by Betsy Byars
“No ‘Drop Dead’s?”
“I will be glad when you learn to drive, Ralphie, so you can deliver balloons.”
“I’ll be glad when I can drive too,” he said.
Delivering balloons, he had already figured out, would give him the perfect excuse to stop by Maggie’s. “Oh, I had some balloon deliveries out this way,” he would say. Never mind that country people never had balloons delivered. Then he could add, “Want to ride along?”
Of course he would have to wear a clown suit, his mother would insist on that, but still it would be nice to be alone in the car with Maggie.
Ralphie put the balloons in the station wagon and came back to the kitchen table. Beneath “Dear Maggie” he wrote, “I’m sorry about Pap’s heart attack.”
His mom came back into the kitchen in her clown suit and red wig. She claimed to have worked out her own individual clown makeup, but she looked a lot like Ronald McDonald.
Ralphie wasn’t going to wear makeup no matter what—maybe, maybe he would stick one of those red balls on his nose right before a customer opened the front door, but that would be it.
Ralphie heard his mom’s station wagon start, and he raised his head to watch her pull out into the street. Then the balloons blocked his mom from view as she drove away.
The phone rang. Ralphie did not get up. He called, “Phone’s ringing,” to his brother. “Mom said for you to answer the phone while she was gone.”
“She did not,” the brother called back.
“All right, if you don’t believe me, don’t answer.”
“I won’t.”
“Only it’s probably a balloon order. The first thing mom’s going to ask you when she gets home is—”
The brother picked up the phone on the next ring. He came into the kitchen.
“It’s for you.” He sneered. “It’s a girl.”
Ralphie jumped up so quickly, his chair tipped over backward.
He grabbed for the phone. There was only one girl in the world who could be calling him.
“Hello.”
“Ralphie?”
It was Maggie, and it sounded as if she were crying. Ralphie hated for Maggie to cry. He was in love with her, had been for two years, since that first electric moment he opened his eyes in the hospital and saw her sitting on the foot of Junior’s hospital bed. Even if she hadn’t been telling the story of how she had her brother busted into city jail, he would have loved her.
“Yes, it’s me. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, Ralphie.”
“What? What is it?”
“You remember Mud?”
“Mud, the dog?”
“Yes.”
“What about him?”
“Well, he’s dying.”
“Oh.”
Ralphie knew from the way she said the words that that wasn’t the worst of it. More was coming. His shoulders straightened. He knew too that somehow what was coming would directly involve him.
“And, Ralphie.”
“Yes.”
“Ralphie.”
There was an extra syllable in his name this time.
“Yes! Go ahead. I’m ready.”
“Ralphie, we think we know how to save him.”
Ralphie hated to ask, but he knew he had to. “How?”
“We have to smuggle him into the hospital so that he can see Pap’s still alive.”
“Wait a minute. Mud is the big dog or the little fuzzy fellow?”
“The big one. And, Ralphie, there’s a problem.”
“Oh, really.”
“Yes, Mud won’t walk. He’s in a coma.”
Her voice began to tremble again. Ralphie wished it wouldn’t do that.
“See, if Pap’s dead, Mud doesn’t want to live either, but Pap’s not dead. It’s like an old-timey play I saw on TV where the boy died because he thought the girl he loved was dead, and then she came to, and he really was dead.”
“I missed that one.”
There was a silence, and Maggie said, “If you’d rather not …”
“No, I want to,” Ralphie said. “I haven’t done anything illegal in a while. I’m losing my touch.”
“Oh, Ralphie, I can always count on you.”
“It looks that way. When do you want the smuggling to take place?”
“Tonight. Tomorrow may be, you know, too late.”
“Tonight,” Ralphie said.
He set the phone onto the receiver. He put one hand on his letter and crumpled it into a ball.
“What did she want?” Ralphie’s brother asked.
“She wants me to smuggle her dog into the hospital to visit her grandfather.”
“Tell me the truth,” the brother said in disgust. “You always lie! Tell the truth!”
CHAPTER 25
Smuggling Mud
Ralphie sighed.
Beneath his mother’s clown suit, his heart was pumping hard.
“Are you sure this dog’s alive?” he asked.
Mud had been pulled out of his misery hole. He now lay in the moonlight in front of the steps, apparently dead.
Maggie, Vern, and Junior were on one side of him. Ralphie was on the other. All four leaned over Mud, looking for signs of life.
Maggie said, “Yes.”
Ralphie said, “I just don’t want to go to the trouble of smuggling a dead dog into Alderson General Hospital, that’s all.”
“He’s not dead,” Junior confirmed. “If you look real close you can see his heart beating between his ribs.”
“I don’t see any heart beating.”
“Right there.”
Junior pointed with one dirty finger to a spot three inches below Mud’s bandanna.
Maggie said, “Yes, it is beating, Ralphie.”
Ralphie said, “He could be brain-dead.” A cool silence followed this remark. Ralphie tried to put his hands in his pockets and discovered the clown suit didn’t have pockets.
He said, “Oh, all right. I give up. Let’s get him into the wagon.”
“Wait a minute. We need a quilt,” Maggie said.
“We need a lifting crane,” Ralphie muttered.
Maggie pretended not to hear. She ran quietly up the porch steps, opened the screen door without a sound, and disappeared into the house.
“I hope she doesn’t wake up Mom,” Vern said.
“I hope she does,” Ralphie said. “I’m sure your mom would get a kick out of me standing here in my mom’s clown suit with two get-well-soon balloons tied to my wrist, getting ready to pull a dead dog to town.”
“I like you in your clown suit,” Junior said. “You make a good clown.”
Ralphie did not respond.
“You could be in a circus.”
“I am not wearing this clown suit to amuse people, Junior. I am wearing this clown suit because the nurses are used to seeing this clown suit bringing balloons to patients.”
“I know that.”
“This clown suit is a disguise.”
“I know that.”
“It is—”
Maggie came down the steps silently. She spread a quilt on the ground and rolled Mud on top of it. He gave no resistance.
“All right, let’s get him into the wagon.”
Ralphie took the head. Vern took the feet. Together they picked up the motionless Mud.
“How much does this dog weigh?” Ralphie asked as they swung Mud into the wagon.
Mud landed with a thud. He did not move.
“I don’t know. Fifty pounds,” Maggie said. “Sixty at the most. He’s lost a lot of weight because he hasn’t eaten in three days.”
“You couldn’t prove it by me,” Ralphie said.
Maggie tucked the quilt around Mud and patted it. “He’s ready.”
Mud lay with curved grace in the wagon. The tip of his tail stuck out from one end of the crazy quilt, his long nose stuck out the other.
Ralphie reached out his hand—the one with the get-well-soon balloons tied on the wrist, an
d felt the rope that held the wagon to his bicycle.
“Vern’s good with knots. Let him do it,” Junior had said with brotherly pride. “Vern tied the knots on my wings that time and they wouldn’t come off no matter what. The police had to cut them off.”
“I didn’t do the knots so good on my raft,” Vern admitted, stepping forward.
He had brushed his hands together as if he would now make up for the failure of those raft knots. Then he proceeded to tie the biggest knot Ralphie had ever seen in his life. And then he spit on it.
Feeling the hard damp knot, Ralphie knew there was no chance the wagon would come loose and slip mercifully into a ditch along the way, thereby jarring Mud into action. What he wouldn’t give to see that dog jump out of the quilt and take a leak on the nearest bush.
“We better get going,” Maggie said. “It’s a long way to town.”
Ralphie didn’t move. Being friends with the Blossoms was hard on a person with an artificial leg, he thought, because you were always called on to do things like climb trees and scale mountains and, now, pull a fifty-pound dog to town in a child’s wagon.
He rose and threw his good leg over his bicycle.
Maggie said, “Don’t go too fast or we won’t be able to keep up.”
“There is little chance I will go too fast,” Ralphie said. He did not add there was a better chance the Blossoms would have to push.
He was on his bicycle now, ready to go. The get-well-soon balloons bobbed over his head.
Beneath the handlebars of his bicycle, he crossed his fingers. “Here goes,” he said. He braced his artificial leg to push.
At that moment the porch light went on. Ralphie in his clown suit, Mud in the crazy quilt, and the three Blossom children were lit up as if they had been on a stage. They froze. Only the balloons over Ralphie’s head continued to bob.
Vicki Blossom stepped onto the porch.
“And just what is going on here?” she said.
CHAPTER 26
Led by a Clown
“I cannot believe I am doing this,” Vicki Blossom said.
She was standing outside the emergency exit of the hospital with Mud in her arms.
“Mom, you’re doing a wonderful thing,” Maggie said. “We would never have made it if you hadn’t driven us. I’m really proud of you.”
“Well, I’m not proud of myself,” Vicki said. She shifted Mud into a better position. “You know what’s going to happen? Some nurse is going to see me with this quilt and think I’m bringing an injured child to the hospital and she’s going to rush me into the emergency room and I’m going to have to put the quilt down and they’ll see this—” She looked down at Mud’s long nose with distaste. “This creature! Then what am I going to say?”
“I’ll go first, Mrs. Blossom.” Ralphie stepped forward. “I’ll make sure the halls are clear.”
“I am so furious with this dog,” Vicki Blossom said.
“Mom, he can’t help it.”
“I think he can.” Again she looked down at Mud. “I want to tell you one thing, Mud, and I know you can hear me. I know that little pea-brain is working. You owe me for this. You really—”
“The coast is clear!” Ralphie said.
He held the door open. With gratitude he watched Vicki Blossom step through. That could have been him.
He ran across the hall. “Hold it,” he told them.
He peered around the corner. When he saw the hall was empty, he said, “The elevators are this way.”
“I thought they were in the lobby,” Vicki Blossom said.
“Mrs. Blossom, we’re taking the service elevator.”
“Mom, listen to Ralphie,” Maggie said. “He knows this hospital.”
They hurried to the service elevator. The door was open. Ralphie had already pushed the HOLD button. The doors slid smoothly shut behind them.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” Vicki Blossom said as the elevator rose to the third floor.
The doors opened and Ralphie pushed HOLD again. “Let me check.” He stepped into the hall. “Coast is clear. Come on.”
At the water fountain he held them back again. They were used to stopping on command now.
Ralphie went around the corner alone. There was one nurse at the nurse’s station. Ralphie grinned when he recognized her. He said, “Hi, remember me?”
“Ralphie?”
“In person.”
“What in the world are you doing here?”
“Delivering balloons.”
“At this hour?”
“Well, my mom is. I just wanted to say hello to Mr. Blossom.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. Mr. Blossom has been out of the cardiac unit one day, and you are not going in there with any balloons.”
A buzzer sounded behind her, and a voice on the intercom asked, “Is it time for my sleeping pill? If you don’t come soon, I’ll be asleep.”
“I’m coming, Mr. May. You’ll have to excuse me, Ralphie.”
“Oh, sure. No problem. I’ve got to be going anyway.”
The nurse disappeared down the hall with a tray, and Ralphie signaled the Blossoms.
Silently they moved around the corner and down the hall. “This is his room,” Vicki Blossom said at the door to 328.
Ralphie pushed open the door, and he and the Blossoms slipped inside.
They waited against the door, nobody saying anything. The light was dim. They tried to make out the forms in the four beds.
“That’s his bed,” Vicki whispered. She led the way to the one by the window.
There were sides on the bed to keep Pap from rolling out. Vicki Blossom raised Mud’s body high enough to drop him over the top. She sighed with relief.
Mud landed beside Pap with a soft thud. The quilt fell open. Mud’s nose was pointing toward Pap’s pillow, his tail to the foot of the bed. His legs were curled against Pap’s side. He did not move.
“Pap,” Vicki Blossom said.
Pap snored softly.
Vern said, “He’s not going to wake up.”
They waited. The Blossoms were crowded so closely around the bed they could hear each other breathing.
Junior cleared his throat. “Pap, Mud and me are here. We wanted to see if you were—” He broke off, then added, “all right” in a firm voice.
“Pap,” Maggie said. Pap did not move, and she looked up at her mother for advice. “Should we wake him up or what?”
“I don’t know,” Vicki Blossom said. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. I have carried this dog halfway across the county for nothing. Pap is not going to wake up—I’m not even sure we should wake him up. He might have another heart attack. Then where would we be? And now I’m going to have to carry this dog back to the car! I cannot believe this!”
“I’ll carry him part of the way,” Ralphie offered. Maggie gave him a look of gratitude. He gave her an it’s-nothing shrug.
At that moment, Pap stirred beneath his covers. He turned toward them.
Vicki Blossom reached out and grabbed the two nearest Blossom children—Vern and Junior. They all stopped breathing.
Pap’s hand fumbled restlessly across the white spread. His fingers touched Mud’s ear. Then his hand made one more move and covered Mud’s head like a cap.
There was a long moment while nothing happened. Pap didn’t move again. Mud didn’t move either.
And then Mud’s eyes flickered open.
He blinked.
His eyes rolled up to where Pap’s familiar hand rested on his brow.
Mud opened his mouth in a long yawn. His tongue curled out of his mouth. He struggled to turn over in the tight space between Pap and the side of the bed.
He looked long and hard at Pap’s face. He rubbed his face against the stiff bedspread. A whine of pleasure began deep in his chest. His tail thumped against the bed railing.
He began pulling himself toward Pap’s face. His long legs stretched out behind him, pushing him forward.
; “Oh, we got to get him out of here,” Vicki Blossom said. “You know Mud. He’s going to start barking. Next thing you know he’ll want to run around in circles. Come on!”
She reached into the hospital bed. “Help me, somebody!”
Ralphie reached in with her. “I’ll do that. I’m taller.” He realized for the first time this was true. He hoped Maggie was watching.
He pulled Mud manfully into his arms. Mud struggled like a wild animal, but Ralphie held on. This was what love did to a man, he thought, gave him supernatural powers. Over his head, the get-well-soon balloons danced on their strings.
“I’ll get his feet,” Maggie offered. She reached in and grabbed Mud’s hind legs and held them together.
“No problem,” Ralphie said.
Mud was doing the dog paddle with his front feet, trying to get to Pap. “Sorry, Pal,” Ralphie told him. He could feel the dog’s hot eager breath through his clown suit. “Fun’s over for the night.”
Vicki Blossom peered out the door. “Come on,” she said.
The Blossom children ran down the hall. Ralphie and Maggie took the lead. Ralphie was hobbling so fast that his artificial leg seemed like something a person would snap on for extra speed.
Mud gave a sharp bark of protest as they passed the nurse’s station. The nurse stuck her head out a doorway to see what was happening.
“Ralphie! What are you doing with that dog? Ralphie! Come back here.”
Ralphie ran to the elevator and jabbed the button with his elbow. Mud was digging at Ralphie with his paws. Mud was a good digger, but Ralphie was a man.
In the distance, Ralphie heard the nurse coming closer. His heart was pounding so hard that he didn’t hear the hum of the approaching elevator.
The doors surprised him by sliding open. “Everybody on,” he said coolly.
He stepped inside. The Blossoms did too.
“Ralphie!” the nurse said.
“Just passing through,” he explained as the doors closed on her startled face.
The elevator moved down to the lobby, and Mud threw back his head and howled.
CHAPTER 27
Five-Card Stud
Mud barked at the screen door.
The Blossom family was at the supper table. Nobody got up to let him in.
