Читать книгу Jerry Todd and the Flying Flapdoodle - Edward Edson Lee - Страница 7

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Horse Foot and I took after Red as tight as we could go. Up the stairs we went to the second floor, where the bedrooms were. And from there we tore up another flight of stairs to the attic, where we got out a big pile of old magazines, tied in bundles.

We worked Horse Foot to carry the magazines downstairs for us.

“Boy!” says Red, as Horse Foot disappeared down the stairs with the last bundle. “It’s plenty hot up here. But I don’t dare to open a window on your side. For ma’s got eyes like a hawk. And you heard how she jumped on me for fooling around up here. Boy! She’d come home on the tear if she saw an open window.”

“What’ll she say about the magazines?” says I, kind of anxious-like. For I don’t like to fool around in a place like that, where you’re liable to get caught.

“I’m hoping,” says Red, “that old Emery gets here before she sees the magazines.”

“It’s funny,” says I, “that she didn’t sell them herself.”

“They’re Aunt Pansy’s—that’s why. They belong with the rest of this old truck.”

I looked around. And what a mess! Old chairs and rolled-up rugs and everything else.

“This would make a swell attic,” says I, “if it didn’t have so much stuff in it.”

“I tried to get Aunt Pansy to clean it out,” says Red, “so that I could put on a play. And I told her I’d let her be little Eva. You know—in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ I thought she’d jump at that. But instead, when I started to tell her how I’d fix up a block and tackle for her to go to heaven on, she got mad—just like I had insulted her, or something.”

“Are you going to tell her about the magazines?” says I.

“And get another jawing?” snorted Red. “I guess not.”

“But it isn’t right,” says I, “for you to sell her old magazines without telling her.”

“Shucks!” says he. “She’s forgotten that she ever owned any old magazines—with that beauty parlor on her hands.”

“How’s she getting along?” says I.

“Swell.”

“You ought to let her try out some of her beauty clay on you,” says I.

“Now was that nice?”

I laughed.

“If she could make you beautiful,” says I, “it would be a swell advertisement for her.”

“I never saw any beauty medals hanging around your house,” says he.

“I’m modest,” says I, with another laugh. “I keep them out of sight.”

A bell jingled below.

“There goes the phone,” says Red.

And he yelled down the stairs.

“Hey, Horse Foot. See who it is.”

But there was no reply.

“Hey, Horse Foot,” Red yelled again. “Go to the phone. What’s the matter with you anyway?—can’t you get those big feet of yours untangled?”

And still no reply.

“Blame it!” grumbled Red. “He would sneak out on me, just when I needed him. I guess I’ll have to go down and answer it myself, Jerry.”

“I’ll go with you,” says I.

And then, as I caught sight of a big black chest, I stopped.

“Is that the dead chest?” says I curiously.

“Sure thing.”

“Gee! I’d hate to have a thing like that setting around in my attic,” says I.

“Why?” says Red.

“It’s too much like a coffin,” says I.

“I think myself,” says Red, “that it’s a lot of hooey—keeping old wedding dresses and stuff like that. But you know how ma and Aunt Pansy are—two peas in a pod. If one sneezes, the other coughs.”

“And are they really as touchy as you say about the dead chest?” I quizzed.

“Touchy?” snorted Red. “Say, you ought to hear some of the stuff around here. One day last winter I stood on the chest to reach my skates—they hung up there on that nail—and ma almost yanked me bald-headed. The dead chest, she said, was sacred—just like the family Bible.”

There was another jingle below. Then a door slammed.

“Gosh!” says Red, with scared eyes. “That sounds like ma.”

I listened.

“It is your ma,” says I. “And she’s coming up the stairs.”

“Suffering cats!” says Red.

“I wonder if Horse Foot told her about the magazines,” says I.

“The little sap!”

“She’s getting closer,” says I.

“Let’s hide,” says Red.

“Where?” says I.

“Behind the dead chest—that’s a good place.”

I took a peek.

“We can’t both get in there,” says I. “There isn’t room.”

It was do or die with Red.

“Come on, Jerry,” says he excitedly. “Help me give the chest a pull. That’ll make plenty of room. And ma’ll never dream that we’re hiding back there.”

So I took hold of the chest, expecting to pull a lung out. But to my surprise the chest moved just as easy as anything.

“I thought your ma told you that it was full of stuff?” says I.

“She did,” Red spoke wonderingly.

“Then it must be feathers,” says I.

Red tried the lid.

“It’s unlocked,” says he, with added wonderment.

“Yes,” says I, peeking into the chest, “and it’s as empty as Horse Foot’s head.”

Mrs. Meyers was just outside the attic door now. We could hear her wheezing. So into the chest we went headfirst. Nor were we a moment too soon.

“Phew!” sniffed Red, in my ear. “I don’t like the smell in here.”

“Old clothes always smell like that,” says I. “It’s a dead smell.”

“Are there any clothes under you, Jerry?” Red further whispered.

“No,” I whispered back.

“Not anything at all?” he followed up.

“No.”

We could hear Mrs. Meyers talking to herself.

“That’s queer,” says she, as she came toward the chest. “I thought sure I heard Donald up here. But he’s nowhere in sight.” She raised her voice. “Donald!” she called. “Are you hiding on me?”

“Yes,” Red whispered in my ear.

And then he giggled.

“Cut it out,” I whispered back.

“Donald!” came the repeated cry.

But this time Red didn’t even whisper in my ear. For his mother wasn’t more than a foot or two from us.

We had plenty of room in the chest. So we weren’t troubled that way. But it was blamed hot. The dead smell wasn’t so nice either. But it was better, we figured, to inhale a few bad smells than to get caught.

And how foolish we’d feel if Mrs. Meyers looked into the chest, and found us sitting there like a couple of two-legged sardines! And what a scare she’d get! Oh, oh!

Evidently there was dust on the chest. For we could hear her wiping it off. And all the time she was talking to herself.

“This chest has always been a great curiosity to Donald. And if I’ve ordered him away from it once, I’ve ordered him away a dozen times. But it doesn’t do much good. And that’s why I thought I better come up here, when I heard voices. For it would be like him to go snooping around the chest while I was away.”

Her voice got stiffer.

“But if I ever catch him rummaging around in that chest,” she sputtered, “it’ll be a sorry day for him. I’ll shake him out of his pants. I didn’t tell him this morning, when we were talking about the chest, that I had a strange dream about it last night. I saw Grandpa and Grandma Drummond go to it and take out their wedding clothes. It’s strange how you’ll dream of dead people like that. And I saw others too—and when they had emptied the chest, they went off and left it unlocked. I could see the key in the lock. Why! . . .” came the startled cry. “There’s the key now—just like I saw it in my dream! But I’m not going to be frightened. Not a bit of it. That chest never was unlocked by dead people. Probably Pansy was up here last night. And in her hurry she forgot to take the key away with her.”

I could hear the phone again. For the doors were all open between the attic and the kitchen.

“Goodness gracious!” says Mrs. Meyers. “That must be the phone. I wonder who it is.”

There was a sharp “click.” She was locking the chest! And then, before we could stop her, she hurried out of the attic and down the stairs, closing all of the doors behind her, and locking the attic door.

So we really were locked in double—we were locked in the chest, and we were also locked in the attic.

Red was ready to risk any kind of punishment now, to get out.

“Ma!” he yelled. “Hey, ma! Come back and let us out.”

I yelled too. And I pounded on the chest. But all Mrs. Meyers heard, when she got to the phone (where she probably stood with the receiver in one ear and her finger in the other), was the voice at the other end of the wire.

Blah, blah, blah, blah! She talked for an hour—more or less! And, of course, by the end of that time Red and I were so done up that we couldn’t even twiddle our front teeth.

Locked in a dead chest! It was bad enough to be locked in any kind of a chest—on a hot day like that. But to be locked in a dead chest—with the smell of dead people all around us! Oh, oh!

There was a mystery about the chest too. Mrs. Meyers thought that it was full of dead people’s things. But it wasn’t, though the smell proved it had held dead people’s things till very recently. Except for us, it was now completely empty.

And I found myself wondering, as the minutes dragged along, and the air in the chest got hotter and hotter, if it actually had been emptied by dead people, as Red’s ma had dreamed.

You’ll find out about that pretty soon. But now I’m going to let Horse Foot tell his part of the story. For he’s the guy who rescued us.

Remember—it’s Horse Foot that you’re listening to now. But I’ll be back again, after the next two chapters.

And then comes the part about the ghost.

Br-r-r-r!