Mitch and Amy (10 page)

“Nobody could break that bird with a yardstick,” said Mitchell. “I bet you couldn't break it with a baseball bat. I bet you couldn't even break it with a sledgehammer.”

Amy flared up. “You don't have to sound so happy about it.”

“I'm just pointing out a few facts, is all,” Mitchell told his sister. “Plain everyday facts.”

“Mom, what am I going to do?” asked Amy. “The party is tomorrow, and there isn't time to make another piñata. Anyway, we used up all the paper and paste.”

Mitchell had a suggestion to offer. “Maybe the class will think it's too pretty to break.”

Amy dismissed this possibility. “We aren't
in kindergarten. Besides, nobody could ever call it pretty. My class isn't that dumb. Mom, what am I going to do?”

“At this point there isn't much you can do,” said Mrs. Huff. “Take it to school and explain what happened to Mrs. Martin. I'm sure she'll think of something. Probably she'll decide to tip it over and dump out the candy and peanuts.”

When Mr. Huff came home from work, he examined Amy's feathered friend and decided it was a rare species of Paper-feathered Dingbat found only in areas of California inhabited by school children.

The next morning Amy put on her favorite dress, ate her breakfast without dawdling, and hurried through her cello practice. As she put on her jacket to go to school Mitchell came into the kitchen with his hair slicked down with water. She turned to her mother, who was busy rinsing dishes so they would be clean enough to put in the dishwasher, and
asked, “Could you drive me to school with my piñata? It's sort of awkward to carry.”

“It isn't heavy, and Marla will help you.” Mrs. Huff began to load the dishwasher. “I can't break my vow to the mothers of the neighborhood and drive you to school; they would call me a traitor and never invite me to another coffee party.”

“Come on, Mom. Drive us as a special treat, because this is the day of the Christmas party,” coaxed Mitchell.

“Not a chance,” said their hard-hearted mother cheerfully.

Amy looked at Mitchell and saw that he was thinking the same thing—Alan Hibbler. She and her brother had not mentioned Alan since the day Mitchell had come home with the broken skateboard, but now they both were wondering what would happen if she met Alan Hibbler on the way to school with her piñata. There wouldn't be any piñata for the Christmas party, that's what. Amy did not
know what to do. Her feathered friend with its flapping wings and drooping tail was too awkward a shape to wrap in paper.

“I'll walk to school with you, Amy,” said Mitchell.

“Thanks, Mitch.”

“What has come over my children?” asked Mrs. Huff, but Amy knew her mother was not waiting for an answer.

Naturally Amy did not expect her brother to walk beside her any more than she expected him to carry her piñata for her. She knew that a boy will go only so far for his sister, so she was not surprised when he trailed along behind her. A brisk breeze from the North fluttered the wings and tail of Amy's feathered friend.

“Your bird looks as if it wants to fly,” remarked Marla, who was waiting in front of her house. The girls walked together, the piñata between them, and speculated on the
kind of treat their room mother would provide for the Christmas party. They decided they would prefer Hawaiian punch to apple juice and several kinds of cookies to one cupcake. They passed the eucalyptus grove and followed the winding street down the hill with Mitchell padding along behind in his sneakers looking out for Alan Hibbler.

Once past the grove of trees whose trunks were just the right thickness to hide a boy, Amy began to feel safe. She felt even safer when they passed the steep vacant lot with the clumps of greasewood, another good hiding place. Even so, she glanced over her shoulder and was pleased to see Mitchell still padding along behind, although not as close as when they had left home. He, too, must feel that the danger of Alan was past.

Amy and Marla began a fascinating discussion of Christmas presents they hoped to receive. Amy wanted a sewing box with a
pair of really sharp scissors and some little dolls to fit the furniture she enjoyed making and books that were not educational and maybe a
few
clothes, but not things like underwear and sweaters and—

With a yell that sounded as if it came from an old Tarzan movie, Alan Hibbler leaped from an open garage near the sidewalk and landed directly in front of the girls. He was brandishing a stick. Marla screamed, but Amy was unable to move or to make a sound.

“Hey!” yelled Mitchell, and Amy heard her brother's sneakers pounding down the street.

Alan raised the stick. Amy tried to protect her piñata by turning around, but she was not quick enough. Alan brought his stick down
whack
squarely on Amy's feathered friend, knocking it out of her arms. The wings flapped, but they were held in place with so much Scotch tape they did not
come off.
Whack!
Alan hit the piñata again, and again he did not even dent it.

“You cut that out!” yelled Mitchell.

Alan stopped and stared at the crepe-paper bird. “Say, what kind of piñata is this anyway?” he wanted to know.

“A tough piñata,” said Amy coldly, as she rescued her feathered friend from the street. She looked at her brother standing beside her with his fists doubled up. “It's all right, Mitch. Alan can't hurt it.” She wanted to laugh. Alan looked so funny standing there wondering why he hadn't broken the piñata.

Marla knew exactly how to behave. “When our committee makes a piñata,” she said haughtily, “we make it to last.”

“Our piñata is indestructible,” said Amy.

“My sister's piñata could pass the sledgehammer test,” said Mitchell.

“Stupid,” said Alan. “A piñata is supposed to break.”

Amy assumed the superior manner she
sometimes used to annoy Mitchell and said, “Marla, imagine! Alan thinks a piñata is supposed to break.” The whole thing was like a game of pretend. She and Marla were duchesses, and Alan was—Amy wasn't quite sure what he was. Somebody stupid—a stableboy or perhaps a chimney sweep.

“Well, it is!” Alan was both red in the face and indignant. “How else are you going to get the candy and junk out of it?”

Marla turned to Amy and said, as if in amazement, “Alan doesn't know how we're going to get the candy out of our piñata.”

“And you had better get going before we hit you with it,” said Mitchell. “My sister's piñata is so strong it could just about smash a fellow to pieces.”

Alan, outnumbered even if two of the number were girls, threw down his stick in disgust. “Aw, for Pete's sake,” he muttered and, turning, ran on down the hill toward school.

“I guess you told him,” Amy said to Mitchell, and could see that her brother was satisfied with the way things had turned out. She was pleased, too, because she had not forgotten the broken skateboard or the lunch bucket Alan had kicked in the second grade or her Brownie beanie he had snatched and thrown into the boys' bathroom when she was in the third grade.

When the three reached the school grounds, Amy and Marla carried the piñata to a bench that was beside the stairs leading up to the main floor of the building. Mitchell ran off to a kickball game.

“Hi, Amy,” Bonnie called from the top of the steps. When Amy looked up, Bonnie held her arms out over the concrete wall that prevented Bay View pupils from falling off the landing, and called out, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” A day never passed at Bay View School without at least one girl playing the balcony scene from
this spot, just like Olive Oyl in an old Popeye cartoon on television.

The bell rang and quite unexpectedly Alan Hibbler's face appeared above the concrete wall, almost as if he had been crouched down waiting. Before anyone realized what was happening, Alan leaned over the railing and spat into Amy's hair. Then he turned and disappeared into the building.

The incident happened so quickly that everyone who witnessed it stood open-mouthed in astonishment, not knowing what to do and unable to think of anything to say. When Amy realized what Alan had done, her eyes filled with tears of anger and humiliation.

“He's scared to spit on anyone his own size.” Bernadette Stumpf, who had come in from a kickball game, was scornful.

“Come on, Amy,” said Marla with sympathy in her voice. “Let's go to the girls' bathroom and wash the spit out of your hair.”

“Yes, come on, Amy,” said Bonnie, who had run down the steps. “I'll help.”

Amy found herself being borne off to the tiled chill of the girls' bathroom by half a dozen indignant and sympathetic friends. Her eyes were full of tears, and she could scarcely see. She was so angry and so humiliated she could not speak. She
hated
Alan Hibbler. How dare he do this thing to her? Hating people was wrong, Amy knew, but at this moment, as her friends dampened paper towels under the faucets, she could not help herself. She
hated
Alan Hibbler.

The girls scrubbed the top of Amy's head with wet paper towels while they buzzed with excitement and anger.

“That old Alan Hibbler…thinks he can get away with anything…just because his father is so famous…who does he think he is, anyway?…I'm glad he isn't in
my
class…do you know what I heard he did one time?…he used to pick on Amy's
brother, but now….”

“Ow. Not so hard,” Amy managed to protest. “There,” said Marla at last, when Amy's hair was wet and rumpled by the scrubbing. “That ought to get rid of Alan's cooties.”

Amy was beginning to enjoy being the center of so much concerned attention. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist
and sniffed. “Th-thanks,” she said to her friends. “Th-thanks loads.”

Marla put her arm around Amy. “Come on. Let's go to class. Alan's inside the main building so it's safe.” She led Amy out of the girls' bathroom toward their temporary classroom while Bonnie followed with the piñata.

Amy was comforted to know she had such loyal friends, but she was thinking, What about other times when my friends aren't around? She was sure to run into Alan Hibbler sometime, and what would she do then? A sentence that she had interrupted while her hair was being scrubbed came back to her now. “He used to pick on Amy's brother, but now….” Amy did not have to hear the rest of the words to know how the sentence would have ended. But now he picks on Amy.

B
y recess Mitchell and everyone else in Miss Colby's room had heard about Alan Hibbler's spitting in Amy's hair, but as soon as their room mother appeared thoughts turned from Alan and Amy to refreshments. They were treated to pink popcorn balls, Hawaiian punch, and cookies, but Miss Colby spoiled the party for Mitchell. Just before she wished the children a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, she reminded her
class that their book reports were due the week after Christmas vacation. Mitchell had a feeling that this time he could not slip through with another report on a Dr. Seuss book, because his third-grade teacher had written, “Next time try a harder book,” on his last Dr. Seuss report.

“Mitch, you could lick Alan Hibbler. I know you could,” said Bernadette Stumpf, when the party was over and school had been dismissed. Bernadette was wearing a long string of beads in honor of the occasion.

Mitchell jammed his fists into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and said nothing, embarrassed because Bernadette liked him and even more embarrassed because he could not share her confidence in himself.

Halfway home Amy caught up with her brother. “Everybody was so nice to me,” she said happily. “They acted as if I were—oh, you know—sort of important.”

“That's good,” said Mitchell, not sure he meant what he said. He was thinking about Alan Hibbler and how he would like to punch him in the nose, about how he was going to have to punch him in the nose. A boy could not let another boy get away with spitting in his sister's hair.

That night the wind changed from the north to the southwest, and with it came the winter storms. The Huffs were shut off from their view of the bay by storm clouds that swirled around their house like smoke. Great gusts slammed rain and wet eucalyptus leaves against the front windows and set gravel rattling across the flat tar-and-gravel roof. Eucalyptus trees, like ghosts glimpsed through the clouds, seemed to toss their branches in agony. Mitchell did what any other boy would do under the circumstances. He turned on the television set.

“Now, Mitch,” said Mrs. Huff almost
at once. “I don't want you spending your entire Christmas vacation in front of the television set.”

“But, Mom,” protested Mitchell, “there isn't anything to do in this kind of weather.”

“You can read,” said Mrs. Huff shortly.

The minute his mother began to speak about reading in that tone of voice, Mitchell balked. He
did not want to read
. He especially did not want to read when Amy was sitting there with her nose buried in a thick book.

Half an hour later Mrs. Huff snapped off the television set in the middle of one of Mitchell's favorite commercials. “Hey, Mom!” objected Mitchell.

Mrs. Huff pointed silently at several library books on the coffee table and left the room. Scowling, Mitchell shuffled through the books, looked at the pictures, and put
them down again. None of the books appealed to him. One was too thin and babyish-looking. In another the children in the pictures looked too dainty. In the third, Mitchell liked the boys and girls in the illustrations because they looked lively and real, but the print in the book was too small. Mitchell went into his room to play with his little cars.

Wind and rain continued to bluster, clouds continued to swirl, and Mrs. Huff continued to turn off the television set. Mitchell and Amy popped corn, helped decorate the Christmas tree, and chopped celery and onions for the turkey stuffing. When Christmas morning finally arrived, the whole family unwrapped packages under the lighted Christmas tree until the living room was a glorious jumble of torn Christmas wrappings, ribbons, empty boxes, and excelsior.

Mitchell received a big box that contained
a dry-cell battery, lots of wire, buzzers, bells, switches, sockets, and little light bulbs. He also received a real basketball, a quilted nylon jacket with a hood that could be zipped out of sight under the collar, and many smaller gifts including four model kits and two books he did not want to read.

After that television seemed less important to Mitchell, because he was busy assembling models or rigging up his buzzers, bells, and switches so that he could buzz, ring, and turn little lights on and off. From Amy's room came the sound of her new sewing machine. She was making slacks for a stuffed elephant.

Then one morning Mitchell woke up to find that his throat hurt every time he swallowed and in between swallows, too. He said, “a-a-a-a,” while a flashlight was beamed down his throat, his temperature was taken, and his mother announced that he was indeed sick and that he must stay in
bed. Mitchell poked at the cereal served him on a tray, nibbled at a corner of his toast, and decided he did not feel like eating anything. His mother brought him a glass of cold apple juice. Mitchell sipped his juice and dozed until lunchtime, when his mother brought him some soup. “Could I have the—” asked Mitchell, not wanting to say the word out loud.

Mrs. Huff smiled ruefully and said with a sigh, “Oh, I suppose so,” before she wheeled the television set into Mitchell's room.

Mitchell spent a feverish and languid afternoon napping and watching whatever went past on the screen—an old movie, some grown-ups playing a game, a kiddie program with a lot of old cartoons. While he poked at his supper, which Amy had carried in for him, he watched a familiar program about some fishermen catching the wily tuna fish. It was followed by the news and two
cowboy programs, the best part of Mitchell's day. When the good guy fought the bad guy, Mitchell was licking Alan Hibbler.

Next Amy and Mrs. Huff joined Mitchell, and they all watched the French Chef prepare a fish soup, or
bouillabaisse
, from an assortment of fish, large and small, which involved much whacking and chopping as well as slicing and mincing with knives and cleavers.

“Fish—ugh,” said Mitchell, who had no appetite and did not like fish when he did have an appetite. However, he had enjoyed watching the French Chef whack and chop.

The next morning Mitchell, at Amy's suggestion, sat up in bed long enough to wire a doorbell to his dry-cell battery so that he could summon his sister when he needed waiting on. Amy was always unusually nice to Mitchell when he was sick, almost as if she felt guilty because he was sick and was
trying to make up for all the squabbles over box tops and television programs. Mitchell enjoyed lying in bed and ringing his doorbell whenever he wanted a glass of water or the television set changed to a different channel. He drank a lot of water that day just for the pleasure of ringing for Amy.

By Saturday Mitchell's temperature had dropped, and he swallowed a few bites of breakfast while he watched a nursery-school program, which was followed by an exercise program, a man interviewing some famous but boring people, and several old comedies. Amy perched on the foot of his bed to watch the comedies, and just at a funny part, where a curly-haired woman was trying on a pair of skis in her living room and was knocking over all the lamps, Mr. Huff stalked into the bedroom with the three library books, which he dropped on Mitchell's bed.

“Aw, Dad,” said Mitchell, tearing his eyes
away from the television set. “Those are baby books.”

“Mitchell, you have to start reading sometime,” his father began.

Mitchell sighed and thought, Here it comes. Mr. Huff had two lectures that he delivered from time to time. The first lecture had to do with practicing music lessons and began, “You children don't realize how fortunate you are to have music lessons.” The second lecture, which was always directed at Mitchell, was about to begin.

“Mitchell, you are much too intelligent to waste so much time in front of the television set.” Mr. Huff emphasized his point by switching off the set and silencing the curly-haired woman in skis. “You get nothing from it.”

“Yes, I do,” said Mitchell, propping his head up with his fist. “Some of it is educational.”

“What?” his father challenged him. “What
have you watched that is educational in the past twenty-four hours?”

“I learned all about how fishermen catch the wily tuna,” Mitchell informed his father.

“That is one half hour out of an entire day of your life that has otherwise been wasted,” said Mr. Huff.

“We've watched that wily tuna program lots of times,” said Amy. “It really is educational. And we watched the French Chef with Mom. Mom always watches the French Chef.”

Mitchell admired Amy's strategy of bringing their mother into the discussion. “And you watch the news and football games,” he reminded his father.

Mr. Huff went on, ignoring his children's side of the argument. “A day wasted when you could have been reading—”

Mitchell and Amy exchanged a glance that said, Dad is really wound up this time.

“—good books. How do you expect to
get through high school and college if—”

Mitchell slumped down in bed. Years and years of having to read books stretched endlessly ahead of him. That book report. Fifth grade, sixth grade, junior high school, high school, college…

“—you spend every waking minute filling your mind with—”

“Dad!” said Amy.

“—rubbish.” Mr. Huff looked at Amy sitting on the foot of Mitchell's bed. “Yes, Amy?” he asked, impatient with this interruption when he was warming up to one of his favorite subjects.

“Dad,” began Amy, who was sometimes inclined to be stern with her parents, “I think you are being much too hard on poor Mitch.”

This time Mr. Huff did look amused. “I am?”

“Yes,” said Amy earnestly, and Mitchell began to take an interest in the conversation.
“He's been sick. I don't think you should pick on him when he's been sick.”

Mitchell lay back on the pillow and felt thin and pale.

“I'm not picking on him. I am just pointing out—” Mr. Huff broke off in the middle of a sentence and smiled. “Maybe you're right, Amy. I'll get down off my soapbox and stop lecturing, at least for a couple of days.”

“Poor little boy,” said Amy sympathetically, when Mr. Huff had left the room.

“Don't you call me little,” said Mitchell, who was grateful to his sister, but not that grateful.

In the afternoon the family had errands that no longer could be postponed because of the bad weather. Mrs. Huff needed groceries, Mr. Huff needed a new string for his banjo, and Amy had read all her library books as well as her Christmas books. Mitchell
agreed to stay alone while his family drove out into the storm. He passed the time watching two silly game programs and an unusually boring old movie about some sailors who were trying to get a song published. He wished he had something to do.

As soon as Mitchell heard the car return and the back door open, he sat up in bed and called out, “Did you bring me something?”

“Just groceries,” answered his mother.

Amy came into Mitchell's room in her raincoat and laid a library book on the bed. “I brought you something, Mitch.”

Mitchell made a face, but the title caught his eye.
Wild Bill Hickok
.

“I thought you might like a book about grown-ups with shooting in it,” said Amy.

“Thanks,” said Mitchell, who felt he should be polite even though he did not intend to read the book. When Amy had gone to take off her raincoat, he went back
to watching the movie, which was not only boring but confusing. It was full of sailors and girls, who seemed to spend their time tap dancing or jumping into taxicabs. He finally lost interest in it entirely and lay in bed hoping for an interesting commercial, like the one about the lady who used shortening that was so light she had to chase her cake around the kitchen with a butterfly net, but even the commercials were boring. They were mostly about ladies with headaches or ladies who talked to one another about detergents.

Mitchell picked up
Wild Bill Hickok
and flicked idly through the pages while he waited for the next commercial. The book was thicker than a babyish book yet not so thick it was discouraging. The print in the book was the right size, and a sentence caught his eye. It was about shooting, and there was nothing babyish about it. It reminded him of Westerns he had seen on television.

Mitchell turned to the beginning of the book to see what it was like and suddenly thought, Hey! I can read most of these words! He read half a page and discovered that even if he skipped the words he did not know or did not want to bother to sound out, the rest of the words meant something. He finished the first page and turned to the second. Frontier scouts on horseback were a lot more interesting than tap-dancing sailors.

Mitchell read several pages before he heard his mother coming down the hall and hastily thrust the book under the bedcovers. Naturally he was too proud to let his mother catch him reading after everyone had made such a big fuss about his not reading. He would be too embarrassed. While he drank the juice his mother had brought him, he wondered what happened next in the book, and when he was alone again he pulled it out from under the blanket and read a few more pages.