Face on the Wall (39 page)

Then Gretel gave her a push, so that she fell right in.… Oh! how horribly she howled; but Gretel ran away, and left the ungodly witch to burn to ashes.

The Brothers Grimm, “Hansel and Gretel”

Chapter 58

All the little boys and girls …

Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after

The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.

Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”

I
t was the last day of school.

“Charlene, dear,” said Mrs. Rutledge, whispering to her in the corridor, “I'm so sorry about the Junior Olympics.”

Charlene's face was stony. She stared at the coathooks on the wall.

Mrs. Rutledge was all sympathy and understanding. “It was that girl Cindy Foxweiler, she won again, didn't she?”

Charlene turned to Mrs. Rutledge and burst out, “It wasn't
my
fault! It's my father! It's his fault I lost!”

“There now, dear, there now.” Mrs. Rutledge put her arm around Charlene and turned her toward the classroom door. “I'm sure you'll win next time. Now, come on, dear, they're all waiting. It's time for our reading.”

The story was the last chapter of
The Flying Family.
Mary Kelly sighed, and sat down, squeezing herself into one of the small chairs in the last row. Why had the woman chosen this dreary book?

“Charlene,” said Mrs. Rutledge, “will you do the honors?”

Charlene's customary poise returned. “Is it okay if I share it with Cissie?”

Once again Mrs. Rutledge was surprised at Charlene's odd choice of a friend. “Well, of course, Charlene.”

Cissie was pink with joy.

Charlene read the first part of the chapter, then handed the book to Cissie, to give her the satisfaction of reading the last page. Blushing, Cissie took over. This time she was a better reader than she had ever been before.

“Let's have one last flight before we leave this special place,” exclaimed Dad.

“Oh, yes,” shouted Joan and Jim.

“Me too,” cried Bitsy.

“Yes, of course,” chuckled Mother. “You, too, little one.”

“For the last time they walked into the magic forest and climbed the enchanted tree. Then they flew to their hearts' content, up in the sky, over the clouds, soaring like birds, looking down on the tops of the trees in the magic forest. At last it was time to go home.

“Can we come again next summer?” pleaded Joan.

“Oh, please, Dad,” begged Jim.

“Me too?” squeaked Bitsy.

“Of course we can,” promised Mother and Dad. “Next summer and every summer, forever and ever.”

Smiling broadly, Cissie closed the book and said, “The end.”

Mrs. Rutledge was delighted. “Very good, Cissie! Very good, Charlene! Class, shall we give them a hand?” Everyone clapped.

It was time for morning break. Beaming, Charlene and Cissie led the way to the playground. Charlene had her arm around Cissie. Timidly Cissie put hers around Charlene. She was glowing with happiness.

Mary Kelly was responsible for playground duty. But as she started outdoors, Mrs. Rutledge asked her to wait.

“Oh, Mary, I've got to show you. Some of the children have written such darling letters of appreciation. Look, you've got to read Charlene's. And here, Beverly Eckstein wrote one to you.”

Joseph Noakes left the van parked at the chain-link fence and walked away, leaving behind him the body of Frederick Small, who had suffered a tragic accident at his own sand-and-gravel company, who had fallen from a conveyor belt into a collecting bin, where he had been crushed and smothered by a ton and a half of three-quarter-inch stone.

It was a long walk back. Avoiding the highway, Joe cut through the intervening towns, finding shortcuts around discount stores in Needham, threading his way through suburban housing tracts in Wellesley, making his way at last to the Boston Post Road.

Weston Country Day School was on the Post Road. Noakes noticed the school sign with its carved letters and gold leaf as he walked by, swinging along tirelessly, heading for Annie, heading for home. He saw the trim buildings, the classrooms and the big new gym-and-theater complex for which the alumnae had been raising a lot of money. And he saw the group of children heading into the woods.

To his surprise he recognized the child at the head of the procession. It was young Charlene Gast. She was clutching another child to her side, urging her along, holding her tightly around the waist. Behind them the other children walked quickly, their faces grave. There was no teacher in sight.

Something odd was happening. Noakes did not slow his steps, he merely swerved and headed into the woods.

When Mary ran out on the playground, she was surprised to find it empty. Where was everybody? There were no children swinging on the swings, no kids climbing the jungle gym. No one was tossing a ball at the basket. Where could they be?

Then she heard a sound, a distant murmuring, a faint chattering like a flock of birds. It came from the woods.

Slowly she walked toward the noise, staring into the sunlit spaces between the trees. The chattering stopped. Mary headed for the beech grove, which was everyone's favorite place. Here the leaves were thicker, the patches of sunlight fewer. Still she saw no children. Had she been mistaken? Then she heard a voice; high and clear, off to one side. And she found a path, barely visible in the undergrowth, carpeted with pale leaves. Mary moved forward quietly, her feet making no sound, and at last she saw the eighteen girls in Mrs. Rutledge's fifth-grade class.

They were not on the ground, they were high overhead, crowded on the branches of the beech trees. They looked like a gathering of sparrows, all facing one way.

Mary stood still. The voice she had heard was Charlene Gast's. Charlene and Cissie Aufsesser had climbed higher than all the rest. They stood on one of the topmost branches of the biggest tree in the grove. Charlene had one arm around Cissie. With the other she clung to the trunk of the tree. Cissie had nothing to hold on to, but the look on her face was exalted.

“We just have to believe,” said Charlene. “You heard the way they did it in the book. They conquered their fear, and then they just slid off the magic tree and flew! They flew and flew!”

“No,” said Mary, her voice catching in her throat. “No, Cissie, no.”

No one was listening. It was as though she had not spoken.

“Ready, Cissie?” urged Charlene. “We'll jump together. Ready?”

“Oh, yes,” squeaked Cissie, in a transport of happiness. “I'm ready, Charlene.”

“No,” croaked Mary, “stop, stop!”

But it was like a spell. Cissie bent her knees, held her arms in front of her and looked ecstatically at Charlene. Dutifully Charlene bent her knees too and held out one arm, hanging on with the other to the tree. The others gazed up at them, waiting for the miracle. They were all under Charlene's spell, and nothing could break it.

Except another spell. Suddenly there was a piercing whistle, and Flimnap O'Dougherty was there, turning cartwheel after cartwheel. Landing on his feet, he plucked colored balls out of his pocket and tossed them in the air. They were red and blue, silver and gold. Up they rose, higher and higher. Flimnap laughed. Out of his pocket came a cap, and now it was six balls and a cap. Then six balls, a cap, and a billfold. Then six balls, a cap, a billfold, and a pocketknife.

The children in the trees were laughing too. Mary tore her eyes away from Flimnap and gazed up fearfully at Cissie. The child's rapture had vanished. She was frightened. Very carefully she sat down on the branch and edged away from Charlene, who was screaming, “I'll tell, I'll tell!”

But the tables were turned, and in the pandemonium of laughter and clapping Charlene couldn't make herself heard. She came down from the tree, slithering too fast, scratching her face, her arms and legs, catching twigs in her hair, tearing holes in her shirt, shrieking, “I'll tell, I'll tell!”

Flimnap looked at her mildly as she tumbled to the ground. Then he grasped the lowest branch of the tree and began to climb. In a moment he was high in the leafy crown, reaching out to Cissie. “I've got you now,” he said softly. “Just hold on around my neck,” and soon the two of them were safely on the ground, and Cissie was crying, surrounded by all the other kids in the class. Many of them were crying too.

Charlene Gast wasn't crying. Charlene was telling. She told and told—getting back at Cindy Foxweiler, who had beaten her in the backstroke by only one second, and at Cissie Aufsesser, whose father had looked down at her from a great height and scolded and shamed her, and at all the girls in Mrs. Rutledge's fifth-grade class who had forgotten that Charlene Gast was the prettiest and smartest girl in the whole school, everybody's favorite, the brightest star at Weston Country Day—
Charlene Gast,
who would have been the youngest Junior Olympic swimmer in the whole entire world, if it hadn't been for her father.

It all spilled out of Charlene, the precious stories she had hugged to herself for so long, the secrets about Alice Mooney and the stolen math paper, and Cissie Aufsesser with Mrs. Rut-ledge's pocketbook, and Beverly Eckstein's dirty magazine. And there were other secrets, terrible secrets.
Do you know what Carrie Maxwell did? And Becca Smith
?

It was an orgy of revengeful telling. “Oh, stop it, Charlene,” said Mary Kelly. “No one's listening.”

Charlene stopped. And then she did something very strange. She took something out of her pocket and held it out like a gift.

“What's this?” said Mary, taking it.

“You'll see,” said Charlene, looking at her darkly. Then Charlene turned and trailed after her classmates, as they followed Flimnap back to the playground.

He was tootling on a penny whistle, leading the way like the Pied Piper. The fifth-grade girls trotted after him like the children of Hamelin town.

Chapter 59