Oh, well. She might be up to any number of things. She might be lying down upstairs with a headache—she had had a lot of headaches lately, for some reason. She might be making fudge or a lemon meringue pie in the kitchen. She might be in the bathroom. So Johnny shrugged and started up the steps. Slam went the screen door. He walked across the porch and opened the front door. Now he was in the long, musty-smelling hall that ran from the front to the back of the house. With a strong sense of foreboding, Johnny opened the door to the living room and peered in. It was dark. Johnny could see various shapes: the rounded bulk of the brown armchair, the boxy shape of the television set. And as his eyes got used to the dark, he saw his grandmother sitting, rigid and still, on the couch. Her glasses glimmered faintly, but she was not moving a muscle. Terror clutched at Johnny's heart. What was the matter with her?
Johnny swallowed several times. When he finally spoke, his voice was weak. "Gramma?"
"Hullo, John. How're you?" Gramma sounded dull and lifeless, like a recording.
Not knowing what to say, Johnny hovered in the doorway. Then Gramma spoke again, unexpectedly, in the same flat voice.
"You're home from school early, arncha? They letcha out early, did they?"
Early. It was nine o'clock at night. Gramma had gone crazy. Or else she was drunk. But, no, she was death on liquor, wouldn't even stay in the same room with people who were drinking. Johnny felt sick. How had this happened? What could he do? He wanted to run out the door yelling and screaming. But instead he stood rooted to the spot. Suddenly he heard footsteps behind him. Somebody was coming up the walk. The sound broke Johnny's trance, and he dashed down the hall to flip the switch that turned on the porch light. When he stepped out onto the porch, he saw his grampa and Professor Childermass. Even in the pale light he could see that their faces were grim and haggard. And Johnny knew in a flash that they too knew something was wrong with Gramma.
The screen door opened, and the two old men entered. Grampa walked slowly forward and put his hand gently on Johnny's shoulder.
"Johnny, we hafta talk to you," he said quietly.
Johnny followed the professor and Grampa through the house to the kitchen. Grampa switched on the kitchen light, closed the door, and went to the stove to turn on the gas under the teakettle. Johnny could see now that Grampa's eyes were red-rimmed, and there were wet streaks on his loose, leathery cheeks. He had been crying.
The professor stood in the middle of the room with his arms folded. He stared hard at the floor. "John," he said, "there is something the matter with your grandmother. I'm sorry you had to come upon her alone like that, but I was across the street with your grampa. He was... well, he was terribly upset, as you might imagine."
Johnny's eyes were wide with fear. And now his voice trembled as he spoke. "Professor, what is it? Why... why's she actin' that way?"
The professor looked forlornly at Johnny. He opened his mouth to speak, but all he said was "My cousin..." Then he snapped his mouth shut suddenly and turned to stare at the wallpaper. His face became a frozen, secretive mask.
Johnny wondered for a second, but then it hit him. He knew what the professor had been about to say: My cousin Bea died of a brain tumor. Many times Johnny had heard the professor talking to Grampa about how Cousin Bea had had a brain tumor, only Doc Schermerhorn diagnosed it as bad teeth, so she died. A brain tumor. It sounded so horrible, so hopeless. Johnny hoped that the professor was wrong.
Grampa gently put his hand on Johnny's shoulder. "We called the... the hospital," he said in a broken, tearful voice. "The ambulance is comin' to get her."
Johnny looked dully at Grampa. He waited for Grampa to take his hand away, and then he walked over to a kitchen chair and slumped into it. He felt stunned, as if he had been hit on the head with a baseball bat. He couldn't cry. He couldn't feel anything or think anything except This isn't really happening. It's not real. In spite of what the professor had said, the things you are afraid of sometimes really do happen. And when they do, it feels worse than any nightmare.
The red electric clock over the stove buzzed, but there was no other sound in the room. Finally the professor coughed. He turned and took Grampa firmly by the arm.
"Come on, Henry," he said in a low voice. "I know it's not going to be any fun, but we have to get Kate ready to go. The ambulance'll be here any minute. The sooner the doctors examine your wife, the sooner they can start fixing her up. She may not know why we want her to go, but... well, I don't expect she'll give us a whole lot of trouble. Are you with me?"
Grampa nodded. Then he opened the kitchen door, and he and the professor went out. Johnny followed them timidly through the dining room and the front room to the parlor. The professor went into the darkness, and a few minutes later he came out with Gramma holding on to his arm. She shuffled along uncertainly, and Johnny noticed that she was wearing her blue cloth slippers, the ones with the little blue felt rosettes. Her stockings were wrinkly and saggy, and her face was blank. She looked as if she did not have the slightest idea of what was happening.
The ambulance arrived. It stood in front of the house with its red light flashing. Two attendants got out and took a wheeled cot out of the back of the vehicle. They helped Gramma down the front steps, gently eased her onto the cot, and wheeled the cot out to the ambulance. Gramma was lifted inside, and the rear doors were closed. The big white vehicle roared away, its siren screaming. The professor watched it go for a second, and then he went across the street to get his car—he was going to drive Grampa to the hospital. As he was about to leave the house, Grampa turned to Johnny and asked him if he wanted to go with them. But Johnny said no, he would stay home. He stood in the doorway watching as the car backed out of the driveway and rolled away down the street.
While Gramma was in the hospital the days passed in a blur for Johnny. During school he had a hard time keeping his mind on his work because he was thinking about her so much. He told Sister Mary Anthony, his eighth grade teacher, about what had happened, and she asked the whole class to pray for Johnny's grandmother. And each day, after school had let out, Johnny went into the gloomy, echoing church next door and lit a candle in front of the Blessed Virgin's altar. Kneeling at the altar rail, he prayed that nothing bad would happen to his gramma.
Finally the news came. Yes, Gramma had a brain tumor. The doctor at the hospital explained to Johnny and Grampa that there were two kinds of tumors, benign and malignant. A benign tumor was just a little lump in the brain. It might grow, but it usually wouldn't do any harm. A malignant tumor would grow and eventually kill the patient. Unfortunately you couldn't tell if a tumor was benign or malignant until you actually operated and took it out. The doctor was an honest sort of person, and he laid it on the line: It was going to be a dangerous operation, especially for someone as old as Gramma was. Something might go wrong, or they might not get all of the tumor out. Everybody would just have to sit tight.
Grampa drove Johnny home after the session with the doctor. Neither of them said a word until the car had stopped in the driveway and Grampa muttered, "Gotta go fix supper." Then he got out of the car, closed the door, and loped off toward the house. Johnny watched him go. Grampa looked utterly defeated. His shoulders sagged, and his head hung. Tears came to Johnny's eyes, but with a snorting sound and a shudder he forced the sobs down. He got out of the car and was starting to walk down the driveway to the garage when he heard someone call.
"John! Over here!"
Johnny turned. It was the professor. He was standing in his front yard with a golf club in his hand. The professor played a perfectly terrible game of golf, but he kept at it anyway. Sometimes he practiced his swing in his backyard with a little plastic practice ball. The practice swings didn't help his game any, but—as he often said, sourly—he had chopped some lovely big holes in his back lawn.
"Johnny! Come here a minute. Can I talk to you?"
Johnny walked back up the driveway and across the street.
"Yeah, Professor? Wha
ddaya want?" The tone of his voice showed how rotten he felt.
The professor smiled sadly. "Is it as bad as all that?" he asked.
Johnny nodded gloomily. "It sure is. We talked to the doctor and he said—"
"Yes. I know. I called up the doctor earlier and got a full report. It's awful, I know, but... well, let's hope everything will turn out okay."
"Fat chance," said Johnny bitterly. He was in such a black mood that he did not want to be cheered up, and he did not want the professor to be painting fake rosy pictures for him.
"John," said the professor gravely, and he walked closer to the boy. He put his arm around him and smiled in a pained way. "I think you need to get away from here. I think you need to go on a vacation."
CHAPTER THREE
Johnny was stunned—stunned, shocked, and angry. It was as if the professor had said, Come on! Let's throw a party! When he tried to speak, Johnny found that all he could do was splutter and stammer.
"Professor, I... I mean how could you... with, with, you know...."
The professor was unmoved. He did not act as if he had said anything outrageous. "I mean it, John. It may sound a bit unlikely to you right now, but... well, tell you what. After supper I'm going to be making a cake, and I'd appreciate some kitchen help. Why don't you come over after you've eaten, and I'll explain my immodest proposal, okay?"
Johnny just stared at the professor. He was genuinely puzzled. He knew that the professor was not a hard or unfeeling person. Maybe when he had explained what he had on his mind, it would all make sense. "Okay," he said hesitantly. "I'll... I'll come over later." And Johnny turned abruptly and walked back to the house.
Supper that night was really pretty awful. It was another example of grampa's horrible cooking: the hamburgers were not only overdone, they were charred. Instead of mashed potatoes there was a slice of Wonder bread. And the canned peas had been cooked so long that they tasted like mushy green spit wads. After one bite of the hamburger Johnny went out to the kitchen cupboard and brought out all the sauces and condiments he could find: A-1 sauce, ketchup, mustard, and Heinz 57 sauce. And with the aid of these he managed to choke the food down. Grampa never said a word all through the meal. It was painful just to look at him. As soon as he could, Johnny excused himself and went across the street.
When Johnny arrived, the professor was all done up in one of his chef's outfits—a big white apron and a puffy white hat. On the kitchen table were boxes of flour and sugar, a bottle of milk, a can of baking powder, and some tiny bottles of vanilla extract and artificial food coloring. In front of the professor was a big green crockery bowl with some creamy yellow cake mixture in it. When he saw Johnny, the professor looked up quickly and grinned. Using a big wooden spoon, he began to stir the batter.
"Now, then," he said brusquely, "where were we? Ah, yes. I was trying to convince you to go away for a while. Do you want to know why? Well, it's all very simple. You're not doing your gramma any good by being here. You may think that you are, but you're not. If you go to visit her in the hospital, you'll find that she's in a rather strange state. And after the operation she'll be sleeping a lot. When you're at home, you'll see that your grampa is not much fun to be with. The two of you will just sit around making each other moody."
The professor paused. He dipped his finger into the raw batter, came up with a big sticky glob, and put it in his mouth. The professor had a passion for raw cake batter. "So, John," he went on as he stirred, "I think you should go somewhere. As you know, next week is Massachusetts State Physical Fitness Week."
Johnny was dumbfounded. What was the connection between Physical Fitness Week and going on a vacation? Between October 1 and 7 the kids in all the grade schools in the state would go to lectures and slide shows and movies and panel discussions on physical fitness instead of attending classes. In Duston Heights there would be special events like relay races and baseball and tug-of-wars every day out at the athletic field. All this left Johnny cold. He was not a big athlete. He could just barely play softball, but not well enough to please the tough kids who ran things on the St. Michael's School playground. At all other sports he was a complete washout. And so he was expecting to spend Physical Fitness Week standing on the sidelines and watching other kids have fun.
"Yeah," Johnny said sullenly. "I know all about Physical Whoozis Week. What the heck does that have to do with going someplace on a vacation?"
The professor held up a gooey forefinger. "It has this to do with it, my fine feathered friend! As part of the big whoopy-doo of this wonderful week a group of Boy Scouts from this area is going to take a bus trip up into the White Mountains, to a scout camp near Lake Chocorua. When they get there, they're going to spend a glorious, delightful week hiking along mountain trails and singing around campfires and having a grand time. You'll enjoy it—I know you will. And it'll be a million times better than moping around at home. What do you say, eh? Can I twist your arm?"
Johnny looked doubtful. The whole thing sounded like it would be fun, but, well, he didn't think he ought to be having fun right now. It would be like going to a movie on the afternoon of someone's mother's funeral.
"I don't think Grampa would want me to go," he said.
The professor snorted and added a handful of sugar to the batter. "Oh, yes, he would. He might deny it, but at this point I think he'd be extremely glad to have you somewhere else for a short time."
Johnny picked up the measuring spoons and clacked them together. He was really torn. He liked the Boy Scouts, and he loved the White Mountains. And hiking was something he could do.
"It'd cost a lot of money, wouldn't it?"
"Oh, I'll pay for it," said the professor, shrugging carelessly. "What's the use of having money in the bank if you can't do something nice with it? Now, come on. Be a good sport and say yes."
Johnny was still uncertain, and since the professor had decided that no more good would come of coaxing and wheedling, they agreed that Johnny would think about the professor's plan until tomorrow.
Johnny stayed and helped the professor with his baking. The cake came out perfectly, and after the professor made Ma Perkins's Own Spice Frosting, the two of them sat down to gobble. Then the professor went back across the street with Johnny and half of the cake on a plate inside an aluminum cake carrier. Johnny went up to his room to read while the professor sat down to talk to his old friend Grampa Dixon. He wanted to visit with Grampa to cheer him up. And of course he also wanted to do a little persuading.
A few days later, on Sunday, October 1, Johnny was riding northward in a school bus full of Boy Scouts. In the metal rack above his seat was a backpack, his cardboard suitcase, and his sleeping bag. Johnny was wearing his Boy Scout uniform, and all around him were other boys in uniform. They had just finished singing "Ninety-eight Bottles of Beer on the Wall," the song that is calculated to drive bus drivers out of their minds. Now, while most of the boys were talking and laughing and pestering each other, Johnny sat quietly, staring at the ring binder filled with notes on his lap. On the seat next to him was an illustrated guidebook from the Glomus mansion. He was working on the Glomus puzzle, trying to make sense out of the objects on the late cereal king's office table. He didn't really expect to solve the mystery; this was just something he had brought along to pass the time. As usual, Johnny was approaching the whole thing logically, trying to list all the qualities of the objects on the table, but oddly enough, logic wasn't helping him much.
CHESS SET
Material: wood and ivory
Arrangement: just the way it is before a game starts.
Design: Staunton
NEWSPAPER
Language: Greek
Material: coarse paper known as newsprint Lettering of headline: large black letters in Greek alphabet. Word circled in red is KHPYX. It means "herald." Whole title ETHNIKOS KHPYX means national herald.
SIGNBOARD
Material: wood. Don't know what kind.
Notes: Wood is pretty beat up. Pro
bably was outdoors for a long time. Blue letters say YE OLDE TEA SHOPPE
Johnny looked glumly at the orderly list that he had made. No, it was not much help. On the other hand, he was proud of what he had been able to find out about this curious collection of things. The guidebook had helped a lot. It had a close-up color picture of the table with the puzzle on it, and another close-up photo of the Greek newspaper. The professor had told Johnny the meaning of the Greek words. And Johnny himself had added the information about the Staunton design. Johnny was a chess nut, and he knew that the Staunton design was the most common. All this information was fine, just fine, except for one tiny little thing: It didn't bring Johnny any closer to solving the puzzle.
Johnny sighed. He picked up the guidebook that lay beside him and began to leaf absentmindedly through it. He looked again at the picture of the table with its mysterious collection of objects. This was all he had to go on. It would have been nice if he could have popped back to Gildersleeve, where the mansion was, before the bus trip began. But Gildersleeve was forty miles from Duston Heights—the trip would've taken too much time. Still, it would have been nice to have another look at the clues. Clues, shmooze! he said to himself as he slammed the book shut and threw it back down on the seat. The professor was probably right. The puzzle was a cruel, pointless joke. It could not be solved and was not meant to be solved. It was just something that Mr. Glomus had whipped up to drive his family crazy. Why was Johnny so interested in this idiotic puzzle, anyway?
The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt Page 2
