CHAPTER THIRTEEN

 

 

They talked to Father Higgins for an hour. The priest knew Johnny was really a level-headed kid, even though he liked to daydream. And he knew that Johnny was serious in his concern for Professor Childermass. However, Father Higgins pointed out, there really was no reason to worry. "He may have been pulling your leg with that card," the priest said. "Or it's even possible there's a secret message in it somehow. But anyway, the professor clearly told me he might not return before Friday. Now, don't you think we should give our friend at least that long? Today's Tuesday. You'll only have to wait three more days. And then, if Rod hasn't called or returned, I promise we'll see if we can get to the bottom of whatever mystery you think you've found."

Johnny wasn't really satisfied with that, but he had to accept it. For a change, Sarah was quiet and shy. In the Catholic school that she had attended before, priests were mysterious and rather ominous characters. They came around to catechize you and to listen to you confess all the bad things you had thought or done.

Johnny and Sarah left the rectory and went their separate ways, but Sarah promised to call him that night. She did, right after dinner. "Listen," she told Johnny, "I've been puzzling over all this. I really don't think we should wait until Friday. Do you?"

"No. By Friday something awful might have happened to the professor. But what can we do?"

"We can keep an eye on old Freak-Face Mergal's house."

"What! After that—that walking skeleton, and the snakes, and—"

"They didn't hurt us, did they? Father Higgins is right. They're something old Mergal fixed up to scare people away. Only we won't be scared! Listen." And Sarah spun out a plan. A plan almost as daredevil and chancy as one of Fergie's. Johnny listened with a strange mixture of dread and excitement. He didn't really want to agree to it, but he was sick and tired of doing nothing. "Okay," he said at last. "Come over early tomorrow, and I'll see you then." He hung up the phone and wondered if he had made a wise decision.

That night as he lay in bed, Johnny studied the birthday card. What did it mean? Was it a cry for help? A warning of danger? Johnny counted the candles. There were twenty-one, seven of each color. The cake had pink, green, and yellow frosting, and the candle flames were yellow with orange centers. Did the candles have a concealed meaning, or the cake? Or did the picture mean anything at all? And what about the puzzling message scrawled inside the card? Johnny read it again. He wondered if the professor's mentioning the word hand had any significance. Of course, to say that you'd give someone a hand didn't mean an actual hand—or even a wooden one. And what in the world was an ear high in the sky? Nothing made sense.

Worn out, Johnny laid the card aside, took off his glasses, and clicked off the lamp. Everything that had happened began to whirl around in his head: Miss Ferrington, his job, the delivery man on the loading dock, the snow globe with its frightened little figure, the bizarre wooden hand, and brooding over everything, the terrifying Mr. Mergal. Johnny drifted into a troubled sleep still fretting about all his problems.

Much later he heard a fluttery sound, a stealthy tapping sound. Frowning, he opened his eyes. It was still dark, and the luminous hands of his clock showed the time was five minutes past one. Johnny turned on his side. A pale moon made the window show up as a vague rectangle, a little lighter than the darkness. A shadow flitted over it, and for an instant there was a scratching noise. Johnny slowly reached for his glasses, his heart thumping. He found his spectacles and put them on.

The air had a strange, dusty scent that he could not name. He squinted, staring hard at the window, but nothing moved there.

Johnny eased out of bed and looked outside. A thin mist hung over everything, pale blue with the moonlight. Again Johnny heard a quick, light tapping. Puzzled, he went to the window and pressed his nose against the cool glass, trying to see if some moth or night-flying bird was responsible for the noise. He had a clear view and yet could see nothing. The window was open about six inches. He cautiously raised the sash all the way, feeling the cool rush of night air. Although the tapping sounded again, nothing was visible out there. Still, he leaned over the windowsill to make sure.

With a sudden shock, Johnny saw that the screen was gone. He and Grampa had taken down the storm windows and put up the screens last March. The window was wide open now, with nothing between it and the night—

Invisible hands seized Johnny's shoulders.

Johnny screeched in terror as the hands yanked him out the opening. He clawed desperately for a handhold. "You're comin' with me!" shrieked the voice of Eddie Tompke. "Let's see how far ya can fly!"

Johnny fell headfirst toward the ground twenty feet below—

He hit the floor and thrashed, rocking his night table. The lamp crashed to the floor, and a book he had been reading hit him on the shoulder. Only then did Johnny realize that he had been having another nightmare.

The door opened and the light snapped on. Standing there in his bathrobe and slippers, his fringe of hair frazzled around his ears, was a startled-looking Grampa Dixon. "Johnny! What in th' world is—"

Johnny pushed up from the floor, and something black jumped off the night table, just above his head. It headed for the dark square of the window, flapping its wings. Johnny screamed as he recognized the malevolent crow, and saw that in its talons the crow was carrying off the card Professor Childermass had left for him. The window was open six inches or so. The bird flattened, sailed into the opening, and with a rattle of cardboard jerked the card through behind it. In a moment the creature had vanished into the night.

Grampa helped Johnny up from a tangle of sheets. "What in th' world was that?" asked the old man. "A bat?"

"A crow," croaked Johnny.

"Did it scare ya? Was that what made the thump?"

Johnny stooped to get his glasses from where they had fallen. "No," he said. "I had a bad dream, but I think the crow might have caused it."

Grampa went to the window and inspected it. "No wonder it could get in so easy. Screen fell right off," he said. "Funny. There hasn't been a storm or anything. Oh, well, I'll take care of it t'morrow." He pulled the window down so it was cracked open only a couple of inches. "I always heard that crows were a thievin' kinda bird, but I never heard of one flyin' right into a house like that. Maybe it was somebody's tame bird and thought this was its home or somethin'. Anyhow, it can't get in now with the window nearly shut. Hope it didn't take anything important. Y' glasses okay?"

Johnny had picked up everything. "Yes," he said in a dull voice.

"Sleep tight, then. Yell if that sneaky old bird comes back."

"Thanks, Grampa," said Johnny.

The old man flicked off the light, closed the door, and left Johnny alone in the dark. Johnny lay awake and thought about what had happened. He was more convinced than ever that the professor was in some awful trouble, and that Mergal was at the root of it. Every time he closed his eyes, he imagined the gaunt, bald Mattheus Mergal leering at him in triumph. Somehow Johnny knew that the evil bird had been sent by the would-be sorcerer, and somehow he knew that the card was already in Mergal's hands. What terrible thing had just happened? Johnny did not know, but he had the dreadful feeling that it might spell death for the professor.

Hours passed with Johnny tossing and turning, trying to get some rest. Finally he drifted to sleep, and this time his dreams were odd but at first not as frightening. He dreamed that he was over at the professor's house and that Professor Childermass was complaining about the Boston Red Sox. "They always leave us in the lurch," the old man growled. "Look at them! At the beginning of June they were in third place! Now they're in fourth, and they're sinking fast toward fifth! Listen to that stupid crowd boo them!"

In the dream, Johnny and the professor were sitting in lawn chairs in the professor's backyard, sipping lemonade under a clear blue summer sky. Johnny said, "I can't hear anything."

"Oh, you can't hear anything with your ear so low. Listen like this!" snapped Professor Childermass. He tilted his head, and his right ear began to grow. It shot way up in the air, on a long thin stalk, until it was higher than the housetop. "Now I can hear them down there in Fenway Park," the professor said. "Oh, no! New York just scored another run! Now the Sox are behind by three. Johnny, you have to give them a hand!"

And the next thing Johnny knew, he was standing at the plate in Fenway Park, the Boston ballpark where the Red Sox played. A New York Yankee pitcher was going into the stretch. Johnny realized he did not have a bat. He looked around frantically for one. A chubby batboy came running over, and with a shock, Johnny saw that the kid had Professor Childermass' face, wire-rimmed spectacles, wild white hair, red strawberry nose and all. "Here you are, slugger," the batboy said, tossing Johnny a light brown bat.

Johnny caught it, and it caught him.

The bat had sprouted a hand. It grasped Johnny's wrist, and he wildly thrashed the bat—

Smack! Completely by accident, the bat connected with the ball. "Run! Run!" shouted ten thousand people.

Johnny tried to run, but the ball field had turned to sticky mud, and huge clumps of it stuck to his feet. His legs weighed a ton, and he could barely put one foot in front of the other. Each time he did, the foul, thick mud sucked at his shoes, tried to pull him down. And the horrible bat had turned into the wooden hand, its painful grasp tight on his wrist. Johnny was not even halfway to first base, and everything happened in terrible slow motion. A Yankee ballplayer ran toward him, grinning, holding out the ball.

Only it wasn't a ball, but a tiny, bald, pink human head. It had a nasty, evil face, with a long nose, a gash of a mouth, and crooked, stained chattering teeth. Johnny frantically tried to back away, fell, and suddenly went rolling down a steep, steep hill. He woke up with a gasp and a jerk and saw that the window was full of early morning light.

Feeling woozy, Johnny sat on the edge of his bed. He looked out the window at the professor's house, with its ridiculous Italian cupola.

And then Johnny grinned.

His latest nightmare had solved one of his problems. He now knew why the professor had written the strange message on the birthday card. He knew what the ear in the sky was. And he even had a strong suspicion about what he would find in the place where billows rise.

Now all he needed was the courage to go look for it.