The Gawgon and the Boy

by Lloyd Alexander

  Since that morning in the marketplace, when a street urchin pressed a scrap of paper into his hand, Davio had counted the hours. His heart leaped with joy at the words that could well be his death sentence:

  My dearest Davio, We must 110 longer be apart. Come to my chambers at midnight. The cold balcony, east wing. Yours truly, and truly yours, Gloria Ormondi.

  P. S. I'll leave the light on. He had glimpsed her only from time to time when the beautiful Gloria and a train of servants bought baskets of lemons for her family's lemonade. Between them, however, passed the melting glances of love at first sight. They had never spoken, nor dared to. The Ormondis and Aldinis, richest and most powerful families in the hill town of Rosamonte, had been mortal enemies for centuries. They had forgotten why but did remember to hate each other.

  Davio made his way to the cast wing of the Ormondi mansion. Thick greenery covered the wall. A lamp glowed front the chamber casement. I He flung aside his cloak nonchalantly as he risked his life and climbed athletically up the vines.

  As he was about to swing over the stone balcony, a figure loomed from the shadows. "My darling!" Davio whispered. "I'm here."

  "And so am I, you sneaking swine!"

  Davio stared into the furious face of Mr. Ormondi, whose mustache convulsed with a life of its own. "You wretch! You dog! You-you Aldilll." roared Mr. Or-mondi. "How dare you! What are you up to? Answer me!"

  "Aggag," replied Davio, unable to explain further with Mr. Ormondi's hands clamped around his neck. I He had resigned himself to death in exchange for a moment with his beloved. I He had not reckoned 011 his tonsils exploding. With all his strength he peeled away Mr. Ormondi's fingers, but, I’ll the desperate struggle, tumbled backward and crashed down through the shrubbery.

  Mr. Ormondi bawled for his army of lackeys and retainers. I Davio sat up and held his split head. I He staggered to his Summer's Lease feet and lurched away with no clear idea where he was going. A hand seized him by the collar. He flung himself around to face his attacker.

  It was Gloria, dressed in the leggings and leather jerkin of a stable-sweeper.

  "Quick, my dearest," she urged, while torches flared and angry Ormondis swarmed from the mansion. She hustled the still bewildered Davio through the gardens and into the shadows of the olive trees.

  "No time to warn you," Gloria hurried on. "That treacherous little guttersnipe! I shouldn't have trusted him with my letter. He blabbed to my father. I'm sure he was well rewarded."

  By now they had reached what looked to Davio like an abandoned tool shed. He stumbled through the door after her. With flint and steel from her jacket, Gloria struck a spark and lit a lamp on the cluttered workbench. Even in her coarse garb and these dilapidated surroundings, she appeared still more radiantly beautiful. He held out his arms to her.

  "Alone at last!" cried Davio. "Not for long," said Gloria. "They'll find us here if we don't get a move on."

  "My dearest, we have no escape," Davio said. "But at least we shall spend these final moments together. They will be all the sweeter because of their brevity.

  "Then let your father stab me with a bodkin!" Davio snapped his fingers. "I care not a figgo! Let him run me through with a rapier."

  "You?" said Gloria. "And what do you think he'll do to to me?"

  "We shall have the joy of dying together," Davio pointed out. "Not a good idea," said Gloria. She stepped to a corner of the shed where a canvas-draped object leaned against the wall.

  "My father's cousin Leo gave him this to try out," Gloria said. "Cousin Leo's a genius at inventing things-and a pretty good artist, too. He only made one of these, then got interested in painting somebody's portrait-Lisa something-or-other and that was the last we saw of him.

  "My father thought it was ridiculous," Gloria went on. "One more of Cousin Leo's harebrained schemes. Useless, my father said. Who'd want it when we have horses?"

  Gloria, during this, had untied the cords that secured the canvas and pulled aside the covering. "I think it's wonderful."

  Davio blinked at the strange contraption, unlike anything he had seen before. A slender framework had been crafted of polished wood. At the front was what looked like a pair of gracefully curving horns and, at the rear, another pair. Two narrow leather pads had been set on a crossbar. There were two large wooden wheels studded with tiny nail heads.

  "Cousin Leo called it a 'velocipedia,'" Gloria said. "I've practiced, J know how it works."

  "What's it do?" Davio eyed the machine with mingled curiosity and distrust.

  "Gets us away from here." Gloria rolled the velocipedia through the door and motioned for Davio to follow. "The back gate won't be guarded. They're sure an Aldini will be too proud to use the tradesman's entrance."

  Gloria was right. They passed quickly through the olive grove and the gate and continued on to a well-paved road. Except for the crowd of vengeful Ormondis, Davio would have enjoyed the moonlit outing with his beloved; but Gloria, after a moment, halted.

  "Get on that saddle thing in the back," she directed. "Hold those curved bars. Put your feet on the pedals. I'll do the steering."

  Davio did as she instructed. "Now what?" Gloria swung lightly to the seat in front of him. "Just keep pedaling."

  Next thing he knew, the velocipedia shot forward. He found himself pumping like mad as Gloria, likewise pedaling, guided Cousin Leo's vehicle as expertly as the helmsman of a ship. They skimmed along at a breathtaking rate. The wind whistled in Davio's ears. They would have made rapid progress and been well away from Rosamonte if Davio had not lost his balance every few yards and sent himself, Gloria, and the velocipedia into a roadside ditch.

  They had picked themselves up for the tenth or twelfth time when Davio, about to remount, paused and cocked his head. From behind them came thundering hoof beats. Under the moon, in the clear and starlit night, Davio could make out Mr. Ormondi on horseback, galloping at the front of his retainers, all brandishing pikes and swords. "Quit staring," ordered Gloria. "Climb back. And keep on pedaling."

  For one hopeful instant, Davio believed they might outdistance Mr. Ormondi. His heart sank. Word must have spread like wildfire, for, some distance down the road ahead, galloped his father and every other Aldini in town.

  "Trapped between our families!" exclaimed Davio. "All is lost!"

  "Keep on pedaling," said Gloria.

  From what little he could see, Gloria had taken both hands from her steering bars and begun pulling at several rods and levers.

  "I told you Cousin Leo was a genius," she called over her shoulder. "He knew it would take a lot of strength to make this thing go. That's why he made room for two. I never tried this part by myself, but I trust Cousin Leo."

  Fearless enough to face a thousand Mr. Ormondis, Davio suddenly felt as if the top of his head were coming off while his terrified stomach sank to his kneecaps. Cleverly folded into the frame of the velocipedia, a pair of light but sturdy wings deployed and flapped steadily. The vehicle began rising. Moments later, it was airborne and rapidly climbing.

  "My dearest," cried Davio, "what do we do now?"

  "Keep on pedaling," said Gloria. Below, the galloping Aldinis and Ormondis collided, but instead of hacking and stabbing, they craned their necks skyward in dumbstruck disbelief.

  Davio, overcoming his first fear, was developing a taste for soaring into the stars. "You realize, my darling," he said, "after this, we won't dare go back to Rosamonte."

  "Who wants to?" said Gloria. "We'll fly on to China, India, Samoa."

  "What about Jamaica?" Davio said.

  "There, too," said Gloria. "Keep on pedaling."

  Not Thuh End

  "I like your house better than mine," Gloria said. "At home, it's boring. My father has everything decided ahead of time, all planned out. Nick's going into politics when he gets out of college. It's what my father wants."

  We were, that afternoon, sitting on the porch at Lakeview Avenue. I had put down my sketch pad to chase a dog away from the shillel
ly.

  "Nick," Gloria said. "He's my brother and I love him. But he's not nice with girls. He thinks he has-privileges."

  We both knew Nick and my sister had been seeing each other. In the end, my sister would have her heart broken. For the moment, she was blissfully happy.

  I asked Gloria what her father planned for her. "He hasn't told me yet." She had the same wicked curve to her lips I saw when she doused her brother with lemonade. "I probably won't like it."

  "Then don't do it," I said. Gloria grinned at me. "I won't." She added, "What are you going to be?"

  My answer-I didn't know if it had been stewing in the back of my mind, or, if so, for how long. In any case, it popped out and there it was. I felt as if I had untied one of The Gawgon's knots.

  "I'll be an artist," I said. "I'll write stories, too." Gloria nodded. "You'll be good at that."

  I went back to her portrait. I planned, eventually, on adding color as another way of stretching out the project. Gloria asked when it would be finished. I warned her it could take a long time. Leonardo da Vinci, I told her, spent six years on the Mona Lisa.

  "I don't mind," Gloria said.

  "I don't, either," I said.

  That evening, The Gawgon was waiting in my room. "So, Boy, you seem to have made an interesting decision. You lied to that lovely girl about going to England. Were you telling the truth this time? Do yo u really want to be an artist?"

  I said I believed I did, and asked if she thought that was what I should be. "My opinion is beside the point," said The Gawgon. "Don't do something just because somebody else thinks it's a good idea." I remarked that my father hoped I might work for the Pennsylvania Railroad. "It's up to you," answered The Gawgon. "If you don't want to, then don't. That's what you told Gloria, isn't it?"

  "Yes," I said, "I guess it, was."

  My father came up with yet another scheme to make our fortune: deodorizing public lavatories in office buildings, restaurants, gas stations, and department stores.

  He designed a hollow cone that could be attached to the wall, and found someone to make plaster-of-pairs castings of it. He bought a jug of concentrated perfume and, with a turkey baster, dripped a little into the cone. The perfume would seep out of the plaster and spread its aroma throughout the lavatory. He proposed selling the fixtures and charging for the service of going back and refilling them.

  Each morning, he packed plaster cones, the jug of scent, and the turkey baster into a satchel and went into town hunting customers. Amazingly, he found some, and for a time, did make a little money. But he came home reeking of gardenias and had to change his clothes. Even then, the odor hung around the house.

  "Phew! It smells like a New Orleans bordello," Aunt Rosie said, next time she visited. "How would you know that?" my father said. When she turned her back, he goosed her. Aunt Rosie gave a whoop. "Oh, Alan," my mother said.

  While my father grew heroically optimistic, I grew more agonized. Gloria's portrait was coming along well; coming along, that is, very slowly, so that we saw each other almost every day. Fourth of July passed without much celebration. Summer's lease was getting shorter, my vile secret would soon be revealed and nothing I could do about it. What I did, in fact, was: nothing. I did not breathe a word of going to England, what school, in what grade. Still, my preposterous lie gnawed at me; the calendar made my fate inescapable.

  Worse, my mother had been talking with Mrs. Woods, the principal of Rosetree Elementary. I knew nothing of it until she sat me down at the dining-room table.

  She began by telling me not to be upset, a good clue I was going to be extremely upset. There was, she said, some question about my grade when school started. My marks at Rittenhouse Academy were-she did not use the word "appalling," but it hovered around the edges. I had been out of school for such a long time, followed no approved studies, and as far as the official world reckoned it, I was deeply uneducated. A "savitch," as Aunt Rosie said.

  "Mrs Woods is a lovely person," my mother went on. "Very kind and sympathetic. But-and she was frank-she doubts that you'll qualify for sixth grade."

  My mother gently exploded another bombshell: "It's likely you'll have to repeat fifth grade. Possibly."-she hesitated, seeing my expression "possibly you may go back to fourth. Mrs. Woods wants you to take a special test and she'll see."

  I was, blessedly, too numb to remember much of what happened after that. My mother did take me to Rosetree Elementary. Mrs. Woods, as my mother said, was kindly and considerate, a smiling executioner. I sat at a desk along with some other victims. A couple of them were big, hulking boys who looked as if they had grown to manhood in fourth grade. We all had the hangdog air of educational felons.

  Mrs. Woods passed out booklets and pencils and personally supervised the torture. It took a long time, though I marked down my answers as quickly as I could. At home again, I slunk to my garret. I wanted to see The Gawgon. She was not there.

  I could only try to put the whole sorry affair out of my mind and fill my remaining days full of Gloria. I kept working on her portrait, which would never be finished. We rode our bicycles, we walked through the woods, we laughed, it was all wonderful and doomed.

  For a time, I was able to forget what lay in store, but the closer we came to Labor Day, the heavier my secret weighed. I knew I would soon be forced to decide: wait like a coward until she found out, or bravely tell her myself. I preferred cowardly; for, if I said nothing, I could still hope to be run over by a truck.

  That afternoon, Gloria and I were sitting on the Ormonds' lawn swing. It was warm yet. The Ormonds' big trees hadn't started changing.

  I tried working on her portrait but erased what I had done. I had brought my story about the Aldinis and Ormondis. "For you to keep." I said. "You can read it when I'm not here." Then. I said:

  "I'm not going to England." I did not confess out of heroic nobility. I couldn't carry the lie around with me anymore. I knew I would not be saved by a careening truck. Gloria said she was glad I didn't have to go away.

  Quickly before I could change my mind. I said I was never going to England in the first place, not to Rugby or anywhere else. I wasn't even going to junior high. I'd be in elementary school and lucky if they put me in sixth grade instead of fourth or fifth.

  Gloria stared at me. "You made it all up?" I looked away and nodded. I did not try to explain. I had no idea how or what to explain.

  Gloria got out of the swing and ran to the house. Mrs. Ormond was looking at me from the kitchen window. I got on the bicycle and went home.

  I hardly slept that night. I had one more thing to do. In the morning, I rode back to her house. I had forgotten they would be getting ready for a weekend at the seashore. They were all in the driveway. Nick and Mr. Ormond packed things in the car. Gloria had just come out of the house. I wheeled the bicycle up to her.

  "I'll put this in the garage," I said. "You'll want it back now."

  "You don't have to do that," Gloria said. "I was mad, at first, because you lied to me. It doesn't matter. You were just being silly. The story was silly, too." Then she grinned. "I loved it."

  She went on to tell me she didn't care what grade I'd be in. If we were in different schools, we could still see each other afternoons and weekends.

  Mr. Ormond was calling for her to get moving. "It won't make any difference," Gloria said. I knew it would.

  On Friday, my mother sat me down again at the dining-room table. She had a call from Mrs. Woods about the test. Mrs. Woods was troubled. I said I guessed I had flunked. It did not surprise me.

  My mother shook her head. "You got a good score. Better than good." That, my mother said, was what troubled Mrs. Woods. According to the test, I belonged in junior high. She didn't want to hold me back, but it was a big jump and Mrs. Woods worried I might not be ready for it. She thought it would be easier on me if I spent the year in sixth grade.

  "She did say," my mother added, "whoever taught you must have been remarkable. That would have pleased Annie." But, m
y mother added, I was the one to decide what I wanted to do. For the sake of appearances, I thought it over for about three seconds. Seventh grade, I said, was fine with me. Gloria would be glad to know. I would tell her as soon as she was home.

  I went to the attic later. The Gawgon was sitting in her rocking chair.

  "I'm glad you confessed to that ridiculous whopper," she said. "You at least cleared your conscience. Now there's room for the next foolish thing you do. And, I gather, you're moving up in the world."

  I told The Gawgon I didn't care what grade I was in as long as Gloria and I could be together, sweethearts forever. The Gawgon smiled. "Nothing is forever. But some things do last longer than others."

  We sat quietly for some time. The Gawgon stood up.

  "I'll go now," she said. I asked when I would see her again, and hoped it would be soon.

  "No, not soon," The Gawgon said fondly. "I did what I could for you. From now on, it's up to you. You have your own life to live. And I?" She laughed. "I'm dead, after all."

  "Yes," I said. "I know that."

  "Good." The Gawgon's face lightened. She had her same bright look of a girl. Before she was gone, she turned and said: "I'll not be back. Don't forget me."

  "I won't," I said.

  The Gawgon kept her word. She never came back. I kept mine. I never forgot.

  About the Author

  Lloyd Alexander is the acclaimed author of more than thirty books for young people. His many honors include a Newbery Medal for The High King, a Newbery Honor for The Black Cauldron-both in the Chronicles of Prydain and National Book Awards for The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian and Westmark.

  Mr. Alexander's best-loved work features strong heroines, as found in Gypsy Rizka, the Westmark Trilogy (Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen), and the Vesper Holly Adventures (The Illyrian Adventure, The El Dorado Adventure, The Drackenberg Adventure, The Jedera Adventure, and The Philadelphia Adventure). Now The Gawgon joins this bright company.