The Seventeenth Swap (15 page)

Eric snatched things from his locker and was out of the building before the echoes died away, hiding from Angel, watching for Debbie Clark. Luck was with him— Debbie came out alone, hugging her books to her middle and dawdling down the broad steps from the door as if she had all the time there was. Eric didn't. He waylaid her at the bottom and said, “Can I get that kitten now?
Right away?”

“Oh, yeah! Sure!” exclaimed Debbie, coming to life. “Come on, my mom's over there with the car.”

A car! It would save a quarter-hour at least, maybe more. “She won't mind?” Eric said. “Your mom?”

“When you're taking a
kitten?
No! Come on.”

They tumbled into the car, Eric in the back seat, muttering how-do-you-do and thanks-for-taking-me and other polite things to Debbie's mother as she drove carefully—and much more slowly than he was traveling
inside—to Marina Drive and into the garage. Then they tumbled out again and Debbie led the way down the narrow walkway and into the utility room. Snowflake was on her way across the linoleum, cautiously stalking a fluff of lint. Eric scooped her up without ceremony, dropping his Language Arts book into his jacket pocket.

“I'm taking that wooden ring toy of hers too, you know,” he reminded Debbie anxiously.

“Yeah, sure, that's fine. Here it is. How're you going to carry her?” Debbie asked.

“What? Oh.” Eric disengaged a needle-sharp claw from his thumb, took the ring with its cord, and reflected belatedly that he ought to have a basket or something. “I'll just—carry her,” he said firmly, glad he had left his ring binder in his locker. She'll be okay.”

“Okay,” said Debbie, whose problem it wasn't. She opened the door. “ 'Bye, Snowflake, honeybun, you darling little itsy-bitsy . . .”

Eric escaped, and ran full speed up the little walk to the street, then around the long curve of Marina Drive toward Rivershore. He learned very quickly that Snowflake did not care for running, which jounced her. She squirmed and dug her ten little needles into his hands and uttered surprisingly loud though high-pitched wails of protest. “It's okay, just relax,” Eric panted, tightening his grip and trying to run with his knees bent so there wouldn't be so much up-and-down motion. That didn't work. He tried holding her out away from his body to keep
her
smooth even when he wasn't. She gave piercing shrieks and clawed frantically to get back to him, peering down over the side of his hand in terror, then straight at him with big eyes and little pink mouth both wide open. He stopped and
hugged her a minute, puffing and wondering exasperately how to work it out, and finally removed the book from his jacket pocket and put her there instead. It was a big pocket, with a flap that buttoned. She trod around in the bottom of it for a moment, silent except for one rather querulous mew, then apparently accepted life as she found it. Eric cupped a steadying hand around her on the outside of the pocket, and went on at a fast, giant-step walk. By the time he passed the bank on Lake Street the big clock on its outside corner said 3:28.

By 3:30 he was in Mrs. Panek's shop, beginning breathlessly on his proposition, which required a good bit of foundation-laying and careful reminding and question-asking. Mrs. Panek was leaning on the counter with a mystified expression, her bare forearms crossed before her like a couple of bowling pins, giving him careful answers.

“Yes, I remember telling you to watch out for 'em,” she was saying. “Yes, we still got 'em all over the place, but they don't do a mite of good as long as the varmits keep stealing my . . . The what? What little hook-thing? . . . Oh,
that.
Why, honey, that's just an old buttonhook, been around here forever, I think it used to belong to . . . no, not specially. But what would you want with that old thing? Folks don't button their shoes any more that I ever . . . Yes, I do use it for that, comes in handy. No, not for anything else I guess, leastways I can't think of . . .”

“Mrs. Panek,” Eric said earnestly, “I can solve all your problems. And I'll do it—for that buttonhook.”

This produced Mrs. Panek's sudden, and always
unexpected, bark of laughter. “All my problems? My land, honey, you don't know what you're taking on!”

“Well—well, I mean the problems we've been talking about. The mice. And the window shade.”

“The
mice?
” Mrs. Panek's gaze sharpened. “Now, how're you gonna do that?”

Eric unbuttoned his pocket and triumphantly drew forth Snowflake.

“My
land
!” shrieked Mrs. Panek. She took one unbelieving look at Snowflake and simply doubled up with laughter. But when Eric set the kitten on the counter her big hand reached out to curl around it. Snowflake crouched away at first, then poked a minute pink nose forward to investigate the nearest finger, and finally sat down and began energetically to wash her front.

“She's a girl,” Eric said, all business. “She won't prowl around like the toms do. She likes to chase things. She'll be company for Frank. She'll grow fast and then she'll hunt your mice. Mice don't hang around places where people keep a cat.”

Mrs. Panek wiped her eyes with a corner of her handkerchief and recovered from her hilarity, though she was still shaken by occasional little subterranean chuckles. “This cat looks more like a dandelion clock than a dangerous hunter,” she said.

“The mice won't think so,” Eric promised.

“Maybe not. Though so far”—another irrepressible quiver shook her—“she's not much bigger than they are.” Eric kept anxiously silent, relying on Snowflake to do his sales job from this point on. She had finished tidying her front fur and was starting on her left leg,
sticking it straight up into the air in a businesslike way and going to work as if somebody were holding a stopwatch on her. “Makes herself right at home, don't she?” said Mrs. Panek, watching. “She sure is cute, though. Pretty fur! Y'know, they say you can tell a good cat by the quality of its fur. This'n feels just like velvet. Or eiderdown or somethin'.” The big hand was moving gently down Snowflake's shoulder—just one finger stroking the fur. Mrs. Panek looked at Eric, her eyes still brimming with amusement. “You gonna tell me to wait till she grows up, then she'll pull down my window shade for me too?”

“No. I've got something else for that.” Eric produced the wooden ring on its cord and put it on the counter.

He thought at first it was going to send Mrs. Panek off again, but she only gurgled, quavered “My
land
” and dragged out her handkerchief to blow her nose, shaking her head. “You're a world-beater. You know that, Eric honey? You're gonna go far. Here, take your buttonhook.” She fumbled in the drawer beside her and handed it over. “This little white fluff-ball might never catch a mouse in her life, but I can't resist her. Or you neither. Haven't had a laugh like that in thirty years.”

“Oh,
thanks,
Mrs. Panek!” gasped Eric. “Thanks a
lot!
I really do appr—Oh, I forgot, here's something for Frank, too. A kind of bonus. Will you give 'em to him? I've got to hurry!”

He dug in his jeans pocket for the two Indian Head pennies Maggie had given him Saturday, deposited them on the counter beside the preoccupied kitten, and
with a last grateful pat on Snowflake's white fur, was on his way.

It was now 3:42.

At 3:47, flustered by a sixty-second delay at the light on Lake Street at Cedar, he arrived at the Hobbyhorse Shop in Long Alley and fairly burst in the door, causing its glass to rattle and the little bell to tinkle frantically. Then he longed to slink right out again, or vanish into thin air or something, because there were customers in the shop—three middle-aged ladies with big sensible-looking purses—and all of them, along with Maggie, had turned to stare at the cause of all the noise.

“Sorry,” said Eric in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Anything the matter, Eric?” Maggie asked calmly.

“Oh, no, I—I just—”

“Be with you in a minute, then. Hang around.” Maggie turned back to the ladies, pointing to something behind them so they'd look away from Eric, and went on telling them whatever he'd interrupted. He stood on one foot and then the other, hurrying inside. A clock on the nearest old table said 4:15, giving him a terrible shock until he realized it wasn't running. By 4:31 he had to be on the bus. He fidgeted over to the glass case and located the beetle. Still there, ready and waiting. He reached into his little inside jacket pocket and took out Dad's daguerreotypes of the stern-looking people who weren't related to him and held them in his hand with Mrs. Panek's buttonhook. He was ready and waiting, too. Now if Maggie could only . . . He cast a longing look her way and found her walking quickly toward
him. The ladies huddled together in the background, peering at something on the far wall.

“What's up, Doc?” said Maggie. “Come for your beetle, have you?”

“Yeah!” Eric breathed, and came back to anxious life. He held out his offerings. “Are these okay?”

“Oh, more than okay!” Maggie exclaimed as she took them. “Downright jim-dandy! That's an
ivory
handle on your buttonhook, I do believe . . . No, early celluloid. Great either way. So now you want the wind-up, right? I love your Great-Great-Grandpa or whoever he is,” she added as she walked around to unlock the case, still admiring the daguerreotype.

“No relation,” Eric told her happily. And then he had the beetle in his hand and couldn't stop the grin that spread all over his face. Everything was working out—every single thing—so far. “Thanks a lot! I'll be back after a while—and I'll be in an
awful
hurry by that time,” he said urgently.

“I'll drop everything,” Maggie assured him as she relocked the case.

She went back to her customers, and Eric went out the door. It was 3:55 exactly. He'd told Angel to meet him at her corner at “about” four o'clock. He was going to be late.

Because of slowpoke traffic lights and a sudden maddening stream of cars coming up First Street from Rivershore, he spent six minutes getting across to Diamond and another three racing along it to the Garden Shop yard and Robert Sparrow's outside stairs. He took them two at a time, feeling his legs go achy and then limp, so that he staggered across the balcony at the top and nearly fell through the open doorway.

“Jumping Je . . . Oh, it's you, is it?” Robert Sparrow came to meet him, bristly blond eyebrows high, bringing an aura of painty smells. He was holding a brush and wearing an ancient bib apron liberally smeared with color. “Walk right in, always welcome—no need to bust the door down.” He followed this with his abrupt grin, so Eric merely grinned back and concentrated on letting his breath catch up with him, wordlessly holding out the beetle.

The artist stuck the brush behind his ear, took the beetle, and looked it over with delight.

“Great!” he exclaimed. “Simply great! Right up there in a class with my rabbit and my old tin butterfly. And now you want a piece of paper that solemnly swears, in so many words . . .” He was moving sideways to his drawing board, nodding as he talked, along with Eric, who was nodding because he hadn't yet enough breath to answer questions. “Okay. I do solemnly swear—” He picked up a pencil and tore a scrap off a block of tracing paper with the same hand, still holding the beetle in the other. “—do solemnly swear,” he muttered as he wrote. “Portrait of one child, female persuasion, name of Angel . . . time to be arranged . . . mutual consent—I like ‘mutual consent,' don't you?” he said to Eric. “Got a nice legal ring to it . . . Fee paid and acknowledged, signed, R. Sparrow, Esq.—That's to impress her, that ‘Esq.' ” he explained to Eric. His pencil scrawled the signature, then swiftly sketched in the little sparrow underneath. He folded the paper one-handed, thumped the crease in and gave it to Eric with a flourish. “There you are—all signed and slapped. On your way now, I want to play with my beetle.”

“Wow, thanks!” Eric puffed, slipping the paper into his pocket after one admiring glance. “Thanks a
lot.
I'll see you Saturday!”

“Two o'clock!” said Robert Sparrow, busy winding the beetle. Eric, glancing back as he went out the door, saw him stoop down to send his new toy scuttling across the floor.

There wasn't a clock to look at. Eric, heading back along Third at a restrained jog so as to have some breath left for Angel, figured it might be about 4:11, or maybe 4:12. It couldn't be much later. It just couldn't. And she'd better be there, waiting—he hadn't even one minute to spare.

She was waiting—he saw her as soon as he cut over to Rose Lane and started toward the Market Street corner a block away. Obviously she'd arrived on time; she was now sitting grumpily beneath a tree, projecting indignation and boredom like laser beams. She scrambled to her feet as she spotted Eric, her mouth already opening to begin with, “Where you
been?
” and go right on from there for maybe half an hour that he didn't have to waste.

“Sorry,” he yelled, forestalling her. “I
said
‘about four.' That's what it is.” He arrived, puffing, digging into his pocket. “Here's the paper. Here's the Chinese box. Gimme the other one, I'm in a hurry.”

“You must be!” Angel said, staring at him as she accepted box and paper and reached into her own pocket to feel around. Then she reached into another pocket and felt there.

“Come
on
,” Eric begged. “Haven't you
got
it?”

“Yes, yes, yes, it's here somewhere, don't be
so—here it is. You'll have to wait while I take all my cocktail picks out of it and put them into the—”