Henry and the Clubhouse (2 page)

Henry did in fact hear a few real cheers, or perhaps
jeers
was a better word, mostly from boys along the way.

“Hey! Don’t forget to wash your back!”

“Be careful! Don’t step on the soap!”

With great dignity Henry nodded and waved.A great man on his way to the White House could afford to ignore such people, especially when he was surrounded by Secret Service men.  Henry was having too much fun to act dignified very long. He saw several boys standing in front of a bicycle shop and could not resist waving and shouting, “Hats off! The flag is passing by!”

“Boo!” yelled the boys.“Boo! Boo!”They held their noses and waved Henry on down the street.

Ribsy scrambled to his feet and barked over the edge of the tub. Henry, who was the kind of man who
would
take his dog to the White House, folded his arms and grinned in a superior manner, because he was riding in the bathtub and the boys were standing on the sidewalk.The afternoon had turned out better than he had expected, and he still had the dump to look forward to.

And then Henry passed a
Journal
truck heading in the opposite direction. Suddenly he was no longer president of the United States. He was no longer interested in lumber for a doghouse. He was plain Henry Huggins, a boy who had completely forgotten that he had forty-three papers to deliver this afternoon. This was terrible! If he did not get those papers delivered, his route might be taken away from him before he had had it a month. Then, because he was the youngest
Journal
carrier in the neighborhood, Mr. Capper, who was the district manager, and everyone else, would say he was not old enough to handle a route. And that would be about the worst thing that could possibly happen. He would never live it down.

“Mr. Grumbie! Mr. Grumbie!” yelled Henry, but Mr. Grumbie drove on down the street unaware that he was carrying his passenger farther and farther from his paper route.

“Mr. Grumbie! Mr. Grumbie!” There was no response but the bump and rattle of the trailer. Henry was trapped in a bathtub in the middle of Lombard Street. 

“Mr. Grumbie! Mr. Grumbie!”

At the next stop sign Henry stood up in the bathtub and frantically waved both hands, hoping to attract Mr. Grumbie’s attention in the rearview mirror.  It worked, because Mr. Grumbie stuck his head out the window and called, “Something wrong back there?”

“My route!” yelled Henry. “I forgot my paper route!”

The signal changed and cars and trucks began to honk. Mr. Grumbie, in the center lane of traffic, had to drive on.

Henry sat down with a bump. The Saturday afternoon traffic was heavy and it would be difficult for Mr. Grumbie to change lanes while pulling a trailer. They were still in the center lane when they came to the next stop sign.

“I’ll pull over as soon as I can,” Mr. Grumbie called back to Henry.

Henry now felt ridiculous sitting in the bathtub in the middle of a heavily traveled street. He wondered why he had thought riding in a tub would be fun in the first place. A boy who was old enough to have a paper route was too old to do such a silly thing. Cross street after cross street went by and Henry was carried farther and farther from his route. By this time the other boys were counting and folding their papers and Mr. Capper was probably wondering what had happened to Henry, the youngest carrier. Maybe Mr. Capper was already wondering what boy could take over Henry’s route. Maybe he was saying to Scooter and the other boys, “I’m afraid Henry isn’t old enough to handle a route. Do you know any older boy who could take his place?” It was not a happy prospect.

A gap appeared in the right-hand lane of traffic and Mr. Grumbie eased his car and the trailer into it. There was a solid line of cars parked along the curb, and no place to stop. Another block went by. Still there was no place where Mr. Grumbie could stop.

Henry caught a glimpse of a clock inside a dry-cleaning shop. Four thirty-five. He would never get to the district manager’s garage and get his papers folded and delivered by six o’clock.

Mr. Grumbie signaled and made a right turn into a service station. Henry, followed by Ribsy, scrambled out of the bathtub as Mr. Grumbie got out of his car.

“I’m sure sorry I forgot about my route,” Henry apologized.

“What are we going to do about it?” asked Mr. Grumbie.“I can’t turn around and take you home now, because the dump closes at five and I’ve got to get rid of this tub this weekend. Besides, I am renting the trailer by the hour and I want to get it back as soon as I can.”

“That’s all right,” said Henry. “I have enough money for bus fare.”

“Do you know the way home?” asked Mr. Grumbie.

“Sure. I can catch the bus across the street and I know where to transfer to the other bus.” Henry was eager to be on his way.

“OK,” agreed Mr. Grumbie, and climbed back into his car.

“Wait!” yelled Henry as Mr. Grumbie started to drive off. “Ribsy! Can you take Ribsy with you? I can’t take him on the bus.”

Across the street a bus pulled up to the stop, discharged a passenger, and departed with a puff of exhaust.

“I guess so. Come on, pooch.” Mr. Grumbie opened the rear door of his car and Henry shoved Ribsy inside and slammed the door. He knew from past experience that a dog was not allowed on a bus unless it was in a box tied shut. Henry had enough problems without searching for a box.

When Mr. Grumbie drove off, Henry waited for the traffic light to change from red to green before he crossed the street to the bus stop. He had just missed a bus, he knew, and as he wondered how long he would have to wait for the next bus, he fingered the change in the pocket of his jeans.

Bus fare and a dime left over. Enough for one telephone call. Probably he should call one of the boys and ask him to go over to Mr. Capper’s garage and start folding his papers for him. But which boy? He had only one dime. What if he called Robert’s house and Robert’s mother answered and said he wasn’t home? His dime would be gone.  Henry decided to telephone his own house and ask his mother to call Robert or Murph for him. Once more Henry waited for the traffic signal to change, ran back across the street, and into the glass telephone booth in the corner of the service station.  He pushed his dime into the smallest hole, dialed, and counted four rings.

“Hello?” It was Mrs. Huggins.

“Say, Mom,” began Henry, his eye on the bus stop,“my paper route sort of slipped my mind and I wondered if you would phone Robert or Murph or one of the fellows and ask them to fold my papers for me. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Henry, where are you?” asked Mrs.Huggins.

“In a filling station out on Lombard Street,” answered Henry.

“It is twenty minutes to five now.” Mrs.Huggins sounded exasperated.“You’ll never get your papers delivered on time.”

“Mom, I can’t stand here all day arguing,”

Henry pointed out as a bus pulled up to the curb. “Here’s my bus now!”

“Honestly, Henry, sometimes I wonder—”

Henry had to cut his mother off.

The traffic signal changed to red just as Henry reached the curb. “Hey, Mr. Bus Driver!” Henry called frantically. The bus driver glanced at him and pulled out into the stream of traffic. He had a schedule to follow and could not wait for one boy.

Henry groaned and then he discovered it was not even his bus.

When the signal changed to green Henry walked across the street. He had done all he could do to get his route started and there was no use worrying about it. But Henry did worry. He wondered if his mother was able to find a boy to fold his papers and what Mr. Capper would say when the boy folded Henry’s
Journal
s. Henry worried when the bus finally came. He worried while he rode on what seemed to be the slowest bus in the world. He worried when he got off and waited for the second bus. He worried when he had transferred to the second bus, which seemed even slower. If there was ever a contest to find the slowest bus in the world, this bus would win.A snail could beat it any day.

And then as the bus finally reached Henry’s neighborhood and drove down one of the streets on which Henry should have been delivering papers that very minute, Henry saw a car exactly like the Hugginses’car. In fact, it was the Hugginses’ car. Henry could tell, because he saw his mother get out and throw a folded
Journal
toward a house.

She threw awkwardly. The paper did not go far enough so she picked it up and threw again. Henry was horrified. A boy did not want to see his mother delivering papers, especially when she was such a terrible thrower. It was awful. He did not see how anybody could grow up and throw that way.

Hastily Henry jerked the cord that stopped the bus at the next corner. He bounded out of the door and ran back to Mrs. Huggins, who was consulting his route book to see where to throw the next paper.

Henry could not help feeling that he had reached her in the nick of time. He did not want the passengers on the bus to see her throw again.

“Hey, Mom,” he panted. “How come you’re delivering my papers?”

“There wasn’t anyone else to do it,” answered his mother. “I couldn’t reach Robert or Murph so I drove over to Mr.Capper’s and found the other carriers were leaving with their papers. I’ve delivered twenty-eight of them.”

“Gee, Mom, did you
fold
my papers?” asked Henry. If she had she was better at folding than throwing.

“The other boys had already folded them for you,” answered his mother. “They must have known you were going to be late.”

Henry opened the car door and pulled out his bag of
Journal
s.“I’ll take over, Mom,” he said, as he slipped the bag over his shoulders. “Thanks a lot.You saved my life.”

“You’re welcome,” answered Mrs.Huggins and then added, “I guess,” as she climbed into the car.

Henry had to know something. “What did Mr. Capper say?” he called after his mother.

“He just laughed and wanted to know if I was taking over your route,” answered Mrs.Huggins.

Henry wished he had his bicycle. He could actually cover his route almost as fast on foot, but it was more fun to deliver papers on his bicycle. Because he was short for his age the bag of papers bumped against his legs when he went on foot. He walked up one driveway and down the next, remembering which customer wanted his paper left on the doormat and which one had warned him against breaking the gera-niums in the flower box on the porch.

Henry walked as fast as he could and soon covered his route. He was late, he knew, but with luck no one would com-plain—and so far he had been lucky. There was no reason why he should not continue to be. He was tired and sweaty when he reached home, but he was cheerful. The papers were delivered, weren’t they? That was all that mattered.

When Henry opened the front door he was surprised to see his father wearing a white shirt and a necktie. Mr. Huggins always wore a sport shirt around home.

 “Hi, Dad. How come you’re all dressed up?” he asked.

“Because your mother had quite a day with one thing or another around here, and we are going to take her out to dinner for a change,” said Mr. Huggins.

“Oh—maybe I had better get cleaned up.” Henry was surprised at this change in routine. He hoped they would not go to a fancy place with cloth napkins and a long menu.When he went out to dinner he liked to order a hamburger and pie.

“Well, Henry!” Mr. Huggins sounded stern. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Why . . . uh . . . I finally got the papers delivered,” answered Henry, not quite certain what his father expected of him.

“It seems to me your mother also delivered quite a few papers,” said Mr. Huggins.

“Yeah, and golly, Dad, you should see her throw,” confided Henry, demonstrating to his father the way his mother delivered papers. “It is pretty awful.”

“Henry, I want one thing clearly understood,” said Mr. Huggins, ignoring his son’s remark. “That paper route is yours. It is not your mother’s route and it is not my route.  You are to deliver the papers and collect the money and do all the work yourself, and if you can’t do it without any help from us, you will have to give the route to someone else. Do you understand?”

Henry looked at the carpet. His father did not often speak to him this way, and he felt terrible. He wanted his father to be proud of him because he was the youngest paper carrier in the neighborhood. “Yes, Dad,” he answered. He felt he should offer some explanation for forgetting his route. “I was planning to get some old boards to build a doghouse.”