by Betsy Byars
Aunt Pepper came in and leaned against the wall. “Grandma’s dead,” she said.
“It looks human, Professor, but underneath that human exterior, there is something not quite …”
“Not quite what? Human, perhaps?”
“Exactly.”
THERE WERE TWENTY PEOPLE at Warren’s grandmother’s funeral, and they all sat on folding chairs under the green mortuary awning.
It was unlike any movie funeral Warren had ever attended because the day was beautiful, there was not a cloud in the sky, nobody had on black, and nobody was weeping.
Warren sat between Weezie and Aunt Pepper. He did not bother to search the cemetery for his mother because the cemetery was flat, and there were no tombstones for her to hide behind, just modern flat markers that a lawn mower could ride over.
As Warren looked around, he felt he could see miles of graves, with only plastic flower arrangements sticking up to break the view.
It seemed to Warren that modern society was doing away with all the good movie settings. They flattened cemeteries and turned swamps into housing developments and built sewage disposal plants. Soon there would be nowhere mysterious for creatures like Bubbles to live.
He closed his eyes. The main reason he was not looking for his mother was because he knew she would not bother to come.
“Let us pray,” the minister said.
Warren bowed his head, but he did not close his eyes. There was a picture of his grandmother on the coffin, and he couldn’t stop looking at it. In the picture his grandmother was slim and had black wavy hair and dark lipstick. She was smiling into the camera.
To Warren, it was as strange as seeing a picture of a young Santa Claus; Santa Claus with a lean body and black hair and a little moustache. Both pictures would have been snapped so long ago Santa and his grandmother would not have had time to develop their characters.
Warren was ashamed that he did not feel sadder. He had felt terrible that first night. He could not sleep because death seemed to hang over the whole apartment like smog, keeping out all good feelings. He had twisted and shifted, but there had been no comfortable spot, even in his own familiar bed.
He had started feeling better the moment his aunt Ginger arrived from Las Vegas for the funeral. She and Pepper were like girls when they got together.
“Oh, I have got to tell you this,” Ginger would say, and Warren would draw close, like a dog to a fire. “I was singing in a little club in Frisco—very little, ten tables—and I look across the room, and there is Willie Leon Mantinelli who used to be in love with you in ninth grade.”
“Don’t tell me, let me guess. He was still short and fat, and he had bad breath.”
“No, no, he was gorgeous, gorgeous, so gorgeous I didn’t recognize him.”
Warren would sit speechless, watching them, looking from one to the other. He could never remember there being laughter and stories in the apartment.
“He was tall—”
“He couldn’t be tall. He came up to there on me.” Aunt Pepper gave a light chop to her throat.
“Remember, men didn’t wear high heels back then. Straight white teeth—”
“Come on! His nickname used to be Beaver.”
“—curly hair, mustache, gorgeous! He comes over—his shirt is open, hairy chest, necklace—and he says his name is Bill. I say, ‘Hi, I’m Ginger.’ He is looking at me with interest, and I am looking at him the same way.”
“Did his pimples clear up?”
“Yes, I tell you the man is gorgeous! He is so good-looking that I start thinking he must be somebody famous, on TV or something, and finally I say, ‘Do you mind telling me your last name?’ And he says, ‘No, it’s Mantinelli.’
“I had just taken a sip of red wine, and I spit it out all over him. I said, ‘Aren’t you Willie Leon Mantinelli, and didn’t you go to Madison High, and weren’t you in love with my sister Pepper all through ninth grade?’ ”
“Ginger!”
“And the poor man, before my very eyes, suddenly becomes short, fat Willie Leon. All the gorgeousness was gone, and he got up and literally ran from the club. The last I saw of him was his high heels tottering through the swinging door.”
Sometimes Warren wanted to break into the stories and ask, “Did Mom know him too? Was Mom in on that?” but he didn’t want to take a chance on being sent out of the room.
He tried to imagine his mother sitting cross-legged on the bed, laughing with her sisters, talking about old times, and it seemed to him as he sat there that knowing you could never sit and laugh with your sisters would be one of the worst things about being a fugitive. He wondered if years from now he and Weezie would sit together and laugh at the past.
“Let us pray,” the minister said.
It must be a second prayer, Warren thought, because his head was still bowed from the first one. He looked up at the minister through his eyelashes.
Suddenly he noticed a figure in the distance, over by some trees. The figure hadn’t been there before. His head snapped up. He drew in a breath so loudly his aunt Pepper glanced at him.
He started to get to his feet. “Warren.” Aunt Pepper reached over and patted his leg. “Sit down, hon.” She tried to press him back into his seat.
He remained in a crouch. The figure had long red hair! The face was turned away, but the long hair, pulled back in a ponytail, was his mother’s hair.
“Warren.” Aunt Pepper was pulling at his pants now. “Sit down.”
He reached out, and clutched Aunt Pepper’s hand. He squeezed it hard. He said, “It’s her,” beneath his breath.
“Who?”
“It’s—”
He did not finish because the figure turned around then, and it was not his mother. It was a man with a red beard. He was holding a shovel. Warren realized it was a workman who was waiting in the trees for the funeral to end so he could come over and shovel the earth back into the hole.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
He sank back into his chair. He bowed his head, not knowing if the others were still praying or not. Tears filled his eyes, and he began to bite the insides of his cheeks so he wouldn’t cry. Just once, he thought as he bit harder, just once he would like to cry for the right reasons.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” the minister was saying.
The sounds of his own sobs surprised Warren. He had burst out crying the way volcanoes erupt. He could feel people looking at him in quick sympathy. He tried to close his mouth, to choke back the sobs, but they only burst forth louder. He could barely hear the words of the minister now.
“—watch over you and keep you and bring you peace. Amen.”
“It’s over, hon.”
Warren was the first person to get to his feet. He rose so quickly that his folding chair tipped over backward and snapped shut over the artificial grass that covered the mound of dirt. He bent to pick it up.
“Honey, everything’s going to be all right,” Aunt Pepper took him by the shoulders and turned him around to face her. “You’ve got me. I’m going to move in with you and Weezie, and we’re going to fix up the apartment. This isn’t the end of the world. Don’t cry. Please.”
“I can’t help it.” He swallowed, straightened and then bowed his head as one final burst of sobs came out. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it. It’s just that …” He did not finish. He could not tell. He wept into his hands.
The minister put one arm around his shoulder. “Come and see me if you want to talk, son.”
“I will.”
Warren was the center of attention now. Everyone was stepping forward to comfort him. Ginger and Pepper had their arms around him. The old fingers of his grandmother’s gin rummy club tapped him on the head.
He tried to twist away. It was like a scene in one of those old monster movies, he thought, and the monster is trying to get away from the peasants, to get back to his hiding place. The monster twists, turns, struggles and finally is caught an
d carried to a laboratory cage. The scientists peer at him through the bars.
“It looks human, Professor, but underneath that human exterior, there is something not quite …”
“Not quite what? Human, perhaps?”
“Exactly.”
Yes, exactly, Warren thought. And with his head bowed he followed his aunts and sister down the path to the waiting cars.
“There’s nothing that can stop the monster now. His growth cells have gone wild!”
THE NEIGHBORHOOD DOG PACK of two was making its way down the sidewalk. The yellow dog had a bread wrapper in his mouth, and the spotted one was rubbing against him, trying to dislodge the package and get one of the pieces of green bread inside.
The only person in sight at the moment was Weezie. Warren was hiding in a doorway. He was following his sister, slipping after her like a spy, hiding in shadows, dodging behind buildings.
After supper Weezie had said, “I’m going out,” and when the door closed behind her, Warren was on his feet instantly, pulling on his own jacket.
“Me too,” he called to Aunt Pepper. She was in his grandmother’s room, painting the walls white. The room seemed large without his grandmother’s clutter. Her combs and brushes, her collection of perfume bottles, her china señorita doll with the lace mantilla, her pillows, her plastic-flower arrangements were all packed away. Only her coat hangers clicked together in the empty closet.
It was the first Monday of the month, and all of them knew Weezie was going to the pay telephone in front of the library to wait for a call from their mother.
“Good luck,” Pepper called as the door closed.
“Right.”
Now Warren peered around the doorway of the dry cleaner’s. When he saw that Weezie had turned the corner, he ran to the store on the corner and stopped. He peered around the dingy window.
Weezie was standing there, hands on her hips, waiting for him. “Why are you playing this ridiculous game?”
His mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Why are you pretending that I don’t know you’re back there? You’re about as subtle as a freight train, you know that? I can hear you running and then stopping. When you were hiding behind the mailbox I could hear you breathing.”
“I didn’t want you to try to make me go home. I’ve got as much right to talk to Mom as you have.”
“I wasn’t going to make you go home. I should have brought you a long time ago. You’ve built up too many dreams around Mom.”
He felt the urge to protest rising inside him the way it always did when Weezie accused him of idolizing their mother. This time he swallowed it down and said, “I know.”
“So come on. We’ll miss the call if we’re not there right at seven. If there is a call. Sometimes it doesn’t happen, you know. I stood in that phone booth in a snowstorm for two hours last January.”
“Why didn’t you just leave after fifteen minutes? That’s what I’d do.”
“Because I thought, well, maybe she is on the coast, in another time zone, and she’s forgotten, so she’ll call at seven her time and that will be—oh, never mind. Anyway, phone booths are colder than refrigerators; believe me. I know.”
Warren walked along beside his sister, feeling a strong bond with her. For the first time he found he was matching her long strides, keeping up with her. This was probably why soldiers kept in step—so they would feel unified.
“You better plan what you’re going to say, though,” Weezie said, interrupting his thoughts. “Sometimes Mom only has enough money for three minutes.”
“Oh.” Warren had not thought of this. He stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk. “What are you planning to say?”
“Well, first I’m going to tell her about Grandma.”
“Good.” Warren did not want “Grandma’s dead,” to be the first words he spoke to his mother in three years. “I’ll go last.”
“All right.”
As he walked, he imagined Weezie saying, “Mom, Warren’s here. He wants to talk now.” He imagined taking the cold receiver in his warm hand—his palms were already getting sweaty—and leaning close. “Mom?”
That was as far as his imagination took him. What would he say then? he wondered. What could he say that would be interesting?
His thoughts raced through the last three years of his life: a broken tooth—he ran his tongue over it—almost getting run over by a school bus, his friend Larry moving to Chicago—she didn’t even know he had had a friend named Larry—getting that miraculous A+ on an English test.
He shook his head. These were things you told your mother every day when you got home from school, things you told at the kitchen table while you were having cookies and milk. Tonight he had to tell his mother something so interesting, so fascinating she would not want to hang up even when the call was over.
His main interest, of course, was his movies, but that would not do. He would need at least a half hour to do justice to one of those.
And then, right in the best part—something like “There’s nothing that can stop the monster now. His growth cells have gone wild!”—right in the middle of something like that, she would say, “Well, I have to hang up now. Bye-bye.” Click.
“What sort of things do you usually say?” he asked carefully, looking up at his sister.
“Oh, I tell things about me, about the family. Sometimes she asks questions. Sometimes I do. There’s never enough time, though.”
“Oh.”
They rounded the corner and there was the library. In front, the phone booth was lit up. It was the only thing Warren saw. It dominated all the important buildings. Indeed, the buildings did not even seem real, a painted backdrop.
Suddenly Warren cried, “Weezie there’s somebody inside.” He ran forward a few steps. “Look, somebody’s in the booth talking!” His voice broke with disappointment and frustration. He turned to his sister.
“We’ve still got”—she looked at her watch calmly—“three minutes. If he’s not out by then, I’ll declare an emergency.”
Warren had begun to wring his hands. They were so slick with sweat that it was as if he were washing them with soap.
“Weezie!”
“Look, don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time I’ve had to evict somebody. One time I stopped a lady in the middle of giving a recipe.”
“But what if he won’t—what if you can’t—”
“I’ll get him out.”
Suddenly it seemed to him that Weezie was the strong one, the Wonder Woman, the person who could save the world. At any rate, he knew she would save this moment, and that was all that really mattered.
He looked up at his sister. He was dazzled by the glowing picture of her yanking the man out of the booth as the library clock struck seven, tossing him across the street, stepping in just as the phone began to ring, saying coolly, “Hello.”
Warren had always thought a person had to do big, overblown things to be great. And yet this—Weezie getting a man out of a phone booth so they could talk to their mother—this was the most heroic feat he could imagine.
They walked together to the phone booth and stood outside the door. Inside, the man was saying, “Let me explain, Marsha, I can explain it if you’ll just give me a chance.”
“What time is it now?” Warren asked, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
Weezie looked down at her watch and held up two fingers. Warren waited without speaking. With her eyes on her wristwatch Weezie waited, then she held up one finger.
“Get him out,” Warren said.
She nodded and knocked on the door of the booth. The door rattled loudly, and the man glanced over his shoulder in irritation.
“We have to use the phone. I’m sorry. It’s an emergency,” Weezie said. She sounded like a policewoman, Warren thought proudly.
“What? This is a public phone. I’m in the middle of a conversation.”
“I’m sorry. Are you aware of the penalty for refusing to give up
the phone in case of an emergency call?” She paused, added, “Two hundred dollars or thirty days in jail.”
“What?”
Weezie did not answer. The man glanced at the phone in his hand, up at Weezie’s stern face—she was taller than he. “All right, lady!” He said quickly, “I’ll call you right back,” just as Weezie took the phone from him and hung it up.
“We won’t be long,” she said.
“Well, how long? I’ve got other calls to make. I’ve got to—”
“Three minutes.”
The man moved outside and sat on the library steps, watching them. He glanced down at his own watch.
Weezie let out her breath in a long sigh of relief and stepped into the phone booth. She waited with her head lifted, her hands resting on the ledge just below the phone. In the open door Warren watched her, knowing she had stood like this so often it was a ritual, like something a person does in church.
“I thought this was an emergency,” the man called from the steps. “Aren’t you going to make your call? There’s probably a penalty for pretending to have an emergency when you—”
Weezie lifted one hand to shut him up.
It was then that the phone rang. Warren reached out and gripped the sides of the booth for support. Weezie waited for the second ring. Then she lifted the receiver.
“This is Weezie.”
Warren watched. He saw Weezie’s face relax. “Hello, Mom.” She turned to Warren and included him in the moment. “It’s her,” she said.
“Folks, I’ve called you together because our town has a little problem.”
“I wouldn’t call being buried under a thousand feet of leaves a little problem.”
WARREN WAS BREATHING THROUGH his open mouth, and his throat was getting so dry he didn’t think he would be able to speak when his turn came.
He shifted uneasily. His brow wrinkled with a troubling thought. If his turn came.
“Well, Grandma had a stroke,” Weezie was saying, “and she was in the hospital about ten days … no, she was conscious, she asked for us, for you.” Weezie had not paused once since she began talking. She was going on as if she had all evening to talk. “No, Ginger didn’t get here while Grandma was in the hospital, but she came for the funeral. She’s still here … no, Pepper’s moving into our apartment. She’s painting Grandma’s room tonight. It feels so funny to see it empty.”
