The Cricket in Times Square (4 page)

“Why don't you let him stand on the rim?” said Mickey. He was very interested in watching Chester, since he had never seen a cricket drinking from a glass before.

Mario set his pet on the edge of the glass and gently drew his hand away. Chester bent down to try to reach the water. But the glass was too slippery. He toppled in. Mario hauled him out and dried him off with a paper napkin. But Chester didn't mind the dunking. He had fallen in the brook a couple of times back in Connecticut. And he knew it would take him a while to get used to city life—like drinking out of glasses.

“How would the cricket like a soda?” asked Mickey.

“Very much, I think,” said Mario.

“What flavor?” Mickey asked.

Mario thought a minute. “Strawberry, I guess,” he answered. That happened to be his own favorite flavor.

Mickey took a tablespoon and put a drop of strawberry syrup into it. Then he added a drop of cream, a squirt of soda water, and a dip of ice cream about as big as your fingernail. That is how you make a cricket's strawberry soda. He also made one for Mario—a little larger than Chester's, but not too big, because it was free.

When the sodas were gone, Mickey took a paper cup and wrote
CRICKET
on it. “This is his own cup,” he said to Mario. “You can come over and get fresh water any time.”

“Thanks, Mickey,” said Mario. He put Chester back in the matchbox. “I've got to go to get him a house now.”

“Bring him back soon,” Mickey called after them. “I'll make him a sundae too.”

At the newsstand Papa Bellini was talking to Mr. Smedley. Mr. Smedley was the best customer the Bellinis had. He was a music teacher who came to buy
Musical America
at ten-thirty in the morning on the last Sunday of every month, on his way home from church. No matter what the weather was like, he always carried a long, neatly rolled umbrella. As usual, Papa and Mr. Smedley had been talking about opera. More than anything else the Bellini family liked Italian opera. Every Saturday during the winter, when the opera was broadcast, they would sit clustered around the radio in the newsstand, straining to hear the music above the din of the subway station.

“Good morning, Mr. Smedley,” said Mario. “Guess what I have.”

Mr. Smedley couldn't guess.

“A cricket!” said Mario, and held Chester up for the music teacher to see.

“How delightful!” said Mr. Smedley. “What an enchanting little creature.”

“Do you want to hold him?” asked Mario.

Mr. Smedley shrank back. “Oh, I don't think so,” he said. “I was stung by a bee when I was eight years old, and since then I've been a little timid about insects.”

“He won't sting you,” said Mario. He tipped the matchbox up and Chester fell out in Mr. Smedley's hand. It made the music teacher shiver to feel him. “I heard him chirping last night,” said Mario.

“Do you think he'd chirp for me?” asked Mr. Smedley.

“Maybe,” said Mario. He put Chester on the counter and said, “Chirp, please.” Then, so Chester couldn't misunderstand, he made a chirping noise himself. It didn't sound much like a cricket, but Chester got the idea. He uncrossed his wings and made a real chirp.

Papa and Mr. Smedley exclaimed with delight. “That was a perfect middle C,” said Mr. Smedley. He raised his hand like an orchestra conductor, and when he lowered it, Chester chirped on the downbeat.

“Do you want to give him music lessons, Mr. Smedley?” asked Mario.

“What could I teach him?” said Mr. Smedley. “He's already been taught by the greatest teacher of all, Mario—Nature herself. She gave him his wings to rub together and the instinct to make such lovely sounds. I could add nothing to the genius of this little black Orpheus.”

“Who is Orpheus, Mr. Smedley?” asked Mario.

“Orpheus was the greatest musician who ever lived,” said the music teacher. “Long, long ago he played on a harp—and he played it so beautifully that not only human beings but animals and even the rocks and trees and waterfalls stopped their work to listen to him. The lion left off chasing the deer, the rivers paused in their courses, and the wind held its breath. The whole world was silent.”

Mario didn't know what to say. He liked that picture of everyone keeping quiet to listen. “That must have been awfully good playing,” he said finally.

Mr. Smedley smiled. “It was,” he said. “Perhaps someday your cricket will play as well. I prophesy great things for a creature of such ability, Mario.”

“You hear?” said Papa Bellini. “He could be famous, maybe.”

Mario heard, all right. And he remembered what Mr. Smedley had said later on that summer. But right now he had other things on his mind. “Papa, can I go down to Chinatown and get my cricket a house?” he asked.

“A house? What kind of a house?” said his father.

“Jimmy Lebovski said that the Chinese like crickets very much, and they build special cages for them,” Mario explained.

“It's Sunday,” said Papa. “There won't be any stores open.”

“Well, there may be one or two open,” said Mario. “It's Chinatown—and besides, I could see where to go later on.”

“All right, Mario,” Papa Bellini began, “but—”

But Mario wasn't waiting for any “buts.” He scooped Chester into the matchbox, shouted “Goodbye, Mr. Smedley” over his shoulder, and headed for the stairway leading to the downtown subway trains. Papa and Mr. Smedley watched him go. Then Papa turned to the music teacher with a happy, hopeless expression on his face, shrugged his shoulders, and the two of them began talking about opera again.

SIX

Sai Fong

Mario took the IRT local subway downtown. He held the matchbox up at the level of his chest so the cricket could see out. This was the first time Chester had been able to watch where he was going on the subway. The last time he had been buried under roast beef sandwiches. He hung out of the box, gazing up and down the car. Chester was a curious cricket, and as long as he was here in New York, he meant to see as much as he could.

He was staring at an old lady wearing a straw hat, wondering if the flowers on it were real, and if they were what they would taste like, when the train lurched to a halt. Like most people who first ride the subway, Chester wasn't used to the abrupt stops. He toppled out of the matchbox into Mario's lap.

The boy picked him up again. “You've got to be careful,” he said, putting his finger over the open end of the box so there was just enough room for Chester to poke his head out.

At the Canal Street stop Mario got off and walked over several blocks to Chinatown. Chester craned his head out as far as he could to get his first look at New York by day. The buildings in this part of town weren't nearly as high as they were in Times Square, but they were still high enough to make Chester Cricket feel very small.

In Chinatown, as Papa had said, all the shops were closed. Mario walked up and down the narrow, curving streets, zigzagging across them so he could look in the windows on both sides. In some he saw the cardboard shells that open up into beautiful paper flowers if you put them in a glass of water, and in others the glass wind harps that tinkle when they're hung in the window where the breeze can reach them. But he couldn't find a cricket cage anywhere.

Down at the end of an alley there was an especially old shop. The paint was peeling off the doors and the windows were crammed with years' and years' collection of knickknacks. A sign hanging out in front said,
SAI FONG—CHINESE NOVELTIES
, and printed underneath, in smaller letters, was “also do hand laundry.” Sitting cross-legged on the doorstep was an old Chinese man. He was wearing a silk vest over his shirt with dragons embroidered on it in red thread, and he was smoking a long white clay pipe.

Mario stopped and looked in the shop window. The old Chinese man didn't turn his head, but he looked slyly at the boy out of the corner of his eye. Slowly he drew the pipe out of his mouth and blew a puff of smoke into the air.

“Are you Mr. Fong?” asked Mario.

The man smoothly twisted his head, as if it were on a pivot, and looked at Mario. “I Sai Fong,” he answered. His voice sounded strange, yet musical, like a plucked violin. Sai Fong had come from China many years ago, and he had a curious way of talking. But Mario liked it very much. He enjoyed the individual chirps of human beings almost as much as those of his cricket.

“I would like to buy a cricket cage, if you have any,” said Mario.

Sai Fong put the pipe back in his mouth and took a few puffs. His eyes became even narrower than they had been before. “You got cricket?” he asked finally in a voice so soft that Mario could hardly hear it.

“Yes,” said Mario. “Here he is.” He opened the matchbox. Chester and Sai Fong looked at each other.

“Oh, very good!” said Sai Fong, and a remarkable change came over him. He suddenly became very lively, almost dancing a jig on the sidewalk. “You got cricket—very good!” He was laughing delightedly.

Mario was startled by Sai Fong's quick change. “I want to buy him a house,” he said.

“Come in shop, please,” said Sai Fong. He opened the door and they both went in.

Mario had never seen such a cluttered room. It was a jumble of Chinese odds and ends. Everything from silk robes to chopsticks to packages of hand laundry littered the shelves and chairs. And there was a faint, sweet smell of incense in the air. Sai Fong brushed a pile of Chinese newspapers to the floor. “You sit, please,” he said, motioning Mario to the chair he had cleared. “I back soon.” And he disappeared through a door at the back of the shop.

Mario sat very quietly. He was afraid that if he moved, he would be buried under an avalanche of Chinese novelties. In a glass case right in front of him was a row of Chinese goddesses, carved in ivory. They all had the strangest smile on their lips—as if they knew something nobody else did. And they seemed to be staring straight at Mario. He tried to look at them, but he couldn't keep it up and had to look away.

In a few minutes Sai Fong came back into the room. He was carrying a cricket cage in the shape of a pagoda. There were seven tiers to it, each one a little smaller than the one below, and it ended in a slender spire. The lower parts of the cage were painted red and green, but the spire was golden. At one side was a gate with a tiny latch on it. Mario wanted to own the cage so much that he tingled all over. But it looked awfully expensive.

Sai Fong held up the first finger of his right hand and said solemnly, “This very ancient cricket cage. Once cricket who belonged to Emperor of all China lived in this cage. You know story of first cricket?”

“No, sir,” said Mario.

“Very good,” said Sai Fong. “I tell.” He set the cage down and took the clay pipe out of his pocket. When it was lit and a thread of smoke was curling up from the bowl, he used the pipe to emphasize what he said, drawing little designs, like Chinese writing, in the air.

“Long ago, in beginning of time, were no crickets. But was very wise man, who knew all things. This man had name Hsi Shuai and spoke only truth. All secrets were open to him. He knew thoughts of animals and men, he knew desire of flower and tree, he knew destiny of sun and stars. Entire world was single page for him to read. And the high gods who lived in palace at summit of heaven loved Hsi Shuai because of truth he spoke.

“Now from many lands came men to hear their fate from Hsi Shuai. To one he say, ‘You very good man. Live long as cedar tree on mountainside.' To other he say, ‘You wicked man—die soon. Goodbye.' But to all men Hsi Shuai speak only truth. Of course wicked men most unhappy when hear what Hsi Shuai say. They think, ‘I wicked man—now everyone know how wicked I am.' So all together wicked men decide to kill Hsi Shuai. Hsi Shuai know very well they want kill him—he know everything—but he not care. Within his heart, like smell of sweetness within lotus blossom, Hsi Shuai have peace. And so he wait.