Thomas Tryon: The Night of the Moonbow

The formalities seen to, the group filtered into the cabin, the Jeremians sending out silent signals to each other saying, What the heck? and Beats me. As yet, Tiger had given no indication of how far they ought to extend their hospitality, and this was odd, because Tiger usually provided them with guidelines regarding any new or unexpected situation. He now stood by the infamous yellow-stained bunk as if to say This is yours.

“Who slept here?” Leo asked. He looked from the bunk to Tiger.

“Belonged to a fellow named Wagner,” Tiger said.

“You’re his replacement,” the Bomber added.

“What happened to him?”

“He went home with his tail between his legs,” Phil said.

“I see he left his yellow badge of cowardice.”

Tiger shot the new boy a look. That was a good one, especially for a guy from Pitt Institute.

Leo was regarding the cot in the middle of the room, a scant yard away. “Who sleeps there?” he asked.

“Reece.”

“Reece?”

“He’s our counselor.”

“Where is he?”

“Havin’ his picture took,” the Bomber explained.

“For the newspaper,” Wally chimed in.

“The Sunday paper,” Monkey added with emphasis. Watching Leo trying to unknot the twine around his blanket roll, Tiger slid his knife from its sheath and handed it over. When the twine was cut, releasing the bedroll, Leo returned the knife.

As he carefully moved his violin case aside and started to undo the dented clasps of his suitcase, the others by ones and twos crept into their bunks, watching, eyes filled with curiosity. The suitcase was unstrapped and the lid folded back on its wobbly hinges; it produced nothing remarkable, however, among its contents. Then Leo began to undo the twine holding together the stack of small wooden boxes.

“Whatcha gonna do with those?” the Bomber inquired, trying not to sound overly curious.

“I’m going to collect things in them.”

“What kinda things?”

“Ohh… flora and fauna.”

“Flora who?”

“Floradora.”

Ha ha. The Bomber made a goony face to the others. Someone snickered. Leo, still having trouble with the knot, asked Tiger for the loan of his knife again. After he had cut the twine and unwound it from the boxes, he sat holding them, still stacked, between his knees. And though every camper in the cabin was bursting to know their real purpose, the new boy did nothing further to relieve them of their curiosity.

“What do you play in baseball?” the Bomber asked, hanging his head over the end of his bunk.

“In b-a-ase-ba-all?” Leo drawled the word, as though its meaning eluded him. Then, “I don’t play anything.”

The Bomber sat up in surprise. “You don’t?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Tiger’s look went to Dump, in the opposite quarter of the cabin. “Well, there goes the ball game,” it said; Stanley Wagner’s bunk must be jinxed.

Just then the bell rang for dinner, breaking the tension, and all along the line-path campers exploded from their cabins and streamed across the playing field, heading for the dining hall in the upper camp. Not inclined to hurry, the new boy sat on Stanley’s bunk rail and emptied a pebble out of one of his shoes.

“I see you brought your own pillow,” Tiger remarked, waiting with the Bomber at the door. “That was smart.” “Was it? Good. I never go anywhere without Albert.” “Who’s Albert?” Peewee wanted to know.

“My pillow.”

Oh.

When he had put his shoe back on and laced it up, Leo went to join Tiger and the Bomber. As the second bell for dinner sounded, the three broke into a run.

“Hey Wacko, you forgot your hat!” cried Peewee, short legs churning as he tried gamely to catch up, in his hand the bottle-cap cap.

Peewee didn’t realize it then, but he had bestowed a new nickname on Stanley Wagner’s replacement: Wacko Wackeem, who played the violin and kept a pillow named Albert, who wore a funny-looking hat – and who didn’t like baseball!

All together, the Jeremians could never just walk down the road from the dining hall to the lower camp, but, as they did this evening, they would form loose, lollygagging knots, dragging dust, kicking fannies, elbowing ribs, clipping shoulders, tripping feet, now seeing which of them could throw a stone the farthest or hold his breath the longest or strike the deepest tone, now knitting together, now spreading to both sides of the road, now joining up again to make cracks about Willa-Sue’s busted brain, coming closer to delve into the mysteries of all womanhood, with the Bomber telling – the Bomber was forever telling – about how he’d seen a naked female in the window of the tenement next to his tenement and what that looked like, and always, always, Peewee Oliphant’s plaintive cry behind, “Hey, you guys, wait up!”

Tonight, though, there was a difference: tonight they came down with Leo, the new boy in Cabin 7. There was no doubt but that he’d made a splash at dinner; campers couldn’t take their eyes off him, and he was the subject of numerous jokes. “Hey, get a load of Mortimer Snerd.” “Where’d the yokel come from?” Jokes about his Adam’s apple and his ears and his bottle-cap hat. Things had quieted down some during the meal, but no one could ignore the fact that it seemed Cabin 7 might have drawn another Stanley Wagner. But, Tiger thought, twisting the bill of his baseball cap, this boy really was nothing like Stanley. For one thing, he was smart – his odd-shaped skull looked like it housed a full quota of brains. They must eat a lot of fish at the Institute. Still, he was odd, with his pathetic suitcase and mysterious codfish boxes, his beat-up violin case and weird hat, and his pillow named Albert. There were other strange things about him, too. His gawky kind of walk, the jug ears that stuck out, the habit he had of ducking his head before he spoke, the surprising way he had of phrasing things, the kind of things he said. Like when the Bomber asked him the question everybody else had been wanting to ask but refrained from.

“How come you came by bus? Couldn’t your mother and father bring you?”

“I’m afraid they couldn’t.”

That might have been the end of that, but the Bomber was like a dog worrying a bone. “Father have to work?” he pressed.

“No.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“That’s correct. No car.” He walked one or two steps before adding, “No mother and father, either.”

“Oh.” That one was a shocker to all but Tiger.

Peewee piped up. “Yikes! You an orphan? You live in a orphanage? Do they feed you gruel-?”

“Peewee, for cripes’ sakes, give the guy a break, will you?” Tiger said.

“I was only askin’. Gruel’s what they gave Oliver Twist in a orphanage.”

“Oliver Twist wasn’t in any orphanage,” Dump corrected. “He was in a workhouse.”

“What’s the diff?” Peewee wanted to know.

“Not much, to be truthful,” Leo answered.

“But don’tcha know who your mother and father are?" Peewee persisted.

“Yes,” Leo returned deadpan. “ ‘My mother was an Indian princess and my father was the Emperor of China.’ ” The guys wanted to laugh outright; yet – there was something in the way he spoke the words that made them hold back. Peewee, however, had to titter. What a twerp, his laugh said. Not being absolutely sure, he looked to

Tiger for a guiding sign, but was offered none. Then he looked to the Bomber, who shrugged, then behind him to Eddie; still, nothing doing.

“What did he do, your father?” Phil inquired.

“About what?”

“No, I mean – well, what did he do for a living? What was his job?”

“Butcher.”

“Huh?”

“He was a butcher. You know – loin of pork, lamb chops, rib roasts