The haunted hound; (8 page)

"What's the matter?" he asked.

She glanced at him and then ahead. "Matter with what?"

"You. You look like somebody just kicked your dog."

"I do not!"

Suddenly Jonathan wondered if she wanted the rod and reel. And he knew then that she did. '7^^^}^ ^ don't ever go fishing any more. So you keep the rod and reel, hear? And the box, too/'

She looked at him, her eyes getting big and shiny-looking and her lips opening a little. ''Oh no," she said.

''Why not? They're mine. If I want to give them to you, can.

"Oh no,'' she said again.

"Well, I'm giving them to you anyway. Whether you want them or not."

"Maybe you could lend them to me sometimes."

"No!" Jonathan said. "They're yours. For keeps."

She looked at him again, and he saw that she was about to cry.

"Now wait," he said. "Don't start bawling."

"Who's bawling?" she demanded. Then she blinked her eyes and wiped them with her arm. "A no-see-um flew in my eye, that's all."

"Let's change hands," Jonathan suggested, and put down his end of the paddle. They walked around, swapping ends, and started off again.

"What can I give you, Jonathan?" Judy asked after a while.

"Nothing. I don't want anything, thanks."

"Don't you want anything at all? Have you got everything in the world you want?"

Jonathan almost stopped walking. Quietly he said, "No,

I suppose I haven't. But the only thing I guess I want is not to flunk in school and nobody can give me that."

''Oh, shucks," Judy said. ''Anybody can pass in school. You just don't study or something. I bet that everv time you get ready to study you start mellow-bugging around and don't ever really study."

"I do what?" Jonathan asked.

"Mellow-bug. You know, those little shiny black bugs that swim around on the water and smell sort of strong. They just swim around doing nothing. Mellow-bugging."

"So Tm a mellow bug?"

"ril bet you are. You get all ready to study, but you have to drink some water or write your name or draw a picture or something."

Jonathan remembered the vacuum cleaner. Then the pencil sharpener. The movies. And all the rest of the things he had done instead of studying. "Yeh," he said, "Tm a mellow bug."

"How would it be if I gave you a pupp\', Jonathan? Wouldn't you like to have a puppy?"

"Would I?" Jonathan said. "But where I live you can't even bring a dog in the front door."

"He could live out here and I'd take care of him. But he'd be your puppy just the same."

Jonathan thought it over. Then he said sadly, "No, he wouldn't really, Judy. He might be mine—because you gave him to me—but he'd love you. He wouldn't know he was mine. No," Jonathan decided at last, "there's no use even

thinking about my having a dog of my own. No use at all."

Judy slou'ly shook her head back and forth. 'That's pitiful/' she said sadly. ''A boy who can't have a dog of his own. That's the saddest thing I ever heard about."

''When we lived out here, I always had a dog," he told her. "It was just the way you have them now—all over the place. There was alu'a\'S one real old dog who was allowed to sleep by the fireplace. And at night down in the kennels the hounds would start baying the moon. I used to love to listen to it, but Dad would always go out on the upstairs porch and yell at them. You wouldn't think so to hear the way he talks so quietly that he could yell so loud. But when he hollered, 'Hey, you!' it would shake the house, and those old dogs would shut right up."

Judy thought for a while. "You ought to have a dog, Jonathan. You really ought to. If you had a dog, you wouldn't make F's in school all the time."

"Why not?" Jonathan asked, surprised.

"A dog would make you smart. You can't be dumb around dogs. They don't like it."

"How do you know they don't?"

She seemed surprised. "Because—dogs have to look up to people, especially the people who own them. How can a dog look up to somebody dumb?"

"I guess you're right," he admitted. "But that doesn't get me a dog."

Judy was suddenly happy. "I tell you what. The next time my dog Lou has puppies I'll give you one. I'll give you pick

of the litter, too. Then I won't pay any attention to that one —just feed it and keep the fleas and ticks off. I'll be mean to it. That way, every time you come out here you can love it up and it'd really like you and be your dog."

That sounded good to Jonathan, but only for a little while. ''No," he said sadly, ''I hardly ever come here any more, Judy. So if you were mean to the little dog all that time—well, you see how it would be, don't you?"

She nodded. ''It wouldn't work. It would be sort of hard for me to be mean to it anyway. But I wish you had a dog."

"Me, too," Jonathan said, wishing so hard his throat felt tight.

When they got to the house, Mr. and Mrs. Worth admired the fish and had to hear about how it got caught two or three times. Then they argued with Jonathan about giving Judy the rod, but he insisted on doing it and they couldn't make him change his mind.

It was really dark by the time they were ready to go. Jonathan and Judy waited in the drive for Mr. Worth to get the pickup truck from the shed.

"Look," Judy said, pointing into the darkness. "There's Pot Likker."

Sitting on his haunches, looking at them, the black-and-white dog looked bigger in the dark.

"I've seen him around more today than any other day I can remember," Judy declared.

"Do you really think he hasn't got any instincts, Judy?" Jonathan asked.

"I don't know. He might have some. But he doesn't act hke any dog I ever saw. You know that Uncle Dan and I wouldn't ever hurt a dog or treat him mean or anything, and weVe been particularly nice to Pot Likker, but it doesn't do any good. He acts like we were going to whip him or something, so he never comes anywhere near us. Or anybody else, either. He's a funny dog."

When the headlights swung into the drive, Pot Likker disappeared in a blur of white.

On the way they talked about Jonathan not being able to have a dog of his own. Mr. Worth said, ''That's a terrible thing. Every boy in the world should have a dog—his own dog. A boy who hasn't got a dog is likely to grow up mean because nothing ever taught him not to be mean. And a boy with a dog will grow up to be a good, firm man because a dog likes a good, firm man."

They stopped beside the highway and Jonathan found his bike. They put it in the back of the truck, and went on into the city.

Jonathan asked them to come up and see his father, but Mr. Worth said they'd miss supper if they did, so Jonathan said good night.

" 'By, Judy. Catch a lot of fish," he added.

She looked at him out the window of the truck. Slowly she asked, ''Are you ever coming back to the Farm again?"

He nodded. "Sometime," he said.

Leaning against his bicycle, he watched the truck go away. The farther it went the closer the arithmetic seemed

to come. It felt like a real weight pressing down on him.

He left his bike in the basement and rode the elevator to the top of the building. The faint smell of perfumed antiseptic didn't seem so familiar to him as he unlocked the door and went in.

Mrs. Johnson didn't even seem to be interested in where he had been all day. She was just sore because he was late for supper. It was in the oven, she told him. Then, as he started for the kitchen, she seemed to remember about his father. 'Tour father called up. He says he won't be back until Monday afternoon."

As he went on into the kitchen he said to himself, ''It'll all be over by then. The F's and the exam, too. Everything."

CHAPTER SEVEN

[onathan made up his mind to study as much as he could on Sunday. Before it was time to go to Sunday school and church he went into his father's den and got everything ready. He laid out all the blank paper he'd need; he sharpened a lot of pencils; he filled the thermos bottle with cold water; he opened the arithmetic book to the page he wanted. Then, in case he got lazy, he propped the report card up against his father's two pens so that the red F's were right there in front of him.

After he came back from church there was no use starting to study before lunch, so he read the comics and the baseball stories.

They had roast beef and those little crispy brown potatoes for lunch. And chocolate cake and strawberry ice cream. By the time Jonathan had finished it, he was stuffed to the ears.

He was, he decided, too full of food to study. Anyway, Mamie would be through in the kitchen in a little while and go home; and Mrs. Johnson had said she was going somewhere that afternoon.

Jonathan wandered into his room and stood looking out the window. Then, while he waited for Mamie and Mrs. Johnson to leave, he lay down on his bed and started reading a book called Candy, It was about a girl and a blind boy and, when he finished it, he was almost crying. He put the book down on the floor and lay for a while, thinking about the people in the book.

At last the house was quiet except for Mamie singing in the kitchen. Jonathan got up and went into the den. All afternoon he studied, his mind growing weary and dull as he filled sheets of paper with the endless numbers or just sat, frowning, and wondering how to do the problems.

After supper he went back to the den. About eight Tim Brent called up but Jonathan, who had forgotten the date he had made with Tim, begged off.

It was midnight before he finally gave up. The stuff was too hard for him; he simply could not do the problems.

Jonathan felt scared and tired and hopeless as he climbed into bed. He dreaded the next day, dreaded having to tell his father that he had flunked.

Slowly, as he drifted off to sleep, he thought about Judy and Pot Likker and the Farm. Now it all seemed far away. Almost like a dream.

He probably would never go back to the Farm. In a little while someone would buy it. Someone else would live in the old house and he wouldn't be welcome there any more. For the rest of his life, Jonathan thought, he'd live in a city.

The only trees he would see would be in parks with signs saving keep off the grass.

He would never have a dog of his own, or fish, or ride a horse or go fox hunting. All of that was gone for him now.

When at last he went to sleep he dreamed about the Farm. He was slowly walking along through the woods and there were a lot of birds singing and it was warm and everything smelled elean and fresh. After a while he got to a river and sat down on the sand. There were fish making swirls in the water and little minnows played along the edge.

While he was sitting there Pot Likker came out of the woods and stood for a long time, watching him. Then, slowly, Pot Likker turned and went back into the woods again.

It was a sad dream, and he woke up. It was three o'clock in the morning. The city was quiet except for an occasional car hissing by down in the street.

Slowly, as he forgot the dream, he realized that he really was going to fail. Up until now he had thought that he might pass. Mr. Schreiker might give them an exam without any problems, just sums and things. But he knew now that there would be problems and that there was not going to be any miracle. He was going to fail.

Jonathan felt sad all the way through. Why, he wondered, had ever}'thing been taken away from him in just these few days? First, his father deciding to sell the Farm, and now, only three days later, he was going to fail in school. Why was the whole world so sad? he wondered.

Filled with loneliness and tears held back, Jonathan went to sleep again.

Mr. Schreiker, the eighth-grade teacher, was talking to them from the front of the room. Jonathan looked at him, not hearing much of what he said. Mr. Schreiker was a small, stoop-shouldered man with a face like a bird's and glittery little eyes. Jonathan had never liked him and had always felt uncomfortable with him.

''You will have exactly two hours for this examination,'' Mr. Schreiker said. ''At the end of that time I will ring this bell. That—is—alJ. You will immediately stand up. Immediately. When I ring the bell again, you will arrange your papers. But you will not sit down, understand? You will arrange your papers standing up. Is that all clear?"

Jonathan fidgeted. On the top of his desk there was the examination, lying face down. Beside it was a tablet of ruled paper because Mr. Schreiker never let you bring your own tablet for fear you'd have something down inside it somewhere.

As the man kept on talking, Jonathan wondered if he was using up some of their two hours.

It was hot in the room and a fly was buzzing somewhere. Jonathan wiped the palms of his hands on his pants and waited. His stomach was doing slow flips and he felt faintly sick all over.

"And," Mr. Schreiker said, "there will be no cheating. I am going to be here every minute of the time, and if any

of you even appear to be peeking, Til have you expelled from this school so fast it will make your head swim/'

At last he finished. He tapped the little bell and looked at his watch.

For the first few seconds there was a lot of noise as they sat down, banging the seats down. Then there was a rustle of paper all o\'er the room as they whipped the exam over, face up.