“Obviously the chair didn’t like me,” stated the man.
“Nope,” the Boy agreed, and they shared a smile.
Suddenly the Boy’s aunt walked in, carrying a tray laden with food, which she deposited on the toy chest beside the table. “Your parents have gone out for dinner,” she said. “I’ll be in again at eight, to make sure that you’ve put yourself to bed.” She walked toward the door and then paused in the doorway, turning to glance quickly at the chess set and then down at the Boy again. “There’s an extra dessert on the tray,” she added with what she thought was a kindly smile. Then she was gone.
The Boy immediately looked across to the table to see a bear of a man leaning over to look at the contents of the tray with evident curiosity.
“She didn’t even say hello to you!” the Boy exclaimed, indignant.
The man shrugged unconcernedly. “What difference does it make? You’re talking to me, and that’s all that matters.”
The Boy looked at him for a long time before responding. “Well, as long as you’re my friend, I’ll never ignore you,” he said with conviction. “I know what it’s like to be invisible to other people.”
Again they shared an understanding smile; and feeling happier than he had in a long time, the Boy hopped off his chair and scooted across to the toy chest to see what extra sweet had been put on his tray. He uncovered the first plate to discover meatloaf and veggies. Screwing up his face in distaste at all the green confronting him, he uncovered the second plate to reveal chocolate pudding and a slice of hot apple pie.
He was about to dig in when a slight movement caught his eye. He looked over at his new friend, who was delicately sniffing the chocolate pudding with interest, and he realized that the gentle giant didn’t have a meal of his own. The Boy was torn. He wanted to share his meal—he’d never had anyone he could share with before—but he was rarely given chocolate pudding as dessert, and it was his favorite.
And then it dawned on him. Bears, even ones that were half man, wouldn’t like chocolate; they’d like sweet foods like honey—or apple pie. “If you are going to be my friend,” he stated with youthful certainty, “then friends share everything—even meals.” And he handed over the apple pie, feeling quite pleased with himself.
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes as the Boy mulled over what they were going to do after dinner. He’d never had a friend before; he didn’t know quite where to start.
“Do friends play chess together?” came the muffled question from across the table, as the bear-man attempted to talk and eat at the same time.
“Yes, they do. Friends play lots of games. And they share food—except for chocolate—and they tell magical stories to each other and pretend to be warriors.” He used his knife to mimic a sword fight, fatally spearing the meatloaf. “They also talk about everything, and . . .” He paused, not knowing how to say it.
“And they are always there when you need them.”
“Yes!” the Boy exclaimed. He understood!
The huge man smiled. “Well, now that that’s settled, why don’t we play a game of chess?”
“That sounds like a great idea, Mister . . .” The Boy halted, realizing he didn’t know the man’s name. He considered the man’s bearlike features with interest. “You know, you’re kind of rolypoly, and you kind of look like Winnie the Pooh. . . .” His voice trailed off, and he bit his bottom lip in concentration. Suddenly he clapped his hands together enthusiastically. “I know! I’ll call you Mr. Paloobi!”
Mr. Paloobi looked chuffed—there was no other word for it. His chest puffed out proudly as he repeated the name to himself, and then he beamed at the Boy. “Thank you,” he replied. “I always wanted a name.”
Mr. Paloobi was prodded back to the here and now—well, the here and somewhere—by a huge paw landing heavily on his arm. He turned his head to find himself looking directly into Lionel’s eyes.
“I don’t appreciate being awakened between safaris,” the cat stated with a silky purr.
“Why tell me?”
“Your sighs are too loud.”
“My sighs?”
“Like this,” said Lionel, giving him an overblown demonstration. “It’s been seventy years. Get over it.”
Mr. Paloobi looked back down the timestream. “You don’t get over something like that,” he said wistfully.
He spent half an hour explaining the rudiments of chess to the Boy. But when the Boy started getting frustrated at being unable to remember all the different types of moves and suggested they give up, Mr. Paloobi changed his approach and performed a pantomime with the chess pieces instead.
As he moved the pieces across the board with gentle, furry hands, Mr. Paloobi told a tale of twin sisters married to kings who were at war with each other. “Both queens, each in love with her husband, devise a plan to infiltrate the enemy castle in order to get close enough to kill the enemy king,” he stated in a conspiratorial tone. “It is a journey fraught with danger for them both, but their identical appearance gives them great range of movement in the enemy camp.” He demonstrated by moving a queen around in all directions on the board. “Along the way there are male pawns to fight,” he continued, picking up one pawn and pouncing it diagonally across one square and onto an enemy pawn, eliciting a giggle from the Boy when the defeated pawn went flying. “Female pawns also try to sneak across enemy lines and supplant them as queen.” He made a show of another pawn creeping forward one square, all the while whistling innocently. “And even if the queen or her supporters get past the enemy watchtowers undetected,” he continued, showing those pieces performing horizontal and vertical sweeps of the board, “what kingdom doesn’t have a nosy clergyman or two trying to edge their way into the thick of things?” And he demonstrated by diagonally sliding a bishop into a position of power on the board.
Mr. Paloobi paused, making sure he still had the Boy’s rapt attention. “Now, even when the enemy draws closer, the king tries to stay one step ahead of them at all times. But he’s so heavily protected that he can only move so far,” he continued, a furry hand demonstrating that a king could move only one square in any direction at any time. “If all his defenses fail, he has to rely on his knights and their valiant steeds to protect him, for they are well versed in tactics.” He picked up a knight and made him prance one square over and then gallop two more in another direction, until he was in a better position to protect the king. “But will the queen get to the king before he flees to safety—or will she die in the attempt?”
The Boy waited for an answer, and when none was forthcoming he lifted his eyes from the chessboard for the first time since the story had started. “Don’t stop now,” he pleaded. “How does the story end?”
Mr. Paloobi grinned at him. “Well, to find out, you’re going to have to play the game, aren’t you?”
“Bright kid,” said Lionel.
“A special kid,” agreed the October Hare. He’d been christened the March Hare by his creator, but since he couldn’t hold back the calendar, he had become the April Hare and then the May Hare, and now, in his eighth month of existence, he was the October Hare.
“Welcome back,” said Sugarblossom.
“Thank you,” said the October Hare. “But I can’t stay long.” He glanced at his wrist. “I’m late.”
“You don’t even have a watch,” said Lionel in a bored tone.
“It doesn’t matter,” said the October Hare. “I’m always late. It’s part of my nature.” He made as much of a face as a white rabbit could make. “One of the things I’m always late for is dinner, and it’s always gone. I wish my little girl would read something, anything, besides Alice in Wonderland.” He turned to Mr. Paloobi. “I wish, oh, I don’t know, that she played chess like yours did.”
“He was more than a chess player,” replied Mr. Paloobi. “He had the most inquisitive mind. He was reading when he was three, you know. I remember once when he was five, he had just seen a Sherlock Holmes movie on telev
ision, one of the old ones with Basil Rathbone, and I mentioned that according to Watson, Sherlock Holmes had neither any knowledge of nor interest in the Copernican system. Just that, nothing more. But within three days, this five-year-old boy had read the complete works of Copernicus!” A smile of pride crossed his face. “My boy did that!”
“Good thing it was Sherlock Holmes,” said Lionel sardonically. “If you’d quoted Johnny Unitas or Joe DiMaggio, he’d probably be the only boy who wouldn’t have known who you were talking about.”
“Then he’d have learned!” said Mr. Paloobi heatedly.
“Come on,” said the October Hare. “We all admit he was bright, but when all is said and done, he was just a little kid.”
“And you’re just a bunny in a topcoat with a wristwatch,” said Mr. Paloobi, still angry.
“I don’t have a watch,” complained the October Hare, getting up from the bench. “I’m heading off to find a carrot before they’re all gone. No one can talk to you when you’re like this. Lionel’s right: it’s time for you to wake up and smell the coffee.”
“I am awake, and I don’t drink coffee.”
“That was just an expression,” said the October Hare. “How can you be so literal-minded, especially when your mind is just a product of his mind?”
“You’ll never understand,” said Mr. Paloobi moodily.
“Enlighten me,” replied the October Hare. “Pretend I’m the kid and explain it to me.”
“You’re not as smart as he was,” said Mr. Paloobi. He looked up and down the bench. “None of you are.”
His companions knew enough not to argue with him when he was like this. In fact, there was only one person who could argue with him, and they hadn’t spoken in seven decades. . . .
“Doesn’t it bother you that your parents don’t seem to notice that you are a part of their life?” Mr. Paloobi asked, so annoyed on the Boy’s behalf that he looked more like a grizzly bear than Winnie the Pooh.
The Boy simply shrugged. “I’m pretty used to it now.”
“It’s not something you should get used to.”
The Boy looked up from assembling his toy train. “They ignore you too.”
“Yes, but I’m not their son or their friend,” Mr. Paloobi replied, exasperated. He sighed deeply as he watched the Boy go back to working on the intricate circuitry on his train.
After a long spell, the Boy spoke up. “Yesterday, when I asked Dad if I could buy a train track with my pocket money, he told me I should save it. And I told him I had to have the track, because playing with the train wouldn’t be the same without it.” He started screwing the last panel onto the side of the train. “And then Dad told me that a person can’t miss what he’s never had.” He put the almost-finished train on the ground gently, and then looked up at Mr. Paloobi, his eyes sad. “Well, I’ve never really had parents.”
Mr. Paloobi couldn’t think of a response, so he remained uncharacteristically silent.
Then the Boy smiled, a youthful sparkle returning to his eyes. “You should be happy they’re never here, because if they were, they’d never let you visit on a school night—even if you are my only friend.”
And, as always, whenever the Boy mentioned their friendship, Mr. Paloobi found that he could not argue with him. So they played a game of chess, and when the Boy’s aunt, who was filling in for his absent parents yet again, delivered his dinner, they divided it between them, as they’d been doing for almost two years now, and ate in companionable silence.
When the Boy uncovered his dessert tray to discover a generous helping of chocolate mousse, he looked at it as if it had suddenly grown antlers and tried to walk off the plate. He toyed with it for a few minutes. “Girls are so annoying,” he suddenly blurted out.
“Oh?” Mr. Paloobi turned to him in surprise. “And why is that?”
“Because I got the last bowl of chocolate mousse in the cafeteria last week and Colleen wanted me to share it with her.”
“You don’t share chocolate with anyone,” noted Mr. Paloobi. “I’m assuming you said no.”
He nodded emphatically. “But then she kissed me on the cheek, real quick like, and then she said I had to share it with her now.” He frowned, remembering the moment. “I told her that I never wanted her to kiss me, so why did I have to share my mousse with her?” He paused, fidgeting uncomfortably. “And then she cried.” A puzzled frown. “She cried a lot.”
“Why?” asked Mr. Paloobi, just as confused as the Boy.
“She said that if I liked her, I would have shared it with her after she kissed me,” the Boy said. “Well, I told her I liked her just fine—for a girl—but I don’t share my chocolate with anyone.”
“And what was her response?”
“She asked me if I would share some chocolate with her when we’re older.”
“And you said?”
“I said maybe, because I didn’t want her to cry again.” He continued to push the mousse around the bowl with his spoon. “Now she smiles at me whenever I see her at recess and lunch.”
“What’s wrong with that?” asked Mr. Paloobi. “It’s good to know that you didn’t permanently hurt her feelings.”
“But every time she smiles at me now, my stomach goes all funny inside, and I can’t get any words out.” He looked up at his at his friend. “Why?”
For the first time in their association, Mr. Paloobi was stumped for an answer. “Maybe you’re worried that she’ll kiss you again?” he asked finally.
The Boy shrugged. “It wasn’t so bad.”
“Well then, remind me never to ask you to share your chocolate with me if you’re still this upset a week later,” he said, forcing a very insincere laugh and trying to cheer the Boy up.
“It’s not about the chocolate,” he replied with certainty.
“Then maybe you’re nervous about having a new friend,” said Mr. Paloobi, grasping at straws. “You’ve skipped a year in school and you’re still brighter than all the kids in your class. I know how hard it is for you to make friends—to feel as if you fit in.”
This time the Boy shook his head even more emphatically. “We’re not even friends. She hangs around with other girls, and I sit near the other boys.” He paused, screwing up his nose in distaste. “Girls play with dolls and pretend they are fairy princesses. I don’t even think I want to be her friend. . . .” His voice trailed off. “But I do kind of like her, so why does she annoy me so much? And why does it feel like an elephant is sitting on top of me every time she smiles?”
Mr. Paloobi walked down the bench to where Sugarblossom and Hawkmistress sat, the former shifting uncomfortably in her corset, the latter petting her hawk, which perched on her left shoulder.
“You look troubled,” said Hawkmistress.
“Tell me about girls,” said Mr. Paloobi.
“We’re sweet and beautiful and delicate and we smell wonderful,” said Sugarblossom. “At least, we’d smell wonderful if”—she raised her voice—“someone would read a book and learn what whalebone does and doesn’t smell like!”
“I think you’re very nice,” offered Mr. Paloobi.
“Thank you.”
“But I don’t get all fidgety and nervous when you smile at me,” he continued. “I don’t spend endless hours thinking about you.”
“Ah!” said Hawkmistress. “Your boy is growing up.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” asked Mr. Paloobi. “I’m grown up and I just told you that I don’t feel like that.”
“You’re two years old,” said Hawkmistress, “and no matter what you look like, you are not a man.”
“Certainly I am.”
“You were created by a four-year-old who probably thought the only difference between sexes was that men shave,” she said.
“Nonsense!” said Mr. Paloobi. “I’m every inch a man. A little bearlike, perhaps, and my eye color keeps changing to suit his moods, but I’m a man, all right.”
“You think so, do you?”
said Hawkmistress.
“Absolutely.”
“Do you have . . .?” she began. “Lean over. I’ll whisper it to you.”
He leaned. She whispered. He straightened up with a shocked expression on his round face.
“You’re kidding, right?” he said at last.
“I am not.”
“Sugarblossom, can she possibly be telling the truth?”
“I don’t know what she said,” replied Sugarblossom.
He placed his lips next to her ear and whispered.
“Oh, absolutely,” she assured him. Then she slapped his face.
“What was that for?” demanded Mr. Paloobi.
“That’s for talking about such things to a fairy princess.”
“Well, what am I to tell the Boy about girls?” asked Mr. Paloobi, thoroughly confused.
“Tell him all will become clear in the fullness of time.”
“That isn’t the kind of answer that a six-year-old wants to hear,” he said.
“The world—the real world—is full of problems,” said Hawkmistress. “This, at least, is one that will solve itself.”
“And in the meantime,” added the hawk, speaking up for the first time, “watching a boy adjust to it is always good for a laugh.”
“There is nothing funny about my friend being distressed,” said Mr. Paloobi heatedly.
“There’s nothing unique about it either,” Hawkmistress assured him.
“Are you sure you’re not putting me on?” asked Mr. Paloobi.
“Why do you think Prince Charming faces death in a thousand forms just for my kiss?” said Sugarblossom.
Mr. Paloobi was still thinking about that when both women were summoned back onto the playing field by their young charges.
This time it wasn’t Lionel’s insistent prodding that brought Mr. Paloobi back to the present, but a peculiar feeling that, despite nearly seventy years of absence, he recognized immediately. For a moment, the briefest and most blissful of moments, the Boy had somehow connected to him again. Before he knew what was happening, he was watching the Old Man that the Boy had become gently leaf through the pages of a leatherbound Sherlock Holmes book, and then slowly wrap it up and put it in one of the several cardboard boxes that littered the floor of his personal library.
Twilight Zone Anthology Page 8
