Wringer Read online

  But in this year of Palmer’s life not even Family Fest was pure and easy fun. Despite the gleeful shouting and merry-go-round music, he could not forget the soccer field at the far end of the park: silent, waiting. At times the Ferris wheel seemed to be winching minutes, hauling him ever closer to Saturday and the boom and smell of gunsmoke.

  He tried to avoid the guys, but it wasn’t as easy as before. After The Treatment they had been showing him a newfound respect, and often they came looking for him. He began leaving his house by the back door. He kept his eyes peeled at the Fest.

  Dorothy showed him no respect at all. He could have had a hundred Treatments and it would not have impressed her. And yet Palmer forgave her. He reminded himself that she was young and a girl and did not understand life beyond her hopscotch squares. Also, there was the memory of his second Pigeon Day shared with Dorothy. As the week raced toward Saturday, he began to feel closer to her. But when he saw Dorothy’s face flashing in the neon lights and called her name, she only stuck up her nose and turned away.

  He rode the rides. His parents gave him money each day to spend. When that ran out, he used his own savings. He wobbled and swirled and tilted and whirled and plunged and soared. The closer he came to Saturday the more he rode.

  The gang, whenever he bumped into them, kept saying, “See ya Saturday, Snots. Six o’clock.” They were supposed to meet at the World War I cannon. The shooting would begin at seven and continue all day.

  When he was younger this was a matter of wonderment to Palmer. It became the means by which he could grasp the first really big number in his life: five thousand. For a long time five thousand meant the number of pigeons you could shoot in one day, one by one. As he grew a little older he discovered machine guns and tanks and bazookas and, of course, bombs.

  “Why don’t you just blow them up and put them out of their misery all at once?” he asked his father one day.

  That was when his father explained how it all worked. He explained that there was more to it than putting the pigeons out of their misery. He said that only people who paid money were allowed to shoot the pigeons, and that the money was used to make the park better. “So you see,” he said, “you can thank a pigeon for the swings at the playground.”

  And for a time thereafter, Palmer did just that. Whenever he swung on a swing, he thanked a pigeon.

  Palmer knew that Beans and the guys intended to stay all day, from the first boom until the last gray feather floated to earth. When he went to bed Friday night he had decided what he would do: He would not show up at the cannon. If they came checking, he would be in bed, pretending to be sick. He would tell them that he had really wanted to go, but his mother wouldn’t let him.

  He felt good. The problem was solved. He went to sleep with a smile.

  12

  In his dream the pigeons came to town, not five thousand but millions. In their beaks they pinched the edges of the town, plucked it up and flew away with it, as if it were a Christmas tree display on a tablecloth. The only sound was the flutter of wings. Palmer wondered where they were going. They seemed to be leaving the earth behind. Ahead, all around, was nothing but space and the blackest of nights. On and on they flew.

  Then he felt a spot of warmth on his face. A puff of light broke the blackness. He began to worry. Were they heading for the sun? Were they going to dump him and the whole town into that fiery ball? The light grew brighter. A pigeon was pecking him on the rump, pecking him and giggling. He squirmed to get away. He tried to scream, but instead of his own voice he heard another’s saying, “Pinch him harder. Did ya get bare skin?”

  He opened his eyes. The light was blinding, then went away. It was totally dark. The nightlight was off, and he was not alone in bed. Somebody was in bed with him! He started to make a sound, but his mouth was clamped by a hand. Somebody laughed out loud, somebody growled, “Shut up! They’ll hear!” He smelled baked beans. The light reappeared. It was a little penlight. It shone on two faces. One of them said, “Shut up now, Snots, okay? It’s just us, Beans and Mutto. Okay?”

  Palmer nodded, and the hand left his mouth. He sat up. “What are you doing here? How’d you get in?” A glance at his window answered the question. The screen was up. His window was above the roof of the back porch. It could be done.

  Next thing he knew he was yanked out of bed and onto his feet. “Come on,” whispered Beans, “we got somewhere to go.”

  It did not occur to Palmer not to go along. Once the shock wore off, he realized what an honor had been granted him. Imagine: A month ago these guys ignored him except to tease him; now they snuck into his house and climbed into bed with him. Palmer LaRue. Amazing!

  He turned on his nightlight and dressed, and out the window they went. From the roof edge they slid down a plank that Beans and Mutto had borrowed from a building site.

  “Let’s go!” barked Beans.

  “Where?” said Palmer, but Beans was taking off.

  They were a whisper through the nighttime town. By Beans’s orders, they kept to the alleyways. They trotted in file: first Beans, then Mutto, then Palmer. The only sound was their sneakers patting the ground.

  Never before, not even on New Year’s Eve, had Palmer been up so late. Not to mention outside. Not to mention outside without a parent. It was not like Palmer to do this. He had always been an obedient kid. Lay down a rule, and Palmer followed it. He cringed at what his parents would say if they found out.

  But the thrill of it, the honor of it swept all other feelings away. Jogging through the dark and sleeping alleyways, skirting pools of streetlight, he imagined he was a toy lead soldier come to life, following Sergeant Beans and Private Mutto on a mission behind enemy lines. He loved these guys. He would follow them anywhere. He wondered what other adventures awaited him in the days and years ahead.

  They trotted through the park and past the National Guard Armory. They turned a corner, and they were at the old boarded-up railroad station. Palmer smelled something, like animals, and heard small, soft sounds. In the moonlight he saw a second building as tall as the station and nearly as long. He did not remember this second building. He began to hear that the sounds were voices, and he saw that the second building was not a building at all. It was a mountain of crates…and soft sleepy cooings….

  It was five thousand pigeons.

  He stopped.

  Beans and Mutto trotted on. They cheered and yipped and did a nutty dance before the stacked crates. Their mooncast shadows snagged on potholes in the old parking lot and pulled like black taffy. They made their arms like rifles and barked, “Bang! Bang!” and a squabbling uproar filled the night.

  “Come on, Snots!” they called.

  They picked up sticks and racketed along the slats. They played the crates like drums.

  “Snots!”

  Palmer could not move. Ten thousand orange eyes burned holes in his heart.

  He heard a wrenching screech: they were ripping open a crate. What were they up to?

  “Grab ’im! Grab ’im!” Beans was shrieking.

  Ten thousand orange eyes.

  “Got ’im!”

  Palmer called, “I gotta go back! I have to go to the bathroom!”

  He ran. He did not use the alleys. He ran down the middle of the streets, the middle of the lights, chased every step by the uproar of the crates, ten thousand orange eyes trailing him into his house, into his bed, under his sheet, into his sleep.

  In the morning, Saturday morning, awakening, he heard tiny popping sounds in the distance. He closed his window, pulled down the shade. He brought his TV closer and turned it on loud.

  Blessedly, they did not come for him. Still, to be on the safe side, he told his mother he was ill and stayed in bed all day. She looked at him a little funny at first, then was especially nice the rest of the day, as if he really were sick. She did not try to make him open the window because it was July. She turned on the fan.

  He watched TV. He read. He cut out Beetle Bailey comics for
his collection. His mother played cards and Monopoly with him. He did not play with his soldiers.

  Several times, when the light was deeply golden on the windowshade, he heard the doorbell downstairs and his mother going to answer. She did not say who was there. He did not ask.

  When his mother came in to kiss him good night, she turned off the TV and opened the window. The night was silent.

  NIPPER

  13

  “It’s a doozie.”

  These were his mother’s words as she sat with him looking out the living-room window. His father called it a blizzard. Palmer called it rotten luck.

  It could have snowed on Christmas, the day he got his new sled. But it didn’t. Nor did it snow the next day, or the next, or any day for the rest of the year. Vacation days, no-homework days—days that could have been filled with whistling plunges down Valentine’s Hill were filled instead with hateful frowning at a cloudless sky.

  The new sled was a classic: polished wood, red runners, steering handles. It no more belonged on the living-room rug than a Maserati belonged in a stable.

  On New Year’s Day Palmer’s father said to him, “You know, I swear the weather plays games with people. Every time I decide not to take an umbrella, that’s when it rains. Maybe snow’s the same way. Maybe we can fool it. Why don’t you try putting the sled away, like it’s spring and sledding’s over for the year.”

  Having no better idea, Palmer dragged his sled down to the basement. He added touches of his own. He took off his shirt, wiped his brow and said, “Whew, sure is hot out these days. I can’t wait to go swimming.”

  He put the sled in the farthest, darkest corner. “Won’t be needing this thing, that’s for sure.” He covered it with an old blanket. He stacked cardboard boxes on top of it. He saluted, “Adios, old pal,” and walked away.

  This was mid-afternoon. At dinnertime he looked outside. He could not see stars. By seven o’clock the first thin flakes were falling. He stood at the front door and cheered: “Snow!” And brought the sled back upstairs.

  The next day was the last day of the holiday vacation. He expected it to be still and white and waiting for sleds. Instead he awoke to a blizzard thrashing his windowpane. He looked out. The world seemed to have come to an icy boil. He could not see to the end of the backyard. He ran downstairs. A car, molded in snow, was stranded sideways in the street. The howling wind flung itself at the house with a fury that frightened him.

  Even his mother shuddered beside him as she repeated, “A real doozie.”

  “I might as well chop up my sled,” Palmer grumped.

  She draped an arm around him. “Well, look on the bright side. If it’s too bad to go sledding today, it’ll probably be too bad for the buses tomorrow morning. Bet you’ll have a snow day.”

  She was right. January third was a day for snowplows and snowboots, snowballs and sleds. It seemed like every kid in town turned up on Valentine’s Hill. All day long Palmer, Beans, Mutto, and Henry made a quadruple-decker sandwich as the new sled sailed and resailed down the slope.

  That day as a crimson sun fell below the rooftops, one weary and happy kid dragged his sled back to port. Before going downstairs to dinner, Palmer took a moment to look out his bedroom window. He had never cared much for scenery, yet the scene outside touched something within him. The setting sun seemed to have ladled its syrupy light over the crusted snow, so that ordinary house parts and backyards in this fading moment seemed a spectacular raspberry dessert. When his eyes fell to the porch rooftop just outside his window, he saw the four-toed imprints of bird feet etched into the snow.

  A good thing there was no homework over Christmas vacation, for Palmer could never have managed. He was sound asleep by eight o’clock. And stayed that way until he heard the tapping.

  This was unusual. His mother never bothered to knock in the morning, but came right in. “Who’s there?” he said, his eyes still closed, his voice barely working.

  There was no answer.

  His eyes opened. It was daylight. “Come in.”

  The door did not move.

  Had he been dreaming?

  There—again the tapping. It was not coming from the door. It was coming from the window.

  The guys!

  Palmer was suddenly, sharply awake. Why would the guys come now, in the morning, before school? He got out of bed, raised the windowshade—and froze. It wasn’t Beans. It wasn’t Mutto. It was a bird.

  More to the point, it was a pigeon.

  14

  Or was it?

  So often had Palmer dreamed of pigeons, that’s what he thought it might be: a dream. He pulled down the shade.

  He walked around his room. He kicked his hippo slippers across the floor. He picked up his little foam basketball and lobbed some hook shots into the net hanging from the back of his door. He returned to the window. He lifted the bottom of the shade an inch. He peeked. He saw a pair of small, pink, turkeylike legs rising to a gray, feathery plumpness. He lifted the shade fully.

  It was no dream.

  Palmer flapped his hand. “Shoo! Shoo!” he whispered.

  The bird pecked at the windowpane.

  Just what Palmer needed, to be seen in the company of a pigeon. Beans would wring both their necks.

  “Go! Go!”

  The bird tapped, as if replying in pigeon code.

  Palmer rammed down the shade.

  What a stupid pigeon! A million towns to choose from all over the country, and this birdbrain picks the one that shoots five thousand of them every year. And of all the houses in town!

  The door opened. His mother poked her head in, surprised. “You’re up?”

  “Just got up,” he managed to say. “I heard you coming.”

  The door closed.

  Palmer rushed through everything that morning. He couldn’t wait to get out of the house. He was ten minutes early at the corner where he met the guys every school day.

  They were two blocks away when they saw him. They waved crazily and yelled, “Snots! Snots!” and came running. They knocked each other into snow-banks in their attempts to reach him first. Palmer’s eyes watered, he gave out a giggle, he felt so good.

  The walk to school became one long snowball fight. Along the way Beans noticed Dorothy Gruzik walking behind them. “Enemy ambush!” he cried out. “Counterattack!”

  The four of them fired volleys at her. She hunched and turned as snowballs exploded on the back of her red coat. Palmer could not remember seeing the coat before. Must have gotten it for Christmas, he thought, as he packed and fired, packed and fired.

  “Battleship barrage!” shrieked Beans.

  Palmer fired without restraint. Since summer he had hardly spoken to her. He had found out there just wasn’t room in his life for both Dorothy and the guys. Like peanut butter and pickles, they didn’t mix. It seemed like everything the guys liked, everything they stood for, she did not. Thanks to the guys, he finally saw her for the pooper she was. She never laughed, never had any fun. Even now, look at her—just crouching there, not a peep, no screaming, no crying, no running away like any normal girl. Always had to act so big. And three weeks ago, for the first time ever, she had not invited him to her birthday party.

  The school bell was ringing.

  “Let’s go!” shouted Beans.

  Giving it a little extra, Palmer fired a final cannonball. It splattered white against the red coat, and he ran inside with the guys.

  All day long he had a hard time concentrating. He kept thinking of the pigeon. Where did it come from? How did it get here? Did the blizzard blow it in? Where was it going now?

  Anywhere but my house, thought Palmer.

  After school he forgot about the bird in a flurry of snowballs and the crackle of sled runners on Valentine’s Hill. He plunged and snowballed and tumbled and laughed until the sky in the west turned fiery orange. He made it home just in time for dinner. He did his homework. He played with his toy soldiers.

  The sky outside h
is window was pitch black. He did not want to look, but he had to. He got his father’s flashlight. Slowly he raised the shade. He could see nothing but the reflection of his own room off the windowpane. He raised the window. Light spilled from his room onto the snow-capped porch roof. He saw pigeon tracks, but no pigeon.

  He leaned out the window. He turned on the flashlight and swept it across the roof, back and forth, corner to corner. He saw nothing but silent snow.

  He closed the window, lowered the shade, turned off the flashlight. He sat on the edge of his bed. He took a deep breath. He felt better.

  15

  Tapping.

  Again, next morning.

  Oh no.

  He reached out from the groggies, lifted the hem of the shade two inches. There it was, the world’s dumbest bird, dipping its dumb head down so its orange button eye could stare back at him.

  Palmer knelt at the window. He talked to the orange eye. “Don’t you want to live, you dumb stupid cluck? Go look at the soccer field. This town kills pigeons. There’s a guy named Beans. He’s my friend, but he’s not your friend. He hates you. If he ever sees you he’ll wring your neck. And if you don’t care about yourself, how about me? What do you think’s going to happen to me if people think I have a pigeon?”

  He raised the shade; the pigeon’s head rose with it.

  “Please—please—” he put his palms together prayerfully—“go back where you came from. We don’t want you here.”