The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 05

by Anthology

  As time wore on, some of the rougher ones changed his nickname from "know-it-all" to "teacher's pet"; one of them used rougher language still. To this Jimmy replied in terms he'd learned from Jake Caslow's gutters. All that saved him from a beating was his size; even the ones who disliked him would not stand for the bully's beating up a smaller child.

  But in other ways they picked on him. Jimmy reasoned out his own relationship between intelligence and violence. He had yet to learn the psychology of vandalism--but he was experiencing it.

  Finding no enjoyment out of play periods, Jimmy took to staying in. The permissive school encouraged it; if Jimmy Holden preferred to tinker with a typewriter instead of playing noisy games, his teacher saw no wrong in it--for his Third Grade teacher was something of an intellectual herself.

  In April, one week after his sixth birthday, Jimmy Holden was jumped again.

  Jimmy entered Fourth Grade to find that his fame had gone before him; he was received with sullen glances and turned backs.

  But he did not care. For his birthday, he received a typewriter from Paul Brennan. Brennan never found out that the note suggesting it from Jimmy's Third Grade teacher had been written after Jimmy's prompting.

  So while other children played, Jimmy wrote.

  He was not immediately successful. His first several stories were returned; but eventually he drew a winner and a check. Armed with superior knowledge, Jimmy mailed it to a bank that was strong in advertising "mail-order" banking. With his first check he opened a pay-by-the-item, no-minimum-balance checking account.

  Gradually his batting average went up, but there were enough returned rejections to make Paul Brennan view Jimmy's literary effort with quiet amusement. Still, slowly and in secret, Jimmy built up his bank balance by twenties, fifties, an occasional hundred.

  For above everything, by now Jimmy knew that he could not go on through school as he'd planned.

  If his entry into Fourth Grade had been against scowls and resentment from his classmates, Fifth and Sixth would be more so. Eventually the day would come when he would be held back. He was already mingling with children far beyond his size. The same permissive school that graduated dolts so that their stupid personalities wouldn't be warped would keep him back by virtue of the same idiotic reasoning.

  He laid his plans well. He covered his absence from school one morning and thereby gained six free hours to start going about his own business before his absence could be noticed.

  This was his third escape. He prayed that it would be permanent.

  BOOK TWO:

  THE HERMIT

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Seventy-five miles south of Chicago there is a whistle-stop called Shipmont. (No ship has ever been anywhere near it; neither has a mountain.) It lives because of a small college; the college, in turn, owes its maintenance to an installation of great interest to the Atomic Energy Commission.

  Shipmont is served by two trains a day--which stop only when there is a passenger to get on or off, which isn't often. These passengers, generally speaking, are oddballs carrying attaché cases or eager young men carrying miniature slide rules.

  But on this day came a woman and a little girl.

  Their total visible possessions were two battered suitcases and one battered trunk. The little girl was neatly dressed, in often-washed and mended clothing; she carried a small covered basket, and there were breadcrumbs visible on the lid. She looked bewildered, shy and frightened. She was.

  The mother was thirty, though there were lines of worry on her forehead and around her eyes that made her look older. She wore little makeup and her clothing had been bought for wear instead of for looks. She looked around, leaned absently down to pat the little girl and straightened as the station-master came slowly out.

  "Need anything, ma'am?" He was pleasant enough. Janet Bagley appreciated that; life had not been entirely pleasant for her for some years.

  "I need a taxicab, if there is one."

  "There is. I run it after the train gets in for them as ain't met. You're not goin' to the college?" He pronounced it "collitch."

  Janet Bagley shook her head and took a piece of paper from her bag. "Mr. Charles Maxwell, Rural Route Fifty-three, Martin's Hill Road," she read. Her daughter began to whimper.

  The station-master frowned. "Hum," he said, "that's the Herm--er, d'you know him?"

  Mrs. Bagley said: "I've never met him. What kind of a man is he?"

  That was the sort of question the station-master appreciated. His job was neither demanding nor exciting; an opportunity to talk was worth having. He said cheerfully, "Why, I don't rightly know, ma'am. Nobody's ever seen him."

  "Nobody?"

  "Nope. Nobody. Does everything by mail."

  "My goodness, what's the matter with him?"

  "Don't rightly know, ma'am. Story is he was once a professor and got in some kind of big explosion. Burned the hide off'n his face and scarred up his hands something turrible, so he don't want to show himself. Rented the house by mail, pays his rent by mail. Orders stuff by mail. Mostly not real U-nited States Mail, y'know, because we don't mind dropping off a note to someone in town. I'm the local mailman, too. So when I find a note to Herby Wharton, the fellow that owns the general store, I drop it off. Margie Clark over at the bank says he writes. Gets checks from New York from publishing companies." The station-master looked around as if he were looking for Soviet spies. "He's a scientist, all right. He's doin' something important and hush-hush up there. Lots and lots of boxes and packin' cases I've delivered up there from places like Central Scientific and Labotory Supply Company. Must be a smart feller. You visitin' him?"

  "Well, he hired me for housekeeper. By mail." Mrs. Bagley looked puzzled and concerned.

  Little Martha began to cry.

  "It'll be all right," said the station-master soothingly. "You keep your eye open," he said to Mrs. Bagley. "Iff'n you see anything out of line, you come right back and me and the missus will give you a lift. But he's all right. Nothin' goin' on up there that I know of. Fred Riordan--he's the sheriff--has watched the place for days and days and it's always quiet. No visitors. No nothin'. Know what I think? I think he's experimenting with something to take away the burn scars. That's whut I think. Well, hop in and I'll drive you out there."

  "Is it going to cost much?"

  "Nothin' this trip. We'll charge it to the U-nited States Mail. Got a package goin' out. Was waitin' for something else to go along with it, but you're here and we can count that. This way to the only taxicab service in Shipmont."

  The place looked deserted. It was a shabby old clapboard house; the architecture of the prosperous farmer of seventy-five years ago. The grounds were spacious but the space was filled with scrub weeds. A picket fence surrounded the weeds with uncertain security. The windows--those that could be seen, that is--were dirty enough to prevent seeing inside with clarity, and what transparency there was left was covered by curtains. The walk up the "lawn" was flagstone with crabgrass between the stones.

  The station-master unshipped the small trunk and stood it just inside the fence. He parked the suitcases beside it. "Never go any farther than this," he explained. "So far's I know, you're the first person to ever head up thet walk to the front door."

  Mrs. Bagley rapped on the door. It opened almost instantly.

  "I'm--" then Mrs. Bagley dropped her eyes to the proper level. To the lad who was standing there she said, "I'm Mrs. Bagley. Your father--a Mr. Charles Maxwell is expecting me."

  "Come in," said Jimmy Holden. "Mr. Maxwell--well, he isn't my father. He sent me to let you in."

  Mrs. Bagley entered and dropped her suitcases in the front hall. Martha held back behind her mother's skirt. Jimmy closed the door and locked it carefully, but left the key in the keyhole with a gesture that Mrs. Bagley could not mistake. "Please come in here and sit down," said James Holden. "Relax a moment." He turned to look at the girl. He smiled at her, but she cowered behind her mother's skirt as if she wanted to bu
ry her face but was afraid to lose sight of what was going on around her.

  "What's your name?" asked James.

  She retreated, hiding most of her face. Mrs. Bagley stroked her hair and said, "Now, Martha, come on. Tell the little boy your name."

  Purely as a matter of personal pride, James Holden objected to the "little boy" but he kept his peace because he knew that at eight years old he was still a little boy. In a soothing way, James said, "Come on out, Martha. I'll show you some girl-type toys we've got."

  The girl's head emerged slowly, "I'm Martha Bagley," she announced.

  "How old are you?"

  "I'm seven."

  "I'm eight," stated James. "Come on."

  Mrs. Bagley looked around. She saw that the dirt on the windows was all on the outside. The inside was clean. So was the room. So were the curtains. The room needed a dusting--a most thorough dusting. It had been given a haphazard lick-and-a-promise cleanup not too long ago, but the cleanup before that had been as desultory as the last, and without a doubt the one before and the one before that had been of the same sort of half-hearted cleaning. As a woman and a housekeeper, Mrs. Bagley found the room a bit strange.

  The furniture caught her eye first. A standard open bookcase, a low sofa, a very low cocktail-type table. The chair she stood beside was standard looking, so was the big easy chair opposite. Yet she felt large in the room despite its old-fashioned high ceiling. There were several low footstools in the room; ungraceful things that were obviously wooden boxes covered with padding and leatherette. The straight chair beside her had been lowered; the bottom rung between the legs was almost on the floor.

  She realized why she felt big. The furniture in the room had all been cut down.

  She continued to look. The strangeness continued to bother her and she realized that there were no ash trays; there was none of the usual clutter of things that a family drops in their tracks. It was a room fashioned for a small person to live in but it wasn't lived-in.

  The lack of hard cleanliness did not bother hervery much. There had been an effort here, and the fact that this Charles Maxwell was hiring a housekeeper was in itself a statement that the gentleman knew that he needed one. It was odd, but it wasn't ominous.

  She shook her daughter gently and said, "Come on, Martha. Let's take a look at these girl-type toys."

  James led them through a short hallway, turned left at the first door, and then stood aside to give them a full view of the room. It was a playroom for a girl. It was cleaner than the living room, and as--well, untouched. It had been furnished with girl-toys that some catalog "recommended as suitable for a girl of seven."

  The profusion of toys overwhelmed little Martha. She stood just inside of the door with her eyes wide, glancing back and forth. She took one slow step forward, then another. Then she quickened. She moved through the room looking, then putting out a slow, hesitant hand to touch very gently. Tense, as if she were waiting for the warning not to touch, Martha finally caressed the hair of a baby doll.

  Mrs. Bagley smiled. "I'll have a time prying her loose from here," she said.

  James nodded his head. "Let her amuse herself for a bit," he said. "With Martha occupied, you can give your attention to a more delicate matter."

  Mrs. Bagley forgot that she was addressing an eight-year-old boy. His manner and his speech bemused her. "Yes," she said. "I do want to get this settled with your mysterious Charles Maxwell. Do you expect him down, or shall I go upstairs--?"

  "This may come as a shock, Mrs. Bagley, but Charles Maxwell isn't here."

  "Isn't here?" she echoed, in a tone of voice that clearly indicated that she had heard the words but hadn't really grasped their full meaning. "He won't be gone long, will he?"

  James watched her covertly, then said in a matter-of-fact voice, "He left you a letter."

  "Letter?"

  "He was called away on some urgent business."

  "But--"

  "Please read the letter. It explains everything."

  He handed her an envelope addressed to "Mrs. Janet Bagley." She looked at it from both sides, in the womanlike process of trying to divine its contents instead of opening it. She looked at James, but James sat stolidly waiting. Mrs. Bagley was going to get no more information from him until she read that letter, and James was prepared to sit it out until she did. It placed Mrs. Bagley in the awkward position of having to decide what to do next. Then the muffled sound of little-girl crooning came from the distant room. That brought the realization that as odd as this household was, it was a home. Mrs. Bagley delayed no further. She opened the letter and read:

  My Dear Mrs. Bagley:

  I deeply regret that I am not there to greet you, but it was not possible. However, please understand that insofar as I am concerned, you were hired and have been drawing your salary from the date that I forwarded railroad fare and traveling expenses. Any face-to-face meeting is no more than a pleasantry, a formal introduction. It must not be considered in any way connected with the thought of a "Final Interview" or the process of "Closing the Deal."

  Please carry on as if you had been in charge long before I departed, or--considering my hermitlike habits--the way you would have carried on if I had not departed, but instead was still upstairs and hard at work with most definite orders that I was not to be disturbed for anything less important than total, personal disaster.

  I can offer you a word of explanation about young James. You will find him extraordinarily competent for a youngster of eight years. Were he less competent, I might have delayed my departure long enough to pass him literally from my supervision to yours. However, James is quite capable of taking care of himself; this fact you will appreciate fully long before you and I meet face-to-face.

  In the meantime, remember that our letters and the other references acquaint us with one another far better than a few short hours of personal contact.

  Sincerely, Charles Maxwell

  "Well!" said Mrs. Bagley. "I don't know what to say."

  Jimmy smiled. "You don't have to say anything," he said.

  Mrs. Bagley looked at the youngster. "I don't think I like your Mr. Maxwell," she said.

  "Why not?"

  "He's practically shanghaied me here. He knows very well that I couldn't possibly leave you here all alone, no matter how I disliked the situation. He's practically forced me to stay."

  James suppressed a smile. He said, "Mrs. Bagley, the way the trains run in and out of Shipmont, you're stuck for an overnight stay in any case."

  "You don't seem to be perturbed."

  "I'm not," he said.

  Mrs. Bagley looked at James carefully. His size; his physique was precisely that of the eight-year-old boy. There was nothing malformed nor out-of-proportion; yet he spoke with an adult air of confidence.

  "I am," she admitted.

  "Perturbed? You needn't be," he said. "You've got to remember that writers are an odd lot. They don't conform. They don't punch time-clocks. They boast of having written a novel in three weeks but they don't mention the fact that they sat around drinking beer for six months plotting it."

  "Meaning what?"

  "Meaning that Maxwell sees nothing wrong in attending to his own affairs and expecting you to attend to yours."

  "But what shall I do?"

  James smiled. "First, take a look around the house and satisfy yourself. You'll find the third floor shut off; the rooms up there are Maxwell's, and no one goes in but him. My bedroom is the big one in the front of the second floor. Pick yourself a room or a suite of rooms or move in all over the rest of the house. Build yourself a cup of tea and relax. Do as he says: Act as if you'd arrived before he took off, that you'd met and agreed verbally to do what you've already agreed to do by letter. Look at it from his point of view."

  "What is his point of view?"

  "He's a writer. He rented this house by mail. He banks by mail and shops by mail and makes his living by writing. Don't be surprised when he hires a housekeeper by mail and han
ds her the responsibility in writing. He lives by the written word."

  Mrs. Bagley said, "In other words, the fact that he offered me a job in writing and I took it in writing--?"

  "Writing," said James Holden soberly, "was invented for the express purpose of recording an agreement between two men in a permanent form that could be read by other men. The whole world runs on the theory that no one turns a hand until names are signed to written contracts--and here you sit, not happy because you weren't contracted-for by a personal chit-chat and a handshake."

  Mrs. Bagley was taken aback slightly by this rather pointed criticism. What hurt was the fact that, generally speaking, it was true and especially the way he put it. The young man was too blunt, too out-spokenly direct. Obviously he needed someone around the place who wasn't the self-centered writer-type. And, Mrs. Bagley admitted to herself, there certainly was no evidence of evil-doing here.