The Gypsy Game (3 page)

April gave up. “Okay, whatever,” she said. “But Alvillar won’t go along with it. I know he won’t. Just you wait and see. This is going to be
war
.” As they marched back to where Toby was waiting with Marshall and Elizabeth, she was imagining all the things that Toby would probably say. Like, “The Professor gave us the keys to
Egypt
, not to some old Gypsy hangout.” Or else, “You guys can’t just decide to change everything without telling me and Ken. We’re Egyptians too, you know.”

“Okay,” she said to Melanie. “Talk. You think it’s such a good idea, you tell him.”

“Yeah, Ross,” Toby said. “Talk.”

Melanie nodded. “All right, I will. Look, Alvillar. We’ve been thinking of doing a thing about Gypsies. You know, just for a while, to see if everybody likes it. We were thinking that maybe we’d kind of run out of Egyptian things to do for the time being, anyway. So we’ve been reading about Gypsies. And we’ve been finding out all this neat stuff and …”

She glanced at Toby and immediately lost her train of thought. There was a very strange look on Toby’s face. A kind of shocked and amazed expression, as if he’d just heard a tremendous explosion or else stuck his finger in an electric light socket. “Gypsies,” he said finally in a breathless whisper. “You want to know about Gypsies? I don’t believe it! I just don’t believe it!” Backing up to the wall, he scooted up on it and sat there kind of laughing noiselessly and shaking his head back and forth.

Melanie and the little kids were all staring at him as if they were watching some kind of fascinating TV show. But April wasn’t buying it. “Look, Alvillar,” she said finally, “what are you raving about?”

“You want to know?” Toby turned his big high-powered eyes toward April. “You want to know what’s so amazing?”

“Sure,” April said scornfully. “Tell me. I can take it.”

“Well,” Toby said, “the truth is, you are right now, right this very moment, talking to one.”

“One what?”

“One
Gypsy
,” Toby said. “I am one. I, Toby Alvillar, am a real live, authentic, natural-born Gypsy. Have been all my life.”

WHEN TOBY ALVILLAR said he was a Gypsy, Melanie didn’t know what to think. She knew what April was thinking because April said so, loud and clear. Which was that Toby was just shooting off his mouth and trying to get attention, like always. But Melanie wasn’t so sure. Squinching up her eyes, she tried to picture him in a sparkly vest with a bright-colored sash around his skinny middle. The dreamed-up picture came easily: a Gypsy Toby, playing an accordion, while a bunch of trained bears …

The thought of
bears
brought her back to reality—and Marshall! Where was he? But actually he was still right there. Just sitting quietly on the wall listening to April and Toby argue.

“Yeah, sure, you’re a Gypsy,” April was saying. “And I’m Wonder Woman. Look, Alvillar, if you’re an actual Gypsy, how come we’ve never heard about it before? Huh? Tell me that.” She turned to Melanie and said, “Do you get it? I sure do. The very minute he finds out that we want to be Gypsies, he decides that he really is one. The only
real
one. So guess what that means. That means the only ‘real’ one gets to be, like,
king
of the Gypsies and decide what everybody else has to do.”

It did sound pretty fishy, Melanie decided. “Can you prove it?” she asked. “Can you prove you’re one?”

“Do you mean, like, do I have a card or something?” He reached into his pocket and pretended to pull out a card. “Yeah, sure. See, it says right here, ‘Tobias Alvillar. Gypsy. First Class.’ ” He grinned and shrugged. “No, I guess I can’t
prove
it, except that I’m a real authority on stuff about Gypsies. I can tell you all kinds of stuff about what they’re like and how they live and why they travel around all the time. Hey, wait a minute. I
can
too prove it. My dad can tell you that we’re Gypsies. Both of us. He’s even more of a Gypsy than I am. Let’s go ask him, right now. Okay?”

Melanie and April looked at each other. They looked at the little kids and then back at Toby. Finally they gave each other one of their almost invisible nods, which meant, “All right. Let’s do it,” and a second or two later all five of them were on their way to the Alvillars’ apartment. But almost immediately Melanie, at least, was beginning to have some second thoughts about the whole thing. She was remembering some very strange rumors that she’d heard about Toby’s lifestyle in general and about his father, Andre Alvillar, the artist, in particular. Rumors that, if they were true, might mean that the Alvillar apartment was not a good place to take a little kid like Marshall or a supersensitive one like Elizabeth.

Catching up with Toby, who was marching ahead like some kind of drum major, she said, “Hey, Toby. Maybe we ought to come some other time. Like, maybe you ought to give your dad some warning before you bring over a whole gang of kids. Besides, won’t he be mad at you for not going to the grocery store?”

Toby shrugged. “He’s probably forgotten about getting food by now. Artists are that way. Sometimes he forgets about food for days at a time.” He turned to look at Melanie, and all of a sudden he began to grin. “And about warning him that we’re coming … You don’t have to worry in December. In the wintertime he wears overalls.”

Melanie felt her face get hot. She looked away, wondering how Toby knew that one of the rumors she’d been thinking about was that sometimes his dad painted and sculpted without much on. Like almost naked, for instance.

Melanie wasn’t too reassured by what Toby had said, but they were almost to University Avenue before she had a chance to talk privately to April. “Uh, April,” she whispered. “I’ve been thinking—”

April pulled away impatiently. “Yeah? What?”

“Well, it’s just that I’ve heard that Toby lives in a pretty weird place.”

“Yeah, I know,” April said delightedly. “Come on. I can’t wait.”

Melanie gave up. It would probably be all right. And besides, she really was curious to see if any of the rumors were true. She’d just have to be careful to keep an eye on Marshall. And Elizabeth, too.

Toby lived just off University Avenue on top of a building that was mostly a bar and pool hall. Only you didn’t have to go through the downstairs to get up to where the Alvillars lived, which was good thing because no one was allowed in that part of the building who wasn’t eighteen years old. Instead, you went around back and then up some outside stairs that ended on a rusty metal platform. At one end of the platform was a big metal door that wouldn’t
open unless you kicked it. Toby kicked it once, and nothing happened.

“Back up,” he said, “so I can get a run at it.”

They all backed up, and Toby ran across the rattly slats of the platform, kicked, and the door crashed open. From somewhere in the distance a hollow-sounding voice said, “Great Caesar’s ghost. What was that?”

“It’s just me,” Toby yelled, “and some friends! Can we come in?”

There was no answer, but he went in anyway. Melanie grabbed Marshall’s hand and followed Toby into an enormous room, practically a block long and almost as wide. It had a very high ceiling that was partly made from glass, and on the floor, stretching from one side of the room to the other, was—
junk
. Most of the junk seemed to be from wrecking yards or construction sites, but mixed in with the pipes and rods and wheels were bicycle handlebars, lampshades, stovepipes, birdcages, telephones, frying pans, and a bunch of pink plastic toilet seats. Some of it was woven and twisted and welded together into strangely threatening shapes with staring eyes and clawlike hands. Some of it was piled into tall, teetering towers like the metal skeletons of ancient castles. But most of it was just scattered around or stacked up in great, dusty piles.

Melanie pushed Marshall back behind her and held him there as they moved forward, following Toby between two junk piles and, at one point, under the huge blue body of what looked like an almost life-sized brontosaurus.

Marshall liked the brontosaurus. Hanging back, he pointed up at the tiny head at the end of a long arching
neck that seemed to be made of hundreds of welded-together Chicken Of The Sea tuna cans. “Dinosaur,” he whispered. “Stop. I want to see the tuna dinosaur.” But Melanie kept pulling him after her as she followed Toby between the barrel-shaped legs and under the huge blue body.

From there they wound their way through several other junk-pile jungles. Here and there among the piles Melanie noticed what might possibly be considered a living area: in one place a kind of platform with a mattress and a bunch of blankets scattered around over it; and in another, a table covered with dirty dishes not far from a greasy-looking gas stove with a gaping, doorless oven. Just beyond the kitchen area they finally came to a stop beside a tall, extremely hairy man dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and incredibly dirty overalls. The man had a paintbrush in one hand and a pallette covered with blobs of paint in the other, and behind him on the wall was a very strange painting of animals that seemed to be half human. Or perhaps humans that were half animal.

“Hi, Dad,” Toby said. “These are the guys I told you about. The ones who have the other keys to the Professor’s backyard. You know, besides Ken and me.”

“Aha,” the hairy man said. “I see. I—see.” But he didn’t see, at least not right away, because for the longest time he went on staring at the painting before he looked or even moved. And when he finally did turn around, he very slowly put down his palette and brush, pulled up a chair, and sat down and stared.

It was a weird feeling, coming into someone’s home, if
you could call an enormous attic junkyard a home, and having them just sit down and stare at you. Melanie glanced around to see how the others were taking it. Elizabeth looked as though she was about to make a run for it. Melanie put her free arm, the one that wasn’t wrapped around Marshall, across Elizabeth’s shoulders. And April? April was wearing the deadpan she used around most adults, so for once Melanie couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“These dudes came to ask you something,” Toby was saying. “I told them that we were Gypsies, but they won’t believe me. So could you just tell …”

Just then his father got up, came over to where they were all standing, took Marshall by the shoulders, and pulled him away from the others. Melanie grabbed for Marshall’s hand, missed, started to say something, and stuttered to a stop. Mr. Alvillar was leading Marshall over to stand near the huge picture that was painted on the wall. Putting his hand under Marshall’s chin, he turned his face toward the light and pulled Security around so that his fuzzy pear-shaped head was hanging down in front. “There,” he said. “Perfect. Don’t move a muscle.” To Melanie’s amazement Marshall did as he was told. Standing very still, Marshall lifted his chin so that the light from the glass ceiling spilled down across his face, turning his skin to dark-brown velvet and making small circular shadows under his long black eyelashes.

Mr. Alvillar picked up a pencil and a small notebook and began to draw, glancing up at Marshall now and then. “Beautiful,” he said once or twice. “Perfectly beautiful.”

April stepped forward determinedly. “Mr. Alvillar—”
she started, but before she could say any more, Toby moved between her and his father. Shaking his head, Toby put his finger to his lips.

“Just a minute,” Toby whispered. “It won’t take him long.”

He was right. After two or three minutes Mr. Alvillar put the notebook down, went over to where Marshall was standing, and put out his hand. Marshall shook hands solemnly and then turned to look behind him at the mural of animal-humans and human-animals. He studied it carefully before he asked, “Am I going to be in that picture?”

“Would you like to be?” Mr. Alvillar asked.

Marshall nodded thoughtfully. “Can I be an octopus? Or else a bear. Can I be a bear?”

Mr. Alvillar didn’t laugh or even smile. Glancing from Marshall to the wall, he nodded slowly. “Yes. A bear. A strong bear, I should think.” Then he picked up his brush and palette and went back to staring at the wall.

“Dad,” Toby said, and then more loudly, “Dad! Could you tell these guys something? Could you tell them about how we’re both natural-born Gypsies? Okay? I already told them, but they didn’t believe me.”

Toby’s dad waved briefly as if he were brushing away a fly and went on staring at the painted wall.

The whole thing—the mysterious attic apartment, the strange statues, and Toby’s weird, paint-smeared father—was making Melanie feel more and more uneasy. Grabbing Marshall by the back of his shirt, she pulled him away, and, catching April’s eye, she tried to make her face say, “Let’s get out of here.” But just about then Toby’s dad snapped
out of his trance and began to talk, and April didn’t want to leave.

“Shhh,” she whispered. “Listen.”

So they stayed a minute longer to hear what Toby’s father would say.

APRIL WAS REALLY amazed to hear that Toby hadn’t been lying after all. At least not completely. What his father actually said, after Toby finally got through to him, was, “Yes, I suppose you could put it that way.” He nodded solemnly, looking at April and Melanie. “My mother, Toby’s grandmother, was born in Romania, of Gypsy parents. So that would make Toby one-quarter Gypsy.” He smiled at April. “Is that what he said?”

“Well, yes. Pretty much,” April said. “He said he was a natural-born Gypsy and that he knew all kinds of stuff about Gypsies. Like he was a real authority, or something.”

“Oh, did he?” Mr. Alvillar looked at Toby with a familiar kind of obnoxious gleam in his strange dark eyes. It was easy to see where Toby got his looks, not to mention his aggravating disposition.

“An authority?” Mr. Alvillar said. He combed his curly black beard with one paint-smeared hand, leaving a slightly purple streak next to a whitish one that might have been natural. “Well, I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say that. Never has shown too much interest in the subject before now.”

“Yes, I have,” Toby said indignantly. “Remember that
time you got invited to that Gypsy get-together in Oakland? And I wanted to go too?”