CHAPTER XXV Real Friends
“What next?” asked Judy. Things were happening so fast she couldscarcely keep track of them. “I thought you said—talking pillows—beforeall the excitement began. Oh, Peter, I was so afraid!”
“Judy, you’re shivering! There’s no need for you to be afraid now. Goback to the house,” advised Peter. “I’ll join you there in a fewminutes.”
“_She’s_ shivering! What about me?” Lawson snarled from betweenchattering teeth.
“You’re lucky we didn’t drown you,” one of the police officers told him.
As he was led toward the barn where a police car was concealed, littlepools of water dripped from his clothing and left a trail behind him inthe melting snow. It had turned warm for January. Judy had not shiveredbecause of the cold. It was something else that sent chills through her.Things were too quiet. Usually, when a man was arrested, there werewailing sirens and a whole flock of police cars roaring in from alldirections. Here there was nothing but an ominous silence.
The lights from the house looked friendly, but there wasn’t a sound toprove that anyone was inside. Only Blackberry, on the porch now, yowledplaintively, asking to be let in.
Suddenly the door opened. Dr. Bolton was on his way out. He did haveoffice hours and had waited only long enough to greet Judy. Her motherand Horace were just behind him. She heard Honey, somewhere in thebackground, saying in a loud stage whisper, “She’s here, girls! Alltogether!”
“Surprise!” came the chorus of voices as her friends rushed forward.Clarissa was with them. She hugged Judy fiercely. “It’s good to seeyou,” she said in a strange voice. “I told Mother and Father how I metyou. Mother’s here—” She indicated Blackberry’s favorite chair where amotherly, gray-haired woman sat quietly rocking and smiling at theassembled guests.
“You haven’t met Mrs. Valentine. Let me introduce you,” Judy’s motherbegan.
Horace gave her a secret sign that meant he knew and had come, not onlyas her brother but also as a reporter for the _Farringdon Daily Herald_.But, obviously, Mrs. Bolton had been kept in the dark.
Judy heard herself saying something polite instead of the questions thatwere tumbling over themselves in her mind wanting to be asked andanswered.
Lois and Lorraine were there. Arthur Farringdon-Pett hoveredprotectively behind his sister and his recent bride. Judy’s youngneighbor, Holly Potter, said, “I like your friend Clarissa, Judy. I mether at school.”
“Did you?” One question was answered. “I introduced her to Horace andHoney,” Holly continued, and the answer came to another question. Judyfelt more secure, suddenly, as she noticed another quiet guest. He wasDavid Trent from the field office of the FBI.
“Everybody has been so friendly,” Mrs. Valentine was telling him. “We’vedecided to join the little neighborhood church here until my husband hasa call. You know, of course, that he is a minister of the gospel?”
“So I understand.”
The gray-haired woman moved uncomfortably in her chair.
“I wonder what is keeping him. He promised to stop in and meet some ofthe young people. He has plans for a youth organization—”
“His plans, whatever they are, will never be carried out.” Mr. Trentbrought out his credentials, and the conversation ended abruptly just asPeter entered the room and took the woman firmly by the arm.
“You’re G-men!” she gasped, looking from one of them to the other. Shewas not looking for a way to escape. She could see that there was none.
Afterwards, when Judy remembered the scene, the one thing that stood outclearly in her mind was the fact that Blackberry had been insulted tosee a stranger sitting in his chair and that he had jumped into it andsettled himself to sleep before the excitement was fairly over.
Peter had mentioned the charge against the Lawsons. Judy’s mother hadgasped, “Kidnaping!” and Clarissa had said quietly, “I wasn’t theirdaughter, Mrs. Bolton. I don’t know what they would have done to me if Ihadn’t pretended. I led them here. I knew Judy would help me. You aren’tsupposed to tell people what your husband does for a living, Judy, butI’m so glad—glad that you let it slip out in the restaurant. Did you getmy letter?”
“We turned your letter over to the FBI,” Judy told her. “But who plannedthis welcoming party? I don’t understand—”
“I like parties. I like pretty girls, and I am especially fond ofgetting exclusive stories—”
“Horace! You did it. You perfect dear!” cried Judy, throwing herself ather brother and giving him a resounding kiss.
“Save the mush, Sis,” he said, embarrassed.
“Well, it was a wonderful idea!” Judy exclaimed. “You’re all realfriends!”
Clarissa’s laugh rang out. “Am I real? Am I really me? I’ve beenFrancine Dow and Clarissa Valentine, but now I think I’d like to be justplain old Clar Boggs and go back to West Virginia to my real folks. Pa’sa preacher just like I said, but we’re real old hillbillies for a fact,and I’m sick to death of pretending.”
“Don’t you want to be an actress any more?” asked Judy.
“Maybe later when things are cleared up and I understand—” Clarissasaid.
“We’ll clear them up right now,” Judy interrupted. “Sit down, and we’llexplain everything.”
“While you’re explaining I’ll bring sandwiches and coffee. There’s cake,too. I still can’t make tender pie crust,” Honey confessed, “but mycakes are good, and Mother Bolton’s sandwiches are delicious.”
Mother Bolton? Judy looked at her brother. Was it that serious? Honeyblushed and said hastily, “She’s your mother, Judy, and you and I aresisters. She doesn’t mind if I call her that. Sit down, everybody, andI’ll pass the stuff around.”
Judy ate half a sandwich and drank a full cup of coffee cooled withcream while she considered where to begin. It was a long story. But itreally started in the restaurant.
“Clarissa, that cashier who tried to cheat you was arrested on someother charge. Peter told me about it,” Judy said. “The police picked himup. It wasn’t a federal offense, but the subliminal advertising that thegolden hair wash people put on is a different matter.” She explained toClarissa about the messages that had been flashed on the screen too fastfor their conscious minds to be aware of what was being suggested.“That’s why you kept saying your hair was ‘dull’ and ‘drab’ and why weall rushed out and bought that shampoo when we didn’t really want it.”
“But I did want it,” Clarissa protested. “I went back to the dressingroom on purpose to get those two bottles I left there. I was going tocome right back, but the first thing I knew I was being rushed into acostume and pushed out on the stage. Someone whispered, ‘Watch thecards,’ and I read the lines, but I was never so scared in my life. Ifmy hair hadn’t been covered up with that golden wig I don’t think Icould have played the part at all.”
“You played it beautifully,” Judy said.
Clarissa smiled and tilted her head.
“I could play Sleeping Beauty without a wig now. Did you notice thechange?” she asked. “I used that golden hair wash.”
CHAPTER XXVI Talking Pillows
Judy had noticed a change in Clarissa’s appearance. The shampoo had madeher hair fluffy and bright.
“It’s like mine,” Honey said. “You sounded so strange over thetelephone, Judy, when you asked me not to change the color of my hair.Why were you so afraid?”
“I like it the way it is. I guess that’s why.”
“Don’t you like mine?” Clarissa asked plaintively. “I didn’t use much ofthe shampoo. It hardly changed the color at all. It just brought out thegolden highlights.”
“It’s lovely,” Judy had to admit. “It isn’t the product. It’s the waythey advertise it that’s wrong. Peter calls ‘hidden sell’ advertisersthieves of the mind,” she continued, “but he says mind control can beused in another wa
y.”
“This is interesting,” Horace said. “What is this other way our mindscan be manipulated?”
“I—I’m not sure. Peter said something about talking pillows, but he mayhave been joking. I never heard of a pillow that talked.”
“Maybe it works like a Mamma doll,” Holly suggested, and everybodylaughed.
“You tell us, Peter,” urged Judy.
“The pillows I spoke of,” Peter said, “are supposed to change aprisoner’s outlook on life by what is called sleep teaching. Theycontain taped messages that are fed into his subconscious mind while hesleeps. ‘You are filled with love and compassion’ is one. For all I knowLawson’s ‘Do good and gain good’ may be another. I don’t know how wellthey work. A study is being made.”
“What sort of a study?” asked Judy. “I wouldn’t want anybodysleep-teaching me. I want to know what I’m learning.”
Everybody agreed with Judy except Clarissa. She said she thought she’dlike such a pillow if it would make her stop dreaming.
“I’ve had a terrible time,” she confessed. “I haven’t been able to drawa peaceful breath. I found out right away that this couple had plannedto kidnap Francine Dow. They were so angry when they found out I’dsubstituted for her that I knew my only chance was pretending I caredfor them and wanted them to be my mother and father. They thought theyhad my mind controlled, I guess, but they didn’t. All the time I wasawake I was making plans. The nights were the worst because I did havenightmares. Maybe they’ll stop now that I know what caused them. Ithought fear did. I was never so afraid.”
“You aren’t afraid any more, are you?” Honey asked anxiously.
“No,” Clarissa replied with a deep sigh. “I’m with friends now—realfriends. It’s all over—all the fear and the pretending. I know I can actnow, and I think I can take things a lot better, too. I mean littlethings like my brother’s teasing.”
“I used to find my brother’s teasing pretty hard to take, but I teasedhim right back, and I guess there were times when it was harder on himthan it was on me,” Judy said with a glance toward Horace.
“I’ll bet your brother wouldn’t remove the glass from a silver mirror onpurpose to make you think you didn’t show. They tell lots of witch talesat home, and one of them is that if you look in a mirror and don’t seeyour reflection, a witch has stolen the real you and you’re achangeling. But now that I’ve really been stolen by a witch—That’s whatshe is, Judy! That Mrs. Lawson or whatever her name is. She looks likesomebody’s mother, but she’s nothing but an ugly old witch.”
“There aren’t any such things as witches,” Judy laughed.
“I’ll never believe it,” Clarissa continued, “but I do know I’m nochangeling. My brother was just trying to play a joke on me when he tookout the glass and then put it back to prove he could see himself in themirror all right. I’m going to tell him I know, and then he’ll confessto it. I thought it all out, but I still can’t understand why I didn’tshow on television. Everybody could see me when I took Francine Dow’splace on Irene’s show.”
“A picture tube blew out,” Judy started to explain. “That makes thepicture close in—”
“Lawsy me!” exclaimed Clarissa, reverting to her mountain slang. “I leta little thing like that scare me into a faint?”
“You didn’t let the big things scare you. Now that you know how braveyou can be, I guess the little things won’t bother you so much, willthey?” Judy asked.
“They sure won’t. I’ll write to you all and tell you how I’m doing andI’ll see you—I mean, maybe you’ll see me on television one of thesedays.”
The party had been a little tiring, Judy realized, after her guests hadgone home. She picked up Blackberry and laid her head against hisvelvety black fur.
“Those prisoners can have their talking pillows,” she said to Peter. “Iprefer a pillow that purrs. For the rest of the evening we can justrelax and watch television. Oh, how I wish we could watch Irene!”
Judy’s wish came true a few weeks later. A postcard came with the goodnews. Or was it good? The card didn’t say who Irene’s sponsor would be.Surely Irene hadn’t gone back on her decision! Would it be golden hairwash? Judy was almost afraid to watch.
Peter tuned in the set just in time for her to hear: “... bring you ourown Golden Girl, Irene Meredith.” And suddenly there was Irene asnatural as though she had just stepped into the living room. And Irenewas not alone on the stage. Little Judy was peeking out from behind herskirt like a small pixie. Judy couldn’t believe it when she heard whatthey were about to sing.
“Oh, no! Irene can’t sing that!” she exclaimed, turning to Peter.
“Listen!” Peter motioned for silence as the song began. Little Judy’ssmall, piping voice could be heard on the second line. By the third lineshe was singing all by herself:
“_I might sing and play like Mommy on TV or radio,
But I wouldn’t do commercials, No, I wouldn’t do commercials, No, I_ wouldn’t _do commercials And innerup the show—_”
It was Irene who interrupted, laughing.
“We just couldn’t get that one word right. Judy Irene is only two and ahalf. I wouldn’t interrupt the show either. But I do want to introduce avery good friend of ours, Clarissa Valentine! She will appear on thisshow regularly and will star again in _Sleeping Beauty_ two weeks fromtonight. Right now she has a message from our new sponsor.”
The message was brief and in good taste. The sponsor turned out to be anationally known manufacturer of cereal. Clarissa opened a box andpoured out two servings of what she called crispy, crunchy nuggets ofgolden corn.
“That’s how they’re going to work it. Clarissa won’t mind doing thecommercial,” Judy began, but again Peter held up his hand for silence.And suddenly, right there on the TV screen, was Judy’s own littlenamesake doing a commercial and not even knowing it. For she sat down ata table opposite her mother and began eating the golden nuggets as ifthey were the tastiest things in the world.
“They’re good, Mommy!” she said between mouthfuls.
“I like them, too. Why don’t you try them?” Irene asked the TV audienceas the commercial ended.
“I think I will,” Judy answered as if Irene could hear her. Then sheturned to Peter with shining eyes. “It was a joke!” she exclaimed. “Theysang the song just for fun, and the studio audience enjoyed it. Did youhear the laughter? But it does prove truth can win if we stand up forwhat we believe. Oh, I’m so glad Irene talked to Mr. Lenz that day. Shealmost made the wrong decision.”
“She didn’t if those golden nuggets really are as good as the sponsorwould have us believe,” Peter said.
“Well, I’m sold on them,” Judy declared, laughing. “And it didn’t takeany ‘hidden sell’ to do it. Just watching little Judy sitting theregobbling them up was enough. I’m going to buy a box tomorrow.”
Transcriber’s Notes
--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)
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