Eyes in the Fishbowl
Zilpha Keatley Snyder
To Mother and Mom, with love
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
A Biography of Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Chapter 1
LAST NIGHT I got the idea to put the whole thing into a song. I’ve been writing songs again lately, but this wasn’t like the others. What I had in mind was a kind of ballad, a song story like the ancient troubadours used to make up about an important event so it would never be forgotten. I wrote the chorus first and it went like this—
The Fishbowl Song
by Dion James
Nobody’s shopping at Alcott-Simpson’s
The very best store in town.
Nobody’s dropping by Alcott-Simpson’s
Since the rumors started going around.
Strange things have been heard there,
And stranger things are seen,
And a customer fainted dead away—
In the French Room
On the Mezzanine.
I did that much in about fifteen minutes and it, like they say, almost wrote itself. I worked out a melody and some chords and it sounded so good that I would have called up Jerry or Brett to tell them about it right then except it was pretty late already, and a school day today.
So instead I started in on the first verse, but that’s where I bogged down. It was hard to know where to start—what to put in and what to leave out. Obviously you couldn’t put the whole thing into two or three verses. I started going over it, trying to get some ideas—and the first thing I knew I’d gone back to the very beginning.
The real beginning—at least for the store and the people in it—must have been a little less than a year ago, around the time I first saw Sara. But for me the beginning went back to a long time before that. In a way, my part in the whole thing started about six years ago on the day I first discovered Alcott-Simpson’s. I was eight or nine years old at the time, and had just started to shine shoes on the corner of Palm and Eighth Avenue. Of course, it was only natural that it made a big impression on me when I first saw it. When I was eight years old—for various reasons having to do with my health and family situation—I’d hardly ever been outside my own neighborhood. Up until the day when José, who runs the flower stand on the corner of Palm and Eighth, found me being chased up an alley by some other shoeshine boys whose territory I’d wandered into, I’d never really been uptown; and my idea of a department store was Barney’s Bargain Center two blocks from our house. But then José said I could set up shop right outside his flower stand where he could look out for me, so I went with him to Palm and Eighth and there it was—a whole block of marble pillars, crystal chandeliers and gilded wood. I mean, it was like I was Aladdin and the genii had just plopped me down in the middle of an enchanted palace.
I was only in the store a few minutes that first time, but I can still remember how it was. For one thing, it was right then, that first time, that I got that feeling of walking into a separate world. After the ordinary winter world outside, dirty gray with a cold wet wind, inside Alcott-Simpson’s was like being on a different planet. The warmth was clean and smooth and loaded with something that was too high class to be called a smell. As a matter of fact, I was still standing just inside the door trying to sort out the smell—I’d gotten about as far as new cloth and leather and perfume and dollar bills—when somebody came along and invited me out. From then on, I was always prowling around Alcott-Simpson’s—and being invited out from time to time.
My main enemy was Mr. Priestly, who was in charge of the store detectives. It’s easy to see why he didn’t appreciate me hanging around Alcott-Simpson’s looking the way I used to until a couple of years ago. If you can picture a bundle from the Good-Will’s trash bin, with a mop of curly hair, a bad limp and dragging a big shoeshine kit, you’ll know what I must have looked like. It couldn’t have been good for the Alcott-Simpson image. But even after I changed a lot, and started dressing better, Priestly and his henchmen didn’t much like having me around, because by then they were convinced that I was a shoplifter.
They were dead wrong about that, because I never took anything from Alcott-Simpson’s that I didn’t pay for. I’m not sure why exactly. It was no big moral thing with me, and I certainly had chances. Maybe it was just that I’ve never liked taking risks—or maybe it had something to do with the way I felt about the store. It would almost have been like stealing from myself. Anyway, I didn’t. But Priestly was hard to convince, and two or three times he had me taken upstairs and searched. He always seemed puzzled when he didn’t find anything on me, and he probably thought I’d very cleverly gotten rid of the loot somehow. I guess he just couldn’t figure out why else a kid like me would hang around a big department store so much. I had my reasons, but I couldn’t have explained them, even if I’d wanted to.
Of course, one reason was probably just that it was so handy. For a few years I shined shoes right outside the big glass and bronze doors of the east entrance, and from time to time I’d just stroll in—to get warm in bad weather, to see what was new, or just to catch up on the latest store gossip with a few friends I’d made among the clerks. Then when I began to outgrow the shoeshine business a couple of years ago, most of the new jobs I found were pretty much in the same area. Usually in the city a guy is pretty much out of luck from the time he outgrows the shoeshine and paperboy businesses, until he’s sixteen and can be put on a payroll. But I’d made a lot of contacts while I was shining shoes, and I managed to do all right. Most of my jobs were pickup things that I’d developed into a regular schedule. I ran errands, washed display cases, cleaned up and did occasional stock room jobs—mostly in the smaller shops on Palm Street. Also, I still kept my shoeshine stuff at the flower stand, and even though I didn’t shine shoes on the Street anymore, I kept a few old well-paying customers who liked to have me come up to their offices to give them a shine. That whole area, around Eighth and Palm was kind of my territory and Alcott-Simpson’s was right in the middle of it—in a lot of ways. I guess that’s why, when all the trouble started at the store, I was right in the middle of that, too.
I think the trouble probably started early in January, and it was around the middle of the month that I first saw Sara. Before that time I had heard a rumor or two, but nothing definite; and I don’t think the rumors were on my mind at all on that particular afternoon. If I had any special reason for walking through Alcott-Simpson’s that day, it must have been partly that I wanted to see what the decorating theme was for the after Christmas sales. Alcott-Simpson’s was practically famous for its display themes. But mostly I just wanted to get in out of the cold for a minute. Outside it was doing the Winter-Wonderland bit for real, and my jacket wasn’t exactly mink, if you know what I mean.
The first thing I did was to drift over to a bench I knew about near the east entrance and sit down. The bench was in a little alcove behind Ladies Gloves where customers were supposed to get out of raincoats and boots and stuff in bad weather. Mrs. Bell, who worked in Ladies Gloves, knew me. She was a typical Alcott-Simpson clerk, a shell of perfect dignity hiding a heart of pure nothing, but she was friendly enough to warn me if Priestly or one of his boys were heading my way; so I used the bench behind Ladies Gloves quite a bit. Quite a few times I’d even curled up there and gone to sleep—when I’
d been particularly tired and cold. But it was late that day and I only meant to stay there until I got warm and then go on home. I’d only been sitting there for about a minute though when I began to notice something.
I don’t know exactly what it was I noticed. I don’t remember seeing anything the least bit unusual. I didn’t hear anything either, at least nothing definite—but maybe it did have something to do with hearing. It was as if the low hum of movement and conversation that you can always hear in a big place like that was on a different key, higher and faster, like the tuning was a little bit off. I was beginning to get the feeling that something was up, so instead of going on home I dropped in behind two fat ladies with a lot of packages and strolled down the aisle towards Cosmetics. I had a good friend in Cosmetics.
Madame Stregovitch lived near us in the Cathedral Street district, and she had worked at Alcott-Simpson’s for years and years. I don’t know why everybody called her Madame instead of Mrs., except that you just couldn’t imagine calling her anything else. It went with her accent, and her personality, which was very positive. She’d been at Alcott-Simpson’s so long that a lot of the important customers were convinced they couldn’t get along without her, and for that reason she could do just about as she pleased. But she was the only one. Most of the clerks at Alcott-Simpson’s wouldn’t have sneezed without asking permission.
It’s a funny thing, but when I first started hanging around, I used to think the Alcott clerks were something special. The way they dressed and acted, you got the feeling that they were all a bunch of eccentric aristocrats who were just working for the fun of it. You had to be around for a long time to find out what most of them were really like. Basically, most of them were a scared bunch of underpaid apple-polishers, who put up with all sorts of bullying just so they could go on associating with all that mink and money. At least, I guess that’s the reason they did it. You’d have to have some sort of hang-up to make you go on putting up with a lot of those A-S big shots and all the rules and regulations, the way the clerks at Alcott’s did.
All except Madame Stregovitch. If there was any bullying going on around her, she was right in there doing her share of it. She even ordered her Rolls-Royce-type customers around, and nobody ever complained. They wouldn’t dare. She affected everybody that way. It was just something about her that you couldn’t exactly put your finger on.
When I got to Cosmetics that day, Madame was busy with a customer; but she saw me and arched an eyebrow in my direction. Madame’s face was dark and sharp and full of bony edges. She almost never smiled, and her mouth hardly seemed to move even when she talked; but her eyes and eyebrows had a large vocabulary all by themselves. Right at the moment she was busy rubbing a drop of something on the cheek of a great big woman with a long nose, saggy eyes and a short brown fur—probably a beaver. (The coat I mean, anyone who hangs around Alcott-Simpson’s can’t help getting to know a lot about furs.)
“You see, my dear,” Madame was saying in the soothing hum that she always used on customers, “how it brings out your delicate coloring.” Madame doesn’t have much of a foreign accent, but she clips off her words and arranges them a little differently than most people.
In a few minutes the big woman went away with a dazed smile and a whole box of make-up stuff, and Madame came over to where I was waiting.
“Dion,” she said, “I have missed you. You have not been to see me since Christmas. You have not been sick?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve been around. I just haven’t been coming in much. Not enough business the first of January. Nobody to hide behind when old Priestly makes his rounds.”
“Mr. Priestly, pah!” Madame Stregovitch said, shrugging her shoulders and tilting her eyebrows to a disgusted angle. “He has greater things to worry about these days than one harmless boy. You must come and see me, as always. In the midst of so much falseness, one’s eyes are gladdened by the sight of such glorious youth.”
Actually, Madame Stregovitch wasn’t as weird as she sounded sometimes. It’s just that she got started raving about how good-looking I was, way back when I first used to visit her, when I was a skinny little crippled kid. Of course, I really knew, even then, that she was only trying to make me feel good, but I got a kick out of it anyway. Eventually it was just a routine we went through.
“Sure,” I said, “me and Mr. America. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking of going into business. Like—EYES GLADDENED. TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! It ought to beat shining shoes.” I usually do all right wising-off around adults. It’s only around kids my own age that I get tongue-tied.
Madame Stregovitch just narrowed her eyes and nodded slowly. She always appreciated a joke that way. We talked for a few minutes more about various things and, when I started saying I’d better go, she got something out from under the counter and gave it to me.
When I first knew Madame, she used to work in Alcott’s Sweet Shop, and we got in the habit of her always keeping something for me under the counter. In those days it was usually a piece of fudge or a gum-drop. But this time it looked like a few pages from a newspaper. “It is for your collection,” she said. “I’ve been saving it for you since before Christmas.”
I thanked her and started to unfold the paper, but just about then I caught a glimpse of a familiar face. It was one of the store detectives, a musclebound character named Rogers. He was always cruising around the store looking as neat and chummy as a penguin, but I’d discovered a long time before that he could lose his Alcott-Simpson manner in a hurry, when he was sure nobody important was looking. A couple of times when I was younger he’d escorted me out through one of the storerooms and sort of bounced me off a few walls along the way. I wasn’t really afraid of him. I had learned not to allow myself to be taken out through a storeroom, without putting up a fuss—a fuss is something that all of Priestly’s henchmen were trained to avoid at all costs. But Rogers was looking particularly determined, and I wasn’t in the mood for an argument. So I nodded to Madame, tucked the paper into my pocket and started for the door.
But Rogers had a head start on me and he was coming as fast as humanly possible for someone who was supposed to pretend to be just another shopper. He was already past the escalator and shopping up a storm right through the middle of the Knit Shop, I saw right away that he was going to cut me off unless I broke into a run, and of course I wasn’t about to do that. Alcott-Simpson’s is the kind of place where no one would think of running unless his life depended on it; and personally, I probably wouldn’t run if it did—because of my crummy limp. I’d just about resigned myself to an unpleasant discussion—at the very least—with old Rogers, when all of a sudden I realized he was after somebody else.
It was a girl. When I first saw her, she was looking back over her shoulder at Rogers and I couldn’t see her face; but from what I could see, she was a typical Alcott customer. At least she was dressed like one. She was wearing high narrow boots, a kind of sleeveless thing of orangish suede and a cashmere sweater; all very latest fashion and expensive-looking. Her hair was long and straight and very black.
I’d hardly had time to wonder why on earth Rogers should be after her when she brushed past me in the aisle, so close I could have reached out and touched her—and I noticed something that really gave me a jolt. She was wearing the sweater just hanging over her shoulders, and on the empty sleeve there was a cardboard tag. It was an Alcott-Simpson price tag!
That could only mean one thing—and it was right then that I remembered the rumor I’d heard a few days before. José, at the flower stand, had told me that he’d heard from one of the Alcott janitors that there was a bunch of plainclothesmen hanging around the store, and that there was talk about some kind of gang of thieves and vandals.
As the girl turned the corner at the end of the next counter, she looked back at Rogers again, and I got my first real look at her face. It wasn’t at all what I expected. I can’t exactly explain why it was a shock, but it was. Actually, I don’t know what kind
of face I expected on a shoplifter, but I knew right away that this wasn’t it.
She was quite young, for one thing. Maybe about my age, or even younger. And her skin was dark—not darker than a beach tan, maybe, but with a different shade to it, like a shadow of purple under the brown. But most of all I noticed her eyes. They were very big and dark—black, but clear and deep—like the night must be to a cat. For just a second she looked right at me and smiled like she thought the whole thing was a joke, and then she hurried on.
On the other side of Hosiery she turned quickly to the left, and I almost yelled at her to go the other way. If she had turned to the right, she just might have made it to the Palm Street entrance in time; but the way she was headed, she was walking right into a trap. Behind the hosiery counter there was only a short corridor that led to some storerooms, and the doors were always kept locked.
But I didn’t yell, and the girl disappeared into the corridor and a few seconds later Rogers followed. I knew he had her then, and I could just imagine the smug look on his slick face. But the girl was obviously a thief all right, and that was her problem. There was no reason for me to get involved. I had plenty of troubles of my own. I told myself that the thing for me to do was to turn around and cut out, while Rogers was occupied. But I didn’t, and when I reached the end of the hosiery counter, I met the great detective on his way back—all by himself. Behind him the short corridor was empty. The girl seemed to have completely disappeared.
It occurred to me that maybe one of the storeroom doors had been unlocked after all. But that didn’t explain why Rogers came back so quickly, or the look on his face. I got a good look at him as he came back past me, without even glancing my way. His eyes were wide open but without any focus, like a sleepwalker looking at his dream.
Out on the sidewalk the wind was colder than ever and full of freezing mist. As soon as I picked up my stuff from José, I turned up the collar of my jacket and headed south towards Cathedral Street. I kept thinking about the girl on the way home.
Eyes in the Fishbowl Page 1