Blair’s Nightmare (12 page)

An hour or two later David was sitting on the back steps looking toward the hills and thinking, when Janie suddenly came out and banged the door behind her. Then she stomped across the porch and sat down beside him with her chin on her fists.

“What's the matter?” David asked.

Janie sighed. “I don't get any allowance tomorrow.”

He tried to keep from grinning. Janie lost her allowance more often than any kid in the family, in spite of the fact that she really liked money a lot. “What've you been up to this time?”

“Nothing.” Janie's voice squeaked with indignation. “But I said I was.” Suddenly she raised her head. Her eyes lit up, and the frown wrinkles disappeared from her forehead. “It was a sacrifice. A noble sacrifice just like in
Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates.
I sacrificed my allowance for Nightmare.”

“What are you talking about?” David said.

“Dad heard me talking to Blair about Nightmare.”

“Janie!”

“It's all right. He didn't hear very much—just something about Blair talking dog language. But then he made me come in his study, and he scolded me about playing imaginary-dog with Blair. So I had to confess and say I was sorry and everything. And he said didn't I remember that I'd promised not to, and so I said yes, and then he said I don't get any allowance this week. But I didn't squeal.”

So David congratulated her on her noble sacrifice and promised to give her part of his allowance. That really cheered her up a lot. After a while she said, “Could you tell Amanda and the twins about it? About how I had to sacrifice my allowance? And tell them to give me some of theirs, too. Okay?”

Then David said didn't she think her sacrifice would be a lot less noble that way, and she said she'd rather be unnoble than broke. So he agreed to ask Amanda and the twins, and Janie got up off the steps and skipped across the yard to the swing tree and started swinging.

It was just a little later that David heard Dad and Molly quarreling. He'd decided to do a little reading, and he was on his way to his room to get a book when he heard voices coming out of Dad's study.

“Lots of children have imaginary friends when they're little,” Molly was saying, “and I don't think it hurts them a bit. I think it's an indication of a rich inner life.”

“I agree.” Dad was using the super calm voice he used when he was arguing. “Lots of children of three or four. But Blair is six. And Mrs. Bowen sees it as part of a larger pattern—a pattern of failure to deal with reality. Of his lack of ability to hear and follow instructions, for instance.”

“That woman!” Molly's voice was angry. “If I were Blair's teacher, I'd make a big thing about Blair's dog. I'd help him write stories about it, and I'd have the whole class draw pictures of it.”

“But you're not his teacher,” Dad said.

“I know, but I am his mother—all right, stepmother—but I feel like his mother. And I'm not going to stop him if he wants
to tell me about his dog. Not even if you take away my allowance, too, like poor little Janie.”

David didn't want to listen. It was a lot like the way you crane your neck to stare at accidents on the highway, knowing you'll hate it if you see anything and yet not able to stop. So he went on listening, and hating it, until he heard someone on the stairs. Then he hurried on to his own room.

On the window seat with a good book, he couldn't keep his mind on what he was reading. Even though he kept reminding himself that Dad and Molly got along great most of the time, and that a little argument now and then didn't necessarily mean divorce or any thing like that, he couldn't seem to relax and forget about what he'd overheard. It was as if the quarrel about Blair's dog kept getting mixed up with other more distant memories—memories of losing one mother already, and the fact that Molly had already gotten one divorce.

He went on sitting there, staring at his book, until Blair came in and got Rolor out of his cage and started playing with him on the floor. Blair was trying to teach the crow how to play checkers. So far Rolor had learned to wait for his turn and then to hop over and pick up a red checker. What he did with the checker didn't usually make a whole lot of sense, but still it was a pretty good start—for a crow. On about his fourth move he actually jumped one of Blair's checkers, and David got really
excited; but after that things started going downhill. On his next turn Rolor flew back to his cage with the checker and put it in his water dish. The whole scene wasn't too enlightening, but it was a lot more entertaining than reading the same paragraph over six times and worrying.

It wasn't exactly what you would call relaxed at dinner that night. In fact, if the dinner table and everyone around it had been balanced on a high wire over the Grand Canyon, there couldn't have been more careful consideration of every move. It figured. The kids were all keyed up about Nightmare—worrying if he would be back tonight as well as worrying that somebody was going to get careless and give away the whole secret. And it was pretty obvious that Dad and Molly were hiding something, too.

Actually they were smiling a lot and being super polite and thoughtful to each other—answering very quickly when the other one spoke and passing each other things they already had a plate full of. If you didn't know, you might think they were a couple of very nice people—who just happened to make everyone around them want to scream. But of course David knew. They hadn't finished quarrelling yet.

As usual, Blair went to sleep almost immediately after dinner. Watching him conking out right in the middle of a story Molly was reading to him and Esther, David remembered wondering
why Blair's tendency to sleep a lot seemed to be getting worse. He'd worried about it, and he knew Molly and Dad had, too. It was too bad they couldn't be told that there was a perfectly logical reason for it. It was too bad he couldn't say, “It's nothing to worry about, Molly. It's just that he spends a couple of hours every night playing with his dog.” That would really fix things up. Or—he suppressed a grin—he might say, “It's just that he has a Nightmare that wakes him up every night.”

Bedtime came at last, but David didn't sleep. Or at least he didn't plan to. But he was doing something very like it when he heard Blair calling him. He immediately leaped out of bed and staggered to the window where Blair was looking out into a still dark night.

“He's there,” Blair said. “Nightmare's down there. I'll go tell Janie and Tesser.” A few minutes later they were all out in the garden gathered around Nightmare as he wolfed down a big panful of food.

He didn't growl at all that night. He sniffed at each of them in turn before he started eating; and when he finished, he went around again sniffing and licking their hands as if he were saying thanks. The little kids all patted him, so when he came to David, he tried it too; and the dog didn't seem to mind. Pretty soon they were all patting him at once.

It was a strange sensation, patting a dog whose head was
almost as high as your chin. There was a heavy choke collar on the strong, thick neck, but no license or identification tags. The rough shaggy coat felt softer than it looked, but under the hair the bones were very close to the surface. Each knob on the backbone was clear and distinct, as were the huge arching bones of the ribcage. It seemed that, in spite of all the food scrounging Janie and the twins had been doing, Nightmare hadn't really been getting enough to eat.

“Poor old boy,” David said. “Poor dog.” And Nightmare did something mournful-looking with his shaggy eyebrows and drooped his ears flat against his head. He looked so sorry for himself that they all laughed, and he liked that. He bounced around bumping into people and licking their faces—and when a dog as tall as Nightmare wanted to lick your face, there wasn't much you could do about it, except let him.

David was scratching the side of Nightmare's head just above his eye when his fingers hit a lump. Under the shaggy hair was a long rough welt that ran for several inches along the side of the huge head. “Hey, Blair,” David said. “What's this?”

“Somebody hurt him,” Blair said. “It's almost well now.”

Amanda and David examined the almost healed wound and then stared at each other. “Somebody shot him,” Amanda whispered.

David nodded.

S
OMEONE HAD SHOT
N
IGHTMARE AND
almost killed him. David felt a rush of anger, and then a fierce determination to keep it from happening again. To somehow find a way to keep Nightmare from wandering around where somebody might take another shot at him.

“I bet those prisoners shot him,” Janie said.

For once one of Janie's theories made some sense. The prisoners supposedly had a gun, and they were out there somewhere in the same area where Nightmare had been living. “Could be,” David said.

“I'll bet it was that troll, Golanski,” Amanda said.

“No, Golanski has a shotgun,” David reminded her. “This wasn't done by bird shot. It was a big bullet.”

“Well, I bet somebody shot him when he was prowling around trying to find food in their yard. We just have to find some way to keep him here—in our own yard.”

Which was exactly what David had been thinking. The question was how. Where could they put him where he'd be safe and where Dad and Molly wouldn't find him? There were a couple of other old outbuildings on the Stanley property, but only the tool shed was isolated enough to be fairly safe, and they'd already found out how Nightmare felt about being shut up in the tool shed. There would have to be some other way.

They stood in a circle with Nightmare in the center for a long time, arguing about how to keep him from wandering around at night and getting shot at. For a while he sat there, looking from one to the other as they talked, as if he were listening carefully to their suggestions. But finally he gave a big sigh and collapsed with his head on his paws. They all laughed. It seemed funny somehow for such a huge animal to act so much like a normal dog.

There didn't seem to be any possible solution. Even if they could find a place to shut him up at night, he would probably have to be released during the day when they were all away at school. It was beginning to seem hopeless. The suggestions got more and more ridiculous, and meanwhile, the temperature in the garden seemed to get colder and colder. At last they decided they would just have to go on doing exactly what Blair had been
doing—feed Nightmare every night and then let him go back to wherever he went—and hope for the best.

“Maybe if we buy some real dog food and feed him all he can possibly eat, he'll at least stay out of other people's yards and spring houses,” David said through chattering teeth. “Come on, kids. We'd better go in. There's nothing more we can do tonight.” He gave Nightmare one last pat and told him good-bye. “I guess you're on your own until tomorrow, big boy. Same time, same place.” It wasn't good enough, but there didn't seem to be any other solution. One at a time the others hugged or patted Nightmare, and slowly and reluctantly, they all started for the back door. Nightmare trotted along behind.

“I guess he remembers coming in last night,” Amanda said. “He'll go away as soon as we all go in.” That was all she knew about it. As soon as they all went in, Nightmare started to whine. They all stopped in their tracks and stared at each other in horror, and then up toward where Dad and Molly were sleeping—or at least, had been sleeping. Silence. No sound from Nightmare and none from upstairs, either. David was just breathing a sigh of relief when there was a loud scratching noise. Just one long scratch, but it sounded like one more and there wouldn't be any door left. David jerked the door open, and Nightmare bounced into the kitchen like a playful puppy. Like about one hundred and fifty pounds of playful puppy.

He wound up sleeping on Blair's bed. It was crazy. All night long David told himself it was crazy. What if Molly came in to see if Blair was sleeping all right. She didn't do it very often, but this could be the night she decided to. And what was going to happen in the morning. It was the kind of thing he hated to think about in the middle of the night.

But in spite of the craziness of it all, there were times that he felt really good about it: two or three times in fact, when he reached over and turned on his bed lamp just to check to see if everything was all right—and there he was flaked out across most of Blair's bed like some kind of enormous stuffed toy. When the light went on, Blair just went on sleeping peacefully, but each time Nightmare lifted his head and kind of grinned at David and thumped his ridiculously long tail on the bedspread.

David didn't sleep very much, but toward morning he was snoozing when the alarm went off. He sat up with a start. Blair's bed was empty. No Nightmare and no Blair either. David leaped to his feet and rushed out into the hall. He was down the stairs and through the hall and into the kitchen before he was fully awake. The door was open, and Blair was standing on the steps looking out toward the back yard and the hills behind. David staggered out onto the porch.

“Blair.” His voice was still sleep-logged and creaky. “What happened? Where is he?”

“Hi, David,” Blair said. “He woke me up, so I brought him downstairs, and he went away. I told him not to come back until it's dark.”

Early that afternoon they decided to hold a council of war in the tree house. It was a little bit crowded, but it seemed like the safest place. They could see anyone coming from a long way off, so they didn't have to worry about eavesdroppers. And in case Dad or Molly got curious and came snooping around, they were all prepared to start hammering and sawing at a moment's notice. They'd barely gotten started, however, when from out near the garage a familiar voice yelled, “Hey, Davey. Where are ya?”