McMummy (8 page)

Mozie got out of bed. He walked to the window. The moon was full and beautiful and the air was so clear it seemed that the moon was within reach.

In the bright moonlight, Mozie could see the destruction. The Hunters’ yard was covered with branches from trees, big branches. Hail, big as eggs, shone white against the ground. The driveway was completely blocked by the wreckage.

And what had the Hunters said about the airport? Fire trucks had turned into the airport? Crumb Castle was right at the end of runway 28. And the greenhouse was not two miles away.

He began to tremble. He knew the greenhouse had not survived—the wind would have blown out the glass panes if the hail had not shattered them. And the limbs from the forest … And if none of that happened—if the greenhouse still stood, there had been thunder—the thunder so dreaded by the pod that it trembled at the sound.

Now his mind traveled to the thought he had been avoiding. His own house … Crumb Castle … his mother.

With a heavy heart, Mozie crossed to the guest bed. He wished he could cry, but he had never been much of a crier. Even as a baby he had cried so seldom that his mother had asked the doctor if he were normal.

He wanted to cry. The unshed tears were an actual, physical ache.

He lay down.

It was just as well, he told himself. He would have gotten tears on the guest-room sheets.

“T
HE GOOD THING ABOUT
the storm is that it finally got me out of the house,” Batty said, “only I’m sort of on parole. Whatever you do, don’t ever make me laugh at my sister’s piano playing again.”

Batty and Mozie were picking their way through the forest, on their way to the greenhouse. They worked their way around a fallen tree.

Over the weeks that Mozie had been taking care of the greenhouse, he had worn a path through the trees. Now the path was so littered with the effects of the storm that it had disappeared.

“I had ‘stick and limb’ duty this morning,” Batty continued. “There were sticks and branches all over the place, and so after my dad and I cleaned up the whole yard, then my mother agreed I could come over and help you—since you don’t have a dad to do that kind of thing.”

Mozie did not reply. The closer they got to the greenhouse, the more his dread of seeing it grew. This was what his life had consisted of for the last few days—a feeling of dread interrupted by feelings of sorrow, despair, fear, even joy. But the dread was always there, returning in a rush as soon as the other emotions receded.

The one moment of joy had come when he and Mr. Hunter drove up to Crumb Castle at noon. Mozie had been up at dawn, but Mr. Hunter refused to leave until he heard on the radio that the streets were cleared.

They turned into Crumb Castle’s drive and Mozie saw his mom standing in the front yard with a tree limb in her hand, as if she were wondering what to do with it. Her face looked worried, but the lines smoothed out into absolute, total happiness as she saw Mozie’s face looking out of the window of Mr. Hunter’s car. She dropped the limb and held out her arms as Jack’s mother had in the picture he almost colored.

“I’ve been so worried,” she had said, running across the yard to embrace him. Pine Cone was at her heels, as if he didn’t want to risk separation.

Mr. Hunter got out of the car to explain about the guest room and the trees being down on Sumpter Road while Mozie remained in his mother’s arms, for once not twisting with embarrassment to get away. Pine Cone rubbed around the back of his legs.

But then, as soon as Mr. Hunter drove away, and he and his mother began to clean the yard of Crumb Castle, the thought of the greenhouse returned … and the dread.

If there had been this much damage to their trees, he thought, the greenhouse could not have escaped unharmed.

“I’ll have to go check the greenhouse, Mom. It’s probably ruined.”

“You don’t have to go right now. There’s nothing you can do, Mozie.”

“There might be.”

“I haven’t let myself think about that greenhouse.”

“I thought of it all night.”

“Well, it’s just plants. Plants can be replaced. Human beings can’t.”

“But—”

“You and I are alive and well—and, Mozie—” She took him by the shoulders and turned him to her. She looked into his face. “That’s not true of everybody in this county. That trailer court behind the laundry is wiped off the face of the earth. I hear there are whole airplanes up in the trees at the airport. Mrs. Miller told me—”

Her list of dooms was interrupted by a triumphant yell from the street, and they turned to see Batty arriving on his bicycle. For once he looked more cheerful than Mozie.

“I’m free!” he cried, coming to a stop on the slick grass.

“Good.” Mrs. Mozer turned to Mozie. “Now Batty can go with you to the greenhouse. That way it won’t seem so bad if it’s damaged.”

“I want to go, Mrs. Mozer,” Batty said. “I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

But now, as they neared the greenhouse, Batty was speaking less positively. “If the greenhouse has been destroyed—I mean, I hope it hasn’t—”

“It has,” Mozie interrupted with flat certainty.

“Well, if it
has
been destroyed, then …”

“Then what?” Mozie prompted.

“Then let’s cut the pod open and see what was inside,” Batty finished in a rush.

Mozie gave his friend a look—not
the
look, but a look of displeasure—but Batty didn’t notice. “I cannot spend the rest of my life wondering what was inside that pod!” Batty said.

“Well, I want to know too …”

“Then let’s do it. If it’s dead—it’ll be like an autopsy on TV. We’ll be doing mankind a favor.”

As they stepped into the clearing, they both fell silent. The greenhouse lay before them in total ruin.

The wind seemed to have hit the greenhouse broadside, sweeping broken glass and plants into the forest, and the hail had done the rest. Vegetables were smashed into pulp, mashed so badly that there was no telling what they had once been.

The pipe that connected the sprinkler system had burst, and a fountain of water shot, geyserlike, into the air. Gradually it washed the debris deeper into the forest.

Shards of glass were everywhere and the drops of water trapped beneath gave the impression the boys were approaching a lake of ice.

Glass crunched beneath their feet as they walked forward, and Mozie felt as if he were walking into a nightmare.

They paused at the edge of the geyser’s reach. Batty gave a low whistle. “Yesterday this was a regular greenhouse,” he said, “with plants that could save the world.”

“I know,” Mozie answered, remembering the last time he had seen it.

“They’re calling it a killer storm and they’re right. I’m going this way.”

Batty headed for the rear of the greenhouse, skirting the worst of the damage. Mozie followed.

“That’s the plant,” Mozie said, looking at what had once been a corner of the greenhouse.

Batty stopped beside him.

The roots of the huge plant had been pulled from the soft earth, and the plant itself—or what was left of it—lay on its side, toppled. Mozie thought of the picture in Richie’s coloring book where that vine lay dying on the ground.

Stripped of its leaves, the stem seemed fragile. It had been severed in places and a dark brown pulp showed through the pale green of the outside.

Batty circled the plant. “But where’s the pod?” he asked.

“Probably ruined.”

“Yes, ruined, but where are the ruins? There has to be something left.”

“Maybe it’s so smashed …”

“I’m not leaving here until I see it—smashed or not,” Batty said.

M
OZIE AND BATTY SEPARATED
and began crisscrossing the damaged area. Mozie felt he had entered a place not of this earth. Once he thought he heard the faint hum of an airplane engine and he looked up, but the sky was clear.

The boys stepped over fallen girders, slid on the smashed vegetables, picked up huge wilted leaves to look underneath.

Batty slipped and went down on one knee. He said, “This makes me sick,” as he got up. “That’s got to be squash,” he said, pointing to his pants. “I can’t stand the stuff. And isn’t this smell getting to you?”

“Yes, I’m ready to go home,” Mozie said tiredly. “I didn’t sleep at all, Batty. I was in the Hunters’ guest room.”

“I hate them things,” Batty said. “But I am not leaving until I see the pod.”

Mozie sighed. “What am I going to tell the professor?”

“Don’t tell him anything. Save the newspapers, and when he gets home …” Batty broke off. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” He began walking faster over the broken glass.

“What?”

“Wait a minute!”

“What?” Mozie began to follow.

At the edge of the woods, Batty paused. “There it is! I knew that was it! There—it—is!”

The pod lay just at the edge of the forest, out of the destruction. It had not been damaged by hail or glass—its surface was unmarked except for the tree that lay across it, crushing it and pinning it to the ground.

Mozie and Batty stood side by side, shoulders touching. Neither of them moved.

Batty had not moved out of respect for the dead—something he had learned from TV cop shows. Mozie had not moved because he felt terrible.

“It almost—almost got away,” Batty said. “If that tree hadn’t …”

“What do you mean—got away?”

“I don’t know what I mean. It just looked like it was almost into the forest, where there was protection from the hail. We got to get this tree out of the way so we can operate.”

The tree was not a large one, but it lay across the middle of the pod. Lightning had splintered its trunk into pieces, and Batty began pulling at the loose wood.”

“This could take a month,” he said. He put his hands on the pod and pressed.

“What are you doing?”

“If we could press it down, we could slip it out from under the tree. But this thing is hard, and it’s as big as a mattress.”

Batty took the stem of the pod and pulled. It did not come loose. “We are never going to get inside this thing.”

“I know.”

“We got to have a knife,” Batty said. “Go get the biggest knife—”

“My mom doesn’t let me play with knives,” Mozie said.

“This isn’t play. This is the opposite of play. This is the hardest work we’re ever going to do in our lives.”

Mozie started reluctantly back to the house. His mother was at her sewing machine—that was good. He entered the kitchen, opened the knife drawer, and took out the butcher knife.

His mother always had a special sense about the opening of the knife drawer. “No knives,” she called.

“Batty and I have to cut something. A tree fell on something and we’ve got to cut it.”

“No knives! I don’t like you playing with my knives.”

Mozie hesitated a moment and then he ran upstairs. He took the box from his closet—the box containing his father’s belongings. He lifted the lid, not pausing now to be comforted by the scent.

He reached into the box and brought up his father’s Swiss Army knife. Without bothering to close the box, he rushed down the stairs and out the door.

He ran through the forest and to the clearing where the ruined greenhouse lay.

Batty was kneeling on the pod, peering through a crack. “I’m trying to tear it open,” he said, “but this stuff is like leather or rubber or something that won’t tear and won’t chip. I sure hope it cuts. Give me the knife.”

Mozie took his father’s knife from his pocket. “Give it here,” Batty said.

“It’s my knife. I get to use it.”

“Well, use it then.”

Mozie knelt beside the pod. He pulled out a blade that turned out to be the little scissors. He put it back. He pulled out the toothpick. He put it back.

Batty snorted with impatience.

This time Mozie brought out the sharpest blade. He bent over the pod. “Right over the heart,” Batty suggested.

Mozie nodded. He swallowed and he pressed the blade into the thick green covering. It resisted. He lifted the blade and stabbed lightly at the pod.

“Hard!” Batty said. He was at Mozie’s side, giving stabbing movements of his own.

“I don’t want to hurt it.”

“It’s dead! Give me the knife.”

“I’ll do it!”

Mozie lifted the knife high and brought it down on the pod. It entered with a wet noise, and liquid oozed out around the blade.

“That’s more like it,” Batty said.

Now Mozie began to cut an opening in the pod. It was slow going—like opening a can with a knife—and several times he paused. At each pause, Batty would say, “Want me to have a turn?” Mozie would shake his head and continue.

A half hour passed, and Mozie was at last completing his circle. He cut the last inch and paused as if he had expected the circle to fall into the pod.

“Lift it out,” Batty said.

Mozie tried to pull it out with his fingertips.

“No, with the knife, give me the knife.”

At last he surrendered the knife to Batty. “Like this,” Batty said. He stabbed the center of the circle lightly and withdrew the circle.

It flopped over onto the pod and then slid to the ground with a wet plop.

Batty and Mozie leaned forward together to peer through the small circle. “Me first,” Mozie said. He had waited a long time for this. He put one hand on either side of the hole, claiming it for himself.

Batty shrugged and pulled back. Mozie bent his face to the circle. There was a smell so heady Mozie thought he would faint.

He looked and pulled back.

“What is it? What? Let me look, will you?”

Mozie gestured to the hole and stepped back. “At last,” Batty said. He leaned forward, one hand braced on either side of the pod. He gasped.

“It’s empty. We’ve been robbed!”

Mozie nodded.

Batty took another, longer look. “Empty!” he said. “Hello! Anybody in there?” Batty rapped on the pod. “Knock knock. Who’s there? No. No who? No body.” He laughed at his own joke. He glanced back at Mozie. “I wonder if this is the way doctors act in the operating room when they cut a hole in somebody’s chest.”

“I hope not.”