"They were looking for Gordy," Mrs. Smith said timidly.
"Well, he's not here." Pulling his wife inside, Mr. Smith slammed the door, leaving Elizabeth and me on the porch and June on the sidewalk.
Elizabeth and I stared at June, and she stared back. With a dirty fist, she wiped her tears away, but she didn't move. She stood on the sidewalk and scowled at us as if we were responsible for the entire episode.
Glancing behind me at the closed door, I walked down the steps and knelt on the sidewalk in front of June. Looking into her gray eyes, I said, "The cat's all right. He landed on his feet and ran through the hedge."
"She's a girl," June said scornfully. "Her name is Mittens." Even though she was just a little kid, June sounded exactly like Gordy.
"Want us to find her for you?" Elizabeth asked.
Before June had a chance to answer, Gordy rode into the yard on his bike. Skidding to a stop, he stared at Elizabeth and me. For the first time since I'd known him, he looked scared.
"What are you doing here?" he asked. "Did you tell?"
Elizabeth scowled at Gordy. "Of course not," she said. "We just wondered where you were."
Gordy looked at June. "Where's your coat? You don't even have shoes on!"
June threw her arms around Gordy and started crying. "Daddy was mean to Mittens again. He threw her off the porch. Then he slammed the door. If I go in there, he'll whip me."
Gordy picked up June and looked at us over the top of her head. "Get out of here," he said, "before I bust your lip!"
"Don't make me go in there," June sobbed. "I don't want to see Daddy no more."
But Gordy was carrying her up the front steps, stroking her hair and telling her not to cry. "I'll take care of you," he said. Then he turned to Elizabeth and me. "Didn't you hear me?" he yelled. "Get out of my yard, you dopes!"
This time Elizabeth and I listened. Without another word, we turned and ran.
14
As soon as we were far enough away from Gordy's house to feel sate, Elizabeth and I slowed down to a walk. For a few minutes we trudged along silently, trying to breathe normally. Never had a grown man scared me as much as Mr. Smith had ... not even the crazy man. Now that it was too late, I wished I'd never gone near Davis Road. There were some things you were better off not knowing about, I thought, and Mr. Smith was one of them.
Elizabeth was the first to speak. "I wish Daddy could throw Mr. Smith in jail forever," she said. "That's where he belongs."
"Do you think he always acts like that?" I asked.
"He must've been d-r-u-n-k." Imitating her mother, Elizabeth spelled it out. "That's what's wrong with him."
Tipping her head back, Elizabeth pretended to drink from a bottle. Then she staggered across the sidewalk, fell against a telephone pole, and made a loud hiccuping sound. I knew she wanted me to laugh, but somehow it wasn't funny, not now, not after seeing Mr. Smith throw the cat and yell at everybody.
Changing the subject, I reminded Elizabeth that we'd gone to the Smiths' house to find out why Gordy hadn't been in school. "I bet you were right," I said. "Stuart must be worse and Gordy played hooky to take care of him."
"Let's find out," Elizabeth said.
Although I would have preferred to go home, I followed her across the train tracks and into the woods. The scraggly arms of thornbushes lashed my face and caught at my clothes and hair, and the wind blustered through the treetops, pushing us toward the hut. By the time Elizabeth and I reached the clearing, we were both out of breath.
The door was shut, and no one was in sight. In the wintry dusk, the hut looked like something from a fairy tale, a place where a witch might live. I hung back a moment, but Elizabeth shoved the door open and went inside.
From the threshold, I saw the glow of the railroad lantern. A fire burned in the little stove, warming the air slightly but not enough to dispel the odor of kerosene, damp earth, and old wool.
Draped in blankets, Stuart sat on the cot and stared at us. He was coughing, and, even in the dim light, I saw the dark shadows under his eyes. His cheeks were hollowed out, and he shivered.
"Are you okay?" Elizabeth asked.
Stuart shook his head and coughed again. "Is Gordy with you?" His voice was so hoarse I could barely hear him.
"No," Elizabeth said, "it's just me and Margaret." Walking closer, she stared hard at Stuart. "You look awful."
"Thanks," Stuart whispered.
"You need a doctor," Elizabeth went on, "and medicine."
"I don't think doctors make house calls to bums in the woods." Stuart tried to laugh, but he started coughing and ruined the humor of it.
"I'll bring you some Cheracol," I said. "We've got some left from the last time I was sick."
Stuart shook his head. He was probably afraid to say anything for fear of making himself cough again.
"How about aspirin?" I asked, trying to remember what Mother gave me when I felt bad. "Ginger ale and soup," I added. "You need them, too."
Elizabeth and I looked around the hut. There wasn't much food. A few cans of pork and beans, a jug of water, a jar of applesauce, half a loaf of bread, some peanut butter.
"Does Gordy bring you dinner?" Elizabeth asked.
"Sometimes," Stuart said. "When he can."
Elizabeth looked at me and sighed. "Well," she said to Stuart, "I guess we'll just have to make sure you get more stuff. I don't think Gordy's doing a very good job."
That made Stuart smile. "Who do you think you are?" he asked. "Florence Nightingale?"
Elizabeth scowled. "Just because I'm a girl, you think I can't do anything."
"I never said that," Stuart said. "In fact, you're a pretty unusual girl."
"I am, aren't I?" Elizabeth smiled. "I never cry and nothing scares me," she said with her usual modesty.
"Not even Gordy?"
"He's a dumbo," Elizabeth said scornfully.
"How about you?" Stuart turned to me. "Are you brave too, Margaret?"
Looking at my feet, I let Elizabeth answer for me.
"She's a sissy baby sometimes," Elizabeth admitted, "but mostly she's okay. Once I talk her into something, she does it. Like coming here. By herself, she never would have done it, but with me, well, she's braver. Right, Margaret?"
She smiled at me then, and I nodded so hard my braids thunked my shoulders. It was true. With Elizabeth beside me, I wasn't nearly so scared of things.
Stuart looked at Elizabeth. "So how come you want to help me all of a sudden?" he asked. "The last time you saw me you said you hoped I'd die. Remember?"
Elizabeth blushed. "Well, I still think if my brother has to go to war, you should go too, but I don't want you to die. Not really. I just said that because I was mad." She shoved her fists into the pockets of her pea coat and frowned.
Stuart smiled, but even under his blankets, he was trembling with cold. For a few seconds, there was no sound but the wind.
"Do you know my old man?" Stuart asked suddenly.
"We just met him today," Elizabeth said. "For the very first time."
And the last, I hoped, but I didn't say that out loud.
"Do you know what he'd do if he found out Gordy was helping me?" Stuart went on.
Elizabeth shook her head, and Stuart said, "He'd beat him black and blue. He told Gordy he'd like to see me dead or spending the rest of my life busting rock in an army prison camp. As far as he's concerned, I should be shot at dawn."
"Your father knows you deserted?" Elizabeth asked.
Stuart nodded. "The army told him. When I didn't come back from furlough last summer, they came to the house looking for me, but Gordy hid me down here. Nobody else knows where I am. They think I'm hundreds of miles away by now."
He shivered again as a blast of wind swept through the cracks in the wall behind him. Even with a beard hiding half his face, he reminded me of his mother. He had the same sad, worn-down look about him. Only he didn't scare me like she did.
"Gordy wants to take care of me all by h
imself," Stuart said, "but the old man's bound to get suspicious if he keeps on stealing food and playing hooky. I made him promise to go to school tomorrow. When you see him, tell him it's okay for you to help me, I want you to."
Stuart started coughing again. "You better get going," he said. "It's almost dark. You never know who might be hiding in the woods, do you?"
He grinned to show us he was joking, but when Elizabeth and I left the hut, the woods were full of shadows, and the wind was making scary sounds in the treetops.
Without saying a word, we ran all the way home. Pausing at my gate, Elizabeth scuffed at the cinders Daddy dumped in the alley whenever he cleaned the furnace. "We aren't ever going to tell anyone about Stuart," Elizabeth said fiercely. "No matter what."
Behind her, the sunset had turned the clouds fiery red and purple, and it looked as if the whole world were going up in flames. The white sides of houses and garages were pink, and the puddles in the alley were sheets of crimson. Even the glass in the windows was scarlet, as if fires raged inside.
I stared at her, momentarily surprised by her sudden change of attitude. I should have expected it. That was how Elizabeth was. Her opinions veered back and forth like a weather vane on a rooftop. What she hated one day, she loved the next.
"The way I see it, Stuart is our secret," Elizabeth went on. "Yours and mine. Nobody else knows except Gordy and Doug and Toad."
She paused, her eyes wide, and dropped her voice to a whisper. "Stuart's life is in our hands, Margaret." To demonstrate, Elizabeth extended her red mittens, palms up. "His very life."
Then she was gone, leaping the puddles and running up her back steps.
"Where have you been?" Mother asked as I opened the kitchen door. "It's almost dark."
"In the alley, talking to Elizabeth."
"Your father will be home any minute," she said. Thrusting a handful of knives, forks, and spoons at me, she told me to set the table. Then, without another word, she turned her attention to the potatoes bubbling on the stove.
The set of her back told me this wasn't the time to ask her any of the questions filling my head. We hadn't gotten a letter from Jimmy for days, and she was tense with worry.
***
After dinner, while Daddy was listening to H. V. Kaltenborn's commentary on the war, I sat down across from Mother at the kitchen table. She looked up from the socks she was darning. "Have you finished your homework?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, "but I wanted to talk to you about something."
"Well?"
I ran my finger along the edge of the table. "Did you know Mr. Smith beats Gordy?"
Mother worked her needle through the heel of Daddy's sock, closing the hole he'd worn in it. "Mr. Smith is Gor-dy's father," she said. "He knows what's best for his son. Maybe that's the only way he can make Gordy behave."
"But he gave him a black eye," I said.
Mother looked up from the sock. "Do you know that for a fact, Margaret?"
I rubbed my finger back and forth, back and forth, making a squeaking sound on the table's enameled surface. Somehow I thought Mother would be outraged at the very thought of a father beating his son. Daddy never hit Jimmy or me. Or even yelled at us. Once in a while Mother gave me a whack on the bottom with a hairbrush, but it didn't really hurt.
"June says her father hits them," I said. "And he threw their cat out the door. I saw him do it."
"What people do in their homes is their own business. It's not for us to interfere." Picking up another sock, Mother frowned at me. "What were you doing at the Smiths' house, anyway? That's not the sort of place I want you spending your time."
"We were just walking by," I said.
"You saw all this just walking by their house?"
I nodded, and Mother leaned toward me. "Stay away from the Smiths," she said. "You and Elizabeth both. I'm sure Mrs. Crawford feels the same way I do."
"You were nice to Gordy on Sunday" I said. "You told him Stuart was the best paperboy you ever had."
"I don't mind Gordy coming here," Mother said. "I just don't want you going there. I never let Jimmy play at their house, and you can't either."
Glancing at the kitchen clock, Mother stopped me from asking any more questions by telling me it was past my bedtime.
Disappointed, I trudged up the steps to my room. It seemed to me Mother should be more concerned. Something was wrong at the Smiths' house, but all she cared about was not being a busybody.
Snuggling under my covers, I listened to the wind knock against my window. Here I was warm and safe, but Stuart was sick and alone in his hut in the woods, and Mr. Smith was scaring June and his wife and all those little kids. Maybe at this very moment he was beating Gordy. How did it feel to be socked so hard your eye turned black? Did it hurt enough to make even a boy as tough as Gordy cry?
15
At three-thirty the next day, Elizabeth and I waited outside school for Gordy. Suspecting he'd been playing hooky, Mrs. Wagner had kept him in to catch up on his lessons. When he shoved the big green door open and saw Elizabeth and me, he frowned.
"What are you jerks hanging around here for?" he said. "You want a punch in the face or something?"
He walked down the steps, his fists clenched. He looked so menacing, I wanted to run, but Elizabeth grabbed my sleeve and stopped me from going anywhere.
"Didn't I warn you, Lizard?" Gordy shoved his face close to Elizabeth's. "Quit spying. You're going to ruin everything!"
Elizabeth's head tilted back, but she didn't budge. "Stuart wants us to help," she said. "He asked me to tell you."
"Liar. He never said nothing like that." Gordy glared at her. "You want the army to get him. I bet you already told everybody in College Hill where he is."
"Don't you dare call me a tattletale!" Elizabeth stood on her tiptoes, making herself eye to eye with Gordy. "I feel sorry for Stuart. He's sick. He needs people to watch over him and bring him things. You can't do it all by yourself."
Gordy sniffed and ran the back of his hand past his nose. The wind whipped his hair, and he looked cold and miserable. The scar above his eyebrow made a livid streak against his pale skin. For the first time I wondered how he'd gotten it.
"We can take food to him," Elizabeth went on. "And maybe even medicine. Suppose he dies? What would you do? Bury him in the woods all by your stupid self?"
"You shut up!" Gordy drew back one arm, and I thought for sure he was going to punch Elizabeth. She didn't even duck. She just stood there glaring at him, daring him to hit her.
Turning aside, Gordy shoved both fists into his jacket pockets. He stood there for a few moments, his head down, his shoulders slumped. When he looked up, I thought I saw the glitter of tears in his eyes, but it was probably my imagination.
"Okay," he muttered. "If Stuart really wants you to help, get some food and meet me at the hut." Yanking his bike out of the rack, he vaulted on like a cowboy and pedaled away. We watched him till he turned the corner by the trolley tracks, but he didn't look back.
"Come on." Elizabeth ran across the playground with me in pursuit. When we got to our block, she slowed down and pulled me close so she could whisper in my ear.
"You get aspirin and cough syrup," she told me. "I'll bring food. Chicken soup with rice if we have it. Then meet me in the alley. Be sure no one sees you."
I nodded and raced for home. Mother was in the kitchen listening to "Stella Dallas" while she fixed dinner. She was so absorbed in Stella's latest sorrow she barely noticed me run up to my room.
Changing my clothes as fast as I could, I slipped into the bathroom and grabbed a little bottle of aspirin and the cough medicine. Dropping them into my jacket pocket, I hurried down the hall and sauntered into the kitchen, trying to look like my ordinary everyday self, not a girl hiding stolen goods.
"How about some Ovaltine to warm you up?" Mother asked.
"Elizabeth is waiting for me," I said. Through the window in the back door, I could see her stamping the ice on a mud puddle. S
he liked the tinkling sound it made when it broke.
Without giving Mother a chance to ask any more questions, I hurried out into the cold air and joined Elizabeth.
"Did you get the medicine?" she asked me as we ran down the alley.
When I nodded, Elizabeth said, "Good. I got some soup and a can of stew and a jar of applesauce. Nice nourishing food. Maybe we can fatten Stuart up."
By the time Elizabeth and I got to the hut, Gordy and Doug had lit a small campfire in the clearing. With stony faces, they watched us approach.
Reaching into my pockets, I held the aspirin and cough medicine out like offerings. Without even saying thanks, Gordy grabbed the soup from Elizabeth and looked at the labels. While we watched, he opened a can, dumped the soup into a small pot, and plunked it down in the fire.
Leaving him there, Elizabeth and I went into the hut. Stuart was lying on the cot, covered with blankets. His face was flushed, and his eyes were glittery. When he saw Elizabeth and me, he smiled and tried to sit up. The effort made him cough.
"You look sicker," Elizabeth said, tactful as ever. She took the Cheracol from me and poured some into a spoon. Like a little kid, Stuart opened his mouth wide, and Elizabeth tipped the medicine down his throat.
"Ugh," he said.
"The worse it tastes, the better it is for you," Elizabeth told him. "At least, that's what my mother always says."
Next she made him take two aspirins and drink a glass of water. "You'll be better soon," she told him.
Stuart nodded. "You make it sound like a threat," he said, but he smiled to show her he was kidding.
Then the door thumped open, and Gordy came in carrying the pot of soup. "It's real hot," he told Stuart as he carefully set it on the orange-crate table.
Stuart stirred the soup and blew on a spoonful. When he swallowed, he winced as if it hurt his throat. After he'd eaten about half the soup, he lay down and pulled the covers up to his chin.
"See?" he said to Gordy. "I told you the girls would be a big help."
Gordy didn't say anything. Without looking at Elizabeth or me, he bent over Stuart. "Should we go now?" he asked his brother.
Stepping on the Cracks Page 8
