The Gawgon and the Boy

by Lloyd Alexander

  After a few minutes, I put my clothes on. My head pounded; water filled my ears and made fluttering noises as if moths had nested there. I still shook, frightened and freezing. I thought I had better go home.

  As a shrewd and canny woodsman, I followed the creek in the direction I had come from. I had, by then, dried out, warmed up, and started feeling pleased at my conduct. The creek, in my adjusted recollection, became much wider and swifter, with high waves and a treacherous undertow. I had dealt with it well.

  Busy congratulating myself, I must have made a wrong turn. Instead of reaching Lakeview Avenue, I found myself deeper in the woods. I recognized nothing familiar. The faster I walked, I reckoned, the sooner I would be out of the place, which had begun looking suddenly weird and sinister. This led me nowhere. I had to admit I was hopelessly lost, never to be seen again until someone eventually tripped over my skeleton. The most sensible reaction was blind panic. I went scrambling straight through the underbrush.

  21 My Sweet Gloria

  Euclid claimed, as The Gawgon taught me, the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. I was not able to apply that principle I kept zigzagging as brambles maliciously sprang up and got in the way. I lost track of where I had been and where I was trying to go. I did, soon, come to a dirt road. A stone bridge spanned the creek which had either looped back on itself or I had been running around in a circle. Lacking any better idea, I crossed over it. After a dozen more yards, the woods ended and I burst through into civilization.

  This was a part of Rosetree Hill I had never seen before: large, handsome houses, tall trees lining both sides of the street. I headed for the nearest house hoping to find other human beings.

  What I found was Nick Ormond. Still in his black trunks, the future king of the world was pushing a lawn mower. I dared to approach. I called to him by name. This did not surprise him. He may have recognized me from the creek; perhaps he took for granted that everybody knew him. He stopped mowing the grass-I hardly believed the paragon of animals was doing such a humble chore-and looked me up and down. I tried to be properly respectful, all the while wondering how to ask directions without shamefully confessing I was lost. I told him my name and where I lived.

  "Don't you have a sister?" he asked, before I could get around to my own questions. "Elise?" Amazed that he was aware of her existence, I admitted I did. He nodded and grew almost cordial. I hinted I was on my way to Lakeview Avenue, wherever that might be.

  Meantime, a substantial, silver-haired man with a neatly trimmed mustache had come from behind the house. He wore white duck pants and a short-sleeved shirt with crossed golf clubs embroidered on the breast pocket. Nick, who seemed to know we had just moved into the neighborhood, told him who I was, adding a mention of my sister.

  The man-Nick's father-courteously shook my hand. "Lakeview Avenue? Well, son, you've got yourself all mixed up." He eyed the scratches on my arms and legs. "Been hacking around the woods? They can fool you if you don't know then."

  He turned to Nick. "Ready for lemonade?" Nick declared he surely was. The two started down the driveway. Mr. Ormond glanced back. "Come on, you have some, too. I think you could use a good stiff drink." He laughed good-naturedly. "Nonalcoholic, of course."

  I accepted gratefully. I followed them down a driveway to a big backyard lined with flower beds. Nick went and stretched out in a hammock slung between two trees. Mr. Ormond motioned for me to sit on a wooden bench at a trestle table. Mrs. Ormond, a pleasant-looking woman of my mother's age, came out the back door. She brought a tray with tall glasses and a chrome-plated ice bucket. Beside her, carrying a pitcher, walked a slender girl in a sundress.

  "We need another glass, my dear," Mr. Ormond said to the girl. "We have an unexpected guest." With a curious glance at me, she disappeared into the house. By the time she came back, Mrs. Ormond had taken up a pair of tongs and dropped ice into the tumblers. Mr. Ormond made brief introductions as Mrs. Ormond poured out the lemonade. Gloria, so their daughter was named, turned closer attention on me. Whereas her brother's hair was close-cropped and yellowish, hers was golden brown, long, with lighter streaks in it. She had wide-set, blue-green eyes, and they made me ill at ease, for she seemed to be studying me with secret amusement.

  "Hey, sis, where's mine?" Nick, without raising himself from the hammock, held out an arm and wiggled his fingers. "Bring it here, twit."

  "Lazy lump," Gloria called back. "Get it yourself."

  Nick made a great show of protesting he was tired, ordering her to be a good little brat and do as she was told, and they tossed insults back and forth. Mr. and Mrs. Ormond, evidently used to this, paid them no mind.

  Gloria sighed and shrugged. With a wicked little curve to her lips, she went to the hammock. Instead of putting the glass in Nick's hand, she poured the contents, ice and all, onto his head. Nick, roaring, tipped himself out of the hammock and sprawled full-length on the grass. He started after his sister, on her smiling way to the table.

  "Enough. Stop it," Mrs. Ormond said. "No more nonsense, either of you. We have company."

  Nick refilled his glass, which Gloria had let fall to the ground. He took it to the front yard. He was more than a little vexed; no doubt he had his reputation to uphold in front of strangers.

  Gloria, unruffled, sipped her drink, as I did my own. It was nectar of the gods; even the ice was delicious-in glittering cubes, not slivers, which meant the Ormonds had one of the new electric refrigerators. More than all that, Gloria handed me my lemonade with such a graceful motion, and looked full at me over the rim of her tumbler. That was probably when I fell in love with her. People, I suppose, have fallen in love for less reason.

  Mr. Ormond, meantime, had been asking about my family, how long we had been in Rosetree Hill, and what my father did. I was reluctant to explain about buying the River Jordan; I only said he imported things. I added that my aunt worked at the biggest bank in town.

  "What a coincidence," Mr. Ormond said. "So do I."

  It was a pleasant enough conversation until Mrs. Ormond began talking about school, as adults do when they know nothing better to say to children. Gloria, she mentioned, would be going into seventh grade at Rosetree Junior High.

  "You look the same age," she added. "I imagine that's where you'll go, too." Junior high? From what my mother had calculated, would, in the fall, go to elementary school as a sixth grader.

  So besotted with Gloria, I had not given a thought to school and grades. This was monstrous. The elementary school and the junior high were miles apart, geographically and every other way. I knew the iron bound, unbreakable system of class and caste. I had seen and lived it myself at Rittenhouse Academy.

  It was unthinkable, unspeakable, maybe illegal, for anyone in a higher grade to have anything but scorn and contempt for anyone in a lower. I could already see Gloria's lovely face fill with horror. Her fond glances-as I was sure they were would turn to disgust, as if I had been transformed into a slithering reptile, a warty toad, a less than human creature covered with oozing sores and trailing clouds of poisonous dandruff.

  Between now and autumn-who knew what might happen? Before being unmasked as a wretched sixth grader, I could be lucky enough to get squashed by a truck.

  And so I took the only reasonable course: I lied. I said I wasn't sure what grade. I had been reading Tom Brown's Schooldays, one of The Gawgon's books, and I grasped at that straw. "Because, you see," I went on, "it's different England. They don't have grades, they have forms."

  "England?" Mr. Ormond raised an eyebrow.

  "To Rugby," I said. "It's a famous school."

  I prayed for a thunderbolt to blast me. It did not. I floundered on, explaining that my parents were thinking of sending me there. To assure Gloria our separation would not be long, I added I would be home for the holidays.

  "Interesting," said Mr. Ormond. I wondered if he knew I was lying. "How exciting," said Mrs. Ormond, as if she believed me. "You must be looking forward to it."


  Gloria did not comment. I was only looking forward to going home before I dug a deeper pit for myself. I stood upstaggered up, rather, under the burden of my preposterous claim. Mr. Ormond gave me directions to Lakeview Avenue. It was not far, less than a mile; he told me to cross the trolley tracks, turn left there and right someplace else.

  I was not keeping any of this straight in my head. I asked him to repeat. Convinced, no doubt, I was an idiot, he finally asked Gloria to take her bicycle and go with me.

  "We don't want you getting lost again," Mr. Ormond said. I was already lost. Gloria went to the garage. I walked down the driveway. Nick Ormond stopped pushing the lawn mower long enough to call, "Say hello to your sister."

  Gloria came pedaling into the street. She tossed her long hair and waved for me to follow. I trotted along the pavement, wondering if she meant to make me run all the way. She kept glancing back with the same air of secret amusement she had when we were drinking lemonade, as if teasing me to catch up with her.

  Before I lagged too far behind, she circled back, wheeling graceful spirals and figure eights. At last, she dismounted and rolled the bicycle to the pavement. She pushed it along; we walked side by side. She smelled of sunlight and perspiration. She was marvelous.

  "We have a parrot," I said. By then, we had reached Lakeview Avenue. I pointed to our house and asked if she wanted to come in and see Nora. A couple of dogs were sniffing around the Irish shillelly. I chased them away. When I turned back, she was gone.

  I had come home just in time for dinner. As we all sat down, my mother looked at me closely and with some concern and asked where I had been all afternoon.

  This time I did not lie-except for leaving out the parts about drowning, getting lost in the woods, and falling in love. I offhandedly remarked I had a nice visit with the Ormond family, after happening to run into Nick.

  My sister sat bolt upright, as though galvanized by a powerful electric current. I smiled and charitably threw her a crumb. "Oh," I said, "I almost forgot. Nick was asking for you."

  I left her choking and gulping and turned to Aunt Florry. Mr. Ormond, I told her, also worked at her bank. "He certainly does," Aunt Florry said. "Good heavens, he's a vice president." My father laughed. "Dax, old sport, you've been hobnobbing with the upper crust."

  Aunt Florry reminded us that Mr. Ormond had been her old employer's financial adviser. Mrs. Heberton had spoken to him and recommended her for a job. Everyone was surprised I had been face-to-face with him; underlings at the bank caught only glimpses of Mr. Ormond. They went on to talk about other things.

  I ate my dinner quickly and started for the attic. My sister ran after me. I beat her to it and locked the door behind me.

  "What did he say?" she yelled. "Exactly."

  "I can't remember it all," I said, taking a dumb-ox attitude which she hated. "Something like 'hello to your sister.'"

  She squealed and smacked the door as if it were my head. I climbed the rest of the steps to my garret, as I had begun calling it, and flopped on the bed, relishing my thoughts-most of them circling around Gloria. Finally, I rummaged out a sketch pad and soft pencil, meaning to do a portrait of her. I had drawn nothing for such a long time, I could not catch the likeness. I crumpled sheet after sheet and tossed them on the floor.

  "Well, Boy, I believe you've gone and lost your heart."

  The Gawgon was looking over my shoulder. I did not answer. I was happy to see her; but I said nothing.

  "I'm glad," The Gawgon said. "In fact, I rather hoped you would. Sometimes, the best way to heal a heart is to lose it. But I'm sorry you told such a terrible whopper. It was silly on top of being a lie. Ah, well, it's not the last silly thing you'll ever do."

  The Gawgon peered at the sketch I had begun for about the seventeenth time. "That's your little Gloria? Yes, she's a lovely child. It will be a nice portrait."

  "I wish I could have drawn yours," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't have the chance. It's not that I haven't been thinking of you. I can still try."

  "No, no," The Gawgon gently said. "We've had our adventures, you and I. Wonderful adventures. I'm glad of them. You go ahead now with your own."

  "You don't mind?" I asked. "About Gloria and me?"

  "Of course not," The Gawgon said."'Summer's lease hath all too short a date.'"

  "Shakespeare," I said.

  "Correct," said The Gawgon. "Be happy. Good night, Boy."

  After breakfast next morning, I went on the porch to stand sentry duty, ready to defend the Irish shillelly. No dogs hove into sight. I was about to climb to my garret and work some more on the portrait. I stopped short. Swift and graceful as an antelope, Gloria came pedaling her bicycle down Lakeview Avenue. She coasted up to the steps.

  "You wanted me to see your parrot?" she said.

  22 Summer's Lease

  Gloria and I were sweethearts that summer. We never talked about it. I wondered if she knew. I believed she did. That was good enough.

  We were together from that first morning she came to see Nora. I warned her Nora sometimes nipped, but Gloria went straight to the perch and held out a finger. Nora, charmed, stepped onto it.

  She charmed the rest of my family, as well. My mother patted her head and said what a pretty child she was. Gloria had no grandmother. Mine happily substituted, and within a week or two, Gloria was calling her "Grandma Mary."

  My sister sweetly fussed over her Gloria's brother, after all, was king of the world-offering to paint her nails and do her hair. And my sister never called me a stupid blighter-when Gloria was there.

  My father was delighted when Gloria oohed and ahhed over the Ming Dynasty living room. Beaming, he explained what all the curios were and where they came from.

  "I want to go to China," Gloria said to me later. She had a distant, dreamy look in her eyes. "I want to sail all around the world."

  Offering my own adventures on the high seas, I told her I had visited relatives in Jamaica. I made it sound as if the voyage had been marked by hurricanes, threats of shipwreck, and mutiny. I went on about coconuts and mangoes, palm trees and pirate coves.

  "Yes," Gloria said. "Oh, yes. I'll go there, too. I'll go everywhere."

  If Gloria charmed my family, our house charmed her. She loved the cubbyholes, the Alpine stairway, the wooden icebox with all its doors. She showed tender feelings toward the Irish shillelly and helped shoo the dogs away. Our house looked better to me after she had been there. I did come to love it, and loved it, no doubt, because she did.

  We saw a lot of each other during those summer days, though I could never be sure when Gloria would simply show up on her bicycle, or I would walk to the Ormonds' house and hope to find her. Sometimes she was there, sometimes not. I wondered if she kept company with other boys. No, that was too horrible to imagine. I uprooted that idea from my thoughts. But I never knew where she went, and never asked.

  My father, meantime, had received no letters from any kings or ambassadors. Annoyed at them, he gave up trying to buy the River Jordan and turned to a brighter prospect.

  "Palm-Nutto," he said to my mother. "Diggers wanted me to sell it. He ate some, remember? To show how pure it was."

  My father wrote to his boyhood chum in Kingston. In due course, several cases of the household cleanser arrived. Convinced he could sell anything to anybody, he foresaw no difficulties.

  His first morning of door-to-door salesmanship, he wore his straw boater with striped hatband and his white summer suit-an ice-cream suit, my mother called it. He stowed a dozen jars in the trunk of our car and drove off with a gnashing of gears.

  He came home before noon. He carried his straw hat in his hand, his complexion was a delicate green. No one had bought any. Besides, eating the Palm-Nutto to show its purity made him nauseous. One lady seemed a good prospect but lost interest when he threw up on her floor. He renounced Palm-Nutto then and there.

  My mother took over the business and brought home small amounts of cash. She assured my father he was a fine salesman;
it was simply that she could talk about housecleaning better than he could. She did not eat any Palm-Nutto.

  Uncle Eustace was prospering. While the Depression kept getting worse, his tombstone business kept getting better. It was, he said, thanks to Mr. Vance, who had been a lodger in my grandmother's boardinghouse.

  "He's a good sort of fellow, is Vance," Uncle Eustace said. "He never talks about what line of work he's in, but he sends a nice bit of business my way. His friends buy a lot of stones."

  "His friends keep shooting each other, if you ask me," my father said. "You're probably selling tombstones to half the gangsters in Philadelphia."

  "So?" Uncle Eustace shrugged. "It's a living."

  "Gangsters or not, they should have a decent burial," my mother said. "They're just as dead as anybody else."

  Gloria, that summer, taught me to ride a bicycle. At her request, Mrs. Ormond let me borrow Nick's outgrown vehicle. It was small for me as well, and I had to be cautious about banging my knees on the handlebars. Gloria never made fun of me when I fell off Even when I caught the knack of balancing, pedaling, and steering, I never matched her spirals and loops. Still, I could ride to her house quickly; it was a good as having an automobile.

  Being in love with her made me shrewd and calculating. I was always afraid she would, one day, glide away on her bicycle and vanish. I kept thinking of schemes to snare her interest.

  Not only had I begun studying in earnest, I had also started drawing again. I proposed doing her portrait. That would keep her with me a long time. I would make sure it did. She agreed, and from then on I brought my sketch pad.

  My cunning knew no limits. I began a story to be revealed when the time was right. Seeking inspiration, I burglarized Shakespeare from the book The Gawgon left me. Shakespeare had plenty of ideas. He would never notice any missing.

  WONDERS OF THE WORLD

  Under the cloak of darkness, Davio Aldini strode happily and eagerly to what might cost his life. The clock in the piazza tolled twelve. He quickened his pace and slipped noiselessly through the lavish gardens of the Ormondi estate.