Elliott put his arm around him and nodded reassuringly. “Come on, meet my brother.”
They stepped out, just as Gertie, home from nursery school, raced into the room. Seeing the monster, she screamed, as did the monster, and Michael, who’d just opened his eyes. The mingled voices pierced to the command center of the house, where Mary sat, trying to pull herself together.
“Oh, God . . .” She rose from the kitchen table. What savage ritual was her family enacting now? It sounded like they were pulling Gertie’s pants down. In twenty years, Gertie’d be trying to recollect it, on a psychiatrist’s couch.
Mary climbed the stairs, ready to take notes, which she’d give to Gertie when her analysis began.
She walked wearily down the hall toward Elliott’s room. A full day’s work at the office, followed by infant trauma in the home—just another of life’s little challenges.
She paused a moment outside Elliott’s door. At least the room would be neat.
She opened the door. Every object Elliott owned had been dumped on the floor. Mary looked at him. How, in the midst of this, could he have such an innocent expression on his face? “What happened in here?”
“In where?”
“Where? Look at this mess. How is this possible?”
“You mean my room?”
“This isn’t a room, it’s an accident. Did you hire a whirling dervish?”
Inside the closet, the old cosmologist huddled between Gertie and Michael. The little girl seemed ready to bite him; the boy’s mouth was hanging open in a dumb gaze, and his enormously misshapen shoulders were taking up considerable room in the tiny closet. The guest from space hoped this present arrangement would not be permanent, as quarters were cramped enough.
He peered out through a crack in the louvered door, at the mother of the house, who was pointing at the debris he’d strewn around the room in his search for transmitter parts.
He tried to gauge the friendliness of the Earth woman. She wore no metal chains, did not appear armed, and was every bit as attractive as the Martian princess in the poster, though of course she too lacked the supreme beauty of the pearish lower silhouette, and had nothing to comment on in the way of long toes.
“Elliott, I heard Gertie scream. Were you and Michael violating her in some way?”
“Hey, Mom—”
“You mustn’t do things like that, Elliott. It’s costly in the end. About ninety dollars an hour, to be exact.”
“Mom, I didn’t do anything.”
“Then why was she screaming?”
“I don’t know, she just came in, screamed, and ran back out.”
Mary pondered this. Had she, as a little girl, run into rooms, screamed for no reason, and run back out? She had, frequently. And she felt like screaming now. Come to think of it, she’d just been screaming. Maybe she’d scream at Elliott a little more and then leave.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I didn’t mean to scream at you, Elliott. I’m sorry too. But clean up your room or I’ll kill you.”
“Okay, Mom, you bet.”
Mary turned and left the room. When her footsteps were sounding on the stairs, the closet door opened and Michael, Gertie, and the old monster came out.
Michael had changed profoundly in a few moments’ time; he felt he’d been blocked on the fifty-yard line by a steam roller; his body was numb and he kept thinking he was dreaming, that maybe he had gone to football practice, had knocked heads with someone, and was unconscious. But there was Gertie, her regular annoying self; and there was rotten Elliott, life-size. And there was the monster.
“Elliott, we’ve got to tell Mom.”
“We can’t, Michael. She’ll want to do the right thing. You know what that means, don’t you?” Elliott pointed at the elderly voyager. “He’ll wind up as dog food.”
Harvey thumped his tail.
“Does he talk?”
“No.”
“Well, what is he doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
The two boys looked at their five-year-old sister, who was staring at the creature, her eyes wide.
“Gertie, he won’t hurt you. You can touch him.”
The stranded old traveler submitted to more probing and prodding, the children’s fingertips pulsing their messages inward to his deep receptors, and though the messages were chaotic and confused, these little coconuts weren’t stupid. But could they lift him into the Great Nebula?
“You’re not going to tell, are you, Gertie? Not even Mom?”
“Why not?”
“Because—grownups can’t see him. Only kids see him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Elliott took Gertie’s doll from her hands. “You know what will happen if you tell?” He wrenched the doll’s arm up behind her back.
“Stop it! Stop!”
“Promise not to tell?”
“Is he from the moon?”
“Yeah, he’s from the moon . . .”
Mary lay on the bedroom floor, exercising along with the TV. The show’s hosts were a Swedish woman of fifty without a wrinkle, and her boyfriend, a low-grade moron who made his stomach muscles perform vaguely pornographic movements.
“. . . and one . . . two . . . three . . .”
Mary struggled to follow them, got mixed up, turned off the sound, and just lay there on the rug in her favorite pose, the one in which she looked like she’d been shot in the belly with an arrow.
Faintly, from Elliott’s room, she heard the voices of her three children. She knew they were hatching some scheme; there was a peculiar tension in the air. Was that why her head was buzzing again? Or was it from the bizarre sexual-rejuvenation exercise she’d just tried to perform, with her ankle behind her ear? God, she’d never try that one again; her thigh muscle was still quivering, and not with passion.
She looked at the moron on the TV, who was silently mouthing instructions to her. Despite his low IQ, she had a crush on him and fantasized jumping hand in hand with him into the televised swimming pool, while the Swedish woman rotated her big toe with two fingers.
Enough, enough . . .
She switched off the tube. It was time to feed the mouths of hungry babes. “All right,” she called, entering the hallway, “come and help me fix the dinner.”
Naturally there was no response, and she proceeded on down the stairs alone.
Tonight we’ll have turkey-gristle pot pies and—let me see—instant mashed potatoes would be a charming side dish, along with a handful of pretzels.
She labored over these preparations, her eyes occasionally going to the kitchen window, and the yard next door, where her neighbor was riding his lawn-mower like a demented giant on a kiddy-mobile. Her own yard had no grass, of course, because of Harvey, who insisted on digging it up in search of nonexistent bones. He looked at her now, ears begging in that way he had, one up, one down. “Who ate the broomstick, Harvey? Anyone we know?”
Harvey licked his chops, his tongue going up over his nose.
“Why, Harvey? What did you see that excited you? Did that little French poodle go by again with the bow in her curls? Is that what set you off?”
Harvey nodded, growling low, then whimpering. Food had not been forthcoming all day. Everyone had forgotten the main business around here, of feeding dogs. What was going on? Was it because of the monster upstairs?
I will have to eat him, thought Harvey, quietly.
Mary went to the stairs and graciously announced dinner: “Come down or else!”
Eventually there was the patter of rhinoceros-steps on the stairs, and her brood appeared, looking secretive.
“What’re you up to? Come on, I can read you like a book.”
“Nothing, Mom.” Michael sat down, Gertie beside him.
Gertie looked at the pot pie. “Yuck.”
“Shut up, dear. Elliott, please pass the salt.”
“I made a house in the big closet today.” Elliott looked shiftily at her.
&
nbsp; “What kind of house?”
“Sort of like a hideout.”
“Oh, really, how did you find the time with all the messing up you had to do?”
“Can I keep it?”
“You’re not using it to escape from responsibility, are you, Elliott? Young boys should not spend all their time in a closet.”
“Not all the time. Just some of the time.”
“I’ll give it careful consideration,” said Mary, by which they all knew she had no choice, that Elliott would torment her about it until she capitulated. She tried to change the subject, gracefully. “Aren’t these potatoes delicious?”
“Yuck.”
“Do have some more, Gertie, since you like them so much.”
“I eat better at nursery school,” said Gertie. “We have big chocolate doughnuts.”
“Really? I must talk to the head of the nursery school about that.”
“He’s a pervert.”
“Gertie, don’t use words you don’t understand.”
“. . . a pervert, a pervert . . .” sang Gertie, quietly, over her potatoes, while Mary put her head in her hands.
Upstairs, the ancient fugitive crept out of the closet. The room was before him—a pile of clutter he’d created in his search for transmitter parts, a search he continued now.
His eyes swept the room, fine-focus on. The electrons of the room appeared, dancing their circular dance; but the inner cosmic whirl was of no help. He needed solid objects, such as—the record player.
He clicked his focus back to ordinary vision and shuffled over to the machine. The turntable was empty. He put his finger on it and gave it a spin. How does a fork combine with this?
Answer to come, over . . .
He nodded. Escape was to be through spun signals, spun out into the night, threads of hope, hundreds of millions of them, radiant as the willow-creature’s silken hair.
From below in the house came the sound of forks—he knew it well now—and of glasses, plates, and a distorted jabber that played in his ears.
“Mama, why do kids see things you can’t see?”
“What have you been seeing, Gertie? Elliott’s goblin?”
“Mama, what are the people who aren’t people?”
The person who wasn’t a person sensed that the children would not purposely betray him, but the little girl could be trouble, for she had no understanding of the need for secrecy.
However, for now all seemed secure. Dinner was finishing, a great quantity of M&Ms apparently having been consumed. He hoped they would bring him some soon.
“All right, who’s doing the dishes?”
The willow-creature’s voice came to him, along with her telepathic image, head crowned in waves of radiant fibers, finer than silk. If only her nose . . .
. . . were more like a bashed-in Brussels sprout . . .
He spun the turntable again with his finger.
Elliott’s footsteps sounded on the stair, and then the boy entered the room, carrying a tray.
“Here’s your supper,” he said in a whisper, and handed it over.
On the plate were some lettuce leaves, an apple, and an orange. The ancient student of plant life took the orange and ate it, peel and all.
“That the way you always do it?”
The elderly voyager frowned; his inner-system analyzer was advising him to wash it first, next time.
“How’re you making out? You feel okay?” Elliott noticed the still-spinning turntable. “You want to hear something?”
The monster signaled that he did. Elliott put a record on and lowered the needle.
“Accidents will happen,
but it’s only rock ’n’ roll . . .”
The old star-tracker listened to the peculiar sound, and watched the black disc spin, his mind engrossed by thoughts of his transmitter. The Ship of Wondrous Night would not respond to rocks rolling down a hillside. He must send in the true speech of his people. How could he modify this sound? How could he multiply its frequency into the microwave region?
His ear picked up the voice of the willow-creature, down the hall.
“Gertie, what you doing, sweetie?”
“I’m going to play in Elliott’s room.”
“Don’t let him torture you.”
The child entered, pulling a little wagon filled with toys. In it she had placed a potted geranium, which she set at the old botanist’s feet.
He stared down at the offering. His heart-light fluttered.
Thank you, little girl, that is very nice of you.
Harvey the dog entered. He sniffed the monster, and proceeded to the geranium. Did it need watering?
“Harvey, be cool.”
Michael entered, hoping that somehow the monster would have vanished, but it was there and he had to deal with it. He studied it for a moment, then turned to Elliott. “Maybe he’s just some animal that wasn’t supposed to live.”
“Don’t be lame, Michael.”
“But I don’t believe in stuff like this . . .”
“I do, now. I always did, really.”
Gertie was emptying her other gifts in front of the monster. “Here’s some clay. Do you ever play with that?”
The extraterrestrial took it into his hand and lifted it to his mouth, preparing to bite off a sizable portion.
“No, silly, you roll it . . .” Gertie showed him how, and he proceeded to roll a ball in his palms.
“I have an idea,” said Elliott. “Where’s the globe?”
Michael handed it to him. Elliott turned it in front of the star-wanderer, to North America. “Look, see, this is where we are . . .”
The wanderer nodded, recognizing terrain he’d often seen, coming in at an angle like this above the planet in the Ship of Ages. Yes, he knew the planet, too well . . .
“Yeah,” said Elliott, “that’s where we’re from. Where are you from?”
The old voyager turned, staring out the window at the star-filled sky.
Elliott opened an atlas and pointed to a picture of the solar system. “Are you from our part of the universe?”
The monster separated the modeling clay and laid five balls down on the map of the system, around a central sun-ball.
“Five? Are you from Jupiter?”
He could not understand their questioning jabber. He pointed at the five balls, and released an electron elevator from his fingertips. The balls rose up in the air and floated above the children’s heads.
The balls orbited there, round and round, as the children groaned, the strength seeming to have gone out of their legs.
“Oh . . . no . . .”
Had he offended them?
He switched off the electron blanket and the balls fell to the floor.
Then he retired into the closet with his geranium.
C H A P T E R
6
“Mommy,” said Gertie, “Elliott has a monster in his closet.”
“That’s nice, dear . . .” Mary had her feet up on the living room sofa and was doing her best not to listen to the children, something made more difficult now that Elliott had just swatted Gertie with a rolled newspaper.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaa!” screamed Gertie. “I hate you, Elliott.”
“Stop this!” Mary turned within her layer of facial cream, her face feeling like it was submerged in axle grease, beneath which wrinkles were miraculously vanishing, she hoped. “Elliott, be nice to Gertie.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s your sister.”
“Come on, Gertie,” said Elliott, in a sudden change of mood, “I’ll play in the backyard with you.”
“That’s better,” said Mary, and rotated her head back on the sofa pillows. She stared out through her halo of cream, feeling as if she’d been hit in the face with a pie. But when she scraped it off, the New Me would emerge. If the house remained relatively quiet. She listened to Elliott guiding Gertie out through the back door. He could be so loving and gentle with her when he wanted to . . .
&n
bsp; “If you say one more word about the monster,” whispered Elliott as they stepped into the yard, “I’ll pull all the hair off your dolls.”
“You just try it,” said Gertie, little fists balled on her little hips.
“Gertie, the monster is . . . a great gift to us.” Elliott struggled with his thoughts, trying to voice this thing he felt, that some high purpose had come into their lives, that it was the best thing that had ever happened to them. “We’ve got to help him.”
“Well, he looks like just a big toy to me,” said Gertie.
“He’s not a toy. He’s a wonderful creature from there.” He pointed to the sky.
“He still looks like a toy,” pouted Gertie. “And Mommy said we should share our toys.”
“I’ll share him with you. But you’ve got to keep him a secret.”
“A secret, a secret,” sang Gertie, “I know a little secret . . .” She looked at Elliott, impish power in her eyes. “What’ll you give me if I don’t tell?”
“What do you want?”
“Your walkie-talkies.” Gertie smiled triumphantly. This was the best thing that had ever happened, getting her big brother to give in.
“Okay,” he said, “you can have them.”
“And you have to play dolls with me.”
A pained look came into Elliott’s eyes.
“. . . so all the dollies are having tea . . .” Gertie was in her room, setting the play table. The various dolls were sitting around it, chatting nicely. “. . . and my doll says to your doll, ‘Aren’t boys horrid?’ And your doll says . . .”
Elliott listened to what his doll had to say, and then he said it, making the doll’s head move, making her hand reach out for tea. He recalled with fading happiness the times he used to roller-skate through Gertie’s tea parties, knocking over dolls, chairs, table, and then roll away, laughing. Were those wonderful moments gone forever?
Mary passed their doorway and looked in. “Why, Elliott, how sweet of you.”
“Elliott’s going to play dolls with me every night.” said Gertie happily.
Elliott’s dolly groaned and slipped under the table.