The Giant-Slayer (30 page)

The witch poked her head from the mud and examined every thing, from the giant’s castle to the frayed ends of broken harnesses. When she saw Khan she made a croaking, ribbiting sound in her throat. “Why is the hunter here?” she asked.

“Hey, wait,” said Dickie again.

“Now what?” said Carolyn.

“If she lives in a swamp,” he said, “how come she knows Khan?”

“Beats me,” said Carolyn, looking sideways from her pillow.

“Besides, Khan said he never met her. Remember that? How does that work?”

“I don’t know,” said Carolyn. “It’s a mystery, all right.”

At the end of the row, Miss Freeman sat watching over Laurie, with James on the floor beside her. Dickie looked toward them, then back to Carolyn. He was frowning. “What are they going to do to Collosso?”

“What do you think?” said Carolyn. “One’s a giant-slayer, isn’t he?”

“But what if she’s Collosso?”

“Who?” asked Carolyn. “The witch?”

“Laurie!” he said, frustrated. “Like I’m Khan, and you’re the witch. What if Laurie’s Collosso?”

“I thought she was supposed to be the Woman,” said Carolyn. “Why would she be Collosso?”

“I don’t know. But what if she is?” said Dickie. “Boy, don’t you see? If they kill Collosso, she might die. She might really die.”

He was quite upset now, so distraught that Miss Freeman turned away from Laurie and tried to soothe him. “Honey, no one’s going to die,” she said.

“In the story, Miss Freeman,” said Dickie. “She might be part of the story.”

He had to explain for the nurse, in his short little bursts, why he was scared of a story. He had to show her that made-up things might kill a girl. He didn’t think she’d understand, but he tried his best. The machines hummed, and the bellows filled and emptied, and Dickie talked on and on until Miss Freeman made him stop.

“It’s okay. I get it,” she said.

“Really?” asked Dickie.

“Yes. And you know something? The doctors might say that I’m nuts,” said Miss Freeman. “But I think Laurie can hear every word you’re saying. I think she knows exactly what’s going on here.”

“You do?”

“I do,” she said, smiling. “And I think she’s tickled pink that you want to finish the story she started. It doesn’t matter if the ending’s different. It will please her a whole lot, I’m sure, if you end it any way you like.”

“But if Collosso dies, it might kill her,” said Dickie, nearly in tears.

“Oh, honey, I don’t think so.” Miss Freeman wiped his forehead with a cloth and cool water. She rubbed his cheeks and his neck, all around the rubber collar. “It’s only a story.”

Dickie saw that she didn’t really understand at all. She probably
thought
she did, but she couldn’t.

“Why don’t you have a little nap, Dickie?” asked Miss Freeman. “You can rest a bit, and maybe Carolyn can go on with the story.”

“No!” said Dickie. “I don’t want her to tell it now.”

Carolyn said, “I don’t care.” But she obviously did. Her long braid trembled as she shook her head. “You go ahead and tell it, Dickie.”

“Well,
nobody
has to tell it just now,” said Miss Freeman. “I think all of you should rest because it’s therapy in the morning.”

The idea of therapy in the morning made the children quiet. Even James felt a shiver inside, and he had his therapy on a different day. Just the thought of the hot packs sent cold twinges through his crippled legs.

It took the police nearly two hours to find Mr. Valentine. He came into the ward at a run, coins jingling in his pocket, his gray hat crushed in his hands. At the doorway he paused for an instant, looking all around, then rushed to Laurie’s side.

He stood above her, his face as gray as his hat. His lips started quivering, then his eyes filled up with tears that rolled down his cheeks and splashed onto Laurie’s pillow. It seemed that he was trying to talk but couldn’t, for the only sounds he made were pathetic whines and splutters.

The hat fell from his hand as he reached out and put his palm flat on the iron lung. He rubbed it over the metal, back and forth and round and round, as though he could reach right through and hold on to his daughter.

“Oh, Laurie,” he said at last. “Oh, Laurie.”

She lay just as she had all along: eyes closed, perfectly still,
while the tube in her throat swayed with the breathing of the machine. It looked like a pale sort of worm reaching this way and that, with little bubbles of foam at its head.

Miss Freeman had come in behind him, and now moved up to his side. She seemed to hold him up as his whole body began to sag. She tried to lead him away, to guide him from the room. “There’s papers you have to fill out,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve got phone calls to make.”

In his old brown suit, Mr. Valentine looked weary and ancient. He stooped down and got his hat. He brushed the crown to knock away a bit of dust. For a long time, with Miss Freeman’s hand on his back, he just stood and looked at Laurie, knowing that Dickie and Chip and Carolyn were watching. As though it would give him any privacy, they turned their faces aside, so that all three looked toward the door, and none of them said a word.

Mr. Valentine bent over to speak to his daughter. He talked in whispers, with many sibilant sounds: “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry; so sorry,” he said. “I did my best. I tried to do the right thing. I never dreamed that this would happen.”

She lay perfectly still, not asleep and not awake, not even breathing on her own.

It was more than ten minutes before Mr. Valentine straightened up again, and then a minute more until he’d gathered himself enough to turn around. He put his hand on Dickie’s pillow. “Hello, Richard,” he said.

Dickie turned to look up at him.

“This won’t sound right at all,” said Mr. Valentine. “But I’m glad you’re here with Laurie. When she comes around,
it will be a great comfort to find you beside her. Do you know that you’re the only friend she’s ever had?”

“Boy, she’s got lots of friends, Mr. Valentine,” said Dickie. “Not just me and Chip and Carolyn, but—”

“It’s true. She’s really nice,” said Carolyn. And Chip said, “I think she’s peachy.”

Mr. Valentine looked even sadder. “I had no idea,” he said. “She never talked to me about this place. Or if she did, I didn’t listen.”

Carolyn said, “She was telling us a story.”

“Yes, of course,” said Mr. Valentine, with a small laugh.

“It was a neato story,” said Chip.

“Boy, it sure was,” said Dickie. “It had a giant-slayer. And a big white castle in the mountains. And lions with wings. And a witch like a frog. And—”

“I was the witch,” said Carolyn. “’Cause I was kind of mean at first.”

“And I was a hunter,” said Dickie.

“And I was a teamster,” said Chip. “I had a huge wagon with a hundred oxen.”

Mr. Valentine shook his head sadly. “I wish I’d known,” he said. “I wish I’d heard that story.”

He left them then—with a slap of his hat on his leg, with one more look at Laurie. He went all bent and tired-looking, shuffling with his feet. At the door he tried to smile. “God bless you all,” he said. And at last he started crying.

E
ven at night it was never quite dark in the respirator room. There was always the glow of the city in the window, the shine from the corridor through the open door, a star-like twinkle from the tiny bulbs on the respirator motors. But that night it was as dark as it ever got, for the clouds were thick in a moonless sky.

Mrs. Strawberry had come and gone. She had screamed at the sight of Laurie, a tingling shriek that was the worst sound Dickie had ever heard in his life. She had thrown herself against the iron lung, arms spread wide, and had held on like a cat as Mr. Valentine had pulled her away. “This was a mistake,” he’d said. “This was a bad mistake.”

He was asleep now, out in the hall, sprawled across two chairs. His troubled snoring came in bursts.

Dickie lay staring toward Laurie, a black shadow never moving. It was most important to him that they finish the story, but he was afraid as well of ending it. He wondered again what should happen to Collosso. For at least the third time, he asked, “What if Laurie is the giant?” He couldn’t get the thought out of his mind.

No one teased him about it. Carolyn didn’t snap or snarl or laugh. “At first,” she said, “I thought the giant was polio. But I’m not sure anymore. Maybe the giant’s just a giant.”

“Boy, he’s more than that,” said Dickie.

Chip said that he’d been thinking about the story, and he was wondering if Collosso was maybe a symbol. “A kinda symbol,” he said. “I don’t know. Like he stands for growing up or something, for not being a kid anymore.” But the others didn’t understand.

“It’s like Jimmy’s always a child,” said Chip. “He never grows big. He never grows up.”

The tiny lights on the respirator, reflected in the window, reflected in the mirror too. In a way, Chip was looking at himself. “But if Jimmy kills Collosso, he gets big. He becomes a man, ’cause the witch promised him that. So he won’t be a kid anymore.”

“Aw, you’re nuts,” said Carolyn.

They all lay quiet for a minute, then Carolyn spoke again. “If the giant is polio and Laurie’s the Woman, it sort of makes sense, you know. She disappeared in a way, like the Woman did, and now the giant’s got her.”

There were sounds all through the night—quiet little hospital sounds or the louder rumble of a city, now and then a siren.

On this night an ambulance came rushing to the hospital. The siren sound grew louder until it wailed below the window. The flashing lights shone on the ceiling above the row of iron lungs.

Dickie started the story.