The Curse of the Blue Figurine (6 page)

Dear Sirs:

I own a blue statue shaped like an Egyptian mummy. It is old and the label on the bottom says SOUVENIR OF CAIRO, ILLINOIS. I wonder if this statue is valuable.

Sincerely, 

John Dixon 

23 Fillmore St. Duston Heights, Mass.

P.S.: Do not send a reply to my home. I will go to the library in the coming months to read your magazine and see if you have answered my query.

Johnny folded this note up neatly, put it in an envelope, and printed the
Hobbies
magazine address on the outside. He slapped on a stamp and put the letter in his briefcase, and the next day, on his way to school, he dropped the letter into a mailbox. And he thought about how nice it would be if the blue gizmo turned out to be worth fifty thousand dollars or something like that.

March was a wintry month in Massachusetts that year. Sea gales battered the town, and the snow stayed on the ground. Life went on in its usual routine for Johnny, for a while. But in the middle of March some rather odd things started to happen.

First there was the problem of the spiders. One day Johnny came home from school and found Gramma down on her knees on the parlor floor. She had a spray gun in her hands, and she was squirting insect spray along the baseboard. She looked upset.

"Hi, Gramma!" said Johnny. He threw his books onto the couch and walked over to get a closer look at what his grandmother was doing. "Whatcha doin', huh?"

Gramma glowered. She hated stupid questions. "What does it
look
like I'm doin', huh? I'm sprayin' away like crazy with this Black Flag insect stuff, on account of the house is full of spiders!
Spiders!
Can you imagine it, in the middle of winter?"

Johnny wanted to point out that it was not exactly the middle of winter but more like the end of it. But Gramma didn't like being corrected, so he said nothing.

He watched for a few minutes as she shuffled along on her knees, spraying as she went.

"I haven't seen any spiders," said Johnny after a while. "What kind are they?"

"Those rotten little gray ones," Gramma grumbled. "And if you haven't seen 'em, you must be goin' blind! Go out in the kitchen and have yourself a look. You'll be lucky if they don't carry you away with 'em. Spiders in winter! Lord! Where do you suppose they can be living?"

Johnny went out to the kitchen and looked. Sure enough, scooting here and there over the floor were small gray spiders. They were like the spiders he had seen crawling over the black book. Johnny felt an odd, queasy stirring of fear in his stomach. Quickly he told himself that he should not let his imagination run wild. These were just spiders and nothing more. And to prove this to himself he put out his foot and crushed one.

The spider invasion lasted several days. Then, mysteriously, they disappeared. Gramma was convinced the Black Flag spray had done its work. Johnny was not so sure.

One windy night toward the end of March Johnny went to the movies by himself. He went to see a spooky show called
The Ghost Returns.
By the time he got out of the theater, he was in a pretty nervous state. And as he made his way along the dark deserted streets toward home he began to get the feeling that someone was following him.

This is a maddening and frightening feeling, as everyone knows. Johnny kept telling himself that it was all in his mind, but still, as he walked from streetlight to streetlight, he found his fear growing. Once or twice he stopped suddenly and spun quickly around, but there was never anyone there.

When he got home, Johnny was somewhat taken aback to find that the house was dark. A note was taped to the window of the front door:

Gone next door to visit. Home later. Key under mat. Gramma and Grampa

Johnny got out the key and let himself in. He was determined to shake off the nervous, frightened feeling that had come over him. First he turned on some lights. Then he marched straight out to the kitchen and got the pimiento-flavored cream cheese and the crackers. Then he went to the parlor, planted himself in the bristly brown chair, turned on the radio, and sat back to listen and munch. It wasn't a spooky show. It was
Camel Caravan,
a musical program that did the hit tunes of the week. Vaughn Monroe was on it, and some other singers that Johnny liked. Nevertheless, as he listened Johnny found his nervousness returning. He kept glancing toward the dark doorway of the room, but the doorway was always empty.

At ten o'clock Gramma and Grampa came home, and Johnny was very glad to see them. Gramma went 
straight up to bed. Grampa hung around downstairs to talk with Johnny for a while. But he was pretty pooped, so he did not stay very long. After a few minutes he too went to bed, and Johnny decided that it was pretty lonely sitting around downstairs. Wearily he climbed the steps. He washed up and brushed his teeth and put on his pajamas. Then he jumped into bed and pulled up the covers. Almost immediately he went to sleep. And he had a very odd dream.

He dreamed that he was back in Riverhead, walking down Main Street late at night. He was headed for the United Cigar Store. In real life Johnny had gone to the United Cigar Store many, many times. He had bought his first deck of Bicycle playing cards there, and he had picked up other things too. Odd trinkets like a ball-and-cup magic trick, a Chinese puzzle, a dribble glass, a joy buzzer. Now, in the dream, he was going to the United Cigar Store again, though he really didn't know why. He passed the Sunoco station, and then he was there. But what had happened to the store? Over the big red-and-white United Cigar sign a weathered wooden slab had been hung. The letters on the slab said:

R. BAART - ANTIQUES AND CURIOS

In the midst of life, we are in death.

Johnny looked up at the sign. It wasn't the sort of sign you usually saw, even on antique stores. But there was a light on inside, and for some reason Johnny wanted very much to go in. As he started up the steps 
he glanced at one of the display windows and noticed that the pipes and fishing reels and Kodak cameras were gone. Instead the bottom part of the window was full of grayish sand, and from the sand little blue mummy figurines stuck out. Each one had a grinning skull for a face.

Johnny opened the door and went in. The shop was dusty and disorderly. Gray spiders scurried across the floor. There was a heap of broken furniture in the back, and the only light came from a bare bulb that hung from a frayed black cord. There was a counter, with a display case below, but the windows of the display case were so flyspecked and dirty that Johnny couldn't see what was inside. Behind the counter stood the proprietor of the shop. She was an old lady, in a shapeless gray sack of a dress. She wore a large green eyeshade that covered the top half of her face.

"Can I help you, young man?" The voice was horrible and croaking.

Johnny knew that the old woman was really Father Baart, but for some reason he was not afraid. He said calmly, "I have come here to search for the answer to the mysteries of life."

The old woman grinned—Johnny could see her wrinkled mouth and strong, jutting chin below the shade. "Come around behind the counter, then," she barked. "Step this way, step right this way...."

Johnny moved around behind the counter, and he saw 
—to his horror—that the old woman was standing in an open grave. Behind her was a gravestone, and all around was long, matted grass. Johnny tried to turn and run, but his legs were like lead. The old woman had hold of his hand now, and she was pulling him down. He struggled. He planted his feet and tried to resist, but the old woman's grip was like an iron vise. The harder Johnny pulled, the closer he got to the grave. His feet were sliding, inch by inch, to the brink. And now he saw that the woman's face was a skull, a horrible grinning skull covered with black crisscrossed strands of spider web. Johnny was screaming, but he couldn't hear any sound. And now he was plunging down, down...

With a sudden jolt Johnny woke up. He was trembling all over. Was there anyone in the room? No, no one that he could see. The room was dark and quiet. From far away came the steady rattling roar of a freight train that was passing through the town. Johnny lay down and pulled the covers up over himself. But it was a long time before he could get to sleep again.

The next morning at breakfast Johnny was unusually thoughtful. Also his appetite was gone. He only ate a few spoonfuls of Gramma's delicious oatmeal (served with brown sugar, maple syrup, and raisins). Gramma asked him if he had something on his mind, and, lying, he said no. He just couldn't tell her, because he was thinking about the blue figurine. How would she feel if she knew 
he had swiped that gizmo from the church? Johnny had a pretty good idea of how she would feel. So he said nothing.

The school day passed in its usual way, except that Johnny was in a fog. He was usually quite alert and raised his hand a lot, but not today. In fact he got bawled out a couple of times by Sister Electa because he was not paying attention. Johnny was thinking about the spooky things that had happened to him lately. He was wondering if there was any connection between them and the blue figurine. He could not get Father Baart's grim warning out of his mind:
Whoever removes these things from the church does so at his own peril. I abjure you by the living God not to endanger your immortal soul. Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Was this warning just craziness, or was there something more to it? By the time school was over for the day, Johnny had made up his mind: He would have to see the professor about all this.

That evening, after dinner, Johnny went across the street to see his friend. He had called the professor up, and the professor had said sure, come ahead, he would be up in the bathroom sailing boats in the tub! Johnny did not know what to think of this, but he had learned to expect the unexpected from Professor Childermass. When he arrived at the door of the professor's bathroom, he found the old man kneeling beside the tub. He was wearing a rubber waterproof apron, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. The tub was half full of water, 
and in it floated a fleet of little wooden boats. They were galleys, with matchstick oars and little triangular sails. Little paper flags fluttered from the sterns of the ships. Half of the flags were red and gold and had coats of arms on them. The other half were green and had gold crescents. The professor explained that he was reenacting the Battle of Lepanto, which had taken place in 1571. In it the Christian ships led by Don John of Austria had defeated the ships of the Turks. With a little book open in his left hand and a stick held in his right the professor moved the ships around. When a ship got taken or sunk, the professor would reach in and lift it out of the water and put it on a shelf over the tub. Next to the tub was a blackboard where the professor kept score. The scoreboard looked like this:

"Now then," said the professor as he pushed two boats together, "what did you want to see me about?"

Johnny told him. He explained about the spiders and the feeling of being followed that he had had the other night, and about the dream. The professor listened thoughtfully while Johnny talked, but he did not seem particularly worried.

"Is that all?" said the professor when Johnny was through. "I mean, is that all that's got you worried?"

Johnny felt offended. Here he was trying to tell the 
professor his troubles, and what he was getting in response was
Ho, hum, is that all?
"I... I thought you'd tell me what to do," said Johnny in an offended voice.

Immediately the professor saw that he had hurt Johnny's feelings. He hadn't meant to. Now he heaved a deep, dispirited sigh. He stood up and started untying the strings of his apron. "Look, John," he said slowly, "I am not trying to make light of your worries. But I do think this whole business is in your mind. Spiders can find places to live and hatch their eggs in an old house even in wintertime. As for your dream and your feeling that you were followed... well, the power of suggestion is pretty strong. You heard my ghost story—which, by the way, I wish I had never,
ever
told you—and then you found that dratted hunk of blue crockery. You've got Father Baart and ghosts on the brain, my boy, and that's why you've got the heebie-jeebies these days. And do you know what I suggest as a cure? Hmmm?"

Johnny shook his head. "I dunno, Professor. What?"

The professor paused dramatically. He folded up his apron and put it away in the bathroom closet. Then he turned back to Johnny, rubbing his hands and grinning hugely. "I would suggest," he said, "that you let me beat the holy bejesus out of you in a chess game or two, and that you then eat a huge, glutty, calorie-filled hunk of my delectable prune cake, with creamy smooth chocolate frosting, and whipped cream on top. How's that for a prescription? Eh?"