laughed at Wilhelm’s baring his head while I was passing. Yet I felt death in my soul
at seeing Wilhelm so alone and exposed to ridicule. He was an immigrant, and Papa had told me a hundred times
that you could not have too much sympathy, too much consideration for the uprooted, who have surely suffered
enough from their expatriation without our adding to it through scorn or disdain. Why then had Papa so
completely changed his views, and why was he more set even than Maman against Wilhelm of Holland? True
enough, no one at home, since Georgianna’s marriage, looked favorably upon love. Perhaps because as a whole
we had already had too much to suffer from it. But I—presumably—I had not yet suffered enough at its hands….
And then, as I have said, Wilhelm was clever. Maman had forbidden him to speak to me on the street, but she
had forgotten letters. Wilhelm had made great progress in English. He sent me very beautiful epistles which began
with: “My own beloved child...” or else “Sweet little maid….” Not to be outdone, I replied: “My own dearest
heart….” One
day my mother found in my room a scrawl on which I had been practising my handwriting and in which I
expressed to Wilhelm a passion that neither time nor cruel obstacles could bend…. Had my mother glanced into
the volume of Tennyson lying open upon my table, she would have recognized the whole passage in question, but
she was far too angry to listen to reason. I was enjoined from writing to Wilhelm, from reading his letters, if, by a
miracle, one of them succeeded in penetrating the defenses thrown up by Maman; I was even enjoined from
thinking of him. I was allowed only to pray for him, if I insisted upon it.
Until then I had thought that love should be open and clear, cherished by all and making peace between
beings. Yet what was happening? Maman was turned into something like a spy, busy with poking about in my
wastebasket; and I then thought that she was certainly the last person in the world to understand me! So that was
what love accomplished! And where was that fine frankness between Maman and me! Does there always arise a
bad period between a mother and her daughter? Is it love that brings it on?... And what, what is love? One’s
neighbor? Or some person rich, beguiling?
During this interval Wilhelm, unable to do anything else for me, sent me many gifts; and at the time I knew
nothing of them, for the moment they arrived, Maman would return them to him: music scores, tulip bulbs from
Amsterdam, a small collar of Bruges lace, more liqueur- filled chocolates.
The only means left to us by which to communicate was the telephone. Maman had not thought of that.
Obviously she could not think of everything; love is so crafty! Then, too, during her loving days the telephone
did not exist, and this, I imagine, was why Maman forgot to ban it for me. Wilhelm often called our number. If it
was not I who answered, he hung up gently. And many a time did Maman then protest, “What’s going on?... I
shall write the company a letter; I’m constantly being bothered for nothing. At the other end I can barely hear a
sort of sighing sound.” Naturally she could not foresee how far the tenacity of a Wilhelm would extend.
But when it was I who answered, Wilhelm was scarcely better off. There could be between us no real
conversation without its exposing us to the discovery of our secret and consequent prohibition of the telephone.
Moreover, we neither of us had any taste for ruses; Gervais employed them when he had on the wire the darling
of his heart, to whom he spoke as though she were another schoolboy. But Wilhelm and I—without blaming
Gervais, for love is love, and when it encounters obstacles, is even more worthy!—we strove to be noble in all
things. Thus Wilhelm merely murmured to me, from afar, “Dear heart...” after which he remained silent. And I
listened to his silence for a minute or two, blushing to the roots of my hair.
One day, though, he discovered an admirable way to make me understand his heart. As I was saying “Alio!”
his voice begged me to hold the wire; then I made out something like the sound of a violin being tuned, then the
opening bars of “Thaïs.”1 Wilhelm played me the whole composition over the phone. Kathleen must have been
accompanying him. I heard piano chords somewhere in the distance, and—I know not why—this put me out a
trifle, perhaps at thinking that Kathleen was in on so lovely a secret. It was the first time, however, that Wilhelm
put me out at all.
Our phone was attached to the wall at the end of a dark little hallway. At first no one was surprised at seeing
me spend hours there, motionless and in the most complete silence. Only little by little did the people at home
begin to notice that at the telephone I uttered no word. And from then on, when I went to listen to “Thai's” the
hall door would open slightly; someone hid there to spy on me, motioning the others to advance one by one and
watch me. Gervais was the worst, and it was very mean on his part, for I had respected his secret. He
manufactured reasons for making use of the hall; as he went by he tried to hear what I could be listening to. At
first, however, I held the receiver firmly glued to my ear. Then I must already have begun to find “Thai's” very long
to hear through. One evening I allowed Gervais to listen for a moment to Wilhelm’s music; perhaps I hoped that
he would have enough enthusiasm to make me myself admire the composition. But Gervais choked with mirth;
later on I saw him playing the fool in front of the others, at the far end of the living room, bowing an imaginary
violin. Even Maman laughed a little, although she tried to remain angry. With a long, sad countenance which—I
knew not how—he superimposed upon his own features, Gervais was giving a fairly good imitation of Wilhelm in
caricature. I was a little tempted to laugh. For it is a fact that there is something quite comic in seeing a sad person
play the violin.
When you consider it, it is astonishing that all of them together should not have thought much sooner of
parting me from Wilhelm by the means they so successfully employed from that night forward.
All day long, when I went by, someone was whistling the melody of “Thai's.”
My brother grossly exaggerated the Dutchman’s slightly solemn gait, his habit of keeping his eyes lifted aloft.
They discovered in him the mien of a Protestant minister, dry—said they—and in the process of preparing a
sermon. Maman added that the “Netherlander” had a face as thin as a knife blade. This was the way they now
referred to him: the “Netherlander” or the “Hollander.” My sister Odette—I should say Sister Edouard—who had
been informed and was taking a hand in the matter, even though she had renounced the world, my pious Odette
herself told me to forget the “foreigner”... that a foreigner is a foreigner....
One evening as I listened to “Thai's,” I thought 1 must look silly, standing thus stock still, the receiver in my
hand. I hung up before the end of the performance.
Thereafter, Wilhelm scarcely crossed my path again.
A year later, perhaps, we learned that he was returning to Holland.
My mother once more became the just and charitable pre-Wilhelm person I had loved so dearly. My father no
longer harbored anything against Holland. Maman admitted that Mrs. O’Neill had told her concerning Wilhelm
that he was the best man in the world, reliable, a worker, very gentle…. And Maman hoped that Wilhelm, in his
own country, among his own people, would be loved... as, she said, he deserved to be.
1 “Thai's”: A mournful composition for violin and piano, from the opera Thai's, by the French composer Jules
Massenet (1842-1912). It is just under five minutes long.
Theodore Thomas
“Test”
Word Count: 567
Published: Fantasy and Science Fiction. Feb. 1961. Reprinted: Imprints 11. Toronto: Gage
Educational Publishing 2001. 130-132.
Robert Proctor was a good driver for so young a person. The turnpike curved gently ahead of him. Travel was light
on this cool morning in May. He felt rested, but alert. He had been driving for two hours.
The sun was bright but not glaring. The air smelled fresh and clean. He breathed in deeply. It was a good day
for driving.
He looked at the gray-haired woman sitting in the front seat with him. Her mouth was curved in a quiet smile.
As she watched the trees and fields slip by on her side of the turnpike Robert Proctor looked back at the road.
“Enjoying it, Mom?” he asked.
“Yes, Robert.” Her voice was as cool as the morning.
He listened to the smooth purr of the engine. Up ahead he saw a big truck. It was spouting smoke as it sped
along the turnpike. Behind it was a blue convertible, content to stay in line.
Robert Proctor noted this and put it in the back of his mind. He was slowly overtaking the car and the truck.
He would reach them in another minute or two.
It was a good morning for driving. He pulled up and began to pass the blue convertible. Though his speed
was a few miles an hour above the turnpike limit, his car was under perfect control.
The blue convertible suddenly swung out from behind the truck without warning. It struck his car near the
right front fender. His car was knocked to the shoulder next to the turnpike median strip.
Robert Proctor was too wise to slam on the brakes. He fought the steering wheel to hold the car on a straight
path. The left wheels sank into the soft left shoulder. The car seemed to pull toward the left. If it kept going that
way, it might cross the island and enter the lane carrying cars coming from the other direction.
Robert held on to the steering wheel. Then the left front wheel struck a rock, and the tire blew out. The car
turned sideways. It was then that his mother began to scream.
As the car turned, it skidded part way out into the oncoming lanes. Robert Proctor fought the steering wheel to
right the car. But the drag of the blown tire was too much. His mother’s scream rang steadily in his ears. As he
strained at the wheel, he wondered how a scream could go on so long.
An oncoming car struck his car from the side, and spun him farther into the left-hand lanes.
He was thrown into his mother’s lap. She was thrown against the right door. It was locked and it held. With his
left hand he grabbed the steering wheel. He pulled himself up. He turned the wheel to try to stop the spin so he
could get his car out of traffic. His mother could not right herself. She lay against the door, her cry rising and
falling with the spin of the car.
The car began to slow down. In one of the spins, he twisted the wheel straight and headed down the left-hand
lane. Before he could turn off the pike to safety, a car loomed ahead of him.
The man at the wheel of that other car seemed unable to move. His eyes were wide and filled with fear. Beside
him sat a girl with her head against the back of the seat. Soft curls framed her lovely face. She was asleep.
It was not the fear in the man’s face that reached Robert Proctor. It was the trust in the face of the sleeping girl.
In a flash the two cars sped closer to each other. Robert Proctor had no time to change the direction of his car.
The driver of the other car remained frozen at the wheel. Robert Proctor stared into the face of the sleeping
girl. His mother’s cry still sounded in his ears.
He heard no crash when the two cars met head on at high speed. He only felt something push into his stomach.
Then the world went gray. Just before darkness came, he heard the scream stop. He knew then that he had been
hearing one single scream. It had only seemed to drag on and on.
Robert Proctor seemed to be at the bottom of a deep black well. There was a spot of faint light in the far distance.
He could hear the rumble of a voice. He tried to pull himself toward the light and the sound. But the effort was
too great. He lay still and gathered his strength to try again. The light grew brighter and the voice louder. When he
tried again, he seemed to draw closer to the light and sound. He opened his eyes and looked at the man sitting in
front of him.
“You all right, son?” asked the man. He wore a blue uniform. His round face was familiar.
Robert Proctor moved his head slowly. He discovered that he was lying back in a chair. He could move his
arms and legs. He looked around the room. Then he remembered.
The man in the uniform saw the look in Robert’s eyes. He said, “No harm done, son. You just took the last
part of your driver’s test.” Robert Proctor looked at the man. Though he saw the man clearly, he seemed to see the
faint face of the sleeping girl in front of him.
The uniformed man went on talking. “We hypnotized you to make you think you were in an accident. We do
it to everybody these days before they get their driver’s license. Makes better drivers of them. Makes drivers more
careful for the rest of their lives. Remember it now? Coming in here and all?”
Robert Proctor nodded, thinking of the sleeping girl. She never would have awakened. She would have gone
from her light sleep to the dark sleep of death. Worst of all would have been his mother’s death.
The uniformed man was still speaking. “So you think you’re all set now. If you still want a driver’s license, sign
this application and we’ll see.”
Robert Proctor looked at the license application and signed it.
He looked up to find two men in long white coats. They were standing one on each side of him. Somehow
the sight of them made him angry.
He started to speak but the uniformed man spoke first. “Sorry, son. You failed your license test. You’re sick and
need treatment.”
The two men lifted Robert Proctor to his feet. He said, “Take your hands off me. What is this?”
The uniformed man said, “Nobody should want to drive a car after going through what you just went through.
It should take months before you can even think of driving again. But you’re ready to drive right now. Killing
people doesn’t seem to bother you. We can’t let your kind run around loose any more. But don’t you worry, son.
They’ll take good care of you. They’ll fix you up.” He nodded to the two men. They began to march Robert Proctor
out.
At the door he spoke. His voice was so full of pleading the two men paused. “You can’t really mean this,” he
said. “I must still be dreaming. This is all part of the test, isn’t it?”
The uniformed man said, “No, son, but you can try again later.” They dragged Robert out the door, knees stiff,
feet dragging. As they pulled, his rubber heels slid along the two grooves worn in the floor.
Ray Bradbury
“The Veldt”
Word Count: 4602
Published: The Saturday Evening Post. Sep. 23, 1950 issue. Original published title: “The
World the Children Made”
"George, I wish you'd look at the nursery."
"What's wrong with it?"
"I don't know."
"Well, then."
"I just want you to look at it, is all, or call a psychologist in to
look at it."
"What would a psychologist want with a nursery?"
"You know very well what he'd want." His wife paused in the middle of
the kitchen and watched the stove busy humming to itself, making supper for
four.
"It's just that the nursery is different now than it was."
"All right, let's have a look."
They walked down the hall of their soundproofed Happylife Home, which
had cost them thirty thousand dollars installed, this house which clothed
and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them.
Their approach sensitized a switch somewhere and the nursery light flicked
on when they came within ten feet of it. Similarly, behind them, in the
halls, lights went on and off as they left them behind, with a soft
automaticity.
"Well," said George Hadley.
They stood on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet
across by forty feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as
much as the rest of the house. "But nothing's too good for our children,"
George had said.
The nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high
noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia
Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede
into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt
appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the
final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with
a hot yellow sun.
George Hadley felt the perspiration start on his brow.
"Let's get out of this sun," he said. "This is a little too real. But I
don't see anything wrong."
"Wait a moment, you'll see," said his wife.
Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at
the two people in the middle of the baked veldtland. The hot straw smell of
lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty
smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air. And
now the sounds: the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery
rustling of vultures. A shadow passed through the sky. The shadow flickered
on George Hadley's upturned, sweating face.
"Filthy creatures," he heard his wife say.
"The vultures."
"You see, there are the lions, far over, that way. Now they're on their
way to the water hole. They've just been eating," said Lydia. "I don't know
what."
"Some animal." George Hadley put his hand up to shield off the burning
light from his squinted eyes. "A zebra or a baby giraffe, maybe."
"Are you sure?" His wife sounded peculiarly tense.
"No, it's a little late to be sure," be said, amused. "Nothing over
there I can see but cleaned bone, and the vultures dropping for what's
left."
"Did you bear that scream?" she asked.
'No."
"About a minute ago?"
"Sorry, no."
The lions were coming. And again George Hadley was filled with
admiration for the mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle
of efficiency selling for an absurdly low price. Every home should have one.
Oh, occasionally they frightened you with their clinical accuracy, they
startled you, gave you a twinge, but most of the time what fun for everyone,
not only your own son and daughter, but for yourself when you felt like a
quick jaunt to a foreign land, a quick change of scenery. Well, here it was!
And here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly
and startlingly real that you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and
your mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated
pelts, and the yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an
exquisite French tapestry, the yellows of lions and summer grass, and the
sound of the matted lion lungs exhaling on the silent noontide, and the
smell of meat from the panting, dripping mouths.
The lions stood looking at George and Lydia Hadley with terrible
green-yellow eyes.
"Watch out!" screamed Lydia.
The lions came running at them.
Lydia bolted and ran. Instinctively, George sprang after her. Outside,
in the hall, with the door slammed he was laughing and she was crying, and
they both stood appalled at the other's reaction.
"George!"
"Lydia! Oh, my dear poor sweet Lydia!"
"They almost got us!"
"Walls, Lydia, remember; crystal walls, that's all they are. Oh, they
look real, I must admit - Africa in your parlor - but it's all dimensional,
superreactionary, supersensitive color film and mental tape film behind
glass screens. It's all odorophonics and sonics, Lydia. Here's my
handkerchief."
"I'm afraid." She came to him and put her body against him and cried
steadily. "Did you see? Did you feel? It's too real."
"Now, Lydia..."
"You've got to tell Wendy and Peter not to read any more on Africa."
"Of course - of course." He patted her.
"Promise?"
"Sure."
"And lock the nursery for a few days until I get my nerves settled."
"You know how difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a
month ago by locking the nursery for even a few hours - the tantrum be
threw! And Wendy too. They live for the nursery."
"It's got to be locked, that's all there is to it."
"All right." Reluctantly he locked the huge door. "You've been working
too hard. You need a rest."
"I don't know - I don't know," she said, blowing her nose, sitting down
in a chair that immediately began to rock and comfort her. "Maybe I don't
have enough to do. Maybe I have time to think too much. Why don't we shut
the whole house off for a few days and take a vacation?"
"You mean you want to fry my eggs for me?"
"Yes." She nodded.
"And dam my socks?"
"Yes." A frantic, watery-eyed nodding.
"And sweep the house?"
"Yes, yes - oh, yes!''
"But I thought that's why we bought this house, so we wouldn't have to
do anything?"
"That's just it. I feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and
mother now, and nursemaid. Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a
bath and scrub the children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub
bath can? I cannot. And it isn't just me. It's you. You've been awfully
nervous lately."
"I suppose I have been smoking too much."
"You look as if you didn't know what to do with yourself in this house,
either. You smoke a little more every morning and drink a little more every
afternoon and need a little more sedative every night. You're beginning to
feel unnecessary too."
"Am I?" He paused and tried to feel into himself to see what was really
there.
"Oh, George!" She looked beyond him, at the nursery door. "Those lions
can't get out of there, can they?"
He looked at the door and saw it tremble as if something had jumped
against it from the other side.
"Of course not," he said.
At dinner they ate alone, for Wendy and Peter were at a special plastic
carnival across town and bad televised home to say they'd be late, to go
ahead eating. So George Hadley, bemused, sat watching the dining-room table
produce warm dishes of food from its mechanical interior.
"We forgot the ketchup," he said.
"Sorry," said a small voice within the table, and ketchup appeared.
As for the nursery, thought George Hadley, it won't hurt for the
children to be locked out of it awhile. Too much of anything isn't good for
anyone. And it was clearly indicated that the children had been spending a
little too much time on Africa. That sun. He could feel it on his neck,
still, like a hot paw. And the lions. And the smell of blood. Remarkable how
the nursery caught the telepathic emanations of the children's minds and
created life to fill their every desire. The children thought lions, and
there were lions. The children thought zebras, and there were zebras. Sun sun. Giraffes - giraffes. Death and death.
That last. He chewed tastelessly on the meat that the table bad cut for
him. Death thoughts. They were awfully young, Wendy and Peter, for death
thoughts. Or, no, you were never too young, really. Long before you knew
what death was you were wishing it on someone else. When you were two years
old you were shooting people with cap pistols.
But this - the long, hot African veldt-the awful death in the jaws of a
lion. And repeated again and again.
"Where are you going?"
He didn't answer Lydia. Preoccupied, be let the lights glow softly on
ahead of him, extinguish behind him as he padded to the nursery door. He
listened against it. Far away, a lion roared.
He unlocked the door and opened it. Just before he stepped inside, he
heard a faraway scream. And then another roar from the lions, which subsided
quickly.
He stepped into Africa. How many times in the last year had he opened
this door and found Wonderland, Alice, the Mock Turtle, or Aladdin and his
Magical Lamp, or Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, or Dr. Doolittle, or the cow
jumping over a very real-appearing moon-all the delightful contraptions of a
make-believe world. How often had he seen Pegasus flying in the sky ceiling,
or seen fountains of red fireworks, or heard angel voices singing. But now,
is yellow hot Africa, this bake oven with murder in the heat. Perhaps Lydia
was right. Perhaps they needed a little vacation from the fantasy which was
growing a bit too real for ten-year-old children. It was all right to
exercise one's mind with gymnastic fantasies, but when the lively child mind
settled on one pattern... ? It seemed that, at a distance, for the past
month, he had heard lions roaring, and smelled their strong odor seeping as
far away as his study door. But, being busy, he had paid it no attention.
George Hadley stood on the African grassland alone. The lions looked up
from their feeding, watching him. The only flaw to the illusion was the open
door through which he could see his wife, far down the dark hall, like a
framed picture, eating her dinner abstractedly.
"Go away," he said to the lions.
They did not go.
He knew the principle of the room exactly. You sent out your thoughts.
Whatever you thought would appear. "Let's have Aladdin and his lamp," he
snapped. The veldtland remained; the lions remained.
"Come on, room! I demand Aladin!" he said.
Nothing happened. The lions mumbled in their baked pelts.
"Aladin!"
He went back to dinner. "The fool room's out of order," he said. "It
won't respond."
"Or--"
"Or what?"
"Or it can't respond," said Lydia, "because the children have thought
about Africa and lions and killing so many days that the room's in a rut."
"Could be."
"Or Peter's set it to remain that way."
"Set it?"
"He may have got into the machinery and fixed something."
"Peter doesn't know machinery."
"He's a wise one for ten. That I.Q. of his -"
"Nevertheless -"
"Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad."
The Hadleys turned. Wendy and Peter were coming in the front door,
cheeks like peppermint candy, eyes like bright blue agate marbles, a smell
of ozone on their jumpers from their trip in the helicopter.
"You're just in time for supper," said both parents.
"We're full of strawberry ice cream and hot dogs," said the children,
holding hands. "But we'll sit and watch."
"Yes, come tell us about the nursery," said George Hadley.
The brother and sister blinked at him and then at each other.
"Nursery?"
"All about Africa and everything," said the father with false
joviality.
"I don't understand," said Peter.
"Your mother and I were just traveling through Africa with rod and
reel; Tom Swift and his Electric Lion," said George Hadley.
"There's no Africa in the nursery," said Peter simply.
"Oh, come now, Peter. We know better."
"I don't remember any Africa," said Peter to Wendy. "Do you?"
"No."
"Run see and come tell."
She obeyed
"Wendy, come back here!" said George Hadley, but she was gone. The
house lights followed her like a flock of fireflies. Too late, he realized
he had forgotten to lock the nursery door after his last inspection.
"Wendy'll look and come tell us," said Peter.
"She doesn't have to tell me. I've seen it."
"I'm sure you're mistaken, Father."
"I'm not, Peter. Come along now."
But Wendy was back. "It's not Africa," she said breathlessly.
"We'll see about this," said George Hadley, and they all walked down
the hall together and opened the nursery door.
There was a green, lovely forest, a lovely river, a purple mountain,
high voices singing, and Rima, lovely and mysterious, lurking in the trees
with colorful flights of butterflies, like animated bouquets, lingering in
her long hair. The African veldtland was gone. The lions were gone. Only
Rima was here now, singing a song so beautiful that it brought tears to your
eyes.
George Hadley looked in at the changed scene. "Go to bed," he said to
the children.
They opened their mouths.
"You heard me," he said.
They went off to the air closet, where a wind sucked them like brown
leaves up the flue to their slumber rooms.
George Hadley walked through the singing glade and picked up something
that lay in the comer near where the lions had been. He walked slowly back
to his wife.
"What is that?" she asked.
"An old wallet of mine," he said.
He showed it to her. The smell of hot grass was on it and the smell of
a lion. There were drops of saliva on it, it bad been chewed, and there were
blood smears on both sides.
He closed the nursery door and locked it, tight.
In the middle of the night he was still awake and he knew his wife was
awake. "Do you think Wendy changed it?" she said at last, in the dark room.
"Of course."
"Made it from a veldt into a forest and put Rima there instead of
lions?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I don't know. But it's staying locked until I find out."
"How did your wallet get there?"
"I don't know anything," he said, "except that I'm beginning to be
sorry we bought that room for the children. If children are neurotic at all,
a room like that -"
"It's supposed to help them work off their neuroses in a healthful
way."
"I'm starting to wonder." He stared at the ceiling.
"We've given the children everything they ever wanted. Is this our
reward-secrecy, disobedience?"
"Who was it said, 'Children are carpets, they should be stepped on
occasionally'? We've never lifted a hand. They're insufferable - let's admit
it. They come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring.
They're spoiled and we're spoiled."
"They've been acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the
rocket to New York a few months ago."
"They're not old enough to do that alone, I explained."
"Nevertheless, I've noticed they've been decidedly cool toward us
since."
"I think I'll have David McClean come tomorrow morning to have a look
at Africa."
"But it's not Africa now, it's Green Mansions country and Rima."
"I have a feeling it'll be Africa again before then."
A moment later they heard the screams.
Two screams. Two people screaming from downstairs. And then a roar of
lions.
"Wendy and Peter aren't in their rooms," said his wife.
He lay in his bed with his beating heart. "No," he said. "They've
broken into the nursery."
"Those screams - they sound familiar."
"Do they?"
"Yes, awfully."
And although their beds tried very bard, the two adults couldn't be
rocked to sleep for another hour. A smell of cats was in the night air.
"Father?" said Peter.
"Yes."
Peter looked at his shoes. He never looked at his father any more, nor
at his mother. "You aren't going to lock up the nursery for good, are you?"
"That all depends."
"On what?" snapped Peter.
"On you and your sister. If you intersperse this Africa with a little
variety - oh, Sweden perhaps, or Denmark or China -"
"I thought we were free to play as we wished."
"You are, within reasonable bounds."
"What's wrong with Africa, Father?"
"Oh, so now you admit you have been conjuring up Africa, do you?"
"I wouldn't want the nursery locked up," said Peter coldly. "Ever."
"Matter of fact, we're thinking of turning the whole house off for
about a month. Live sort of a carefree one-for-all existence."
"That sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of
letting the shoe tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my hair and
give myself a bath?"
"It would be fun for a change, don't you think?"
"No, it would be horrid. I didn't like it when you took out the picture
painter last month."
"That's because I wanted you to learn to paint all by yourself, son."
"I don't want to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else
is there to do?"
"All right, go play in Africa."
"Will you shut off the house sometime soon?"
"We're considering it."
"I don't think you'd better consider it any more, Father."
"I won't have any threats from my son!"
"Very well." And Peter strolled off to the nursery.
"Am I on time?" said David McClean.
"Breakfast?" asked George Hadley.
"Thanks, had some. What's the trouble?"
"David, you're a psychologist."
"I should hope so."
"Well, then, have a look at our nursery. You saw it a year ago when you
dropped by; did you notice anything peculiar about it then?"
"Can't say I did; the usual violences, a tendency toward a slight
paranoia here or there, usual in children because they feel persecuted by
parents constantly, but, oh, really nothing."
They walked down the ball. "I locked the nursery up," explained the
father, "and the children broke back into it during the night. I let them
stay so they could form the patterns for you to see."
There was a terrible screaming from the nursery.
"There it is," said George Hadley. "See what you make of it."
They walked in on the children without rapping.
The screams had faded. The lions were feeding.
"Run outside a moment, children," said George Hadley. "No, don't change
the mental combination. Leave the walls as they are. Get!"
With the children gone, the two men stood studying the lions clustered
at a distance, eating with great relish whatever it was they had caught.
"I wish I knew what it was," said George Hadley. "Sometimes I can
almost see. Do you think if I brought high-powered binoculars here and -"
David McClean laughed dryly. "Hardly." He turned to study all four
walls. "How long has this been going on?"
"A little over a month."
"It certainly doesn't feel good."
"I want facts, not feelings."
"My dear George, a psychologist never saw a fact in his life. He only
hears about feelings; vague things. This doesn't feel good, I tell you.
Trust my hunches and my instincts. I have a nose for something bad. This is
very bad. My advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your
children brought to me every day during the next year for treatment."
"Is it that bad?"
"I'm afraid so. One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that
we could study the patterns left on the walls by the child's mind, study at
our leisure, and help the child. In this case, however, the room has become
a channel toward-destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them."
"Didn't you sense this before?"
"I sensed only that you bad spoiled your children more than most. And
now you're letting them down in some way. What way?"
"I wouldn't let them go to New York."
"What else?"
"I've taken a few machines from the house and threatened them, a month
ago, with closing up the nursery unless they did their homework. I did close
it for a few days to show I meant business."
"Ah, ha!"
"Does that mean anything?"
"Everything. Where before they had a Santa Claus now they have a
Scrooge. Children prefer Santas. You've let this room and this house replace
you and your wife in your children's affections. This room is their mother
and father, far more important in their lives than their real parents. And
now you come along and want to shut it off. No wonder there's hatred here.
You can feel it coming out of the sky. Feel that sun. George, you'll have to
change your life. Like too many others, you've built it around creature
comforts. Why, you'd starve tomorrow if something went wrong in your
kitchen. You wouldn't know bow to tap an egg. Nevertheless, turn everything
off. Start new. It'll take time. But we'll make good children out of bad in
a year, wait and see."
"But won't the shock be too much for the children, shutting the room up
abruptly, for good?"
"I don't want them going any deeper into this, that's all."
The lions were finished with their red feast.
The lions were standing on the edge of the clearing watching the two
men.
"Now I'm feeling persecuted," said McClean. "Let's get out of here. I
never have cared for these damned rooms. Make me nervous."
"The lions look real, don't they?" said George Hadley. I don't suppose
there's any way -"
"What?"
"- that they could become real?"
"Not that I know."
"Some flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?"
"No."
They went to the door.
"I don't imagine the room will like being turned off," said the father.
"Nothing ever likes to die - even a room."
"I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off?"
"Paranoia is thick around here today," said David McClean. "You can
follow it like a spoor. Hello." He bent and picked up a bloody scarf. "This
yours?"
"No." George Hadley's face was rigid. "It belongs to Lydia."
They went to the fuse box together and threw the switch that killed the
nursery.
The two children were in hysterics. They screamed and pranced and threw
things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture.
"You can't do that to the nursery, you can't!''
"Now, children."
The children flung themselves onto a couch, weeping.
"George," said Lydia Hadley, "turn on the nursery, just for a few
moments. You can't be so abrupt."
"No."
"You can't be so cruel..."
"Lydia, it's off, and it stays off. And the whole damn house dies as of
here and now. The more I see of the mess we've put ourselves in, the more it
sickens me. We've been contemplating our mechanical, electronic navels for
too long. My God, how we need a breath of honest air!"
And he marched about the house turning off the voice clocks, the
stoves, the heaters, the shoe shiners, the shoe lacers, the body scrubbers
and swabbers and massagers, and every other machine be could put his hand
to.
The house was full of dead bodies, it seemed. It felt like a mechanical
cemetery. So silent. None of the humming hidden energy of machines waiting
to function at the tap of a button.
"Don't let them do it!" wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was
talking to the house, the nursery. "Don't let Father kill everything." He
turned to his father. "Oh, I hate you!"
"Insults won't get you anywhere."
"I wish you were dead!"
"We were, for a long while. Now we're going to really start living.
Instead of being handled and massaged, we're going to live."
Wendy was still crying and Peter joined her again. "Just a moment, just
one moment, just another moment of nursery," they wailed.
"Oh, George," said the wife, "it can't hurt."
"All right - all right, if they'll just shut up. One minute, mind you,
and then off forever."
"Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" sang the children, smiling with wet faces.
"And then we're going on a vacation. David McClean is coming back in
half an hour to help us move out and get to the airport. I'm going to dress.
You turn the nursery on for a minute, Lydia, just a minute, mind you."
And the three of them went babbling off while he let himself be
vacuumed upstairs through the air flue and set about dressing himself. A
minute later Lydia appeared.
"I'll be glad when we get away," she sighed.
"Did you leave them in the nursery?"
"I wanted to dress too. Oh, that horrid Africa. What can they see in
it?"
"Well, in five minutes we'll be on our way to Iowa. Lord, how did we
ever get in this house? What prompted us to buy a nightmare?"
"Pride, money, foolishness."
"I think we'd better get downstairs before those kids get engrossed
with those damned beasts again."
Just then they heard the children calling, "Daddy, Mommy, come quick quick!"
They went downstairs in the air flue and ran down the hall. The
children were nowhere in sight. "Wendy? Peter!"
They ran into the nursery. The veldtland was empty save for the lions
waiting, looking at them. "Peter, Wendy?"
The door slammed.
"Wendy, Peter!"
George Hadley and his wife whirled and ran back to the door.
"Open the door!" cried George Hadley, trying the knob. "Why, they've
locked it from the outside! Peter!" He beat at the door. "Open up!"
He heard Peter's voice outside, against the door.
"Don't let them switch off the nursery and the house," he was saying.
Mr. and Mrs. George Hadley beat at the door. "Now, don't be ridiculous,
children. It's time to go. Mr. McClean'll be here in a minute and..."
And then they heard the sounds.
The lions on three sides of them, in the yellow veldt grass, padding
through the dry straw, rumbling and roaring in their throats.
The lions.
Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and they turned and looked back at the
beasts edging slowly forward crouching, tails stiff.
Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed.
And suddenly they realized why those other screams bad sounded
familiar.
"Well, here I am," said David McClean in the nursery doorway, "Oh,
hello." He stared at the two children seated in the center of the open glade
eating a little picnic lunch. Beyond them was the water hole and the yellow
veldtland; above was the hot sun. He began to perspire. "Where are your
father and mother?"
The children looked up and smiled. "Oh, they'll be here directly."
"Good, we must get going." At a distance Mr. McClean saw the lions
fighting and clawing and then quieting down to feed in silence under the
shady trees.
He squinted at the lions with his hand tip to his eyes.
Now the lions were done feeding. They moved to the water hole to drink.
A shadow flickered over Mr. McClean's hot face. Many shadows flickered.
The vultures were dropping down the blazing sky.
"A cup of tea?" asked Wendy in the silence.