by Richard Peck
“Behind the door,” Flip muttered. The tower room wasn’t any bigger than a freight elevator, but the door to it was extra wide. We pushed it back and fitted in behind it with space to spare. And it seemed like we were back there another twenty minutes. “That idiot probably got lost,” I finally whispered.
But right then, we heard a sound at the bottom of the box staircase. This time, Elvan did sound more like a rhinoceros. I think he tripped and fell up the steps once, from the sound of it. But then, he began creeping on up. And the higher he got, the quieter he was. He must have stopped when his head was level with the floor, trying to see if we were up there. But then, he brushed right past the crack in the open door without seeing us. He must have pretty well filled up the doorway. Then it sounded like he walked over to look out the window. Maybe he thought he was early or maybe on a wild-goose chase.
Flip began pushing the door to, very slowly. It didn’t squeak, which would have been a nice, eerie touch. It just began to swing shut. And it closed before Elvan whirled around and saw us standing there.
“If it isn’t Elvan,” I said.
“If it isn’t Elvan, what is it?” Flip said.
“Gosh, old buddies,” Elvan gasped.
Ten
That was the great beginning of our temporary friendship with Elvan Helligrew. I wish it had stopped then too. I wish that more than anything.
Flip scared Elvan halfway out of his skull that afternoon in the tower. I forget the exact words, but there were plenty of them. He didn’t bring up the woods, but he told Elvan he was sick and tired of him tailing us night and day, and how we couldn’t do any exploring ANYWHERE without Elvan butting in, and it was going to stop and stop beginning now. Maybe he threatened to chuck Elvan out of the tower window just to insure our future privacy. I forget. But it was like that.
Elvan ate it up to the last crumb, nodding to Flip to keep him going until I wanted to puke. Seemed like it went on into the night, and the end of it was, okay, if we can’t get rid of you, we might as well make up our minds to put up with you, but watch yourself and don’t take anything for granted. And maybe we’d drop over at your place one of these days if we got invited, but don’t keep dropping into our lives unless asked.
It had an overwhelming, double-barreled effect on Elvan—he enjoyed every bit of it. The humiliation, he expected. But the half-assed promise of buddyhood had him about dancing around with joy. Enough to shake the tower loose from the rest of the building.
All this led us, after a very few days, to Elvan’s house. You know how there are some people whose houses you can’t imagine? I mean if they have a home life, you can’t picture it? That’s the way it was with Elvan in my mind.
The Helligrews live in a section of town called Beechurst Heights, which is in our end of Dunthorpe, only farther out—almost in open country. It’s the newest section—small-scale suburbia. One of those instant-class developments where they give each house model a special name. Like AUTHENTIC EARLY CALIFORNIA SPANISH EL RANCHO and STRATFORD-ON-AVON AUTHENTIC OLDE ENGLISH TUDOR. According to Elvan, his house was AUTHENTIC EARLY COLONIAL CAPE COD SALT-BOX.
Now that we were all three buddies, he invited us over one Saturday afternoon. Frankly, I could have passed up the invitation with pleasure. We were leading him on, and, maybe, he knew it and didn’t even mind. I mean it’s either friendship, or it’s nothing.
Anyway, the minute we walked in the door, I knew it was going to turn out to be a bad scene. There was Elvan, slicked up like we were company. And his mother hovering around in the near background.
I guess I expected her to be another mountain of flesh. But she wasn’t. She was kind of a nice-looking woman—regular size, and she’s so glad to see us you could bust out crying. How nice to meet Elvan’s friends, and she was preparing some very tasty snacks for us, and their home was our home. It was pretty hard to take. And it had an effect on Flip too. He was extra polite to her. After all, there wasn’t any getting out of it at that point. When adults get into the act, you tend to lose what control you have.
But Elvan wanted us to himself and took us up to see his room. Which was like a picture of what a boy’s room is supposed to look like. Plaid curtains on the windows and the same plaid stuff on the bed. And a nice cork-tile bulletin board—pretty empty. All very neat except for candy wrappers on the floor around the bed. Apart from them, there wasn’t much evidence of Elvan in the room. “This isn’t my real place,” he said. “I have another place which is really my real place. I’ll show that to you after awhile.”
Along in there, I began to have this feeling that maybe it was Elvan who was running the show and Flip and I were the ones being sort of maneuvered.
Elvan couldn’t wait to show us what his real place was, though, so right away, he started herding us downstairs. His mother cut us off as we were trooping past the kitchen, with Elvan like a big hen trying to keep us in line. He really was showing signs of taking over.
But she said, “All right now. I know boys. They’re always hungry. You three young fellows just step right into this kitchen and see what’s on the table for you. I have to keep your strength up, you know.” What was on the table for us young fellows was a three-layer chocolate devil’s-food with fudge exterior icing and interior divisions of marshmallow cream. Three chocolate malteds straight from the blender. And a fancy glass dish full of chocolate-covered peanuts. The only thing she’d left out was cocoa.
It was a pretty gross display, and it explained quite a bit about Elvan’s physical condition—maybe, even his emotional state. But it was too tempting to pass up. We sort of fell for it. That woman knew how to bake. And she stood around beaming while we dug in. But the funny thing was—Elvan didn’t have any appetite. He kept saying things like, “Aw, Motherrrr, we guys have got other things to do.”
And she kept pinching his ear, and getting cute with him, and saying, “This doesn’t sound like my boy.” It about put me off my feed. But since Flip was telling her what good cake it was—and it was—I kept on eating.
By the time we’d polished it off, Elvan was starting to quiver. He was getting wild to have us finish up and start moving. And finally, we got away from the table after we promised Mrs. Helligrew we’d be back for seconds since she didn’t seem to want to put away what was left of the devil’s food.
“Come on,” Elvan said, very impatient. He was beginning to bark. “I want you guys to see something down in the basement.” And he pounded off down the steps, looking back to make sure we were following.
The first thing we saw was a ping-pong table, and Flip said, “Look, Elvan, we haven’t got time to play—”
“We’re not playing any ping-pong. Come on.” He led us around behind the furnace and the washer-drier. And there was another door. On it was printed a hand-lettered sign that said KEEP OUT OF ELVAN’S PLACE. He had a padlock on it. The key to it was hanging on a chain in one of the fat folds around his neck. Flip and I gave each other a look and a shrug. We stood there like a couple of clods while Elvan fiddled nervously with the key and the lock.
He pushed the door open and started in, but said, over his shoulder, “Just hold it right there until I find the string for the light.” He came right back with the end of a string in one hand. “Okay, you two, just step inside the door, and I’ll turn on the light.” We were inside with the door shut behind us before he pulled on the string. He was really paying us back for that scene in the museum tower—whether he knew it or not. Then the light went on.
The only thing I really enjoy remembering about that moment was the look on Flip’s face. But being able to remember it doesn’t mean I can describe it. I don’t even know how I had the time to glance at him.
When the light went on, we were looking directly at a Nazi flag—full size—nailed up on the far wall of a little laundry room with no windows. On either side of the flag were crates or something all covered up with bright red cloth. On top of each of them were styrofoam heads—like those stands women b
uy to put their wigs on when they’re not wearing them. And on these were German helmets from World War II—real storm trooper helmets, the kind that dip down over the ears. They looked like two cutoff heads at a human sacrifice. And they were sort of turned like they were looking at the big red, white, and black Nazi flag with the swastika in the middle of it. Underneath it was one of those artificial wreaths that people leave at graves on Memorial Day.
That was just the beginning, though; it was sort of the centerpiece for the room. On all the walls were pictures and medals pinned up. One of the pictures was of Hitler and his girl friend. He was wearing German-style shorts, and she was laughing, and they were playing with a dog. It was a picture cut out of a magazine, but somehow, down there, it looked like a personal family portrait.
The walls were full of stuff like that. Hanging down from the ceiling were little scale models of Stukas and Messerschmitts and all kinds of out-of-date German fighter planes, dangling there in frozen aerial combat. It was like going back thirty years in time. On the wrong side.
We just stood around with our mouths open—completely forgetting the big point: that this was another piece of the puzzle right there ready to fall neatly into place. The effect on us must have given Elvan a deep and satisfying charge. Finally, he said, very modest, “Well, this is my place.”
For once, I had to step in and do the talking. I did the best I could. “Well, Elvan, this is quite a collection. Yessir, you must be pretty proud of it.”
“It’s a few things my dad brought home from the war. He’s not interested in them, though. The flag and the helmets and a few other pieces. But I got most of this stuff myself with money I saved and trading with other collectors. I bought most of the medals.” He was puffed up to half again his size. And standing sort of stiff with his heels together.
“I guess they must be pretty valuable by now—historic stuff like that.”
“I’d never sell them,” he cut right in. “I might trade up on a few pieces and duplicates, but I’d never just sell them. I keep them for my own self and to show to a few friends.”
I had the feeling we were the first friends to view the collection. For one thing, if anybody else had seen it, word would have got around. For another thing—what friends?
“People didn’t understand the Germans,” he was saying in a high whine. “You don’t get a true picture from what they write about them over here.”
“Over where?”
“Over here. In this country. That’s always the way when a country wins a war. They discredit the losing side. This always happens after wars. If Germany had won the war, it’d have been a different story.”
“No question about that, Elvan,” I said. Flip just stood there.
“Look, I wouldn’t let anybody else, but you guys can try on the helmets. Here, let me . . .”
“I don’t think so, Elvan.” Flip had finally found his voice—it was a smooth, soothing voice. “You just leave them right there on those . . . heads. They look real good there. Let’s just leave things like you got them fixed up. Like a display in a museum. It’s interesting that way . . .”
“It’s not just a museum,” Elvan said loud. “It’s more than that to me. You guys can understand, it’s like . . .” Then he just stopped and looked at us. With his eyes bright, but tiny, in his big, round face. It was like he suddenly had a bad speech impediment that kept the meaning from coming out. There was some kind of a war inside him—not World War II. Something more personal to him.
We told him we had to get down to the pickup and get the papers out, and he didn’t try to hold us up. We got out of there as quick as we could.
And as we were heading down the front walk, fast, his mother came out on the front step and yelled, “Remember, our home is your home!”
“Jeee-sus,” Flip finally said, when we were halfway out of Beechurst Heights, “talk about sick! That guy . . .”
“It’s what you were looking to find out, wasn’t it? Like this solves everything, and we don’t have to turn our investigations in new directions.”
“Yeah, well,” he said.
“Yeah, well, shut up.”
We didn’t talk about it for maybe a week. Finals were coming on, and we were about to leave the seventh grade behind us for good.
It was coming around to locker-clean-out day. We’d spent the week since that Saturday at Elvan’s keeping clear of him. It’s not hard during the school day since he’s not in any of our classes, and he’s excused from gym. And we could bury ourselves at a crowded table during lunch.
Then one evening, Flip called me up after supper. “Look, we’ve got to do something about Elvan before school’s out, and we’ve got to talk it over first.”
“So talk.”
“Well, it’s about the sword we found. It’s his, of course.”
“Yes.”
“And that day, he dropped it down where he knew we’d walk by and find it.”
“Probably.”
“What do you mean probably?”
“I mean, yes, I think he did.”
“Got any idea why?”
“It’s my same idea that starts you off calling me a doctor of psychiatric brain-shrinking.”
“All right, I won’t. Just say your theory.”
“For the second time, my theory still is he wanted to get us to notice him, and that sword was a real attention-getter. Besides that, it’s something that really means a lot to him. It’s his own private treasure. It was like an offering to us. Like here’s something really great I’m giving you—now like me.”
“Okay, that’s good,” Flip said. “But how come he’s so carried away with all that Nazi crap?”
“Now you’re getting off the point.”
“Well, okay, if I am. Give your theory about that. I know you’ve got one.”
“I’ve been thinking about it,” I said.
Silence at the other end.
“I’ve been thinking maybe he admires the Nazis because he thinks they were supermen, which is what they thought themselves.”
“And?”
“And he’s not a superman. He’s an unsuperman. He’s a zero. It gives him something big and impressive to be a part of.”
“But what good’s that if nobody knows?”
“We know.”
“Yeah, but what good is that going to do him?”
“Well, indirectly it’s already got us over to his house, which nothing else in the world would have done. You saw how even his mother was overjoyed to see us.”
“Okay, they’re both weird as hell. But how about the swastika carved on the concrete out in the woods?”
“Easy,” I told him. “He got all excited about us to begin with because we found the dead man in the woods. That’s the sort of thing that might get him all fired up—almost like we live a real exciting life, and things happen to us. So after it was all over, he probably went down there to where the body had been and carved the swastika to kind of be in on it himself. I mean anybody interested in the Nazis has got to be interested in death and like that. Besides, he probably figured we’d go back there sooner or later. He probably even figured that’s where we were going when you hired him to take the route that day.”
“Maybe so,” Flip said, “but how’d he know we’d go into the tennis clubhouse and find the candles and all?”
“Look, I don’t know. For all I know, he planted a lot of stuff around in the hope that we’d find it and get curious. Maybe there’s lots of other clues he put around we didn’t even come across. I mean, once he gets something in his mind, he goes all the way. You can see that. Besides, maybe he gets his kicks by scratching swastikas around on everything. It’d figure.”
“Well,” Flip said, like he was giving it all his serious concentration, “your theory’s good as far as it goes, but . . .”
“Dammit, that’s what you say about all my theories. I think it goes far enough, and, if you ask me, I think we’ve gone too far. How much farther do YO
U think the theory ought to go, Mastermind?”
“Maybe just one more step,” Flip said.
“Which is?”
“Which is—maybe he wants us to notice him because he’s got something to tell us. Like he was trying to tell us something that day at his house. Maybe he has something specific he wants us to know.”
“Such as?”
“Such as he knows how the dead man died.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Don’t give me any of that. You’re going too far as usual. You hate to see the end of anything, so you’re dragging it out. Next thing, you’re going to say is he . . . I don’t know what you’re going to be saying next.”
“Yes. Maybe he did it. He’s nutty enough to,” Flip said. “Maybe he really did. With his little sword.”
We wrapped it up in brown paper, the Nazi sword. And we addressed it to Elvan, and propped it up outside his locker on clean-out day, and left it there. It was like buying him off. I wish we had.
Summer
Eleven
Summer always reminds me of our swimming coach, Ralph Harvey. It always reminds me of Flip’s dad too. Not that he was around in the summers much—or ever. Flip was born in the Canal Zone down in Panama. He was very proud of this little-known fact. But he couldn’t remember a thing about the place.
When we were in the grades though, he used to give me this business about palm trees, and monkeys throwing coconuts, and boa constrictors wrapping themselves around the house down in sunny Central America. But we outgrew that fantasy. When he was a little kid, though, his family lived all over the country at Navy posts where his dad was stationed—Norfolk, San Diego, Great Lakes—all those port-type places.
One time, I asked Flip how come he and his mom and the Nitwits lived in Dunthorpe, which is about as landlocked a place as you’d ever want to see. He said that one day his mom announced she was moving herself and the kids as far from water as she could get. So they came to Dunthorpe. His dad turned into a long-distance commuter—except he wasn’t home more than maybe a couple of times a year.
