The View from the Cherry Tree

  He couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter, anyway. He crossed to his own yard and turned on the water, setting the sprinkler to whirling.

  Across the street he saw Paddy and Bo Crepps and Andy Dunbarton. They were wearing bathing trunks and carrying towels over their shoulders, off to the city pool. He wished he could go, too; it would be a lot more fun than hauling out sleeping bags and dodging little Neddy, but he knew it was pointless to ask. His mother would probably froth at the mouth if he even mentioned it. He sure hoped she’d get back to normal immediately after this blamed wedding was over. Well, as soon as all the relatives went home, anyway.

  Old Max’s car drew up at the curb as he rounded the corner of the house. Teddi looked bright and happy. There must be something different about girls; they all seemed to love weddings, no matter whose they were or how much bother.

  “Hi, Rob! Who all’s here?” She pointed to the station wagon full of luggage and the dusty sedan behind it.

  He told her. “And Neddy. Nasty little Neddy.”

  “Oh, he’s only a baby, Rob. He’s all right.”

  “Last time he was here he wet in the ­middle of my bed. Now Mom wants to put him in my sleeping bag tonight.”

  “Oh, probably they’ll put plastic pants on him, or something. He’s cute. Your mouth’s bleeding.”

  He touched it with a finger, which came away smeared with red. “I guess I picked at the scab.”

  “You’d better stop that. Darcy’s having fits now about the way you’re going to spoil her wedding pictures. It’s a good thing you aren’t an usher or ring-bearer or anything, so you’d have to be in the official pictures.”

  Max grinned at him. “She’d have you painted up with makeup to cover the black eyes and the scabs. You really are a thing of beauty, mate.”

  “I pretty nearly was even worse.” He told them about the falling flowerpot. “And before that some nut with a .22 fired into the yard. Didn’t hit me, I was sitting on the back steps, but it got Sonny’s tail and made it bleed.”

  Teddi’s concern showed on her face. “Did you take him to the vet’s?”

  “No. Mom said he could take care of it himself. He’s hiding under the house.”

  “I’d hide under the house, too,” Max approved. “Boy, this is one swinging neighborhood today. Listen, Teddi, do you think there’s any chance of ripping off a beer and a sandwich before we take on the next project? I’m about to perish of starvation.”

  “Sure. Come on in.”

  Rob watched them go. Good old helpful Max. He bet if Teddi wasn’t here he wouldn’t be around offering to run errands.

  “Catch me doing a lot of unnecessary work because of some dumb girl,” he muttered, and went to get down the sleeping bags.

  He had to get into his closet for his own, and he found his cousin Elsie there, putting little Neddy down for a nap on his own bed. Rob halted with the rolled sleeping bag hugged against his chest, looking at the child.

  He didn’t see what was cute about him. Anybody could tell he was a stinker, just looking into his big blue eyes. He wondered why they didn’t cut his hair; all those yellow curls, he looked like a girl.

  “Last time he wet on my bed,” Rob said.

  Elsie smiled at him. “Oh, he doesn’t do that anymore, do you, honey? Don’t worry, Robbie, he won’t wet.”

  “He’d better not. I just put clean sheets on the bed, and Mom says we’re running out of sheets.”

  His cousin smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry. Neddy’s a big boy now.”

  Obviously nothing he said was going to make a difference. Rob left, adding his own sleeping bag to the stack on the landing. Be lucky if he had a place to sleep himself tonight.

  He almost ran into Derek in the lower hallway. He thought Derek looked tired, like maybe hauling that champagne was hard work.

  “Oh, hi, Rob. I wondered where you were.”

  “Why?”

  Derek gave him an odd look. “Well, why not? I mean, everybody else is around.”

  “Dad’s not.”

  “Oh? Well, it doesn’t matter. I need to talk to your mother, actually. Do you know where she is?”

  “No. She’s not upstairs, I know that.”

  Derek followed him toward the rear of the house. “Who are all the people running in and out?”

  “Relatives.”

  “Are they all staying here? Where you going to put them?”

  Rob didn’t answer. Teddi and Max and his mother were all in the kitchen; Max had a can of beer, and Teddi was making sandwiches.

  “Hey, that looks good. I don’t suppose you’ve got another one?” Derek asked.

  Mrs. Mallory turned with a smile, looking almost her normal self. “Teddi, get the boy a beer. You want a sandwich, too?”

  “No, thanks. I had some trouble, Mrs. Mallory.”

  Rob edged over to the counter. “Is there enough tuna fish, so I can have some, too?”

  Mrs. Mallory’s smile had faded. “What sort of trouble?”

  “Well, with my car. It stalled. I got stranded a few blocks away. It won’t start. It’s the fuel pump, I think. I’ll have to go get a new one. I picked up the champagne, okay, but I still have it in the car. I couldn’t get it over to the ­Country Club.”

  “And the ice?”

  “I didn’t get the ice yet.”

  “Give me a chance to ease my hunger pangs, and I’ll relieve you of the champagne and go get the ice,” Max offered. “If Teddi can be spared to come along and direct things?”

  Mrs. Mallory sighed. “Yes, I guess so. Grace got that dress hemmed, and I think I’ve got beds figured out; pray nobody else shows up at the last minute. Listen, you kids are on your own for food until after the rehearsal. I don’t know what to do about the mob that showed up . . . I hadn’t planned dinner for so many.”

  “Send them out to KFC,” Teddi suggested.

  “Maybe that’s what we’d better do. Pick up some chicken and some more salads from the delicatessen, and that ought to stretch it. Maybe Max? . . .”

  “Sure, I’ll go pick it up for you.” Max stuck his head into the refrigerator and got himself another beer. “Hey, that looks good enough to be eaten twice!”

  Teddi made a face at him. “Is that a polite way of saying you want two of them?”

  Rob made his own sandwich and started for the back door. Eating outdoors was easier than watching where all the bits of lettuce fell.

  “You want to come along and help us transfer the champagne to Max’s car?” Derek called after him.

  “No, thanks.” He escaped to the comparative peace of the yard. Just before he sat down on the steps, though, he remembered that’s where he’d been when that nut fired off the .22. He hesitated, then sank down, probing the splintered spot with one finger. He hadn’t heard any more firing, so the kid must have gone somewhere else. Maybe he’d realized how close he came to hitting ­someone.

  He chewed on the sandwich, idly figuring out the probable trajectory of the .22 shell. His frown deepened as he thought he had it located . . . but it wasn’t very likely anyone had fired from upstairs in Mrs. Calloway’s house.

  The idea, when it came, was startling enough to make him stop eating.

  What if it had been fired from there? When he got to thinking about it, where else could it have come from, to hit where it did, at the angle it did?

  The sun was hot on his bare arms, but Rob felt a sudden chill, like somebody’d run cold water down his spine.

  What if it wasn’t some stupid kid, at all, but somebody shooting at him?

  Nine

  Rob tried to shrug it off, it was so fantastic, but the idea nagged at him. That heavy pot, too, falling from a part of the house where he didn’t think anybody ever went anymore. It had come from that front window on this side, and the shot could have been fired
from there, too.

  He’d lost his appetite. He put the remains of the tuna sandwich down on a step where Sonny would find it and sat looking at the house next door.

  After a few minutes he got up and slowly made his way toward the Calloway house, the back part of it. He walked right up on the porch, his heart pounding so it ought to have made his shirt stick out with the force of it, although he knew that was silly. The old witch was dead and carried off; she couldn’t hurt him. And if there was anybody up on the second floor, they couldn’t possibly see him or do anything to him while he was back here.

  The flowerpots sat in a row on the white-painted railing. Five of them. And there was a mark where the sixth one had sat, right on the end. It was easy to see, because there was a cleaner spot which had been covered by the pot and then stains where the water had leaked through it.

  Somebody took that pot upstairs. Why?

  To drop on me, he thought, and knew what all those people at home would say if he sprung that on them. They’d all bring up his macabre turn of mind, his morbid sense of humor, his poor taste.

  He was sweating heavily, although it wasn’t really so hot there on the porch. He stood for a moment, not really wanting to make the return trip across the yard to his own house.

  “Hey, Rob! What’re you doing?”

  Derek stood on the Mallory steps, watching him.

  Rob relaxed a little. It wouldn’t be smart of anybody to try to . . . to shoot him, or anything, with a witness standing by, would it? He went down the steps and walked toward Derek.

  “I was just . . . checking something out.”

  “Yeah? What?”

  “Oh, nothing special. What will happen now to the house, do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose my mother will get it. Why? You want to live in it?”

  Rob couldn’t repress a shiver. “No, I never want to go in it.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. She had a lot of junk over there, but I guess there’s some stuff that’s valuable, too. It’s a big, roomy house. A family with twelve kids would have plenty of space. Too bad some of it isn’t available for this crowd your mother has now. Are you going to have enough sleeping space for everybody?”

  “I guess so. Mom’s got it figured out.”

  “We’ve got one extra room. If you want to get away from that little kid, what’s his name? Neddy? Why don’t you come over and stay with us tonight?”

  “No, thanks. I can sleep on the floor like everybody else.”

  “Well, suit yourself. If you change your mind when you find out you have to sleep with six other people, let me know.”

  Max came out of the house, eating a piece of cake. “’Ready to go? You coming, Rob?”

  “No. Is that cake up for grabs?”

  “Far as I know. See you later, then.”

  They went off together, and Rob went in and got himself a wedge of cake. Nothing had happened when he was outside this time. Nothing at all. Was he just letting his imagination run away with him? His family all said he tended to do that. Maybe he did, but he knew when he was pretending and when he wasn’t. He sure hadn’t pretended either the shots or the falling flowerpot.

  If somebody had tried to get him . . . there had to be a reason. He bit into the cake which was moist and chocolatey, chewing slowly. He watched enough television to figure out the answer to that. A guy got shot at because somebody wanted to be rid of him . . . he knew ­something he wasn’t supposed to know, he’d seen something he shouldn’t have seen.

  There was only one thing he knew about that maybe he shouldn’t have. That was Mrs. Calloway’s death. That was hearing somebody talking to her . . . well, hearing her talk to somebody else . . . and then seeing those arms pushing her out of the window.

  He forgot about the taste of the cake, chewing mechanically. Had she really been murdered? Had somebody not just pushed her because he was mad at what she’d said to him, but because he wanted to kill her?

  He thought about it a little more, pouring a glass of milk to balance the cake. If those things did happen because of what he’d seen from the cherry tree, then the sooner he told somebody . . . everybody . . . about it, the safer he’d be.

  Only who was he going to tell? Who could he get to listen?

  He’d make one more try with his mother, he decided.

  He found her in the spare bedroom, supervising sleeping arrangements for Sylvester and Sylvia. There were some six people in the room, besides Marge, shifting wedding presents, opening and unpacking luggage, talking and getting in one another’s way.

  He had to raise his voice to be heard over the tumult.

  “Mom, I have to talk to you.”

  “Not now, Rob, I want to get people squared away here so they all know where they’re sleeping. So the kids can go to bed when they get tired, whether I’m around then to give instructions or not.”

  “But it’s important, Mom. It’s practically a matter of life and death.”

  “So’s this. Please, Rob, don’t be a pest. It isn’t like you to deliberately irritate me when you know I’m already frantic. Why don’t you go up and keep an eye on Neddy? He’s sleeping, and he may be frightened if he wakes up in a strange place.”

  “Mom, honest, it’s real important. It’ll only take a minute . . .”

  “A minute is something I haven’t got.” She didn’t notice the urgency in his tone; she was scarcely even looking at him. “Go on, look in on Neddy. When this is over, we’ll have plenty of time to talk.”

  Serve her right if somebody murdered me before then, Rob thought, anger rising. Only trouble is, I don’t want to take the chance.

  He climbed the stairs, stepping aside for a crowd of giggling girl cousins on the way down, reaching the upper landing in a foul humor.

  It was like one of those dumb old Abbott and Costello movies, where it was really important to tell someone something and totally impossible to do it. It looked funny on the screen, but he didn’t see any humor in it now.

  He eased open the door to his room and stopped, outraged. Neddy wasn’t sleeping at all; he was standing on the bed, taking apart the model of the Constitution that had taken him days to assemble. Not to mention that he’d spent two weeks’ allowance on it.

  “You little brat! Give me that!” Rob snatched at the remains, knowing already that it was too late. He’d never be able to fix it. He heard some of the parts crunching under his own feet.

  Neddy opened his mouth and let out a blood-curdling shriek; he fought for the damaged hulk.

  Rob was stronger, and force won out as he twisted the model out of Neddy’s hands; in so doing, he upset Neddy’s balance and he fell off the bed, striking his head against the corner of the dresser.

  The sound Neddy uttered this time was no bellow of rage but a genuine cry of pain. Rob stared at him, uncertain what to do next. Cripes, why couldn’t they have put him to bed somewhere else?

  Elsie came running into the room, scooping up her child, then whirling on Rob with a fury that astounded him.

  “How could you! He’s only a baby, how could you hurt him this way?”

  “I didn’t hurt him. I only took my model away from him. He wrecked it.”

  “Look at his head! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big boy like you!”

  “I didn’t do anything to him. He fell off the bed. I never touched him.”

  “What on earth . . . is he all right?” Mrs. Mallory stood in the doorway, looking from Rob’s pale face to the two flushed ones. “What happened?”

  Rob started to explain but Elsie got there first. “He knocked poor Neddy on the floor! Look at the lump on his head! Poor baby, don’t cry, Neddy!”

  “I didn’t,” Rob said, tight-lipped. “I never touched him. I only took my ship model away from him, and he fell off the bed by himself.”

  “A
great big boy like you,” Elsie said accusingly. “You ought to be ashamed.”

  “Rob, he is only a baby . . .” Mrs. Mallory began.

  It was all so stupid. They could see Neddy had wrecked the model, and there was no reason to think he’d pushed the kid. Why wouldn’t they listen? He said it aloud.

  “Why won’t anybody listen to me? Why won’t anybody shut up long enough to hear my side of anything?” He had said it too loudly; he knew that at once by their expressions, although at last Elsie had stopped accusing him. She compressed her lips, and carried Neddy out of the room.

  Mrs. Mallory looked at him with some ­coolness.

  “You’re being very rude, to shout that way, Rob.”

  He tried to keep his voice under control, but he couldn’t. He was hurt and angry and, yes, scared, and he couldn’t sound calm and unconcerned. “Why won’t you listen to me, then? I keep trying to tell you, and all you can think about is that stupid Neddy! It was his own fault he hurt himself, it served him right for wrecking my model! She was screaming, Neddy was screaming, and the only way anybody could hear me was if I yelled, too!”

  “I’m not yelling,” his mother pointed out, “but you still are. With a houseful of company . . . I hate to imagine what they’re thinking about you, Rob.”

  He was not going to cry. No matter how mad he was, he wasn’t going to cry, but his eyes stung. “What do I have to do to get you to listen to me? Nobody will even listen, and it’s important . . .” Somewhere in the house something fell and smashed; Darcy’s wail of anguish drew his mother further away from him.

  He saw her face close. As if a door had been shut, right in front of him.

  “That’s enough, Rob. Your theatrics are all right when it’s just family at home, when we have time to make them fun. But this isn’t fun, and you’re not amusing me in the slightest. This has been one of the worst days I can remember, and if you don’t shut up right this minute, I’m going to lose my temper and slap you!”