Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

– what? What did it remind him of?

He shut his eyes tight, trying to squeeze out the dark thought that was like a slippery fish, an eel, maybe; it came swimming out of the black ooze, to dart past his eyes in a bright flash, then, before he could catch it, to be swallowed up again in the inky blackness. It was like fishing at the bottom of the sea, where stinging, paralyzing creatures lurked, anemones that bloomed like flowers and then shocked you to death.

A piece of the puzzle was missing, something he needed to put it all together, but like the little fish it eluded him. Perhaps it was better this way; sometimes it didn’t do to pry into these matters too much. Lift up a rock and you never knew what might crawl out. Maybe that was why people got amnesia, so they wouldn’t remember what they wanted so badly to forget. Leo knew a thing or two about amnesia. He remembered the doctor’s face, not Dr Percival at the Institute, but the other doctor – Epstein was his name

– who wore the white coat with the row of pens and pencils picketing the edge of his starched pocket. Eagle pencils they were, funny how Leo could remember a minor detail like that when he couldn’t remember – again that little fish of thought swam into his ken, but though he baited a hook he had no luck.

Resettling himself in a more comfortable position, he took his pen and notebook and began writing. Miss Meekum had been right: the notebook would give him a record of his Moonbow summer, one he’d cherish at a later time, and he’d been not only jotting down accounts of his day-to-day activities, and making notes on spiders, but trying his hand at stories, and character sketches of some of the campers he’d met so far – the ones he didn’t care for, bullies like Bullnuts Moriarity, and some of his cronies from High Endeavor, and the ones he did, like the other Jeremians, especially Tiger and the Bomber, and, next door in Ezekiel, Junior Leffingwell and Emerson Bean and Dusty Rhoades, who had been friendly toward him.

His concentration was broken as he heard a Tarzan yell, and, looking up he saw Tiger and Harpo charging across the meadow; with them came Eddie Fiske and the Bomber, venting the throaty cry of the born Berserker, charging at Leo head down, arms spread like airplane wings, palms flattening the tops of the Queen Anne’s lace. He threw himself down beside Leo, narrowly missing the violin case, which Tiger yanked from destruction only at the last moment.

“Cripes, spud, watch where you’re dumping that big can of yours, will ya?”

The Bomber looked around him. “I didn’t do nothin’. Jeez…”

“You would’ve crushed it if you’d sat on it.”

“But I din’t sit on it!”

“Yeah, but you almost did.”

“Nerts.”

The Bomber made himself comfortable, then pulled an Oh Henry! bar from his pocket and began peeling off the wrapper. The three boys had met up at Orcutt’s and made their purchases together. Tiger spilled out between his bare knees the contents of a small paper sack: flat squares of brightly wrapped bubble-gum packets, each one containing a card bearing a portrait of either a befeathered Indian chief or a famous baseball player. He offered Leo his choice of the packets to start his own gum-card collection: Leo got Lefty Gomez.

“Hey, Leo, aren’t you supposed to be at Sandbag College?” the Bomber asked, munching on the Oh Henry! bar.

Tiger darted Leo a look that said he agreed with the Bomber. It wouldn’t do to rile Coach, who was already down on Leo because of his chicken-wing.

“That’s okay,” Leo said, more unwilling than ever to tear himself away from the meadow now that his friends had come. “I’d rather stay here. Besides, there’s time. I can practice with Coach during swim.”

Tiger still looked doubtful – Coach didn’t like changes in his plans, and Leo needed swim practice, too – but the Bomber, having consumed the remains of his candy bar at a bite and licked his sticky fingers, chose that moment to insert them into Harpo’s mouth to finish the job.

“Come on,” said Tiger, disgusted. “He’s not a napkin, you know, he’s a dog.”

The Bomber looked properly chagrined, while the dog went on licking his chops. For a moment they were quiet. The stream bubbled over the weir, the birds sang in the trees, the scene was properly bucolic. In the distance they could hear the sound of the Moonbow Maid, Doc Oliphant’s new Chris-Craft.

“I bet that’s Heartless and Honey,” Eddie said, and they all jumped up for a better look. Out on the water they saw the bright flash of chrome, and the glossy red mahogany hull of the gorgeous speedboat creating a feathery wake as it spanked across the water. And even at a distance they could make out the bare-chested figure of their counselor, a jaunty white yachting cap on his head and his pipe clenched in his mouth. He was lounging on the back of the seat, piloting the boat with his bare toes, and, beside him, her golden hair flying, looking curvy and kissy in a yellow bathing suit, was Honey Oliphant.

For a while it looked as if the boat might be headed for the China Garden – the icehouse was reputed to be a Heartless rendezvous – and the boys prepared to make themselves scarce. But Reece evidently had other things in mind: the boat went speeding off toward the opposite shore.

As the sound of the motor faded, Eddie ventured a question. “Do you think he and Honey – I mean – you know what the guys are saying – about going all the way?” he asked, his eyes rounding with the possibilities. The Bomber also probed them. Honey Oliphant was a walking, breathing, ugly-duckling story. For years here was this scrawny kid, flat as a bed slat, with her chopped-off hair sticking out all over her head, and wowie! This summer the whole camp had been astonished by the incredible transformation, duckling into swan.

“She’s sure got a build on her,” the Bomber said fondly. Leo agreed. In his brief stay at camp he had already suffered through several manifestations of that ineffable vision, whose name, it seemed, was upon the lips and in the heart of every camper over the age of six. Honey, to use Reece’s phrase, was a four-point-oh girl.

Despite his occasional proximity to the luscious creature, however, Honey remained a mystery to Leo (he had yet to address a syllable to her, or she to him). Still, as he imagined the scent of the traces of perfume that she must surely leave trailing behind her, he also imagined what it would be like to hold her in his arms and kiss her and hear her say, “I love you, Leo Joaquim.” But who was he kidding? And at this point his feelings about Reece became more complicated – for, along with the classy Nancy Rider, whose snapshot graced Reece’s mirror, Honey Oliphant was the sole and exclusive property of the counselor of Cabin 7.

Now the others began kidding about Reece, about how he was a real Don Juan, a sailor with a girl in every port, who always kept a couple of prophylactics (he favored Trojans, the red-and-black pack) in the glove compartment of the Green Hornet “just in case.” Leo enjoyed the notion of his counselor being a wolf – certain romantic exploits just made a man that much more to be admired and envied – but when it came to Honey Oliphant, he wasn’t so sure.

The talk dwindled away and for a few minutes the four boys again fell silent. Then, “You all set for the big hunt, Leo?” Eddie asked, referring to the annual Snipe Hunt, which was to take place that evening.

“I still don’t get what it’s all about,” Leo said. “I mean, what exactly do we do?”

“You’ll find out,” Eddie replied mysteriously.

Leo felt a creeping suspicion. “Just where do we hunt these famous snipe?” he asked.

“Over in Indian Woods,” said Tiger, sitting up.