Farewell Summer Part 4

Why do I imagine, he wondered, that one is carved to look like me, another one just like Bleak, and the other just like Gray? No, no. It can't be. Christ, where do I find Braling's metronome?

"Out of the way!" he yelled into the shadows.

Grabbing his crutches, he struggled to his feet , plunged downstairs, tottered onto the porch, and somehow found his way down to the sidewalk and advanced on the flickering line of Halloween gourds.

"Jesus," he whispered. "Those are the ugliest d.a.m.ned pumpkins I ever saw. So!"

He brandished a crutch and whacked one of the orange ghouls, then another and another until the lights in the pumpkins winked out.

He reared to chop and slash and whack until the gourds were split open, spilling their seeds, orange fl esh flung in all directions.

"Someone!" he cried.

His housekeeper, an alarmed expression on her face, burst from the house and raced down the great lawn.

"Is it too late," cried Quartermain, "to light the oven?"

"The oven, Mr. Cal?"

"Light the G.o.d-d.a.m.ned oven. Fetch the pie pans. Have you recipes for pumpkin pie?"

"Yes, Mr. Cal."

"Then grab these d.a.m.n pieces. Tomorrow for lunch: Just Desserts!"

Quartermain turned and crutched himself upstairs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

The emergency meeting of the Green Town Board of Education was ready to begin.

There were only two there beside Calvin C. Quartermain: Bleak and Miss Flynt, the recording secretary.

He pointed at the pies on the table.

"What's this?" said the other two.

"A victory breakfast, or maybe a lunch."

"It looks like pie to me, Quartermain."

"It is, idiot! A victory feast, that's what it is. Miss Flynt?"

"Yes, Mr. Cal? "

"Take a statement. Tonight at sunset, on the edge of the ravine, I will make a few remarks." "Such as?" "Rebellious rapscallions, hear this: The war is not done, nor have you lost nor have you won. It seems a draw. Prepare for a long October. I have taken your measure. Beware."

Quartermain paused and shut his eyes, pressed his fingers to his temples, as if trying to remember. "Oh, yes. Colonel Freeleigh, sorely missed. We need a colonel. How long was Freeleigh a colonel?"

"Since the month Lincoln was shot."

"Well, someone must be a colonel. I'll do that.

Colonel Quartermain. How does that sound?"

"Pretty fine, Cal, pretty fi ne."

"All right. Now shut up and eat your pie."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

The boys sat in a circle on the porch of Doug and Tom's house. The pale blue painted ceiling mirrored the blue of the October sky.

"Gosh," said Charlie. "I don't like to say it, Doug- but I'm hungry."

"Charlie! You're not thinking right!"

"I'm thinkin' fine," said Charlie. "Strawberry shortcake with a big white summer cloud of whipped cream."

"Tom," said Douglas, "in the by-laws in your nickel tablet, what's it say about treason?"

"Since when is thinking about shortcake treason? "

Charlie regarded some wax from his ear with great cu riosity.

"It's not thinking, it's saying !"

"I'm starved," said Charlie. "And the other guys, look, touch 'em and they'd bite. It ain't workin', Doug."

Doug stared around the circle at the faces of his soldiers, as if daring them to add to Charlie's lament.

"In my grandpa's library there's a book that says Hindus starve for ninety days. Don't worry. After the third day you don't feel nothing!"

"How long's it been? Tom, check your watch. How long?"

"Mmmm, one hour and ten minutes."

"Jeez!"

"Whatta you mean 'jeez'? Don't look at your watch! Look at calendars. Seven days is a fast!"

They sat a while longer in silence. Then Charlie said, "Tom, how long's it been now?"

"Don't tell him, Tom!"

Tom consulted his watch, proudly. "One hour and twelve minutes!"

"Holy smoke!" Charlie squeezed his face into a mask. "My stomach's a prune ! They'll have to feed me with a tube. I'm dead. Send for my folks. Tell 'em I loved 'em." Charlie shut his eyes and fl ung himself backward onto the fl oorboards.

"Two hours," said Tom, later. "Two whole hours we've been starving, Doug. That's sockdolager! If only we can throw up after supper, we're set."

"Boy," said Charlie, "I feel like that time at the dentist and he jammed that needle in me. Numb! And if the other guys had more guts, they'd tell you they're bound for Starved Rock, too. Right, fellas? Think about cheese! How about crackers?"

Everyone moaned.

Charlie ran on. "Chicken a la king!"

They groaned.

"Turkey drumsticks!"

"See." Tom poked Doug's elbow. "You got 'em writhing! Now where's your revolution?!"

"Just one more day!"

"And then?"

"Limited rations."

"Gooseberry pie, apple-b.u.t.ter, onion sandwiches?"

"Cut it out, Charlie."

"Grape jam on white bread!"

"Stop!"

"No, sir!" Charlie snorted. "Tear off my chevrons, General. This was fun for the fi rst ten minutes. But there's a bulldog in my belly. Gonna go home, sit down real polite, wolf me half a banana cake, two liverwurst sandwiches, and get drummed outta your dumb old army, but at least I'll be a live dog and no shriveled-up mummy, whining for leftovers."

"Charlie," Doug pleaded, "you're our strong right arm."

Doug jumped up and made a fist, his face blood-red. All was lost. This was terrible. Right before his face his plan unraveled and the grand revolt was over.

At that very instant the town clock boomed twelve o'clock, noon, the long iron strokes which came as salvation because Doug leapt to the edge of the porch and stared toward the town square, up at that great terrible iron monument, and then down at the gra.s.sy park, where all the old men played at their chessboards.

An expression of wild surmise filled Doug's face.

"Hey," he murmured. "Hold on. The chessboards!" he cried. "Starvation's one thing, and that helps, but now I see what our real problem is. Down outside the courthouse, all those terrible old me n playing chess."

The boys blinked.

"What?" said Tom.

"Yeah, what?" echoed the boys.

"We're on the chessboard!" cried Douglas. "Those chess pieces, those chessmen, those are us! The old guys move us on the squares, the streets! All our lives we've been there, trapped on the chessboards in the square, with them shoving us around."

"Doug," said Tom. "You got brains!"

The clock stopped booming. There was a great wondrous silence.

"Well," said Doug, exhaling, "I guess you know what we do now!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

In the green park below the marble shadow of the courthouse, under the great clock tower's bulk, the chess tables waited.

Now under a gray sky and a faint promise of rain, a dozen chessboards were busy with old men's hands. Above the red and black battlefields, two dozen gray heads were suspended. The p.a.w.ns and castles and horses and kings and queens trembled and drifted as monarchies fell in ruin.

With the leaf shadows freckling their moves, the old men chewed their insunk mouths and looked at each other with squints and coldnesses and sometimes twinkles. They talked in rustles and sc.r.a.pings a few feet beyond the monument to the Civil War dead.

Doug Spaulding snuck up, leaned around the monument, and watched the moving chess pieces with apprehension. His chums crept up behind him. Their eyes lolled over the moving chess pieces and one by one they moved back and drowsed on the gra.s.s. Doug spied on the old men panting like dogs over the boards. They twitched. They twitched again.

Douglas hissed back at his army. "Look!" he whispered. "That knight's you, Charlie! That king's me!" Doug jerked. "Mr. Weeble's moving me now, ah! Someone save me!" He reached out with stiff arms and froze in place.

The boys' eyes snapped open. They tried to seize his arms. "We'll help you, Doug!"

"Someone's moving me. Mr. Weeble!"