If the Pinto seized up on that back road and she had to take a hike, well, okay. But Tad shouldn't have to do it.
Tad, however, had other ideas.
Shortly after talking to his dad, he had gone up to his room and had stretched out on his bed with a stack of Little Golden Books.
Fifteen minutes later he had dozed off, and a dream had come to him, a dream which seemed utterly ordinary but which had a strange, nearly terrifying power. In his dream he saw a big boy
throwing a friction-taped baseball up and trying to hit it. He missed twice, three times, four. On the fifth swing he hit the ball ... and the bat, which had also been taped, shattered at the handle. The boy held the handle for a moment (black tape flapped from it), then bent and picked up the fat of the bat. He looked at it for a moment, shook his head disgustedly, and tossed it into the high grass at the side of the driveway. Then he turned, and Tad saw with a sudden shock that was half dread, half delight, that the boy was himself at ten or eleven. Yes, it was him. He was sure of it.
Then the boy was gone, and there was a grayness. In it he could bear two sounds: creaking swing chains ... and the faint quacking of ducks. With these sounds and the grayness came a sudden scary feeling that he could not breathe, he was suffocating. And a man was walking out of the mist... a man who wore a black shiny raincoat and held a stop sign on a stick in one band. He grinned, and his eyes were shiny silver coins. He raised one band to point at Tad, and he saw with horror it wasn't a hand at all, it was bones, and the face inside the shiny vinyl hood of the raincoat wasn't a face at all. It was a skull. It was He jerked awake, his body bathed in sweat that was only in part due to the room's almost explosive heat. He sat up, propped on his elbows, breathing in harsh gasps.
Snick.
The closet door was swinging open. And as it swung open he saw something inside, only for a second and then he was flying for the door which gave on the hall as fast as he could. He saw it only for a second, long enough to tell it wasn't the man in the shiny black raincoat, Frank Dodd, the man who had killed the ladies. Not him.
Something else. Something with red eyes like bloody sunsets.
But he could not speak of these things to his mother. So he concentrated on Debbie, the sitter, instead.
He didn't want to be left with Debbie, Debbie was mean to him, she always played the record player loud, et cetera, et cetera. When none of this had much effect on his mother, Tad suggested ominously that Debbie might shoot him. When Donna made the mistake of giggling helplessly at the thought of fifteen-year-old myopic Debbie Gehringer shooting anyone, Tad burst into miserable tears and ran into the living room. He needed to tell her that Debbie Gehringer might not be strong enough to keep the monster in his closet-that if dark fell and his mother was not back, it might come out. It might be the man in the black raincoat, or it might be the beast.
Donna followed him, sorry for her laughter, wondering how she could have been so insensitive. The boy's father was gone, and that was upsetting enough. He didn't want to lose sight of his mother for even an hour. And
And isn't it possible he senses some of what's gone on between Vicand me? Perhaps even beard. ..?
No, she didn't think that. She couldn't think that. It was just the upset in his routine.
The door to the living room was shut. She reached for the knob, hesitated, then knocked softly instead. There was no answer. She knocked again and when there was still no answer, she went in quietly. Tad was lying face down on the couch with one of the back cushions pulled firmly down over his head. It was behavior reserved only for major upsets.
'Tad?'
No answer.
'I'm sorry I laughed.'
His face looked out at her from beneath one edge of the puffy, dove-gray sofa cushion. There were fresh tears on his face. 'Please
can't I come?' he asked. 'Don't make me stay here with Debbie, Mom.' Great histrionics, she thought. Great histrionics and blatant coercion. She recognized it (or felt she did) and at the same time found it impossible to be tough ... partly because her own tears were threatening again. Lately it seemed that there was always a cloudburst just over the horizon.
'Honey, you know the way the Pinto was when we came back from town. It could break down in the middle of East Galoshes Corners and we'd have to walk to a house and use the telephone, maybe a long way
'So? I'm a good walker!'
'I know, but you might get scared.'
Thinking of the thing in the closet, Tad suddenly cried out with all his force, 'I will not get scared!' His hand had gone automatically to the bulge in his hip pocket of his jeans, where the Monster Words were stowed away.
'Don't raise your voice that way, please. It sounds ugly.'
He lowered his voice. 'I won't get scared. I just want to go with you.'
She looked at him helplessly, knowing that she really ought to call Debby Gehringer, feeling that she was being shamelessly manipulated by her four-year-old son. And if she gave in it would he for all the wrong reasons. She thought helplessly, It's like a chain reaction that doesn't stop anyplace and it's gumming up works I didn't even know existed. 0 God I wish I was in Tahiti.
She opened her mouth to tell him, quite firmly and once and for all, that she was going to call Debbie and they could make popcorn together if he was good and that he would have to go to bed right after supper if he was bad and that was the end of it. Instead, what
came out was, 'All right, you can come. But our Pinto might not make it, and if it doesn't we'll have to walk to a house and have the Town Taxi come and pick us up. And if we do have to walk, I don't want to have to listen to you crabbing at me, Tad Trenton.
'No, I won't-'
'Let me finish. I don't want you crabbing at me or asking me to carry you, because I won't do it. Do we have an understanding?'
'Yeah! Yeah, sure!' Tad hopped off the sofa, all grief forgotten.
'Are we going now.
'Yes, I guess so. Or ... I know what. Why don't I make us a snack first? A snack and we'll put some milk in the Thermos bottles, too.'
'In case we have to camp out all night?' Tad looked suddenly doubtful again.
'No, honey.' She smiled and gave him a little hug. 'But I still haven't been able to get Mr. Camber on the telephone. Your daddy says it's probably just because he doesn't have a phone in his garage so he doesn't know I'm calling. And his wife and his little boy might be someplace, so -'
'He should have a phone in his garage,' Tad said. 'That's dumb.'
'Just don't you tell him that,' Donna said quickly, and Tad shook his head that he wouldn't. 'Anyway, if nobody's there, I thought you and I could have a little snack in the car or maybe on his steps and wait for him.'
Ted clapped his hands. 'Great! Great! Can I take my Snoopy lunchbox?'
'Sure,' Donna said, giving in completely.
