Revenge of the Manitou Read online

  Petra shrugged, and pursed her lips demurely. “I don’t know. I’ve been sick for the past four days. Mommy may not let me.”

  “You’ve been sick? You mean, you’ve puked?”

  “You mustn’t say puke. It’s disgusting.”

  Toby colored a little. He didn’t like Petra to think that he wasn’t grown-up and sophisticated. Petra, after all, was nearly nine, and next in line for class president. Toby said: “Well, what do you mean? You got the measles?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have insomnia,” said Petra.

  “Is that catching?”

  “Of course not, stupid. Insomnia is when you can’t sleep. Can’t you see these rings around my eyes? Mommy says it’s due to hypertension in prepuberty.”

  Toby frowned. He didn’t like to admit that he didn’t have the faintest idea of what Petra was talking about. He’d kind of heard of “puberty,” and he knew it had something to do with growing hairs on your doodad—which is what his grandpa always used to call it—but that was about the extent of his knowledge. Like most children to whom the most important things in life are skateboards, Charlie’s Angels, and Captain Cosmic, he’d been told, but had quickly forgotten.

  “What do you do all night if you don’t sleep?” asked Toby. “Do you walk about, or what?”

  “Oh, I sleep some of the time,” explained Petra. “The trouble is, I keep having bad dreams. They wake me up, and then it takes me a long time to go back to sleep.”

  “Bad dreams? I had a bad dream last night.”

  “Well, I’m sure your bad dream wasn’t as bad as my bad dreams,” said Petra. “My bad dreams are simply awful.”

  “I dreamed there was somebody stuck in my wardrobe,” said Toby. In the sunlit classroom, it sounded pretty lame. The cold terror of seeing that gray face in the walnut door had been vaporized by the warmth of the day.

  Petra tilted her nose up. “That’s nothing. I keep dreaming about blood. I keep dreaming about all these people covered with blood.”

  Toby was impressed. “That’s real frightening,” he admitted. “People covered with blood—that’s real frightening.”

  “Mommy says it’s prepuberty fears,” said Petra, airily. “She’s says it’s a woman’s fear of her natural function brought about by men’s lack of understanding of what a woman is.”

  Mrs. Novato called; “Petra? Are you talking? I’m surprised at you.”

  Petra gave Toby a sharp look, and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Novato. I was trying to explain something to Toby.”

  The class of twenty boys and girls, all between the ages of eight and ten, looked around at them. Mrs. Novato said, “If there’s something you don’t understand, Toby, you can always ask me. That’s what I’m paid for. Apart from that, I’m a little better informed than Petra on most subjects.”

  Linus Hopland was grinning at Toby and pulling faces. Toby couldn’t help smirking, and he had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from laughing out loud.

  Mrs. Novato said; “Stand up, Toby. If you’ve got a question to ask, if there’s something you don’t understand, then let’s share your problem. That is what a class is for, to share.”

  Toby reluctantly stood. He kept his eyes fixed on his desk.

  “Well?” asked Mrs. Novato. “What was it that you wished to know?”

  Toby didn’t answer.

  “It was so important that you had to discuss it with Petra in the middle of nature study, and yet you can’t tell me what it was?”

  Toby said, in a small, husky voice, “It was Petra’s dreams, Mrs. Novato.”

  “Speak up,” insisted his teacher. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “It was Petra’s dreams. Petra’s been having bad dreams, and so have I.”

  Mrs. Novato blinked at him. “Bad dreams? What kind of bad dreams?”

  “I’ve been dreaming about a man stuck in my wardrobe calling for help, and Petra’s been having dreams about people covered with blood.”

  Mrs. Novato walked slowly down the aisle toward them. She looked first at Toby and then at Petra. On the blackboard behind her was the chalked message: “Trees in the Petrified Forest were turned to stone by minerals.”

  Mrs. Novato said, “Have you told your parents about these dreams?”

  The children nodded.

  “Yes, Mrs. Novato.”

  Mrs. Novato smiled. “In that case, I’m sure you’re both going to be fine. Maybe a little less cheese at bedtime, and those dreams are sure to disappear. Now, forget about what goes on in dreams and let’s have your attention on something that’s real. The trees in the Petrified Forest.”

  Toby sat down again. Petra, annoyed at having been scolded by Mrs. Novato, pinched him hard on the leg.

  *

  During lunch recess, in the hot, dusty school yard with its chain-link fence, Toby sat on a split-log bench and ate his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. Today, despite Ben Nichelini’s entreaties to trade a sandwich for a live lizard on a piece of string, he felt hungry, and he ate everything his mother had prepared for him. He carefully saved his Baby Ruth bar until last.

  Andy Beaver, who was the envy of the class because his uncle had taken him to see Star Wars, was doing a passable imitation of R-2 D-2, while Karen Doughty was breathing in and out very loudly and panting: “I’m Darth Vader! I’m Darth Vader!”

  Daniel Soscol, one of the youngest boys in the class, came across the school yard and sat down next to Toby, watching him eat with silent interest. Daniel wasn’t very popular because he was so young and so quiet. He had thin arms and legs, and big dark eyes. His father was a plumber in Valley Ford, and his mother had died in May.

  Toby continued to eat. When he had finished, he took out the square of kitchen towel that his mother had neatly folded under his sandwiches, and wiped his mouth.

  Daniel said, “I heard you say about the dreams.”

  Toby looked up. “So?” he said, acting a little tough because Daniel was the class runt. He wouldn’t have liked Andy Beaver to see him being too nice to Daniel, in case Andy Beaver’s gang started to treat him the same way. Leaving thumbtacks on his seat, hiding his books, things like that.

  Daniel said, “I had bad dreams, too. Real scary ones. I dreamed I was walking through this forest and suddenly all these things came dropping out of the trees.”

  “What’s scary about that?”

  “What’s scary about somebody stuck in a wardrobe?”

  “Well, it was scary at the time,” said Toby.

  “So was mine.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. Toby unwrapped his Baby Ruth and started to chew it. A coolish breeze from the west raised dust on the yard, and in the distance a cock began to crow.

  Daniel said, “We’re not the only ones. Ben Nichelini had a bad dream too. He dreamed he was running and running and all these fierce people were trying to catch him.”

  “Everybody has dreams like that,” said Toby.

  “Well, I guess so,” admitted Daniel. “I just think it’s funny all these kids having bad dreams.”

  Andy Beaver came up, burbling and warbling like R-2 D-2. Daniel didn’t bother to stick around. When Andy was in a playful mood, it usually meant that Daniel was going to get his hair twisted or his shorts pulled down. Daniel said so long to Toby, and ran away across the yard and into the classroom.

  “Have you been talking to teacher’s pet?” asked Andy. He was blond and pugnacious, and would probably spend most of his adult life watching baseball and drinking Old Milwaukee.

  Toby screwed up his eyes against the sun. “What if I have?”

  “You just don’t talk to teacher’s pet, that’s all. He’s a sissy.”

  "His mom just died. Maybe you’d be a sissy if your mom just died.”

  “I wouldn’t be a sissy for nothing. What were you talking about?”

  Toby finished his chocolate bar and screwed up the paper. “What’s it to you?”

  Andy Beaver grabbed his hand and bent his fingers bac
k. Toby yelped in pain, but Andy was much stronger, and he couldn’t get free. A couple of the other kids came over, yelling, “Fight! Fight!” Toby and Andy fell to the dusty ground and rolled over and over, kicking and grunting and punching.

  At last, Andy held Toby down on the ground, his knees pressed against Toby’s arms. Both of them were flushed and grubby, and there were tears in their eyes.

  Andy said, “Okay—what were you talking about? I want to know!”

  Toby coughed. “We were talking about those bad dreams, that’s all. Nothing that you’d understand.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Toby pushed him off and struggled to his feet. His shirt was hanging out at the back, and his pants were ripped. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his face.

  “You’re so smart, you think you’re the only person who ever had dreams,” Andy said.

  “So when was the last time you had a bad dream?” demanded Toby. “The last time your mother cooked spaghetti, I’ll bet.”

  “It was not!” said Andy, hotly. “I had bad dreams last night, and the night before.”

  “You had bad dreams?” asked Toby.

  “I did too. Nightmares.”

  “You shouldn’t have gone to see Star Wars,” said Ben Nichelini. “You’re not man enough to take it.”

  “Will you shut up?” said Andy. “I had bad dreams about people having all their hair torn off of their heads. Dozens of ’em. All screaming and shouting, because somebody was tearing the hair right off of their heads.”

  “Gee, that’s scary,” put in Debbie Spurr. She was a thin, mousy little girl in a brown gingham print-frock and her hair in bows. “That’s worse than my bad dream.”

  “What is this?” asked Andy. “Just because Toby and Petra and me had bad dreams, that doesn’t mean everybody else has to say they had one too.”

  “David had one,” said Toby. “That makes four.”

  “I did have one,” insisted Debbie. “I thought I was awake, but I wasn’t. I heard someone calling out. It was terrifically scary. They kept on calling and calling, and I didn’t know what to do. It was a woman, and she sounded awful scared.”

  Toby looked at Andy, and for the very first time in their lives they looked at each other as people, not as classmates or as children. Their young faces were sober and expressionless, as if they had both recognized that what was happening was unusual and dangerous. Then Andy broke the spell by smirking a little, and saying, “That was nothing compared to my dream. Some woman calling out? I’ll put a thumbtack on Mrs. Novato’s chair, then you’ll hear some woman calling out.”

  Just then, Mrs. Novato came to the schoolhouse door and blew her whistle to signal the end of the lunch recess. The talk about bad dreams broke up as they drifted back to the classroom, and Andy Beaver started on his R-2 D-2 impressions again, colliding with the girls and making burbling sounds. Toby walked back to the school door alone, and he was the last to go in. At the door, some feeling made him pause, and he looked back at the schoolhouse fence.

  Under the windy sun, a tall man was standing, only about three or four feet beyond the gate. His eyes were shaded by a wide, dusty hat, and he was dressed in worn, dusty clothes. His lips appeared to be moving, and Toby was sure that he could hear the whispered word “Allen…”

  Right in front of his horrified eyes, the man began to fade in the afternoon heat, like a photograph. In a moment, he had vanished, and there was nothing to see but the rounded hills of Bodega, and the hot blacktop leading westward to the beach.

  A scuffling noise right behind Toby made him jump. He looked up and it was Mrs. Novato. She said, with patronizing patience, “Are you deigning to join us, Mr. Fenner, or are you going to spend the rest of the day admiring the landscape?”

  Toby was pale, and his face was sweaty. Mrs. Novato, instantly regretful of her sarcasm, asked, “Toby—are you all right?”

  Toby felt as if his face was being pressed into a pillow. There was a terrible lack of air, a terrible closeness. He felt his legs turning black, and the blackness rose up in him and engulfed his brain. Mrs. Novatocaught him as he fell in a dead faint.

  *

  That evening, as he lay tucked up in bed, his mother came upstairs with a bowl of Philadelphia pepper pot soup and a plate of crackers. He was feeling much better already, but Doctor Crowder had insisted that he should rest. He had finished a jigsaw of the Monitor and the Merrimac, and snapped and unsnapped a snap-together model of a Cadillac Eldorado, and now he was reading a Doctor Strange comic.

  His mother sat down on the side of his bed, and set his soup and crackers on his bedside table. Outside, the sky was dusking up, and there was a smell of eucalyptus from the row of trees which separated their plot from the MacDeans next door.

  Susan Fenner said, “How’s it going, tiger?”

  Toby smiled. “I guess I’m okay now.”

  “You want to talk about it? You didn’t want to talk to Doctor Crowder.”

  Toby turned his head away. He knew just what everyone would say if he told them about the man by the school fence. They’d say he had heat stroke, or too many peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. It seemed like every weird thing that ever happened, adults attributed it to something you ate. His mommy waited patiently while he kept his head turned away, but he wished she wouldn’t, because he really didn’t want to tell her what had happened.

  Eventually, his mommy took his hand. In a soft voice, she said, “Is it because you don’t think I’ll believe you? Is that it?”

  He still didn’t turn back, but he swallowed and said, “A little bit.”

  “Well,” she said gently, “you don’t have to. You’re entitled to keep anything private that you want to. But you were real sick at school today, and because I love you, and because I care about you, I’d like to know what it was.”

  Toby bit his lip. Then he looked back at his mommy, and his face was so crumpled and so distressed that she felt the tears prickle her eyes. She held him close, and hugged him, and they both wept a little, until at last he felt better, and he sat up straight in bed and smiled at her with two trails of tears down his face.

  “You’re a silly, wonderful boy,” she chided him. “You know you can tell me anything you want. Anything.”

  Toby swallowed, and nodded. The he began, “I was going into school after lunch. I turned around, and I saw a man. He was standing over by the fence.”

  Susan frowned. “A man? What was he doing?”

  “He wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there.”

  She softly brushed back his tousled hair. “Are you sure?” she asked him. “I mean, he wasn’t—well, undressed or anything?”

  Toby shook his head. There was a long silence while Susan stroked his hair, and tried to think what it was that could have scared Toby so much. Eventually, she said, “What was he like, this man? Did he looked frightening?”

  Toby screwed up his eyes as he thought. Then he told her, slowly and very carefully, “He wasn’t frightening like a monster or anything. He wasn’t going to chase me. But he wanted me to help. He wanted me to help, and I didn’t know how to.”

  Susan said, “I don’t understand. What sort of help did he want?”

  Toby looked up at her anxiously. “I couldn’t help him,” he said, in a small voice. “I didn’t know what to do.”

  “But Toby,” asked Susan, “what sort of help did he want? What did he want you to do?”

  Toby was silent for a moment, and then he said, very quietly, “I don’t know.”

  Susan squeezed his hand. Maybe Toby was just going through some kind of imaginative stage in his life. Maybe it was all that ridiculous stuff he saw on television and read in his comic books. She knew that some mothers censored what their children read and watched, but Neil had always insisted that a childhood of Superman and Captain Marvel had never done him any harm, and so they had always allowed Toby to see any trash that he wanted to. As it had turned out, he usually preferred quality programs and good
books anyway, but maybe Doctor Strange and the Incredible Hulk had gotten his eight-year-old mind out of gear…

  Toby said, “He wasn’t alive.”

  Susan, astray with her own thoughts, murmured, “What?”

  “The man I saw. He wasn’t alive.”

  “But Toby, you said he was standing up by the fence. How could he stand up if he wasn’t alive?”

  Toby lowered his eyes. “I don’t know. But he wasn’t alive.”

  Susan reached for the soup bowl, and handed it to him. “You listen,” she said, in a quiet, firm voice. “Just forget about what you saw today. It was nothing to worry about. Eat your soup and your crackers, and in a little while Daddy will come up and read you a story. Then you can get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning you won’t think anything about it.”

  She left his bedroom door ajar and went downstairs. Neil had come in a half-hour ago, and was sitting at the kitchen table drinking a Lite beer and reading the paper. He looked up when she came in.

  “How is he now?” he asked her.

  She went over to the range and stirred the big black iron pot of vegetable soup. The fragrance of fresh-cooked carrots and leeks filled the kitchen. She said, “He’s a little better. But he says a man frightened him.”

  Neil put his paper down. “A man? What man?”

  “He doesn’t know. It wasn’t like an indecent assault or anything. The man was just standing by the school fence, and Toby said he scared him somehow. The man wanted help and Toby didn’t know how to help him.”

  “Help? What kind of help?”

  Susan shook her head. “I don’t know. It worries me. I hope he hasn’t picked up some sort of illness. I mean, he talks as though he’s suffering from fever.”

  “Did Doc Crowder check his temperature?”

  “Sure. It’s normal. He said there was nothing wrong.”

  Neil rubbed his chin. For some reason, he kept remembering that moment on the White Dove, the strange whisper of “Allen.” He stood up and walked to the window. It was dark outside now, and he saw his own thin reflection staring back at him from a ghostly reflected kitchen.