The Seventeenth Swap (6 page)

“Gah other rocksh. 'Shbow all.”

Other rocks. That was his problem
now,
Eric reflected—finding somebody who wanted a rock. Well, he might be able to. You never knew. “What kind?” he asked Mr. Evans in a businesslike manner.

“C'mon in. Ahshow ya.”

Eric went in. Mr. Evans lived alone, so there was nobody to make him dust anything, or keep his rock collection from overflowing the windowsill, where it had apparently started, and creeping around the edges of the floor. He knew where everything was, though. After a considering glance around, he shuffled over to the corner behind his shabby easy chair, bent slowly, slowly, with one big knobby hand reaching out ever farther, and finally grasped something in the shadow. Then he reversed the process and eventually shuffled back to Eric, holding a rock the size and nearly the shape of a hockey puck in his palm. It was grayish, veined here and there with a vague pattern of paler lines. It seemed to have little to recommend it.

“Petoshkey shtone. Nah polished,” said Mr. Evans with a shrug of his massive, rounded shoulders. “Buh kind unushal. Y'know? Goddin Mishgan.”

“Uh—what?” The translation was getting a bit beyond Eric.

Mr. Evans fumbled in his shirt pocket and clapped his hand to his mouth. Then he repeated clearly, “It's a Petoskey stone. I got a couple of 'em in Michigan, two-three years ago when I went back to see my brother. ‘At's where they come from, Michigan. Here. I'll show you somethin'.” Beckoning with a sausagelike finger,
he lumbered over to the window and dipped the finger into a lidless teapot standing on the sill beside a rather straggly geranium. Bringing it up wet, he wiped it gently across the surface of the stone, then displayed the result with a small, triumphant smile.

“Hey, neat!” exclaimed Eric. Where the water had touched it, the stone had darkened to a rich brown-gray, against which the paler lines now showed up dramatically as an over-all network pattern, exactly as though the stone was encased in a little mesh bag. It really
was
unusual.

“You spray 'em with hair spray, they'll stay like that,” said Mr. Evans. “ 'Swat my brother says. I never tried it myself. Or a-course you can polish 'em if you want. They're a gem rock. Usta make buttons out of 'em.”

“It's a good swap!” Eric assured him earnestly. “I've got to go to school now, but I'll—I'll let you know.”

“Okay. You know where to find me.” Mr. Evans gave a nod and an amiable wave. When Eric glanced back from the outside door, he was putting his teeth back in his shirt pocket.

Next on the agenda—Angel. Provided she wasn't taking off right after school with one of her yakking-partners. Eric worked his way impatiently through the day, left promptly at 3:32, then dawdled. Shortly afterwards Angel emerged from the school building and started down Rivershore as usual. He let her catch up with him at the Lake Street light and, before she had a chance to start talking, asked her if she'd ever seen a Petoskey stone.

“A what?”

“A Petoskey stone. It's a real interesting kind of rock with—”

“No. Listen, guess what? Debbie Clark's cat has got four of the
cutest
little kittens you ever saw! One's white, and one's stripey, and one's calico, and one's gray with white feet and a little white bib, but she's got to give them away because her mother says one cat is more than enough, and I was going to take the little gray one, but
my
mother says—”

It was just no use. Nobody but one of Angel's chosen best friends was up to her weight when it came to a talking match. It had been a slim chance anyway—Angel really didn't seem the type to need a Petoskey stone. Reverting to his usual role of one-ear listener, Eric began to wonder who
would.
A Petoskey stone had a good deal to offer, it seemed to him. It was interesting, and pretty, and not just your ordinary sort of rock at all. You could show it to people. You could use it to start conversations—or weight things down—or crack nuts—or—

“So what d'you think—should I go ahead or not?” Angel demanded, and waited anxiously for his reply.

“Well, uh—” said Eric, but he'd completely lost the thread. That was always the moment she asked her questions; her timing was infallible. “You mean—about the kitten, or—”

“Kitten?”

“Well, I was thinking about something else,” Eric told her crossly. He had a notion he'd just passed a pretty good idea, an instant before she'd interrupted him. Now he couldn't remember what it was. “What did you ask me?” he said with a sigh.

“If I should go ahead and order the big-sized picture. For my mother's birthday.” Angel gave a short, dissatisfied sigh. “I mean she probably knows already that's what I'm doing. I give her the same thing practically every year. I wish it could be a
surprise.”

For once the answer seemed quite simple. Eric said, “Why don't you give her something else, then?”

“Yes, but what?”

Eric gave the problem his attention. “A nice Petoskey stone?” he suggested.

“Oh,
honestly!
” Angel's scorn wiped that off the map.

“Well, how do I know what she wants? Couldn't you sort of—find out?”

“I
did.
I
asked
her. She says she wants a picture of me.”

So much for creative answers. “Well, then, order the big-sized picture,” Eric said doggedly. He felt like something ejecting replies from a slot, like movie tickets, whenever its button was pushed. Worse, they were right back where they'd started, as Angel proved at once by wailing, “But that's my
problem!”

Fortunately they had reached Rose Lane. Angel stopped, hugging her books and scowling at him. “Tell you what,” Eric said. “I'll think about it. And if I get any good ideas, I'll let you know.”

“I bet you won't, though,” Angel muttered as she turned away.

Exasperated, Eric walked on, thinking: And even if I did get any, you wouldn't like them, because they were
my
ideas. It seemed to him Angel never really liked anything—except cocktail picks—that wasn't hers already. Unless it was something she couldn't have.
She'd probably trade that cigar box in a minute for something you wanted to keep yourself, but offer her a nice, interesting Petoskey stone and she—

Eric halted in his mental tracks. He should have showed that stone to Angel, and then
pretended she couldn't have it.

Now
he thought of it. At least it was something to remember for next time.

He stopped by the apartment only long enough to dump his books and slather a slice of bread with peanut butter. Eating it as he went, he set off once more, this time toward the Hobbyhorse Shop, in Long Alley behind City Hall.

He remembered the little building as soon as he saw it, though he'd paid it scant attention since the T-shirt graphics shop had moved out two years ago, and had supposed it was still vacant. It was anything but. He stood a moment finishing the last bite of his peanut-butter bread and gazing in some awe at the variety of objects crammed into one small display window. It was impossible to take them in, much less classify them—except as used. Some were lots more used than others, and those, he supposed, were antiques. There seemed to be one of everything in that window, from pincushions to rusty hinges to fancy dresses trimmed with feathers—and the latter looked very used indeed. He'd forgotten what Cholly said the owner's name was, but it was written on the glass of the door, right below the dangling cardboard sign that said “OPEN.” Maggie Teggly. He went in. As he did so, a little bell tinkled.

“Hi! Come on in and browse, don't mind the mess, I'm repainting!” cried a female voice from
somewhere in the back of the shop. It was a powerful voice, maybe even powerful enough, Eric speculated, to carry to the back rows of Iron Mountain Elementary Auditorium without the P.A. system, though when that went out assemblies usually turned into pantomine because of the lousy acoustics.

The acoustics were fine in this shop, which was long and high and narrow, plunging back from the alley through several rooms almost as full of things as Mrs. Panek's, though better organized—at least in the two front rooms. The third did seem disheveled, with a stepladder in the doorway and a drifting smell of paint, but Eric didn't venture into it. He browsed as instructed, easily spotting everything Cholly had mentioned, including the photos of naked babies lying on their stomachs. There were several such photographs—brownish, dim, and gloomy—oppressively framed and dominating the wall to his left. There was the old wall telephone, too, set in a ponderous oak box. And the old pop bottles and old tools—besides some wobbly chairs and a display case full of small boxes and toys and oddments. Here and there were several things Eric found already familiar, from Mrs. Panek's. In addition there were things he couldn't identify until he read their tags—a 1922 butterchurn, a hair-receiver (which looked like a small china Frisbie with a hole in the top), a boot-scraper, a match-safe and a fid.

A
fid?
Eric was still staring at this mysterious object—a large, tapering pin as long as his forearm, made of some dark wood—when Maggie Teggly appeared from somewhere in the rear and strode genially toward him, wiping her hands on a rag and spreading a powerful aroma of paint thinner.

“Ah-ha! You're wondering what that is, I bet.” Her voice effortlessly filled the spaces of the shop, floor to ten-foot ceilings. “Well, so did I, and I'm not sure
yet,
except it has something to do with sailors and rope. Always fooling with rope, those fellas. Tying knots in it and splicing it and coiling it. I think that thing's for raveling it, though I wouldn't like to be quoted. What can I do for you? I'll bet a month's profit you don't want a fid.”

“No,” admitted Eric, looking up at her and grinning slowly. You couldn't help it—she was just somebody you liked right away, before you even got acquainted. She had bright blue eyes and a bright red face and hair combed any old way and clothes that looked as though she might have grabbed them out of drawers and closets as she hurried past. But her smile was dazzling, exhibiting two rows of white and perfect teeth.

She finished wiping her hands, which were still streaked with apple-green and red, and tossed the rag behind the counter. “Fact is, you don't even look like an antique-hunter to me. They don't usually come so young.”

“No, I'm just a friend of Cholly Mutton's,” Eric told her. “He and I were sort of talking yesterday, and he said I should come up here and look around.”

“Cholly Mutton,” she repeated thoughtfully. “That would be that dear man Charlie Merton, who keeps nails and kerosene in treasures I would give my eyeteeth for. He hasn't decided to sell me that tool-carrier has he? Or the Clayton's ginger beer?”

“No—that is, not the tool-carrier. I don't know about the—”

“Lovely
Old English Stone Ginger Beer
bottle—crown cap, mid-brown, white base. You just don't see that color, not very often. Says ‘Clayton's' on the front of it. Charlie's kept his kerosene in it for forty years—he
told
me so. I could get thirty dollars for it in this shop. But try and get it away from him!”

“Thirty dollars?”
Eric gasped.

“Well, twenty-five. Give or take a buck or so.” Maggie Teggly waggled a careless, paint-streaked hand. “That color's offbeat. I don't think my Mrs. What's-Her-Name has one anything like it, either. At least, not any that she bought from me.”

Eric swallowed. No harm in asking, he told himself. “Well—uh—what if
I
could get it away from him? Would you give
me
thirty dollars?”

He found himself the recipient of an attentive, bright blue stare. “Nope. I've got to make a living. I might give you fifteen.
If
I made sure my Mrs. What's-Her-Name'd buy it. And
if
you could really get it. Are you figuring Charlie'd give it to you?”

“Oh, no!” Eric felt himself go hot as he realized what she was thinking. “I wouldn't just—come out and
ask
him for something worth all that money! And then sell it for myself!” Indignantly he stared back at Maggie, wondering if he liked her quite as well as he'd thought at first.

After a moment Maggie smiled and perched on the edge of the nearest wobbly chair, which had a cord tied from arm to arm to keep anybody from really sitting down. “Sorry. I misjudged you, O Touchy Friend of Charlie Merton. What's your name, anyway?”

“Eric Greene,” Eric told her, still mistrustful.

“What
was
your plan about that bottle?”

“I thought I could swap him something for it.
Something he really, honestly needed. I—I don't know exactly what, yet.”

“But you do know you need thirty dollars.”

“No, eighteen.” Eric suddenly remembered bus fare, to the shoe store and back when he went to buy the boots. “Well, nineteen would be better.” As Maggie waited expectantly, he added, “It's for a—special purpose.” Then he closed his lips and turned away in what he hoped was a careless, subject-changing manner, to peer idly into the showcase.

“Okay, don't tell me,” Maggie said. She stood up. “Go ahead and
let
me suffer and die of curiosity. I wouldn't dream of begging. But let me tell
you,
when it comes to swaps, you're talking to an expert. See anything around here you think Charlie'd really, honestly need?”

Eric glanced around again, and reluctantly shook his head. “This is just the kind of stuff he already has.”

“Oh, don't I know it! Only his is better. Well, then, d'you see anything
you
really, honestly need? How about a nice wind-up, just like your grandpa used to play with?”