The Moffats (10 page)

Still, no matter what they had to draw, the children loved the day of Miss Partridge's visit: first, because all studies would be swept aside for the sake of autumn leaves and pumpkins; secondly, because Miss Partridge was so amiable. She was always smiling, always. The children called her the smiley teacher. No one had ever seen her frown or heard her speak a cross word. Not a bit like Mr. Allgood, the music master, who was so strict he set every heart pounding like a blacksmith's hammer the minute he came in the door. Why, when Mr. Allgood entered the room, the children, without being told one word, automatically sat up in their chairs so straight that their backs would ache for the rest of the day. Chet Pudge stopped putting Jane's braids in the inkwell. Edie Ellenbach stuck her chewing gum under the seat lest she be asked to sing her music slip alone. Mr. Allgood knew the minute you opened your mouth if there was anything in it. Even Peter Frost would toe the mark and stop making slingshot bullets out of his arithmetic paper. Certainly Mr. Allgood, whom all the children called Mr. Allbad (only out of school, way in the distance), was a figure to be reckoned with.

And if it came to a toss-up, who would you rather have visit the class, Mr. Allgood or Miss Partridge? Why, Miss Partridge easily walked away with all the votes. She always said, "Good! Good!" to you about your drawing, whereas your singing seemed to put Mr. Allgood in a fearful temper.

Well, so that was the kind of day it had been. A visit from the smiley teacher! There had been no sitting up straight as ramrods for her. More sticks of gum than ever were stuck in the children's mouths and oh! What a bad day it had been for Janey's braids! To cap the climax, as soon as the drawing lesson was over and the best autumn leaf drawings had been placed around the room on exhibition, Miss Partridge had produced thirty-eight orange lollipops, one for everyone in the class, and said that now they would play games, have stories, and go home fifteen minutes early.

Why all these good things in one day?

Because today was Halloween!

Jane shivered as she thought of the stories Miss Partridge had told with the shades lowered. One about a golden arm; one dreadful one about stairs and something creeping up them; and one about "my grandfather, Henry Watty," that was the most scary of all. Then they'd played some good rough games and left early.

Janey scuffled through the dry, crackling leaves in the gutter, holding her drawing carefully in one hand for Mama. She felt so excited about Halloween, she forgot to breathe the prayer, "Dear God, please don't let anyone buy the yellow house," which the sight of the For Sale sign usually brought to her lips. She skipped through the gate, skipped as fast as she could around the house to the back door with Catherine-the-cat racing after her. She burst into the kitchen, which today smelled of hot gingerbread, and ran into the Grape Room, where Mrs. Shoemaker was trying on a very tight white satin gown.

Mama's mouth was full of pins, but she stopped pulling the gown down over Mrs. Shoemaker's fuzzy yellow hair long enough to look admiringly at the drawing of the autumn leaf. It would be put away later with all the apples, pumpkins, and autumn leaves in the box where Mama kept these things. She nodded her head up and down when Jane said, "May I have a piece of gingerbread?"

Jane grabbed the gingerbread and ran out to join Rufus and Joe in the barn.

"Are you gettin' ready for tonight?" she asked.

"You bet," said Joe. "Sylvie said to make a ghost. We're goin' to put her in the attic an! scare Peter Frost."

"When?"

"Tonight."

Jane sucked her breath in between her teeth. Ooh! Think of a ghost in the attic!

"Are you sure Peter Frost will come?"

"Oh, sure," said Joe. "He said to me, 'Ghosts! Ha-ha! Ghosts! No such thing!' And I said to him, 'Sure, in our attic there's a ghost.'"

"What did he say to that?" asked Jane.

"He said, 'Ghost, nothin'!'"

"And what did you say then?"

"I said, 'All right, if you don't believe me, come on over to our house at eight o'clock,' and we'd show him."

"Well, we better get busy," said Rufus energetically. "What do we do first?"

"First we have to carve the head. This ghost is going to have a pumpkin head." Joe went to a dark corner of the barn and fetched a beautiful pumpkin head. The three of them set to work digging out a most startling face. And as they worked, they reviewed their grudges against Peter Frost. There were plenty of them. It was high time something should be done to even the score.

"Remember that time he made Rufus fall off the hitching post?"

"Remember that time he told Jane to put her mouth up against the hole in the fence and he would give her a piece of candy and he gave her a mouthful of sand instead?"

"Remember how he always is pullin' Sylvie's curls every chance he gets? And hard—so it hurts."

"Remember that time he almost got Jane arrested and she had to hide in the bread box?"

Remember? Indeed they remembered all these insults and a great many others besides. Something just had to be done to settle the account. They worked harder and faster than they'd ever worked before.

After a while Rufus said, "I know what. We can use my teeth in this head."

"Oh, fine," said Joe. "Where are they?"

Without answering, Rufus climbed to the loft. He found the secret hiding place under the beams where he kept some
of his treasures. Here was the old tin Prince Albert tobacco box where he kept his collection of teeth. Safe, apparently, and quite full, too. He looked at them lovingly. Some of the teeth were quite small. These were Rufus's own. But most of the collection he had found under the Grape Room window. Dr. Witty, who had lived in the yellow house before the Moffats, was a dentist. Apparently every time he pulled out a tooth, he had just tossed it out of the window. The first tooth Rufus had found one day when he was digging a hole, hoping to get a peep into China. It had filled him with the most amazed delight. In excitement he had rushed in to show it to Mama, thinking she would be as interested as he was. On the contrary, she hadn't been at all pleased about it and had said, "Throw that nasty thing away." He didn't show her his finds after that, but stored them privately in his Prince Albert box.

"Well, what are you doin' up there?" called Jane.

"Comin'," said Rufus, carefully putting them back in the box. Making his way down the ladder, he poured them out between Jane and Joe.

They looked at the teeth admiringly.

"Gee, those are swell," said Jane. "Look at that one, will you?" she said, pointing to an enormous one.

"Yeah," agreed Rufus, looking at it with pride. "Old Natby the blacksmith gave me that one. He said he'd been shoein' an old mare one day and that tooth fell out of her mouth. He said it was the biggest he'd ever seen."

They stuck the teeth in the pumpkin head, and at last it was finished. They looked at their work with satisfaction. Phew! She looked gruesome, particularly with that old mare's tooth hanging over her lower lip. Twilight was approaching and they had difficulty in seeing clearly. As it grew darker, they automatically lowered their voices. Now they were talking in whispers, putting the finishing touches on their plan for the night. They began to feel a creepy uneasiness. Their own ideas scared them and sent prickles up and down their spines. They jumped when Sylvie came to the kitchen door and called them to supper, and then tore from the barn as though all the hobyahs, pookas, and goblins in the world were at their heels.

The light from the kitchen spread a warm welcome to them. From up and down the street they could hear the different whistles and calls that summoned the other children in the block home to their dinners. Pookas, hobyahs, and goblins fled ... temporarily. The five Moffats sat down around the kitchen table. As they ate, the oil lamp in the middle of the table sputtered and sent little curls of black smoke to the top of the glass chimney.

"A wind is rising," said Mama.

The children exchanged pleased glances. A wind! So much the better.

Jane whispered to Sylvie, "Have you had a chance to bring the Madame upstairs?" For Madame-the-bust was to be the ghost this night.

"Not yet," Sylvie whispered back. "There's plenty of time."

"Plenty of time!" echoed Jane impatiently. "Supposin' Peter Frost comes before everything's ready?" She couldn't eat another bite. Rufus had finished, too. Finally the others put down their spoons. Dinner was over.

"Now," said Mama, "I see no reason, even if it is Halloween, why I shouldn't leave you four children. Mrs. Pudge wants me to talk over plans for her silver wedding anniversary dress, so I think I'll go tonight. Now don't be gallivanting through the streets after eight o'clock. And, Joey, please tie the garbage pail to the back porch or some of those street hoodlums will be trying to tie it to the lamppost. And see that the rake and anything else that's movable is locked in the barn. I won't be very late." Then she put on the black velvet hat with the blue violets that matched her eyes and went out.

How still and empty the house suddenly became without Mama in it! Inside not a sound except the ticking of the clock in the sitting room and the creaking of the cane rocking chair that no one was sitting in. Outside the wind rustled in the trees and a dog that sounded miles away howled mournfully. The children sat hushed and motionless. Suddenly a hot coal fell in the grate. Catherine-the-cat jumped from her place under the stove, arched her back, and bristled her tail. The children broke into screams of laughter and the house became friendly again.

"Well," said Sylvie, "we'd better hurry. First the pumpkin. Who'll get that?"

Who indeed? Who would go out in that dark barn and get the pumpkin head? No one answered, so Joe and Jane were sent.

"We'll stand in the door," said Sylvie.

Breathlessly, Joe and Jane tore to the barn, snatched up the fierce-looking pumpkin head, and tore back into the warm kitchen.

"Now the Madame," said Sylvie, solemnly lighting the smallest oil lamp and leading the way into the Grape Room. Catherine-the-cat leaped ahead of her, wagging her tail restlessly. What was the matter with Catherine tonight, anyway? She kept meowing and meowing and following them all around. Sylvie set the lamp carefully on the table. Catherine-the-cat sat in the shadow. Her yellow eyes shone with a knowing gleam.

"Look at Catherine," said Jane. "She's watchin' us and watchin' us."

"Let her watch," said Sylvie as she carefully removed Mrs. Shoemaker's white satin gown from Madame-the-bust. Then she grasped Madame tightly in her arms.

"You carry the pumpkin, Joe. And Rufus, you bring your scooter. Jane can carry the sheets."

Slowly the procession made its way out of the Grape Room, into the hall, up the stairs to the second floor. Joe led the way with his pocket flashlight. From the hall upstairs, a stepladder led to the attic, which did not have a regular door but a hatch, which Joe had to push up with his shoulders. It fell open with a groan and the strange musty smell of the attic greeted them. Joe set the head on the floor and flashed the light down the stepladder so the others could see to climb up.