Patricia Geary - Strange Toys

I closed the book and tried to concentrate. This old building with shutters, which we were parked next to. Stan and Linwood were gone. The air smelled the way it did after midnight.

“You slept through all the good stuff. I must have pinched you six or seven times, but you were dead.”

“Where’d they go?”

“To check out the hotel. Linwood took her marbles and she’s furious with Stan because he’s been driving too fast. Over ten miles an hour. It was neat! We were on the edge of this really steep cliff and the road was foggy and you couldn’t see anything. Linwood kept screaming and grabbing the seat. You’d think she would have woken you up.”

Linwood must have been mad. She only took her marbles (to make sure the floors were level; she’d once had a bad dream about shifting floors) when she was really angry. “Is this Fort Bragg?”

“Yup. And there’s no Holiday Inn. Stan didn’t check on the road, so it’s his fault. He knows Linwood goes bananas over those hairpin turns.”

I was pretty glad I’d missed this episode.

Linwood opened her door and climbed in.

“How’re the floors?” June asked.

“They’re all right, but the bathroom leaves something to be desired. They’re waking up the maid to clean it now.”

You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to realize that Linwood had been raised in a wealthy family. Nana had taken to bed for three months when Linwood eloped with Stan. Once I’d asked her why she’d married him. All I got back was a dark look and the promise that I would not be allowed to date until I was sixteen. As if I would ever date.

“What a perfect nightmare we’ve been through, Pet.” Linwood smoothed her hair back on either side, fingers as combs. “I’m so glad you were able to sleep through it. Your father drove like a maniac.”

“Even when we screamed,” June added.

“Especially when we screamed.”

Usually I was such a light sleeper. Odd. But over.

“And we never got dinner,” June continued.

“How come?” I felt a hunger-tweeze.

“Nothing was open. All the restaurants are closed this time of year.”

Stan opened his side of the car and leaned in. “Look,” he said, “the guy said he’d fix us something right now, if we go directly inside. We can put our stuff in the rooms afterwards.”

“Eat dinner without showering first? And what do you mean, ‘the guy’?”

“The owner of the hotel.”

We were all quiet, hoping Linwood would decide pro-food.

“I have to tell him right away if we’re taking him up on this.” Stan was apologetic.

“Well, good heavens!” said Linwood. “I had no idea we were in such a rush !”

Everybody sighed.

“By all means then, rush right in. Take the girls. Food, really. I prefer to shower and enjoy my drink.”

I felt piggy, opting for dinner over cleanliness and everything that civilized virtue implied. I opened my mouth to say that I, too, preferred to relax rather than stuff, then hesitated. Could you really smell steak in the air? At this late hour? Steak and a baked potato, swimming in butter and sour cream and chives. Fresh green peas. Chocolate cake and milk.

But what was niggling at the back of my mind? As if in my ear, I heard: This is your big chance to check out the book. Would you really pick food over magic?

“I’m not hungry.” Saliva was gathering in the corners of my mouth.

“Okay,” Stan said. He walked around to the trunk. By the time I was out in the cool night air, he already had the bags out. June had disappeared in the direction of the restaurant.

Ten minutes later, Stan and June were occupied, Linwood was next door showering, and I was alone in the faded glory of the antique hotel room, so odd after all the Holiday Inns. The big roses on the wall were wasn’t right—if this was all the book contained, why would Sammy be so hot to get his hands on it?

You thought the book had to be full of secrets, important stuff—who knew what?—about mysterious things.

Fingering my necklace, I tried to feel important, like I was a part of everything, entitled to the book and the necklace and the cigar box and the truth, even though the air was green and cloudy, like at Madame Miraculo’s, and you couldn’t see the luminous fibers that connected everything the way they did in Sammy’s Snowland.

Closing my eyes, I let the magic book fall open randomly.

A family was driving down the street in their car. The car was a baby-blue T-bird and the parents in the front seat looked a lot like Stan and Linwood. June was leaning forward, wearing that dumb gray coat. Out the car window you could see the sign on a shop window: MARIE LAVEAU’S HOUSE OF VOODOO.

The picture looked okay. So what? We were all in the car together, even though I was huddled in the backseat, looking alone.

Then I noticed the reflection in the store window.

An enormous truck, seemingly out of control, was hurtling directly toward us.

Slamming the book shut, I threw it against the wall. My throat felt all raw and terrible. This was the danger Sammy was trying to protect us from! Deane was going to let us be killed!

“Pet!” Linwood called through the connecting door. “Are you all right in there?”

“Fine!” I called out. What a lie.

“Okay, honey, sleep tight. Save your three good deeds until tomorrow. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night!”

Boy, was I mad. I was too mad to be scared. It was one thing to interfere with me, and another thing to hurt them.

I was lying on my back, staring at the ceiling and wondering how I was going to do what I had to do, when June walked in. All my stuff was safely stowed away.

“Well, Fats,” she said, “you missed a good dinner.” She began to change into her nightgown. Her body was big, but she didn’t look bad, the way adults do when they’re overweight. She was all pink and solid. Sometimes I envied her size: it gave her the authority of an adult, but she still got the privileges of a child.

“What’d you have?”

“Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and two pieces of coconut cake.”

Coconut cake! “Was it fresh?”

“Still warm.”

I let out a sigh worthy of Stan, and then something plopped onto my stomach. A tinfoil-wrapped slice of coconut cake.

“Thanks, June.” I was humbled.

She shrugged, her flannel tent falling around her. “Didn’t want you waking up in the night whining about how hungry you were.”

“Want a bite?”

“Sure.”

I gave her a big chunk, and we both smacked the cake right down. It had that thick, white, sugary icing that made the back of your tongue shiver.

“Want to start a game of Monopoly?”

I felt I owed her, because of the cake. On the other hand, how could you concentrate and play Monopoly at the same time? “Look.” I stood up and paced a little, for drama. “I need to get my hands on some money.”

Pushing her glasses up her nose, June sat down on her lumpy bed. “How come?”

“I can’t tell you, but it’s important.”

Her mouth had that grown-up set of annoyance.

“Cross my heart and hope to die. It’s very, very, very important.”

She just looked at me.

“It’s bad. And if I tell you, it’ll be your fault too. This way, it’s all my fault.”

At that, she relaxed. “First, I get a consulting fee. And second, how much do you want?”

Well, I didn’t exactly know. I knew what I had to do: find Sammy again, trade him the book for protection, at least. But what if he never showed up? What if I looked out the window one day and there it was: Marie Laveau’s House of Voodoo? Money was what passed for power with adults. Maybe if you had money, you had power. Maybe if Sammy never showed up again, I could buy protection. Or maybe if he did, the book plus money would buy extra protection. Frankly, I was only nine years old, and money seemed like the first step, to be ready just in case. “A thousand dollars?”