Very Rich

by Polly Horvath

  Even walking to where Uncle Moffat’s car was parked, Rupert had the heady new sensation of people looking at him and not, for once, in a disapproving way. People coming toward him and Uncle Moffat on the sidewalk automatically made way for them as if they were royalty. How Rupert wished he could wear his suit all the time.

  At the Union Club, a man in a uniform fairly ran up to open his door and take the car from Uncle Moffat. He drove it away to park it. Imagine, thought Rupert, if you’re rich, someone parks your car for you. Then Rupert and Uncle Moffat got into an elevator and rode up and up and up. The Union Club restaurant was on top of the tallest building in Steelville. If you could afford to dine there you knew you were on top of the world.

  At the entrance to the club the maître d’ greeted Uncle Moffat by practically bowing from the waist. “Your usual table, sir?”

  “Yes, James,” said Uncle Moffat.

  “May I take your bag, sir?” the maître d’ asked Rupert.

  Rupert clutched his bag closer. What did the maître d’ want with his bag? Would he get it back? Uncle Moffat saw Rupert’s frightened expression and said, “No, thank you, James. He likes to keep it close. Now, bring us menus immediately. It’s this young man’s birthday and we’re celebrating.”

  “Yes, sir, right away,” said the maître d’, and showed them to a table at a window looking down across Steelville’s river. But you could see beyond that to the steelworks and even beyond that to what looked like the edge of Ohio itself.

  “Like the view, Rupert?” asked Uncle Moffat.

  “I never knew you could see so far!” said Rupert, his nose upon the window glass. “It’s splendid!”

  Uncle Moffat laughed. With his new suit on, Rupert even talked differently.

  “Yes, it is, yes, it is, Rupert. My whole life is splendid. I am a splendid man. Now pick up your menu and decide what to have.”

  Rupert already knew what he wanted. He wanted a hamburger. At school Friday was hamburger day and orders were put in to McDonald’s. Any child could bring money from home and one would be delivered at lunch. Rupert had never had a hamburger but he had drooled watching other children eat theirs. He had made a vow that if he ever had money he would eat a hamburger. He had gotten close when Aunt Hazelnut had promised to take him to McDonald’s, and very close in the police station when Officer Kramer had brought him a lunch he almost got to eat, and finally now it was his chance. He ordered a hamburger and fries and the largest milkshake on the menu, which was called the lalapalooza and guaranteed to give you a bellyache, which Rupert simply could not wait to feel.

  After they had ordered, Rupert looked around the room, and that’s when he found that the people eating at the Union Club were stealing shy looks at him and nudging each other as if to say, What a remarkable looking young man, what a good-looking child. And what a suit!

  “Do you ever bring Turgid or the other Turgid or Sippy or Rollin or any of the other cousins here?” he asked suddenly.

  “Oh yes, we’ve all eaten here, but the children don’t like it. They find it stuffy. The other Turgid once crayoned on the tablecloth and had to be spoken to. In general, it isn’t the best venue for children, but you are behaving wonderfully, Rupert. You haven’t once kicked a waiter. Kudos to you.”

  Rupert contemplated what it must be like to have the kind of life where you didn’t like eating someplace like this because they wouldn’t let you crayon on the tablecloth or kick the waiters. When he was done looking at the people who were all dressed in fancy suits of their own, he looked at what they were eating. And my, what people had for lunch. And for such late lunches. Why it was after three o’clock and they were only now plowing into steaks and giant salads, whole lobsters and huge desserts covered in whipped cream. Rupert’s mouth began to water. He had drool running down his chin and had to keep mopping it up with his napkin, which he had put on his lap right away to copy Uncle Moffat.

  Uncle Moffat was moving restlessly from side to side in his chair and drumming his fingers on the table.

  “The service here is usually better than this. They seem to be taking their time today. I am so sorry, Rupert,” he began, when suddenly a bevy waiters appeared through the kitchen door. They had two huge trays, and on them were Rupert and Uncle Moffat’s hamburgers. Rupert’s was covered in sparklers that spelled out Happy Birthday Rupert. They were the biggest, sparkliest plates of food that Rupert had ever seen, and as the waiters made their way to them in a long, slow line like monks in procession, they began to sing a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” At that, everyone in the Union Club joined in. They not only joined in, they stood up. There was a whole restaurant full of impeccably dressed rich people solemnly singing to Rupert. Nothing so extraordinary had ever happened to him. He was quite sure nothing so extraordinary would ever happen again.

  “Ah, a little club tradition,” said Uncle Moffat. “The singing of the rich. Well, enjoy it, Rupert, boy.”

  Rupert did enjoy it but part of him was thinking, Just Bring Me The Food! As the wonderful greasy smell of grilled meat and potatoes wafted toward him it was all he could do not to run the few steps over to the waiters and grab his food right off the trays. When at last the waiters began to put the trays down on an empty table preparatory to setting the plates before Uncle Moffat and Rupert, there came a whirring sound and the ground began to shake.

  “TORNADO!” cried Uncle Moffat, emptying the breadbasket and putting it on his head like a helmut.

  “Earthquake!” said a waiter crawling under a table.

  And then suddenly between the waiters and Rupert’s table appeared a large cardboard box, and standing in it were Uncle Henry and Turgid.

  “What the heck,” said Turgid. “I thought you said this was a time machine. Why, all it’s done is take us to the boring old Union Club.”

  THE WAITERS froze. Everyone in the restaurant froze except the maître d’, who came scurrying across the floor with his hands outstretched.

  “Mr. Rivers, sir,” he addressed Uncle Henry. “How good to see you again. Master Turgid. Let me take that carton for you—”

  “NO!” shouted Turgid. “Don’t touch the time machine.”

  “Turgid!” said Uncle Henry reprimandingly.

  “Sorry,” said Turgid. “Didn’t mean to be rude. But we don’t know how much time we have. This thing just swooped in here and may swoop out at any second.”

  “Have you been inventing again?” barked Uncle Moffat reprovingly. “I thought you promised to stop all that.”

  “Rupert?” said Uncle Henry, his eyes suddenly falling on him. “Is that Rupert? Wearing a suit?”

  “Yes,” said Uncle Moffat, shifting uncomfortably on his chair. “And what of it?”

  “Well, he looks ridiculous is what of it,” said Uncle Henry.

  Rupert blushed. Up until that moment he had imagined himself quite dapper and the envy of every eye.

  “He doesn’t,” said Uncle Moffat staunchly. “He looks smart. Doesn’t he look smart, James?”

  “Quite smart, sir. And if I may say so,” said the maitre d’, glancing nervously at Uncle Henry, for both he and Uncle Moffat were important patrons, “somewhat ridiculous too. In the best possible way.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, James, quit prevaricating,” said Uncle Henry, and then turned to Uncle Moffat. “Did you buy him that suit?”

  “Uncle Henry,” interrupted Turgid, “can we just go?”

  “Why did you buy him a suit?” asked Uncle Henry, ignoring Turgid altogether.

  “If you must know, it’s his birthday.”

  “Oh,” said Uncle Henry. “Happy birthday, Rupert. Yes, but why a suit? I’m quite certain from the little time I have spent with him that a suit is the least welcome of presents. As it would be for any normal boy.”

  Am I a normal boy now, wondered Rupert? He had mixed feelings about this. To be normal meant that he was like the other boys regardless of his poor-edge-of-town-Brown status. That was good. But it also meant he was no l
onger special. He found this quite troubling and deflating.

  “Yes, happy birthday, old fellow,” said Turgid, who also, as soon as he arrived in the Union Club, began to talk differently. “Many returns of the day.”

  “Well, then, having lunch at the club are you?” said Uncle Henry. “To celebrate? Splendid. Shall we join you? What are we eating here?” He reached over to the table where one of the trays rested and stole a French fry. “My, the club makes good fries.”

  “As if we have all the time in the world,” said Turgid, rolling his eyes. “Come on, Rupert, get into the time machine with us. We’ll take you someplace better than this to celebrate.”

  “You will not. I am not done atoning,” said Uncle Moffat.

  “AHA!” said Uncle Henry. “You’re not taking him here because it’s his birthday. You’re taking him because you feel bad about the prizes. And that’s strictly, strictly against the rules.”

  Rupert felt like saying to Uncle Henry, Well, it’s no more than you did, but he kept quiet.

  “You know as well as I,” Uncle Henry went on, “that you are not allowed to feel bad about someone losing and you are not allowed to make up for it. Come on, Rupert, because he broke the rules, Moffat will have to forfeit your company.”

  “I shall not. Stay right where you are, Rupert,” said Uncle Moffat. “And let’s have lunch.”

  “Yes, let’s have lunch,” whispered Rupert, looking at the food longingly, but no one heard him.

  “Oh no you don’t,” said Uncle Henry, scrambling out of the box.

  He went right over to Rupert, who barely had time to snatch his bag of clothes before Uncle Henry lifted him out of his chair and heaved him into the box. For a skinny guy he had remarkable strength. Then, just as he prepared to hurdle back into the box himself, it started its characteristic whirring noise and the next thing Uncle Henry knew, he was standing next to nothing but food-laden tables staring at the space where the time machine had been.

  “Well, I’ll be dipped in batter and deep-fried,” he said in amazement.

  “Yes,” said Uncle Moffat. “Now see what you’ve done? Rupert has had to forfeit his birthday lunch. That’s very unsporting of you.”

  “Nonsense, I’m sure Turgid will find him something to eat wherever they turn up. And when will you learn that children don’t like the Union Club anyway?” asked Uncle Henry.

  “Poppycock, Rupert was having an excellent time until you showed up,” said Uncle Moffat.

  “Hmmm, this does look delicious though.” Uncle Henry grabbed Rupert’s plate decorated with the sparklers which had now burnt down to nothing. He pulled them out, pulled up a chair on the other side of Uncle Moffat, put the plate in front of himself, and commenced eating without further ceremony. “Waste not, want not,” he said through a mouthful of burger.

  Everyone in the restaurant had remained standing throughout this whole event and now that the show seemed to be over sat down and resumed their own meals. They weren’t terribly interested in how the appearing and disappearing box trick had been performed. They were rich and used to being splendidly entertained. Now they had important eating to do and then must get back to their other important tasks of the day.

  Uncle Moffat sighed, signaled the waiters that he was ready to be served as well, and, when his plate was put in front of him, dug into his own food.

  “I do wonder where they have gone,” said Uncle Henry, his shoulders hunched over his mammoth burger and his mouth full of lettuce and tomato. “Somewhere where the food is good, I hope.”

  Turgid and Rupert wondered the same, for it was seconds later that the time machine deposited them in the middle of a large room with a big desk in it.

  “Aw,” said Turgid. “This just looks like someone’s house.”

  Rupert looked around. It didn’t look like someone’s house to him. The room was large and grand and yet somehow it felt institutional. He could not put his finger on this except that it was as if someone very stodgy had done the decorating. It was a little too perfect. He suddenly understood what his mother meant when she laughed and said their house didn’t lack the lived-in look, for that was exactly what this room did lack. And yet it looked familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere before—in photographs, perhaps. There was a big round rug in the middle of the floor with an eagle on it. There was an enormous desk and a couple of large windows and some couches.

  “Turgid,” he began excitedly as it came to him, when the door to the room opened.

  A woman came in saying, “Mr. President,” and then she stopped and screamed.

  Turgid and Rupert jumped. Rupert looked down worriedly to make sure they had not damaged the bottom of the box.

  “How did you get in here? Oh my God, Mr. President,” began the woman again, clearing her throat and trying to get a hold of herself. “What has happened to you? Who has done this to you?” And she ran from the room.

  “I think we’re in the Oval Office of the White House,” finished Rupert in a whisper.

  “Of course,” said Turgid, who had seen pictures of this room as well. “But where is the president? I don’t see anyone.”

  “Perhaps she thought he was in the box with us,” said Rupert. “Perhaps she thought we were bundling him away in it.”

  This didn’t sound very likely, but they had no more time for speculation. At that moment a number of men and women in blue suits with earpieces came racing in.

  “You see!” said the woman running in behind them. “It’s just like the pictures of him as a boy. It is him as a boy. Someone has de-aged him from sixty-nine to a child!” She quickly found a photo on a shelf and held it up next to Turgid for the others to see.

  “Yes, well, perhaps a nephew,” said one of the men. “That seems more likely than your idea that the president has suddenly aged in reverse due to some evil plan perpetrated by this one.” He pointed to Rupert.

  “No, no plan,” rattled Rupert nervously. “Not evil.”

  “The president has no nephews. None at all,” said the woman. “As his personal assistant, I know everything about the president, and if he had a nephew I would know about it. You ought to know too, you’re the Secret Service, after all.”

  “Well, maybe a distant cousin,” said the Secret Service agent patiently.

  “For heaven’s sake, just ask him,” said another agent. He turned to Turgid. “How do you know the president, young man?”

  “I don’t,” said Turgid honestly. “I came here via magical box.” This sounded more reasonable to him than time machine. Time machine, he decided, had been so overdone as to be unbelievable. But you didn’t hear a lot about people getting around via magical box.

  “You see,” said one agent turning to another. “It’s just some kids visiting the president and playing around. Where’s the president gone, young man? And who is your well-dressed friend?” For Rupert, of course, was still wearing his fine silk suit.

  Turgid and Rupert looked at each other, the same thought going through both their minds. It was one thing to let a room full of Ohio business people lunching at the Union Club see them appearing in magical boxes. It was another to appear before top security people in the nation’s capital in such a conveyance.

  “Oh, the president? No idea. Haven’t seen him in yonks,” said Turgid airily. He had heard this expression on a BBC television show and thought it struck just the right note of upper-class laissez-faire.

  “Don’t get smart with me, young man,” said one of the agents, and then realized that these boys might be friends of the president or the children of top diplomats and he changed his tack. “Say, would you like to come along with me, boys, and have some milk and cookies in the kitchen while we sort this out?”

  “Oh, yes, please,” said Rupert.

  “No, thank you,” said Turgid, throwing Rupert a look.

  But two of the agents came over to them anyway and lifted them bodily out of the box.

  “There now, how shall we dispose of this box?” the
y asked.

  “And what have you done with our president?” wailed the personal assistant.

  “And what’s in the bag?” another asked Rupert.

  “My old clothes,” said Rupert, clutching it tightly. If they took away his old clothes he’d be sunk when he finally got home.

  “For heaven’s sake, Helen,” said one of the agents, turning to the personal assistant, “you should know where the president is.”

  Rupert breathed a sigh of relief when no one questioned him as to why he was carrying old clothes in a bag.

  “He can’t have left here without you seeing him,” agreed another agent.

  “But he didn’t, I swear; he never left the room.”

  “We’ve done nothing with him, honestly,” said Rupert.

  “Well, we might have roughed him up a little,” said Turgid, who when he got very nervous, tended to become punchy. He giggled. “And can we have our box back please? It’s rather special.”

  The man holding it looked uncertain. “I think we need to go over this with lasers and X-ray and chemical detectors first. Might be anything. Might be a weapon.”

  But an agent who had a more kindly eye said, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Andrew, don’t you remember what it was like to be a boy? Didn’t you ever play in a box? Give them the carton. Let’s get them a snack and sort things out and figure out where the president has gotten to.”

  Rupert and Turgid were led down a series of long corridors in a parade of three security men and the president’s personal assistant, who was now in possession of the box and carried it away from her body as if it might have cooties.

  But halfway down a dark hallway one of the men stopped and said, “Why don’t we just do a quick DNA swipe of the two to be certain before we head to the kitchen?”

  “Good idea,” said the others.

  Rupert and Turgid quickly found themselves at the public entrance to the White House, where visitors were put through a metal detector, X-rayed, and then DNA-swiped before heading onward.