Mr. Meltzer pushed through the ring of boys around Mike. He picked Mike up and carried him to the nearest stairway, probably on the way to the infirmary. I wondered what Mike would do when the nurse examined him.
A serving lady started cleaning up the broken glass and spilled food. Moe leaned away from Eli. With both hands, Eli traced Moe’s outline in the air. He started humming again.
“Don’t!” Moe yelled. “Stop!”
Eli went on shaping the air around Moe. His humming got louder and deeper.
“Stop it!”
“Hum-m-m-m. He will change his ways.” He put a hum into the n too so it sounded like chan-n-nge. “He will chan-n-nge, or bad luck will follow him-m-m everywhere. Hum-m-m. Nothing will go right for him-m-m ever again-n-n. Now will he obey me?”
“What? How?”
“Feed me!”
Moe looked confused. We had all finished eating. “There’s no food.”
“You have taken-n-n the food of others. The Phan-n-ntom-m-ms are an-n-ngry.”
“I didn’t! You saw! I didn’t eat it.”
“Before this meal. The Phan-n-ntom-m-ms wan-n-nt reven-n-nge.”
“No, they don’t. They couldn’t!” Moe’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“These are the Phan-n-ntom-m-ms’ wishes.” Eli paused.
“What? What wishes?”
“You will take no more food from-m-m an-n-ny eleven-n-n. When-n-n we are twelve you still will take no food from-m-m us. You will forbid an-n-nyon-n-ne to take food from-m-m us. These are the wishes of the Phan-n-ntom-m-ms. Do you hear an-n-nd will you obey?”
“Tell them not to be mad. Uh, I hear and I will obey.”
It was torture not to laugh. I looked down at the floor. If I looked at any of the elevens I’d never stop laughing. If I looked at Moe I’d die from-m-m laughing.
I stared at the floor. I didn’t want to leave this. I didn’t want to leave my buddies.
Chapter 33
WHEN WE LEFT the dining room, Bernie and Reuben went to take over Mr. Doom patrol duty from Louis and Danny. Moe walked with us to our classroom. It’s a good thing he didn’t peek inside, because there was Mike, looking healthy and only twitching as much as he usually did.
“Did it work?” Mike asked when I sat down.
Fred passed by, laughing. “Uh, what are your wishes, wizard?”
“It worked,” I told Mike. “You were terrific.”
“Tell them-m-m not to be mad,” Jeff said, following his brother down the aisle. “Tell the phan-n-ntom-m-ms.”
Mr. Cluck picked up his lecture where he had left off before lunch. I opened my notebook and started doodling, writing gift in different fancy letters. Of course I would leave. I had sworn that I would, and I would. When I got the carving back.
And I would get it back. Someday. It would take a while to get into Mr. Doom’s office. It could take a month. Or a year. But when I did and I got my carving, then I’d say farewell to the Hell Hole for Brats.
Meanwhile, I would make the best of it. I turned the page in my notebook and started to draw Danny, who was chewing on the end of his pen and staring up at the ceiling.
The classroom door opened, and Louis, Reuben, and Bernie came in. But Reuben and Bernie were supposed to be watching Mr. Doom’s office. Something had happened.
On the way to his desk, Louis stopped by me and whispered, “At lunchtime he goes out and leaves the door open so the maid can clean his office.”
I could get Papa’s carving. Tomorrow I’d have it. “Thanks,” I whispered back. “Swell!”
It was swell. But the lump in my throat was bigger than ever.
I skipped going to the courtyard during evening recess. In our room I sat on my bed and opened my notebook. “Dear Papa,” I wrote. “Soon I’ll have your carving. I won’t have to be a prisoner here anymore.”
I tried to picture Papa smiling while he read the words. But he wouldn’t smile. I couldn’t make him. He didn’t want me to live in a basement, no matter how fine the house above it was.
That got me mad. He’d left me in this mess. What right did he have to tell me where I should live? What right did he have to tell me I should stay in a place I hated?
In my imagination he laughed. “You’re making trouble for yourself, rascal. You don’t hate it.”
“You’re wrong, Papa,” I wrote. “I hate being locked in. I hate freezing all the time. I hate Mr. Doom, and Mr. Cluck, and Mr. Meltzer.” I stared at the words. They were true, but they weren’t the whole story.
I pictured Papa’s carving. And, at the end of the line, after all the animals and after Papa and Mama and Gideon and me, I pictured the elevens and Mr. Hillinger lined up, waiting their turn to board the ark.
I didn’t want to leave them behind. I didn’t want to sail off without them.
After lights-out I sat up in bed. “Hey, buddies,” I whispered.
They started to crowd around.
“This better be good,” Harvey said. “I was drifting off.”
Harvey! I had forty-one reasons for staying, and he was the only one of them who annoyed me most of the time.
“Tomorrow I’ll get my carving back, and I want to thank everybody for risking your—”
“We always help a buddy,” Harvey whispered. “We never—”
“When are you going to run away?” Mike was scratching his side and hopping.
“That’s what I was going to—”
“Don’t tell us,” Harvey said. “That way Mr. Doom can’t torture it out of us.”
“I’m trying to—”
“We need to know when,” Eli said. “We may have to cover—”
I almost screamed. “I’m not leaving! For ten minutes I’ve been trying to tell you that—”
Mike started pumping my hand. “You’re not leaving!” He slapped me on the back. “You’re staying!”
“How come?” Harvey sounded suspicious.
“Um . . . It’s because . . .” I swallowed. “I’ll never find buddies like you anywhere. Um, there’s no point trying. Uh, and I’d just miss—”
“Good,” Eli said. “I hate to lose a buddy.”
“You were crazy to want to live with the shvartzehs anyway,” Harvey said.
“They’re better than you,” I said.
“Take that back!”
“I won’t!”
“Cut it out,” Eli said. “Somebody will hear you. You can fight tomorrow.” He started laughing. “You two love each other so much you want to kill each other.”
I laughed too, and Harvey joined in.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I added. “You just don’t know anything about colored people.”
“What’s to know?”
Irma Lee. Jazz. Mrs. Packer. Irma Lee. Rent parties. People having fun together. Aaron Douglas. Langston Hughes. A painting of Noah’s ark. Irma Lee. I didn’t say anything. I just got the rope out of my suitcase and started getting dressed.
“You’re going out?” Mike said.
“Yeah.” I was going to meet Solly. But it was too early to leave. I sat on my bed and waited. My buddies went back to bed.
Would Irma Lee be mad when I told her I wasn’t going to live in her basement? She’d been so excited about having me there. But I’d still be her friend. I’d still get out and see her.
The clock struck eleven. I stuffed my bed with my pajamas and my towel and Mike’s towel, which I borrowed without waking him up to ask. Buddies could do stuff like that.
The prefects played poker in a classroom on the first floor, according to Mike. I heard them laughing and yelling as soon as I opened the door from the stairwell. They were making too much noise to hear me, but they’d catch me if one of them decided to go to the toilet. I raced to the lobby, feeling like a hunted rabbit. I made it.
For the first time, it was colder outside than in. I climbed the oak tree. When I reached the branch that hung over the street, I tied my rope to it and let the end hang down on
the street side of the fence. I used it to shinny down, and then I climbed back up, just to be sure. It worked. I was out, and I could get back in.
I walked off whistling the song about Sadie Lou. Everything was going my way.
Solly wasn’t at the Tree of Hope. It was the right tree, because a man with a clarinet told me it was.
“Are you a musician, sonny?” he said. “You’re short on years and pigmentation to be looking here for a job.”
I said I was just waiting for someone.
“That’s good.” He started playing softly.
I was probably early. Solly had said he’d wait for me from twelve to one, and it might not even be midnight yet. I stamped my feet to keep warm.
A man walked by, touched the tree, and kept walking. Two more people came and did the same. A gray Cadillac—a V-8—pulled up at the curb. The chauffeur got out and opened the back door, and a white woman got out.
I knew her. She was the maid who’d led us through the crowd at Irma Lee’s party.
“Mr. Dave?” She came toward me.
Me?
“Mrs. Packer would like you to be her dinner guest tonight.”
My mouth watered. Dinner.
And Irma Lee. “Okay.”
“Come with me.” She turned back to the car.
Hold on. “Can I come later? I’m supposed to meet somebody.”
“Mr. Solly is waiting for you at Mrs. Packer’s residence.”
Then it was all right. “Can I ride in front?”
“Certainly.”
The chauffeur led me around the car and opened the door for me. The seats were dark green leather, and the whole inside smelled of leather. I slid behind the wheel. The top of it was even with the bridge of my nose. If I ducked down a little I could see the road and my feet could reach the pedals. There was the key. You didn’t have to crank a Cadillac. I put out my hand—and the chauffeur opened his door. I slid back.
“Nice car.”
“Glad you like it.” The silver buttons on his uniform clicked against the steering wheel as he got in. He turned the key and pushed a button, and the motor started. We pulled out into the street. “Do you want to steer?”
Nah. I could steer a Cadillac any old time. Sure I did! I slid close to him, but I couldn’t see the road, so I got up on my knees. I leaned across him to take the wheel.
“You have to let me see too,” he said, slowing down and moving me over. “There.”
I held the steering wheel steady, even though it vibrated like anything. We drove slowly down the street. I wished Irma Lee lived in California.
How fast were we going? Only fifteen, but the speedometer went up to a hundred and twenty.
“Turn right at the corner.” He slowed down even more.
I started turning. Not enough. The wheel wasn’t easy to turn. I pulled harder, putting my whole body into it. There. No—too far. We were going to go up on the sidewalk. The chauffeur turned the wheel back, but I could have done it. We were going straight again. There was Irma Lee’s house.
“Pull up here.”
I turned the wheel and got it right this time. We stopped.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank you,” he said.
The house seemed strange without the crowd outside and the hundreds inside. The front room was nice, now that I could see it, with purple wallpaper and a mahogany electric fireplace.
“Follow me,” the maid said. In the doorway to the dining room she stopped and announced, “Mr. Dave is here.”
I went in. Irma Lee was near the end of the table. Part of her face was blocked by a silver candleholder. Mrs. Packer was next to her. Irma Lee was wearing a yellow dress, and her hair was in braids tied with yellow ribbon. Seeing her made me want to dance the Charleston.
Solly was on Mrs. Packer’s left with his back to me. The parrot flapped its wings and squawked, “Mazel tov.”
I smiled at Irma Lee and waved, but she looked away.
Chapter 34
“DAVE!” MRS. PACKER stood and came toward me. “I’m so glad you could make it.” She took me to the chair next to Solly.
A colored man I hadn’t noticed came from somewhere and pulled my chair out. A butler? A real butler?
“Mama . . .” Irma Lee said.
“Yes, baby child?”
“Nothing.” She looked down at her lap. She hadn’t smiled at me once.
“So, boychik. Here we are with the leisure class again.”
“We’re ready for dinner now, George,” Mrs. Packer told the butler.
He disappeared into the kitchen.
Mrs. Packer turned to me. “What are you studying in school, Dave?”
I wasn’t studying anything. I was trying not to listen to Mr. Cluck’s bellyaching. “Umm . . . Uh . . . Geography. We’re supposed to learn the states and what their capitals are.”
“Baby girl knows all that. Don’t you, honey?”
Irma Lee looked at Mrs. Packer, quick and hard, and then went back to staring at her lap.
A maid came in and put a steaming bowl of soup in front of each of us. Nobody said anything. The only sounds were the click of the maid’s heels and the clink when she put the soup bowl on top of our plates. I picked up my soup spoon. It weighed a pound. Real silver.
Irma Lee lifted her head and looked at me. She was almost crying. I wished I knew what was wrong.
“Do you like terrapin soup, Dave?” Mrs. Packer asked.
The parrot squawked, “Ess, kinder.”
I tasted it and nodded. It was delicious, whatever it was.
“Terrapin is turtle in a tuxedo, boychik.”
“Eat it while it’s hot, baby girl.”
Irma Lee put her spoon in the soup and stirred it a little.
The maid came back to whisk away our soup bowls.
“Did you like the band Saturday night, Solly?” Mrs. Packer asked.
“There’s no jazz music I don’t like.”
The maid was back with plates of salad.
“Have you heard Fletcher Henderson’s band yet?”
“Once. Bandit and I stomped at the Savoy.”
They went on talking about jazz. The salad plates were taken away, and the main dish arrived: lamb chops, roasted potatoes, peas and carrots. I ate everything. Irma Lee ate nothing, but she moved her food around, especially when her mama looked at her.
Now they were talking about Germany joining the League of Nations. Dessert came. Apple pie with raisins in it. Coffee for Solly and Mrs. Packer.
Irma Lee looked at me and mouthed some words. I shrugged to show I didn’t understand, and she tried again. At least she didn’t seem mad at me, but I still didn’t understand.
“We can take our coffee into the library.” Mrs. Packer stood up.
Solly grunted as he stood too. “By me, that’s where I always have it.”
I hung back so I could walk next to Irma Lee. “Hi,” I whispered.
“Sorry.” She touched my arm. “I didn’t mean . . .” Her eyes filled up. “I was careful.”
I didn’t understand. We were in the library, the room with all the books, naturally.
“The green chair is very comfortable,” Mrs. Packer told Solly.
He sank into it. “Oy, I won’t be able to get up.”
Mrs. Packer sat on a dark red sofa. She patted the pillow next to her. “Baby girl . . .”
Irma Lee sat on a flowered chair across from Solly. She was tiny in it, and she patted the space next to herself, exactly the way her mama had. I sat in the chair with her. Our knees touched.
“Dave,” Mrs. Packer said, “baby child thinks I’m being cruel, but—”
“You are! Dave needs—”
“Baby child, listen to me. Dave doesn’t need—”
“Stop calling me that.”
Mrs. Packer said, “I went out this afternoon to visit a friend.” She turned to Solly. “I couldn’t take babe—Irma Lee, because Augusta isn’t well, and I didn’t want babe—Irma Lee to
catch a germ. More coffee?”
Solly shook his head. “No, thank you.”
“But the doctor was there, so I came home. I called baby girl, but she didn’t answer. So I hunted for her, and I found her in the basement.”
I began to get it. Next to me, Irma Lee shifted. I turned, and she was crying.
“Honey,” Mrs. Packer said to her, “you didn’t do a thing wrong. You were a good and true friend. Dave, you should have seen the things baby girl had down there waiting for you. Cushions from an old sofa, five pillows at least, paper and crayons and—”
“Mama, stop!”
“Dave, I keep telling her that you’ll understand. I can’t have you living in my basement. I’d—”
“The boychik was going to . . .”
So that’s what was wrong. That’s why Irma Lee was sorry. She thought she’d let me down. But she hadn’t. She never would, not on purpose. “It’s all right. I don’t—”
“See? I told you. Dave doesn’t mind.” Mrs. Packer turned to Solly. “I had another idea. If I helped his family . . .” She stopped and looked uncomfortable, shifted on the couch. “I could perhaps help a relative. A bigger apartment . . .”
Look at this! Mrs. Packer didn’t want me so bad she’d pay my relatives to take me.
“Wait.” I held up my hand before she said anything else. “Irma Lee, I was going to tell you tonight that I decided to stay at the orphanage.”
She flew out of our chair. Her face was streaked with tears. “I hate you, Dave Caros!” She ran out of the library.
I started to go after her, then stopped. I couldn’t run all over somebody else’s house.
“Go ahead,” Mrs. Packer said. She chuckled. “Poor baby girl doesn’t . . .”
I didn’t hear the rest. I pounded up the stairs and knocked on the door to Irma Lee’s room. She didn’t say anything, but I went in anyway. She was sprawled across her bed. She didn’t make a sound.
Her bedspread was all rumpled. A doll’s legs stuck up in the air. A book called My Antonia lay facedown near Irma Lee’s feet.
“Irma Lee?”
She didn’t move.