Summer of Fear

by Lois Duncan

  “What’s going on?!” I exclaimed, and broke into a run across the lawn to the porch steps. Julia was down on one knee, her hands clasped tightly around her left ankle. Carolyn was bent over her, and when she straightened and turned to me her face was white with shock.

  “What got into him? I’ve never seen him do anything like that!”

  “What is it?” I demanded. “What happened?”

  “It’s that dawg of yourn!” Julia cried in a voice so choked with anger that it was all I could do to understand the words. “He flang hisself out and bit me!”

  “Trickle bit you?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “He couldn’t have! I don’t believe it!”

  “Take a gander at that and see if you believe it or not!” Julia lifted her hands, and I caught my breath as I saw the blood gushing from the deep tooth marks in the flesh just above the anklebone.

  “He was lying on the porch,” Carolyn told me shakily, “over there in that patch of sunlight. We started up the steps and he began to wag his tail like he always does. Then suddenly he growled—I’ve never heard Trickle growl, ever! He got up and stood there all stiff with his ears back against his head, and the next moment he jumped right at Julia and bit her! Then he ran off around the side of the house, headed for the back.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said again. But this wasn’t true. Into my mind leapt the picture of Trickle as he had been the night before, his head lowered, his teeth bared. He had growled at Julia then, a low, menacing growl of pure hatred. Was it any more incredible that he had bitten her now?

  “Take her into the house,” I told Carolyn, “and tell Mom what happened. She’ll know how to treat the bite and stop the bleeding. I’m going to find Trickle.”

  I left the girls there on the steps and went around to the backyard to look in the hollow behind the hydrangea bush. It was the place Trickle always ran when he knew he had done something wrong and was going to be scolded. But he wasn’t there.

  I searched the yard and went up and down the street calling him, but he didn’t come.

  Julia sat in silence while Mom cleansed her wound and bandaged it. Then she went upstairs to our room and closed the door.

  “She’s upset, and no wonder,” Mom said. “What an awful thing to have happen on her second day here! Thank god I took that dog for his rabies shot only a couple of months ago. What on earth could be wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know,” I said miserably. “I guess he just hates Julia.”

  “But dogs don’t do that,” Carolyn said. “Just hate someone, I mean, without any reason. Could she have mistreated him somehow?”

  “She only arrived yesterday,” I said. “And it was like this the first time they saw each other. There’s just something about her that Trickle doesn’t like and he’s reacting to it.”

  “Well, he had better stop reacting,” Mom said shortly. “A dog that turns vicious does not belong in a home like ours.”

  “You don’t mean you’d—you’d get rid of him!” I exclaimed in horror. “Trickle’s mine! He’s one of the family!”

  “It would break my heart,” Mom said. “He is like one of the family. But he’s a dog, and if we have to make a choice between a dog and people, people come first. My sister’s only child means a great deal more to me than any animal, even Trickle. So let’s just hope nothing like this happens again.”

  There was an awkward silence while we all stood around and looked at each other. Then Carolyn said tentatively, “Well, I guess I’d better be going. I’ve got some stuff to do at home.”

  She didn’t really, I could tell. She was uncomfortable with the friction between Mom and me, and I couldn’t blame her.

  “Why don’t we get together tonight?” I suggested. “I could come over to your house and we could watch a movie or something.”

  “All right,” Carolyn started to say, but Mom broke in before she could form the words.

  “Rachel, this is only Julia’s second day here.”

  “I know,” I said, “but—”

  “You were gone all last night. I think tonight it would be very nice if you stayed home and spent some time making your cousin feel welcome.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  “Rae, I don’t like that tone of voice.”

  “I’ve got to be going,” Carolyn said hurriedly. “I’ve got tons to do. Tell Julia good-bye for me. I really enjoyed meeting her.”

  “Thank you, Carolyn,” Mom said. “I’ll tell her.”

  The day that had begun so pleasantly seemed somehow to have fallen apart. I walked my friend to the door and watched her start off down the street, then I came back inside.

  Mom had vanished. I opened the door that led from the kitchen into the garage and heard the clinking of bottles coming from the storeroom that Dad had converted into a darkroom for her. I knew she was mixing chemicals and was probably going to start an afternoon of printing. Any other time I would have rapped on the door and asked if I could join her; I enjoyed helping her in the darkroom.

  At the moment, however, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I’d had enough of being lectured without deliberately letting myself in for another siege of it. I was sure that whatever I did would be wrong, and Mom would jump all over me, and I’d snap back at her.

  The afternoon loomed long and empty with nothing to fill it. I wished now I’d started looking for a summer job earlier so that I might’ve had a chance of actually finding one. The managers at places where I’d left my name had all been discouraging; when they hired summer help, it was usually college students. I would’ve gone to the pool, but there was no way to get there. I would’ve enjoyed listening to music, but the stereo was upstairs in the bedroom that now was half Julia’s. She’d gone into it and shut the door, and there was no way I was going to burst in on her.

  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this would be the first of many such afternoons during that long, strange summer.

  I wound up at last in the backyard with a couple of Dad’s old issues of National Geographic. I leafed through them idly, looking at the pictures and pausing occasionally to read the captions. In one of them there was an article on Africa. It was illustrated by a photograph of a witch doctor involved in some sort of native ceremony. His face and body were painted in brilliant colors, his arms were raised, and his eyes were glaring straight at the camera.

  The impact of those eyes was extraordinary, even in a picture. They seemed to exert a force so powerful it couldn’t be confined by the printed page. Was this, I wondered, the kind of thing Professor Jarvis gave his lectures about? Did people like this really perform magic?

  The caption beneath the picture said that this man was practicing macumba, a form of sorcery that permitted its practitioners to kill at a distance with the concentrated power of their thoughts.

  Ridiculous, I told myself, but couldn’t help giving a little shudder as I turned the page.

  I finished that magazine and laid it aside and picked up the other. The sun moved slowly down the curve of the sky and the shadow of the elm tree crept toward me until at last the leaf patterns sprinkled themselves across my lap. Eventually it was time to go in and cut up vegetables for the salad, and while I was doing that Bobby came in with a lump on his head from having been hit with a softball.

  “That’s a dumb name for it,” he told me. “There’s nothing soft about it.”

  I helped him put ice on his forehead to bring down the swelling, and then Mom came in from the darkroom carrying her prints. She spread them out on the kitchen table to evaluate them, and while that was going on Dad got home from work, and Peter soon after him, and things seemed normal again.

  Normal—and yet, not quite.

  Julia came down to dinner dressed in a pair of her new jeans and the blouse. Her face was pale, and she looked tired and drained of energy. Everyone pounced on her as though she’d been gone for years.

  “How are you, dear?” Mom asked anxiously. “Is y
our ankle feeling better?”

  “Her ankle?” Dad said. “What happened to her ankle?”

  “It was unbelievable,” Mom said, and told him what had happened that afternoon. Dad’s face darkened as he listened, and Peter looked so angry that I was afraid he was going to get up and go looking for Trickle that very moment.

  “Wait till I get my hands on that dog,” he said grimly. “I’ll teach him to go around biting people. Where is he, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He’s gone.” I felt very much like crying.

  “When he comes back,” Dad said, “I don’t want him in this house. We’re not going to risk this sort of thing happening again.”

  “Not come in the house!” I exclaimed. “But he lives in this house! It’s his home!”

  “It’s summer,” Dad said. “It’s beautiful weather. He can stay outside. And I don’t want him running loose either. One episode of this kind is enough.”

  “You mean I’ll have to tie him up?” I asked. The thought of poor Trickle staked out in the yard like a fierce beast was so absurd that I wanted to laugh, and I knew that if I started laughing I would never be able to stop. I could feel the laughter building up inside me, mixing with the tears. “I can’t tie him up, I just can’t! He’d hate it!”

  “Not as much as he’ll hate what I’m going to do with him if he so much as growls at Julia another time.” It was Peter who said this, squaring his skinny shoulders and sticking out his jaw in a determined fashion as though he were offering to fight a lion single-handed to protect his beautiful lady. It was all so ridiculous and at the same time so awful. I looked up and down the table at the faces of my family, the people I loved most in the world, and except for Bobby, who was too busy wrestling with the ketchup bottle to take part in the conversation, they were regarding me as coldly as an unpleasant stranger.

  “I don’t want any more arguments,” Dad said. “Either Trickle stays outside or we get rid of him altogether. An animal who begins to be—”

  He was interrupted by the doorbell. Bobby got up to answer it and came back in with Mike.

  “Hi,” he said. “Oh, I didn’t mean to interrupt dinner. I’ll come back later.” It was like a burst of sunshine into a gloom-filled room, and we all relaxed a little.

  “Don’t be silly,” Mom told him. “We’re always glad to see you. Have you eaten yet? There’s plenty if you’d like to join us.”

  “No, thanks. My mom’s got things cooking at our house. I just ran over for a minute.”

  Mike straddled the arm of the sofa and perched there, a little higher than the rest of us, looking down into all of our plates. Glancing up at him, I thought how handsome he was, with his face already beginning to pick up its summer tan and his hair fluffed out in a sort of halo around his head from the day spent in the sun and water.

  He grinned at me and winked in way of private greeting, and I felt better than I had all afternoon.

  “How was work?” I asked. “Do you think you’re going to like it?”

  “Great. Awesome. Nothing to do but sit on my tower and watch the pretty girls in their new swimsuits.”

  “Hey!” I swatted him on the arm.

  “I got a suit today,” Julia said. “Rae and Carolyn helped me pick it out. It’s really pretty.”

  “How nice.” Mom smiled across at her. “In all the excitement this afternoon I never did get around to asking about the morning’s shopping. That’s a new blouse you’re wearing, isn’t it? Did you find some other things?”

  “These jeans are new too,” Julia said, “and I bought some tops. Thank you so much for letting me get them. I hope we didn’t spend too much.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Dad said. “The important thing is that you got some things you’ll enjoy wearing. I guess styles vary in different parts of the country. You’ll feel more comfortable living here if you’re dressed like the rest of the girls.”

  Picturing Julia in her new swimsuit, I almost choked. There was no way that Julia in a bikini was ever going to look like the rest of us. Thinking of the suit reminded me of Carolyn’s question while we were waiting for Julia to emerge from the dressing room, and I asked it now, more out of duty than because I really wanted to.

  “Julia, do you think you’d like to go to the dance at the Coronado Club next week? A bunch of us will be going and Peter’s band is going to play.”

  “Oh—I don’t know,” Julia said hesitantly, “I don’t dance very well.”

  “You don’t have to dance,” Peter said quickly. “You can just sit at a table and enjoy the music. I can come over and sit with you during the breaks. That’s a great idea!”

  “I don’t know,” Julia said again. She glanced across at Mom. “Do you think it would be—all right?”

  “I think it would, dear,” Mom said gently. “It would be a chance for you to meet Rae’s and Peter’s friends, people who will be your friends too in the time ahead. I know how you feel, but I’m sure your parents would want you to go out and be with young people as soon as possible. It’s a much healthier thing than staying alone and grieving.”

  “She could come with Rae and me,” Mike said. “Then Pete could join us later if he wanted to.”

  “Sure,” Pete said. “And we could all go out for something to eat afterward. Come on, Julia—I want you to hear the band. We’ve written some cool songs.”

  Julia’s glance flickered from Mike’s face to Pete’s and back to Mike’s again.

  “You’re all so nice to want me,” she said. “I—I guess I should go. It just seems—so soon—”

  “It’s the way your parents would want it,” Dad said firmly and reached over to put his hand on her shoulder. “Life goes on, and we have to go on with it. You’re a brave girl, Julia; I can’t tell you how proud we are to have you part of our family.”

  Mike stayed for a few minutes longer, and then I excused myself to walk him to the door. I went with him out onto the porch to see him down the steps. It was still dusk, a faded, gentle light, lingering softly as twilight does in summer. The children down the block were all out playing, enjoying the fun of a delayed nightfall. Their voices lifted, light and giggly, punctuated by squeals. Some little girl was chanting an old rope-jumping jingle:

  Pomp-pomp-pompadour, Janie,

  Calling for Ida at the door—

  Now Ida is the one who’s gonna have the fun,

  And we won’t need Janie anymore!

  “I remember being ten years old,” I said. It suddenly seemed a million years ago.

  “I remember too,” Mike said. “You were scrawny and your nose ran a lot.”

  “Liar!” I cried, outraged.

  “Okay—okay—I was just kidding.” He rumpled my hair. “You’ve got a cute nose, and I guess it didn’t used to run any more than most kids’ noses. Do you want to do something after dinner?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I dunno, walk over to the park or something? It’ll still be light. We could take Trickle on his leash. It would be a good outing for him.”

  “I don’t know where he is,” I said. “He ran off somewhere.”

  “Well, just us then. Or we could take your cousin along if you want to.”

  “Well—” I paused, searching for words. I didn’t know how to say it, but I didn’t want to take Julia with us to the park. Taking her with us to the dance was enough. At that moment all I wanted in the world was to be alone with Mike someplace far away from arguments and problems and family obligations, someplace where I could be mean and selfish and not spend one thought on brave, suffering Julia who needed us.

  “I can’t,” I said. “Mom wants me home. She says going out last night was enough. She and I haven’t been getting along today.”

  “You and your mom?” Mike was surprised. “But you two always get along!”

  “It was just one of those days,” I said. “Something happened and—well, it set us off.”

  “It’ll be fine by tomorrow,” Mike said
comfortingly. “Your mom’s pretty cool. Want to come out to the pool in the morning and watch me laboring away on my watchtower?”

  “Laboring!” I said, jokingly. “What a cushy job!” But my heart wasn’t in the kidding. Mike must have realized it because he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the end of the nose before he started down the steps.

  He was halfway down the walk and I was reentering the house when he called back, “Rae, isn’t that Trickle?”

  “Where?” I cried, turning.

  “Over there, under the corner of the porch.”

  “Trickle!” I exclaimed. “Is that you?”

  I went down the steps and over to the place where Mike was pointing, and it was indeed Trickle. He had dug a little trench and was lying in it, and when I got close to him he began to lift his tail and let it fall with a slow, even beat to let me know that he was glad to see me.

  “He looks funny,” I said, dropping to my knees and running my hand over the silky head. “Doesn’t he look funny, Mike?”

  Mike came over to stand beside me.

  “He looks sick,” he said. “Maybe he ate something he shouldn’t have. You’d better leave him outside tonight. You don’t want him puking all over the house.”

  “I don’t have much choice,” I told him. “Dad says I can’t bring him inside anyway. I think I’ll take him around to the back and fix up a bed for him to sleep on.”

  Trickle wouldn’t get up when I prodded him, so I picked him up in my arms and carried him around the side of the house to the backyard. I left him there while I went in through the kitchen door and got him a bowl of water. I stopped on the way back to take a cushion off of the lawn chair. I brought both over to Trickle and set them on the ground beside him.

  Trickle sniffed at the cushion and then gave a great sigh and settled himself in the grass beside it. He didn’t even look at the water.

  “Don’t you worry,” I whispered, moving one hand to scratch his tummy. “People aren’t going to stay mad at you forever. Everybody has a right to lose his temper once in a while, even a dog. By tomorrow I bet it’s all forgotten and you’re back inside sleeping on the foot of my bed.”