Raising Demons (18 page)

“He's
still
terribly boyish, don't you think?” She bent a tender glance upon my husband, who was waving a cigar and telling an enthralled group of students an expurgated story of how he graded examination papers. “He's always so full of vitality.”

“You should see him at home,” I said. “We never have a dull moment
there
, I can tell you. Absolutely nothing but boyish vitality and youthful charm all over the place. He's positively faunlike. Why, I could tell you things—”

“I don't suppose,” she said, blushing slightly and studying her fingernails, “that he talks much about us students at home, does he?”

“He babbles about you all the time,” I assured her, and rose and went over to the noisy group of which my husband was the center. “Hail, ruddy stripling,” I said.

“What?” he said, startled.

“Never mind,” I said. “You leaving now or do I have to carry you home?”

I decided that I was going to fewer student parties after I ripped part of the sleeve out of my black dress helping a freshman climb a fence. By the end of the first semester, what I wanted to do most in the world was invite a few of my husband's students over for tea and drop them down the well.

On the other hand, I was in sad trouble at the kindergarten over the practice of magic by my daughter Sally. Almost between one day and the next, it seemed, Sally had somehow picked up both the knack and the inclination for doing magic, and although I felt that magic was no career for a girl, and her father felt that Sally showed hardly enough talent to get ahead in the magic game, Sally told all around the kindergarten that the ban against magic, finally, was entirely our fault. Little children five years old cut me dead in the street. There was a rumor that I was going to be expelled from the Lunchtime Mommies. Sally told around the kindergarten that she was being unfairly condemned, that ever since we moved into the house we all knew that someday something had to be done about the gatepost. And she said that the refrigerator was not completely destroyed, the way her father maintained it was, and that anyway we had agreed to say nothing more about the clock and besides that the old man at the door started it, which was probably true.

It had been a rainy Saturday morning, so I knew that the refrigerator door was going to stick. The old man came to the back door not long before lunchtime, and he came—I knew it the minute I saw him—to chat about the gatepost; after a year in the house I could spot them at five hundred yards. He opened by saying well, so they finally got someone to buy the old house, did they? I leaned my head against the doorframe and said oh, yes, they finally got someone to buy the old house. Well, he said with the light coming into his eye, had we fixed on anything yet about that there gatepost?

I winced. Sally was painting at the kitchen table behind me, and I knew she was eavesdropping. Barry was in a corner of the kitchen at his toy table, disassembling a truck, and clearly not interested at present in the gatepost. The rest of the family was lucky enough to be out of earshot. Laurie and Rob were still building their fort at that time, working from the inside out because of the rain, and I could hear, faintly, the sound of hammering. Jannie was in her room, theoretically cleaning out her dresser drawers, but actually doing some kind of an acrobatic dance in front of her mirror, and singing the Fairy Rosabelle. The distant, unwilling sound of a typewriter from the study made it sound as though my husband was working, although I sometimes believe that he has a device (perhaps a woodpecker?) which taps the typewriter for him while he sleeps on the study couch. It was clearly going to rain all day; far away against the barn I could see the small brave orange dot which was still our only tulip.

“Take them
both
out, that's what
I
'd do,” the old man said at the kitchen door. “Make a nice little fireplace with them stones. Winter,
this
house, you
need
a fireplace.”

“Awfully nice of you to stop by,” I said, pushing at the door.

“Never did think to see anyone
living
here,” he said, nodding profoundly at the broken step which Laurie had promised to fix as soon as they finished the fort. I sneezed, and shivered, and the old man settled himself down on the porch rail and recounted in detail the names, addresses, and contributing neglect attached to the downfall of every gatepost for miles around, then went on to examine the subject of leaning fences, discussed with ardor the striking of trees by lightning, and even digressed slightly to tell me about Morton's chimbley going down brick by brick onto the senior Morton, who was cleaning trout by the rain barrel.

“
Any
one can make things fall
down
,” Sally said softly behind me. “It's getting them back
up
again is
hard
.”

“Now you take that well Ananias Watkins was figuring to dig,” the old man went on relentlessly.

“Yes, indeed,” I said with wild finality, “I've got to go and open the refrigerator now.”

“There was him and his two boys digging out this rock—”

“Thanks ever so much.” I slammed the door and leaned against it.

“That gatepost.” Sally shook her head mournfully, and then set down her paintbrush and looked at me. “
Why
can't I?” she asked.

“Because it is a great big gatepost and you are only a little tiny girl and you have made enough trouble with that magic already, what with poor little Jerry Martin afraid to go to bed at night and his mother keeps calling me and calling me to get you to take the spell off again—”

“I won't,” Sally said stubbornly. “He called me a name.”

“And no amount of teasing is going to talk me into letting you go to work with magic on that great big gatepost because you are only a little—”

“The refrigerator? Can I anyway magic the
refrigerator
?”

“When I want my refrigerator door unstuck I will get hold of a man who can unstick refrigerator doors, or at least your father.”

“Suppose I just—”

“No,” I said. “No magic, no no no.”

Murmuring, Sally gathered together her brushes and her paper, and then her eye fell upon Barry, crooning over his truck. “Peabody,” she said to him hopefully, “you want I should turn you back into a rabbit?”

“No, a boy with a truck,” Barry said.

“
No
one
ever
lets me do
any
thing,” Sally said. She thought, and then slid down from her chair and approached Barry. “Peabody,” she said winningly, “my true love?”

“
No
,” Barry said. “Play with this
truck
.”

“Remember,” Sally said, “you always
used
to be a rabbit, and it was only me got you into a baby in the
first
place.”

“Oh,” said Peabody. Reluctantly, he put down the truck and scrambled along after her. “Peabody,” he explained to me as he passed.

“Maybe,” Sally said suddenly, “maybe I will get me another rabbit and make another baby. A little girl.”

“Under
no
circumstance,” I said. “Barry is quite enough.”

“A little
girl
?”

“Girl?” Barry insisted.

“Sally,” I said firmly. “Not one more word.”

“Then can I magic the refrigerator?”

I hesitated, and the day was lost. Sally turned joyfully and hurried into the study, Barry trailing along behind. I could hear Sally telling her father in the study that she and her helper Peabody had some very terrible magic to do for Mommy.

“Very nice,” her father said.

“—so I need a lot of paper and pencil for me and two pencils for Peabody my helper because he writes with both hands.”

“Magic?” her father said suddenly. “Just a minute now—what about that clock?”

“This is Mommy magic. Peabody my helper and I are going to unstick the refrigerator. Mommy
asked
us to.”

“But when the clock—”

“You suppose I can do all this magic all by myself with just Peabody my helper without a
pencil
?”

I heard the sharpening of pencils only dimly; in order to open the refrigerator on a rainy day it was necessary to hold the sink with one hand and brace one foot against the wall, pulling and cursing. I was pounding the refrigerator door with my fists when Sally and Barry returned to stand and watch me from the kitchen doorway.

Sally chuckled. “You pull and pull and
pull
,” she said, “and here a little girl like me will open it right open with magic for you.” Then, forcefully, she gestured. “Peabody,” she said.

Peabody moved forward, pencils alert. “Now,” Sally said. “Three times backward, singing with me.” She began to march backward around the kitchen table, singing, “Dearest sweetest Sally is the best girl in the world, dearest sweetest Sally, the most magical of all.” Her helper followed her, shuffling uneasily and looking over his shoulder. “Magic magic magic,” he sang, until he broke off abruptly, said, “My truck!” with vast delight, and made for the toy table.

“It's all right,” Sally said hastily. “I can finish without him.” I sat down on the kitchen stool and reflected upon rain and refrigerators.

When Jannie appeared in the kitchen doorway I thought for one stunned moment that it was something conjured up by Sally's magic before I recognized the unmistakable earmarks of the Fairy Rosabelle. She was wearing a pink ballet skirt, a quantity of junk jewelry mined from my dresser drawer, and a wreath of artificial roses around her head. She fluttered over to where I sat and bent over me, touching me gently on the head with her wand.

“Why so dreary, lonely mortal?” she inquired. “Is there aught that Rosabelle can offer to brighten thy sad lot?”

“Yes,” I said. “You can set the table for lunch.”

Rosabelle laughed, a little tinkling laugh. “We fairies sip only the dew from early violets.”

“So will the rest of us,” I said darkly, “unless we get the refrigerator open.”

“Yonder approaches an honest woodcutter,” Rosabelle remarked, hovering about six inches over my head. “Mayhap
he
will lend us his stalrit—stal—stal—”

“Stalwart,” I said. “Sally, for heaven's sake stop that bellowing.”

“I'm through,” Sally said with dignity. “It's only the magic writing now.” She settled down at the kitchen table and seized her pencil, scowling horribly.

“Hence,” Rosabelle said as the back door opened, “hence, noble woodcutter, wouldst aid a damsel in distress?”

Barry leaped up joyfully. “Laurie,” he shouted, “see my truck, will you fix it together?”

“Don't get in
my
way, Laurie,” Sally said, “because I'm magicking the refrigerator door and
you
might come unstuck.”

“Laurie,” I said flatly, “go over and open that refrigerator.”

“Dig
her
,” Laurie said, regarding Jannie. “Who're
you
—the mad fiend from Planet X? When's lunch?” he asked me.

“I'm the Fairy Rosabelle,” Jannie said.

“
Cra-zy
mixed-up,” Laurie said, with the air of one making an original remark. “Hi, Salamander.”

“Don't
call
me
Salamander
, because Mommy wants me to magic—”

“Laurie,” I said, “go over and open that refrigerator.”

“Real cool,” Laurie said. “Real real cool. What's the matter with the refrigerator?”

“You know perfectly well if your father hears you talking like that you will be fined, maybe even fifty cents. The refrigerator door is stuck.”

“
That
all?” He laughed shortly. “Poor old lady,” he said, and patted me on the head as he went by. He took hold of the handle on the refrigerator door and pulled. “
Crazy
,” he said, pulling. “This thing is real gone shut.”

“Canst Rosabelle aid thee, honest lad?”

“Hah?” said Laurie. “Oh. Why don't
you
pull
me
?”

Jannie took hold of Laurie's belt and pulled, and Barry screamed, “Game, game,” and hastened over to tug on the back of the pink ballet skirt.

“Cadabra!” said Sally, but the door did not open.

“Mixed-up,” said Laurie, gasping.

The study door opened and my husband came into the kitchen. “When's lunch?” he asked. “What are you doing that for?”

I let go of the back of Barry's overalls. “We're opening the refrigerator,” I said. “Why?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just wondered when was lunch?”

“When I get the refrigerator door open,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because the milk is inside. And the butter, and the cold roast beef you said you would like to have for lunch today.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, why do you open it like that? Letting the children play with it? After all, a refrigerator is a complex machine, not a toy.”

“Ooh, that nervous man,” Laurie said.

“Laurence,” his father said sternly, “one more word in that oleaginous jargon and you will pay a substantial fine.”

“Yes, sir,” Laurie said.

“Perhaps,” my husband said condescendingly to me, “perhaps I have never thought to mention this to you before, but the way to deal with a stubborn piece of machinery is to use your intelligence. I cannot understand why you think you can open this refrigerator door by force. Do not attempt to impose your will upon it, do not bang upon this refrigerator, do not shake it. Losing your temper,” he said kindly, “
never
does any good. That is very likely what made it stick in the first place. The thing to do,” he said, still in that patient voice, “is to take hold of the handle gently—
gently
, remember—and use the slightest downward pressure. Then—” and he made a dramatic wide gesture of opening the refrigerator door, which came completely off the refrigerator and fell against him, so that he backed up across the kitchen floor, staggering, with the refrigerator door in his arms.