Family Grandstand (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries) by Carol Ryrie Brink
“But they might get a reward,” said George hopefully.
“Listen, George,” said Susan. She began to read, “It appeared to be a pure case of accident. The body lay beside the road, and there was a crimson stain of blood upon the snow.”
“That’s a new one, isn’t it?” asked George with interest.
“Yes, it is,” said Susan. “I believe she’s started all over again, and look what a lot she’s written! ‘The Inspector said gruffly,’ “Another poor guy blotted out by a hit-and-run driver!” ‘Young Angus McAngus did not say anything, but he stooped quickly and picked up a small object which he slipped into his breast pocket.’”
“The diamond ring!” cried George.
“No, no,” said Susan, “the clue.”
“She’s got the same amateur detective,” said George. “It’s good old Angus McAngus.”
“I guess it’s the same old murder,” Susan said, “but she’s just writing it another way.”
Just then there was a shout from the lawn below, and they looked out to see the Gimmicks with their hands full of loot.
“Look what we got!”
“Wait,” shouted George, “we’re coming down.”
They really did sound like a thundering herd when the three of them ran down the uncarpeted stairs in a great hurry. Only the very last flight of stairs was silent. That was because it had a carpet and also a gently curving banister which was good to slide on. There was even a stopper on the post at the end of the banister, so that you did not slide off into emptiness and fall to the floor. The stopper was a statue of a lady, made of metal. She had one arm upraised, holding a lamp, and Susan called her the traffic cop.
The Gimmick boys had not found any diamond rings. In fact the Ridgeways were not greatly impressed by the things which the Gimmick boys had found: a half-empty box of popcorn, a broken balloon, a red button, a streetcar token, a trampled chrysanthemum, and a bow of red and yellow ribbon without the tiny football.
“Is that all?” asked George in amazement.
“Well, it’s more than you’ve got,” said Tad. This was very sadly true.
“How much did you make parking cars?” asked Susan. Of course she knew already, because the Gimmicks’ backyard would only hold four cars and that made one dollar, but she wanted to be polite.
“We made one dollar,” they cried proudly. “Don’t you wish your father would let you park cars?”
“Well, we have other things,” said Susan, trying hard to think what they were.
“We have Tommy Tucker to mow our lawn,” said George.
“That’s just in the summer,” said Tim.
“Yesterday, too!” cried Susan.
“But not every Saturday like we park cars.”
“We have a Tower,” said Dumpling in a clear voice. They all looked at her. Suddenly Susan was filled with a warm surge of pride.
“We have something else you haven’t got,” she said. “Dumpling is a prodigy.”
“A which?” asked everybody. Even George and Dumpling were amazed.
“What is a prodigy, Susie?” asked Dumpling in a frightened voice.
“It’s something very, very special,” Susan said.
“Good or bad?” asked Dumpling.
“Good, I think,” said Susan. She began to spell it, “P-R-O-G—no. P-R-O-D-I-G-Y, prodigy.”
The Gimmick boys were plainly impressed. “Is it something you catch, like chicken pox, or what?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Susan said, enjoying her superior knowledge. “But the ladies who tested her at the Child Study Clinic were simply amazed about it. ‘Did you ever see anything like it in your life?’ they said.”
“Susie,” asked Dumpling anxiously, “what do I do to get to be a prodigy?”
“You have to be very, very good—” said Susan. She was going on to say, “very, very good at doing puzzles and matching cards and answering questions,” but just at that instant Mother called out the back door, “Susan! telephone! Hurry up, dear, I’ve been all the way upstairs for you, and I didn’t know you were out here.”
“Oh, I know what it will be,” cried Susan as she ran into the house. “It will be a call to sit with the Terrible Torrences.”
The three boys stood and looked at Dumpling after Susan had run into the house.
“Didn’t you know,” asked George, “that you were that progeny thing, Dumpling?”
“No,” Dumpling said.
“Here, Dumpling,” said Tim, “you can have the car token.”
“Thank you,” Dumpling said, putting the token in her pocket.
“You can have the corsage, too,” said Tad, putting the broken chrysanthemum into her hand.
“Thank you,” Dumpling said. They kept looking at her until finally Dumpling went away and crawled under the lilac bush in the corner of the yard. She sat there and thought. “P-R-O-D-I-G-Y,” she remembered. “And I had to be very, very good. I didn’t know I was, but, if I have to be—Yes, I will be very, very good.”
Susan did not come outdoors again. Mrs. Torrence wanted her to sit that evening, and Mother needed her to lay the knives and forks for dinner.
George and the Gimmicks wandered around the yard, discussing the football game. Of course the Gimmicks had not seen it, because they did not have a Tower, and they were too busy outside of the stadium, but they had heard about it from the radio and from the people who parked cars in their backyard. They agreed with George that Tommy Tucker had been a great hero.
“But, do you know what?” asked George. “If he doesn’t pass his chemistry exam at the mid-term, he’ll be taken off the team and not allowed to play.”
“No!” cried the Gimmick boys. “Why?”
“Well,” said George sadly, “it seems like chemistry comes first, and then football.”
“Who says so?” asked Tim angrily.
“It’s a rule they have at the University,” said George, and he added, nodding his head toward the house next door, “Professor Jones teaches chemistry.”
The three boys went and looked over the wall and the hedge from the Ridgeways’ backyard, and they could see Professor Jones innocently tying up his late chrysanthemums. The late chrysanthemums were tall and full of buds, but they would not blossom for a couple of weeks. Every fall there was an exciting contest between Professor Jones’s late chrysanthemums and the early frost. Would the chrysanthemums bloom before the frost? Or would the frost arrive early and blight Professor Jones’s chrysanthemums before he was rewarded with blossoms?
There were two things in life that Professor Jones enjoyed very much. He enjoyed chemistry and he enjoyed his flower garden. He liked his house on College Avenue because it was near the chemistry building and because it had a fine rich soil surrounding it for a flower garden. The things which Professor Jones did not like were football, children, rabbits, and dogs. This made his life rather difficult, for there was the football stadium “in his lap,” as Mother would say, and on each side of him lived children. The Terrible Torrences were always digging holes under his hedge and coming through to pick his flowers or turn on his hose and make a wading pool in the midst of his strawberry bed. The Ridgeway children were well behaved, as children go, but they did shout and cheer in very loud voices, and sometimes George’s rabbits got loose and came over to eat Professor Jones’s delicious tulips and daffodils and parsley. Professor Jones had been heard to say, “We have everything else, but, thank goodness, there are no dogs!”
George cleared his throat. “How did you like the football game, Mr. Jones?” he called.
“Football?” repeated Professor Jones, looking around at them in surprise. “Oh, yes, football. I’d say it was very noisy. Yes, very noisy! Far too much traffic. Something should be done.”
“It was a wonderful game,” said George, “and you know who won it? Tommy Tucker!”
“Tucker? Tucker?” repeated Professor Jones. “Never heard of the fellow.”
“His name is Tokarynski,”
“Ah!” said Professor Jones. He stood up and rubbed his back. “Ah, yes, Tokarynski! A nice young fellow but a terrible chemist. Yes, yes, a terrible chemist.”
“Doctor Jones,” said George, remembering to use the professor’s formal title, “I hope he doesn’t flunk in chemistry, because then he couldn’t play football anymore.”
“Well, well,” said Professor Jones mildly, “maybe if he didn’t play so much football he would be a better chemist.”
“Oh, but don’t you see?” cried George, gathering all his forces for a tremendous debate. “Don’t you see, Doctor Jones—” But just then Mrs. Jones came to the back door of her house and called, “Supper, Jonesy.”
“If you will pardon me,” said Professor Jones, “it seems imperative that I fill the inner man.”
“What did he mean by that?” asked Tad.
“Chow,” said George. “He’s going to put on the feed bag.”
“I guess it’s all true,” said Tim gloomily. “He said Tommy was a terrible what-you-call-it.”
“Chemist,” George said. “It doesn’t look as if we’d get a bit of help from him.”
Susan came to the back door of the Ridgeway house. “Soup’s on,” she shouted.
The Thousand and One Nights
Susan set off for the Torrences with a copy of The Arabian Nights under her arm.
“Don’t expect to read, dear,” Mother said. “It really isn’t safe.”
“I know, Mother,” replied Susan, “I just thought that after they got to sleep, if they do get to sleep—”
“Well, good luck, dear. And call me if you need help.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
As Susan went up the Torrences’ front walk the Terrible Torrences, in pajamas and bedroom slippers, rushed out at her, uttering blood-curdling cries. They had Indian war bonnets on their heads and tomahawks in their hands. Fortunately the tomahawks were made of cardboard. Susan was used to something like this, and she proceeded calmly up to the Torrences’ front door while the two little boys shrieked and howled and danced around her.
“I’m here, Mrs. Torrence,” she called from the front hall.
“I’ll be right down,” said Mrs. Torrence from upstairs.
In a moment Mrs. Torrence floated—or at least seemed to float—down the stairs in a lovely dove-gray evening gown with a crimson rose on the shoulder. Behind her gleamed the white front of Professor Torrence’s dress shirt. “We’re going to the Saturday night dance, Susan,” Mrs. Torrence said. “Can you keep the boys away from us until we get started, so they won’t spoil our clothes?”
“I’ll try,” said Susan, taking a firm hold on the backs of Alvin’s and Rudy’s pajamas.
“Mama, we want to kiss you good-bye,” shouted the Terrible Torrences.
“You just kiss Mama’s hand tonight, boys,” said Professor Torrence. “It’s safer that way.”
Mrs. Torrence extended a lovely hand, and the boys bestowed several wet and grimy kisses on various parts of it. Susan continued to hold them by the backs of their pajamas, so that they would not swarm all over the lovely dress.
“They’re all ready for bed, Susan,” Mrs. Torrence said, “if you can get them to bed. If you can’t—well, just do the best you can with them. I wish you all kinds of luck.”
“Thank you,” said Susan politely, although she was never quite sure what she had to be thankful for at the Terrible Torrences’ house.
“Try not to let them break anything, dear,” Mrs. Torrence continued.
“Or leave the faucets running,” said Professor Torrence.
“Or put oatmeal into the mailbox.”
“Or the cat into the coffee pot.”
“I’ll try,” Susan said without much conviction.
“We do whatever we want to do,” said Alvin, and Rudy added, “Yah! Yah! Yah!”
“Oh, dear,” said Mrs. Torrence with a long sigh, “they haven’t very good manners, but I don’t know what to do with them. I honestly don’t.”
She and her husband hurried away down the walk as if they were escaping from something.
For a moment the young Torrences stood still looking after their fleeing parents. When they were still for a moment they looked quite angelic. Suddenly, for the first time in her life, Susan felt a little sorry for Alvin and Rudy. What if she had heard her own parents admit that they did not know what to do with their children? All the safety and comfort of home would be gone, Susan thought. No, even if parents might sometimes feel that way, she decided, it was better not to say so, because children needed to believe that there was someone at home wiser than they were.
“Yah! Yah! Yah!” shouted the Terrible Torrences, beginning to leap up and down and trying to wriggle from Susan’s grip. Susan took a long breath and rallied all her forces.
“Now,” said Susan, “let’s play a nice quiet game of tiddlywinks, and then, if you are real good, do you know what I’ll do? I’ll let you go to bed.”
This was a good approach, but it did not fool the Torrences.
“We aren’t going to bed tonight, not at all,” Rudy said, and Alvin said, “Susan, do you want to see something?”
“What is it?” asked Susan cautiously.
“We’ve got it down in the toolshed at the back of the yard.”
“What?”
“Even our mama doesn’t know it’s there.”
“What is there?”
“You come and see. Someone lost it at the football game, and we’ve got it in our toolshed.”
“Oh, I see,” said Susan, much relieved. “A box of popcorn or a ribbon souvenir, like the Gimmick boys found?”
“No, it’s much, much bigger,” said Alvin.
“It’s alive,” said Rudy.
“Alive?” repeated Susan. Her momentary feeling of relief vanished. “And you didn’t tell your mama?”
“It’s a surprise for her birthday,” said Alvin.
“Is her birthday tomorrow? Why, so is George’s!” This slipped out before Susan thought.
“Mama’s birthday is in January,” said Rudy, and Alvin said enthusiastically, “Is George’s birthday tomorrow?”
“Well, sort of,” admitted Susan. Mother had said, “We’ll ask the Gimmicks for supper on George’s birthday, but it might be just as well if the Torrence boys don’t know about it.” Now, unfortunately, they knew.
“Are we invited to the party?” asked Rudy.
“There isn’t going to be a regular party,” said Susan, “just the Gimmick boys for supper.”
“We can come, too,” offered Alvin.
“No,” said Susan, “you were invited to Dumpling’s party because you’re her age, but George is older.”
“We ate the candles off Dumpling’s cake before they were lighted, didn’t we, Rudy?” said Alvin.
“We’ll come to George’s party, too, Susan,” said Rudy.
“Oh, no,” said Susan.
“Oh, yes!” cried the Terrible Torrences.
Susan tried to think of something to divert their minds. “Didn’t you want to show me something?” she asked.
“Come out to the toolshed,” they said.
Darkness fell early now in October, but the air was still warm. A full moon shone in the sky. The Terrible Torrences led the way down the back walk to the toolshed with Susan trailing along worriedly at their heels.
“We can’t get it out,” explained Alvin, “because Rudy lost the toolshed key after we had locked it in.”
“But you can see it through the window,” said Rudy.
“What is it?” asked Susan again. She was rather glad to know that whatever they had captured could not get out.
“It’s a lion,” said Rudy.
“No, a wolf,” said Alvin.
“But nobody would bring lions or wolves to a football game,” reasoned Susan.
“You just look in and see,” the Terrible Torrences said.
As they approached the tool house Susan could hear a noise which was at first like a strange rustling, then a scratching, then a bumping and a stamping. Something seemed to beat against the side of the tool house. Then another noise began which was neither singing nor whining nor yammering, yet partook of the nature of all three. It was almost like moaning, and in the midst of her growing horror Susan could not help thinking that such a sound would be a wonderful one for Mother to describe in her murder-mystery novel.
Faint in the moonlight, Susan thought, gleamed the toolshed in the backyard, and from out of it came the sound of a struggle and then the awful unearthly sound of a moan. When Angus McAngus reached the spot and forced open the bolted door, the corpse had breathed its last.
The Terrible Torrences climbed up on a box so that they could look in the one small window.
“Yah! Yah! Yah! Wolf!” they cried, banging on the window. The noises from the toolshed became more violent.
“Is there more than one?” asked Susan.
“Just one, but it’s big,” said Alvin.
Susan peered through the small, dusty window. Inside she could see something enormous and active heaving and leaping about in the darkness. Whatever it was, the corpse had certainly not breathed its last. It was terribly alive.
“Is it a pony?” asked Susan.
“No, no, no!” cried Alvin and Rudy, howling with laughter. “A wolf! A wolf!”
Suddenly the thing stopped leaping about, and in the darkness they could see that it was looking at them. Its two eyes shone green and very strange.
The Terrible Torrences were never afraid of anything, and certainly Susan would not have admitted fear, but now the three of them took hands and fled back up the garden and into the house. The Torrences did not stop running until they had reached their bedroom. They bounded onto their beds and covered their heads with bedclothes.
“It had eyes,” said Alvin from under the bedclothes.
“Didn’t you know?” asked Susan. But the boys would not say.
Susan sat down between the beds, hoping that Alvin and Rudy would forget and go to sleep while they were buried under the bedclothes. However, this was too much to expect.