Very Rich

by Polly Horvath

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “Ahem, right, ahem,” said Mrs. Rivers faintly. Despite everything, she still didn’t look happy. She put the paper down and folded her hands. “Listen, perhaps Billingston could come up with another question, one a mite, and I say just a mite, easier.”

  “That’s not the rules,” said Melanie. “That’s cheating.”

  “OUT!” said Uncle Henry, whipping around to glare at Melanie and pointing to the doorway.

  “No, no,” said Mrs. Rivers shakily. “She’s right, she’s, uh, up to a point, that is, well, it would be cheating. It’s not fair to banish her for speaking the truth. Rupert, my dear…?”

  “Just GET TO THE QUESTION!” roared Uncle Moffat, who had hoisted himself to his feet, was getting sick of the whole business, and wanted his cigar.

  “Right, right, then,” said Mrs. Rivers, and giving Rupert a sympathetic smile, she read, “In what country can Huambo be found?”

  “What?” asked Rupert in dismay. He didn’t even know what a huambo was. Was it a fruit? A building? A soft drink? A dance? No, this was geography, so it must be a place. Or did geography also cover things that were associated with places? Now it turned out he wasn’t even sure what geography covered. This was a nightmare!

  “That’s an easy one,” said Melanie, rolling her eyes.

  “Everyone knows that,” said the other Turgid, nastily gleaming. “You do, don’t you, Rupert?”

  “Can you read it again?” asked Rupert, quivering. If Melanie and the other Turgid thought it was an easy question, perhaps in his nervousness he had heard wrong.

  “No, I’m so sorry, that’s not allowed,” said Mrs. Rivers. “The rules state that I cannot repeat the question and you must be given no time to think of an answer, but seeing as how you’re a newcomer to this game, we will give you thirty seconds.”

  “That’s cheating…” began Uncle Henry, and then, because he liked Rupert so much, finished, “Oh, all right. A special dispensation by the rules committee. Only this one time. William, you may come back for the countdown.”

  “THIRTY, TWENTY-NINE, TWENTY-EIGHT, TWENTY-SEVEN…”

  The family now swarmed around Rupert. William, who had returned, had eyes gleaming like a wild dog’s. They chanted down together in one loud voice. If Rupert had any chance of retrieving this piece of arcane information from the dim reaches of his brain, it was now gone. All he could come up with was the next number that they were about to shout out.

  As the family chanted they closed in upon him tighter and tighter. Now they all seemed to be wild dogs and Rupert was the rabbit in the middle. Any second they would be upon him. His eyes fell on the boots. The boots! Could he grab them and run? He felt hot breath. He looked up at large staring eyes. The room was suddenly too warm. He was too full of food. He thought he might vomit.

  “TEN, NINE, EIGHT…”

  Rupert looked at the ground. And then, like a small flicker of light he heard the word again. Huambo. And something, some light went on in his brain. It whispered to him, familiar. Familiar? Something…He had seen that word on a map somewhere. He could see the map. And on it a large continent. Which one? North America? No. Asia? No.

  The room was swirling in waves, the bodies around him seemed to be bending like trees in the wind.

  “SEVEN, SIX…”

  And then he remembered. Africa! Once he’d been called to sit outside the principal’s office because John and Dirk had stolen the school secretary’s cat. He’d spent two hours on a hard bench as the principal tried to determine whether Rupert had had any part in the caper. He had had nothing to do and across from him on the cinder-block wall had been a map of Africa.

  “FIVE, FOUR…”

  Rupert looked up one last time at all their faces, some excited, some disappointed, some wishing just for things to be done with so they could do something quieter. He looked at his pile of prizes. His sweaters, his Cookie of the Month Club membership, Elise’s Nancy Drew books. THE BOOTS! Please, he begged his memory. Where in Africa? Please!

  His mind made one last desperate plunging attempt to come through for him. To come through for those warm boots and Elise’s books. He could see the shape of a country forming. He could see the letters on the map spelling out Huambo right in the middle of the country. Huambo was a city in that country he could vaguely remember from the map. But what country? he thought desperately. He saw letters forming on the map. He could almost see the name of the country. He would keep the books and the boots, after all!

  But his brain had just enough life left to think of the country’s name or imagine the warm boots and Rupert had spent that energy thinking of boots. He had one last image of fur-lined warmth and then the swirling was too much.

  “THREE, TWO…”

  Rupert fainted.

  What seemed like a second later, his eyes snapped open and he whispered as loudly as he could from the prone position where he’d slid off his chair to the floor, “ANGOLA!”

  But when he looked up half the Riverses were gone.

  “Too late,” said Melanie, smirking.

  The family, who had been packed about him like a wall of eyes, had already strolled away. People were milling about, getting more dessert, and heading to the parlor to read or to watch TV.

  “You lose,” said William, bending down so he could proclaim this directly into Rupert’s ear.

  “But I got the right answer,” protested Rupert groggily.

  “Isn’t that a shame?” said Mrs. Rivers. “You were so close. You almost got it in in time.”

  “This is the best game day we’ve ever had, isn’t it?” said Uncle Henry. “The thrill of victory! The agony of defeat! It was TENSE, wasn’t it? That’s what you want out of game day. Tension!”

  “It was gripping!” agreed Uncle Moffat.

  He and Uncle Henry departed for the parlor to finally smoke their cigars.

  Rupert watched them leave as if he couldn’t quite believe the outcome. The librarian, who had come out from behind the curtains for the big moment, leaned over to where he lay and explained kindly, “You are thinking you were so close we should just give it to you. But we’d already allowed you an extra thirty seconds, you see. We couldn’t do more for you than that.”

  “You’re not part of the we of whom you speak,” said Melanie to the librarian. “We hardly know you.”

  “Melanie, don’t be rude,” said Mrs. Rivers.

  But the librarian went chastenedly back behind the curtains.

  “This fainting is really a bear, isn’t it?” said Turgid. “I mean, a most vexing habit, I’d say. It’s certainly caught you out this time, hasn’t it?”

  “It’s not constructive behavior,” said Mr. Rivers from where he was polishing off the rest of the éclairs. “You ought to stop.”

  He picked up a pile of newspapers and left to read them in the solarium.

  “Oh well, better luck next time, old chap,” called Uncle Henry from his cloud of smoke in the parlor. “What a day! What a great day!”

  “Would you like a cup of tea, dear?” asked Mrs. Rivers. “And perhaps a bit more cake?”

  “I think it’s time I went home,” said Rupert, who could bear no more.

  “I’m terribly sorry about how this turned out,” said Turgid. “Could I have my clothes back, please?”

  AFTER RUPERT changed into his own clothes he tried to make his polite good-byes, but no one seemed much interested in him anymore. Some even seemed to not quite remember who he was. Mrs. Rivers and Turgid walked him to the door.

  “Here, eat a chocolate,” she said. “I was a nurse and I know to give fainting people sugar. It has a reviving effect.”

  Rupert swallowed the chocolate but no longer cared. His appetite was gone and chocolate’s wondrous properties seemed gone as well. Sweets could no longer make him happy. He didn’t think he could ever be happy again.

  “You weren’t a real nurse,” called Uncle Henry from the parlor. “Tell him. You were only
a nurse for Halloween one year. It hardly counts.”

  “It counts,” Mrs. Rivers called back.

  “Bye-bye,” said Aunt Hazelnut, who was passing through and shoved Rupert out the door.

  Billingston appeared after that and pressed the button by the front door to open the gate and then close it behind Rupert as he began his long, cold slog home. He could certainly have used the boots, he thought miserably as his sneakers, which had dried during the afternoon, quickly became wet again and then freezing cold. It made his toes hurt before they became blessedly numb.

  Rupert made his way through the very rich part of Steelville where the six other mansions were tastefully decorated for the holidays. He could only imagine the meals, the presents, the prizes behind those elaborate gates. He passed through the merely rich neighborhood with its understated decorations. Next, he went by the pleasant, well-tended yards of Steelville’s managers and teachers and business owners. Their porches were bright with Christmas lights and their windows showed warm scenes of family togetherness, bounty, and holiday cheer. Then he passed the poor but proud, neatly shoveled walkways of the factory workers. Here he passed lit trees in windows and the occasional polar bear inflatable. Finally, he got to his own part of town, where the lowliest of the factory workers lived or those who didn’t work at all tried to survive. The scruffy houses sat on derelict lots with mountains of salty, dirty snow because the city plows dumped their full truckloads there. Rupert could see little but the blue lights of televisions as he passed by and heard nothing but the merryless silence.

  Oh, why didn’t I remember that Huambo was in Angola before I fainted? he thought miserably. I’m so ignorant, slow, and stupid. I’m so useless. Not only had he no boots but he had no books. He had no way to distract Elise from her hunger or cold during the long nights. But…of course! He did! He did have something. The favor from the cracker! He might not have books, but he had a deck of cards. He would learn the card games he saw other children play during their lunch hour—old maid, go fish, gin rummy—and teach them to her! And for tonight, not knowing those games, why he’d make up his own! Perhaps he would become famous for making up card games. Inventing games children all over the world would want to play! Maybe this was the special thing he would do! After all, he had won poker playing against Uncle Henry, who was the reigning champ. Uncle Henry had called him a genius! Maybe that’s why he had only the card deck at the end of the day. Because making up games was to be his calling! Perhaps this was all meant to go precisely as it had for this very reason! He, Rupert Brown, was meant to be a game maker!

  Rupert reached his hand excitedly into his pants pocket and felt around, but there was nothing there.

  Too late he remembered putting the deck of cards in Turgid’s fleece pants, meaning to transfer it to his own later. He had forgotten. He was an idiot. He carried home nothing from this day but a full stomach. And although he himself was full, he had nothing to share with his family. He had failed them all.

  And so he slogged up his porch steps.

  When he got inside, his whole family was sitting around the television. He went to stand by Elise, who was curled up in a corner of the room where she could hear but not see the television. She was there because all the good spots in the small room had been taken and she was one of the littlest, easily shoved to the back.

  “Everything we got in the basket had an expired pull date,” complained his mother, reading the side of the can of shrimp pâté she was eating.

  Rupert’s little brother Josh was grabbing for it but Mrs. Brown batted him away. “Stop that,” she said. “You got the expired smoked cauliflower.” Then she looked at Rupert as if trying to remember where she’d seen him before. “I guess you missed the basket delivery. Now it’s all gone, so don’t bother asking for anything. Where did you go?”

  “I forgot it was Christmas,” said Rupert. “I went to school.”

  “HA! What a lame brain!” laughed John, a cat under his arm.

  “Whose cat is that?” asked Rupert fearfully.

  “Uh, no one’s,” said John, turning his head to look out the window.

  “Shh,” said Dirk. “Mom hasn’t noticed yet.”

  “Yes, I have,” said their mother nonchalantly. “I just don’t throw cats on Christmas.”

  “Quiet! I want to hear this truck commercial,” said his father. “Someday I’m gonna get one.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Rupert’s mother. “You don’t even have a job.”

  “No, I guess not,” said Rupert’s father, and slumped lower in his chair.

  “There’s nothing left from the Christmas turkey basket,” whispered Elise. “But I saved you this.” She handed Rupert the wishbone with a scrap of meat still clinging to it.

  “That’s okay,” said Rupert, thinking of everything he’d eaten that day and feeling more than ever like a worm. He should have asked for something to bring home to her. A roll. A piece of pie. But he knew he couldn’t face such embarrassment even for her. You couldn’t just ask people for things. “You have it. I ate something while I was out.”

  “Really?” asked Elise. “What?”

  “Come on, wish,” said Rupert, changing the subject and taking one side of the wishbone. “And after that you can finish eating it.”

  Elise grabbed the other side and they pulled. Elise got the long end and so the wish.

  “I wish it weren’t so cold,” she said, holding up her piece of bone with its last scrap of meat. The cat, spying this, leapt out of John’s arms, deftly snatched away the bone, and took it off to finish for himself.

  “You must promise me in future,” said Rupert as they watched the cat walk out of the room, the bone sticking out of his mouth, “if you get a chance to eat, you will eat all you can without worrying about me. Don’t save me anything. We have to eat when we can or you see what happens: the cat gets it.”

  “The cat,” repeated Elise.

  “Or something. Things get taken. Things get gone. That’s what I discovered today. You can’t hold on to things or you’ll be disappointed.”

  “Okay,” said Elise quietly, but she looked puzzled. She sat back down to listen to the television.

  “Merry Christmas,” said Rupert, standing up to go to bed.

  “Merry what?” asked his mother, her mouth open, displaying half-chewed expired shrimp pâté. “Merry Christmas?” Then she laughed so hard some pâté fell onto the floor. The cat got this too.

  “John and Dirk, you take that cat back where you found it,” ordered Rupert’s mother. “NOW.”

  John stood up, silently picked up the cat, and he and Dirk headed out the front door.

  Everyone but Rupert turned back to the television.

  He went to bed.

  Eventually the living room floor became too cold even for sitting and watching television, and everyone else retired as well.

  Under the bed, the cold of the house crept slowly in through Rupert’s hole-ridden sweatshirt, his three shirts, and his sparse flesh and entered his bones. He wrapped his one ragged blanket more tightly around him.

  Rupert could hear the wind beginning to pick up and whistle through the power lines in the charging station at the end of the block. It did not sound cozy. It sounded ominous. As if the electric lines might become long, tendrilly arms that would reach right through his bedroom window and get him. With this thought he fell asleep.

  The next day and the next night were cold and windy and the next day and night after that, colder and windier still. Rupert couldn’t wait for school to start and vacation to be over. At least at school he had six hours of good, normal heat. But the vacation days seemed to drag on endlessly until one windy night Dirk elbowed him awake and said, “You’re closest to the window, go check on it. It sounds like the wind is blowing rocks into it.”

  “Even if it is,” said Rupert groggily, “what am I supposed to do? I can’t stop the wind.”

  “I don’t know,” said Dirk. “But it’s driving me crazy.
Think of something or I’m going to kick you.” Then he fell back asleep.

  Rupert got up. Perhaps he could find some cardboard to tape against the window, although what they really needed was something on the outside of the window. He was still in a half-asleep state as he thought about this. Maybe that’s why people had shutters. What kind of gale picked up rocks and flung them? Perhaps it was ice pellets, not rocks, hitting the window. Perhaps they were having an ice storm. But how would he stop that?

  When he looked out the window he could see nothing at first except snow falling and being blown in eddies down the street. Then he saw something else. Lights from a car parked in front of the house and a dark figure standing below. A figure raising its arm and, yes, flinging rocks at his bedroom window. This made no sense at all. Rupert wanted to open the window to call out, but the window frame was so old and rotted it might never close again. If he wanted to ask this figure why it was throwing rocks, he would have to go outside.

  Rupert crept downstairs, put his sneakers on, and went out the front door.

  “Rupert, thank goodness,” said the bundled-up figure.

  “Mrs. Rivers!” said Rupert in surprise, and could think of nothing else to say. She was perhaps the last person he expected to find throwing rocks at his window.

  “Yes, come along, dear,” she said, indicating her car, its engine still running.

  This whole sequence of events was odd, but at least it offered an opportunity to be warm, thought Rupert. He tripped sleepily over to the car and they got in.

  “I was so worried I had the wrong window,” said Mrs. Rivers. “But I’ve been watching your house for two days and there seemed to be only three bedrooms. The front ones and the back and I’ve seen a boy’s face at the left-hand side front window so I figured that must be the one you slept in and your parents must be at the back.”