Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze (19 page)

    
Brilliant as dewdrops blazing in the sun,

        
And in design as fleeting as the dew.

        
Here, close to these bright changelings, find the clue.

Oliver went to pay a visit to Miss Bishop one Saturday afternoon. He had done so several times since their first meeting, once accompanied by Randy and Father, both of whom had liked her. This pleased Oliver, who had a proprietary air toward Miss Bishop, as though by meeting her first he had, in a way, invented her.

He liked her house. It was nice and full of objects that had stories attached to them, and Miss Bishop could unwind these narratives as tidily as she might unwind a ball of yarn. Like many a lonely person she loved to talk when she had the chance, and Oliver was glad to listen. He would sit on the rug among the cats while his hostess made pomander balls, or herb sachets, or mended. When the weather was right, as spring advanced, he would crawl along beside her in the garden helping with the weeding. (At home he never weeded unless prodded, but here it was different.)

This particular afternoon, however, was rainy. It had commenced to rain when he was halfway there, and he arrived at Miss Bishop's house soaking wet; he was forced to take refuge in one of her housecoats while his clothes were hung on the firescreen to dry. It was cozy in the little house: the fire hissed and snapped, and the rain sounded as if it were being flung in handfuls against the window. Miss Bishop had prepared a tray of tea and seed cookies and watercress sandwiches (made with wild brook watercress, not bought, and for this reason Oliver, who normally did not care any more for watercress than for weeding, gobbled them enthusiastically).

Aunt Belle had a new set of kittens, too; their eyes had opened only two days ago and were a blank grey-blue color. They had tiny upright tails, and the pads of their paws looked like little pink raspberries. Every now and then Oliver would scoop one up to hold against his cheek or just to marvel at: at the tiny triangle of nose, the thin, curved ears, the teeth, small and sharp as thorns. He felt happy and comfortable. He felt welcomed and appreciated, and planned to stay for several hours.

The failure to find the twelfth clue ceased, for a little while, to bother him. That they had definitely failed on this one he was sure. Never had they taken so long to trace their objective: already it was the middle of May and they had no idea of what to look for; they had worried and worked and racked their brains, but they simply could not understand the poem.

“All I can think of is that they mean a rainbow,” Randy had groaned. “‘Those which are broken here achieve perfection,' and ‘those which are scattered here become as one.'” Maybe they're talking about all of the trillions of raindrops in a rainbow.”

“But those raindrops
don't
become as one,” objected Oliver. “They only seem to because of the way the sunlight strikes them, and makes them look like a big arch standing still.”

“Well, I don't know; these mysterious clue writers take liberties sometimes. ‘Fleeting as dew' and ‘splendid as jewels.' What else could they mean? But you can't get close to a rainbow. I know because I've tried; long ago when I believed in the pot of gold I tried, and you just
can't.
”

“Oh, everybody's tried,” said Oliver. “I don't think they're talking about a rainbow at all. Anyway how could they be sure there was going to
be
a rainbow? Maybe there won't be one around here for twenty years, for all they know.”

“Yes, I suppose that's a point,” Randy conceded. “Oh dear.”

They were really stymied.

But today they had stopped worrying for a while. Randy and Pearl Cotton and Daphne Addison had all gone to Braxton to a long, luxurious double-feature movie, and Oliver was here, draped in Miss Bishop's housecoat, drinking tea. (Weak, with cream and three lumps of sugar, the way he liked it. Rush called it an “orange-pekoe milkshake.”)

“That's a very pretty thing you're making, Miss Bishop,” remarked Oliver politely.

She held up her crocheting so he could see it better. Another mat, he supposed. Miss Bishop was addicted to mats; she put them everywhere, on things and under things and over things.

“I invented this pattern myself,” she said, with some pride. “I call it the snowflake. See, it has six sides.”

“Why it does look like one, sort of,” Oliver agreed.

“I've always been partial to snowflakes,” said Miss Bishop. “Ever since I was a child. I can still remember the day I discovered they weren't just little dabs of white, just little frosty feathers coming down. I was seven years old, and I had a brand-new winter coat; navy blue. I wore it to church—it was too big for me, they always bought my clothes too big for me so I could grow into them, but by the time the clothes fitted me just right they were handed down to my little sister Ethel so
she
could grow into them, and by the time they fitted
her
just right they were ready for the rag bag.… Let's see, where was I?”

“You had this new coat,” Oliver said.

“Oh, yes. Big though it was, it was new and I was proud of it. Well, coming home from church that day it started to snow. Fine, dry flakes. I looked at one on my new navy blue sleeve and all at once I felt that I had discovered something breathtaking! Something tremendous, like the law of gravity or the existence of the solar system! I stood right there where I was and I shouted.
‘Papa!'
I shouted. ‘The snow is made of little stars! It's not just snow; it's all little teeny weeny kinds of stars!' Papa didn't seem a bit excited. ‘Yes, Lou,' he said. ‘They're crystals. The raindrops freeze and crystallize in geometric patterns. That's why they look that way.' But I was just beside myself, I never had seen anything so pretty! When I got home I borrowed my grandma's reading glass and sat on the front stoop examining the perfect little things, and I saw that there were many varieties of the six-sided pattern. I wanted to do something about them; keep them, hold onto them some way, and I thought maybe if I drew pictures of them I would at least have a memory of the way they looked—really, I must have been a little crazy with excitement—so I went and got a pad and pencil and commenced to work—”

“You must have been an awful good drawer,” Oliver said.

“That was just it. Of course I wasn't. I was only seven years old, untalented and slow; and in my effort I kept leaning too close and breathing hard on the crystals so that before I even got the second line on paper the snowflake I'd be drawing would just sort of dim out and fade away to water. I was frantic, but I kept on trying and always failing till at last, what with frustration and haste and rage at my own clumsiness, I began to cry. I howled. I opened my mouth and simply howled.

“Well, past the fence just then came Mr. Lansdorf. He was a German gentleman, the grandfather of my best friend, Augusta Schrader; he'd come over for a long visit with his daughter, Augusta's mother, and everyone had grown to love him. He was generous and jolly, and he had such rosy cheeks and such a lovely curly white beard that when he played the part of Santa Claus at the church Christmas festival he needed no disguise except the costume.”

“Sort of like Mr. Titus with a beard,” said Oliver.

“Yes, and with a strong German accent. When he saw me (and heard me) he said, ‘Vy are you with such a big open mouth crying, little Lou?' And I howled sadly, ‘It's the snowflakes. They don't last long enough, and they're so beautiful.' ‘Vy you vish they should a long time last?' he said. ‘Always there are more coming.'

“‘I want to draw them,' I explained. ‘I want to draw all the different kinds so I'll remember them.'

“‘So. Then you vill drawing be until time ends, little Lou,' he said. ‘Because each flake is different from each other flake, no two are matching, and see there are from the sky coming so many of them! So many, many hundreds every time it snows!'

“He opened the gate and came in and sat down beside me looking more like Santa Claus than ever with the snow sparkling in his beard and on his tufty eyebrows. He wore a fur cap, too; in those days men often did, and it was wonderfully becoming. I wiped away my tears, and together we watched the snowflakes through Grandma's glass, and it was true, just as Mr. Lansdorf said, no two were exactly alike.

“Not long after that he went home to Germany, and in the spring a present came to me from him. There was a note with it that said, ‘For little Lou. These crystals will not melt away, though like the flakes of snow each design is different.' And in the box there was a big kaleidoscope, the first one I'd seen and the best one I ever did see. Wait a minute, I still have it. I'll show it to you.”

A log crumbled in the fire, Aunt Belle purred among her kittens, the rain tapped at the window. In a moment Miss Bishop returned with the kaleidoscope; a large stout one bound in worn red leather that gave evidence of great use, but when Oliver held it up to the light and peered into it with one eye, he saw that the colorful and complicated patterns within it were as perfect and as bright as new.

“We have one of these at home,” he said. “A good one, too, but not as good as this. This one's neat! Brother! Here's a design that looks like the splendidest crown you ever saw!”

Very carefully so as not to jar the pattern, Oliver handed the cylinder to Miss Bishop who looked into it, expressed admiration, then turned it a few times herself until she saw a design that made her think of Ali Baba's treasure, and then she carefully handed it back to Oliver.

“Isn't it wonderful?” she said. “All these changing designs, each one different, each one perfect, and all made with a couple of mirrors and a jumble of broken glass! Just chips of colored glass, Oliver, and in the kaleidoscope they look like jewels.”

“Like jewels,” repeated Oliver in a queer voice. He put the kaleidoscope down on his knee and sat staring at Miss Bishop.

“Why, Oliver, what is it? Do you feel all right?”

“Miss Bishop, I'm awful sorry, but I have to go home. What you said just reminded me about something. Something I have to do right away. I'm awfully sorry.”

“But, honey, it's still raining!”

“Oh, that's all right, I'll run fast!”

In the end he reluctantly agreed to borrow a raincoat and ran flapping like a flounder down the road, with pink plastic billowing around him.

“Hi there,” said Willy Sloper who was coming out of the house just as Oliver flapped in. “What are you impersonating? Bubble gum?”

“Where's Randy?” croaked Oliver breathlessly.

“Still over to Braxton to the pictures, I guess,” said Willy.

“Heck, and it's a double feature,” groaned Oliver, who, since he was honorable, knew he would have to wait for his sister before he seized the clue.

When, a little after six, he heard the Cottons' car in the driveway, he flew to the door. Randy took forever to say good-bye. Hovering there impatiently he could hear feminine giggles and cackles issuing from the car and at last was goaded into shouting, “Hey! Hurry up!”

Then she came. “Well, goodness, what's the rush?”

“I know where the clue is!”

“No! Honestly? Oh,
where?
”

“Follow me.”

“Not in the Office again!” exclaimed Randy as they started up the second flight of stairs.

“Yup. I'm sure of it. Wait'll you see!”

After a short fierce search by Oliver, the kaleidoscope was located at the very bottom of the toy box.

“Of
course!
” cried Randy. “The broken things and the jewels and all! But how did you ever guess it?”

“Tell you in a minute,” said Oliver. “Here, help me get the thing out, will you? It's there all right, but it's way down inside.”

They managed to snake out the little roll of blue paper with a pencil, and Randy read the rhyme as usual:

“A heart is cold that once was hot.

    
A voice is still that once was bold.

Seek in the dust of flames forgot

    
For that which you would seize and hold!”

“Oh, now honestly,” said Randy. “‘Flames forgot.' For goodness sake, what kind of talk is that? I suppose they must mean ashes of some sort, but nothing poetic rhymes with ashes—ashes, splashes, crashes—”

“Measle rashes,” contributed Oliver.

“Mustaches,” added Randy. “So they have to talk about ‘the dust of flames forgot' instead.”

“If they're talking about ashes they must mean to look in the fireplaces then, don't you think?”

“It sounds that way. But Father's still using his. Gee whiz, I hope it hasn't been burned up!”

“Oh, I guess they wouldn't take any chances. Let's go down and have a look.”

“Ran-dee? Oli-ver?” called Cuffy's voice relentlessly. “Time to set the table now and get ready for your supper!”

“Heck,” said Oliver. “Some meal is always interfering.”

“First time I ever heard you speak unkindly of a meal,” said Randy. “Never mind, though, we'll go to work tomorrow. Now tell me, how did you ever guess about the kaleidoscope!”