The Headless Cupid Read online

  “I almost dropped my glass,” she said.

  Dad nodded but his eyes, in traveling back to Molly, unfortunately took in a few other things.

  “David,” he asked, “what happened to your dinner? Did I forget to serve you?”

  “Uh no,” David said. “You didn’t forget. It’s—it’s all gone already. I guess I was pretty hungry.”

  “You must have been. Would you like some more?”

  “Oh no,” David said, squirming a little because the spot on his leg directly under the mashed potatoes and gravy was beginning to burn. “I’ve had plenty thanks.”

  “Did you eat the bones, too?” Amanda asked all of a sudden.

  Janie glared at Amanda. “Yes he did,” she said. “He ate the bones, too. David has very strong teeth.”

  David smiled uneasily. “I don’t think my lambchop had any bones,” he said. “I must have had a boneless one.”

  Dad was looking at David with a strange expression, but then he noticed something else. Blair was finishing up his peas by rolling a kind of snowball of mashed potatoes through them, and stuffing the whole thing into his mouth with very gooey fingers.

  “Blair,” Dad said, “what are you doing?”

  Blair swallowed and licked his fingers and swallowed some more. Then he smiled his soft serious smile and said, “I’m eating with my fingers.”

  “That much I can see,” Dad said. “What I’d like to know is why?”

  Blair wrinkled his forehead and tilted his head thoughtfully. Blair always did that before he answered a question, but this time David could tell that Dad wasn’t in the mood to be as patient as you usually had to be with Blair.

  “Why I’m eating with my fingers?” Blair asked.

  “Exactly,” Dad said, and his voice was like the last sizzle of the fuse before the bomb exploded.

  Blair’s face wrinkled again and very very slowly he said, “I . . . have . . . to.”

  “What do you mean—you have to? Why do you have to?” Dad’s voice crackled frighteningly, and for a minute everyone sat very still looking at him. Even Amanda glanced up at Dad, just an instantaneous flick of a look, but it made David think of something Janie did with her eyes just before she jumped three of your men in a checker game.

  Then Molly put her hand on Dad’s arm. “Jeff,” she said, “about the field trip—”

  Dad looked at her and back at Blair. “Well, stop it right now, Blair,” he said. “Don’t eat with your fingers anymore.”

  Blair nodded and stopped eating entirely. Fortunately he was almost finished, so that a little later when Dad had a phone call and Molly was getting the dessert, he was able to quickly clean up the last little bit with his tongue.

  While Dad and Molly were away from the table, David whispered to Janie to help Esther out, because if Esther went on eating with the coal shovel it was obviously going to take all night. As usual, Janie overdid it. She picked up a spoon in her mittened hand and, with a terrible snarl on her face, to show Esther how to keep her lips from touching the metal, she shoveled half a plate of food into Esther’s mouth in about half a minute. Looking scared to death, probably by Janie’s snarl, Esther kept opening her mouth even when she wasn’t ready for another bite. She had always been a good eater, but nobody could be that good. A minute later, when Molly asked her if she wanted a cupcake, she erupted like a volcano and started turning blue.

  Molly screamed, “Jeff, Esther’s choking!” and Dad came running in from the hall. By the time Dad and Molly had finished jerking Esther’s arms up above her head and pounding on her back, everyone else had finished their cupcakes and were ready to leave the table.

  At first it seemed to David that, as an ordeal, dinner had been a big success. It had been very difficult, and everyone had done it in his own way, and everyone had passed.

  David was feeling very good about the whole thing until Janie asked Dad if everyone was excused to leave the table. Dad and Molly were just stitting there, staring into their coffee cups; and when Janie asked, Dad said, “Yes. Yes, by all means.”

  That was all he said, but there was something about the way he said it that made David start looking at things a little differently. What he started thinking was, that dinner had been a different kind of ordeal than he’d thought—a different kind, at least, for some people. But there was an expression on Amanda’s face as she strolled out of the kitchen that made David wonder if she hadn’t intended exactly the kind of ordeal it turned out to be.

  That night during his usual time for thinking things over—when he was lying in bed waiting to go to sleep—David thought some more about intentions.

  He decided that Amanda was really serious about believing in magic, no matter what else she intended when she asked the Stanley kids to join the world of the occult. He also decided that perhaps he had a few secret intentions himself in wanting to be a part of whatever it was Amanda was planning. Maybe he had a few intentions he hadn’t told anyone about—not even himself—at least, not entirely.

  There was one thing he was sure of, however, about his intentions. He really intended to pass all the ordeals Amanda could think of, and then—well, he’d just see what happened next.

  Chapter Eight

  THE NEXT MORNING DURING BREAKFAST, DAVID FOUND OUT MORE ABOUT the field trip that Dad was going to make. It seemed that Dr. Bradley, who was the head of Dad’s department at the college, had been sick and his doctor had told him he couldn’t lead a field trip into the mountains that summer. But the students were all signed up and all the arrangements had been made, so he wanted Dad to take his place as the leader. Dad had planned to take the second semester of summer school off, and now he was not only going to have to teach all summer, but he’d have to be away in the mountains for three whole weeks.

  David could tell that neither Dad nor Molly were very happy about it, but they explained that they’d decided it was the only thing to do. Partly for Dr. Bradley’s sake, but also because moving had been a lot more expensive than they’d anticipated, and because a few things around the house were going to need some rather expensive repairs before winter.

  “I’ll say,” Janie said. “Like that upstairs toilet. You know what happens sometimes when you pull the chain?”

  “Yes, Janie, we know,” Dad said. “You told us all about it in great detail just the other day. And if you remember, at that time we discussed a few general rules for mealtime conversation.”

  But Janie went right on talking. “But Amanda didn’t hear about it,” she said. She leaned towards Amanda and, over the sound of Dad’s voice you could hear Janie saying things like, “whoosh” and “all over the floor,” until finally Dad roared, “Janie!” and everything got quiet.

  Then Molly mentioned how great it would be if they could afford a new furnace before winter, and David reminded everyone that the hot bath water usually wasn’t. So it was obvious that they could use the extra money Dad would get for leading the field trip.

  “And I’m counting on all of you to be helpful and responsible while I’m gone,” Dad said.

  Everybody agreed that they would be except Amanda, who just sat there smiling her upside-down smile.

  After breakfast Amanda told David and the kids to come outside because she had to talk to them. When they were all sitting on the back steps, she started walking up and down in front of them, talking while she walked.

  “Today,” she said, and David could tell immediately that she was in one of her dramatic moods. “Today we are going on a safari to hunt for reptiles.”

  After the announcement there came a significant pause, but Janie interrupted it by asking, “Why don’t we just walk down to the creek? There are a lot of snakes down there.”

  Amanda went right on, “The second ordeal, which starts tomorrow morning, and which will be much harder than the first one, will require that every neophyte have a reptile. Every neophyte must have a reptile and carry it on his person from sunup until sundown.”

  “Carry it wh
ere? Carry it where, David?” Esther asked excitedly.

  “On your person.”

  Esther looked down at herself before she asked, “If I don’t have one could I put it in my pocket?”

  “Shhh!” David said. He couldn’t help smiling, but it wasn’t just at Esther. He was smiling because if Amanda thought this ordeal was going to be a very hard one, she was in for a surprise. With a geologist for a father, the Stanley kids had all been on hiking expeditions and had gotten used to wildlife very early. In fact, at one time they’d had a whole collection of reptiles in their basement, until they had to get rid of it because the housekeeper they’d had then had had a serious allergy to crawly things.

  “What kind of reptiles do we need?” Janie was asking. “Any old kind or something special?”

  “Snakes would be best,” Amanda said, “but other kinds will do. Lizards or horny toads or frogs.”

  “Frogs aren’t reptiles,” Janie said. “Frogs are amphibians.”

  “Or frogs!” Amanda repeated in a tense voice.

  “I wish we still had our African Sun Gazer,” David said. “It was a special kind of lizard we had once. It had spines all over it, like a miniature dragon.”

  “Could we catch one around here?” Amanda asked.

  “No,” David said. “They come from Africa. Dad bought ours at a pet store.”

  “Your dad bought it? Does he like reptiles?”

  “Sure,” David said, puzzled.

  Amanda paced up and down for a while longer, and then she said, “I’ve been thinking, and it seems to me that it’s a little too early for the reptile ordeal. It seems to me that it really ought to be about the fifth or sixth ordeal, instead of the second.”

  “Why?” David asked.

  “Well, for one thing, we probably won’t be able to catch enough in just one day.”

  “We can try,” David suggested. “Then if we can’t find enough we can always put it off until we do. It looks like a good day for a reptile hunt—nice and sunny.”

  Amanda finally agreed that they might as well have the hunt, and decide later about when to have the ordeal. David sent the kids off to collect jars and paper bags, and while they were gone he had a chance to talk to Amanda.

  “How’d you like the way we all passed the ordeal yesterday?” he asked. “I’ll bet you never thought we’d all make it on the first day.”

  Amanda shrugged. “Anybody can get through an ordeal, if they don’t care how they do it.”

  “What do you mean ‘if they don’t care how they do it’?” David asked. “What was wrong with the way we did it?”

  “Well, in the first place,” Amanda began, “well, it’s hard to explain exactly. There are just right ways and wrong ways to do things that are supernatural. I mean, it’s supposed to be mysterious and dignified.”

  “Mysterious,” David said. “Like what?”

  “Like—mysterious. I guess you just have the feeling for being mysterious, or you don’t. Like for instance, can you imagine a real wizard, like Merlin or someone, wearing bunny mittens?”

  “Look,” David said, “the ordeal was not to touch metal for a day, right? So we didn’t touch it. So we passed, right?”

  Amanda just looked at him. “You passed,” she said, finally. “You just don’t understand what I’m talking about.”

  “I understand,” David said. “I just don’t see why it matters.”

  “It matters,” Amanda said.

  The kids came back then, loaded down with hunting equipment, so the expedition got under way. They started out for the creek bed, where there were always lizards, and sometimes a snake or two.

  “But since we’re looking for them, we probably won’t see any today,” David said. “That’s usually the way it is.”

  “Yeah,” Amanda said, “I doubt if we can catch enough.”

  Suddenly something occurred to David. “Hey,” he said, “you already have one snake and the horny toad. If we don’t catch enough today, couldn’t two of us use them?”

  Amanda shook her head. “No,” she said. “They might get away from you and get lost.”

  “Well, we could catch you some others later on, to take their place.”

  “Nothing could take their place—ever!” Amanda said, and her voice reminded David of Janie’s when she was being very tragic about something.

  David could tell he was supposed to say, “Why not?” so he did.

  “Because my father gave them to me,” Amanda said.

  “Where did he catch them?” David asked. “I thought he lived in the city?”

  “He does. He bought them for me at the pet shop. He gave me the money and let me pick them out. I’d wanted a reptile pet for a long time, and my mother wouldn’t let me have one, so once when I went to see my father I told him about it, and he gave me the money to buy them. My father always lets me have anything I want.”

  “Anything?” David asked.

  Amanda nodded. “He’s the only person in the world who really cares about me, and he’s the only one I care about.”

  “Why don’t you live with him, then, instead of Molly?” David asked.

  “He’d like to have me, but he can’t. Because he doesn’t have a wife to take care of me.”

  “Why doesn’t he get a housekeeper then. That’s what my father did.”

  “He has a housekeeper. She’s just not the kind who takes care of kids. And besides, my father’s terribly busy because he works very hard, so I wouldn’t get to see him much. Even when I go to visit, he doesn’t have time to see me very much.”

  David shrugged. “Well, I don’t see why you’d need somebody taking care of you. You’re twelve years old already. I don’t see why your dad couldn’t let you live there, if he really wanted to.”

  Without any warning at all, Amanda whirled around and shoved David so hard that he went backwards over a big rock and landed sitting down.

  “Hey!” David yelled.

  The kids, who had been running ahead, stopped and came back to see what had happened.

  “Shut up,” Amanda sizzled between her teeth at David. “Shut up talking about my father. Don’t you ever mention him again.”

  “Wow,” David said, getting up and dusting off the seat of his pants. For a second he considered shoving Amanda back, but there was the fact that she was a girl, and besides there was all that stuff he’d promised his father about patience. So instead he just said, “Wow, I didn’t mention him. You mentioned him.”

  David told the kids that he’d fallen down, and they went on down to the creek together and began the hunt. Amanda walked behind David not speaking again until she forgot about it in the excitement when they caught the first lizard.

  The first lizard was a large bluebelly, and not long afterwards they caught a very tiny one, hardly more than two inches tail and all. Then, a long way down the creek they spotted a small gopher snake. There was a mad chase that lasted for several minutes before the snake caught himself by running into Blair’s paper bag.

  Amanda pulled away when David opened the top of the bag to show her. “Are you sure it’s not a poisonous one?” she asked.

  “No, it’s a gopher snake,” David said. “Dad taught us how to tell.”

  Amanda peeked in gingerly, jumping when the snake hissed.

  “I thought you loved snakes?” Janie said.

  “I do,” Amanda said. “It just surprised me when he made that noise. It’s really stupid to be afraid of snakes.”

  By the time the snake was captured, it was almost noon, and it was very hot and dry in the creek bed. Esther began saying it was time to go home for lunch. So they decided to look for the last reptile on the way home. They didn’t see a single thing however until they stopped at the water faucet in the back yard for a drink. And there on the damp brick near the faucet was a salamander.

  “I’ll take him,” Janie said. “I like salamanders.”

  David was willing. He wasn’t crazy about salamanders himself, because o
f the sliminess. “But a salamander’s really not a reptile,” he said.

  “He’s all right,” Janie said. “Amanda said a frog was all right, and a frog’s not a reptile, either. Isn’t he all right, Amanda?”

  Amanda leaned forward to look at the slimy bulgy eyed creature squirming around in Janie’s hand. Her lips turned down and her shoulders gave a quick little shudder. “Sure,” she said. “He’ll do fine.”

  The reptile ordeal began the next morning as soon as everyone got up. The little lizard and the salamander were small enough to fit easily inside a pocket, so wearing them all day was not much of a problem for Janie and Esther. Blair’s large lizard and David’s snake were a little harder to carry. Finally David dressed himself and Blair in long sleeved turtleneck shirts, with the shirttails tucked into tight belts. Then they put their reptiles inside their shirts and stood in front of the mirror to see what would happen. In about a minute the snake was poking his head out the neck hole right under David’s left ear. David shoved him back down, but in another minute Blair’s lizard was doing the same thing and Blair was giggling because his neck was ticklish.

  It took a little while to solve the neck problem. Finally David took the shoestrings out of his good shoes and tied one around each of their necks—not quite tight enough to choke, but almost. That blocked the neck escape route, and the sleeves weren’t a real problem.

  “You can feel him climbing down your arm,” David told Blair. “All you have to do is grab your arm, like this, when you feel him coming so he can’t go any farther. Can you do that?”

  Blair nodded. “But he tickles me. I’ll laugh.”

  “Just pretend you’re laughing at something else,” David said. “Or else, just say you have a lizard in your shirt. Dad won’t care. The only thing we’re not supposed to tell is why we’re doing it. That it’s part of an initiation ordeal. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Blair said, giggling and squirming.

  Amanda was waiting at the head of the stairs, and she checked everyone to be sure they had their reptiles. Breakfast went very smoothly except that Dad asked Blair once if something was wrong with him. When Blair shook his head, Dad said, “Well, sit still then and eat your breakfast. You’re squirming all over your chair.”