Wanted . . . Mud Blossom (8 page)

Junior shook his head. “No.”

“Do you really honestly believe Mud killed Scooty?” Maggie asked.

Junior nodded.

“What about you, Pap?”

“Well, it don't look good for the dog—I admit that. But on the other hand, I ain't never known Mud to kill anything. If I point to a hole in the ground and say, ‘Possum!' he'll dig, but he never caught one. He'll chase a squirrel until he's so tired he can't run another step, but he never caught one. When we catch fish I put them in the bucket and let him catch them, and he takes them in his mouth so gently there ain't a tooth mark on them. Still … it don't look good for him now.”

Maggie got up. She threw her braid behind her back in a purposeful way. “In cases like this, there's really only one thing to do.”

“Yes!” Junior agreed. “Cut him open with a butcher knife.”

“And what if Scooty's not inside?” Maggie said.

“What are we going to do then—sew him back up and say, ‘Sorry about that, Mud.'”

“I don't want any more talk about cutting my dog open,” Pap said in a stern voice.

There was a pause while Junior stared sullenly under the house, and Pap stared disapprovingly at his back.

Pap turned his worried face to Maggie. “Go ahead, Maggie, what's your idea.”

“Mud,” Maggie said firmly, “has got to stand trial for murder.”

Ralphie listened to Junior's “I'll never give it up” speech from the back porch of the Blossoms' house.

Apparently Mud had eaten a hamster, which was considered an act of murder. Ralphie couldn't have been more pleased. It took something like an act of murder to distract the Blossom family.

It was the Ralphie luck, he thought. The only time in his whole life that the Ralphie luck had deserted him was the time he had the accident on the riding lawn mower.

So now, with the family properly distracted, he could slip up the steps and into Maggie's bedroom—he knew which one it was because she often called out the window to him. “I'll be right down. Don't go away.” As if he would.

Even with the Ralphie luck, Ralphie didn't take chances. He slunk down the hallway, close to the wall. He paused with his foot on the first step. He listened.

Maggie, Junior, and Pap were in the front yard. He could hear their voices. Vern and Michael were at the side of the house—in the bushes. Ralphie had almost run into them, but they were laughing at some secret joke and never even saw him.

Ralphie's better judgment told him not to continue, but then his better judgment was always doing that. Ralphie started up the steps. He kept to the wall because he had read that was how thieves got up steps without being heard. Not one creaking board betrayed him.

In the upstairs hall, Ralphie paused.

Maggie's bedroom was on the right side of the stairs. As he crossed noiselessly to her room, his heart began to beat faster. He paused in the doorway to breathe the air in Maggie's room.

This air was different from any air Ralphie had ever breathed before. He felt that if he breathed enough of this splendid air, he would become intoxicated.

He had intended to go directly to the dresser and check for the flower, but the richness of the room overwhelmed him.

He stepped inside.

There were hundreds of pictures on the wall, and Ralphie moved around the room respectfully. He kept his hands behind his back as if he were in a museum.

Here was a snapshot of Maggie as a baby—coming home from the hospital. Ralphie leaned closer. She had on tiny cowboy boots instead of booties, and Mrs. Blossom, holding her, looked like a girl with a turned-up nose instead of a middle-aged woman.

Here was a birth announcement—Cotton and Vicki Blossom's baby girl, Maggie, has come out of the chute weighing seven pounds, two ounces. … Ralphie moved down the wall.

Here was a picture of her on a horse with a laughing man, her father. And here she was two years old maybe, holding a baby that had to be Vern. And here she and Vern were—maybe a year later—in cowboy outfits and hats.

And here she and Vern were holding Junior. It had to be Junior because Junior hadn't changed that much—same round face, round eyes. …

Ralphie heard a burst of anguish from Junior. Junior was now suggesting they cut Mud open with a butcher knife. Ralphie brought himself back to earth immediately.

Now. Where was the flower? He crossed to the dresser. In his mind the flower had been right there on top of the jewelry box, but there was no jewelry box.

Ralphie divided girls into two categories—girls (in little letters) and MAGGIE (in capitals). Girls would have jewelry boxes—MAGGIE would have what?

Where would a girl put a flower if she didn't have a jewelry box? Ralphie didn't have any sisters, and for the first time he regretted this.

The flower had to be here somewhere. He bent to look in the trash can. It wasn't there. That was good news.

Where did a MAGGIE keep things that had special meaning? Valuables, jewels, stuff like that.

There was a large basket full of barrettes and hair clips and ribbons. Ralphie stirred the contents with one finger to see if the flower could be concealed.

The more Ralphie stirred, the more fascinated Ralphie became with all these barrettes and hair things. There must be fifty, maybe a hundred, barrettes in this basket, barrettes from when Maggie was a baby. Here was a tiny little barrette shaped like a crayola, and here was a lady bug, cowboy boots, strawberries, and here was a rubber hair thing with marbles on the ends.

Ralphie stretched the elastic to see how it worked. He put it on his finger for a ring. Ralphie had never worn a ring before. The things they make to go in girls' hair, he thought, wondering at it.

Ralphie finished admiring his ring and looked down at the drawers. He wanted to open them but, of course, that would be prying.

He turned away. The nightstand. He crossed to Maggie's bed. No flower … no flower …

Ralphie heard a burst of laughter and moved to the side window. Vern and Michael were still down there, now holding their sides.

“Stop laughing!” Vern was saying.

“I can't. You're making me laugh.”

“No, I'm not. You're making me laugh.”

“Well, we can't go around the house until we stop laughing.”

“I know but … but …”

Vern and Michael started laughing again. They made an effort to get themselves under control.

They did this by looking down at their shoes.

Finally Vern said, “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure?”

“Yes.”

“You're sure you're not going to laugh?”

“Yes.”

“Then let's go.”

But before they could get around the corner of the house, they had started laughing again. “You did it that time,” Vern accused when he was at last able to speak.

“I couldn't help it.”

“Well, we have to help it.”

“I know.”

Vern wiped his eyes on the sleeve of his shirt. “Maybe if we think of something sad.”

There was a pause.

Michael said, “I just thought of something sad.”

“What?”

“Junior.”

This one word caused them to collapse on the ground in such a fit of mirth Ralphie thought they were going to injure themselves. Finally they lay on their backs, too weak to move.

Ralphie turned away. Well, he had to face the fact that the flower was not here. He would just tidy up the dresser and go downstairs. He had spilled some of the barrettes.

On the porch below, Junior said, “Maggie's right.”

Ralphie paused with barrettes in one hand to hear what Maggie had been right about.

“About what?” Pap asked for him.

“About putting Mud on trial for murder.”

“Junior, what good will that do?”

“It's what happens to murderers. Did you hear that, Mud! You're going on trial for murder!”

Suddenly a prickly sense of unease came over Ralphie, as if an icy hand had touched him on the back of his neck. Before he could turn, a voice spoke from the doorway.

“And just what do you think you're doing?”

Ralphie lifted his eyes and met Maggie's in the mirror. Her eyes were as green and hard as mints.

He turned.

Maggie was standing in the doorway with her arms folded. The first thing Ralphie noticed was that she was no longer an ogrette. Maggie had graduated with honors. Maggie was now a full-blown, adult-sized ogress.

For the second time in his life, the Ralphie luck had run out.

When Mad Mary opened her eyes, she found she was in the exact place she had feared she was. She was in a bed.

Mad Mary had not been in a bed in twelve years. She hadn't been under sheets either, or in a nightgown, or lit up by electric lights, or among strange people. She was all of those things now.

She knew where she was, but she didn't know how she had come to be here.

One moment she had been walking along between the woods and the road. She had a possum in her bag, her crook in her hand, and peace in her heart.

The next moment—anyway that was how it seemed—the next moment she was in a hospital bed with her hands tied to the railings.

“Oh, Junior.” She sighed.

“She spoke!” a brisk voice announced. “She's awake. Her eyes are open. I know you're awake. Can you hear me?”

Mad Mary closed her eyes.

Vern and Michael were now making their sixth attempt to go around the corner of the house. The first five tries had ended unsuccessfully with Vern and Michael, helpless with laughter, flopping around on the grass like fish just pulled from the creek.

“Now really and truly,” Vern said, giving Michael a serious look. “Really and truly let's don't laugh this time.”

“I won't if you won't.”

“Wait, I've got it, I've got it,” Michael said. “We'll go around and if we do laugh and they ask why, we'll say we can't tell because it might embarrass someone.”

“Who?”

“Let me finish. If they make us tell, we'll say, ‘Maggie and Ralphie up in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.'”

They laughed a little—it was like the hiccups now. The recovery of their backpacks had filled them with high spirits.

“Then Maggie will hit us—she always does—she hates for us to say that.”

“But Maggie's in the house. I saw her go in.”

“Well, then we'll do something else. If they ask why we're laughing, you say, ‘Michael just told a joke,' and if they want to hear it, then I will tell the joke about the monkeys on Mars.”

“Let's go.”

The thought of the joke about the monkeys on Mars sobered Vern and Michael enough so they were able to come around the side of the house as serious as judges. They had both learned an important fact about humor—something you should laugh at is never as funny as something you shouldn't.

“What's going on?” Vern asked innocently.

“Yeah, what's going on?” Michael echoed.

“Now, Mary, we know you're awake. We know you hear us. Open your eyes.”

The woman's voice was firm, as if she was used to getting her way.

“Mary, can you hear me? Nod your head if you can.”

Mary didn't want to, but she nodded.

“Now, Mary, we need some information for the records.”

Mary was motionless under the strange stiff sheets. Her body felt stiff and strange too.

“We know your name. You're Mary Cantrell. You're a very famous person in this town, but nobody seems to know where you live. What is your address?”

Mad Mary shook her head from side to side, mute with misery.

“Can you remember your address?”

Mary shook her head.

“You can't remember your address?”

At last Mary spoke, her voice cracking from fear and lack of use. “I don't have one.”

“You don't have an address. You're, like, homeless?”

Mary shook her head.

“You're not homeless.”

“No.”

“Where do you live then? What is your address?”

Mary saw it was no use now. She might as well give the woman what she wanted.

“I live,” she said with great dignity, “in a cave.”

Pap didn't look at Vern and Michael, who had just come around the corner of the house. He had Junior by the shoulders, forcing Junior to look at him.

Junior didn't want to.

Pap said, “Junior, now if we have the trial and Mud is found innocent …”

“He won't be innocent. He's not innocent. How could he be innocent?”

“Everybody—even Mud—is innocent until proven guilty. That's the American way, Junior.”

“Not Mud.”

“Yes, even Mud. Now, Junior, if Mud is found innocent, then you'll accept that, won't you? You'll give up on taking your revenge?”

Silence.

“Junior?”

Silence.

“Junior, we can't have the trial unless you agree to abide by the results.”

“Oh, all right. But he couldn't be found innocent because he's a dirty rotten murderer and everybody knows it. So there!”

“And just what do you think you're doing?”

After Maggie said that, the silence in her bedroom stretched on and on until it was immeasurable in normal minutes and hours. Nothing could record the length of time Ralphie stood looking at Maggie and Maggie stood looking back with those mint-green eyes.

The silence was reaching the point where it could never be broken when Ralphie cleared his throat.

“I was looking for a Bible,” he said.

The words were as astonishing to Ralphie as they were, apparently, to Maggie. But at least, Ralphie thought, he had the cool not to let his mouth drop open.

She was obviously incapable of even a “What?,” so Ralphie repeated his statement in a courteous manner.