Authors: Betsy Byars
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m not going to sit out here in this deserted parking lot by myself. That’s dangerous too. All kinds of cars rode by with people looking funny at me. Get in the car. I’ll drive up there.”
“You’re sure?”
She threw the car in gear and backed out of the station. Slowly she began the drive through the thick trees.
“This is just the way I remember it from junior high,” she said. “My boyfriend’s mother raised Dobermans and the back of her station wagon was a sort of pen, and some people always had to ride in the pen and they hated it because they always got out smelling like Doberman …”
She trailed off as she came to the greenhouse. She pulled on the hand brake, and the car skidded to a stop on the gravel.
“I’m not staying in this car by myself either.”
They got out together and proceeded to the greenhouse. In his haste, Mozie hadn’t locked the door and he pushed it open.
“The sprinkler system is right here. It won’t take but a minute.”
Valvoline was beside him. She was even better than Batty as security because she gave off a sort of perfumed warmth, while Batty’s warmth gave off the scent of wet sneakers.
“Wait. Don’t turn it on yet.”
Mozie froze with his hand halfway to the valve.
“I want to see it.”
“The pod?”
“Yes.”
She shuddered and grinned. “I love stuff like that. I guess it’s being in the greenhouse where I used to come and do crazy stuff in junior high, but I want to see this pod.”
“If you’re sure …”
“Where is it?”
“Back there.”
“Hold on to me,” Valvoline urged.
Mozie took her arm. As they started down the aisle, walking slowly toward the plant, Mozie knew how it would feel to be walking down the aisle of the church one day, fearful of and yet hopeful for the future. He hoped the bride at his side smelled like Valvoline.
“This is it?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t see any pod.”
“Back there.”
Mozie pulled aside the leaves and Valvoline peered in. “Well, I’ll be,” she said. “You know what that reminds me of?”
“A mummy.”
“How’d you know I was going to say that?” She turned to grin over her shoulder at Mozie. “Is there anything inside?”
“I’m pretty sure there is.”
Valvoline pulled aside some lower leaves and searched the ground. “I was hoping we’d find one lying on the ground, you know—a little one, and we could cut it open.”
“I think there’s just the one.”
Valvoline’s eyes shone as she spun around. Her hair flew out, brushing Mozie’s face.
“I want to listen to it.”
“What?”
“I want to get in there and listen, see if I hear anything.”
“I don’t think you should. We’re not even supposed to be back here, Valvoline. If Professor Orloff should come walking in—and he’s overdue now—well, he—”
“Oh, that old man. I saw him on the noon news one time talking about his wegetables—he can’t even pronounce a
v.
He’d probably say my name was Walwoline.”
She turned to the plant and wiggled her shoulders purposefully.
“I’m going in. Hold on to me,” she told Mozie. “And don’t let go no matter what!”
“I
DON’T THINK YOU
should,” Mozie said as he took her arm.
Ignoring him, she stepped onto the raised earth where the pod grew. Her high wedge heels dug into the soft earth, leaving deep marks.
Mozie made a mental note to smooth those marks over. If Professor Orloff saw them …
Valvoline was now framed in the thick leaves. She took a deep, shuddering breath. “What does it smell like in here? I’ve smelled this before. Now, wait, don’t tell me.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled again. “This is going to worry me for the rest of my life. Maybe it was that Elizabeth Taylor perfume a girl sprayed on me in Belks.”
“Do you hear anything?” Mozie asked.
“Well, give me a chance.”
She stepped closer to the pod. One of her shoes sunk so deeply into the earth that she lost her footing. She fell forward and clutched the pod for support.
“Valvoline!” Mozie cried in alarm.
“I’m all right. I didn’t mean to hug it around the neck though.” She remained for a moment with both arms draped around the pod before she straightened.
Mozie put his free hand over his heart. He leaned forward to look up at the stem. It was unbroken.
“Be careful, Valvoline. This is a valuable plant. And I’m responsible for it.”
“I’m not going to hurt your old plant.”
Valvoline put her ear against the pod. “I’ve got real good hearing. I’m like one of those things doctors use to …” She trailed off. There was a moment of silence.
“Do you hear anything?”
“Hush. I’m listening.”
There was another long pause. Then Valvoline said, “I think I do hear something. It’s
hmmmmmmmmmm,
like that—like a bee, far, far away. Come on inside and listen.”
“I—I—”
“Oh, come on. It’s not going to eat you.”
She reached out, and with one swift move—it was like the crack of a whip—Valvoline pulled Mozie through the foliage and into the bower where the pod rested.
He looked down—his sneakers were leaving prints too—more marks to erase. Then he looked up.
There was the pod. He could see every detail now—the faint green fuzz that covered the shiny surface, the seam down the side where it would eventually open, the heavy brown stem that held it in place, the leaves as large as pillow cases.
He could smell a heady scent too—maybe it was the pod, maybe Valvoline. It all made him think he was going to faint.
“Put your ear over here beside mine. I figure this would be where his heart is—if he’s got one.”
Mozie took a step forward and laid his cheek against the pod. His own heart was pounding so loudly he couldn’t hear anything, even if there was something to hear.
“You hear the
hmmmmm
?”
He, swallowed. “Not yet.”
He closed his eyes. He concentrated on the pod … on what was inside the pod. He was like a doctor concentrating on what was inside a patient. And then he did hear something—a humming sound.
“Do you hear it?”
“Yes. I hear something, but it doesn’t sound like a bee.”
“It did to me.” She listened again. “But now it’s getting louder, don’t you think?”
“Maybe.”
“You know what it reminds me of?”
Mozie turned his head so that they faced each other. He looked into her wide eyes. “What?”
“I was getting ready to say, it reminded me of a cat purring.”
“Yes.”
“Only now, for some reason, I’m beginning to think it sounds like a bigger animal. It’s the purr of a tiger.”
“Well, I’ve never heard a tiger.”
“You don’t have to hear one to know what one sounds like!”
Valvoline grinned. “Knock knock.” She rapped on the pod.
“Valvoline,” Mozie creid. He was as upset as if she’d rapped on a valuable mummy in a museum.
“I just want to see if it’s hollow.” Her face lit up. “Let’s plug it.”
“What’s that?” he asked, even though it didn’t sound like anything he wanted to be a part of.
“If you’re in a watermelon patch, and you don’t want to go to the trouble of carrying a bad watermelon all the way to the car, well, you cut a little plug about that big and—”
Now he was truly horrified. “Get out of here right now, Valvoline. I mean it. I’m in charge and—”
She didn’t move. Instead she lifted her head as if with sudden thought.
“You know what? My friend used to have this bald-headed Buddha doll, and she’d rub its head three times and make a wish. That’s how she got to be a cheerleader, because she sure couldn’t cheer.” She looked up at the pod. “I just have this feeling …”
She put her hand on the top of the pod and rubbed it three times. “Please let me be Miss Tri-County Tech. Please let me be Miss Tri-County Tech. Please let me be Miss Tri-County Tech.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and there was a faint trembling motion of the pod.
“Did you feel that?” Valvoline asked.
“Yes. There was thunder a little while ago and it did the same thing.”
Valvoline put her head against the pod and listened. “It’s stopped going
hmmmmmm
.”
Mozie listened too. The pod was silent.
Valvoline hugged the mummy. “Don’t you worry,” she said, “I’m not going to let anything get you.”
V
ALVOLINE PULLED ON THE
hand brake and the car skidded to a stop, leaving black tire marks on the Mozers’ driveway.
“I’m going in with you,” she said. “Wishing on a pod is one thing, but it’s not going to hurt my odds to have some sequins on the back of my dress.”
She turned off the engine, got out of the car, and turned back to Mozie.
“Aren’t you coming?”
“In a minute.” He opened his door.
Mozie got out of the car slowly. He could still hear the hum within the pod. It stuck in his brain. It left him with a strange feverish feeling. He almost felt as if he were under a spell.
He started up the walk. Valvoline was already up the steps and inside by the time he got to the porch. Mozie sat down.
Mozie and his mom lived in a house that his mom called Crumb Castle #3. There had been two other Crumb Castles in two other cities, but Mozie couldn’t remember them. He had seen pictures of them, however, and they lived up to their names—the crumb part anyway.
It was seven o’clock in the evening, but the sun was still hot, and the windows of the house were open. Crumb Castle wasn’t air-conditioned. Mozie could hear the sound of his mother’s sewing machine and then Valvoline’s interruption.
“Mrs. Mozer, I’m back.”
“Oh? Is Mozie—”
“He’s fine. He’s on his way in.” Valvoline paused. “Mrs. Mozer, I love my dress—you know that—but I’ve started worrying about its not having sequins on the back.”
“You wanted to keep the cost down.”
“Yes, but I want to win more than I want to keep the cost down.”
Mozie’s cat, Pine Cone, came out of the bushes, and Mozie coaxed him over.
“Come on, Pine Cone, come here, boy,” he said. Pine Cone ignored him and licked his back paw.
No one believed Mozie, but Pine Cone had fallen out of an airplane and landed in the yard. Crumb Castle was at the end of runway 28 of the local airport, and one day a plane was taking off and Mozie heard something crashing through the pine tree in the yard. He ran over, and Pine Cone was holding on to the last limb. His eyes were wild—as anybody’s would be who had just fallen from an airplane.
Pine Cone hung for a moment and then dropped and lay in a crouch. Mozie ran in the house. “Mom, a cat fell out of a plane!”
“Oh, Mozie.”
“It did. It’s lying under the pine tree. I don’t think it can move.”
“No cat could survive falling from a plane.”
“Even people survive sometimes. I’m calling the airport.”
He called the airport and said, “This is not a crank call, but are you missing a cat? I think one fell out of an airplane.”
“Big brown cat?”
“Yes.”
“That’s him. Is he dead?”
“No, but he’s not moving around.” Mozie checked out the window and the cat was still in a crouch, looking more like a fallen pine cone than a cat.
“He’s just a stray—got in the bad habit of crawling up in airplanes. I guess he thought he was still on the ground and decided to get out.”
“Are you going to come for him?”
“He’ll come back if he wants to.”
So far Pine Cone had not wanted to have anything more to do with the airport. Mozie really liked Pine Cone, and when he came up and let Mozie scratch his neck, Mozie felt as proud as if it were the President of the United States who’d offered his neck to be scratched.
“Come here, Pine Cone, come here, boy.”
Pine Cone looked at Mozie as if he were trying to figure out who he was.
“Come on, it’s me, Moze.”
He scratched his nails against the steps, and Pine Cone came over.
“Good Pine Cone!” he said. He began to scratch the cat behind the ears. “You know Pine, to this day nobody believes that you fell out of an airplane. And nobody except Batty and Valvoline believe me about the pod. And I don’t go around lying—that’s what I can’t understand. There is a pod. I listened to it.”
Mozie put his hand on Pine Cone’s side and felt the purring deep inside.
“I heard something in the pod too. I can still hear it in my head. And it reminds me of what’s going on inside you right now. Valvoline was the first one to hear it and she said it was like the purr of a tiger, but …”
Pine Cone, suddenly tired of the conversation, turned and strolled into the bushes.
Inside Valvoline said, “I have to turn around. It’s in the rules. See, I walk out like this … I turn … I stay like this till I count to ten—and ten is long enough for the judges to start wondering why I don’t have any sequins on my back.”
“I could make a very small rose on the shoulder strap … here.”
“Great! Only don’t make it too small, hear?”
Mozie got up slowly and went into Crumb Castle #3.
T
HE PHONE RANG. MOZIE
picked it up and a voice said, “What happened?”
“Is this you, Batty?”
“Yes, it’s the Bat. What happened at the greenhouse?”
“I thought you were grounded, that you couldn’t use the phone.”
“I am, only my mom and dad and sisters went to the mall. My mom said, ‘You are not to touch the telephone, do you understand me?’ So I put socks over my hands and I am not touching the phone.
“The only thing that worries me is that I used dirty socks—I just took them off my feet and put them on my hands. And, Moze, my mom has a nose for socks. Like I’ll be at the table and I’ll slip my feet out of my shoes and my mom says, ‘I smell socks.’ So when she gets home, I’m hoping nobody will call, because if they do, she’ll say, ‘I smell socks on the telephone.’ Then she’ll—”
“Batty.”
“What?”
“I know you did not call me to talk about socks.”
“No, well, I want to know what happened, but first you need to know that I don’t think I’m going to be able to baby-sit with you Friday night.”