11

The Beginnings of a Birthday Party

An awful week of worry set in.

I did most of the worrying. Dooley got resigned pretty quick. He really expected the worst to happen. Here we’d gone down to Madame Sosostris’s hoping to find a cure for the complications of his being a genie, and all we’d found out was that if he did fall in love with Rose, it was back to the rug. And in addition—to make matters worse—if he heard just one word, even accidentally, it was right back there just-like-that!

He explained it to me, though, Dooley did. He said that magic was like that—very unlike humanity. If two people have a quarrel, say, they can fume for days and then change their minds. You almost always get a second chance. But not with magic. It’s very much stronger than human nature—but also much weaker, more vulnerable. Just one wrong word, or a sinister gesture, and a palace or a whole big city built by sorcery can zip into oblivion. Dooley said that that was the reason the Wizard forbade him to love. He said love was humanity’s strongest point, and the thing that challenged magic most … I’m not sure I understand what he means, yet.

And poor Sam! We explained the situation to him, and if you ever saw anyone look dejected, you should have seen the face on this frightened basset-man. For a while he didn’t say anything—just looked around the pet shop he loved. Then he made me promise, “If anything does happen, Timmy—I mean, if my dog gets too obvious—you will take care of the animals?”

“Sure, Sam.” I did a stiff-upper-lip.

“Lucy’s rich, and—”

“Sam!—I promise. Even if I have to sell Lorenzo’s books.”

It was awful!… It was one of those times like when someone is dying. And nobody’s willing to admit a thing.

It also was awful for Dooley and Rose. He and I decided that the best thing would be if he didn’t come to the apartment any more. Or at least as little as possible—only to pick up Aunt Lucy at the door when she had to be driven somewhere, and for very fast lunches. The rest of the time, in his own apartment, he’d concentrate on the spell, to keep Sam manly.

Rose was terribly hurt, but she wouldn’t admit it. She hid it by saying in a newspaper voice, “Such a waste—such a criminal waste. With a voice like that.” Because Dooley had stopped his singing, too, to stay away from her.

Rose was a special problem for me. All during that week I could think of nothing but one word—Allah—and how I could keep Dooley from hearing it. I told him to stay away from the United Nations, where there might be Near Eastern diplomats. And we had to give up going to Armenian restaurants. (He was teaching me to like all his favorite foods.) Then all of a sudden a danger point showed up right in the apartment.

It was those darn crossword puzzles of Rose. I came in to breakfast one morning, and before I could even say “scrambled,” which is how I wanted my eggs that day, she went on to ask me, “And what’s a potent Near Eastern deity, in five letters, Mr. Wisdom—from all you picked up in that shop in the Village?”

Well, I can tell you the thought of eggs instantly vanished from my mind! As it turned out, the name they wanted was Thoth, that Egyptian god they have the statue of up in the museum. But it set my mind to wondering. “Do those puzzles often ask questions like that, Rose?”

“All the time. I think the person who makes them up has a thing about religion. I get asked for the names of saints, Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, pre-Columbian somebody or other—it isn’t fair.” She began scrambling. “If your high-talkin’ friend would do something more than just stick his face in here, he could probably help me with them a lot. With all the traveling he says he’s done … The River Jordan—ha!”

So after that I had to get up very early every morning—the paper got delivered to the door—and go through the crossword puzzle bleary-eyed. Because I hate to get up early.

A really rotten week … But at least I couldn’t think of any other way that Dooley could hear the Mohammedan word. At least New York has this advantage: everyone swears in Christian here.

It was rough on Aunt Lucy, too. More so than I knew at the time.

She took me aside one morning for one of those serious “grownup” talks that a grownup has with a kid when he knows that the kid won’t like what he hears. It seems that the testing psychologist, with Mr. Watkins’s enthusiastic support, had come to the conclusion that I was an antisocial child, about as well adjusted as a polar bear in Central Africa, and I did need to go to summer camp—for all of August. Of course I objected violently. But only because the spell was hanging by a thread, and heaven knew what might happen in my absence. However, Aunt Lucy, with that chipmunk mind of hers, interpreted my resistance as absolute proof that the psychologist and Mr. Watkins were right. And they weren’t! They were both dead wrong. You may not believe it, but I like the company of kids my own age. If they’re interesting and fun, that is. Like Jimmy and Irving.

I asked Aunt Lucy if I could postpone it until next year—or shorten it to two weeks at least … No! No! No!… There was nothing to do but give in gracefully—and hope for the best.

But then, after the grownup part was through, our conversation got interesting. Aunt Lucy began to pick my brains about Sam. I still don’t know if she knew what she was doing, but that little animal inside her, which had lately begun to spruce up, was feeling lonely and uncertain.

“How’s the pet shop going?” she nonchalantly asked.

“Oh, fine.”

“Sam seems to be very busy these days.”

“He is.” He’d been avoiding her. We had a talk about it, and Sam decided that if Dooley did lose control completely and Sam reverted to being a dog, he didn’t want it to happen in front of Aunt Lucy. It would have upset her terribly.

“I’ve stopped by a couple of times—just on the way home—” she did that thing of being indifferent, which women often do when they’re not—“and he’s always so preoccupied. The rabbits need water, or the puppies new paper.”

“It’s a hard job—” I tried to cover Sam’s tracks—“running a pet shop all by yourself.”

“I thought that we were becoming good friends.” Of course she was dying to dig for information, but being ladylike, as well as little and pretty uncertain, she didn’t know how. “Has Sam ever said— I mean, do you think I’ve done anything to offend him?”

“No, Aunt Lucy. Sam really likes you very much. It’s just that—” It was just that the magic might collapse and Sam turn into a mutt again—and how do you explain all that to a maiden lady who lives in Sutton Place? —“It’s just, he has problems, that’s all.”

“Oh, well.” She shrugged it all off: unimportant. And then exclaimed, “But I have a marvelous idea!”—as if she’d just had a marvelous idea, when obviously she’d been hatching it for days. “Next week is your birthday—”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, I know all about you, young man!” Ha! She’d checked with Madame Sosostris, I found out later. “And a few days later you’ll be going to camp—so why don’t we have a splendiferous birthday party for you? You might even pry Mr. Bassinger away from his pet shop—for one evening at least.”

I think it was right then that I really began to like Aunt Lucy. She did want to give me a birthday party and make the grim going away to camp a little bit easier—but she also had doped out a way to get Sam back in the apartment again … I don’t mind people being sneaky—if it’s in a good cause, at least.

“Aunt Lucy,” I said, “I would love that!”

*   *   *

But she didn’t like the guest list much. There were no “little friends” on it. (Jimmy and Irving didn’t know any of these new people in my life, so why invite them? They’d only be edgy.) I asked Madame Sosostris, Felix, Dooley, Rose, Sam, and of course Aunt Lucy. And that was all. It was plenty, too. They were all people I wanted to celebrate my birthday with. But Aunt Lucy invited Mr. Watkins. Or, to do her justice, he invited himself. On the afternoon of the party, just before it was supposed to start, he called up and said that he had some literature on the camp I was going to—naturally he’d advised her on its selection—would it be all right if he came around? From the telephone Aunt Lucy’s expression asked me if he could.

She looked so hopeful, I nodded. My instinct said no, but my head nodded yes … It’s a big mistake to distrust your instinct.

*   *   *

So everybody arrived. With presents. And presents are hard for teenagers—I was turning thirteen—because when you’re a little kid, you can get toys and not too important things, but when you get up into your teens, people have to begin to make thinking decisions.

I’m sure Mr. Watkins had been clued in, because along with the stuff about Camp Jefferson, he gave me a transistor radio. I liked him then—and not just because of the radio, but for the way he gave it—“I thought this might be, well, fun at camp”—as if he was a little scared I wouldn’t want to accept his present, and he did want to be part of my party … I guess that kitten I adopted at the shop has been teaching me to like cat people, without my knowing it.

Rose and Dooley collaborated on their present—but only over the telephone. Amid all the things that Aunt Lucy had bought for me, before I moved up, she’d forgotten a hi-fi set. So Dooley got me that—with his own earned money, he assured me, not magicked—and Rose got me all her favorite records. She said that she always got people presents that she liked, because that way at least she was sure of herself … It was a great selection, too—all the way from opera through pop to rock.

Madame Sosostris was a bit of a disappointment. I’d been sending thought waves down to Greenwich Village about that antique bull’s-eye mirror, but she showed up with a miniature Eskimo totem pole. At first I was worried and thought I’d better whip it up into my closet with the rest of my weirdo stuff, but Aunt Lucy examined it with a great deal of interest. She was really coming along. For a while.

Her own gift was the biggest surprise of all: a beautiful set of prints of hunting dogs—really knockout drawings. “They’re wonderful! Thank you,” I said. “Look, Sam—”

Sam looked and mumbled something about how nice—but he got pretty fidgety and self-conscious.

Felix picked that up right away, of course. He eyed Sam, cackled his laugh, and asked, “Recognize anyone there, Fido?”

Dooley and I frowned seriously, and Felix shrieked an apology. He began to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Felix was really the life of the party. He was standing on the topmost rung of his new platform—that was Sam’s gift to me, by the way—and was he ever pleased with it! It had different levels, arranged in a spiral and all connected by elegant little curving ladders, on which my parakeet marched proudly up and down, cracking jokes and singing and having a marvelous time. I offered to set the stand up in my bedroom, but Aunt Lucy said—another good sign—that it was too beautiful, it belonged in the living room. So there it stood, with newspapers placed all around beneath it.

We were going to have a dinner party, called for sixish, and I wanted us all to have drinks before. Lorenzo had said that was very civilized—if it didn’t go too far. There was water for Felix, in a cup hung on a special hook right under the topmost platform, and ginger ale for me, and whatever anyone else might want from Aunt Lucy’s well-stocked bar.

I think that Aunt Lucy and Mr. Watkins were a little bit nervous at first, about having her servants as part of the party. But fortunately Dooley and Rose were not. And, being guests, they were not wearing uniforms. He’d bought a new suit, which was almost purple—but Dooley could get away with it—and a ruffled shirt, and Rose looked (not quite, but very close) more stylish than Aunt Lucy. She was wearing a slack suit and obviously enjoyed the pants flapping around her legs … I like it when some people show themselves off. If they do it the right way.

Although Dooley and Rose were guests, they were also very helpful. When it came time for canapés, they unobtrusively disappeared, and in a minute there was Dooley, passing a tray around.

He was also, less luckily, making drinks …

Sam had been a man now for a very short time. He should have been in his thirties—by dog chronology, that is—and he looked in his thirties, but as far as holding his liquor went, he was probably a few years behind me. And I’ve never had anything but half-glasses of wine, on birthdays down at the antique shop.

Mr. Watkins did a big-buddy thing: sidled up to Sam, put his arm around Sam’s shoulder, trying to be friends with everyone, and said, “How about a martini, Bassinger?”

But a cat wanting to be friends makes a dog uneasy.

Sam twisted out from under Mr. Watkins’s arm and said, “Oh—okay.” That was the first of Sam’s martinis.

The first of many … Now there are some things, like ice cream and steak, that dogs and people can enjoy together—but not booze!… I watched Mr. Watkins and Sam stroll off to the bar with a certain amount of apprehension.

I would have gone after them, to make a little margin between them, but Rose came up just then and said, “Hey, Mr. Birthday Boy!—you’re not the only one who gets presents today.”

“Who else, Rose?” I asked, with my eye on Sam.

“Me!” she boasted. “Look! A gift from our long-lost and elusive friend Dooley. He knows my passion.” She gave me a paperback book with the title A Selection of Best Crossword Puzzles, and subtitled—as if that wasn’t bad enough!—“gathered from English-language newspapers throughout the globe.”

That was just what I needed. I thought of the weeks that I’d be away, and Rose now having a grand excuse to call Dooley up and ask him questions … The poor guy—he’d probably say the word, in all innocence, and kayo himself back into the carpet before he even knew what hit him.

“That’s very nice, Rose. May I look through it?”

“Sure, help yourself. I’m putting on the beef—” For beef Stroganoff, a favorite of mine—I’d requested it. “The madame shouldn’t be too long with her tricks, should she?”

“Half an hour at most, Rose.”

“Okay.” She went into the kitchen.

I hid the book between the cushions of the couch. Tomorrow I was going to slip it down the incinerator, behind Rose’s back. And then have to lie about having forgotten where I had placed it.

Madame Sosostris, when I had invited her to my party, proclaimed that as a special favor she would do her magic tricks. And if Madame Sosostris was a success as an antique dealer, and a moderate success as a medium—at least trying hard—she was a disaster as a magician! All she knew were the old corny things like disappearing coins and handkerchiefs being pulled through rings and old-fashioned junk like that. But when I told Dooley we were going to have to sit through all her parlor tricks, he shined on me with one of his smiles and said, “Master, shall we also make this a special occasion for our struggling Occult Scientist?”

You can bet I said yes … So this was one magic show I was really looking forward to.

High time for it, too. On the other side of the living room Mr. Watkins and Sam had gotten into a heated conversation. In fact Sam, who was belting another martini, looked quite hot under the collar. Aunt Lucy, who had been checking with Rose about the Stroganoff, was casting anxious glances toward them.

I interrupted everything by marching out living-room center and announcing, “Ladies and gentlemen—and parakeet—Madame Sosostris has kindly consented to entertain us with a few magic tricks before dinner. Madame S.—go into your act.”

The humans applauded, and Felix squawked enthusiastically.

Madame Sosostris bowed and said, “For my first endeavor—”

Her first endeavor was usually the disappearing coin, a Spanish doubloon, in this case. It was twiddled around in her fingers a minute, and then, when the back of her hand was turned, down the sleeve of her blouse. And was it ever obvious—wow! Even Felix turned to me with as much of a skeptical expression as a parakeet can have and said mockingly, “Aw haw!”

Dooley and I had decided to let that one get by and start in on her with the second endeavor.

We all applauded for politeness’ sake. Except Mr. Watkins. Perhaps he thought it was funny or clever, but he purred silkily, “Delightful, Madame Sosostris, delightful. But would you dare to untuck your blouse just now?”

There was that awful embarrassed pause when someone you like is exposed as a fake.

“Sharp eyes, Mr. Watkins,” said Madame Sosostris. “For my second endeavor—” across the room Dooley gave me a colossal wink—“I shall produce—from the empty air—a series of the most delicate silk scarves.”

The series of scarves was produced from an enormous hollow gold bracelet she wore on her left wrist. The idea was to make it look as if they all were coming from the palm of her hand. There were five of them: red, blue, green, gold, purple—and each new one elicited an “oh” or an “ah,” from Madame Sosostris, if not from her audience. At the purple, the last, she did a big thing of flourishing the raggedy string in the air.

But this time, as she began her flourish, the purple was not the last. A gorgeous piece of silk appeared, with all different dazzling colors mixed into it … And now there was a real “oh” from the audience.

“That’s lovely!” Rose exclaimed.

“Yeah, isn’t it?” said Madame Sosostris nervously.

Nobody was watching him except me, but I could see Dooley doing little things with his fingers. Mixing colors, I suspect.

The next scarf to appear was even more brilliant than the first had been. I’m not going to try to describe the scarves. There aren’t that many words for colors in the whole English language. And if there were, I wouldn’t know half of them.

More beautiful even than the scarves was Madame Sosostris’s face—the changing expressions there. At first she just couldn’t believe her eyes and kept unrolling them like paper towels. But then, finally, she trusted what was happening. Her face flushed even more happily with each of the scarves she pulled out. It was just like down at the antique shop, with the Willy sisters—she was sure she was having a breakthrough.

Now she really became a magician—grandly unreeling scarf after scarf. Until it was my turn to wink at Dooley. Because enough is enough. Even of fun. Besides, I was hungry. I could smell the Stroganoff … And we still had the egg to go through.

Madame Sosostris’s third endeavor was a hard-boiled egg inside her turban. She would reach behind, as if patting her hair down, and magically produce the egg. I hoped it would work. There was one time, down in the Village, when she accidentally bumped her turban, coming into the séance room, and then gracefully called off the trick, excused herself, and went into the kitchen, where, when she got her turban off, her hair was all covered with bits of hard-boiled white and yolk.

Well, she lifted her hand up with a very grandiose, lengthy gesture—and just as she was about to extract the egg, her head suddenly drooped beneath an unexpected weight. She barely got the thing out in time, before it sprained her neck. And it was an egg, all right—but a huge egg, made of marble, so big that it filled her whole hand, like those sculptured eggs that come from Florence, Italy.

By now Madame S. was absolutely convinced that the Spirits were helping her out with her act. She reached around and patted her turban, to find what else might be there, pretending she was primping. I’d never seen Madame S. primping before, and as far as I was concerned, that was by far the best part of the show. She’s always been kind of a horsy woman and really doesn’t know how to primp; patting herself all around like that, she looked as if she were posing for old-fashioned movie stills.

But the egg was all. Dooley called off his magic, Madame Sosostris at last gave up, and we went in to eat.

Aunt Lucy had ordered the works: the table all decorated with Grampa Lorenzo’s oldest china, candelabra, and everything. I never thought she’d let me do it, but she even allowed me to bring in Felix. I perched him on one of the branches of a candelabrum, and he spent the whole meal yodeling and cracking jokes and repeating, “Wow! What a spread! It sure beats birdseed.” (He got that last from me. Because when I put him on the silver limb, I asked him if this didn’t beat birdseed.)

We were all in very high spirits, because of Felix and Madame Sosostris’s unexpected success. After getting over the shock of seeing her chauffeur and her cook sitting down at her dining-room table, Aunt Lucy enjoyed herself, too. All except Sam, that is. He was sitting on the opposite side of the table from me, fuming and woofing to himself about something.

We didn’t find out what it was until the time for dessert came around: baked Alaska, the climax of the meal—but it was spoiled by a fight beginning. “Timmy—” Sam burst out—he’d had wine with dinner too—“is it true that they’re shipping you off to camp?”

“Yes, Sam.” I hadn’t told him, wanting to break it to him gently, in private. “But only for a few weeks.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“What’s the matter, Bassinger?” Mr. Watkins purred. “Can’t you tend your pet shop without the little chappy’s help?”

“No!” I could see Sam’s hackles beginning to rise. “We’ve never been separated—not since that day I was found—”

“Shall we have coffee in the living room?” Aunt Lucy’s Sutton Place instinct knew just when to interrupt.

We all murmured our relieved agreement.

But it didn’t do any good … This quarrel had been in the cards, or the fur, ever since the two of them had met.

“But why camp—?”

“Cognac, Sam?” said Aunt Lucy, still doing her best.

“Sure.” Sam swigged down a snifter of brandy. “He won’t know any of the other kids—”

“I don’t mind, Sam—really. I think I’d like—”

“That’s exactly the point.” Mr. Watkins now became logical, which for some reason that I don’t understand made him behave as if I wasn’t even there. “Dr. Friedlinger said the boy was well on the way to becoming a regular little eccentric. He needs the companionship of his peer group, and Lucy and I—”

“Yes, and you, Lucy!” Sam glared at her balefully. “I don’t understand how you could do this—if you love him.”

“Of course I love him—”

I didn’t quite understand how a “little eccentric”—me—could also be “regular,” but no matter. The whole point now was to stop the fight. “Honestly, Sam—I don’t mind—”

“Well, I do!” said Sam. “And it makes me angry!”

“Mad dog! Mad dog!” screamed Felix, to enrich the confusion.

Aunt Lucy was pouring coffee like crazy, and Dooley and Rose were sitting side by side on the couch, with that embarrassed I-wish-I-wasn’t-here look of people who have to watch their employers quarrel in public … It was getting to the point where I would even have welcomed a few more lousy magic tricks.

By now Mr. Watkins had his own hackles up. If cats have hackles. He kind of spat out, “As long as we’re on the subject, Lucy—and this is something the little chappy should know—” Thanks a lot! As if I hadn’t heard everything already. “I’ve been thinking about his schooling. September’s only a month away—”

A feeling of dread got hold of me. “Public school will be fine,” I said hopefully.

“—and I’ve taken the liberty of getting in touch with the headmaster of the General Ulysses S. Grant Military Academy.”

“Military Academy!” Sam stood up and tried to steady himself.

“It’s a very fine boarding school.” Mr. Watkins stood up, too. “My alma mater. And I’m proud of it, if I may say so. By the way, Bassinger,” he added sneakily, “what’s your school?”

“Life, Henry!” Sam snarled. “I picked up my education in the streets. And why don’t you just keep your cold nose out of Timmy’s business anyway?”

“Dooley!” Aunt Lucy squeaked desperately. “We’re out of coffee—”

We weren’t, but Dooley took the pot, said, “Yes, mistress,” and bumped Sam purposefully on his way to the kitchen.

“Boarding school. And military school. The General Ulysses S. Grant Military Academy!” The bump had done no good at all. “That means he’ll be away all the time—”

It went too fast now. I stood up myself. “Sam—!”

“You quiet schemer, you! You just want to turn him into a little cookie-cutter person. All stamped out like everyone else.” And with that, I am sorry to say, Sam punched Mr. Watkins in the eye.

“Sam, stop!” Aunt Lucy was on her feet now, too. We all were, milling around like animals, not knowing what to do.

“You’ve had too much to drink—” I said.

“I can hold my liquor,” Sam announced, in a voice as unsteady as his legs. “Remember the time Lorenzo spilled the whole bottle of beer in my pan and—” His face changed abruptly. “I feel sick,” he admitted and lurched into the hall toward the john.

“It’s a proud school,” said Mr. Watkins defensively. He was feeling around the puffy edges of what was surely going to be a black eye. “With a great name. Indeed, in the minds of many military historians, the greatest name in the world—”

The door from the kitchen swung in—Dooley coming back with the coffee pot.

And from nowhere—dry space—a voice squawked, “Yes, indeed, in the minds of many Mohammedans, the greatest name in the world is Allah.”