The Calder Game

by Blue Balliett

  As the car pulled away, a rolled piece of paper flew over the top of the wall.

  Stunned, Petra lay on her side. She struggled for air. Knocked the wind out of myself, she thought. Just a fall. Better in a moment. Suddenly, with a gasp, she was breathing again. The air was delicious.

  She’d landed on a brick walk, under a huge tree. No house was visible. The path was overgrown, and dense bushes on either side met in an unfriendly mesh in the middle. Like interlocking fingers, Petra thought with a shudder. Hundreds of reaching fingers.

  She rolled the other way and looked up at the door. A smear of old cement covered the lock and what looked like the slot for a bolt. The door was locked, and locked for good.

  “Tommy!” she called, as loudly as she dared. Silence, just the whispery sound of a breeze in the bushes …

  No! She wouldn’t get frightened. Why hadn’t she and Tommy made a plan in case only one of them got over the wall?

  It felt all wrong to be in the park without him.

  She thought suddenly about Arthur Wish, and how he had ended up with a head injury, lying in the bottom of a boat. Think like Calder, she told herself firmly. Calder and Tommy. She and Tommy had made a decision, and she knew Tommy would find her.

  Just in case, she felt in her pants pocket for her pen and notebook and sat up, her back to the wall. She scribbled a quick mobile-note, tore it out of her notebook, rolled the page into a tube, and tied it firmly with three long grass stems. There. She tossed it over the wall.

  As Petra hurried through the bushes and trees in Blenheim Park, the light began to fade and the colors around her shifted. The lake turned black, and Blenheim Palace glowed yellow in the low sun. I won’t look at the woods, she thought to herself. Anyone could be in those woods. She shivered, scuffing ahead through red leaves that were everywhere — glorious bursts of color that now reminded her only of fresh blood. Murderers must love the fall; so easy to hide the evidence. But what am I thinking! She shook her head as a line of geese flapped west, tracing a shaky path between stone, water, and sky.

  Tommy was driven back to the guesthouse by the police. They had asked where “the girl” was, and he had lied, saying she’d gone back ahead of him.

  He hopped out of the side of the car, gave the officer a friendly wave, and stepped into the doorway. As soon as the car turned a corner, he popped back out on the street.

  Fingering his coin, he wandered through the bendy roads and paths that connected the buildings in the town. Very little was set up as a grid; the old part felt more like a maze. Had someone planned it that way? All of the streets radiated from the central square, which had once had its own minotaur, but now held only WISHes.

  Tommy knew Petra would have liked his thought, and hey — it would work for a poem-mobile, too:

  NO-MINOTAUR-ONLY-WISHES-HERE

  Those five words could float around one another and make you think of all kinds of unexpected things. The wishes and the no balanced, and the minotaur and the here were both kind of surprising — but the minotaur and the wishes were also good together. He was getting used to the Calder Game. Thinking in fives wasn’t so hard, and it had cool results. He understood why Petra liked this game.

  Tommy realized, to his surprise, that he already missed her. This had certainly been one weird day.

  He spotted interesting things on his walk, but nothing helpful — a tin pail, a chair with a broken leg, a long piece of red yarn that wound around several corners. And then he saw it: a sturdy, long bench that might have come from a church. It had a broken board in the seat. Perfect. Once it got dark, he could use it as a kind of ramp or ladder against the park wall. He shoved the bench deeper into the weeds by the side of the lane and tossed a bundle of news papers in front of it. There, it was hardly visible now.

  He wandered away from the bench, whistling, and headed back to the guesthouse. Upstairs, he knocked on Mrs. Sharpe’s door.

  “Come in.” Her voice was crackly.

  Tommy opened the door. “Mrs. Sharpe?”

  “Who else would it be? Anything to report?” she asked, then blew her nose.

  “Well, no, not really, but yes, Petra and me — well, we went back out after falling in the river and now we’re both tired. Petra’s taking a nap, and I need one, too,” Tommy blurted in a rush. “We don’t want dinner.”

  Mrs. Sharpe took off her reading glasses and studied the boy. “Yes, I heard about that little accident. And am I supposed to believe you?” she asked. She blew her nose again. “Rrrump-a-ra-RA! I’ve got a cold. I always do when I travel,” she growled.

  “Yes, I mean, believe me. And sorry about your cold,” Tommy said. Both hands were deep in his front pockets, and he squeezed the blue button in one and the coin in the other. The coin stuck to his palm. He tried to scrape it off.

  Mrs. Sharpe eyed the restless pocket. “Didn’t hear any creaking in the hall when the girl went into her room to nap just now, and walking through this building is like making popcorn. Noisy.”

  Tommy was ready for this one. “You told us to think without rules, remember? So we’ve learned to walk silently down this hall. You know, one foot on each side.”

  Mrs. Sharpe sniffed and leaned her head against the back of her chair, closing her eyes. “Sleep well, boy. Be sure to be at breakfast in the morning, both of you, eight on the dot.”

  As Tommy backed out, he could have sworn he saw Mrs. Sharpe peeking at him with one eye.

  After sharing his suspicions with the police, Walter Pillay had been allowed to see Art Wish that afternoon. The man remained unconscious. Was this pale person with the bandaged head the same man he’d seen in the town square with his son? It was hard to say. After all, he’d only seen him from behind. Calder’s dad remembered a black jacket slung casually over the man’s shoulder, and the officer on duty confirmed that Art Wish had indeed been wearing a black leather jacket when he was found. But weren’t there thousands of black jackets in England?

  Walter Pillay wished, with every ounce of his being, that he had looked through that bus window with greater care. As he left the hospital, he was assured that he’d be called immediately if Mr. Wish regained consciousness. He strode toward Blenheim Park, walking rapidly and almost at random, looking for any possible trace of his son. He found only Pummy.

  By then it was late afternoon, and the black cat sat calmly on a rock by the Cascade.

  “Home, Pummy, home!” Walter Pillay said, remembering Miss Knowsley’s words. The cat glared at him and meowed once. His loud “yeow” sounded just like an angry “ne-a-o-o-o!”

  Slowly, daintily, Pummy lifted one paw, tapped the surface of the water, and then shook it. Had he said no, and then waved at something in the pool?

  Walter Pillay shook his head and muttered, “Home, Calder, home,” but his second “home” wobbled into a sob. It had been a long and horrible day, and they were approaching the fourth night that his son had been gone.

  Four nights! It was unimaginable that something had happened to Calder, and Walter Pillay, discouraged as he was, refused to think it.

  Sighing, he turned around. On the walk back, he touched every leaf within reach, as if touching their aliveness would help to protect his son.

  He needed to call Yvette, who had been sleeping earlier. She was still in the hospital, in Chicago, and he was already thinking of how best to tell her that the police hadn’t found a thing today, only a man in a coma — an American with an ugly head injury. Plus, this now-silent man was the person who had owned the stolen sculpture. It was not good news.

  And what had he discovered today? An overfed cat with one yellow eye. Glancing back at the falls, Walter Pillay frowned. Not many cats fished in the evening.

  He shook his head. Everything felt odd and everything felt wrong, as if he were suddenly inside a world in which cats talked back and a cozy English village could swallow a boy.

  Calder had been here, just four afternoons ago. And he absolutely, positively went to the maze.

/>   Petra stood at the edge of the stubbly field dotted with ancient trees. She and Tommy had decided that afternoon that returning to the maze area was the best idea. After all, that’s where the symbols were, and symbols were something Calder understood. The codes he’d always invented so easily were made of symbols, and maybe he saw the maze as another code. If its shape held something that could be decoded, Tommy and Petra needed to take another look, a closer look. There was still light. In the distance, Petra saw the high brick walls of the Kitchen Garden.

  When she and Tommy had walked toward the maze that morning, she’d noticed the trees but hadn’t been frightened by them. Now, as she approached alone, they looked strangely alive. Twisted figures gesturing with claw-like arms: guardians, or perhaps running people frozen by an angry force into trees, the stuff of myths and fairy tales. The oaks seemed to be signaling, saying, “Look! See! I’m not a tree!” She pushed the thought away. Childish, she said to herself fiercely.

  She placed a hand on one of the trunks and patted it, as if to show she was friendly. The tree was at least six feet thick, and the inside hollow. The dark entrance looked horribly like the mouth on a giant face, and she now saw a long, broken nose and two mean, misshapen eyes.

  Petra was just thinking she would never crawl inside, not for anything, when she heard a man’s cough, and then a low murmur. Voices, but coming from where? She spun around, checking the shadows on all sides. Two figures, but not men in police uniform, walked quickly through the gates of the Kitchen Garden, headed her way. Their faces were hidden, their hands tucked into jacket pockets.

  There was no choice. In a flash, she ducked inside the tree. At that moment, she would have given a great deal to be somewhere near Tommy’s cannonball head.

  Sneaking out of his room as soon as it was dark, Tommy hurried back to the alley where he’d left the bench. There weren’t many streetlights in Woodstock, and the high stone walls created deep channels of black that snaked away from the town square in all directions. Tommy shuddered and dove in.

  Moving the bench was more difficult than he’d thought it might be. It was long and heavy. He walked a short distance down the alley and spotted a wheelbarrow in someone’s front garden. If he could just borrow that …

  Heart pounding, he stepped into the garden, grabbed the wheelbarrow by both handles, and began to trundle it out. Every step or two it squeaked loudly.

  Tommy froze, took two steps, froze again. He looked back at the house. The front rooms were dark. Lucky — the family was probably in the kitchen cooking or eating.

  Holding his breath now, he squeaked back down the alley to where the bench lay. Then he dragged it across the top of the wheelbarrow, balancing it with one knee. The wood rubbed angrily on the metal, and he knew he was making a dreadful amount of noise. He’d never make it through town and back to the wall!

  Unless … earlier that day, while waiting for Petra to open the door, he’d noticed a back entrance to one of the graveyards. It opened onto a winding brick path that traveled the length of the graveyard and out onto High Street, in the middle of town. He could use that, but going in the opposite direction.

  Hey, he told himself fiercely, a graveyard is a graveyard. Just a bunch of old stones! Stones and bones. He was almost there.

  Squeak, squeak, squeak. He trundled the wheelbarrow to the end of the alley and stopped, catching his breath. He’d rest and count to ten, and then, when the street was empty, dash across with his load.

  One, two, three, four, five — a car zoomed around the corner, heading directly toward him. He froze, turning away from the headlights. The car sped past.

  The street was now quiet. An occasional leaf rustled under the crime tape that still surrounded the WISH-WISH; a dog barked in the distance. A door opened, and then closed again with a thud. He thought of Calder, all alone somewhere. And Petra, alone in Blenheim Park. He suddenly felt braver; they were all in tough situations. There was nothing to do but keep going.

  Gripping the wheelbarrow handles, he wove across High Street, pausing every few steps to nudge the bench with his knee. It was almost a relief to reach the dark entrance to the graveyard. Almost.

  As the men approached Petra’s tree, one switched on a flashlight, and the beam bounced around the field. It had gotten dark much sooner than Petra had thought it would, and at the moment that was a good thing. She held her breath, pulled back against the inside of the trunk, and tried not to think about what might crawl into her hair or down her back.

  A wind had come up in the last few minutes, a sudden breeze, and it swished across the tops of trees, blurring the voices. Petra strained to hear.

  “From the boy,” one man said.

  “You think?” said the other. “Never found,” and then, “dead by now.”

  The words bumped and jostled in an ugly, sharp-cornered way. Dead by now, dead by now. They might be talking about Arthur Wish — it couldn’t be Calder. No, she had never imagined, for more than a moment, that Calder was dead. She knew Tommy didn’t believe it, either. Tommy! Could it be Tommy they were talking about? If someone could hit a full-grown man on the head, they could certainly get rid of a troublesome boy. Panic rippled down the length of her spine, and she realized that no one, no one in the world, knew exactly where any of the three friends were at that moment. Dead by now, all three gone — the words flashed through her mind.

  The men passed her tree and headed toward the lake. She peered out.

  The wind had picked up, gusting now. It blew directly in her face, as if to push her back toward Blenheim Palace and the lights of town. She stood next to the tree, breathed deeply, and told herself to run as quickly as possible toward the high brick wall.

  What was a little dark, anyway? Just no sun, she reminded herself as her sneakers pounded toward the opening. Just dark, all three fine, she whispered to herself again and again, spinning the words outward into a mobile in her mind. They floated into dark-three, all-just-fine and then into all-fine, dark-just-three. She went back to repeating just-dark, all-three-fine until the syllables turned into one-two, three-four-five.

  They would find him tonight, she and Tommy would rescue Calder, she could feel it in her bones. She stepped into the shadows of the old garden, and something stiff and cold whipped into her face. She shrieked and stumbled.

  With a heavy load and no flashlight, the graveyard walk was a nightmare. Under his breath, Tommy whispered every bad word he knew while he bump-bumped along; the bad words made him feel braver. He’d never realized how impossible an old brick path could be. The front tire of the wheelbarrow got stuck every few feet, falling into holes left by missing or broken bricks. The path was slippery with moss, and corners and edges that had once been flat now reared up in a dangerous, invisible landscape.

  The bench collided with a gravestone and tumbled off the wheelbarrow. With an especially fierce curse, Tommy looked around. Long, spooky shadows reached from the corners of the graveyard, and the pale markers glowed eerily in the blackness. Nothing was straight, and that made it all the more frightening; stones were tilted or sunk, trees twisty, the path a mere memory of right angles. Nothing in England is new, Tommy found himself thinking, and suddenly felt homesick for a world that wasn’t nearly as old or mysterious, a world where people didn’t walk into a park and vanish, or come out almost dead.

  A car drove by on High Street, in front of the church, and the headlights dragged a crooked wedge of shadow across the graveyard, a dark triangle that became the top of a tombstone rising, rising as if being pushed from below. Tommy knew that was nonsense, but his heart jumped, and in a split second his wall of words shattered into terror. He imagined bony fingers, spirits angry at being disturbed, graves opening up to swallow him. New, sorry I wished for new, he thought quickly, hoping any nearby ghosts would forgive him. Old, old, only old. With a surge of energy, he dragged the bench back on top of the wheelbarrow and set off in a staggery run for the back gate.

  Eyes followed his back as he
hustled, as fast as possible, between the graves.

  Just as Tommy scrambled over the wall into Blenheim Park, a large Cadbury delivery truck pulled up behind a greenhouse not far from the main gate. The five men in the truck were exhausted and hungry. Hours of worried argument had led them to abandon their plans to sell the huge Calder sculpture; no one wanted to end up in jail. The Minotaur lay buried, packed in hay, in the back of the truck.

  One by one, the men climbed down from the front seat. The first walked toward Woodstock, and the second away; the third set off across a field, the fourth scaled the wall by the park, and the fifth hitched a ride from a passing car.

  All felt cheated by the American who had hired them. All resented being a part of what they suspected was someone else’s elaborate game.

  A couple of hours later, a local farmer opened up the back of the truck marked Cadbury: You dream it, we make it. It was parked on his neighbor’s property, and his neighbor wasn’t home.

  Inside, the farmer found bales and bales of hay. A brisk wind banged the doors of the truck back against the sides, and wisps of hay flew outward into the surrounding hedges and fields.

  Aside from the hay, the truck was empty. He shrugged; probably a joke of some kind. He’d call the police in the morning.

  “Fall.”

  It was only a word, but everyone in the room clapped.

  “Artie, dear! It’s your Auntie Po! Fall! Yes, you had a little fall, my darling!”

  Arthur Wish only shook his head. “Fall,” he said again. “Under.”

  “Yes, you fell down!” Miss Knowsley crowed soothingly. “You can tell us everything later, just rest for now.”