The Night of the Moonbow

PART THREE: Dreams in the Midsummer Dark

July 17, the date of the annual Water Carnival, had a big red circle drawn around it on Ma Starbuck’s calendar, for not only was the event another long-standing Friend-Indeed tradition, attracting families and friends of campers from as far away as Hartford, · but it was also customarily attended by the Elders of the Joshua Society and their spouses. Some had arrived in time for morning chapel in order to hear Pa’s sermon, and afterward to attend Sunday dinner in the dining hall, an occasion that proved somewhat embarrassing to Leo, who was called to the staff table in order to shake hands with Dr Dunbar and his wife. Blushing and stammering, he obeyed Pa’s promptings in matters of appreciation, thanking the four-eyed pair for his Moonbow summer, and they in turn beamed and called him “our little orphan boy,” after which he stumbled away, relieved to have got through it all.

As it did every Sunday noontime, even before the dinner hour ended, the lower playing field had begun filling up with honking automobiles disgorging visitors in a holiday mood – uncles and aunts and cousins swelling the ranks of parents, smoothing the wrinkles out of their sticky garments after the drive from the city, and wide-eyed little sisters trying to pick out big brothers from among the throng of campers. Some of the moms (as they had on previous Sundays) displayed to other, lesser cooks fhe fresh baked goods they’d brought along, while their spouses, in straw skimmers, two-tone shoes, and jackets with swing-backs, glad-handed one another and said things like:

“Swell day for the race, huh?”

“Which race?”

“The human race!” Oh boy!

Soon the line of vehicles bordered the entire length of the field, clear to the end of the Harmony unit, and by the time the boys got down to the lower camp the whole place had a festive air. Among the last to leave the dining hall was Leo, who along with Eddie Fiske had pulled waiter’s duty, and who had to pass inspection, not only with Oats Gurley, but with Bullnuts Moriarity, dining hall “captain” for the week.

“Hey, Wacko,” he bawled, as Leo headed for the door. “Whyn’tcha play us another tune on your ukulele!”

Leo ignored the crack, but as he hiked down the road with Eddie, who chattered away in his eager fashion, Leo scarcely heard him, still feeling the sting of Moriarity’s remark and lost in thoughts of his own. Whatever foolish hopes he had entertained that his contribution to Major Bowes Night would redeem his reputation at Friend-Indeed after his failure to go off the diving tower had come to naught, the success of the skit (sixty points for Jeremiah) having been vitiated by his embarrassing performance afterward, which had made him a laughingstock. How, he asked himself, how could something that had begun with such promise have gone so awry? Why had the sudden appearance of Reece and Honey caused his fingers to become as wax, the notes to blur in his mind, turning what should have been a rousing success into the single most humiliating experience of his life?

After stumbling out of the lodge in shame and mortification, he had hidden out at the infirmary dock, where he was sure no one would bother looking for him. But he was wrong; Tiger and the Bomber had tracked him down. When he tried to thank them for their support Tiger had merely winked. “ ‘All for one, one for all,’ ” he had said. “Isn’t that right, Bomber?” And that had made Leo feel special – more than a Jeremian, one of the Three Musketeers.

They had coaxed him back to the cabin, where he was forced to face his cabin-mates. No one had said much while they were getting ready for bed, but after taps there had been fits of giggles sputtering in the dark. Mercifully, Reece had not been present; Phil announced that he’d gone off somewhere in his roadster – with Honey or without, who could say? Lying awake, Leo imagined them together laughing about him, heads close, Reece touching, holding her, nuzzling her neck, smelling her cologne, whispering in her ear, she making jokes about Wacko Wackeem; pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey Leo.

Strangely, however, breakfast the next morning had come and gone with no mention by Reece of Major Bowes. It was almost as if, having revenged himself for Leo’s violation of Jeremiah’s hard-and-fast principle of teamwork by showing up in that disquieting way at the lodge, the counselor had made his point – whatever point that might be. And no one else had said anything more on the subject either (except Ma, who asked why she hadn’t heard Leo practicing; he needed to replace a broken string, he told her) until last night’s powwow, before the torches were lit for the second biweekly council fire. Then Reece had given his boys one of his pep talks, announcing that “all things considered” they’d “done good” in the last week, though, unfortunately, the results of the Major Bowes Amateur Night had been less than expected: Jeremiah had certainly taken top honors in the skit department, but had lost the hoped-for points from Leo’s recital (Hatton’s “Insidious Ice Cream Cone” had scored first). Still, he thought he could “say without fear of contradiction” that, though they were going to have to “sweat their underpants” to “bring home the bacon” in the next day’s competitions, if they all “pulled together” they would doubtless pick up enough points to “erase the most recent blot from the family escutcheon.” He didn’t have to remind them – did he? – that, as would be announced officially tonight, Jeremiah still stood behind Malachi in points.

And that, Leo thought now, was the rub. Since he was the only Jeremian who wasn’t entered in any swim events, he couldn’t do much there to better the overall score, or erase the humiliation of Major Bowes.

Eddie had made a stop at the Dewdrop Inn before going off to find his folks, and Leo was alone, crossing the lower playing field, when he overheard two campers making snide remarks about a couple of visitors.

“Jeez, who d’you suppose those two old goofers are?” Zipper Tallon was muttering to Klaus.

“Look like a couple of real hicks to me,” Gus replied.

Leo followed their looks across the field to a man and woman who stood by themselves beside a rattletrap car, blinking in the sun as if trying to get their bearings. He had a sudden sinking feeling as he recognized them: Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe. He couldn’t believe it! What were they doing, turning up here like this? And with no warning? He grew suspicious. Was he being sent back to Pitt for not measuring up? Was his Moonbow summer to be over so soon? For an instant he wanted to turn and run as far away as he could, but it was too late; they had spotted him. With a stone for a heart he dragged his feet toward them: bedraggled Miss Meekum, in her brown dress of home-knit boucle, wearing a brave little hat; Supervisor Poe, looking like an old black crow in his shiny suit and celluloid collar, glasses pinched on the bridge of his red nose.

“Surprise, surprise,” caroled Miss Meekum, beckoning with her hanky as Leo approached.

“Leo, my boy, here you are,” Mr Poe declared in his pale, papery voice, giving Leo’s hand a single, formal jerk. Too stunned by their unexpected advent to say anything, Leo darted him a glance.

Porcelain-pale under her coating of white vanity powder, Miss Meekum was already fussing at him, tugging his collar and brushing off his shoulder, inquiring how he was getting on. “Are you having a good time?”

Leo ducked his head. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Okay – you guess!” Miss Meekum’s fa-so-la laugh climbed its way up the scale. “Why, I should hope it’s nice!” The steel rims of her glasses sparkled in the sun when she gazed at Leo, as if to assure herself of his well-being. “My goodness, will you look at him,” she went on. “He’s put on weight – hasn’t he put on weight, Mr Poe? And see how tan he is. I can’t get over it. You seem so – so different!” She gave his arm a squeeze. Quickly Leo withdrew it. Several campers were hanging around now watching.

“Did you drive all that way just to see me?” he asked. “Of course we did,” Miss Meekum replied. “We were simply panting to get out of the city – so hot. And we wanted to meet Reverend and Mrs Starbuck and the Society people.”

Leo breathed a sigh of relief. So they hadn’t come to take him back after all. But cripes, he thought; the fact that this was just a social call meant he’d have to introduce them around to everybody. He looked from Miss Meekum to the supervisor, who was eyeing him narrowly.

“Which of these cabins is yours, Leo?” he inquired.

Leo pointed out Cabin 7. “It’s called Jeremiah.”

Miss Meekum craned her neck to look. “Jeremiah,” she repeated. “How quaint. May we have a peek?”

Left no choice, Leo reluctantly escorted them across the field, self-conscious because the only family he could put up against all the others was no relation of his, only these two gray birds, looking so out of place in their badly wrinkled, ill-fitting city clothes. Why hadn’t they at least given him warning so he could have cooked up some kind of story about them?

Mercifully, Jeremiah was vacant when they got there, so Leo, in his chagrin, was not required to deal immediately with making introductions. But as Miss Meekum exclaimed over his ceremonial torch (the carving of a ceremonial torch was* one of the most important traditions at camp, and each incoming camper must perform the ritual of cutting a branch in Indian Woods and decorating it with occult Indian symbols), arid Dr Poe noted approvingly the military neatness of the cabin, he spotted Tiger and the Bomber (thank goodness it was them!) coming along the line-path with a man and woman who turned out to be the Abernathys, pleasant-looking people with kind, sympathetic faces, who had driven up for the big event from their cottage on Long Island Sound. (The Bomber’s folks never came on Sundays – or any other day, either. “My ole lady’s glad to get rid of me,” he bragged; his father, a school janitor with a yen for booze, never seemed to know what his son was up to – or care.) They all walked right inside, and in his easygoing, cheerful way Tiger presented himself, his parents, and “our friend Jerome” to the older couple. Leo was ready to jump out of his skin. What would Supervisor Poe and Miss Meekum talk to the Abernathys about? He quailed at the thought of some inadvertent disclosure, about the goings-on at Pitt, or the unhappy events that had seen him brought to the Institute in the first place. And though the skies were blue, with no sign of rain, in the echo chamber of his mind he heard the alarming crash of thunder and the familiar sound of rain rattling in the downspout, heard the chink of Rudy’s bottle against the glass and his angry voice -

Tell him, you bitch – no rhapsodies -

“I hope you’ll play your violin for us, Leo,” Miss Meekum was saying, as if reading his mind. “I hope you’ve been practicing. Have you?”

“Yes’m.”

A bold-faced lie, but what Miss Meekum didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Then the others began to appear – first, Eddie with his folks, then Monkey with his – and Leo began to relax. What was there to worry about? Everyone seemed to be getting along just fine. Why, Mr Poe and Miss Meekum were talking away with the Abernathys as if they were old friends, nodding and smiling, fitting right in, just like regular folks! Maybe things were going to turn out okay after all. Maybe they had just driven out for a little holiday, to see how he was getting on.

Before long the Dodges, the Pfeiffers, and the Dillworths had joined the group, and as the crowd spilled out onto the porch, Reece Hartsig, counselor supreme, moved among the parents of “his boys,” speaking with each in turn; discussing with Dump’s father the chances of St Louis winning the pennant this year (now that Dizzy Dean had been traded to the Cubs); confiding a new joke to Wally’s dad; raising his stock with Phil’s parents by remarking on the fine job of work their son was doing on his radio transmitter project; even complimenting Miss Meekum on her hat.

Then across the field a disconcerting one-bar melody was heard – an automobile horn blaring the four zany notes of “How Dry I Am” – and a shiny new car – the latest model Lincoln Zephyr – rolled over the rise and came to a stop in front of Cabin 7. The Hartsigs senior had arrived: Big Rolfe, a large, florid-faced man in a wrinkled seersucker suit, with a Zeiss camera hung around his neck, and, shoved back from his warm brow, a straw hat with a band of striped silk; and his wife, Joy, a petite woman with a shingled bob of bright blondined hair, lots of lipstick and rouge, and a gay laugh, who was attired (in honor of the day’s nautical theme) in a sailor outfit, with a striped collar and gob’s cap emblazoned with an anchor and cord and little gold stars.

“How do you like her, fellows?” Rolfe bawled heartily, flourishing his skimmer at the car, which was now surrounded by campers admiring their reflections in the glossy black finish and the liberally applied chromium trim. Then, with his wife on his arm, he made his way up the porch steps to greet the parents of the Jeremians, most of whom were old friends, and regale them with the tale of how he’d come by his new two-hundred-dollar Swiss watch – “got it for cash off this little sheeny on a street corner. Hot goods,” he joshed, and they all laughed immoderately -while inside the cabin Joy sat herself down on Reece’s cot (she was the only person ever permitted such a trespass) and smiled brightly at Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe, saying wasn’t Leo lucky to get into Jeremiah, where all the really tiptop campers were.

By this time the crush inside the cabin had become considerable, and Leo, seeing that Miss Meekum and Mr Poe were in safe hands, ducked outside, where he found the Bomber leaning on the porch rail and observing the arrival of yet another vehicle, a Pierce-Arrow with black lacquered fenders and a dark-green cab taller than that of any of the other autos on the field. “It’s Dagmar,” the Bomber informed him as the chauffeur, a coloured man wearing a straw hat and no jacket (“His name’s Augie,” said the Bomber), got out and opened the rear door, and Leo recognized Ma’s friend from Major Bowes Night -witness to his humiliation. He had decided when he first saw her that in no way could Dagmar Kronborg be called conventional, and now, in close proximity, he found her both compelling and intimidating. Her blue eyes sparkled with such a bright blueness – keen eyes that missed nothing. He suspected she might be older than she looked: sixty-five? seventy, maybe? She had salt-and-pepper hair and leathery skin, tanned and wrinkled, and beyond a careless use of lipstick on her puckered lips she wore no makeup. He was intrigued by the husky timbre of her voice and the forceful energy behind it. Her English bore only traces of her Swedish origins, and when she laughed the sound was a rich, robust explosion of mirth.

“Hello – hello, all,” she called, nodding to the lineup of boys and adults who now crowded the porch of Jeremiah for the express purpose, it seemed, of greeting her arrival.

“Well, Dag, how are you?” Big Rolfe pushed his way through and enfolded her in a bear-like embrace, loudly kissing her.

“I’m fine – but don’t call me Dag. I don’t like it.” She gave him a sock on his shoulder and put her cheek out for Joy to kiss. “And here’s Mr Jack-in-the-Box himself,” she added, as Reece sprang out the side of the cabin to land in front of her.

“Hello, Auntie – How are you?” He threw his arms around her and, lifting her off her feet, bussed her roundly on both cheeks. “Come on up to the porch and take a load off. It’s time to catch Dad’s Sunday broadcast.”

Nearly every Sunday afternoon around this time, Reece’s father tuned in to the weekly preachments of Father Coughlin, The “Radio Priest,” whose multitude of admirers were convinced he was America’s savior and would keep its people from falling victim to the Red Menace. Since this host of advocates included Pa Starbuck as well as Big Rolfe, not many at Friend-Indeed disparaged the prelate openly, though Fritz Auerbach had declared that the man was a rabble-rouser and demagogue, and should be silenced.

Dagmar, evidently, was not a Coughlin admirer either. While the priest held forth on how Franklin Delano “Rosenfeld” was “selling America short” – Rolfe had thrown open every door of his car “so all could hear” -she excused herself and marched over to the fountain for a drink. Leo stepped up beside her and gallantly pushed the button, and as she straightened and blotted her lips, accepting his courtesy as a matter of course, she found his eyes studying her.

“Eh? What’s this?” she demanded. “Do you think I’m funny-looking, then? You’ll see a lot funnier sights before you grow up, young man – and learn some manners!”

Leo was speechless in the face of his outburst. He felt his face blazing scarlet, and mumbled an apology.

"Gode Gud,” Dagmar exclaimed in Swedish, lifting her glass to her eye. “It’s the violinist. Now, why didn’t I recognize you? What a stupid old thing I am!” Leo was mortified – she had noticed him, then, at Major Bowes, and now recalled his shame – but she cocked her head at him and in a quicksilver change of course, she said, “You were very amusing in the skit the other evening, too – very funny. He was,” she assured the cluster of visitors who had been watching the exchange. “And he thought the whole thing up himself,” she added. “How do I know that? Because Ma told me.”

Before any more could be said, the voice of Hap Holliday – its stentorian tones enhanced by a megaphone – was heard from the waterfront, inviting guests to come and be seated in the council ring. The afternoon’s events were about to begin. As Peewee Oliphant came pelting down the line-path, waving his arms to a fare-thee-well and hollering for all campers to get a wiggle on – Coach wanted all boat-parade participants at the lodge in five minutes to get into costume – a couple of shrill blasts from Reece’s whistle galvanized the Jeremians to heed the summons. Then Reece himself headed for the dock to confer with Rex and Hap on matters pertaining to the swim competition, while Dagmar rejoined the Hartsigs and the entire adult contingent connected with Jeremiah headed toward the council ring. Even Father Coughlin could offer no competition to the prospect ahead of them. The Abernathys, Leo observed, had Mr Poe and Miss Meekum in tow, and when the cabin was empty of visitors, he scrambled about, snatching up items of gear, and ran off to join the others, forgetting his humiliation, for the moment at least, in anticipation of things to come.

All around the council ring, campers, counselors, and guests a-like were dispersed among the tiers, the overflow scattered along the waterfront, the ladies, wafting improvised fans (pleated programs), ensconced in folding chairs, the gentlemen seated on cushions on the ground beside them. And here was Pa Starbuck making his official progress through the assemblage of parents and guests, nodding and smiling and generally behaving as if all this – every glint of sunlight, every lap of the waves, every glittering splash and dive, every foot of cloudless sky, every joyful camper and approving parent – was the work of his own hand and no other’s – until, exhibiting enviable spryness for a man his age, he climbed onto the flat top of Tabernacle Rock to offer a welcoming address whose floweriness, embraced “the piney fragrance of the grove,” how happy he was “to gaze upon so many happy faces,” the “salubriousness of the day God hath wrought” for the proceedings, and the “one or two special guests of note”: Dr and Mrs Justiss Dunbar, the doctor being the “First Chairman of the Committee for the Endowment of Young Males by the Friends of Joshua Bible Society” (as he and his organization were formally known). Then, with a gracious wave of the hand, Pa brought on Fritz Auerbach (“our visitor from foreign lands, to whom Dr Dunbar and the Friends of Joshua have seen fit to offer sanctuary”), who, as arts-and-crafts director, was the guiding spirit behind the famous “Parade of Ships” that led off the afternoon’s program – the event that annually gave the broadest scope to the campers’ wit and ingenuity, requiring as it did the transformation of humble rowboats and scows into representations of the triremes and galleons of yore.

Fritz, equally gracious, expressed his gratitude for the opportunity the Society had given him, and, his gently modulated voice amplified through the megaphone, proceeded to introduce the various entries as they traversed the five hundred yards from the boat dock to the swimming dock, where they were rated by a panel of judges (Pa, Doc Oliphant, and Henry Ives) on originality, execution, and presentation: Columbus’s famed Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria (three for the price of one) – the Job entry; a Mississippi River paddle wheeler, with its smokestack puffing – Malachi; even the Titanic, Hosea’s entry, which, in full view of all, “struck” an “iceberg” and “went to the bottom”; and finally – this was ultimately awarded the first prize (twenty happy points and an extra helping of dessert all round) – Jeremiah’s entry, the old camp whale boat converted into a “Cleopatra’s barge” of remarkable configuration, her gunwales festooned with flowered swags and wreaths. A stern-visaged Marc Antony (Phil Dodge), complete with an approximation of a helmet and a scarlet cape, posed dramatically, sword in hand, on the foredeck, while a stalwart Roman centurion with a trumpet (Tiger Abernathy) and the queen’s own brother-husband, young Ptolemy (Leo Joaquim), exchanged murderous scowls just behind him. Astern, the plump and gaudy Egyptian queen lounged amid a bower of wild flowers, one hand trailing languidly in the water as its mate dangled a bunch of gilded grapes over a pair of bright-red lips: Mr Jerome Jackson, ludicrously lipsticked and rouged, bedecked in an outrageous wig and a tin brassiere cleverly wrought from a pair of kitchen funnels. An outsized “diamond” was ingeniously attached to his navel, and his husky physique was swathed in folds of gauzy fabric (dyed cheesecloth), yards of which drapery trailed prodigally in the barge’s wake.

While everyone awaited the judges’ decision, and those entered in the swim competitions went off to change into trunks, Leo, having performed his part in the proceedings, headed toward the council ring, making his way through the boisterous throng now jamming the docks – campers of all sizes clad in swimming trunks, skinny young boys with bat ears and xylophone ribs, older boys exhibiting burgeoning musculature. As they pranced around, snapping towels and giving Indian rubs, waiting for the first event of the meet to start, their collective eye was fixed on Hap Holliday, who, as master of ceremonies, was huddled with Rex Kenniston over the list of contestants on his clipboard.

“Where’s your bathing suit, Leo?” Miss Meekum asked as he joined her and Mr Poe and the rest of the Jeremiah “family.” “Why aren’t you with the other boys?” Leo flushed and ducked his head; the moment he had feared must come, had come. Unable to think up a good story, he was stuck with the truth, and he explained to them how he had come in a loser in the preliminary heats.

“Well, that’s all right,” Miss Meekum said, patting his knee. “It means we’ll have you here with us, all to ourselves.” She leaned her spare form toward her neighbor, Mrs Abernathy, who smiled and nodded as if to affirm that to have Leo among them was to enjoy a special treat.

Leo was relieved when Hap, taking up the megaphone again, announced the start of the first race, the “Tadpole Relay,” in which Peewee Oliphant was a top contender. As everyone sat up attentively, Rex’s whistle shredded the air, and a dozen small, brown, leggy bodies sprang like so many frogs into the water inside the crib rope.

The first lap of the race was swum amid great thrashings and splashings, and cheered enthusiastically by the whole crowd. Peewee, who was his team’s anchorman, would be among the last to swim, and he stood, chewing on a thumb and hopping impatiently from one foot to the other, waiting his turn to enter the water. When it came he seized the baton and plunged headlong into his lane; he was in the lead as the last batch of boys surfaced, the baton clamped between his teeth and swimming hell-for-leather.

“’Ray, Peewee! Come on, Peewee!”

The Oliphants, seated down front with the Starbucks and their invited guests, rose cheering to their feet, and a burst of enthusiasm washed across the waterfront.

“Come on, Peewee – kick it! Swim!”

As first Peewee, then the others touched the canoe dock, flipped over, and headed down the home stretch, most of the crowd was on its feet. Peewee was flagging now, with Bouncer Williams, an older, bigger cadet, gaining on him. But at the finish it was Peewee who touched home first, and Reece Hartsig was there to lift him from the water and sling him onto his shoulders, parading him around to accept the acclaim of the crowd, then swing him down and turn him over to his own counselor.

“Isn’t it exciting!” Miss Meekum gasped, pressing a palm to her breast. “And he’s such a little sprout, isn’t he?” Leo agreed that Peewee was indeed a “sprout.” He was feeling better about Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe being there. Mr Poe was obviously enjoying himself, and Miss Meekum was acting gay as spring.

One after another, the tadpole races were run, each succeeding heat exciting the audience’s collective blood and bringing them to their feet with louder, more encouraging shouts. Leo could hear Big Rolfe’s booming voice avowing that this was what Camp Friend-Indeed was all about, striving and winning, and as he looked down upon the array of campers on the dock, popping the bubbles from their ears and bulling around with each other while they awaited the next event, he racked his brain, trying to think of something he could do to shine: something that, after Major Bowes, might redeem him in the eyes of the camp (standing on the Cleopatra’s barge pretending to be Ptolemy certainly hadn’t done it). But nothing came to mind, and so he sat there like a bump on a log, a face in the crowd, while the tadpole events came to an end and the Harmonyites marched out onto the dock.

As the fans of Jeremiah (Leo included) rose up to cheer, the Bomber did a Joe Louis handclasp over his head, jumped into Number 12, flung himself upon his oars, and proceeded to win the rowboat race hands down. Monkey Twitchell, who more aptly might have been nicknamed Fish, for that was how he swam, copped the 220-freestyle medley, while Tiger took the crawl. Watkins of Obadiah and the Smith brothers all won firsts in other events, but Phil Dodge won top honors in the breaststroke -husky arms and shoulders and a strong frog-kick made him a winner here. Eddie Fiske came in second in the hundred-meter, losing by a hair to Dusty Rhoades of Ezekial, and the Bomber took a first in the underwater race. Like some subaqueous leviathan, he remained submerged for two minutes and fifty seconds, traversing the crib four times, a new camp record. Wally, poor fellow, came in third in each of his events; still, Leo thought, it was better than nothing, and he watched enviously as Reece strode about the dock, beaming, congratulating his winners.

“Isn’t this fun?” Miss Meekum said to him, hugging her knees and smiling. She leaned over to speak to Mrs

Abernathy. “We were so happy that Leo was able to come to camp – and to be in Cabin Seven.”

Mrs Abernathy agreed loyally that Jeremiah was the best cabin to be in.

“Leo tells us your son is his friend,” Miss Meekum went on. “Everyone seems to think very highly of Tiger.”

Mrs Abernathy was both modest and friendly. “Pat and I are glad Leo likes Tiger. We’re very proud of our Brewster, but of course we’re prejudiced. And don’t tell him I called him Brewster, he’ll kill me.” She turned to include Leo and Mr Poe in her next remark. “Perhaps when camp is over Leo might like to come and spend the weekend with us. We’ve plenty of room, haven’t we, Pat?”

Pat Abernathy nodded amiably. “Yes, indeed, Tiger’s got the whole attic for a room, bunks and all. Leo would be most welcome.”

The conversation was interrupted as, down at the lifeguard stand, Rex reached for his megaphone and addressed the crowd with mock solemnity.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. My colleague – I refer to the estimable Hap Holliday – has instructed me to announce that the scheduled proceedings will be delayed some fifteen minutes to allow the presentation of an extra added attraction to mark the final year of Friend-Indeed camping on the part of Reece Hartsig.

“Yes, folks,” Rex went on, “the counselor of Jeremiah cabin has agreed to provide us with an exhibition of authentic athletic prowess by executing several spectacular dives from the high springboard.”

Ardent sounds of approval rippled through the crowd; cheers, whistles, and applause rang out, as, with an unaccustomed display of modesty, Reece emerged from the crow'd and doffed his cap, then proffered it with exaggerated formality to Rex and dived off the dock. When he reached the float he once more saluted his enthusiastic fans, then mounted the ladder and trotted to the tip of the diving board, testing it with a controlled spring that flexed his heavy thigh muscles. Moving back, he meticulously aligned his feet, palms flat at his sides, rolled his shoulders, and then took a neat three-step approach and jump-struck the board, which catapulted him into the air. His sharp jackknife seemed to be over before it had begun as legs and feet slipped into the circle of water that his head, hands, and shoulders had already made.

“’Ray, Big Chief!” the Bomber shouted, his voice carry- ' ing above the applause. “Yay – Heartless!” Other boys took up the cry, while their elders laughed indulgently at the epithet.

More applause greeted the counselor as he surfaced, cleaved a neat, economic path through the water, and ran nimbly up the ladder for a second demonstration, this time an elegant swan dive, which was succeeded by a one-and-a-half-gainer, the dive he was best known for, then the more difficult double-gainer with a half-twist. When he came out of the water the last time, his tanned body glistening in the sun as if dripping with diamonds, it was on the dock, and the cheers of the crowd, which thought the display must be over, rose mightily. But Reece made no bow. Instead, he bounced on each foot to pop his ears, then marched over to Rex and spoke to him. The pair were subsequently joined by Hap, who attended with a grave expression. Was something wrong? As a murmur compounded of curiosity and excitement swept the crowd, the talk among the staffers went back and forth for a few moments more; then, while Hap went off in one direction and Reece dived once more into the water and headed toward the raft, Rex again resorted to his megaphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please! Will Tiger Abernathy please come forward!”

At this, the Bomber, who had been leaning against the lifeguard tower, dove into a knot of boys, from which he emerged in a moment, shoving Tiger into lull view.

“’Ray, Tiger! ’Ray, Tiger!” The eager shout was taken up all across the waterfront as Tiger trotted out onto the dock for a quick conference with Rex, which was followed by a second announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Brewster Abernathy – ’scuse me, folks, Mr Tiger Abernathy – has consented to perform for us today, in tandem with Mr Hartsig, a piggyback swan dive.”

Yet another rumble of excitement sounded among the spectators, and the enthusiastic cheers and applause of his pals sent Tiger pelting off the dock into the water for a quick sprint out to the raft. On the high platform Reece hoisted him onto his shoulders, then, supporting him by his hands, with perfect ease and coordination he stepped onto the board and moved to the end where he paused, adjusted his hands to clasp Tiger’s ankles, and, breaking his knees slightly, straightening them with a snap, he sent a forceful jolt into the board, whose limber spring propelled the pair into space. The two melded forms soared forward, each with arms outflung; they remained in tandem for another beat, then gracefully parted, the single figure dividing as their heads went down and they dropped headfirst into the water, four feet apart, with hardly a splash. The crowd went wild.

Returning to the tower, the two divers encored with a half-gainer, followed by a standing back dive; then, graciously abstaining, Reece dispatched Tiger up the ladder for a trio of beautifully executed solo dives before joining him in the swim to shore.

From the edge of his seat atop the council ring, Leo observed it all, awed by Tiger’s performance, admiring his agile, compact body and envying his natural athleticism, his grace of movement; envying, too, the adulation from the crowd, and the modest way Tiger accepted it. He caught the glow of pleasure in Mrs Abernathy’s eyes, the quiet pride in her husband’s, and he itched to jump up and show himself off to advantage as well, to make people look that way because of some feat he had performed. But how? What could he do? How could he ever hope to rival Tiger’s stellar performance?

He sat back as the two divers came dripping onto the swim dock and disappeared among the huddle of contestants. The applause died down, but the scheduled proceedings were further delayed when, instead of the Endeavorites, the white-clad figure of Pa Starbuck appeared suddenly upon the dock. Waving his hands about his head, he gestured for Rex’s megaphone.

“I wish to pause a moment more in this afternoon’s program,” he declared through the varnished mouthpiece, “to say before this gathering how privileged we of Camp Friend-Indeed have been to have known Reece Hartsig, a young man of rare qualities, who began here at Moonbow Lake at an age not much more advanced than our Peewee Oliphant is today” – appreciative laughter and applause greeted this sally – “and I know my own good wife and helpmeet, my Mary” – he pronounced it “May-ree” -“concurs in these sentiments, for she has been ‘Ma’ to Reece as she has been to all the others boys. I say to you that no camper, staffer, or counselor who has passed up the line-path has brought more honor to our blessed camp. This is his last summer of Moonbowing, and I say that when he departs our shores, a Glad Man made from a Happy Boy, he shall be sorely missed.”

“Don’t worry, he’ll he back,” Big Rolfe called out through cupped hands. “You haven’t seen the last of our boy, Gar. He’ll plunk that plane of his down on the playing field, he’ll give the fellows a spin.”

“Hear! Hear!” Louder cheers and more enthusiastic shouts among the adults greeted these sentiments, while the boys went crazy.

“’Ray, Big Chief!” they shouted, after which Pa gave Reece a warm handshake and returned to his chair. Left alone, Reece spoke a few words of thanks, then, modest lo a fault, retired into the crowd of congratulating admirers as the senior events got under way.

Watching his counselor, who stood beside Tiger now, taking in the senior freestyle race, Leo brooded on the image of the pair flying off the tower, hearing again the tumultuous applause and cheering, his heart pounding with excitement at the memory. No matter how many races Jeremiah won, or how many happy points they earned today, in Leo’s mind nothing would match the sight of those glorious dives. And over and over again the burning thought: What could he do to shine? Then, suddenly, he knew! He jumped up and pushed his way along the row to race up the aisle, leaving a perplexed Miss Meekum staring at his sudden departure.

He was still absent when the contests among the High Endeavorites came to an end, with Malachi the leader in unit points. Since Jeremiah had come out ahead in Harmony’s swim events, as well as taken first prize in the Parade of ships, the two cabins were running neck and neck in overall camp point score as the popular and dramatic canoe-tilting contest began, and the excitement was intense when, after several elimination rounds, the two finalists paddled to “center stage” – Tiger and the Bomber up for Jeremiah, Blackjack Ratner and Moon Mullens for Malachi: the winning team stood to put its cabin in the lead for the Hartsig Trophy. Given that Tiger was an expert canoer, while the Bomber was noted for his balance and deadly aim, the contest was expected to be an easy win for Jeremiah. Still, the audience was tense as they watched the Jeremian, spraddle-legged and precariously balanced in the bow of the canoe, the tip of his long bamboo lance inserted into the neck of a rubber toilet plunger, face his challengers, Ratner in the bow, Mullens paddling. Like two knights in a medieval tourney, the rivals began jousting with each other, each warrior trying to knock the other into the water.

Wearing the Joe Louis frown of concentration that had earned him his nickname, the Bomber skillfully parried and thrust, and the outcome seemed assured when an unexpected distraction from onshore caught his attention, enabling Blackjack to catch him off balance and smack him alongside the head, toppling him into the lake; over went the canoe as well, tossing Tiger into the water too, while the Bomber, surfacing, hollered, “We wuz robbed!”

But no one was attending; something of livelier interest was taking place at the top of the council ring, where a fantastic figure had appeared, with a grotesquely made-up clown’s face and, slung about his shoulders, a red cape, which, as he tore down the path to the lakefront, rippled out behind him like Superman’s. Then, as the spectators laughed and began to applaud his antics, he pranced to the end of the dock, where, shedding the cape, he executed a burlesque dive into the water and stroked energetically toward the raft.

Reaching it, he hauled himself aboard, ran for the tower ladder, and clambered upward. At the top, he threw his head back and beat on his chest while uttering a savage Tarzan yell, then, without missing a beat, rushed to the platform edge, launched his body into space, and went plummeting downward; his victorious cry seemed to hang in the air for a moment after he had struck the water and sunk from sight.

The crowd sat now in a hush, waiting for the diver to surface. Where was he? Who was he? they whispered. Having righted his canoe, Tiger paddled toward shore, peering into the water; but there was no sign of the daredevil until, moments later, came the cry “There he is!” and a pale, frog-like form appeared at the foot of the dock, where it slowly surfaced, and a rousing cheer went up as Wacko Wackeem climbed onto the dock and stood in full view, bowing to his audience, flexing his “muscles” and tipping an imaginary hat.

As all good things must, the Water Carnival reached its end, and the overall winners were formally announced, with Malachi beating out Jeremiah at the last. When the individual campers had been awarded their ribbons – each one stamped “Honorary Presentation of the Bible Society of the Friends of Joshua” – little by little the waterfront quieted, while in the grove the guests stood about, getting the good of the breeze coming off the water and asking one another if it wasn’t time to think about leaving. Those consulting timepieces discovered to their surprise that it was nearly four o’clock; Sunday traffic would be heavy. Already automobiles were being loaded up with families and belongings, while some of the second allotment of two-week campers were bidding reluctant goodbyes to new friends before going back to city sidewalks.

Equally sad to be leaving camp were Leo’s guests, and in a strange way he was now sorry to see them go. With traces of his clown makeup still visible around his ears, he lingered as Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe prepared to be on their way.

“What an extraordinary afternoon!” Miss Meekum exclaimed in a tremulous voice, her eyes dewy behind her spectacles, as she smiled her sweet, sad smile all around. “We’re certainly proud of you, Leo. Aren’t we, Mr Poe?” “Yes. I believe we may say that. Most proud.”

Leo felt a vivifying sense of relief. He’d got through the day with flying colors. He was nuts to have thought Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe had come there to cause him trouble. Everything was jake again.

“Take care of Leo, won’t you, young man?” Miss Meekum entreated Reece. “And when he comes back to you next summer, maybe you won’t recognize him. Oh, but you won’t be here, will you? You’ll be off piloting your aeroplane. ” Again the supervisor reminded her that the hour was late. Reece insisted on escorting them to the car, offering Miss Meekum his arm and again complimenting her on her hat. “Just remember,” she said to Leo as she got into Mr Poe’s tin lizzy, “if you need me, I’m only a penny postcard away,” and her wafting hanky could be seen waving wistfully out the window long after her face disappeared from view.

“I wouldn’t count on that.” Leo was surprised to find Reece still standing nearby, watching the departing car.

“On what?”

“On what your lady friend just said – about coming back next year. That doesn’t seem a very likely thing to me under the circumstances. Suppose you tell me what you thought you were doing. Showing off, grandstanding in front of the whole place, losing us the canoe tilt. Bad enough people laughing at you, you had them laughing at me, too, tipping your cap like that.”

Leo was speechless. Reece had it all wrong. Tipping your cap was just something you did after a performance. It was only a joke. But even as he stammered a feeble explanation he realized the futility – if it was a joke, as far as Reece was concerned the joke was on him, and he didn’t like it.

“And what was the idea of that nutty outfit?” he demanded. “Where’d you get it, anyway?”

Leo faltered. How could he explain that he couldn’t just get up in front of all those people and do his stunt as, well, as just Leo Joaquim; that he had to pretend he was someone else, like Dr Mackinschleisser, or Donald Duck, or Superman, otherwise he could never have done what he had? So he’d borrowed Phil’s Marc Antony cape from the boat parade, and used some of Fritz’s stage paint.

“I just wanted to prove I could do it,” he managed weakly.

“You wanted to show off, you mean. But we don’t like show-offs here. Now hop to it, camper. It’s time for powwow.” And, hiking his shoulders, he marched across the playing field to where Hap was once again driving. 1 bucket of golf balls into the baseball backstop.

In the cabin, the Jeremians were all in their bunks, and Leo had the impression they’d been waiting for him: as soon as he stepped across the threshold Wally gave him the fisheye, Phil an angry scowl; Dump’s stare was indifferent, while Monkey averted his gaze altogether, and Eddie offered an inoffensive little shrug, marking his desire to remain neutral. Only the Bomber’s and Tiger’s expressions said they were still in Leo’s corner.

“Well, well,” Phil began. “Our hero, home from the wars. I hope you’re satisfied, Wacko.”

Leo was about to make a retort, but, catching Tiger’s look, he turned away and went to his bunk, where he sat on the rail and retied the laces of his sneakers.

Furiously Phil sprang to the floor, his weight causing Reece’s footlocker to leap. “Don’t you sit down like that when I’m talking to you, kiddo. Stand up! Stand at attention!”

“Easy there,” Tiger cautioned him. “Nobody’s robbed a bank or committed murder.”

“He may as well have.” Phil turned back to Leo. “I guess you know what your smart-alecking cost us this afternoon. We would have come out first except for your screwing around. I guess you’re really proud of yourself. Well, speak up! Are you proud of yourself?”

“No…” He looked from face to face. “I guess I just didn’t think-”

“Yes, we know, you never think. Jeez, don’t you get it, Wacko? We want to win around here – that’s what it’s all about. Reece wants that cup. It’s his last year at Moonbow, we have to get it for him. If we don’t – well, whoever screws up, that’s his lookout. And if you don’t stop acting like a weisenheimer, you know what’s going to happen to you?” Leo remained silent. Wally, leaning over the edge of his upper bunk, smiled grimly. “If you want to know, just try asking Stanley Wagner,” he said.

“Okay, fellows, let’s cut it out, huh?” Tiger jumped down and stood eyeing Phil sternly. “That’s enough. Leo doesn’t have to ask anybody anything. He didn’t mean to make us lose, it was an accident. It could happen to anyone.” “Yeah? He didn’t have to do it. He was just showing off, being a wiseguy. Aren’t I right, fellows?”

Phil looked around for support. Wally was the first to respond. “Yes, you’re right,” he said; Dump and Monkey nodded agreement.

“We didn’t ask for him to be in here,” Phil went on. “We could get along fine without him.”

“Well, he is here,” Tiger declared, “so quit your bellyaching for cripes’ sake.”

Phil’s scowl deepened. “Say, Abernathy, whose side are you on, anyway?”

“I’m not on anybody’s side. We’re all friends here. If Jeremiah lost a couple of points, it’s not the first time. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Forget it.” “Yeah, let’s can it,” said the Bomber. “I’m hungry.”

“I won’t forget it. If you ask me, it’s about time somebody did something.” With that Phil turned and marched out the door. “Wally – you coming?” he called from the line-path. Ever quick to respond to Phil’s orders, Wally hopped to, and Leo watched the pair cross the playing field, walking side by side. In his mind the two campers had fused into a single entity, like the partners in a law office or a haberdashery, Phil amp; Wally, Inc. After a moment, Dump ducked out the side and went chasing after Phil, and seconds later, without a word or look, Monkey sidled away; he too caught up with the group, which left Eddie reluctant to make a move.

“Looks like it’s four against four,” the Bomber said dourly, watching the others disappear beyond the rise. Leo’s shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh. He felt bad that he’d let them down, made them lose top score. But how could he have known his great feat would backfire this way? All he’d wanted to do was prove he wasn’t afraid; and shine a bit. Looking around at the empty bunks, so recently filled with his accusers, he suddenly felt an alien in Jeremiah, as if he’d dropped in from outer space, a little green man with goggle eyes.

But then, “Nobody’s against anybody.” Tiger said, putting on his cap. “Come on, guys, let’s shag it.”

The Bomber gave Leo a friendly punch. “Ya done good, kiddo,” he said. “Didn’t he, Tige?”

And together, the three, plus Eddie, trudged off across the playing field and joined the trekkers heading up-camp to the dining hall.

On a gray, windy morning several days after the Water Carnival, Leo found himself part of the detail assigned to police the Nature Lodge – such clean-up details were standard operation procedure at camp, a rotation duty, like waiting on table or KP – in preparation for the “ghost-story telling” that, the weather being coolish, would take place in the room tonight, instead of in the council ring. In the midst of an uncommon amount of industry, the great horn chandelier had been lowered to the floor to have its two dozen chimneys washed and its wicks trimmed, while sweepers manned the brooms and dust rags flew, and a couple of Endeavorites raked ashes in the two fireplaces and restocked the fuel supply. Leo, with a rag, a sponge, and a bucket of vinegar-water, was washing windows, as well as the glass in the various exhibition cases; it was a job he liked, and he went at it with a will.

Second only to the council ring in the life of the camp, the main room of the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Lodge was the site not only of theatrical events like Major Bowes Amateur Night but of an uncommon variety of activities, from Ping-Pong and checkers tournaments to nature talks and (during periods of inclement weather) the biweekly council fire. Centered at each end were large fireplaces built of local fieldstone, one graced by “George,” a stuffed eagle named after the Father of the Country, the opposing one by the framed portrait of Buffalo Bill (the Great Plainsman wore fringed buckskins and carried a silver-chased rifle). In addition to the nature exhibits arrayed along the walls between multiple windows – a horned owl, a gray fox with a still-bushy tail, a collection of snakeskins, the deadly-looking rattles of a diamondback, Leo’s growing collection of spiders, and, in its own cage, the bullfrog that had become Peewee Oliphant’s special pet – and the Indian exhibits – assorted masks and headdresses, even a beaded buckskin dress, all “on loan” from Dagmar – the room contained the two objects of primary importance at Friend-Indeed: the Hartsig Memorial Trophy Cup, which rested in a position of prominence, in the center of the eight-by-eight beam built into the stonework of the north fireplace, where its silver shape gleamed lustrously, even on the dullest days, and the Buffalo Bill War Bonnet which, when not being worn by the camp’s designated Moonbow Warrior, was displayed on a stand of pinewood in a tall glass case nearby.

Now, as the dust and talk both flew, Oats Gurley, in whose loose and liberal charge the clean-up detail went about its business, was himself dusting the shelves of books that were his personal library, a collection of well-thumbed volumes on various natural phenomena, including the local flora and fauna, volumes (especially one on spiders) with which Leo was by now familiar.

Ah-choo! Ah-choo! Ah-choo!

Sweeping the floor with commendable zeal, Emerson Bean had raised a cloud of dust whose particles floated in the air. Tactful as always, Oats quietly suggested to the camper that he lower his energy level by half and damp down the dust with a good sprinkling of water.

Leo, giving one last swipe to the spider case, moved along to the Hartsig Trophy, noting his distorted reflection in its silvery, orotund curves, huffing his breath to shine up the plaque on which at summer’s end the names of the lucky winners would be engraved.

More than ever Leo was determined to prove that he could be a true-blue Jeremian, not just another Stanley Wagner. He wanted his name on the cup as much as any of the others, and, despite his screw-ups, wasn’t he doing his best to make that happen? His spider exhibit alone had already assured Jeremiah of a full one hundred points – more than Dump’s arrowhead display, which was merely an addition to a collection started by others – and his article on tarantulas in The Pine Cone had brought in several points more.

Unfortunately he had garnered his share of blackies as well – one for a wet bathing suit accidentally left on the line before inspection, another for having a sheaf of Katzenjammer comics hidden under his pillow, two for rolling his shorts more than the permissible double turn -so that with Jeremiah’s unexpected defeat in the canoe tilt (undeniably his fault), he was now responsible for more minuses than any other Jeremian.

He was going to have to try even harder, that was all, as Reece had gone to the trouble of pointing out to Tiger. The fact was that since Sunday Reece had not only been unwilling to let bygones be bygones, he had chosen deliberately to misunderstand Leo’s innocent intention, and to misrepresent it to others, which had put Leo in a bad light, and not just among the Jeremians; cadets and seniors a-like were saying Wacko had been acting wacko. Almost nobody would believe he hadn’t been burlesquing Reece.

In his bunk with a book yesterday evening during the after-supper free period, Leo had caught snatches of a conversation coming from the vicinity of Old Faithful.

“I just don’t get it,” Reece was saying while Tiger dropped his lips to the water spout. “Why do you bother with him, anyway?”

“No bother. I like him. I know he goofs up sometimes, but he knows lots of things, he’s smart, and he’s funny, too.”

“I don’t think he’s funny. And he’s breaking up the team! Don’t you get it, fellah? He’s just not our kind. He’s different. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Maybe we’ll rub off on him,” Tiger said, tongue-in-cheek. “Or maybe he’ll rub off on us.”

“Yeah – that’s what I’m afraid of. Remember Stanley?" “Come on, Big Chief, let’s skip the bad news,” Tiger said. “Leo’s going to be okay – look at the points he’s won us. And what does it matter if he is different? Everybody can’t be the same-”

“He’ll damn well measure up to Jeremiah or I’ll know the reason why. He’s turning into a real troublemaker around here. Maybe a taste of-”

Tiger had been bailed out when Hap’s whistle started off the scheduled game of Kick the Can, and Leo had heaved himself up from his bunk to join the fray. Kick the Can was a favorite game of his, he was good at it; his thin frame seemed suited to skulking around in the dusky shadows, suddenly to come rushing out of nowhere to kick the can and free the prisoners, then escape himself, and rack up a score. Unfortunately, there were not many points to be won in so haphazard a sport, especially since Coach Holliday inevitably assigned Leo to teams that were bound to lose.

Speak of the devil. Through the lodge doors Leo could see the coach emerging from the path at Five Points; Reece was with him, and Leo watched as the two, carrying several sheets of paper, marched up to the bulletin board at the foot of the lodge steps and posted them – removing several outdated ones to do so. The current demerit list, no doubt, along with the happy-points total by camper (Tiger was number one) and cabin (still Malachi, alas). They made an ill-assorted pair, the stocky, thick-necked Hap, and Reece, much the taller and leaner of the two, his skin so darkly tanned by now that Leo thought he resembled a cigar-store Indian.

Leo returned to his polishing, and when he glanced out again he saw Reece dressing down one of the new campers whom he’d evidently caught in some infraction. The boy seemed to wilt visibly, and as he slunk away Reece broke into a flashing grin and scribbled a quick note on the piece of paper he’d just tacked up, then he and Hap went off together laughing.

Hearing a cough, Leo looked around to find Fritz Auerbach standing by the next window, likewise observing the little scene. “Your counselor is quite a stickler, isn’t he?” He smiled and came over. After Leo’s paddling, there had sprung up a warm alliance between the refugee and the orphan, two whose lives had been very different, yet whose present situations were not dissimilar. Fritz asked how Leo was coming with the book Fritz had loaned him, and Leo asked to hold on to it a while longer.

“Reece keeps us so busy, I haven’t had much time.”

Fritz nodded sympathetically. “How are you and Big Chief doing these days? Is he still angry over what happened on Sunday?”

Leo shrugged. “Now he’s mad at Tiger, too,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because Tiger sticks up for me.”

Fritz drew at his lip. “It’s because Reece feels threatened.”

“By what?”

“By you, my friend. I know it doesn’t seem you’ve done anything to threaten him, but think about it. That little joke of yours with the pine trees after the Snipe Hunt, then changing the skit on him, then the affair of Sunday – he thinks his authority is being undermined. Don’t ever forget he’s cock of the walk here.” Fritz winked and Leo nodded. He liked being around Fritz, whose eyes were so warm and friendly and who always had time for a little talk and a bit of savvy instruction. The sad situation of his family seldom showed in his manner – though he spoke of his loved ones often enough – and he never felt sorry for himself. Leo had come to admire him more with every passing day, as had many of the other campers, including Tiger.

“By the way,” Fritz went on. “I was talking with Dagmar about you.” Since coming to Moonbow he and Dagmar Kronborg had struck up a warm friendship: two Europeans roosting in a nest of Yankees, who could speak French to each other (Fritz disliked speaking German). “She’d enjoy hearing you play again sometime.”

Leo was surprised, after the way he’d made a fool of himself in front of the woman. “Did she say that?”

“Indeed she did. She’s sincere, believe me. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

Leo didn’t know how he felt about playing in public after his folly.

“But of course,” Fritz said. “That is understandable. Still, Dagmar says it will help if you adopt a more serious approach to your studies. You could do your mother proud, you know. You have said how much she wished you to become a good musician.”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, perhaps you might think of her and do so. But not by the lazy door, eh? Give it plenty of get-up-and-go.” He rolled a fist and gave Leo the lightest sock on the chin. Leo said he was resolved to try.

After Fritz had gone, with the trophy now giving off an unimpeachable luster, Leo looked around to discover that the rest of the work squad was making for the doors, having been dismissed by Oats, who gave Leo permission to leave too, asking him first to put away his gear and take along the broom Emerson had left behind the stuffed fox. When he returned from the utility closet, Oats had disappeared into the staff room. Leo glanced around to see what might have been missed. The place was spick and span and would pass inspection with no trouble – except for a smudge where one of the departing clean-up squad had rested his hand against the door of the war bonnet’s case. Using a clean corner of his rag, he blew on the glass and gave it a good buffing until the mark disappeared; then he stood back, looking up at the headdress, thinking of the history behind it, how the Great Plainsman had presented it to Pa, a scene so often described by Pa himself that there was hardly a camper who didn’t feel he’d been an actual witness to the event.

A noble gift, Leo thought, and, backing off another step or two, he studied the plaque inscribed with the words “Personal gift of Wm F Cody to Garland Starbuck,” and the date of the presentation (August 1914), and beneath that the list of names of those who had been given the honor of wearing the headdress through the years: the Moonbow Warriors of Friend-Indeed. First on the list, for the years 1914-1916, was Rolfe Hartsig; and last – at number 5 – was his son, Reece, and the year 1934, followed by a dash.

As Leo stared at this last name on the list he mentally appended the year 1938 and under Reece’s name his own:

6. Leo Joaquim 1938 Even though he knew it was a foregone conclusion that, despite his lack of physical stature, the Sachems would pick Tiger Abernathy to inherit the mantle of the Moonbow Warrior, Leo couldn’t suppress the fantasy. That’s all it was, of course, make-believe; for how could Leo ever hope to be tapped as the exalted Warrior when he wasn’t even a member of the Senecas? But if by some wild chance he should be presented the red feather and the medicine bag, if he too could join the Lodge -

There was an undeniable power in belonging to that group of honor campers, and the source of that power lay not only in the membership but in those little chamois bags each brave wore around his neck, those “medicine bags” whose secret contents were so potent. What was it, the Senecas’ magic? What amulet or talisman did the bags contain and how was it used? Leo longed to know. He had never told anyone, not even Tiger, about his inadvertent visit to the Seneca campfire grounds that night of the Snipe Hunt, but he had thought about it often and wondered and imagined. What did they do there, those chosen warriors, and in such secrecy that no outsider was allowed to witness their sacred rituals? Whatever these were, they bound the Senecas together in lifelong friendship. Tiger and the Bomber had told him about the big holiday reunion held every Christmas vacation, when all current and former members still alive would meet at a Hartford hotel for a happy get-together of handshaking and speeches after dinner. And how, as a grown-up, out in the big world, a Seneca could always turn for help in time of need to one of the brotherhood, and sometimes, like Reece, get his picture in the newspaper as a result of his achievements.

Again Leo let his gaze rest on the war bonnet, imagining what it would be like to be not only a Seneca but the Moonbow Warrior himself – the most elite of that elite corps, whose fierce but noble appearance was meant to instill in every Friend-Indeed camper the desire to be strong and valiant and noble himself, to practice in his daily life all those qualities that made “Glad Men from Happy Boys.”

As he stared into the glass case it seemed to Leo that he might actually become the wearer of the feathered bonnet, clad in beaded moccasins and a breechclout -he, Leo Joaquim, crouching low and toe-stepping to the accompaniment of a dozen tom-toms, as behind him rose the silver moon and out of the mist and magic of the night the fabled moonbow formed itself overhead – and, glancing around to make sure he was unobserved by spying eyes, he opened the case, then reached inside, removed the war bonnet from its stand, and placed it on his head. The sensation was indescribable. The instant its weight crowned him he felt transformed, no longer merely Leo Joaquim. A palpable warmth seemed to emanate from the interior of the headdress, permeating his skull and brain, imbuing him with all manner of strange capabilities, as if every warrior before him who had ever worn the bonnet had left a share of his own power inside it, to be passed on to anyone who would put it on – those worthy of wearing it.

Mesmerized, he stepped back from the case. He raised his arms, palms outward, saluting the Buffalo Bill portrait over the mantel, and in the silvery curves of the Hartsig Trophy the bright feathers came alive. He felt giddy with excitement, the sense of sudden power mixed with the unnerving realization that what he was doing was taboo. How wonderful, how strange… It was as if in putting on the bonnet he had actually become the Moonbow Warrior, and he drew his chin down, moving closer to the silver, still watching his reflection. He could feel the sweat running from under the headdress, down his brow and trickling alongside his nose. He shivered, his skin prickled with gooseflesh, and the hairs rose along his arms.

The feeling passed. Whatever it was, it melted away; he was just a two-bit camper – and what he was doing was terribly wrong; if he were to be caught the'consequences would be dire. He must return the bonnet immediately- As he turned from the fireplace he stopped short, sounding a gasp of alarm. Pa Starbuck stood in the open doorway, an expression of shocked indignation on his face.

“What can you be thinking of?” he demanded, advancing on Leo like some aroused Old Testament patriarch, his eyes flashing beneath his beetling brows.

The hapless Leo stared back, groping for an answer. “Nothing. I mean I was only-”

Pa raised his hand in a hieratic gesture. “Surely you must be aware that no one is allowed to don this headdress without being duly elected Moonbow Warrior, Chief of the Senecas. How do you come to be wearing it?”

Leo was at a loss to explain. “I just wanted to see how I looked. I-” It had all seemed so simple, really; but as he stammered this excuse he could hear how lame it must sound. He flinched as the bonnet was lifted from his head. Reverently Pa replaced it in the case, then again turned his watery blue gaze on the culprit.

“You were making fun of the Warrior,” he said. “But the Warrior is not a figure for sport. He has a profound meaning for every single boy at camp. I am sorry you yourself do not feel his power.” Again he raised his hand as Leo sought to protest. “My boy, my boy,” he went on, “haven’t you been here long enough to realize that this” – he rested a hand on the glass case – “this is a sacred trust? Never to be violated, never handled or touched by the uninitiated? You leave me to wonder just what sort of camper it is, what sort of careless, unthinking boy, who would deliberately flout the rules and the most sacred tenets of Camp Friend-Indeed.” He clicked his tongue in dismay. “What, I wonder, will the Senecas think when they learn of this impious act? What measures will they be forced to take against such a sacrilege?”

Leo felt a cold blade slice through his heart. “Do you have to? Tell, I mean?”

“Must / tell?” Pa was wounded. “No, no, my boy, I shall not speak, it is not / who shall tell. But the spirit of Buffalo Bill, the Great Plainsman, it shall speak. As the very rafters of this room shall also tell their tale of a boy who is so unthinking. Come away now,” he said, leading Leo toward the door. “We must allow the disturbed spirits to settle themselves, let them find renewed tranquillity.” He turned and with upraised hands paid obeisance to the portrait over the mantel, then strode from the room, shaking his head and rolling his eyes to heaven, as if to consult with his Maker over this renegade who had dared to put a feathered bonnet on his head.

To deal with the matter of the war bonnet, at powwow time that afternoon a special meeting of the Sachems’ Council was convened at the lodge. The meeting took some time, and when, finally, they all came out again, the dinner bell was ringing. Leo wished he didn’t have to go, but there was no way out. He hiked slowly up to the dining hall, entered, and headed for Jeremiah’s table, blushing furiously as, feeling every eye upon him, he took his customary seat and bowed his head for grace.

What was the verdict? he wondered. Whatever it was, he wasn’t likely to learn about it from Reece, who was acting as if nothing had happened at all. “Pass the potatoes, Wally,” he said, and “May I have the milk,” as his eye kept flicking to the staff table, where Pa Starbuck sat, benign and jovial and, like Reece, giving no sign that Leo could observe that anything was amiss, nodding and beaming at his fellow diners, now buttering a roll and crunching it between his store-bought teeth. The meal continued to unfold as usual, except that this evening there was an unusual amount of whispering, of looks exchanged, and neither Tiger nor the Bomber had much to say to anyone. Leo couldn’t eat, his stomach was fluttering so, and he made only token passes at his plate. Finally, when the chinking of the kitchen “silver” on chinaware had died away and only the dull hubbub of many voices could be heard, he knew the moment had come. The large hall grew quiet.

“Friends and campers,” Pa began, rising and speaking in a warm, natural tone, “it pleases me greatly to gaze upon your happy faces this evening, and I trust we all have spent a profitable day in our sundry pursuits. I myself had the pleasure of viewing one of our feathered friends, a scarlet tanager, perched on a fencepost along the roadside. It has a nest with two fledglings, and for those among you who would care to investigate this rarity, I am tomorrow at your disposal…”

Leo drew a breath of relief: it was going to be all right; Pa wouldn’t be going on about his feathered friends if he were planning to drop the ax on Leo’s head. But he was wrong; no sooner had Pa closed his mouth than he opened it again. He coughed and cleared his throat, then, mopping his brow, went on. “Eee-heh… I regret… yes, I regret to say that there has come about a certain matter which deeply saddens me. And since this matter deals with the rights and privileges of the sworn members of the Seneca Lodge, I must of necessity turn these proceedings over to the Chief of the Senecas.” He looked across the hall to the Jeremiah table.

As occupant of this exalted post, Reece swung his legs over the bench and walked to the center of the room, where, folding his arms across his chest, he began speaking of his deep affection for the Seneca Lodge, and of the honor of having for the fifth year in a row been elected its leader, the Moonbow Warrior. He spoke of the feelings of amity and friendship among the members of the tribe, then, easing into the matter at hand, described how Pa Starbuck had happened by the Nature Lodge, where he had come upon a certain camper who, having broached the display case, had removed from it the Buffalo Bill headdress, which he had then presumed to place on his head.

At this announcement, a wave of indignation and disapproval rippled through the hall. Reece’s eyes traveled around the room, coming at last to rest on the guilty party, whose face had turned blood-red. “I now call upon the misguided camper who ran so roughshod over our Friend-Indeed traditions and dared to imagine that he was the Moonbow Warrior-”

“Get up, stupid,” Phil hissed. Dump nudged Leo with an elbow.

Leo gulped; as he made a move to stand, campers began pounding with their water tumblers and spoons, and a lively chant broke out.

“Wack-oh! Wack-oh! Wack-oh!”

“Get up!” Phil gave Leo’s thigh a painful pinch.

Leo jerked to his feet, but, once standing, gazing around at the sea of cold, scornful faces, he felt his knees go weak. He darted a look to Tiger, who answered it with a helpless one; clearly Leo was on his own.

“I’m sorry,” he managed at last. “I didn’t m-mean – I only wanted to see how it felt – I didn’t mean to insult the S-Sen-Senecas. I won’t d-do it again.”

“Darn tootin’ you won’t,” a deep voice rang out. “You won’t be able to!” Moriarity began to laugh, and the others joined in, till it seemed everyone was laughing.

Those were (almost) the last words any camper or staffer addressed to Leo on that day and for several days thereafter. For at the meeting of the Sachems it had been determined that, found guilty of flouting the camp’s most honored traditions, the culprit was to suffer an undisclosed period of silence. Leo was dispatched to Scarsdale, where he would remain until the required steps to recall him were undertaken. No camper or staffer would be permitted to address so much as a word to him: he was banished to Siberia, the outer reaches of Mongolia, the craters of the moon.

Seven o’clock that evening saw the lodge filling up for the scheduled ghost-story telling, a venerable Moonbow institution that always drew an enthusiastic crowd. Tonight the boys seemed in uncommonly boisterous spirits, chanting, clapping, and stamping their feet, and otherwise demonstrating their impatience, as Hank Ives, wearing a wind-braker with a green Sinclair Oil dinosaur embroidered on the back, oversaw the traditional dimming of the lights: the chandelier was lowered, the rope uncleated at the post and run through the seaman’s block and tackle that served as a pulley – with Bud Talbot and Blackjack Ratner weighing on the rope (the contraption was so heavy) – and one by one the lamps were extinguished.

As the chandelier was again hoisted aloft and tied off, the last of the campers filed in, among them Leo Joaquim. Looking neither right nor left, he took a seat at the end of a bench – he knew he was not welcome among the Jeremians, seated several rows ahead of him; he was in Scarsdale now, and not even Tiger and the Bomber could make a public display of friendliness, though they had covertly shown him a tacit sympathy.

Ankles crossed, leaning forward, Leo kept his head well down, trying to ignore the whispers and jibes and fingers pointing at him, to act as if he didn’t care. When Fritz came in with Wanda, they sat as close to the miscreant as they could, and Fritz gave him his usual friendly nod, Wanda a little wave, as if to say they weren’t going to cut him off simply because he’d put an old Indian bonnet on his head for a minute or two. Close behind them, however, came

Reece, to take his place among the Jeremians. Desolately Leo watched as the counselor struck his lighter and applied the flame horizontally to his pipe bowl, his lips emitting puffs of blue smoke that hung about his head. The lighter remaining lit, the flame illuminated his face, and his eyes, dark and piercing, seemed fixed on Leo. It was only a fleeting impression – in another second Reece’s index finger flipped the hinged cover over the flame, extinguishing it, and leaving only a vague, sinister impression to linger in the red glow of his pipe bowl – but Leo -shivered as the wind, unexpectedly brisk and chilly for that time of year, gusted down the chimney, coughing from its throat spurs of fiery ashes that blew across the stone hearth. Now the leaping flames threw grotesquely painted shadows upward along the walls, which in the firelight gave off a shuddery russet glow, and even though scores of humans occupied the room it seemed that as a body they had no protection whatever against the Unseen, that by the potency of the spoken word alone some malevolence or misadventure could befall them, some dreadful, alien presence might appear among them uninvited, laying waste to their ranks, leaving them powerless to act.

As the boys’ clamor died down, and an almost eerie silence fell in the room, Pete Melrose, who had charge of the evening, came before the hearth and, sitting on a canvas camp stool, kicked off the program. His tale was one familiar to many campers, but not to Leo, about the old lighthouse keeper to whom late one night there appeared the vengeful spirit of the woman he had betrayed as a young man, a grisly, beckoning phantom luring him from his warm bed to dash himself on the rocks below. Pete was followed by Jay St John, and then Charlie Penny, each holding forth with a tale more lurid than the one that had come before, until the campers jumped with every snapping of a log, giving themselves up willingly to the spell.

Finally the way was prepared for Henry Ives, who unfolded his lanky frame and shuffled to the front of the room, dug out the dottle from his pipe, refilled it, and began to talk. Ahhh, the boys murmured, the story of the Haunted House, their Haunted House – the strange and tragic tale that had thrilled generations of Friend-Indeed campers.

Old Man Steelyard, a notorious miser, had once been a prominent Windham County banker. Bilked by his partners of a large number of treasury notes, he had renounced his former society and, removing his wife and daughter to Moonbow Lake, had put up the house on the Old Lake Road. There the family lived in sparely furnished rooms, and the old man’s wife died of influenza when he refused to put sufficient coal in the grate, though it was rumored that, having cashed in his remaining notes for gold and now distrustful of all banks, he had squirreled away a treasure somewhere among the foundations of the house. To guard his miser’s hoard he bought a fierce dog, which, though a trial to peddlers and inquisitive neighbor boys – here Hank paused – became the pet of Mary, the old man’s daughter. They called it Lobo, because the dog was like a wolf. And it was good that Mary had a pet, for she was not permitted to mix with the local children or even to attend school with them; Steelyard saw to the girl’s education himself. Time passed, the girl grew to womanhood. Then one spring the well went dry.

Hank puffed thoughtfully for a few moments so that in the firelight his long, dour features were wreathed in blue smoke; he went on:

“Ol’ Man Steelyard, he drove into town to find himself a likely feller with divining know-how, an’ this feller come out to give the job a go. He must’ve ben good at his trade, for the folks hereabouts called him Digger. He went to pacin’ the property with his divinin’ rod an’, sure enough, the stick drew, they dug down, an’ they come to water. So the job was seen to, an’, bein’ a mean ol’ skinflint, Steelyard was anxious to get rid of Digger, but Digger said someone was needed to shovel out the new well, an’ since he was johnny-on-the-spot he got to stick around. An’ while he stuck around, Mary, she took a fancy to him, an’ Digger, he was makin’ sheep’s eyes right back at her. Then, when Digger got to layin’ in the new plumbin’ pipes to replace the old ones, his spade struck somethin’ along the cellar wall – he wasn’t called Digger for nothin’, heh-heh. He’d dug up Ol’ Man Steelyard’s box o’ gold. He didn’t let on he’d found it, but, keepin’ mum, he persuaded Mary to run off with him, proposed right in the ol’ man’s parlor, an’ together they planned to elope.”

Leo pictured the scene, Digger sitting close to Mary, whispering his plans into her ear, as Hank’s voice rose and fell, and outside the wind moaned among the trees and rattled the windowpanes like a skeleton’s bones. He missed having Tiger beside him, the Bomber, too, Tiger nudging him in the ribs before the good parts.

Now Hank had come to the night of the elopement, when Digger made an excuse to work late down in the cellar. “An’ that,” Hank went on, “was Digger’s mistake. Fer the ol’ man caught the thief red-handed an’ slammed him hard with his own spade an’ afterwards he hauled the body up the cellar steps an’ dumped it in the well. Not the new one, the old one that has that big ol’ slab of cee-ment over it. Digger wasn’t dead yet, he was still breathin’, but that didn’t matter. Steelyard was a generous fellow, he give him all the time he’d need to suffocate, nice an’ slow, the way a Chinee likes to do. An’ no sooner had he sealed over the well than he dragged poor Mary up to that corner room, where he locked her up, sayin’ she could, sit there by her window and look out on the well where Digger lay a-dyin’.

“After that somethin’ crept over the place, somethin’ like a spell, so come evenin’ drivers would hurry their buggies past, a man afoot would hurry his step. An’ up there, in the window, there she’d be, Mary, a-starin’ out. She never spoke to the ol’ man again fer havin’ kilt her man in such a cruel, inhuman way, an’ the ol’ man, he hated Mary fer her betrayal. So, though the two lived side by side, the house, it was silent as the tomb where Digger lay. Mary had only the dog, Lobo, fer comp’ny, an’ at night when that critter went out, he set up such a deal of noise over there in Injun Woods, why, ’twas like a wolf’s howl, a fittin’ sound in a place where murder’s ben done. That winter was bitter cold, an’ Mary sittin’ there by her window, till one day she was dead, too. Some said she died of grief, that or froze, an’ when she went the ol’ man drove Lobo off the property an’ lived alone, until, on a gusty night, a night like this one, when he was tucked abed, he waked to the sound of a wolf howlin’ outside his window. He jumped up an’ run to look out. There he seen the big dog, come back again and a-howlin’, and with the dog he seen his dead girl, Mary, sobbin’ by the wellhead. Not long after, the ol’ man up an’ disappeared. Folks suspected foul play, so the constable, he come out fer a look. He poked about all over that place an’ not a sign until, down in the cellar, he found that ol’ miser hangin’ from a beam. An’ after that the house, it stayed empty, nobody but a fool” – here Hank paused again – “ ’ud go in the place. ’Cept for one – the shade of poor Mary Steelyard. An’ if you was to pass by on some dark an’ windy night like this, who knows, you might see her up there in her winder… watchin’…”

Hank’s words died away among the rafters. In the lodge the silence was utter and complete; it was the storyteller’s supreme moment – that potent hush that signals the reluctance of any listener to articulate a syllable that might break the spell so skillfully woven. The fire burned low; outside, a tree branch scratched against the glass. The boys began to stir lethargically, as if awakening from a dark dream. Their feet scraped the floorboards as they got up and stretched.

Then, out of the sleepy silence, a moment that froze the blood. From beyond the windows, far off among the trees, came the deep, winding howl of a beast. A wolf! Yes – there it came again! No one moved, while the bloodcurdling sound rose and fell. No, not a wolf, they whispered, but Lobo, Mary’s companion. And then – a shriek! A woman’s cry, a sound of such horror that all who heard it became as stone. Lobo and – Mary! Leo hugged his ribs, his body trembling. The two, woman and beast, cried out together now; then, at their peak, the shrieks and howls broke, turning into a Tarzan yodel, and the room burst into relieved laughter.

That was a good one, ha ha. They laughed harder when Reece Hartsig walked through the doorway in the company of Gus Klaus, the two having sneaked off into the woods during Hank’s tale. It was just the kind of gag Heartless would pull, adding a bit of spice to the story and winning everybody to his side; even Leo could appreciate that.

But, wolf or no wolf, the spell still lay heavily upon Leo as he left the lodge, hanging back until his cabin-mates had gone ahead – he didn’t want to embarrass Tiger or the Bomber in front of the others. Then, rather than heading straight for the line-path, he wandered alone by a circuitous route that brought him out near the mailboxes, where he stopped and gauged the hour: there was probably a full thirty minutes before Wiggy Pugh would blow taps. He began to move again, turning left along the Old Lake Road. As he walked, a ghostly shadow rose up from out of the trees and went sailing off, a dark patch against the darker sky: Icarus, hunting for his supper.

Leo inhaled the night air; it had a deep, bronzy tang to it, like the ring of an old bell. With his chilled gut sucked up under his bony ribs, he pressed on, still only half-aware of the intention guiding his steps. The gravel along the shoulder crunched noisily under his rubber soles and he tried to walk more quietly. Suddenly he had the feeling he was being followed – by man or beast he could not tell – and he pictured Mary’s yellow-eyed dog scenting his traces. There – what was that? The crack of a twig gave him a start. Yes – there! Again he heard it, a careless foot had snapped another branch. He was sure – well, maybe not, maybe he was just imagining it.

At Pissing Rock he stopped for the ritual leak, performing the act with anxious ceremony. Then – another sound. Now he felt sure: something was moving behind him, tracking him. He buttoned up hastily and went on. He walked quickly; not much time before taps. Now he knew exactly where his long strides were taking him.

Soon he was passing the beginnings of the picket fence whose crooked posts stood like sentinels in the dark. With half an eye and only half-aware, he counted them: one two three four five… six seven eight nine… He rounded the bend and came to a halt. Peering ahead into the inky blackness, he could see it, standing there, silent and alone, expecting him. When he came to the crazy-paved walk, he planted his feet squarely on the stones and stared at the building, his fists clenched, as if he were facing some enemy he was determined to vanquish, then glanced over to the well. Were they really down there, the remains of Digger?

Feeling a chill, he shifted his eyes toward the house again, that dark, bleak – and somehow sinister – silhouette that exerted such a strange power over him. Why did his heart begin to flutter when he no more than looked at it? Since coming upon it on the night of the Snipe Hunt, he had deliberately shunned it, but this evening, listening to Hank’s tale of the tragedy of Mary Steelyard, something had spurred him to return – to the scene of the crime, was that it?

He shut his eyes, thinking hard. There was something – in there – in the dark. Yes – something he wanted desperately to know. But what? He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to recall it. If he concentrated hard enough, maybe – A thought struck him: did Emily’s ghost haunt the Gallop Street house the way Mary Steelyard haunted this one? He had seen a figure in the window. Who had it been? Mary or Emily? Or a figment of his imagination?

He picked up some pebbles and pitched them at a vacant window, heard the hollow clatter as they hit the parlor floor and slid to the corners.

“Come out!” he called boldly. “Come out, I dare you!” He heard nothing but his own voice reverberating against the clapboards. He walked the three steps up to the porch, then stopped as his flashlight beam swung across the paint-peeled door with its panels of shattered glass, the broken-out lamps on either side. He put his hand to the door handle and depressed the latch. There was no click, for the latch was broken; he pushed and the door gave edgily with a tiny explosion of air as the seal was broken. He pushed the door wider and stepped inside. He paused in the narrow hallway whose length his flashlight tried and failed to penetrate. Tatters of a brown print wallpaper curled away from the wall in torn shards, with rusty splotches of water-stained lath-and-plaster showing beneath. A broken light fixture hung from the ceiling, bulbless and festooned with pale cobwebbing. The yellow beam flitted along the floor, foot by foot along the oak strips, from the gouged and battered baseboard to the chipped and battered newel post, where it lingered amid the rat castings scattered at the stair foot, then traveled slowly upward, riser by riser, to pierce the gloom of the stairwell.

He set a foot to the bottom step, then jumped as he felt it give with a noisy squeak. Incredible, but even here, inside, the house reminded him of the one on Gallop Street. This vestibule area, the hallway, the doors on the right (into the dining room?), on the left (into the stairway to the shop?), the radiator by the door and – there – on the floor – he shined the light on a dark blotch staining the boards.

He forced himself to go on. A second step, a third; doggedly he moved, his fear revealed in the trembling motion of the light beam whose scant illumination was all he could depend on. Odd smells assailed his nostrils, the odor of dust and mold and a sharp smell, like ammonia. He could feel his heart throbbing against the hollow cavity of his rib cage, and his stomach heaved. He gulped and went on, up and up, step by step, until at last he moved from the staircase onto the flat plane of the upper floor. There he paused, clutching for support the round wooden ball that topped the newel post He caught his breath, then set his flash beam to probing the shadowy corners, painting the hall with a bright orange ribbon that flitted and skittered about like some demented creature. Up, down, ceiling, floor, along the cracked walls, where the paper had buckled and oblong patches in a paler shade revealed that pictures had once hung there, in the light he examined with care each of the closed doors, the empty wall spaces between the doors.

He moved forward again, consciously locking his knees and trudging along, his feet crunching in the gritty dust that covered the floor, so that no matter how soft his tread, it was amplified and easily heard. He reached the first door and tried the knob. The door opened inward to profound darkness, which the flashlight beam instantly probed. Here the stench, moldy and dry, stung his nostrils. Pinching his nose, he backed out and shut the door, then moved slowly down the hallway, finding one deserted, derelict room after the other. At the end of the passage, opening the final door, he found himself in the corner room – Mary Steelyard’s room, with its rounded shape and pointed ceiling, its tiny fireplace and grate, its gently curving window where, according to Henry’s tale, the unhappy maiden had stood gazing down at the well that was her lover’s tomb.

With measured steps Leo crossed the room to the window – so like Emily’s window – and shone his beam down onto the dark lawn and the overgrown wellhead, with its heavy slab of cement supposedly sealing in the bleached bones of the man who had conspired to rob Old Man Steelyard. The light crisscrossed the lawn before he pulled it back into the room. He gave the place a last glance. Yes, he thought, this room might have belonged, not to Mary, but to Emily.

He left the door ajar and returned the way he had come, the steady beam of his flashlight illuminating the stairs one by one as he descended. Then, halfway down, he drew a swift breath, freezing in place as he leaned against the stair railing. Something besides himself was in the house!

He stood poised for flight, all his senses honed to their sharpest edge. Though he held his breath, his heart was beating furiously, sounding to him like a drum announcing his presence. He waited several moments longer, then ventured onto the next step, and the next. He stopped again and waited, listening hard, his beam probing the dark. Nothing but empty corners did he see, and the floor of the lower hall. Nevertheless a chill ran through his flesh. He was inside the Haunted House, why should he not expect to see the ghost that went with it?

He reached the bottom and stood in the lower hallway before the front entrance. Then, before he realized what was happening, the parlor door was thrown back, slamming hard against the wall with a great noise, and through the opening there rushed a dark menacing form, which threw itself upon him. The swift, hard impact knocked the breath out of Leo, muffling the cry that sprang to his lips as he felt himself being lifted bodily from the ground and carried from the newel post back along the passageway. Suddenly he found himself staring down into an open hole. The trapdoor had been thrown back. He was about to be pitched twelve feet down into the cellar!

He flailed about and kicked his legs, struggling to free himself. At last a foot connected with his assailant, a hard blow that did its work; he was dropped to the floor, while, with a pained oath, his attacker fell back against the wall.

Leo scrambled up and, dodging past the hole in the floor, ran out the door. Down the walk he fled, away from the dark house, stumbling, then sprawling; the cinders bit painfully into the flesh of his palms and his bare knees. Oblivious to the angry sting, he picked himself up again and without looking back headed down the road, racing along it as fast as his steps could carry him, while the dark trees overhead seemed to enfold him, and no moon shone to dispel the ghosts that threaded the deep and somnolent night.

Once returned to Jeremiah, stretched out in his bunk – the jinxed bunk of Cabin 7 – Leo tossed and turned against the canvas, threading dark waking dreams of what he had seen and what had happened in those dusty rooms of the Haunted House, willing himself not to sleep so that he would not dream for real and cry out. Over and over he asked himself what it was that had driven him to the house in the first place, and found no answer. But of one thing he was sure. Staring at Reece’s empty cot, then feigning sleep as the counselor came in sometime between midnight and dawn and stood for a heart-stopping few minutes beside Leo’s bunk before settling into his own, he was sure who his silent attacker had been, the monster in the hallway. And, indeed, the next morning told the tale, for Reece rolled out of bed with a badly swollen eye, a circumstance concerning which he brooked no discussion in any quarter but one that provoked deepest surmise not only among the Jeremians but throughout the entire camp. Leo alone knew the truth, and he kept his own counsel, which wasn’t hard, given that no one was permitted to speak to him and he was unable to communicate with any other party.

His trip to Scarsdale lasted for three days. This form of punishment was not unknown to him: at the institute a boy might easily be sent to “Siberia” when he had incurred the resentment of the powers that be. But he had never experienced it himself, never seen boys deliberately turn their backs and snub him, not exchanging any word of greeting day or night. Now he did see it, and he might as well have been a Martian, so remote did he feel from his fellow campers.

Of his friends at Friend-Indeed, only Wanda and Fritz, who had made no secret of their contempt for the whole business (Fritz had even entreated Pa that reason and fair play should prevail, but Pa had replied that the matter was beyond his province to mitigate and that the camp’s honored traditions must be upheld); Ma, who would have cut off her arm before turning her back on any camper, no matter what his crime; and Willa-Sue spoke to him, the latter oblivious to Leo’s status, and going out of her way to engage him in a babble of fractured conversation at every opportunity – usually in front of others and making him appear more foolish than before. As for Tiger, he was too old and devoted a Friend-Indeeder to go against the rules, though he told Leo by diverse silent signals that he sympathized with his plight and was still in his corner.

One bright note: after discussion with Ma, who had given him the okay, Fritz invited Leo to help out with the completion of the Austrian village, and the next day Leo was mustering his talents to work on turning out Lilliputian trees from sponge rubber and matchsticks, carving balsa-wood houses, and creating a bell tower for the burgomaster’s hall. But while he was grateful to Fritz for this special show of support, Leo was aware that in taking him on as his assistant Fritz was making enemies of his own.

In the end it was Tiger who saw Leo rescued from his ignominy. He appealed personally to the Sachems’ Council, petitioning them to restore the wrongdoer to the camper community (Wasn’t their motto “A Friend in Need Is a Friend Indeed”? Wasn’t that what everyone here at Moonbow believed in?), and when the vote was taken the majority found in Leo’s favor. That evening the edict was formally rescinded and the Bomber proclaimed Leo’s new status by loudly saying, “Hey, Wacko, pass the bread and butter, willya?”

Now, several days after his return to general favor,. is the normal roster of Moonbow handicrafters pursued their usual projects during morning crafts session, Leo, seated across the worktable from Fritz, was hard at work on a miniature paddle wheeler for the model. Already, on a platform temporarily attached to a work stand in the Swoboda Wood-Carving Shop, the model’s substructure was on view: a tiny corner of the Danube Valley in miniature, with the river sculpted from plaster of Paris, and a mountain (crumpled chicken-wire mesh overlaid with papier-mache made from cut newspaper strips soaked in flour-and-water paste). On the peak of the mountain would be sited the castle that was to be the crowning feature of the village.

The paddle wheeler was by far the most complicated construction Leo had ever attempted, and he found the work both engaging and enormously satisfying; more satisfying even than collecting spiders, he decided, and for the moment he was content. When the sections of the tiny vessel lay pinned to a template, he straightened, kneading a fist in the small of his back. The muffled ringing of the bell startled him and he glanced out the barn door. Across the compound, at the west corner of the porch, Hank Ives was perched on a ladder, buffing up the bell’s bright chrome and keeping a watchful eye on Willa-Sue, who was sitting in the glider playing with her doll. Through the office window Leo could make out Ma’s green eyeshade as she sat in her swivel chair at her rolltop desk, cashing allowance chits for some of the campers and putting the cash into their envelopes. Just inside the door Honey Oliphant was speaking on the wall telephone, and he observed her through the rusty screen – she had on the white sharkskin shorts she liked to wear, and a pink halter – as she hung up, paid Ma for the use of the telephone, then came out onto the stoop to pet Harpo, sprawled on the warm brownstone.

After a moment she crossed the compound and came to stand in the barn doorway. Leo’s mouth went dry and his hand began to tremble.

“Gosh, haven’t you been busy?” she said, stepping to Fritz’s side. “May I look?”

“Look your fill, by all means,” said Fritz, showing off the meticulously executed details added to the model in the past few days: a riverside hotel with tiny flower-planted window boxes, a church with a gleaming gold ball atop the steeple; the weathervane (made from a common pin and bits of gilded paper) on the tiny cupola of the burgomaster’s hall; the sign on the outdoor cafe by the river, which you could actually read – Die zwei schwartzer Schvannen, The Two Black Swans – and Leo’s unfinished paddleboat.

“What’s the boat called,” Honey asked Leo.

Blushing furiously, he couldn’t answer.

“It’s called the Guldenbraut,” Fritz said, filling the awkward gap. “It means ‘Golden Bride.’ ”

Still Leo remained tongue-tied, and Fritz went on, describing how the summit of the mountain would be the site of the famous castle where the wicked Austrian Duke Philip had held Richard the Lionheart for ransom on his way back to England from the Crusades.

“I want Leo to tell me about the castle,” Honey said, dimpling with enthusiasm. “Please?”

She was teasing him, but he liked it, and somehow his shyness vanished. Hitching up his stool, he recounted the old tale, complete with “once upon a time”: how Richard waited in vain to be rescued by his treacherous brother, Prince John, who wanted the English throne for himself. “And then?” Honey asked, playing the game.

“Richard had a faithful servant, a troubadour called Blondel, and he went in quest of the king, his master. And everywhere he went, to let the king know he was looking for him, he played a song he’d written, a favorite of Richard’s.”

“Did Richard hear it?”

Leo nodded soberly. “And he called down from his prison room, ‘Blondel, Blondel, here am I, your king imprisoned. Come free me.’ So Blondel helped the king escape his chains, and together they returned to England, where Richard was greeted lovingly by all his faithful subjects and-”

“And lived happily ever after!” Honey’s gay laugh rang out and she clapped her hands like a child.

Leo smiled. “I guess maybe he did.”

She laughed her bubbly laugh again, but Leo now was staring down at the barn floor, where the sun had suddenly cast a long shadow. Reece Hartsig sauntered into the Swoboda corner. “What are you doing around here?” he said, eyeing Honey.

“I stopped by to see how the work was going. See the pretty steamboat Leo is making? And the flags?”

Reece tossed a glance at the table but made no comment.

“You never did tell us what happened to your eye,” she said teasingly.

He put his hand up to the fading bruise. “It’s nothing. I walked into a door,” he growled, staring hard at Leo, then abruptly ducked his head and disappeared up the steps, his heavy tread shaking the whole loft as he joined the radio-builders around the transmitter.

“Honestly,” said the exasperated Honey, “he can be such a spoilsport sometimes. If you ask me, he’s jealous.” Her laugh lingered behind as she left the barn and took her bike from the rack near the office door. Leo watched her pedal away, then sat down on his stool again.

“Come on, don’t look like that,” Fritz said, noting Leo’s downcast expression. “He’s just acting that way to make you feel bad. Honey’s right, he’s jealous, I’m sure of it.” 'He washed his brush in his jelly jar – he’d been adding some highlights to the foliage – then took the crosscut saw from the tool rack and went over to the dining hall to even-up the legs of Pa Starbuck’s chair.

Preoccupied with fitting the paddle wheel to the boat hull, Leo was only vaguely aware of the sound of idle humming outside the barn until, glancing through the window, he noticed Willa-Sue sitting in the front seat of the Green Hornet. She was playing around with Reece’s radio.

“Willa-Sue,” he said, keeping his voice down. “You better scram out of there.” But she just stood up on the seat and stuck her tongue out at him. He shook his head. “Naughty, naughty,” he chided her, and pointed up to where Reece was working. Reluctantly she obeyed him. The next time he looked she was happily ensconced in the glider again, blowing up a balloon. Leo watched as it grew larger and larger, a white balloon of an elongate shape. He hoped it wouldn’t pop in her face and set her to hollering. When she was done, she tied it and it sailed into the breeze – not strong enough to carry it aloft – and as it bobbed its way across the compound, she started blowing up another.

Suddenly it dawned on him what the “balloons” really were, and, jumping up, he dashed for the door. As he raced across the compound, scooping up the inflated prophylactic, he heard Ma calling for Pa (“Oh Lord, just see what the child’s up to now!”), and by the time Leo reached Willa-Sue, the Reverend was also on the scene. But it was too late to stop the launch of the second balloon; as Willa-Sue squealed with delight, the thing spurted into the air in a gust of wind to catch on the utility wires strung from barn to house, where it hung in full view of the loft window, now crowded with the faces of boys – and, for a moment, that of Reece Hartsig.

“Where did she get these nasty things?” Pa demanded of Leo. “Did you give them to her?” Leo flushed and stammered a denial. But how could he explain that the “balloons” had come from the glove compartment of the Green Hornet? “Well, get the dadblamed thing down!” Pa sputtered. Shaking his head, he retreated to the office, washing his hands of the whole business, as Reece stormed out of the barn and advanced across the compound toward

Willa-Sue, still seated on the glider with his personal property lying with her dolly in her lap.

“Give me that!” he snarled, snatching the wallet; the red packets she had taken from it fell on the ground, and he bent and scrabbled them up and stuffed them into a pocket.

“Balloons,” Willa-Sue said, burring her lips and rolling her eyes.

“You tell him, Baby Snooks.” Looking down from the loft window the boys couldn’t help laughing, which didn’t help matters.

As Reece scowled up at them, then down at Willa-Sue, her features began to contort; a loud scream was on the way. Reece, the color drained from his face, seized her and began to shake her. But the effect, though hardly surprising, was the opposite of what he intended. Willa-Sue began to screech as if she were being murdered. In an attempt to silence her squalling, Reece shook her harder.

“Don’t do that!” Leo raced across the turf, and tried to grab Reece’s arms to restrain him. From every barn window campers hung their heads out, shouting that Big Chief was being jumped by Wacko Wackeem, and Pa reappeared on the porch, now with Ma in tow, calling for Willa-Sue to come inside.

In the midst of this bedlam Dagmar Kronborg’s Pierce-Arrow pulled into the drive. The car door opened and she hurried toward the porch to see what the trouble was. By the time she reached Reece, he had yanked Willa-Sue’s doll from her hand. He raised it overhead, then brought it savagely down against the mouth of the pump, smashing the china head into fragments. Screaming louder than ever, Willa-Sue ran to hide her tear-stained face in her mother’s skirts, and while Ma tried vainly to comfort her, Dagmar retrieved the headless doll from Reece.

' “What can you be thinking of!” she demanded, outraged. “A grown man picking on a child like that!”

“She was in my car, the little nitwit!” Reece thundered. “In my glove compartment! She embarrassed me.”

Dagmar made a sour face. “Oh, that is too bad,” she said tartly. “You know what she is as well as I do. Allowances must be made. Grown men don’t do this sort of thing, only spoiled little boys. Look at what you have done to this poor doll.” She shook the broken toy in his face.

Humiliated in front of the campers ogling the scene from the barn, Reece turned away; his gaze fell on Leo.

“It’s all his fault,” he said. “He was supposed to be watching her.”

“No, he wasn’t,” declared Hank, who had by now climbed down from his ladder and walked over. “I was supposed to watch’er. Guess I got carried away with my polishin’. But don’t blame Leo, ’twasn’t his fault.”

“Henry is right,” said Dagmar to Reece. “And it will do you no good looking for a scapegoat. Why should Leo be made responsible for the child?”

“He’s always playing with her, isn’t he, encouraging her to act nutty?”

“Don’t be asinine. You know you are talking utter nonsense.”

Reece glowered at her; his frown deepened as he saw Augie taking a drink at the pump.

“What’s he doing drinking from our cup?” he muttered. “He is thirsty, I expect,” Dagmar snapped. “Would you have him drink from the spigot?”

But Reece was no longer listening. He had stormed away to the Green Hornet, where he vaulted neatly over the side and sped off in a cloud of dust.

As he disappeared around the corner, Dagmar stared sadly at the broken doll. “What a shame. I wonder if it can be repaired.”

Leo, down on his hands and knees picking the pieces from the dirt, looked up at her. “It’s a little like Humpty Dumpty, but I’ll try.”

“Good!” she said, giving him an approving nod. Then she went into the office with Ma while Leo, having retrieved all the pieces he could find, retreated to the barn to see what could be done about making the doll whole again.

A quarter of an hour later, order had been restored around the compound. The craftworkers had, for the most part, returned to their beaded belts and hammered ashtrays. Tears dried, Willa-Sue now swung in the rubber tire under the catalpa tree, while Leo, back in the Swoboda corner, tried to fit the fragments of the doll’s head together.

When Dagmar reappeared, instead of driving away she came across the compound to lean in at the barn window. “But that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed of his work. “You’re meticulous,” she added. “I like that.”

Leo blushed; he thought he was making a botch of it. The pieces of the doll’s head were chipped and made uneven joins, giving the face the look of a Frankenstein’s monster.

“It will be better when the eyes are in,” Dagmar said. Leo shook his head. Though he’d scoured the area, he had found only one eye.

“Well, in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed doll is king,” Dagmar said, laughing, and Leo was forced to laugh too, though it embarrassed him to have her there while he worked.

She waited until he set the doll down; then, when he looked up, she nodded approvingly. “I like your boat, too,” she said. “You are making strides.”

“It’s really Fritz’s work,” Leo said. “I’m just helping him out.”

“Don’t be so modest,” she retorted. “According to Ma, Fritz says you are very clever.”

Again he blushed. But because she seemed genuinely interested, he soon forgot his shyness and opened up a bit. They talked some more about the model village, and about Fritz, whom she liked; Leo could tell.

“And your counselor? What does Reece think about this village of yours?”

Leo was embarrassed again. “He calls us Santa’s helpers.” Dagmar covered her smile with her hand. “Reece doesn’t like Fritz much. Or me,” he added glumly.

“Is that so?” she asked sharply.

Leo nodded. “He doesn’t think I fit in. I’m too different.” Dagmar became indignant. “Well, I should hope you are different! The only reason the world turns is because some people dare to be different. Most- people are like so many sheep. You just go right on being as different as you like. As for His Majesty, don’t pay him any mind. He doesn’t own the whole world, you know, nor his father either. Just the whole of Tolland County.” They laughed together; then, crooking her finger, Dagmar motioned him from the barn. Leo left his stool and covered his work, saying he had to quit anyway, it was time for swim.

“Come along with us,” Dagmar said. “It’s on our way. We can drop you off, and you can tell your friends you had a ride in my auto.”

Leo was speechless. He knew it was against the rules for any vehicle except Hank’s jitney to “ride” the campers. Dagmar, however, obviously paid no attention to such strictures, and led him to her automobile, where she introduced him to Augie. He smelled of shaving lotion, and his smile made Leo like him right away.

“Tack,” Dagmar said, as Augie held the door and helped her in, Leo after her,

“What’s tack?” he asked.

“Swedish. Means ‘thanks,’ ” she said, pushing her short, sturdy legs out in front of her and propping her small feet on the footrest.

He liked that; tack had an interesting sound. He settled himself comfortably in the handsomely appointed interior, impressed by the folding foot-rests, the little chrome ash-receiver, cleverly set into the armrest, the tasseled handles, the shades of amber silk that drew up and down on slender, braided cords, the tops of magazines revealing their names in the puckered side pockets. The motor purred like a leopard, and the upholstered seat felt soft and bouncy, as if he were riding on a feather bed.

They went over a bump and Leo’s head touched the upholstered ceiling above his head. “Whoopee – bump!” exclaimed Dagmar and they laughed again together. Then suddenly she turned to him and said, “I was surprised when Ma mentioned that you’d stopped playing your violin. Is it true, you’re not practicing these days?”

Leo shrugged but offered no comment.

“But you must practice. It’s very important, if you’re going to have a career in music. You do plan to take it up, don’t you?”

“I – I d-don’t know,” Leo stammered.

“Don’t know?”’ she exclaimed. “Of course you do -gracious, don’t talk nonsense.” She sucked in her cheeks and ran her tongue around her teeth. “See here. I don’t know what silliness came over you at Major Bowes. But these things happen at times. A string breaks, you hit a clinker, you forget where you are in a piece.” She eyed him intently. “Look at me, please, when I am talking to you. Don’t you want to be a musician? Don’t you want to be an artist?” she demanded.

“Yes, I want to play on the radio with Toscanini,” he blurted. Dagmar clapped her hands.

“Well, then – to be a fine musician requires not only diligence and practice but the will to be. No matter who tries to get in your way. All great artists have a sense of destiny, you know,” she went on, “that is what helps them become great. And they are strong, like steel, hard, because they cannot let anything or anyone stand in the way of their talent. They make the most of the moment when it comes. Carpe diem! You know what that means, don’t you? Seize the day! And fly on wings of song!”

On wings of song! Leo stared at her wonderingly.

She smiled her crusty, wrinkled smile. “Your mother would like that, wouldn’t she?”

“Yes.” Leo looked at her. How did she know about Emily?

Dagmar nodded with satisfaction. “I thought so. You loved your mother very much, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

She used the hand-strap to redistribute her weight into her corner of the seat. “You haven’t told me how you lost her.”

“It was an accident. A train accident.”

“Oh?” She drew down the upholstered arm and_ leaned toward him. “That is a tragedy, indeed.”

She straightened and lit one of her Camels. “See here,” she said, picking a fleck of tobacco from the tip of her tongue, “suppose I invited you to the Castle – you and your friends. Would you like that?”

Would he! He had thought to leave camp without ever clapping an eye on the famous shrunken head, and here was Dagmar suggesting a visit. And what a feather in his cap if he could walk into Jeremiah and make the announcement that they were going to the Castle.

“Oh yes! Very much,” he said.

“Well, you shall come, then, and see the shrunken head.” She paused, eyeing him. “And afterward, if you happened to bring along your violin, we might have a spot of music. Would you like that?”

“Perhaps. Who would listen?”

“I would, for one. And our friend, Fritz. I know you like Fritz. And, why, the boys of Harmony. You must invite them all, every one. Do you have any music?”

“Just some old pieces.”

“Sometimes the old pieces are the best ones. Do you know ‘Traumerei’?”

Yes. Leo knew the piece.

“Paganini’s Caprice in A Minor?”

Yes, he knew the Paganini, too.

“Suppose you just brush up a bit, then,” Dagmar said. “I shall have the piano tuned for the occasion. We shall play duets in the music room.”

Leo stared; if he played with her – surely he could do it then, could – how had she put it? – fly on wings of song! And see the Castle! He could hardly wait to get back and tell the guys!

“We’ll leave you here, then,” Dagmar said as Augie pulled over at the mailboxes. “Goodbye. Don’t forget – practice. It won’t make perfect but it helps.”

She waved and he waved back, cupping his hands and shouting: “Tack; tack, tack.” Then he made tracks for Jeremiah to tell Tiger and the others all about it. The moment he walked into the cabin, however, he met trouble. Not unnaturally, it originated in Garbage Gulch, which was what, in his journal, he’d dubbed Phil and Wally’s bunk rack. Tiger wasn’t around; Leo had forgotten, there was a meeting of the Sachems, who’d asked Tiger to attend. But Phil was there.

“We saw you,” he said, “getting out of Dagmar’s car. Doesn’t she know it’s against the rules, giving campers rides?” He draped his swim towel around his neck.

“Gosh, I don’t know,” Leo said, feigning innocence as he kicked off his sneakers. “Maybe you can remind her on Saturday – at the Castle.”

They didn’t get it. “What are you talking about?” Monkey asked. “Everybody knows we’re not allowed to go to the Castle anymore.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Leo retorted, flipping his hole card, an ace. “Because we’re invited to visit Dagmar there – next Saturday.”

Phil chose not to believe it. “Who’re you kidding?” he scoffed.

“I’m not kidding. I fixed it with her. For lunch and everything.”

Phil was astonished. “You fixed it?”

Dump snorted. “Aw, c’mon, Wacko, what d’you mean, fixed it? How?”

“It wasn’t hard. I just talked her into it, that’s all. I said it would be nice; a lot of the guys haven’t seen it.” “Including you, I suppose.”

“Why not? There’ll be music, too,” he added, tugging on his trunks. “Dagmar and I are going to play duets.” “Hope it’s better playing than at Major Bowes… ” Wally muttered as Leo hopped outside to pull his towel from the line.

“Don’t worry, Wally,” the Bomber said, saluting the news with a stupefying chain of farts. “You can ahvays stop your ears.”

Phil and Wally’s expressions said there was something fishy in it all, but Monkey and Dump and, on the opposite side of the cabin, Eddie Fiske signaled approval, and in a few minutes the news was being spread among the assembled swimmers at the dock that the Friend-Indeeders had been invited back to the Castle – and, according to the way he told it, all thanks to Wacko Wackeem.

In the age of the electric Frigidaire, Kelsoe’s icehouse was less a building than a relic of an earlier time, less a fact of life than a sentimentalized tradition. For years Moonbow campers had been hearing from Pa and Henry Ives tales of the “good old days,” when the Friends of Joshua would come out from Putnam in wintertime, sleighing and jingle-belling over the backcountry roads, bringing their saws to cut the ice and their baling hooks to haul the blocks up the tin-sheathed ramp from the shore to be stored, covered with sawdust and battened down under tarpaulins, against the coming hot summer months.

Decidedly smaller than a barn, the icehouse nonetheless had the atmosphere of one, with its lofty, shadowy spaces, its thick rooftree and timbers set with trunnels, mortised and tenoned; there was hardly a nail in the whole place. High in the rafters, gray papery wasp nests the shape of footballs swung in the breeze among mud-dauber dwellings so firmly chinked into the corners that they blended with the architecture. Half-rotted surfaces were overgrown with dark-green mosses and blue lichens, with patches of chemical-orange toadstools that thrived in the loamy soil. Here and there along the well-adzed rooftree, families of birds nested – barn swallows in little half-cups of mud and, in one corner, the straw-and-twig sack of an oriole. The cool interior smelled of mold, a pungent, mushroomy kind of odor, and over the years the room had become the habitat of whole colonies of grubs and termites, and spiders of a sort completely different from those that inhabited the meadow.

Leo had already found the place a good one for spiders; now he had decided it would be a perfect spot to practice in as well, a hideaway where he could fiddle to his heart’s content, where the walls would not only provide sounding boards for his music but prevent the sound from carrying to unwelcome ears. He shed his cap, the one Reece had objected to – these days the felt crown sported even more bottle caps, and buttons with views of Ausable Chasm and Niagara Falls that he’d traded for around camp; even a Coast Guard anchor he’d swapped for his Mel Ott bubble-gum card – and, having come across a beat-up peach basket to sit upon and an all-but-backless chair for a music stand, he made himself at home just within the side entrance. He opened his knapsack and brought out some sheet music, then unsnapped the catches of his violin case. He began softly, a do-re-mi scale, up and down, up and down, checking to see if he had gone rusty.

He practiced diligently for a while, performing the intricate finger exercises the way he’d been taught, endlessly repeating scales and arpeggios, coaxing the notes from his instrument, whose rich wood warmed against his throat. Then, when this became tedious, he had a go at “Traumerei.” It felt sweet, the happy return to something both natural and deeply satisfying, the thing that signified to him he was someone, not just Wacko Wackeem, but Leo Joaquim, who played the violin. The melody grew, amplified by the empty spaces of the icehouse, and he could feel the pulse of the violin on the flesh of his cheek.

After that, he played a couple of other favorites -the “Meditation” from Thais, the Bach Solfeggio – then attempted the Paganini Caprice. Finally he lifted the bow; the vibration ceased, the notes faded int9 silence, and he took stock of his performance. He told himself it had gone well – and why not, when there was nobody around to make him nervous? For a time all was quiet.

Outside a light breeze caused the tree leaves to tremble and riffled the water in the cove t and the golden sunlight, sifting down through the branches, dappled the ground. Leaving his place, he went outside the icehouse and settled himself against the wall beside the door, where, contentedly devouring a Mr Goodbar square by square, he reflected on his unexpected visit with Dagmar. It had been just the thing he’d needed to get him practicing again. Was it her own love of music that had caused her to interest herself in him? Had Ma said something to her? If so, what? Was it possible that he might have a career – that Emily’s dream would one day come true? Happy as that prospect might make him, it hardly seemed likely; his destiny lay among the pimpled orphans at Pitt.

Somewhere hidden from sight a woodpecker rapped out its hollow tattoo, and cicadas sang their summer passions, their buzzing electrifying the torpid air. Now and then a small fish splashed in the water, a bright pip, a series of rings, and calm again. This was paradise, he thought, the Garden before the Fall, when Adam was banished and took Eve to live east of Eden in the Land of Nod. The high, bright, sultry heat of midsummer had come on, the gorgeous cloud-fleeced days, each one more perfect than the last, and reason enough for Leo to forget the trials he had endured. He lay back on his elbows and gazed up at the trembling blue sky and, drawing his deepest breath, held it. Then, shutting his eyes, he began to count – one two three four – out loud. He told himself that if he could count up to one hundred on the same breath he would never have to leave this place, he could stay here forever. No – forever. ind a day. (He liked the phrase: “forever and a day.” That was as long as anyone could think of, forever and one more day. The pxtra day made all the difference.) I le would never have to leave, never never, this place where the sky was ocean-blue, a huge bowl in which butterflies swam like the fishes in the deep blue sea – so many golden fishes waiting to be caught, trophies of his Moonbow summer.

He rolled over and pulled Fritz’s book from his knapsack. Between its dark, worn covers he had discovered a glorious world of words and rhymes and images. There was a poem by Macaulay that he particularly liked, “Horatius at the Bridge,” retelling the old Roman legend of three brave warriors defending the city of Rome against the Etruscan hordes. It had to do with something very much on Leo’s mind these days: friendship.

“ ’East and west and south and north,’ ” he read,

The Messengers ride fast,

And tower and town and cottage Have heard the trumpet’s blast.

Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home,

When Porsena of Clusium Is on the march for Rome.

He broke off as a warm, moist tongue licked the back of his neck.

“Harpo!”

He rolled around with the dog, then sat up to see Tiger come charging across the meadow. He threw himself down beside Leo and looked at him with excited eyes and a big smile, while Harpo panted between them both.

“Is it true?” he said. “You fixed it with Dagmar for the Castle?”

“You heard?”

“Sure. Everybody’s talking – you’re the hero of the hour. Dagmar usually means what she says; you really must have fast-talked her.”

Afraid to meet his friend’s eye, Leo looked out across the pond. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“Come on, what do you mean ‘sort of’? Did you or didn’t you?”

“Sure. I did. It’s fixed.”

“That’s swell. Only don’t look so unhappy about it.”

Leo felt trapped in his lie – he hadn’t fixed it, it had been all Dagmar’s doing – and he didn’t like being untruthful with Tiger. Still, he could say the invitation had been issued because of him.

Just then, from the far distance came the throb of Doc Oliphant’s Moonbow Maid. Leo recognized Reece’s trademark yachting cap, and the flutter of his Hawaiian shirt – and next to him a golden head that could only belong to Honey.

The two boys watched as the speedboat sped past the mouth of the China Garden and cut a wide arc north, heading for Turtle Bay.

“I guess you heard about the crazy stunt Reece pulled this morning,” Leo remarked. Tiger, having finished up the Indian belt he had been making for his father, had been getting in some extra batting practice during crafts. “Yeah, I heard about it.”

Leo could see Tiger was embarrassed by the incident, but it was obvious he would see any real criticism of the counselor as disloyal. He did concede that Reece’s display of temper had not been the most glowing demonstration of the behavior expected of the camp’s Moonbow Warrior. “Reece’s got a temper,” he explained. “He gets it from Big Rolfe.”

Leo was indignant. “But he’s a grown-up, not a kid.” “Grown-ups don’t always act grown-up. Besides, all Germans have tempers – look at Hitler.” He rolled over and looked at Leo. “Were you able to mend the doll?” Leo described the patchwork job he’d managed. “The left eye got lost, though. I looked everywhere.”

Tiger said he’d help in the search; a one-eyed doll wasn’t going to please Willa-Sue much.

“How was your meeting?” Leo asked.

“Fine.” Leo waited; Tiger fiddled with a new Krazy Kat puzzle he’d bought, trying to roll the eyes into their sockets. “If you were wondering about the red feather Saturday night, don’t.”

“Was I blackballed again?”

Tiger’s expression indicated the answer was yes. For Leo this was bad news. There wouldn’t be too many more chances for him to be taken into the Senecas. He shook his head in woeful frustration. “All because of putting on the bonnet. What a dumb thing. With Pa right there.” Tiger put up a hand. “Forget it. I know you didn’t mean any disrespect.”

Leo reflected for some moments, then:

“What about Fritz? Was he blackballed again too?” Tiger nodded. It was a matter of general camp knowledge that, though there was a party among the Senecas in favor of Fritz’s nomination to the honor society, an opposing faction, headed, it was whispered, by Reece himself, violently opposed awarding Fritz the red feather. And why?

Because no Jew had ever been a Seneca, seemed to be the answer, just as no Jew had ever been allowed inside the Tunxis Country Club, where Rolfe Hartsig headed the steering committee.

Leo was disappointed for Fritz. It wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done anything to deserve the snub. And if camp was all about friends and friendships, well, it was just wrong, that was all.

Out on the water the Chris-Craft made another slow, curving pass. Leo watched glumly; the sight of Honey boating with Heartless depressed him.

Tiger began again. “I want to ask you… I have a question to put, okay?”

“Shoot.”

“Are you afraid of something?”

“Afraid? Of what?”

“You tell me. I mean, is something troubling you? Something I don’t know about?”

“What makes you think that?”

“I hear you sometimes. At night. You talk in your sleep.”

Leo was instantly on the alert. “When? When did I?” “Well, one time was the other night after the ghost stories. You went – where did you go to anyway?”

Leo rolled over and looked at the Steelyard house. “Over there.”

“Are you kidding? What made you do that?”

Leo shrugged. “I guess it was Hank’s story about Mary and – and the m-murder. I just wanted to look the place over again.”

“Jeez. I don’t get it.”

“I guess it sounds crazy, but – remember I told you about the butcher shop and us living over it? Well, the Steelyard place keeps reminding me of that house. I got this screwy idea – I don’t know, I can’t figure it out – but there’s something about it – it’s spooky. Even the inside was like our house.”

“Cripes! You mean you went inside?”

“Yup. It was really weird, the layout was practically the same. There was this dark spot on the floor – in the front hall – it looked like blood.”

“Come on, kiddo. You’re jazzing me.”

“No, I’m not. Then I went upstairs.”

“In the dark? By yourself? You’re either fearless or you’re nuts. Oh wow, sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s okay, forget it. The doc’d probably say nuts; I say fearless.”

They smiled at each other, then Tiger asked, “Did… did anything… happen?”

“Yes…”

“You’re kidding!” Tiger was on his knees, his eyes flashing his eagerness.

“I went into Mary Steelyard’s room. The corner room. It was like my mother’s room.”

“Oh, jeez, you’re not going to tell me you saw the ghost.”

“Worse. As I was coming down the stairs, I knew there was something there, something was hiding, I couldn’t hear it but I could feel it. When I reached the bottom step the door flew open and this thing rushed in-”

“Thing? What thing?”

“It was just a thing. A big dark thing. I couldn’t see what it was, but it grabbed me and it picked me up. I was hollering. I knew I was going to die. It was going to throw me into the cellar, but I kicked myself free.”

“You kicked?”

“That’s right. I kicked him… in the eye. Get it?”'

“Oh my gosh! In the – Oh cripes, you mean to say-” Tiger’s eyes grew wider; Leo was nodding to beat the band.

“So that’s how he got the shiner.” Tiger hooted, then launched himself at Leo, and they rolled over together in the grass, laughing as hard as they could; Harpo, who was drowsing in the shade, leaped up, tail a-wag, and joined in the fun. After a few moments they subsided, then, brushing themselves off, they lay back on the turf and were quiet for a while.

“What kind of things do I talk about?” Leo asked when Harpo had settled himself again.

“Well,” Tiger began, gazing up at the sky, “once I remember you said ‘Don’t do it.’ Right out loud. Then you said ‘Put it down.’ ”

“Did anyone else hear?”

“No one, as far as I can tell. At least nobody’s said.” Tiger stopped and chewed his lip. “Is there anything… I mean, you’re not exactly a blabber-mouth, I know, but if you wanted to talk ever

…”

Leo wanted, wanted so badly to get it all out, but he couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come.

“That’s okay,” he managed. “I mean, it’s nothing, honest. It’s just… well, nothing. But thanks, anyway.” He moved a little way away and squinted at the pond.

Tiger sat up, his eye on the back of Leo’s neck. “Come on, kiddo, don’t go clamming up on me again.”

“I wasn’t. I was just thinking about something.”

“What?”

“I was wondering what’s going to happen when camp's over.”

“Same old thing, I guess. It’ll be back to school for me, and for you-”

“It’s back to the Institute and the grease pits, I guess.” Come September Leo would be apprenticed as a mechanic in the Pitt garage, a prospect he detested. “But we’ll see each other, won’t we? This winter?”

“Heck yes.” Tiger was firm. “My mom’s going to invite you and Bomber to come stay overnight. Up in the attic. I’ve got a swell room. Double-decker bunks just like at camp, and the electric train.”

“Yeah,” Leo said, “I can’t wait to see that.”

“Just remember, until then, try and keep your nose clean.”

“Can’t I even pick it?”

“That’s not for me to say. And you need a haircut.” In a final burst of laughter Tiger was on his feet, Harpo too, and away they sped like a pair of jackrabbits.

Leo watched them go, then, relieving a foot that was going to sleep, he craned his neck, checking the sky for the time. By now the sun had shifted several degrees; he felt a bright beam shining into his eyes, and angled his head into its warmth. Behind his lids lights danced green and red and yellow, pinwheels of color, a vivid burst of patterns and shapes like Fourth of July fireworks exploding in his retina. He reminded himself that he should practice some more, but it was hard to concentrate when his thoughts flitted about as errantly as the dragonflies that hovered above the surface of the water, or – he glanced upward, his eye attracted by a flashing motion in the air. Overhead, limned sharply against the opalescent blue, two pale-yellow butterflies whirled in a frantic spiral of passionate activity. There was evidence of desperate persistence in their wild gyrations as one pursued the other, driven to mate, now joining her, now parting, now joining again. Leo observed the ritual with a certain cynicism. Why wouldn’t, couldn’t she simply give in and accept his advances? What need to lead him such a mad chase when ultimately there would come the gossamer embrace, and death? Poor butterfly. Maybe that was the real meaning of the song…

Poor Butterfly!›

’Neath the blossoms waiting Poor Butterfly!

For she loved him so.

He went back inside the icehouse, where he took up his violin again and resumed his practice. And as he played, he imagined her, Emily, seated in her chair, listening to the melody that was her favorite, brushing out her hair as she nodded and smiled approval. He could see the old woman who lived in the back room at Mrs Kranze’s, sitting in the iron bedstead in the corner, her bony fingers clasped under her chin, her eyes bright as she listened; and John Burroughs, the day they went to the park, when the merry-go-round played the song and he sat astride the painted horse with John standing at his side so he wouldn’t fall off; and the night of the big storm, when John – suddenly the light seemed to dim around him. The bridge – the bridge was going to be washed out, it would fall into the river, carrying with it anyone unlucky enough to be on it. He had known it was going to happen, hadn’t he? Somehow he’d imagined it every time he crossed the bridge. Why hadn’t he warned them? Was he to blame? The questions pin-wheeled in his head as he looked and turned away and looked again, saw the bridge falling into the river, saw the truck engulfed and Mother!

Mother!

MOTHER!

He stopped playing. His hand was shaking. It was true. Here, beside the lake, in the shade and the summer sun, he was shaking. Why should that be so? Here, beside Moonbow Lake, he still felt afraid.

The sun had moved on. He didn’t need a watch to tell him it was already three, and that he should get back to camp. No more practice today. He replaced his violin carefully in its case, gathered up his music, then turned to retrieve his knapsack. As he did so, in a shaft of light at the back of the icehouse, he spotted a spider, a big fat black-and-yellow one. He fished out his notebook and made one of his customary notes on the creature’s web and habitat, then flipped it into a box. He was just sliding the lid home when the deep-throated roar of the Chris-Craft engine shattered his sanctuary, and, glancing out the door, he recoiled in alarm. The Moonbow Maid was speeding across the water, heading in a beeline for the China Garden – was only a hundred yards away. Even now, Reece, with Honey beside him, was cutting the motor, and Leo could make out their features clearly, including details like the radium-dial watch on Reece’s wrist, the barrette in Honey’s hair. What were they doing here? Had she come to pick the water lilies?

He felt the clutch of panic, as if he were about to be caught redhanded in some criminal act, and, keeping well out of sight, he tried to think. He knew he couldn’t escape without being seen, but if Reece did see him, what would he say? And Honey… And even as he agonized he knew he’d waited too long. He dashed to the door and retrieved his violin and music, then retreated again into the shadows, while the brass-trimmed prow of glossy mahogany carved its way lightly, quietly now, through the bed of lily pads -in which Honey showed no seeming interest – and into the icehouse inlet, where there was a bit of beach. Reece was handing Honey out of the boat. He passed her a grocery sack, and, bringing along a blanket and Honey’s portable phonograph, he joined her ashore. In a few minutes they had made their way to a spot where, tucked away amid a lush brake of ferns nestled under the drooping fronds of a weeping willow, they set down their things and spread out the blanket. Reece put a record on the phonograph and they made themselves comfortable.

What was Leo to do? If he showed himself to them now, he would stand accused of being a Peeping Tom – which was not far from the truth, as from his hiding place he continued to watch, knowing it was wrong, unable to stop himself. His gaze lingered on Honey as she took a brush from her bag and began brushing her hair. Reece turned on one hip, then leaned across her to pull a couple of bottles from the sack, a beer and a Coca-Cola.

“Toss us the church key,” he said.

Honey obliged with the bottle opener, then lay back, watching him uncap the soda pop and drink thirstily, and Leo saw how her polka-dot blouse drew snugly across the curve of her breasts, how they rose and fell with her breathing – a trifle fast, he thought, as if she was excited. One at a time Reece raised his outstretched legs, exercised their muscles, and set them down again while Honey lay back, and the soft sound of her voice floated across the distance between her and the icehouse.

She laughed at something Reece said; he laughed too. He was making an effort to be entertaining and amusing for her benefit: Heartless hard at work. It was easy to see why people found him as charming and winning as they did; he certainly was plenty charming with Honey. He didn’t touch her, but just talked in that bantering way of his. He lay back, one leg cocked over the other knee, hands clasped behind his head, looking up at the clouds.

Honey was laughing now, about a school friend summering on Cape Cod who’d been so badly sunburned she couldn’t go on the beach where all the cute guys hung out. While she talked on enthusiastically about Sally, Reece turned the record over. It was Guy Lombardo, and Reece pinched his nostrils and sang through his nose like Guy’s vocalist brother, Carmen:

I saw you last night and got that old feeling.

When you came in sight I got that old feeling

The music ended, and Reece took the record off; they talked some more, and suddenly Leo was shocked to hear his name mentioned. They were talking about him!

“I think he’s very clever,” he heard Honey saying, “getting the boys invited back to the Castle, when you couldn’t talk Dagmar into it. I think he has a lot of moxie.”

Leo couldn’t believe it! They were talking about him, and Honey – Honey was sticking up for him!

Not Reece, though. “A lot of nerve, you mean,” he said with a nasty chuckle.

“No, be serious, can’t you? He’s not like the other boys. He’s different.”

“Weird, you mean. One of these days he’s going to pull one dumb stunt too many and it’ll be goodbye Wacko Wackeem.”

“I don’t like to hear you talk like that. I feel sorry for him. He has no family, no one to look after him – living in that awful place-”

“How do you know it’s awful?”

“It’s an orphanage, isn’t it? All orphanages are awful. He has such sad eyes sometimes. But he’s so cheerful. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself. He’s really quite comical-” “I don’t think he’s so funny,” Reece growled.

“Oh, you – you’re such a stick-in-the-mud.” She drank from her Coke, then went on. “You have to admit, he plays the violin beautifully.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. Didn’t you hear him at Major Bowes? Talk about chalk on the blackboard.”

“So he made a mistake. That can happen to anyone-” “Look, let’s change the subject, huh?” He leaned toward her, and what happened next, Leo didn’t care for at all.

Reece reached a long arm into the grass and plucked a flower – a buttercup. Then, tilting Honey’s head back and bringing his head closer, he rotated the blossom under her chin to see if she liked butter.

“Do you?” she asked.

“Sure do.” He came closer still.

“Oh, you,” she said, laughing. His lips were right next to her ear; in a quick move, he kissed her. Leo felt his blood begin to rush. This was the last thing he wanted to see, Reece necking with Honey Oliphant, but what could he do?

“Don’t,” said Honey, shivering and ducking her head between her shoulders, “that tickles.” She giggled, then, and lay back, and Reece took the cold beer bottle and laid it against her chest. She made tiny squeaking sounds of protest and pushed his hand away.

“Please don’t do that!”

“Why not? Don’t you like it?”

“No. It’s cold!”

“I can fix that,” Reece said, chuckling again. “Here’s something warmer,” and he set the bottle down and laid his cheek where the cold glass had touched her, between her breasts. Unable to look away, Leo swallowed and licked his lips, adjusted his position slightly, froze as Honey sat up again.

“What was that?” she said, peering toward the icehouse. “I think someone’s there.”

“It’s a wolf,” Reece said with a mock leer, “and he’s coming to eat you all up, gobble-gobble-gulp.”

“If you ask me, you’re the one who’s the wolf. What if somebody should come along and find us?”

“So what? We’re not doing anything illegal, are we? Besides” – looking at his watch with the phosphorescent face – “it’s swim time. Relax.”

“I’m sure I heard something. Go and see,” Honey urged. “Over there, in the icehouse-”

“Okay, let’s have a quick look.” Reece got up, vaulted the stream, and cut across the plot of grass in the direction of the icehouse. Frantically Leo looked around for someplace to hide. There was none that he could see. He crouched down, not really out of sight, praying that among the shadows he wouldn’t be discovered. He held his breath, listening to the sound of Reece’s footsteps, eyes shut tight, as if that alone might ward off discovery. For a moment or two everything was quiet; then he heard the sound of water. Opening his eyes and raising his head a little, he saw Reece standing just inside the doorway, peeing against the wall, now glancing back over his shoulder at a large fly buzzing around him. Leo ducked. When he took another look Reece was buttoning his shorts, glancing up at the rafters, where the swallows were flying about. Then, apparently satisfied, he left the building and trotted back to Honey.

Leo quickly resumed his lookout, but now he had difficulty seeing. Honey and Reece were no longer sitting up, they were lying side by side on the blanket. Reece was stripping off his shirt, tossing it aside as he slid an arm around Honey’s waist, drawing her to him. Though Leo had seen them together before, though he’d seen them dancing close together, their bodies touching as they bent and swayed to the music, that distressing sight had been nothing compared with this; this was horizontal stuff! His heart began to pound. He tried improving his angle of sight but it was no good: Honey was mostly hidden by Reece, who was stretched alongside her on the blanket. Unable to make out what was happening, Leo listened with greater urgency, cocking his head, cupping his ear, frowning in studied concentration as he tried to catch some intelligible fragment of speech. No dice; it was all mumbles.

Risking discovery, he ventured from the icehouse, creeping around the doorframe and wriggling through the grass to get closer. Reece was sitting up now, and he had Honey lying, on her back across his thighs; his fingers were unfastening the buttons of her blouse. As she murmured protestingly, one by one he undid them and then slipped the blouse down, baring her tanned shoulders, drawing it away little by little until her pink brassiere was exposed. “No, don’t, we mustn’t,” Leo heard her murmur.

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because my mother wants me to be a good girl.” She tried to do up the buttons.

He fussed with her hands. “You are a good girl,” he said huskily. “But listen, what did we come here for?”

“We came to have a nice time. You said you wanted to talk.”

“I do, dreamgirl, I really do. Only you got me so darned excited. You really send me.”

“Then suppose you just come back from wherever I sent you. I think we should be going, honest. We can’t sit here all day, can we?”

“I don’t know why not.”

She started to get up and he reached out and pulled her down again, clasping her to him. He cupped his palms behind her head, gripping it while he kissed her hard on the mouth, kissed her until she began to struggle, until, as if she were drowning, her arms began to flail about, her fists to beat helplessly at him. At last their lips parted and, pulling back, she stared at him in shocked surprise, then tried to break away from him, but his hands gripped her shoulders. With his mouth buried in her neck he forced her back onto the blanket, and, in a quick move, rolled on top of her, tearing at her blouse. Now he had his fingers entangled in her hair, his face buried between her breasts. Her features were half-hidden by locks of hair plastered across them, and she moaned and called out as she thrashed about under the weight of his torso sprawled across her.

“Oh, no, don’t!” she cried in a frightened voice. “Please don’t! You’re hurting me!” She began sobbing so hard that he released her. Then, when she had got to her knees and was struggling with her torn clothing he took her by surprise and dragged her down again.

“Hey, not so fast,” he drawled, “Daddy’s still got some thing coming to him.”

He pinned her down as before, working at her with his whole body while she struggled to free herself.

“Help! Help!” she called out. Leo caught a glimpse of her face, pale and and terrified. Saw Reece’s face too; he was panting like an animal. And then, suddenly, Leo was watching him smash the doll, seeing the broken pieces on the ground. Was this what he planned for Honey, to smash her, too?

“Damn you, Reece Hartsig!” Suddenly Leo was on his feet, running across the grass, hollering at the top of his lungs. Without stopping, he flung himself onto Reece’s back, pummeling him until he rolled off of Honey, carrying his assailant with him.

“Jesus! What the hell!”

Twisting around, Reece got a look at his attacker – Wacko Wackeem – then he peered dazedly about for the rest of the ten-man powerhouse that must have struck him as Leo continued the assault, striking out blindly wherever he could land a blow. Finally, one wild punch connected with Reece’s nose. He howled in pain, and there was a sudden burst of bright red as he began to bleed. Leo stepped back; groping in his pocket, Reece pulled out his bandanna and clapped it over his face, his eyes tearing from pain – effectively prevented from making any counterattack on his assailant.

As Reece threw his head back to help reduce the flow of blood, Leo turned to Honey, who was on her feet now, sobbing and covering her exposed breasts with her crossed arms. Her hair hung over her eyes, and her shorts were stained. Then, still sobbing, she grabbed her blouse and fled toward the beach, where she clambered into the speedboat, started the motor, and sped away, while I t*o turned to face the wrathful, blood-spattered Reece. Standing now, his feet planted well apart for balance, he stared furiously at Leo.

“What the hell is this all about?” he growled. “Where did you come from?”

Leo pointed at his hiding place. “I was in there! I was watching. I saw it all. I saw what you were doing to her!” “What are you talking about? I wasn’t doing anything.” “You hurt her!”

Reece’s look was scornful. “Why, you lousy little shit, I ought to brain you! You don’t know what you’re talking about. We were just having some fun.” He patted his nose with the bloodied handkerchief. “You keep it up, Wacko, just keep it up. One of these days you’re going to get it good.”

He turned on his heel and stalked back to the blanket. “What am I supposed to do with this crap, anyway?” He looked at Leo. “Okay, camper, let’s have a little clean-up detail here. Pack up this gear and tote it back to camp. On the double.”

“Clean it up yourself.”

“What did you say?”

“I said clean it up yourself. You tote it, it’s your stuff.” And while Reece, arms akimbo, watched him with sullen fury, Leo turned on his heel and headed for the icehouse to get his paraphernalia. When he reappeared – the counselor was nowhere to be seen. The lake-shore was empty, the waters of the China Garden quiet once more, and for a moment Leo thought he must have imagined the violent scene. But he could still hear Honey’s cries in his ears, and suddenly, again recalling the broken doll, he felt afraid.

During the warm forenoon of the following Saturday, Leo stood in the blinding July sunlight, gazing out from the parapet of the tall stone tower at the Castle. The view was dazzling. Six miles off, across the billowing treetops, he could just glimpse a wedge of glittering water that was a reach of Moonbow Lake, and intermittent sections of the Old Lake Road winding through the countryside. Above his head the Stars and Stripes snapped at the white-painted flag mast, casting its shadow across the worn slates beneath his feet, and the tower itself, girdled by its crenellated fortifications, seemed to him like the forecastle of a medieval galleon plying a dark-green sea.

Nothing he had yet heard from Fritz or Tiger about the Castle had prepared him for all that he had discovered here. Designed by an architect known for his advanced ideas, built of local materials – oak and pine, fieldstone and quarried slate – the house had been constructed in tiers against the mountain, out of whose side it seemed to grow. The tower where Leo stood had been built almost single-handedly by Dagmar’s husband, Knute, the thousands upon thousands of stones making up its walls, staircase, and crenellations gathered from fields all around the countryside or dug out of the earth of Mount Zion itself, to lend a touch of the European past to a country that had never known it.

Leo, who had climbed to the summit with a group led by Fritz Auerbach, reveled in the feeling of airy spaciousness, in the astonishing sense of freedom and glorious release. Only if he stared straight down at the gallery and terrace, where numbers of Harmonyites sprawled about on the redwood furniture, luxuriating in the sunshine while under the vocal supervision of Bullnuts Moriarity the collapsible lunch tables were being carried from the camp truck and the food pans readied, did he become prey to the sensation of vertigo. He blinked, shut his eyes, to get himself under control; today was no time for that sort of nonsense. Today was high adventure, the fulfillment of his hopes of getting a look at Dagmar’s treasures, the impossible somehow come true. Nothing must spoil it – not even Reece Hartsig, who mercifully had not yet put in an appearance on the scene.

Leo had replayed in his mind the scene at Kelsoe’s icehouse a thousand times in the days since it had occurred, and always it had a different, uglier, more tragic end, for in his thoughts he never got to Reece in time, never did save Honey. Of course, he knew that wasn’t what had happened at all, that Honey was safe: on the pretext of visiting her friend Sally down on Cape Cod, she had removed herself from Moonbow without a word to anyone except her family. Not even Peewee was able to predict when she would return, and her departure from Friend-Indeed had left an undeniable hole in the fabric of the summer. Perhaps, Leo thought, it was the fact that she was gone, while Reece remained and went on as before – thus far not a word appeared to have been circulated about what had happened – that made him replay the scene as he did. For nothing was changed, yet everything was changed for Leo where the counselor of Jeremiah was concerned. Reece might pretend – as he did so well, and craftily – that nothing was wrong; in front of others he was equable, even friendly, but from a steely look, a frown, an unspoken word, Leo knew that Reece was now his enemy and there would be no making up. Not that Leo much wanted to make up; for him the hero was fallen, and his once admiring view of his counselor had become one of scorn and disapproval. And fear. Of course, Leo now saw, the awe in which Reece was held at Friend-Indeed had always contained an element of fear – of what would happen when a camper lost Reece’s favor, when the clouds of anger gathered about that Herculean brow. And the fact was, Leo, in defying him, had now stirred him to a rage that would be unrelenting. Though in front of others he smiled and played his Mr Nice Guy game; though, between the two, not a word had been uttered about the icehouse, about Leo’s bruises, about Honey’s sudden departure, Leo knew, and Reece knew that he knew, and Leo knew… It was like the girl in the Land O’Lakes carton, an infinity of possibilities.

Reece could not know, however, that, for Honey’s sake, Leo was determined to say nothing, not even to Tiger or the Bomber. He had confided in Fritz, who said that the whole incident was best forgotten. Honey was out of trouble, no one the wiser, and better to let the ugliness fade away. Which was all well and good, Leo thought – except that the hostility remained. Brief, private looks from Reece, in the dining hall, the coop, the crafts barn, revealed his feelings of resentment, and only Leo (and Fritz) could see the wolf’s teeth behind the smile.

At least the hike to this astonishing place on this glorious morning had been free of the counselor’s presence

– he had had an “appointment he couldn’t break” in Putnam, and would be driving over “later” in the Green Hornet. Upon receipt of this news, Dagmar had commented in that acerbic way of hers that if she had his number right he’d turn up just about the time lunch was being served.

There had been one arrival of note, however; half an hour ago a car had driven up, and its passenger – a stranger to Leo – had received’ a cordial welcome from Dagmar. She and the man were now seated on the terrace talking together, and as Leo looked down from his eyrie he saw both heads turned upward. Were they talking about the tower, or perhaps the sky, which was showing signs of weather – or about Leo? Though why he should imagine such a thing, he couldn’t say.

His thoughts were interrupted by Fritz’s suggestion that they go down. The rest of the viewing party had already disappeared through the small doorway that led to the circular flight of steps. “Come, let me show you the trophy room,” Fritz said, pocketing his little telescope and steering Leo down the descending spiral and along the gallery to this treasure house, the high-beamed room where Dagmar’s collection of artifacts was housed, a trove of exotic impedimenta that took up every flat surface, every inch of wall space. Here was a wastebasket hollowed from an elephant’s foot, a matched pair of narwhale tusks; a grass skirt from Waikiki, and a pair of teakwood-and-brass opium pipes from Canton; a half-dozen fierce-looking Fijian ceremonial masks and an array of primitive weaponry, including bamboo blowpipes that shot poison darts – and the famous shrunken head.

“Ain’t it somethin’?” the Bomber boomed. “Did you ever see anything so fierce-lookin’?”

Leo hadn’t. The head was the most grotesque object he had ever set eyes upon. About the size of a baseball, it had black skin as wrinkled and stiff as old leather. Hanks of coarse hair, black and still glossy, sprouted from the scalp. The hideous features were at once alarming and strangely complaisant: on the one hand the owner seemed to have expired in a moment of extreme agony – this Leo deduced from the painful grimace of the cracked and torn lips -while on the other the closed eyes – sewn shut with a series of neatly taken stitches – lent the face a peculiar air of peaceful slumber.

Noting the others’ eyes on him as they waited for his reaction, he turned away with studied indifference to find himself standing before a vitrine shaped roughly like a clock case on whose half dozen glass shelves were exhibited a collection of glass paperweights.

“That’s the one, Wacko,” Eddie said.

“The one what?”

“In the middle.” Eddie pressed his fingertip on the glass, leaving a smudge. “That’s the one Stanley stole.”

Leo could understand why someone might want to steal the paperweight: it was a real beauty, a dome-shaped mou nil imprisoning a bouquet of flowers. And while the others went outside again, he lingered behind, contemplating the brightly gleaming object, thinking about the culprit and remembering the story: Stanley had pocketed it, then smuggled it back to camp and hidden it in his suitcase, where it was sure to be found. He should have known that was the first place they’d look for it. Stanley couldn’t have been very bright.

The doorway of the adjacent room (this was Dagmar’s music room) stood next to the cabinet, and, before joining the others – from outside now Moriarity could be heard bellowing “Come and get it!” as he banged on an aluminium pan – Leo stopped to check out the space where later he was to perform. Suddenly his heart began to pound. All morning he had resolutely refused to consider the fact that this afternoon he was to give his first public performance since Major Bowes Night. Now he couldn’t help remembering that his playing had been part of the bargain between him and Dagmar that had made the visit to the Castle possible, and he steeled himself for the ordeal, praying he wouldn’t disgrace himself again. He liked the look of the room very much. It was long and low-ceilinged, with the ebony grand piano standing in the corner at the far end, away from the fireplace. On the fringed shawl that half-covered it, next to a Chinese vase filled with roses, stood a bust in dark bronze (Beethoven, the eyes glowering sternly from under a majestic brow), and beside that, where Augie had placed it earlier, Leo’s own violin.

Again he heard Moriarity’s bellow – “Last call, last call” and turned to go, heading for the chow line upon which hungry campers were converging from all directions.

“Can I eat with you?” Leo asked Fritz.

“Why don’t we go see what Dagmar has to say?” he replied. “Well, come along, it’s all right.” Together, he and Leo crossed the gallery, to meet with Dagmar, who was heading in their direction. Accompanying her was the stranger. He was wearing a wrinkled suit; his head was bald on top, with frizzy locks that drooped over his collar, and he had warm, friendly eyes.

“This is Professor Pinero,” Dagmar said as they came up.

The man smiled kindly. “How do you do, Leo,” he said. Leo liked him right away.

“The professor teaches music,” their hostess explained.

Leo took care to keep his eyes lowered. Dagmar was up to something; he didn’t know what, but suddenly he was afraid. He could see the toes of the man’s shoes and the cuffs of his trousers.

Dagmar must have read his thoughts, for, reaching for his hand to guide him along the gallery, she said, “I invited the professor to come and visit with us today. We’re going to take lunch together.”

“Yes,” the professor said. “And afterward, your friend Dagmar tells me, I’m to have the pleasure of hearing you play. I’m looking forward to that, I assure you.”

Leo felt trapped. This was something he hadn’t counted on at all. Had the professor come to audition him or – or what?

While Fritz and the professor chatted in a friendly fashion, Leo glanced nervously at Dagmar, whose eyes snapped with interest, her look saying she was waiting to hear what Leo had to say to her unexpected guest. Rescue came at the hands of Augie, who, wearing a shiny black jacket and no cap, and comfortable-looking slippers on his feet, stepped up to his mistress with word that lunch was ready.

Dagmar looked toward the end of the gallery, where, in a little pergola, a table had been set. “Leo will be joining us for lunch,” she announced. “But first he might want to wash his hands, if you’ll show him where.”

Obeying, Leo started to follow Augie, only to bump headlong into Reece, who had come bounding up the steps.

“Easy there, Kemo Sabe,” he said brusquely, looking him over. “Where are you off to in such a rush?”

“He’s just going to the bathroom,” Dagmar said. “That’s all right, Augie, take him along.”

“Don’t get lost,” Reece said with a friendly wave, as Leo hurried after Augie, while the counselor turned, still smiling, to Dagmar. “You have to watch some of these guys every minute,” he said, jokingly. “Hello, Auntie, how’s about a kiss.”

Dagmar presented her cheek, but her tone was tart as she returned his greeting.

“Hello yourself, renegade. I said you’d probably put in an appearance as soon as food was in the offing. Here’s Fritz; say hello to him.”

Reece and Fritz exchanged strained greetings; then Dagmar introduced Reece to the professor. “Reece is Leo’s counselor,” she explained. “We’re just about to sit down,” she said to Reece. “It might be nice if you joined us.” “Sure, why not?”

“Leo and Fritz will be with us, too,” she added.

“An interesting lad you have there,” the professor said to Reece. “Very bright.”

“Oh, sure,” Reece returned easily. “We’re expecting big things from Leo. Very big.” He glanced at Fritz, then grinned at Dagmar. “If it’s all the same to you, on second thought I think I’ll just eat with the hoi polloi and leave Leo to astonish you and the professor on his own-” Dagmar drew her chin down. “Very well, counselor; if that is your wish, do by all means. Go along, go along, try to keep the boys from throwing food; they seem quite boisterous today.”

As Reece trotted down the steps, Dagmar escorted her guests into the pergola, where they seated themselves at the round glass-topped table.

“A handsome young man, very intelligent-looking. Tell me something about him,” Professor Pinero said, unfolding his napkin and laying it across his lap. “Is there some difficulty between him and our young camper?”

Dagmar hesitated, turning the ring on her finger while considering, then, including Fritz in her remark, she said: “I don’t think ‘our young camper,’ as you call him, is exactly Reece’s notion of a proper Moonbow camper.” She glanced down to where Reece leaned against the parapet, talking to a group of boys. “He sometimes – Qu’est-ce qu’on peut dire de ce jeune homme?” she said to Fritz.

“Madame is finding it hard to be tactful,” Fritz explained. “Though one of our camp mainstays, Reece is sometimes forceful and demanding in his expectations of people.” “But Leo is a good camper,” Dagmar said firmly. “It’s not easy for a boy of his background to fit in with a pack of savages like these.” She laughed indulgently at the boisterous crowd.

Leo returned to the table with spotless hands, and no sooner had he settled into his chair than Augie arrived with a tray of tempting-looking lobster salads, which he set out on the table with tall glasses of iced tea. When he disappeared, Dagmar used the tines of her fork to poke among the leaves of Hartford Bronze lettuce, turning over bits and pieces of lobster and celery, checking the quality of their preparation. She ate with precision, chewing each mouthful carefully and patting her lips with her napkin at intervals.

While the adults made small talk, Leo endeavored to keep his eyes on his plate, employing his cutlery as best he knew how and listening to the conversation. He learned several interesting bits he had not been aware of before. One, Dagmar had not been a childless wife, as Leo had assumed, but had borne a son, who had died in the Great War, at Ypres.

“But having lost my own boy,” she said, “I have found so many other boys to take his place, which is why I enjoy having them running about our castle. They make me merry, and I’m glad I’ve got them back.”

Then Fritz disclosed that two Swiss Red Cross officials, who were expected to arrive in Washington, D.C., some time next month, might have word about his family. He hoped to be able to talk with them.

From time to time the professor’s friendly look would make sure to include Leo, as if to say, Isn’t it nice that we can share this bit of time together? But what was he doing here? Obviously Dagmar had invited him for some reason; he hadn’t just dropped in out of the blue.

Leo’s hand made a sudden, almost involuntary movement toward his water goblet, and instead of taking it by the stem he knocked it over. The water spilled across the tabletop and dripped between the glass and the wrought-iron frame.

“It’s all right, no harm done,” said Dagmar, mopping up, while Fritz shifted his gaze to the sky, which had turned a darker, more ominous shade.

“I wonder if our fine day hasn’t ended?” he murmured. The wind had freshened and the trees were showing the pale undersides of their leaves.

Dagmar, too, scanned the heavens for signs. “Rain, Augie?” she asked.

“Didn’t I say?” Augie replied. “Barometer’s droppin’.”

“And not a word in the paper. Perhaps you’d better close a few windows. Now,” she went on, briskly rubbing her palms together and looking first at Fritz, then at the professor, “I think perhaps it is time for us to have a little music, eh? What do you say, Leo, shall we go along and see if my Pleyel is in good tune?” She leaned toward him to scrutinize him more closely. “Leo, are you all right? You’re not ill, are you?”

“No.”

“Good. Shall we move, then, to the music room? Professor Pinero is eager to hear you play. I want everything to go exactly as I have planned it.”

Leo slipped a sidelong glance at Fritz, and another over the parapet to Reece in the driveway. Catching the look, Reece smiled up amiably, that amazing little trick of his. Leo felt his hands getting clammy. It was no use, he couldn’t play; stubbornly he shook his head, his eyes riveted on the monogrammed napkin on his lap. There was a long pause, during which he felt all eyes on him and he wished the earth might open and swallow him up.

“Very well, then,” Dagmar said at last, and, flinging Fritz an exasperated look, she went to the railing and called down to the other campers, telling them to come along, it was time for “a spot of music.” As they came trooping up the stairs, she shooed them in the direction of the music room. “Come in, boys, come in, don’t be shy,” she cried, leading the way as knots of them hung about in the various doorways, reluctant to intrude into so hallowed a place.

While Fritz waited, Leo dawdled on the terrace, concentrating on the view. Overhead a flock of crows winged past the tower, veering steeply to disappear among the trees down in the glen, while from far up the valley, north of Moonbow Lake, there came a solitary clap of thunder that rolled out of the gathering clouds like the distant peal of a bronze bell and died away into nothingness.

“Leo?” Fritz prompted. “You remember what we talked about? You have been given a valuable gift-you must make the most if it. You want to play, you know you do. I can see it in your face.”

It was true. He was feeling little feverish flickers of excitement, and an undeniable pleasure, but at the same time his fingers felt hot and swollen, and his stomach was churning. If only Reece weren’t here.

Fearing the worst, he left the parapet with Fritz, and joined the stragglers leaping over the threshold to the music room, shuffling to distribute themselves, some on the soft, plumpy furniture, Reece and the Jeremians scattered along the window seats, the rest on the Oriental rugs dotting the floor. The professor was ensconced in a tall-backed chair, and while Leo squeezed in between Tiger and the Homln, Fritz, his cap tipped back on his head, perched himself. imp the woodpile between two doors.

Finally, when the last camper had hunkered down in a corner, Dagmar, standing in the bow of her piano, welcomed the newest visitors to the Castle and remembered the old ones. Then, shedding her fingers of their rings, she seated herself on the bench, checked the pedals, and raised her hands over the keyboard to begin. Leo recognized the selection at once: Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave,” a sonorous piece that brought out the best that the Pleyel had to offer.

Despite the arthritis in her fingers, Dagmar played expertly, with grace and elan, and as she played she looked over the top of the music rack and smiled at Leo; in that smile he read a variety of things: wishing and disappointment, and the fleeting expression of a stout will that seemed to be telling him that any musician who could execute such lyric passages should never be thwarted, only encouraged to play, and that music – oh, such music – was the soul’s balm; let no one stand in the way of its purest expression.

When she had brought the final passage to its close, she let her hands drop into her lap while the boys’ applause echoed about the room. As a group they had settled down now and become serious music-appreciators; no one fidgeted, no one giggled, no one looked bored. Dagmar smiled at the professor, and at Fritz, and after a moment she began again, this time the Moonlight Sonata. Her strong, wrinkled face expressed a simplicity of effort, as if the creation of such perfection of sound were the easiest trick in the world to manage, and once or two times more Leo felt that her wandering eye was seeking him out.

Then, rather than following the sonata’s first, slow movement with the second, faster one, she stopped playing, and before anyone could react, tiddled the notes of “Kitten on the Keys” – her little joke.

“More! More! Encore!” the boys called, laughing.

But instead she sat, neck straight, head erect, her eyes now resting on Leo. Well, they seemed to say, what about it, my young friend? Are you willing? Or will you still sit there on my pretty velvet settee, stubborn and afraid? This is your last chance. Will you let the moment pass? Leo hesitated. He knew that everyone was waiting for Dagmar to say or do something, unaware that she was waiting for him. He slid his eyes to Reece, who leaned casually against the wall, his expression unreadable behind his dark glasses,- then drew another breath, and in that breath, suddenly in his mind he stood apart from himself; it was as if he had become another person, a disinterested party, someone else altogether. He saw himself getting to his feet, nodding to the professor, who sat very straight, his look filled with anticipation, saw himself walking away from the settee toward the piano, toward those blue-gray eyes. He placed his fingertips lightly on the neck of his violin. His brows rose; a silent question was both asked and answered. Now Dagmar smiled. How did she know? But she did, she did. He heard a clock striking somewhere, in another room, as if in some other house, but its message was clear. The hour was his. Now was the moment. He would play; must play.

Since they had already agreed on a selection – the “Traumerei” he had worked on – there seemed nothing more to do but begin. Jutting out his chin, he nestled the instrument into the nook of his shoulder, took a deep breath, glanced at Dagmar. She gave him a tiny nod, then leaned forward slightly, bringing her body into play, and her fingers softly sounded the first piano chords.

He began, sliding his bow across the strings, making music – awful music. The notes were on key, but they were parched notes, without luster, passionless. He struggled for mastery, attempting to focus his gaze on a neutral line above the sight line of his audience – but found his eyes straying helplessly to Reece.

Please, help me, he silently prayed. Prayed for. 1 l›‹›ml› to be dropped on the roof and blow him up, violin and. ill Surely he could not go on. Better to quit now. Crazy to think he could get away with it this time. Then he struck a wrong note full out; its wretched sound screeched in his ear. Mortified, he glanced impulsively at Dagmar, and as though on cue her eyes met his. He expected reproach, but saw none. Instead, in that moment he recalled the words she had tried to impress on him: words about reaching out, about being hard as steel, about letting no one stand in your way. Make the most of your moment when it comes – seize it, seize it, he heard her saying. Carpe diem, carpe diem.

He must go on, he must. As he repeated these words over and over in his mind, something began to happen: a warm, comforting wave washed over him and suddenly he felt safer, calmer, more relaxed. His breathing came more easily, then the musical tone itself began to alter, the notes vibrated differently, they stretched themselves out, richly, roundly, his bow glided more smoothly and effortlessly.

Again his eye swung to Dagmar, bent over the keys, her body “helping the music,” playing effortlessly, with great delicacy, traces of a smile now on her lips. Yes, she seemed to be saying. This. This is what I hoped to hear, these notes, this music… this, my young friend…

Beyond the doors and windows, the sky had darkened so that additional lights had to be switched on to illuminate the room, their beams throwing circles across the plastered ceiling. As Dagmar took a hand from the keyboard to switch on the little vellum-shaded lamp at her shoulder, Leo’s glance flicked along the row of faces, moving from one camper to the next, from Tiger to the Bomber, to Emerson Bean and Junior Leffingwell, from Pete Melrose to Gus Klaus and Oggie Ogden, all listening to him.

The piece ended, too soon, he thought, and marveled that it had gone so quickly. “On the wings of song,” wasn’t that what she’d said? To fly on wings?

He heard the applause, saw Fritz’s nod of approval, and he glanced again at Dagmar, waiting awkwardly while she riffled through the stack of music at her elbow. Approving a selection, she beckoned him to her side. When he saw its title, he felt a pang of fear. It was the Paganini Caprice in A Minor. But before he could protest she was off. He must follow. He touched his bow lightly to the strings, jerked his chin up, and he was off too. There, you’ve got it, he told himself as the notes danced into the air, light and bright and intricate, like so many children at play. His bowing hand flew, and his spirit soared with the music. He glanced at Professor Pinero, who sat now with his head against the back of his chair, eyes almost closed, on his face what Leo judged to be a look of approval. Glancing sideways now, he kept his eye on the tip of his bow. It was moving with control and rhythm, the angle changing as it made itself felt upon the strings, the bony wrist and long, thin fingers drawing forth the music. And, ah, the music! The melody seemed to pour from the curved belly of the violin to float upward to the ceiling, then come flooding down and out, filling all ears. He was performing with an assurance that was undeniable, his body hunching, tilting, swaying as he drew the melody to its sharp, pizzicato ending.

There was a moment’s silence. Dagmar took her fingers from the keys, eyes shining with pleasure, while Leo, stiffly dropping his arms and instrument to his sides, stared at the floor. Then the wave of applause washed over him. A deep peal of thunder sounded, rolling across the valley, ominous in the way of all thunderclaps heralding storms, yet, for Leo, somehow a sovereign sign of his victory. He glanced at Reece, who was applauding -perfunctorily? – with the others. Swallow that, Heartless, he thought, giddy with happiness. Chew on those glissandos awhile.

Not knowing what else to do, be bowed slightly, catching sight of the smiling professor, who called, “Encore, encore!,” to which solicitation Dagmar added her own, beckoning him with a curled finger and asking what pine he would give his audience now.

“Poor Butterfly” was Leo’s choice. He plucked a string, giving Dagmar the key, and the room quieted again, but before they could begin their attention became unfocused, as outside, with a swift inevitability, the rain began to fall, first in a spasmodic patter, big, fat drops playing a ploppy sort of drumbeat on the tree leaves, beating on the roof; then, after this prelude, as if making up its mind to spend its force in a single assault, in an overwhelming surge.

Inside the room, once more the musicians picked up their cue and began to play. Once again Leo felt his eye drawn to Reece – and he knew surprise, elation, jubilation. Whatever Reece was now or might yet become, when Leo played he was every bit as good, every bit as powerful, as rich, as glamorous. He turned his eyes back to Dagmar, whose eyes enlarged fractionally, telegraphing her message: Fine, keep it up. And he thought, What if I hadn’t tried? What if she hadn’t made me? Would I ever have known this feeling? See what we’ve accomplished, her smile seemed to be telling him. Isn’t this rich? Isn’t this fun?

And it seemed to him as he played that through the bars of music Emily had stolen in among them, to stand in the shadows with gleaming eyes, a hand at her breast, nodding, smiling, singing… yes, there, just there. She parts her lips, the words flow from her mouth.

Poor Butterfly!

’Neath the blossoms waiting

Poor Butterfly!

For she loved him so.

Beyond the windows the full fury of the storm was upon them. Flickering zigzags of lightning daggered down from the sky to blast the valley, exhilarating, blue-white electrical bolts betokening more mighty thunderclaps. He was remembering again now the night of the big storm at

Saggetts Notch, that night, in the house on Gallop Street, when they were in the parlor behind the big doors. He’d been scared… he’d taken out his violin and played to calm himself but… Rudy

… the footsteps on the stairs, the door flung open, the dark, enraged face in the doorway, the loud, bellowing voice “No rhapsodies in this house!”

Suddenly he faltered – a second only, but his playing suffered as a result – and just when things were going so well. His glance entreated Dagmar for help; she gave him another encouraging nod and went on, and so did he, but it was no good. At every instant he had to fight the overwhelming urge to bolt, to run from the room and hide somewhere. Yes, run – upstairs – around the newel post and up the steps that creaked, hearing the crashing outside, the rain rattling on the panes, to hide under the bed.

Only there was no “upstairs” here in this house, no newel post, no squeaky steps, no bed to hide under, no Rudy behind closed doors.

Why then?

Something…

God! What was it? He saw the thing, or thought he did. Nearer it swam, and nearer, that bright little fish, only to flash out of reach, mocking him as he failed to grasp it. He felt queasy, feverish. His hand shook badly. It was Major Bowes Night all over again. He was going to make a fool of himself. Oh no, not that – don’t let that happen this time, he prayed. But the boys – the rows of faces were staring, wondering, smirking at him. He struggled frantically to stay with the music, but now every note he played, every beat and pause called to his mind – Suddenly it was upon him, suddenly Dagmar’s music room was another room, in the house on Gallop Street, and the smell of it was strong in his nostrils, it was making him sick; he was going to vomit.

He felt himself gagging as he struggled to go on with the music while jagged flashes of lightning, dark, light, dark, silver and black, black and silver lit up the room, throwing everything, listeners, furniture, objects, Dagmar, the professor, into garish relief. And there were others ion – yes, now, among the familiar faces of the boys, others had begun to materialize – Rudy Matuchek, he was there, and John, yes, John Burroughs, he was there too, and Emily – Emily! Where was she? She had been there too, but where was she now? Though he felt her presence, he could not see her. How could he when he was upstairs, in his room on Gallop Street, hiding under the bed while the thunder crashed around the rooftop and the lightning flashed and He heard the angry shouts from below, heard the scream, and he disobeyed, opened the door, rushed into the hall, looked over the railing into the vestibule, and at that moment saw God!

He threw his head back and through the oval of his mouth wafted a long, wavering scream, like a ragged scarf being flourished he stared saw clutched in Rudy’s upraised hand the bright flash of steel, poised to strike at John no, not at John, whose bleeding body was already staining the floor, but "No! Stop! Don't'"

The violin and bow hung limp at his sides as he stared at the scene being played before him, as he watched Rudy’s knife blade complete its downward path to find its mark in Emily’s breast and the blood pour forth like the water from a spring and she fall like a heap of rags upon the floor. He saw Rudy drop the knife, heard the knife clattering on the floor, saw Rudy dash through the open doorway, out into the rain and the wind.

Mother!

Mother!

MOTHER!

The sounds echo in his head, reverberating as through endless, empty caverns, and the icy rain sweeps in across the doorsill and into the front hall, soaking the rug, while Leo lies on the floor beside Emily, staring at her face, which even as he watches loses color, never moves, becomes a dead face…

Another thunderous blast shook the music room. Leo cringed, staring at the ranks of questioning faces, hearing the strangled noises pouring from his mouth, unable to stop them. His violin and bow had both fallen from his hands. Panicking, he crabbed his fingers onthe ebony piano top and his fingernails dug savagely into the silken threads of the Spanish shawl, his knuckles turned white as he gripped the fabric, the roses red as… as blood. Then, as Dagmar, still at the keyboard, came to her feet, he jerked backward in a quick, stumbling move, his fingers dragging the shawl from the piano top, carrying with it the bust of Beethoven, the Chinese vase, everything crashing to the floor and shattering. He saw Dagmar reaching out her hands toward him, but before she could prevent him he eluded her touch and rushed blindly from the room. Fritz, who had sprung to his feet, hurried after him, while behind Dagmar Professor Pinero barred the door to the others. )

“Where is he?” Fritz called to Augie, who pointed to the music cupboard. Fritz opened it and peered into the narrow space. In the corner, eyes large and staring, Leo cowered.

“Leo – what is it? What’s the trouble?”

"He killed her!” he cried, staring.

“What? What’s he saying?” asked Dagmar, coming in behind Fritz.

“He killed her!” Leo shouted again, his eyes filled with terror. “Mother! Mother!” He burst into an agony of sobs.

“Hush, hush, my dear,” Dagmar said, and, kneeling next to Leo, she took his hands and tried to reassure him. “Come, child, you mustn’t do this.” She looked frantically at I t it/, as Leo scuttled toward the wall like a frightened animal. Hugging his knees, he sank into the corner and buried his head in his arms. His shoulders shook, his sobs mounted hysterically, and he cried out once more “he killed her,” while beyond the hundred windowpanes in the library the thunder rolled down the darkened valley, like tenpins being toppled in a giant’s game of skittles, a chain of echoes dying away one after another into silence, dull, unnatural, and forbidding.