It was two days later that Colin got in trouble.
“Colin,” the teacher’s voice spoke to him sharply in class. “Your mind is not on arithmetic. Where is it?”
He did not hear her. He was not in arithmetic class. He was standing in a room in a castle, a beautiful sword in his hand.
“Colin!” she said again but he did not hear her.
“Colin,” she said for the third time and this time very sharply.
He jumped to his feet. “En garde,” he cried out and lunged forward.
He heard loud laughter. He turned and saw that he wasn’t in a castle. He was in school. There was no beautiful Countess clapping her hands in admiration, crying out, “Bravo! Oh such style!”
There was the teacher frowning at him; the children laughing at him. In his hand was not a sword—but a ruler!
“I don’t believe you are feeling well,” said the teacher. “You had better go home and lie down and I will telephone your mother.”
Colin walked home slowly. This afternoon he walked home past the drugstore because he wanted to buy some comic books.
The clerk pointed to the stack of comic books he had selected and said, “That will be two dollars and forty-five cents, please.”
“Charge it to my mother, Mrs. Mason, 805 Gaylord Street,” Colin answered and turned to walk out.
But the clerk who had long arms, reached over the counter and took the comic books from Colin’s hands. “Your mother,” he turned his back to put them again on the rack, “said none of you kids were to charge any more comic books at this store.”
So when Colin came out of the drugstore, he was not a happy person. The sky seemed to be a dreary blue and the long cement walk stretching before him to the corner seemed as if it would never end. What a world! No fun!
Then he had an idea. He walked back into the store and slid onto the leather seat of the stool before the soda fountain.
“What’ll it be?” asked the same clerk.
“A double chocolate ice-cream soda.”
But the clerk did not pick up an empty glass, spoon in the ice cream and then press the squirter. He laid an open palm on the marble counter. “Let’s have a look at your money.”
Colin decided to let him look at it. He dug into his pants pocket and brought forth a ball of string, a knife and two pennies.
“No soap,” said the clerk, which Colin thought was a silly thing to say. He wasn’t buying soap.
“Come back when you’ve got a quarter,” said the clerk.
“Charge it to my mother, Mrs. Mason, 805 Gaylord Street.”
The clerk nodded, but did not smile. “805 Gaylord Street! I see she hasn’t moved since you were in here a minute ago. She told us not to charge any more ice-cream sodas ordered by any of you kids.”
Now when Colin got outside on the street this time he felt twice as unhappy. He couldn’t decide whether to go down and get on a train or get on a big boat or go out to the airport and get on an airplane. Since he couldn’t decide, he started to walk home.
It was halfway up the block he saw it. It was lying like a ship at dock. It was red and shiny as a cherry. The tires were snow white and the nickel shone like silver. It was brand new. The seats were red leather.
“Jaguar!” Colin was so excited he was talking to himself. “A sports convertible Jaguar! What a nervous deal!”
He looked through the window. The instruments on the dash board sparkled like jewels. Had They—had They—left it for him? Oh, boy! Life was good again! He opened the door and slid inside.
He did not see the police car come cruising down the block.
Mother could not believe her eyes a half-hour later when two uniformed policemen walked up on her porch with Colin between them.
“Keep this boy outta cars that don’t belong to him,” they told her. Then they turned and went back to the cruise car.
But some of the neighbors were watching.
Mother was so shocked she could hardly speak.
“Colin,” she said finally, “what does this mean? There must be some explanation.”
Colin gave her one.
“I am the type for a long, low red convertible sports car,” he told her, “so why don’t you sell my bike and get me one.”
If Mother could hardly speak before it was twice as hard now for her to get the words out of her throat.
“It’s more my style,” Colin explained further, “and I do have style, great style. They both said that.”
Mother was able to use her voice.
“They?” she asked quietly. “Who are they?”
Colin saw that he had gone too far.
“Nobody,” he answered, “nobody at all.”
“I should think not,” said Mother, and her face was getting red. “And how dare you be brought home by policemen and then ask me to buy you a sports car when for two days you have missed all of your arithmetic problems?”
She held up two papers, one marked twenty-five and the other marked zero. “What’s happened to your school-work? You used to get A in everything.”
“Really,” said Colin, “how dull of me!”
Mother’s voice was sad when she spoke again.
“You will go upstairs now and study and you will study every afternoon from now on until your grades are good again.”
Colin started up the stairs. Pretty dull stuff this. Oh, well, there was a place where he was treated like a man. And only three more days until he went back there. He guessed he could stick this out until then.
Mother watched him go upstairs.
What had happened to Colin? There was a sly, secret kind of look in his eyes. She had seen that same look some place before. Loretta! Yes, Loretta!
And even as she thought this, Loretta came over to her and handed her a piece of paper. It was an arithmetic paper. In green crayon, it said, “D-minus,” and then it said, “shows improvement.”
Any other time Mother would have smiled. Today she didn’t. She was still thinking about Colin.
“That’s fine, dear,” she murmured as she handed it back to Loretta; “it says, ‘shows improvement.”’
“I know it,” Loretta answered, “I saw it. I’m the one gave it to you.”
“So you are.” Mother nodded. “I’m proud of you, Loretta.”
“I’m proud of you too, ma’am,” Loretta said.
On Thursday at ten minutes of four, Colin and Kathy finally found Loretta. She was sitting alone on the steps of the back porch. She was watching squirrels in the maple tree.
“Well,” said Colin.
“A well is a hole in the ground,” she told him without turning her head.
“Come on.” He was so anxious. “Let’s get going—you know where.”
“So,” said Loretta, “so what?” But she came.
With Colin telling Kathy to “wait and see and shh,” they ran quickly up the stairs to her room, Loretta following slowly behind, kicking at the steps of the stairs.
Kathy got frightened when she saw the tunnel behind the clothes closet wall and even more frightened when Colin pulled her across that funny part of the bridge. She turned here and started to run back.
Colin caught her. “Cream puff,” he said. “Come on.” He couldn’t understand why the Countess had insisted he bring Kathy. Loretta understood it still less. Slowly Kathy walked the rest of the way over the bridge and when she saw the big beautiful stone house she forgot everything else.
Kathy could hardly believe her eyes when the Countess ran down the steps crying, “General, they’re here. They’re here. You’re Kathy,” she cried, “and you did come. You didn’t forget me. Thank you. Bless you. And Colin—and Loretta. How kind of you to remember.” The Countess pressed Colin’s hand.
Remember? Colin had thought of nothing else. He had thought of it the last thing when he went to bed at night, all day long and the first thing when he woke up in the morning. But he didn’t say this. He said, “Oh, that’s all right.”
The General was bowing over Kathy’s hand. “Ravishing—beautiful,” he murmured.
Kathy was too surprised to speak. A general, with a sword, bowing over her hand, treating her like a grown-up woman. She tried to act like a grown-up woman. “Oh, thank you,” she said, “Thank you very much.”
The General turned to the Countess, “Countess, did you hear that? She said, ‘Thank you.”’
“I heard it.” The Countess smiled. “She is charming, utterly, utterly charming.” The Countess touched the string of green beads at Kathy’s neck, “She should be wearing real pearls.”
There was a cry of pain from Loretta. The Countess ran to her, “Loretta, Loretta, dear child, what’s wrong?”
“Let go,” cried Loretta, “let go of me—it’s my foot. I broke my foot.” And she held one foot in the air and hopped around with her face twisted up and her eyes closed.
The Countess called the General. “Poor, dear child” she said. “General, you must carry her up the steps.”
“Of course, of course” he said, and he picked Loretta up.
She moaned as he carried her in his arms up the steps while the others ran behind. At the top step he put her down gently.
“Better now?” he asked her.
“I can’t tell yet,” Loretta said, “but I almost died.”
Today they had tea in the Countess’s blue velvet boudoir. Colin did not care to try the boat bed because he noticed the General stood aside and watched all of this with a little smile on his face. But Kathy tried it. She could hardly bear to get out of it. “Do it again,” she kept crying. “Turn it on again.” She was enchanted with everything. Again and again the Countess had to set the alarm and they all listened to the sound of birds chirping.
Colin was amused at first. But after a while he got tired of this. He stood beside the General and when the General winked at him and said, “Women, these women!” Colin wanted to say something which fit the occasion. He finally thought of it. “The world is full of them.”
“You are so right,” said the General. “That was very well put, old man.”
Kathy fingered the ruffles on the Countess’s white lace dress. The Countess said, “You should wear white. White is so—so you.”
“Look out,” cried Loretta, “look out for my sore foot.” But no one heard her. The General was speaking to the Countess in a low tone. She nodded.
“When the time is right,” she answered him in the same low tone.
Tea was brought in. Today the tea was a chocolate drink in tall glasses with whipped cream on top. The cakes were baked with butterscotch and walnut fillings. The Countess and the General exchanged a look which seemed to say; “Now—now is the time.”
Kathy was speaking. “I always liked white.” She kicked happily at the table leg. “I had a white sweater last winter, but a boy named George Swenson chased me and I fell down and it got ripped.”
The General turned to Colin. “Did he die on the spot or was it a flesh wound?”
Colin sat upright in his chair. “What?” he asked.
The General’s face was stern. “This person who insulted your sister. You challenged him, of course, gave him the choice of weapons. I was asking, did he die on the spot or did he linger?”
Colin’s face got flaming red. His neck was hot, too. “Well, I—” he began.
The General’s eyes were blazing. “You mean he was a bounder. He refused the challenge and has since been dropped from all of his clubs?”
Kathy was puzzled. “He was George Swenson,” she said, “and he is Colin’s best friend. He plays at our house all of the time and he—”
“Skip it,” Colin shouted at her. “Pipe down and shut up!”
“Your brother is right,” the General told her, his face flushed. “The name of this cad must never again be mentioned in good society.”
Then the Countess suddenly leaned forward across the tea-table and smiled at Kathy. “I collect china and I would adore to see your teacup.”
At this Colin felt again that funny, funny thing he had felt the last time he was here—a frightening thing, a cold thing as though a cold breeze had blown into the room.
“Teacup?” Kathy had a little cake halfway to her mouth. “What teacup?”
Colin was cross. “I told you to bring it. That teeny, teeny teacup.” Then the same thing happened. He saw the Countess’s eyes get small and pin-pointy and the General’s hand go to his sword. Kathy noticed none of these things.
“Oh, that teacup.” Kathy remembered. She put her hand to her cheek. “I forgot it.”
The Countess’s voice was very low now and serious. “You—what?” she asked. “You did what?”
“I forgot it.” Kathy was getting excited. “Oh no, I didn’t. Now I remember, I remember.”
“Of course,” the Countess said. “I felt there was more to it. Do go on.”
“I gave it to Sharon. She has it in her dollhouse.”
The Countess and the General spoke at the same time. “Sharon—Sharon, and who is Sharon?”
Colin and Kathy and Loretta were all about to shout, “baby sister” when the General raised his forefinger.
“One moment, I believe I have it in here.” He leafed quickly through the notebook. Then he looked pleased. “Here it is. I’ll read what I have. ‘Sharon Louise Mason, 805 Gaylord Street, age five and a half. Occupation, nursery school girl. Characteristics: hair, long, silky; eyes, bright; disposition, unpredictable; hobbies, dolls, paint books and thumping on piano keys with soup spoon. Unmarried.”’ The General closed his notebook. “Interesting personality, that one—should go far.”
The Countess agreed. “The hobby of thumping on the piano keys with a soup spoon shows great originality. It could start—a trend.”
Kathy and Colin smiled. Loretta grinned. They liked to hear people speak like this about Sharon. She was the baby, the youngest, and she had always interested them, too.
Loretta said, “Sharon can play the piano with a soup spoon better than Mrs. Potts, and Mrs. Potts took lessons.”
Just as quickly the Countess stopped smiling because Kathy said, “That’s Sharon and she’s got that teacup. Is it yours, Countess?”
Now Kathy should never have asked this question. Because now the icy thing in the room got bigger and bigger and colder and colder.
“Mine?” The Countess was playing with the rose at her waist, but her voice was as sharp as the General’s sword. “Now what on earth makes you ask that?”
Then she looked at Kathy and now Kathy could see the sharp blue pin points in her eyes. She felt afraid. Colin was watching the General’s hand. It was on the hilt of his sword. Suddenly Kathy laughed.
“Not yours,” she cried, “I mean, maybe your little girl’s in her dollhouse.”
The Countess slowly sat back in her chair. The General’s hand left his sword. The icy thing seemed to go out of the room.
“I have no little girl.” The Countess sighed, then smiled at Kathy. “Except you and Loretta.”
Loretta moaned. “My foot! Oh, my sore foot! I want to go home.”
As they were leaving, the Countess took out her date book. “Tuesday at five, shall we say? Do come, and this time do bring Sharon and ask her if she would mind showing me her teacup. It’s a caprice of mine.”
“A—what?” asked Colin.
“A caprice,” the Countess answered. “That means something you want to do for no reason except that you want to do it. So do bring Sharon.”
Kathy said, “If we bring Sharon, we’ll have to bring Jerry. They play together all of the time. He’s our little brother and he likes guns.”
“Capital,” the General told the Countess, “I like his type.” And here the General snapped his fingers. “I don’t give that for a fellow who doesn’t have a drop of sporting blood in him.”
They walked down the broad steps while Loretta limped behind. Colin walked with the General.
“Gee,” said Colin, “the Countess has parties all the time.”
“Yes,” the General said, “we are quite gay here. And this is, as you know, of course, the height of the season.”
“Oh, sure,” Colin answered, “sure thing.”
The next to the last thing the Countess said was, “I can’t wait to meet Sharon and Jerry. Tell them not to dress on Tuesday. There will be—just us.”
Kathy was puzzled. “Not to dress? You mean, wear night clothes?”
“Something simple,” The Countess said and blew a kiss after them.
Then the very last thing she said was, “And do ask Sharon to bring the teacup.”
The minute they disappeared, she walked quickly to the General’s side. “Well,” she asked him, “what do you think? Do they know anything? If so, how much?”
The General did not answer at once. “Frankly,” he told her, “I am puzzled. They either know nothing at all or else they know a great deal they are not telling. I don’t believe for one minute that Loretta broke her foot.”
“Nor I,” said the Countess. “But that was not the most suspicious thing of all. The most suspicious thing of all was when Loretta said, ‘Let’s go home.’ Always before this she has said—‘go back.”’
The General sighed. “I noticed that, my dear. I hoped you had not.”
She did not answer for a moment, then exclaimed, “They are all far more clever than they would have us believe. I will not feel safe until I have that teacup back in my china closet again!”
He gave her his hand and they started up the steps.