“I’ll tell you what,” she said, standing. “I’ll go outside and look into the garbage cans to see if she put them there, OK?” He nodded quickly. “Just stay in bed until I come back.”
“OK.”
She walked out, put on her coat, and went out the front door. Standing on the porch, she considered the next step in the behavioral modification procedure: she wanted him to think of her as an ally. That way he would be less reluctant to carry out her commands. There were numerous studies that proved people were more prone to be commanded by leaders they respected and trusted, even if those commands were contrary to established beliefs and morals.
After a sufficient amount of time, she went back inside, taking her coat off in Billy’s bedroom doorway to emphasize the effort she had just made in his behalf.
“Not in the garbage,” she said.
“Then where are they?”
“Somewhere in the house. I’ll tell you what. Tomorrow, when you come home from school, we’ll both look for them.”
“What if we find them?” He wiped the tears off his cheeks. A search was an adventure. Strategy was involved.
“You’ll hide them where you want them. But we can’t let Mommy know we’re going to do this. Listen carefully,” she added, coming farther, into the room and lowering her voice for dramatic effect. “Don’t even mention that they’re missing. Don’t ask her about them.” He nodded. “That way she’ll be off her guard and she’ll leave them wherever she’s hidden them. Understand?”
“Yeps.”
“OK, OK, let’s both get some sleep.” She went out to hang up her coat, leaving his door slightly opened. When she came back to go to her own bedroom, she heard him whimpering softly.
He’s filled with sorrow and fear right now, she thought, but that will soon convert to anger. When it does, I will have step one completed.
She went to sleep, satisfied.
Lois almost forgot about her next steps in the procedure the next day when news came of her full scholarship award to MIT. Mr. Van Dancer was very excited. She was called down to the superintendent’s office for his personal congratulations, and the principal had it announced over the public-address system. All of her teachers made a point to mention it in her classes and wish her luck. Teachers she didn’t have for classes stopped her in the halls during the passing between classes and congratulated her. By the end of the day, she had had her ego stroked so much she felt like a national celebrity.
It was interesting to note the reactions of the other students. For most it confirmed their image of her as something alien. It reinforced their beliefs that she was different from them: unmoved by the things that would move them, moved by things they would never understand. Old Star Trek fans who watched the reruns religiously called her the female Mr. Spock.
But Mr. Wasserman slowed down some of the negativity when he remarked, “It’s nice to see the colleges applauding scholarship with the same enthusiasm they applaud sports.” Some of the students reevaluated Lois. Perhaps she was a superstar of academics, comparable to someone who would eventually make the NBA or the major leagues. After all, they had known her—she came from their school. There was some pride to be gained from that.
Gregory Wilson was extremely proud. The announcement couldn’t have come at a better time, as far as he was concerned. His views and hopes for Lois had been challenged by so much lately that he was terribly confused about her. He had really become very depressed about his daughter. He had trouble sleeping nights, thinking about the fact that he didn’t like his own child. All of the ways he defended her against Dorothy’s accusation were paled and weakened by her recent activities.
Mr. Van Dancer, the principal, and the superintendent all made personal calls to the drugstore that day to congratulate him and Dorothy. Each call puffed him up a little more. Dorothy’s initial reaction to the news had been something less than enthusiastic.
“MIT? What kind of a name is that for a college? She would want to go to a school with a name that sounds like some kind of chemical. I’m surprised she didn’t apply to DDT. Is there a DDT?”
“You don’t know how stupid you sound. MIT is a top institution. Just to be accepted is honor enough, but to be given a full four-year scholarship by the institution—that’s a national honor. Don’t you know what such a thing says about their confidence in Lois’s future and Lois’s abilities?”
“I suppose so,” Dorothy said, with some sadness still in her voice. “I just know she’ll miss out on all the fun in college, just the way she did in high school.”
“Well, she’s a different kind of kid, damn it. She’s not you and she’s not me. She’s …”
“She’s closer to you.”
“She’s beyond me,” he said, forcing a smile. “I was nowhere near the student she is.”
Dorothy reluctantly accepted Greg’s evaluation. She subdued her own attitudes about the college and the honors and openly and enthusiastically accepted all the congratulations from various customers during the day. She saw that most people were genuinely impressed by the financial award. As the day progressed she began to modify all her attitudes. At least we don’t have to finance Lois’s weird career interests, she thought.
Lois was in something of a daze when she came home that day. She went to her room and sat with her back against the headboard of her bed and thought about the future. There were so many things she wanted to learn, experiments she wanted to be part of, teachers she wanted to meet. She had recently read abstracts by a number of professors still at MIT. She would be there, with them, in their presence.
She didn’t hear Billy come home, but he had been thinking about these moments all day. In fact, he couldn’t wait for school to end, and he was impatient with the school bus’s slow progress on the return trip. When Lois wasn’t right there waiting for him the moment he came through the front door, he felt let down. He called, but she didn’t answer, and he was afraid she had forgotten and wasn’t even home. He found her in her room, looking as though she had been hypnotized.
“I’m home,” he said, coming in slowly. It was always dangerous to walk into Lois’s room without her inviting him to do so. He moved tentatively toward the bed. She looked at him without speaking. “You said we would start as soon as I got home.”
“Start?”
“To look for Mick and Nick. Don’t we gotta do it before Mommy gets back from the store?”
“Oh, yes, yes.” Her face came back to life, and he felt relieved. “Take off your coat and hang it up by the door, you idiot.”
“I was lookin’ for you.”
“All right, come on.” She followed him out of the room. She stood with her hands on her hips as he hung up the coat. “All right,” she said, “where do you think Mommy might have hidden them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think, will you? If you were Mommy, where would you hide them?”
“I wouldn’t hide them,” he said innocently.
She smirked and shook her head. “Well, you’re not Mommy and she did hide them. Now, if you’re not going to help, I’m not going to do this.”
“In the kitchen?”
“In the kitchen. All right, we’ll try the kitchen. I work in the kitchen, so I know there are only a few possible spots. Follow me.”
After a quick search, she turned to him again. It was her theory that he would be more impressed by his mother’s action if he found the hiding place himself. This would reinforce the statements she would develop and strengthen his negative feelings toward his mother.
“Now where?”
“You think the basement?”
“She hates going down there. Especially since the bats. She wouldn’t go there.”
He looked around, thinking.
“Her room, maybe, huh?”
“Maybe. Let’s try it, but whatever we disturb, we’d better set right or she’ll know.”
She stopped in her parents’ doorway when they got upstairs.
“I’ll look un
der the bed,” she said,
“Where should I look?”
“Where do you think?”
“Maybe in the closets.”
“OK, but don’t mess up the clothes.”
She watched him go to the closet and walked slowly to the bed, kneeling down for a quick pretend search. He opened the closet and looked in, gently separating the hanging dresses and pants suits.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“She wouldn’t hang them up. Look on the floor. They’re not under the bed.” She stood up and waited. He got on his hands and knees and crawled farther into the closet. His shouts of joy made her smile. She came around the bed as he sat back, clutching the two teddy bears to his body. “Good going,” she said. “You’re a good detective.”
“They didn’t like bein’ in the closet.” She was happy to see his face register some anger so quickly.
“Who would?”
“Where am I going to put them?” he asked with real worry. He stood up, keeping them tightly pressed to his chest.
“You’ve got to give that some serious thought. She’s going to eventually realize they’re no longer here and she’s going to figure out that you found them.”
“So I’ll tell her I don’t want her to take them.”
“She’ll do it just like she did it this time—without telling you.”
“She better not.” He looked determined.
“Well, just to be sure, find a good hiding place in your room, and if she comes in and asks you where they are … ”
“What should I say?”
“Say … say you don’t know.” She smiled slyly. “That will really confuse her. Say you’ve been wondering about them, too. She won’t know what to say because she won’t want you to know she took them like a sneak.”
“What will she do?”
“She’ll probably ask me and I’ll say, gee, I don’t know. Then she’ll just forget about it after a while and you won’t have to worry.”
“We’re going to have to lie to her a lot.”
“So what? She lied to you by taking them without telling you first. That’s a bigger lie.” He nodded. “Come on,” she said, putting her arm around him. “I’ll help you find a place to hide them every morning after you wake up.”
“Thanks, Lois.”
“That’s OK,” she said. “Adults sometimes do stupid things. Just because they’re adults doesn’t mean they’re always right.”
“Yeah, like making you take your experiments out of the pantry.”
“Like making me take my experiments out of the pantry. I’ll tell you a secret,” she said, stopping at the top of the stairs. “Someday I’m going to have my own laboratory and I’m going to have free rein over what! do with as much of a budget as I need. People are going to want me to have that.”
“What’s a budget?”
“Money.”
“We coulda gotten money for the worms,” he said.
“I’m talking about a lot of money—thousands and thousands of dollars. I already won many thousands.”
“You did?”
“From the college I’m going to. I’m going to it for free.”
As they walked down the stairs, Billy Wilson clung to his two teddy bears and looked up at his sister with more admiration than he had had for anyone else in his whole life. Not his father, not his mother (now especially not his mother), not his teachers, not even television stars looked as big, as important, and as powerful. Lois could do anything she wanted; she could get anything she wanted.
His little mind was too undeveloped for him to intellectualize or philosophize. His thought process was quick and simple. I should be more like her, he thought. I should be more like my sister.
She kept her hand on his shoulder. He felt very secure and very safe.
“I think we ought to celebrate this weekend,” Gregory Wilson said at dinner. “We’ll go out to eat in honor of Lois’s scholarship.”
“Yes,” Dorothy said. “Why don’t we try that new Chinese place in Liberty?”
“Nope. It’ll be lobster and steak. The Old Mill,” Gregory said. Dorothy’s smile widened. She reached over to brush Billy’s hair from his forehead, but he leaned away.
“I was just going to get the hair out of your eyes.”
“I can do it,” he said, moving the strands back himself. Dorothy’s smile froze on her face, but she could sense that her son was acting differently toward her. Instinctively, she turned to Lois. Lois was always the first to realize when Billy had a fever or a stomachache. She knew if Billy had gotten into any trouble in school.
“He needs a haircut,” Lois said quickly.
“Yes.”
“I do not.”
“Come on, Skipper. You’ll get it for our celebration,” Gregory said. Billy edged closer to his father but looked down at his plate and played with the peas around his fork.
“Well,” Dorothy said. “I’ll wear that new pants suit I bought and those earrings you got me last Christmas. I haven’t had much chance to since.”
“Now, don’t start that.”
“I’m not starting anything.”
“Billy and I will do the dishes,” Lois said. “I have no homework tonight.”
“No homework? That’s a first,” Gregory said, winking at Billy.
“Nothing due tomorrow. I do have some reading, of course. …”
“Naturally. Come on, Dorothy, we’ll watch an Archie Bunker rerun or something,” he said. Lois started taking the dishes toward the sink disposal to scrape off the leftovers. Billy gathered the silverware. He stood next to her and waited as she rinsed off the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. She turned to’see if her parents were out of earshot.
“I don’t want to go for a haircut.”
“Forget about that. There’s something else I think you should do.”
“What?”
“You know those earrings Mommy just mentioned—the big gold ones with that jewel at the bottom of each?”
“I don’t remember.”
“They’re gold rings and big as this,” she said, making a circle with her forefinger and thumb. “How could you forget them? Don’t you remember the big deal she made when she got them?” He shook his head. “Well, that doesn’t matter. I thought of something to teach her a lesson for what she did with Mick and Nick.”
“What?”
“I want you to go up to their bedroom, go to her jewelry box on the dresser, and take those earrings out.”
“What for?”
“You’ll bring them down here and hide them.”
“Where?”
“When you come down with them,” she said slowly, pronouncing each word with controlled vehemence, “we’ll think it out. Keep them in your pants pocket. Now go do it.”
“Now?”
“Well, they’re in there watching television. It’s the best time. Just don’t let them hear you going up the stairs.”
“I’m scared to.”
“You weren’t too scared to go sneaking in her closets, were you?”
“That was when she wasn’t here.”
“You can do it,” Lois said, glaring at him. He turned and looked at the doorway to the living room. The sound of the television could be heard and his parents’ voices just over it. “Hurry, while they’re distracted. Now,” she commanded. He turned and moved quickly. She waited a moment and then went back to the dishes.
It took him so long to return that she was afraid he hadn’t done it. She stopped wiping off the table and stood up as he reentered the kitchen.
“Well?”
He drew the two large gold earrings out of his pocket. She looked toward the living room and then pushed his hand back toward his pocket.
“Go hide them in your room.”
“Where in my room?”
“Where you hid Mick and Nick,” she said. He nodded and ran out again. Her mother’s loud laughter made her smile. That was easy, she thought. Now she had
to be sure that he didn’t break when her mother discovered they were missing and went on a hysterical search.
“What’s going to happen when she can’t find them?” he asked when he returned.
“Oh, she’ll feel sad,” Lois said, putting away the coffeepot. “Just the way you felt when you couldn’t find Mick and Nick,” she added. He nodded; any remorse he had started to feel quickly subsided.
“Hey, aren’t you two finished in there?” Gregory shouted from the living room. Lois steered Billy toward them. Their parents were seated on the couch—Dorothy leaning back against her husband’s chest, his right arm draped over her. She looked back at them without turning her head.
“Just finished up,” Lois said.
“Come on in and watch the evening news. You can tell me the behind-the-scenes reasoning for everything,” Gregory said. “No sense having a resident genius in the house if we don’t use her,” he added. Dorothy laughed.
“Nothing very interesting happened today,” Lois said. “I want to do some reading.”
“You gotta learn to relax some, kid. Don’t take after your old man.”
“That’s for sure,” Dorothy said. They both laughed. “How about you, Billy? Wanna sit * by Mommy? C’mon.” She pulled her legs up to make a spot on the couch.
“No,” he said quickly. “I wanna work on my puzzle.”
“You can bring it in here, son,” Gregory said. From the way Dorothy tightened up against his body, he could sense she was upset by Billy’s rejection.
“I wanna work in my room,” he said and followed Lois out.
Dorothy sat up slowly, folding her arms across her chest.
“I don’t care what you say. Scholarship or no scholarship …”
“Now, don’t start in, Dorothy,” he said. She didn’t say another word about it, but she didn’t have to—the sentences lingered in the air about them, diluting their happiness and wedging them apart. They remained seated on the couch, staring at the television set. They went to sleep when they finally grew bored with each other’s silence.
10
It happened the night they were to go out for the dinner of celebration. Later on, Lois would see much irony in that. Dorothy, during her own hysterical moments, would actually voice the belief that her missing earrings and the subsequent frantic search for them had much to do with what happened. Lois would have found that ironic too, if it weren’t for the depths of guilt such an idea was to instill in Billy. That would create complications for Lois—nothing she couldn’t handle, but still, complications.
Brain Child Page 13
