Rufus M. (21 page)

"If people only knew we had fortunes in our popcorn," mourned Jane.

First they stopped at the drinking trough opposite the Town Hall for a drink of water. In front of the Town Hall there was a big sign saying, "Reelect Harvey Rollins for Town Selectman!" But Rufus and Jane paid no attention to that and were just about to leave for home when the big doors of the Town Hall swung open and lights streamed out into the street. Shouts, laughter, and talking burst upon their ears and then, presto, hundreds of men began to pour out of the Town Hall. It was a Town Meeting to hear all about Harvey Rollins.

"Oh, come on! Come on!" shouted Rufus to Jane. "All this many people haven't had any popcorn today."

He and Jane ran across the street. The men filed by, talking excitedly to one another. Some shouted angrily when they thought their companions disagreed.

"Look at the new sewers he built!" they exclaimed.

"And the new school!" added others.

But Rufus and Jane yelled above the men's voices.

"Buy some popcorn, mister! It's got prizes!"

First one man and then another did stop, and some bought popcorn balls and some bought loose popcorn.

But in every case when they found their fortunes and read them aloud, they burst into loud guffaws. And many went home to dinner and their families in better humor than when they had left the Town Hall.

The pile of popcorn dwindled. Jane's voice became hoarse and Rufus's was getting shrill with excitement. The last man to leave the meeting was Mr. Buckle, the oldest inhabitant. Jane and Rufus had just one package left. "Let's give it to Mr. Buckle," said Jane.

And Mr. Buckle seemed delighted to have this popcorn, especially when he learned that there was a fortune or a picture inside. He opened his package with trembling fingers and felt around for his prize.

"You read this," he said to Jane when he found it.

"'The world is your oyster. You will be a fireman.'"

"Fine! Fine!" said the oldest inhabitant. "Just what I've always wanted to be." And he shuffled up the street eating his popcorn.

But Rufus and Jane sat down on the bench and counted their money. Now they had enough for their Victory buttons. And they went home tired and happy and hungry for their supper of baked beans—Rufus's beans.

"Watch me!" said Rufus, as he ran past the oldest inhabitant, and he stuck a knife right into himself up to the hilt. Of course the knife was a rubber one he had bought at Miss Twilliger's penny shop for two cents and it couldn't hurt a flea. But how could the oldest inhabitant know that? Or anybody else? It looked real.

"Did ya see that?" he'd ask, and plunge the rubber knife into his arm, stagger a bit, and laugh when people clutched their heads.

The truth of the matter was that Rufus was taking up magic. He hadn't been studying magic very long. But he knew three real tricks besides the rubber knife trick and he knew them well—the disappear-the-cards trick; the disappear-the-coins trick; and the handkerchief-and-match trick.

Jane knew one trick. It was a card trick the oldest inhabitant had taught her. Put two cards on the edge of the table, flip them into the air, have them turn a somersault, and catch them before they fell back down. That was her trick. It was not as good as the disappear-the-cards trick, but Rufus would have liked to master it. So far he hadn't been able to. He usually knocked the cards clear across the room in his desperate effort to catch them.

Not content with knowing the three magic tricks and the rubber knife stunt, Rufus was also working toward becoming a ventriloquist. Usually when he and Joey went over to the library, where it was nice and warm, to read, Joey would find the latest
Popular Mechanics
to see if silver foxes were still being advertised. And Rufus would find a book of magic and practice tricks and study ventriloquism.

What he hoped was that someday soon he would be able to throw his voice over to the other side of the room while all the time he was over on this side. Ventriloquism! That's what that was called. He practiced all the time.

Today Rufus was standing over by the apple tree, trying to throw his voice into the chicken coop. He hoped to be able to persuade Jane that there were chickens in the coop. Once or twice in the past the Moffats had had a few chickens, but right now, ever since last winter when their one little chicken, Melissa, had died of the pip, the coop was empty. There were still a few feathers around but there were certainly no chickens, and imagine what Jane would think when she heard "Peep! Peep!" coming right out of the chicken coop.

"Where'd the chickens come from?" she'd ask, and crawl through the long wire part of the coop to look at them. And then she'd back out wide-eyed, saying, "I was sure I heard a baby chicken." Then, "Peep, peep!" he'd say again, making his voice sound as though it were right at her very feet. And when she jumped, he'd yell, "They're invisible ones!"

"Peep, peep, peep," he practiced. He tried with his lips pressed together, with his tongue on this side, on that side, in the front, and in the back of his mouth. But it was no use. His voice stayed right with him and did not go where he meant it to.

Rufus climbed on top of the little chicken coop, pressing his fingernail in the tar paper, and prying off some of the flat, round nail heads to use for fifty-cent pieces in his disappear-the-coins trick. He laughed as he planned all the wonderful times he could have when he really learned to be a bona fide ventriloquist.

For instance, they'd be sitting in school, quiet, his whole class, doing their arithmetic, say. Then suddenly, someone across the room—of course it would really be
him,
Rufus, the ventriloquist—well, that someone would say something like this, "Let me out! 1 want to go home!" The boy who sounded as though he were talking—let's see, it might be Harold Callahan—would jump a mile, and the teacher would say, "Harold, be quiet!" And then he, Rufus, would say again, "Hey, let me out!" And the place he had thrown his voice into this time was Harold's inkwell!

He'd have to be sure, planned Rufus, that the little sliding lid on Harold's inkwell was open, because he was not certain a ventriloquist could throw his voice into an inkwell if the top was closed. Oh, of course, he could. For instance, a ventriloquist could throw his voice into a closet even if the door was closed. That was one of the things that was most fun about ventriloquism, putting your voice into closed things and having people jump.

Naturally before the teacher decided to slap Harold's hands with a ruler, Rufus would make his voice come out of, let's see, come out of
her very own inkwelll

Well! Rufus really roared at this thought, and while he was wiping the tears out of his eyes, Jane stepped through the gate in the fence, yelling, "So long," at Nancy Stokes.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked curiously, and laughing, too, because he was laughing so hard.

"Oh," sighed Rufus, "nothin'." He longed to try the "Peep! Peep!" in the chicken coop on Jane, but he knew he couldn't make his ventriloquism work yet. Instead, he took his rubber knife out of his pocket. "Watch me!" he said and plunged it in his arm. Jane shrieked. She always did, even though she knew it was nothing but an old rubber knife anyway. And she ran into the house.

The next day during the arithmetic lesson, Rufus fell to thinking about ventriloquism. Most of the children were working hard, biting their pencils and ruling lines for the long division. Rufus had finished. The teacher was correcting spelling papers with her blue pencil. My, how fast she went! The room was very quiet. Rufus considered his plan of throwing his voice into somebody's inkwell. He looked across the room at Harold Callahan. Harold had finished with his paper, too, and was sitting with his hands folded, looking out the window.

In his mind, Rufus began to throw his voice across the room and into Harold's inkwell. It was getting easier. In his mind he did it better and better. Now he thought it had reached as far as Emma Ryder's inkwell, now across the aisle, now into Harold Callahan's inkwell. He practiced it and he practiced it inside his mind. Then he'd practiced it so long and so well inside his mind, he forgot he had not yet perfected ventriloquism in real life. He opened his mouth. "Let me out!" he said, thinking he was throwing his voice across the room into Harold Callahan's inkwell. He wasn't, though. The voice that came out loud and startled the whole class was coming right from him, Rufus Moffat. Everyone knew it. No one thought otherwise.

"Ruf-fus!" said the teacher in surprise. And the class, re-covering from its startled amazement, burst into laughs. Rufus sucked in his lips and sat up straight and looked at his arithmetic paper, embarrassed.

Soon everybody was busy with arithmetic again. Or those who had finished sat with folded hands and waited. Emma Ryder was counting on her fingers and looking at the ceiling, desperately seeking the answer.
Ticktock, ticktock,
breathed the big round clock on the wall. Rufus forgot his embarrassment. He began to think again of the glorious days that would be his when he learned to ventriloquize. Now and then somebody scuffled his feet or dropped a book. But Rufus did not hear. He was completely lost again in a world where he was the great Houdini, and he was throwing his voice here and he was throwing his voice there; throwing his voice from Rufus in the fourth seat in the fourth row, now to the closet in the front of the room, where boxes of chalk and piles of erasers were kept, and now to the inkwell on the teacher's desk.

"Let me out!" he said, practicing out loud the words he had been practicing in his mind, and forgetting again this was school and no talking out loud without first raising your hand.

Well! This time the teacher really was annoyed. "Rufus Moffat!" she said sternly, and at her tone of voice the class quickly swallowed its laughs and sat up straight.

The teacher thought I did it again to make 'em laugh,
thought Rufus ruefully, as he stood in the corner of the cloakroom, where he'd learn how to behave himself.

Up and down the long corridor there were one or two other boys standing in the cloakrooms that belonged to their classes. They stood there desolately and wondered when it would be time to go home. Rufus wondered why they were standing there. Had they tried to be ventriloquists, too?

You might think that this experience would have dampened Rufus's interest in ventriloquism. Not at all. He practiced harder than ever, though he was careful to do all his practicing outdoors and not during the arithmetic lesson.

Fortunately about this time Miss Twilliger's penny shop laid in a supply of ventriloquists' disks. These disks were made of rubber and tin. "Learn how to use your SECRET POWER," read the words on the cardboard they were attached to. You put one of these disks on your tongue and you soon learned to ventriloquize. Vox Pops, they were called. They cost one cent. Rufus did not buy one the minute Miss Twilliger put them in the store. He studied them through the store window for a long time. At first he thought it was cheating to ventriloquize with a Vox Pop in his mouth instead of only his tongue. Then he thought,
I'm crazy. How do swimmers learn to swim? With water wings, of course. Lots of them do, anyway. They begin on water wings and soon they are able to swim without them after they get their arms and legs going the right way.