Дэймон Найт: Orbit 8

The sound of sawing and chopping ceased as he appeared in the door of the shed. “You doing pretty good, Roger,” he said. “Yes, sir, you doing pretty good, Mr. Ames.”

Roger picked up an armful of wood and carried it over and stacked it. He wiped his face. He had on it a few freckles and a few pimples and a few hairs. Mr. Robinson put a hand on the boy’s biceps and doubled up the boy’s arm. “That’s good, too,” he said. “Better than lifting dumbbells.”

A sudden look of cunning came over Roger’s stolid face. He swiftly seized the older man in a wrestling hold, heaved. They swayed together for a moment. Then, suddenly, Roger lay on the sawdusty floor and Mr. Robinson was pinning his shoulders to it. “Can’t do it yet, can you?” he asked.

“Hey,” said Roger. The grip relaxed, the boy started to get up, Mr. Robinson flopped him down again. “Pretty good for an old man with one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel... Now ... I got something to tell you, young Roger Ames, and you are going to listen to it, too. You were trying to sneak into Betty’s room last night. Weren’t you. Yes you were.” Roger’s face, only faintly flushed, still, from the wrestling, now flooded as red as his shirt. “Now you listen. I am not some old prune who doesn’t know that females are built different from men. I know all about that. You ever learn as much about that as me, you be doing pretty well. I know what’s fun and natural between the sects. But. And here’s the point, you see, boy. There is a time . You been told that. And when that time comes, why fine. That’s what makes the world go round. That’s what makes the grasses grow. The flowers bloom. But that time has not yet come for you. You just wait, now, till it does. I waited. It won’t kill you.” He got up.

Roger scrambled up as well. He looked embarrassed and, at the same time, respectful. And, for the present moment, just a bit uncertain. Mr. Robinson said, “Well, now. You’ve cut wood. You’ve wrestled. So now let’s see you practice catching for a while.” And for a while there, in the winter-stale garden between the old house and the outbuildings, he watched and instructed Roger as Roger practiced catching. Somewhere in the house a little bell rang.

Mrs. Robinson was putting things on a tray with attention and dispatch at the same time as she was speaking with Betty. “Toast, butter, jam, honey, cocoa,” she counted. “Bless me, how that woman does eat. It’s a pleasure to behold...cookies ... is there any piece of crisp bacon, cold, from breakfast? She is very fond of that...What was I saying...Oh, there’s always so much to think about and to do at this time of the year...”

“About Roger and, you know,” Betty said: a slim young girl, rather blossomy about the bosom, with a pale-and-pink and shiny face. “Well, I never encouraged him. I don’t even...well... oh ... I guess I do like him okay, but, oh, sort of like a brother, if you know what I mean, Grandma Robinson.” The little bell rang and rang.

Grandma Robinson said that she did know what Betty meant. A little smile crinkled the corners of her mouth and eyes. “As for ‘a brother,’ well, my, many a girl says that, until a certain time comes, and then her mind gets changed quick enough.” She deftly laid a neatly ironed napkin over the tray and picked it up. Betty went ahead and opened doors. “Oh, I’ve no reason to complain of you, dear,” said the older woman. “You’ve been as nice as any girl who’s ever lived with us. And I’m sure your mother will be pleased, too. Because it’s just as she said, child, it’s just as she said. It’s hard raising children right, in the city, teaching them the right ways, the old ways, the things to know ...to do ...and, for that matter, not to do...”

Betty said, “And all those things, you know, in the woods, too...”

Mrs. Robinson turned her face, slightly creased with the effort of carrying the tray, and nodded over her shoulder. Betty knocked on the last door. There was a noise from inside, and she opened the door, standing aside for the other to go in.

“Well, Mrs. Machick,” said Grandma Robinson, cheerfully, “and here we are, with your half-past ten snack.” The room was clean, but it did not smell so.

“Half-past ten ? You mean more like half-past twelve the woman sitting on the bed said. She was fat. She was very, very fat. Betty deftly pulled up a little table. Mrs. Robinson set the tray down. “No, dear, it’s only half-past ten,” she said.

“Sure it is,” said Mrs. Machick, in a low, tight voice. “Oh, sure.” She had a small, tight, tiny-tiny mouth, set into the middle of a vast, loose face. Her eyes darted quickly between the lady of the house and the girl, but she didn’t meet their own eyes, and then she had eyes only for the tray and what was on it.

“Now. Is that all right?” Mrs. Robinson cocked her head.

“Could you spare it?” the woman on the bed asked. Her brows made quirky little motions. She sighed. She shrugged. All down the front of her nightgown were food stains.

“Now, if there’s anything else you’d like, just ring your little bell for it,” Mrs. Robinson said, without the slightest trace of annoyance. “If we have it, we’ll be glad to bring it to you.”

“Sure you would,” Mrs. Machick said. “ Oh , yeah.” She fluttered her nostrils with the breath of the long-suffering, gave her frowzy head a little shake, and began to feed.

Betty and Grandma closed the door and exchanged faint sighs. They were halfway across the front room when a low whistle was heard from outside. They looked at each other, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, then turned and tiptoed swiftly to the windows, not touching the lace curtains. A bird was on the ground in front of the house, investigating the sere remains of last year’s grass. Out from behind an evergreen came Roger. It was a marvel how, body crouched, on the tips of his toes, hands out just so, how swiftly and how silently he sped; for all his size and all.

It was over in a matter of seconds.

Everybody cried out, but not very loudly. Roger, followed by Mr. Robinson, turned toward the house. Grandma and Betty bustled about, taking things from drawers and closets. The men came in, Roger with a wide and surprised-silly grin on his face. “Welcome, welcome, first harbinger of spring,” said Mrs. Robinson; and, “Sir, we bid you welcome,” her husband said, with a slight bow. She poured wine into a silver goblet. The bird’s head peeped out between the boy’s fingers. He held them over the goblet, as though he were offering the bird a drink. Mr. Robinson took its head between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and with his right hand he took the shears Betty gave him and cut off its head. The bright blood made little swirls in the pale wine, till Mrs. Robinson, with a silver spoon on the handle of which were quaint and curious engravings much more than half-obscured, stirred the goblet. Then the liquid turned pink. She gave everybody a spoonful of it.

For a moment the house was utterly still.

Then Betty gave her lips an absentminded smack. Then she went absolutely pale. Her eyes flew to Roger. From her now white lips came a sound like the rim of a glass being squeaked. His mouth fell open. His eyes bulged. She fled the room in an instant. The door to the hall slammed behind her. Then another door slammed—the back one. But in between the two times, Roger, uttering a noise between a growl and a howl, had begun his pursuit. There was a crash. (“Didn’t even try to open that one,” Mr. Robinson said.) There was a cry, first shrill, then full-throated. There were two noises, quick together, as it might be thud-thump or thump-thud.