by Betsy Byars
“But yesterday when I was there, I was alone—Batty was at the dentist getting braces—I got this strange feeling …”
Mozie paused because the feeling came back to him as he stood in his own hallway—a strange feeling of dread and fascination.
He had been deep in the greenhouse at the back, where the largest plants grew. He had been drawn there for some reason he couldn’t explain. He had never ventured back there before. Usually he came just inside the door of the greenhouse, where the controls for the sprinkler system were.
The instructions for him were posted there. The writing was in Professor Orloff’s thin precise script.
1. Make sure the timer is set for exactly three hours.
2. Open valve X. Put one vial of liquid Vita Grow into valve.
3. Close valve tightly.
4. Turn on sprinkler system. Wait to see it is operational.
5. Exit and lock door.
Each time before he had done exactly as instructed. He would come just inside the door while Batty waited behind him.
“I’ll wait outside,” Batty would say. “One of us has to be out of reach. Remember that movie with that plant that ate people? What was the name? It was a singing plant, but it ate people between songs. I think of that plant every time I come to the greenhouse.”
Mozie could not explain what had drawn him forward this time. He was afraid to venture into the greenhouse and yet he went anyway, as if he couldn’t help himself. Like a person sleepwalking, he moved down the aisle of greenery so overgrown that he had to bend to avoid the heavy leaves.
On either side grew tomatoes as big as basketballs. Squash that would take two men to lift drooped on their thick vines. Flowers like trumpets pointed at him as if to blow an alarm. Cucumbers as big as watermelons lay on the ground.
At the end of the greenhouse he had stopped. Here were the biggest, strangest of the plants. The heavy limbs brushed the top of the greenhouse. The stems were as big as Mozie’s body. The leaves were like flying carpets.
Mozie stood there, awed and afraid. His arms trembled at his sides.
And then he had reached out with one trembling hand and pushed the huge leaves aside. He drew in a breath. He almost choked as the thick, rich air hit his lungs.
His heart began to race as he saw what was hidden in the leaves.
There was a pod.
A pod as big as his own body—thick and heavy with a faint green hair covering it. The sunlight made it shiver and then—though it could have been a movement of the sun light—that’s what Mozie hoped it was—the pod seemed to turn toward him.
At that moment, Mozie himself had turned and run for the door. He started the hundred-yard dash toward the woods, stopped, turned, and ran back to the greenhouse.
He had left the door open and he leaned inside. With trembling hands he opened valve X, put in the Vita Grow, turned on the sprinkler system, closed the door, locked it.
This time, running for home, he didn’t stop for anything.
A Girl Named Valvoline
“MOZIE, ARE YOU STILL out there in the hall?”
His mother’s voice drew Mozie abruptly back to the present. “Yes, I am still here.”
“Are you finished with what you were saying?”
In the hall, Mozie’s heart was racing as it had yesterday.
“Mom, I’m not kidding about this. I really am afraid of going to the greenhouse. Because yesterday, I didn’t want to walk back there to that plant. I did not want to! And I did. That’s what really scares me. I was actually drawn against my will—I know you think I’m being dramatic, but …”
In the living room his mother said, “Now, Valvoline, let’s see if we can slip this over your head without sticking you again.”
“I wish my name wasn’t Valvoline,” Miss Tri-County Tech said. “That’s one reason I think I might not get it. You know what my mother told me? Ouch!”
“Sorry.”
“My mother told me she had named me for somebody in a romantic novel she read, which I believed. I was so proud of my name. I wouldn’t let anybody shorten it to Val. Then, then! I come to find out she got mixed up and named me for a motor oil.”
“Mom.”
“Yes, Mozie, I’m still listening.” Her tone implied she was still listening but she was more interested even in motor oil than plants.
“I cannot go back there by myself,” Mozie said in a reasonable, adultlike voice. “I need someone to make sure I do not go back to that plant!”
“Come in the living room, Mozie,” his mother said. “It’s safe.”
Mozie peered around the door of the living room. Valvoline was dressed. She was at the mirror, fluffing her hair.
Mozie’s face, he knew, would not reflect his concern. He actually feared for his life, and this little merry face …
He hated his face. He wanted to take his hands and remodel his face like clay, to force his features to reflect the panic that surged through his body.
“Don’t pay any attention to my face,” he began, “because—”
“Are you talking about that old greenhouse out on Sumpter Road?” Miss Tri-County Tech asked, turning toward him.
Mozie nodded.
“We used to go out there when we were in junior high. It was spooky back then. The big house had burned down and the plants in the greenhouse were all dried up and rattled like skeletons when the wind came in the door.”
She gave her hair an additional fluff. “Maybe it’s changed, but I would not let a little boy of mine go out there by himself.”
Mozie said, “See, Mom, everybody knows it’s dangerous but you!”
“Mozie, that was years ago. The greenhouse had been abandoned then. Now Professor Orloff’s taken it over. Everyone says that eventually his discoveries will save the world. That’s what he’s doing at the World Congress on Hunger right now. This man may single-handedly solve the problem of world hunger.”
“That doesn’t help me now,” Mozie said. He felt childish and selfish, standing in the way of the hungry, but he really was afraid.
His mother put Valvoline’s dress on a hanger. “All right, if you don’t want to go alone, get one of your friends to go with you—pay them if you have to.”
“Mom, Batty’s the only friend I’ve got.”
His mother sighed now, showing her irritation. “I guess I could go. But I’ll never get this gown finished by Friday.”
Miss Tri-County Tech said, “Look, I could drive him out there.”
His mother’s face brightened. “You wouldn’t mind, Valvoline?”
“I’ll drive him, only I’m not going into that greenhouse. I’ll park by the old Esso station and wait for him. And I’m keeping all the doors locked.”
Mozie broke into the conversation. “And if I don’t come back, will you call my mom?”
“I will. I’ll even call 911 if it’ll make you feel any better.”
“Is that agreeable, Mozie?”
“Yes. But Mom, you will listen for the phone?” Sometimes his mom forgot everyday life when she sewed.
“Yes.”
“Do I have time to call Batty?” Mozie asked Val. “I just want to let him know I’ve got help.”
“Yes, but hurry, Mozie, because I have to pick Bucky up at seven.”
Mozie ran upstairs and dialed Batty’s number. If Mrs. Batson answered, he would, of course, hang up immediately, but he wanted his friend to know he was not going to be devoured.
The phone was picked up by one of Batty’s sisters. Batty had three sisters, and they all sounded alike. Mozie hoped this one wasn’t Linda, whose piano recital they had attended with such disastrous results.
“May I speak to Batty, please?”
“He can’t come out of his room.”
“Well, could you give him a message for me?”
“Maybe.”
“Tell him that Mozie called—”
“Mozie?” She gave the name a distasteful ring. Though none of Batty’s
sisters liked him, Linda hated him, and he thought with a sinking heart that this was Linda.
“Yes.”
“You want me to give a message to Batty?”
“Yes.”
“Moi? The sister whose piano recital you completely ruined?”
Mozie hated it when Batty’s sisters did their Miss Piggy routines.
“Linda”—he swallowed, making a sort of guttural sound—“I’m sorry about what happened.”
“You’re sorry all right.”
“Please just tell him that I’m going to the greenhouse, but a girl named Valvoline’s going with me and she’s going to wait out by the Esso station, and if I don’t come out, she’s going to call my mom. I just wanted him to know because he was worried for my life and … Hello? Hello?”
“I’m leaving now,” Valvoline called from below.
Mozie ran down the stairs.
The Quack-Quacks
“DID YOU HAPPEN to hear my philosophy of life when I was saying it in your living room?” Valvoline asked as she made a left turn, using both lanes to complete it.
“Yes, I did.”
“How did it sound?”
“Good.”
“It’s the same philosophy of life I used in the Miss Dogwood pageant, so I hope no one will remember.”
“They won’t.”
“But my ‘I owe my success to God and to my country’ they can’t remember because I didn’t get to say it. One good thing about not winning that pageant was I was going with Howard Eck then, and I would have had to say, ‘I owe my success to God and to my country and to my boyfriend Howard Eck.’ That was one reason I broke up with him. I didn’t want to be Mrs. Eck.”
Valvoline and Mozie were halfway to the greenhouse when she reached out and began to fumble with the dashboard of the car.
“Is anything the matter?” Mozie asked, tightening his seatbelt.
“I’m trying to find the headlights,” she explained. She pulled out the cigarette lighter. “Well, that’s not them.”
“No.”
“Everybody else has their lights on so there’s probably a storm somewhere even if we can’t see it. Wonder where the headlights are.”
Mozie pointed to a knob and she pulled it.
“Oh, thanks.”
She pushed it back in. “Now I’m ready in case it does storm. I hope it doesn’t rain for the pageant.”
“Me too,” Mozie said, just to be pleasant. All he cared about was getting into the greenhouse, turning on the sprinkler system, and getting back out without taking that long, unwilling, dreamlike walk to the end of the greenhouse.
“I wonder where the windshield wipers are. This isn’t my car, in case you’re wondering. It’s Bucky’s. I’m just driving it.”
Mozie pointed. “There.”
“Thanks.”
She flicked them on and off.
Mozie wiped his hands on the side of his pants. His palms were getting sweaty.
“Now, what’s this thing you were talking about in the greenhouse?” Valvoline asked.
“A m-mummy pod.”
“McMummy?”
“No, just mummy.”
“I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”
“Me either.”
“What won’t they think of next?”
Mozie’s tension was growing. It was hard to keep up a normal conversation.
He dreaded the moment when he unlocked the greenhouse door, pushed it open, and heard that faint creak of the door’s hinge—like something out of a horror movie. The memory of that creak caused him to shudder.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t cold, are you? I could turn down the air-conditioning if I knew where it was.”
“I’m fine. It’s nice of you to do this.”
“I don’t mind. I like to drive.”
“Usually I just take the shortcut through the woods.”
“I hate the woods. I have been scared of woods since kindergarten when Miss Penny—she loved fairy tales—and she gave a lot of feeling to the words when she read. I can still hear her saying, ‘The deep, dark woods.’ I was third runner-up for Miss Dogwood last year and I believe the reason I didn’t get it was because it came across that I just can’t stand trees.”
Mozie nodded sympathetically.
“Oh, here’s the road. I was about to pass it. It’s so overgrown it doesn’t even look like a road.”
She turned the car into the boarded-up Esso station, pulled on the hand brake, and the car skidded to a stop beside the rusty gas pumps. The two of them fell silent.
Mozie was holding his cap against his chest as if for protection. He and Batty had gotten these hats free at the opening of Ace Hardware. They were white with yellow bills, and when Batty’s sister first saw them, she said, “Well, if it isn’t the Quack-Quacks.”
He looked out the car window at the deserted gas station. Beyond, the overgrown road was like a secret lane to nowhere.
The pause continued until Mozie said, “I guess I better get out.”
“I’ll be right here. I’m going to keep the engine running, and when you get through, we’ll scratch off.”
“Right.”
“How long you think it’s going to take you?”
“Ten minutes to get to the greenhouse, one minute to turn on the sprinkler, and thirty seconds to get back.”
Valvoline looked blank for a minute and then smiled. “I get it. You’re going to be running back.”
“Yes,” Mozie said emphatically.
“Let’s see. How many minutes was that?”
“Eleven and a half.”
“I’ll give you fifteen.”
Mozie nodded. “But don’t leave!” he added, turning to her.
“I won’t. There’s a pay phone right over there, and first thing, I’ll call your mom. I want to ask her something about my dress anyway. I think it needs more sequins.”
Mozie didn’t want to get out of the car. He knew how their dog Flexie used to feel when they arrived at the vet’s. Flexie would jump in the backseat. They’d open the back door and she’d jump in the front seat. As a last resort, she would crouch down on the floor and tremble.
Valvoline reached over and opened the door for him. There was nothing to do now but get out.
He put on his cap. Remembering Batty’s sister’s rude remark about the caps, he turned the bill to the back. He wished earnestly that the other Quack-Quack was at his side.
“Here I go,” he said.
He got out of the car and started across the hot tarmac toward the old road.
The air was still and heavy. Nothing seemed to be moving in the entire universe except his slow feet. He might as well have had on fins, he thought, he was walking so awkwardly.
He glanced back over his shoulder. Valvoline was locking all the doors of the car.
He faced forward. Manfully, but slowly, Mozie headed up the road. The sign ahead read DEAD END.
The Sound of Thunder
MOZIE PAUSED OUTSIDE THE greenhouse.
It was a huge old building constructed twenty years ago by the town’s only millionaire, Mr. Downs. Hobart Downs had had a love of exotic tropical plants, and he raised them in the greenhouse and brought them up to the big house on trucks.
After Mr. Downs’s death, the mansion and the greenhouse fell into disuse. The house burned to the ground during an electrical storm, and the greenhouse and gardener’s cottage had been bought two years ago by Professor Orloff.
Mozie pushed open the door. The faint creak of the hinges brought goose bumps to his arms. He wished for Batty. He knew Valvoline was waiting at the old Esso station, but that wasn’t like having Batty right behind him. He longed to hear Batty say, “I’m right behind you, pal, and I won’t push.”
Mozie took a deep, purposeful breath because he didn’t want to risk having that heady, peculiar air of the greenhouse in his lungs. He took one step inside the greenhouse, one more step to the
sprinkler system.
His hand reached for valve X. He turned the valve and reached for a bottle of Vita Grow—a strange-looking liquid, brownish in color with a distasteful smell. Mozie poured the foul liquid into the valve and closed it.
Mozie was still holding his breath though his face was turning red. He was reaching for the sprinkler system when suddenly, he paused.
He stood for a moment without moving. Then, slowly, he let out his breath and inhaled the thick, scented air of the greenhouse. He turned and faced the rear where THE plant grew.
Everything seemed to have grown since he was here yesterday. The plants’ limbs reached out over the aisle, forming a sort of arch that led him forward. Some of the trumpetlike flowers had fallen to the ground, and in their place vegetables were already beginning to form.
Slowly Mozie began to move down the aisle, the arch of branches closing over his head. Huge leaves brushed his cheeks. He stepped over a squash that had fallen and now blocked his way.
He felt as if he had shrunk, like in a science-fiction movie where normal blades of grass were like skyscrapers.
To ease his fears, he began a conversation with the absent Batty, taking both sides himself.
“Well, Batty, I’m inside. You wait outside, like you always do, all right?”
“Okey-doke!”
“Make sure I come out?”
“Okey-doke.”
“If I don’t, get the police. They’ll know what to do.”
“Okey-doke.”
The “okey-dokes,” spoken in what really sounded to him like Batty’s voice, helped lift Mozie’s spirits. He went deeper into the greenhouse. He could not explain why he continued. He didn’t want to go in. He wanted to be running for the Esso station and Valvoline’s car.
He paused at the end of the greenhouse where he had stopped yesterday. This time he did not reach out and push the leaves aside. He knew what was behind them.
“I’m not going to look, Batty,” he said.
“Okey-doke,” he answered for Batty.
And yet even as he spoke his hand reached toward the leaves. Carefully, trying to disturb as little as possible, Mozie shifted the leaves aside.
