The Middle Moffat (10 page)

"Shall we have another game?" he asked. "Or is it time for Nellie? She doesn't like me to play doubles."

And at that very moment the front door opened. The oldest inhabitant swept all the cards into the little drawer, yanked the tablecloth back into place, and the Yale Bowl, too! Just in time!

"Hello, Father. And, why, hello, Jane!" said Miss Buckle, bustling into the room, the cherries on her hat shaking and rattling together. "I declare ... P'fessor Fairweather ... What an inspiration! My..."

Jane backed out of the room and out of the house, scarcely able to say good-bye. Goodness! What a game! Her head was whirling and she still felt dizzy. She must practice that card trick. The one in which you flipped the card off the edge of the table and caught it neatly between thumb and forefinger. That would impress Joey and Rufus, and Nancy Stokes, too.

"Watch me!" she'd say. And the cards would flip through the air the way they had for the oldest inhabitant.

"See you later!" Jane yelled after Nancy, who was disappearing through the apple trees. Nancy was going to take her music lesson.

Jane crawled through the little gate in the fence. When she stepped into her own backyard, she knew at once that something had happened, but she didn't know what. Oh, there it was! Smoke was coming out of the chimney of the new house next door. Curtains were in the window. Mops and brooms were on the back porch. People had moved in. Jane wondered who they were.

She ran around to the front yard. It was lucky that she and Joey and Rufus had picked up all the shavings and scraps of wood for kindling that were left over from building the house. Because, of course, now everything over there would belong to the new people.

Joey and Rufus were standing beside the honeysuckle bush peering into the yard next door. Jane went up to the bush and peered in, too. There was a motorcycle in the next yard, upside down. Maybe a motorcycle policeman had moved in.

"Who moved in?" she asked.

"Wallie Bangs," Joe answered enthusiastically.

"Who's Wallie Bangs?" asked Jane.

"You don't know who Wallie Bangs is? He's the mechanical genius. Everybody knows him. He's a wiz. Whole school talks about him," said Joe.

"And he lives here now?" Jane was impressed.

A genius. It seemed almost unbelievable that not only the oldest inhabitant but also the mechanical genius should live on Ashbellows Place.

"Sure," said Rufus. "See that motorcycle? He's been making it go the whole afternoon."

"You mean he rides it in and out?"

"No," said Joe. "He just makes the motor go while it's upside down. He's fixin' it. Takes it apart and puts it together again. But it isn't right yet. He has to work hard."

"Is that what a mechanical genius does?"

"Yeah. He takes things apart," said Joe. "He's got Clara Pringle's skates and my dollar watch, too. He takes them all apart."

"Has he got any brothers and sisters?"

"Yeah. One brother. In Room Six."

"Is his brother a mechanical genius, too?"

"No, he's just a fella."

"Oh..." Jane wished she had something for the mechanical genius to take apart. Things probably ran twice as fast after he'd taken them apart.

"Here he comes!" said Joe. And Rufus and Janey stared hard.

A big boy who wore long pants came marching around the new house next door into the backyard. His step was sure and purposeful. He had lots of skates in one hand, swinging them like a catch of fish. He had a battery in the other hand and what looked like a great many clocks under his arm. He disappeared into the cellar with all these things.

"He has a wonderful workshop down there, I bet," whispered Joe.

Then the boy, it
was
Wallie Bangs, came up into the air again and he marched over to the upside-down motorcycle. He stood beside it a moment, surveying it, his forefinger crooked on his chin and a frown on his brow. He then proceeded to pull plugs, push valves, slap the machine here and there, and all of a sudden a series of loud
putt-putt-putt
explosions rent the air.

This appeared to delight the boy. He kept making the explosions happen and he listened with his head cocked to one side. Now its
putt-putts
began to sound the way a motorcycle sounds when it is tearing through the countryside at high speed.

"Maybe he will turn it right side up and ride it now," Jane whispered.

But he didn't. The motorcycle kept roaring away as though it were speeding along the highway, but all the while it was just there, upside down in the yard next door. Jane and Joey and Rufus stared, fascinated. They couldn't help jumping every time the big
Fuff!
happened.

"When he gets that motorcycle fixed, he's gonna fix all those clocks and things he's got down there in the cellar," marveled Rufus.

All of a sudden between the
sput-sputs,
Wallie Bangs spoke.

"You kids got anything you want fixed?" he asked without looking up. The Moffats were surprised. They jumped, for they didn't even know he knew they were there.

"You've got my watch," said Joe.

"Oh, have I?" said Wallie carelessly. "Well, any clocks, skates ... anything mechanical..." And then he forgot he was talking and made his motorcycle give out some more good loud explosions.

Janey and Joe and Rufus moved off. They didn't want to look as though they were staring. If he'd ask them into his yard so they could really watch, they'd like that.
Putt-putt!
How hard he worked!

"I hope he fixes it soon," said Jane. Because she really did not care for all that noise.

But the mechanical genius never really got the motorcycle fixed. Every day Wallie Bangs would march home from school into his backyard, drop his trigonometry book on the ground, and
sput-sput,
soon he'd have the motor going. After a number of loud explosions, the motor would run smoothly for a while. "There," people would say, "now he's going to turn her right side up and ride her away." But Wallie never did. He wasn't interested in riding. He was interested in fixing.

Occasionally the motorcycle was already right side up. Wallie Bangs would leap into the smooth, leather seat. "Hey, look!" someone would yell, and everybody would stop what they were doing and watch.

"Isn't the fellow a wiz?" they'd all marvel. "He's going to ride that old thing away to Timbuktu now."

But Wallie was not thinking of Timbuktu or even Main Street. He was thinking about how the motor sounded. He'd suddenly pull valves, push buttons, make the engine roar good and loud, and then
bang!
A few feeble clucks and the engine would die out.

Sounds like a giant hen laying an egg,
thought Jane.

On a quiet evening when people were sitting around reading the paper or were raking the leaves, suddenly,
bang!
The mechanical wizard had started fixing his motorcycle. He worked as late as he could see. He was very sorry when daylight saving time went out and he lost that extra hour. However, he then worked far into the evening by the light of a shiny red flashlight. He had many flashlights of all sizes, and at night you could see him coming from a long way off, flashing one of his lights on and off.

Jane spent many moments watching Wallie at work in his backyard. She had never seen anyone work so hard.

"Don't you ever play?" she asked him once in a fit of courage.

Wallie Bangs did not answer. And Jane wondered how she had had the audacity to speak to such a mechanical wizard. To make up for it, she wished she had something for him to fix. Skates, say. But she didn't have any skates.

Wallie certainly did like to take skates apart. Also dollar watches and clocks. Wires, screws, and tiny disks from these were strewn over his worktable. He had Miss Buckle's washing machine apart, too, and just the other day he had gotten hold of deaf Mr. Price's earphones. He had plenty to keep him busy.

Jane's administration for the mechanical genius grew. His absorbed air fascinated her. She felt it was too bad she did not have something he could fix. She watched Wallie come marching around the house with a handful of skates, and she felt left out of things. She wished she had a pair of skates.

One day, as though in answer to her prayers, Mama called her into the house. Mama was counting yellow and orange coupons she had saved up from the wrappers of naphtha soap. They were stacked in neat piles of fifty on the kitchen table. Beside her was a little book with pictures of the things these coupons could be exchanged for.

"Janey," said Mama, "what shall we get with our coupons? We have a nice stack of them."

Jane thumbed through the book. There were cut-glass punch bowls with little cups hanging from hooks around the side. Miss Buckle had one of those. Also Mrs. Stokes. There were pots and pans, shiny aluminum ones. Did Mama want her to say, "How about this nice teakettle?" She skipped some pages and her eyes fell on a pair of skates.