The Girl with the Silver Eyes

by Willo Davis Roberts

  They were moving away from her, up the stairs, and Katie didn’t hear what Miss K. said to that.

  But it had been a lie, what Mr. Pollard had said to Jackson Jones. He wasn’t in a hurry for a date at all. Mr. Pollard was an awful liar.

  She remembered the way he’d looked at her, as if he somehow knew she was responsible both for his bloody nose and his spilled briefcase.

  She wondered if Mr. P. was dangerous.

  4

  MAYBE NATHAN DIDN’T LIVE WITH them, but he was sure there a lot. He came within ten minutes of the time Monica got home from work, carrying a six pack of beer and a bag of groceries, arriving just in time to say goodbye to Mrs. H. as she left.

  Mrs. H. hadn’t said anything. Only (tight-lipped and grim) that she didn’t think she cared for the job, after all, and if Mrs. Welker could write her a check for today’s wages, they’d call it quits.

  “But why?” Monica asked. “What happened?”

  “Let’s just say your little girl and I don’t exactly hit it off,” Mrs. H. said, and the look she gave Katie was very much like the one Mr. P. had sent in her direction a few minutes earlier.

  Maybe Mrs. H. thought if she told the truth everyone would think she was crazy. Anyway, Katie sighed in relief as the sitter vanished out the front door.

  Monica didn’t let it go at that, of course. “What did you do, Katie?”

  Katie put on her blank face. “I read most of the day. I watched to see if anyone swam in the pool, so I could, too, but nobody did.”

  “I mean to Mrs. Hornecker! You must have said something, done something, to upset her. She called the office before I’d even had time to get there!”

  Katie shrugged. “I don’t need a sitter, anyway. I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

  “Katie, what did you do?”

  Nathan breezed in then—Katie noted that he had a key—and looked at their faces. “What’s going on?”

  “The sitter quit. Early this morning she called me at the office to tell me to find someone else, she wasn’t staying. And Katie won’t say what happened.”

  Nathan stowed things in the refrigerator and added his frown to Monica’s. “Well, kid, what have you got to say?”

  Resentment formed a tight knot in her stomach, although Katie’s face didn’t change. Who was he to get tough with her?

  “My name’s Katie,” she told him. “Not kid.”

  Nathan’s ears turned pink. “Now, listen, you little—”

  Monica put a hand on his arm. “No, Nathan, stop. Come on, let’s get dinner. I’m hungry, you’re hungry, we’re all tired. Katie and I will talk later. I picked up a paper on the way home; I’ll go through the ads after we eat and see if I can line up another sitter.” She fixed a look on Katie that stopped a protest. “And don’t tell me you don’t need one. I’ll have to be the judge of that.”

  “If you get another one,” Katie observed, “she probably won’t like me, either. Nobody does.”

  “Why not?” Monica demanded, forgetting what she’d said about waiting until after dinner. “You must say or do something, Katie, to make people not like you!”

  “I don’t have to do anything. They just look at me, and they don’t like me. They say I have peculiar eyes. I can’t help it what color my eyes are, can I?”

  She walked away, hoping Monica wouldn’t think to call her back to do anything in connection with dinner, and heard Nathan mutter, “See? Other people notice it, too. She has got peculiar eyes, Monica.”

  Katie got her book and retreated with it to her own room. It was hard to concentrate on it, though, when she could hear their voices in the kitchen. Finally she didn’t even try to read any more—The Scarlet Pimpernel was too good to ruin by reading it with half her attention—and she laid the book down and crept to the doorway.

  She could make out their words, then, if she strained a little.

  “Monica, there’s more to this than you’ve said. I know there is. You were jumpy before you went up there to get the kid, and now you’re a nervous wreck. What did you know, before you brought her back here? What’s wrong with her?”

  Monica sounded as if she were on the verge of crying. “I don’t know. Honestly, Nathan, I don’t! She’s always been—well, different.”

  “How? Here, give me that, I’ll tear up the lettuce; you get the steak. How is she different? Besides those funny eyes?”

  “Well, when she was a baby, she never cried. I mean never, Nathan! Not when she was hungry or wet or I stuck her with a pin! She simply did not cry. And I asked Mother Welker once, a couple of years ago, if Katie ever got so she cried, and she said no. Whoever heard of a child who doesn’t cry when she hurts herself, or any time?”

  Katie leaned against the doorframe, listening to the clatter of silverware and plastic plates being slapped on the table.

  “And you never could tell what she was thinking by her face. Her face shows nothing. Besides not crying, she doesn’t laugh, either. Not around me, anyway. Oh, I know she resents the fact that I let her go live with Joe’s mother; she thinks I deserted her, though I’ve tried to explain to her why I had to leave her. She’ll be ten in September, and I’d think that would be old enough to understand something of what I’ve said, but she doesn’t seem to.”

  “She doesn’t want to,” Nathan guessed.

  “Maybe so. Nathan, it was so difficult. Even when I was married to Joe, and we both worked, there was never enough money to go around. We ran up all those medical bills, the year before Katie was born. I had a miscarriage after we were in a car accident, and neither of us worked for a month or more, and it was horrible. And then I got the job at Curtis Pharmaceuticals—I had to get a new job because they wouldn’t hold my other one open until I could go back to work again—and things were better for a while. The wages were good, and the girls I worked with were nice and friendly—I still write to a couple of them—and it seemed as if we were going to get straightened out, financially.”

  Katie heard the controls tick as Monica turned on the broiler to preheat for the steaks, then Monica’s clicking heels as she walked back to the sink.

  “We wanted a baby, of course, and I was so pleased when I got pregnant again within six months. Joe and I weren’t having any trouble between us yet, then, and he wanted the baby, too. It was funny . . .” Monica made a little hiccuping sound, more sad than amused. “We joked about it, at work, that maybe the drugs we were handling had some magical powers, because four of us got pregnant almost at the same time. And then I had a difficult time with the pregnancy, and Joe and the doctor decided I’d better quit working until after Katie was born. I was hoping to go back to that job with Curtis—I had to work, Joe just didn’t make enough to keep us going and pay all the bills, which was part of the problem we had that broke us up, I suppose—but they ended it, about a month after I left.”

  “Ended what?” Nathan asked.

  “The job I had. I mean, the entire assembly line on that particular product. They took it off the market for some reason; they never explained anything to anybody, but Gloria—she was the girl who worked next to me—Gloria told me they gave everyone notice and shut things down. Several of the women went to work somewhere else in the plant, but those of us who were having babies never went back there to work. We all ended up working for different companies. I guess I wasn’t the only one with money troubles, but there really wasn’t anything else I could have done. I wanted to stay home and take care of Katie, but I couldn’t.”

  “Well, that happens to a lot of people these days,” Nathan said. “If the kid can’t understand that, there’s not much you can do about it. But there must be something more than the fact that she’s got odd eyes and doesn’t cry that makes sitters uneasy. How did she get along with her grandmother?”

  Monica sounded muffled. Maybe she was bending over, putting the meat in the broiler or something.

  “Well, I was never really chummy with Joe’s mother. She blamed me for the divorce, though
it wasn’t any more my fault than his. And even when our marriage was OK, Mother Welker and I weren’t buddies. I guess it was just one of those situations where two people don’t especially hit it off. So she never talked to me very much. But I think, especially the last couple of years, that Katie made her nervous, too.”

  “How? What did she do?”

  “Nathan, I don’t know. She didn’t come right out and say Katie was strange, she just sort of hinted around. For one thing, I know she thought any kid who read as much as Katie does—and she learned to read when she was only three, all by herself!—was different. But other kids have done that, so it wasn’t just that. And she never seemed to have any friends. I talked to one of her teachers, once, and she acted as if Katie were different, too, but I couldn’t pin her down. She said there always seemed to be disturbances when Katie was around. I asked what that meant, and she was evasive; but it seems that kids don’t like her for some reason. Yes, I was nervous about bringing her to live with me, and not only because of the added expense. I don’t know what to do with her!”

  This was all very interesting. Katie had eavesdropped on Grandma Welker’s conversations sometimes, but all Grandma and her friends talked about were other old ladies and what Pastor Grooten said at prayer meeting and recipes for things like rhubarb crumble.

  Katie edged a little closer. It was disturbing to listen to Monica and Nathan talking about her this way, but it was informative, too. She’d never known about her mother working for the Curtis Pharmaceutical Company, or keeping in touch with the women she’d worked with there.

  “What was the stuff you handled at the drug company?” Nathan asked now.

  “What?”

  “The drug you were preparing, or whatever you did. What was it called? What was it used for?”

  “It was called Ty-Pan-Oromine. It was a pain killer,” Monica said. Katie had moved far enough now so that she could see her mother. Monica turned over the steaks and closed the broiler door on them again.

  “They come up with new medications and get rid of the old ones all the time,” Monica said. “Isn’t there any salad dressing left?”

  Nathan rummaged in the refrigerator door. “French style.” He put it on the table. “Did you ever take any of the stuff? Ty-Pan-whatever it was?”

  “Oh, I guess we all took some once in a while. When we had headaches or something, and one girl took it for cramps. It worked fine.”

  “It worked, but they stopped making it. Monica, what if they decided to stop making it because it was dangerous?”

  “What difference does it make, after all these years? If it was dangerous, it’s no longer in use.”

  “Yeah,” Nathan said, looking at her with his arms crossed on his chest. He reached up and scratched his beard. “But what if it had already done some damage to you. I mean, they know now that some drugs are very bad for pregnant women. They can harm the baby, can’t they?”

  Monica forgot about the dinner. “What are you talking about? That working for Curtis may have done something to Katie? What could it do? I mean, she’s bright, and she had the usual number of fingers and toes and—”

  “And she’s strange,” Nathan finished for her. “Maybe that’s why. Maybe she’s a—a mutation, or something. You know, like if she’d had radiation.”

  For a moment Katie thought Monica was going to be upset, but then she laughed. “You read too much science fiction. If it affected Katie, it would have affected the other women’s babies, too, wouldn’t it? And they’re all right. Someone would know, if there was something serious.”

  “Are they all right? Have you seen those other kids?” Nathan asked.

  “Well, no. But I told you, I keep in touch with several of them. They’d have said if . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and Nathan spoke very quietly. “Would they? Have you told anybody you have a kid with silver eyes who has something very strange about her?”

  Right then the timer went off on the stove, and Monica forked the steaks onto a warm platter. “Call Katie, let’s eat,” was all she said.

  It was a heck of a time to end a conversation, Katie thought.

  5

  DURING THE MEAL MONICA AND Nathan talked about other things, leaving Katie out of it most of the time. She didn’t care. She had a lot to think about all by herself.

  Ever since she could remember, she had taken it for granted that she was different from other people. She hadn’t wondered why, especially; she’d thought it was just one of those things that happen, like the two-headed calf that had been born on Mr. Tanner’s farm once. The calf had died, but Katie hadn’t thought her peculiarities were such that that would happen to her.

  Until now, as far as she was concerned, she was simply a freak of nature. It hadn’t occurred to her that something might have happened to make her different.

  She didn’t think she liked Nathan very much. He was too loud and too bossy, and how could you like someone who smelled of tobacco and beer and called you “kid” instead of by your name?

  But maybe Nathan had something. About her mother working in the pharmaceutical plant. About the drug Monica had handled and had taken for a headache. It really might have caused something to go wrong with Katie, who had been growing inside of her.

  And if Nathan was right—Katie forgot to eat, engrossed in the idea—that she was the way she was because of the stuff Monica had worked with, what about the babies those other women had had? All about the same time as Katie herself had been born? Was Ty-Pan-Oromine responsible for her silver eyes and this ability to move things by thinking about moving them? And if it was, were those other kids like herself? Somewhere out there in the world, were there more “different” kids, who would be her own kind?

  How could she find out?

  A trickle of excitement moved like electricity in her veins. Monica had said she still kept in touch with some of the women she had worked with. There had been four of them altogether who got pregnant while they were working together. That meant there coud be three more kids out there who wouldn’t think Katie was strange at all.

  “Katie? You want a piece of apple pie?”

  She came to, cleaned off her plate, and accepted the pie. It wasn’t very good, compared to Grandma Welker’s pie. Instead of being light and flakey, the crust was tough. And while there were sugar and spices mixed in with the apples, there sure wasn’t any butter, and no rich cream to pour over it. Store-bought pies weren’t any better than store-bought cookies.

  She noticed that Monica and Nathan didn’t eat their crusts, either. She wondered if Monica ever baked or cooked anything that took more than fifteen minutes. That was one thing she was going to miss about Grandma Welker: her cooking.

  She expected maybe Monica would assign her the job of doing dishes, but she didn’t. (At home in Delaney, Katie had always either washed or wiped the supper dishes.) Here, though, there was a dishwasher, and while Nathan carried his beer and his cigarette into the living room and turned on the TV, Monica quickly rinsed the dishes and stowed them in the dishwasher. After that, she opened up the paper to the babysitter ads and started calling the numbers.

  “I’ve found someone,” she said in relief after the fourth call. “A Mrs. Gerrold. She’ll be here in the morning at eight. And Katie, I hope for better things from you tomorrow. If there’s any difficulty at all, I want to know precisely what it is.”

  Nathan was watching a ballgame, and Monica sat down beside him on the couch. Katie didn’t care about watching baseball any more than she enjoyed playing it. She withdrew to her room and finished The Scarlet Pimpernel. Mrs. M. was right; it was a good book. She decided she probably had time to read the western by Louie L’Amour before it was time to turn off the light; it wasn’t very long.

  And all the time she was reading, somewhere in the back of her mind, Katie was making plans.

  Mrs. Gerrold arrived at five minutes to eight, and Monica let her in. She didn’t look anything like Mrs. Hornecker, but Katie didn�
�t think she’d like her any better.

  Mrs. Gerrold was fat. Grossly, disgustingly fat. She made herself clear at once.

  “I don’t do no housework,” she said. “And I got to catch my bus at exactly five ten. It’s the last one runs out to my neighborhood. And I don’t walk out to the park with the kids, things like that. I got corns, and my feet hurt too much to walk to the park.”

  Even without the corns, Katie guessed that the woman’s feet would hurt, just from holding up all that weight.

  “Yes, well, I have to run,” Monica said. “I hope you and Katie get along all right. And if you wouldn’t mind putting the meat loaf in the oven about four-thirty, and three baked potatoes. I mean, put in three potatoes to bake.”

  “I don’t cook, neither,” Mrs. G. said, shifting a wad of gum from one cheek to the other.

  “I can put in the meat loaf,” Katie said. She knew Monica had it already mixed, standing in the refrigerator. She wasn’t sure what Monica was paying Mrs. G.; but it seemed a waste of any money at all to pay someone to be in the apartment doing nothing just so Katie would have company she didn’t want.

  Mrs. G. was not a reader. She was a TV addict. She poured herself a cup of coffee and carried it to the living room, settling herself in the biggest chair. She watched a game show, and then the soap operas started. Katie didn’t stay around. She only watched The Edge of Night or Search for Tomorrow or As the World Turns when she was too sick to read. But she did keep an interested eye on Mrs. G.

  During the commercials, Mrs. G. tottered out to the kitchen for snacks. Watching the diminishing supply of fruit, cookies, and sandwich materials, Katie wondered if there’d be enough food to last out the day. The coffee cup, sitting on the floor beside Mrs. G.’s chair, was joined by banana peels and bread crusts and, finally, a beer can. And in the kitchen the crumbs and stains accumulated. Maybe she wouldn’t have to do anything about this one, Katie thought. Monica would get fed up with this slob all by herself.