“Mr. Pluto is the strangest man, isn’t he? I mean, you never ever told me he was such a huge man and such an odd-acting man.”
“Well, he didn’t seem …” began Mr. Small, “I mean to say, he wasn’t at all …”
For the second time this night, Thomas watched his father become rigid, his face controlled by an instant spasm. Mr. Small rose swiftly from the table.
“We won’t talk anymore about Pluto tonight,” he said.
“But, Papa,” Thomas protested, “we just got going on him.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday, Thomas,” Mr. Small said sternly.
Mrs. Small sucked in her breath. “Sunday,” she said. “My goodness, how in the world did I forget! I don’t have our clothes unpacked!” She looked worried. “I can’t remember where I put my hatboxes!”
“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” said Mr. Small. “There will be plenty of time for your hat-box search in the morning if we all get to bed now. Thomas, you go ahead. Your room is at the end of the hall, on the right side as you go down the hall. Get your pajamas out of the suitcase, and your towel, too. Don’t forget your toothbrush.”
“It’s going to be Sunday all right,” Thomas said. “We’ll probably meet just everybody!”
“I don’t doubt that,” said Mr. Small.
“I did want to see the house tonight though,” Thomas said. He looked around at the lopsided kitchen. “I can tell straight off this room is smaller than it should be.”
“That’s because you’ve had time to see the house from the outside,” Mr. Small said.
“Let me see if I can figure it out,” said Thomas.
“I want you to go to bed. Here,” his father said, “I’ll show you myself to save time.”
On either side of the kitchen door there were sliding panels, which vanished into the wall at Mr. Small’s touch. Within were arched cubicles, large enough for a man stooping to hide.
“Why, I wouldn’t have imagined!” said Mrs. Small.
“That’s great!” Thomas said. “Boy, I wouldn’t have thought they were there either.”
“A very temporary measure,” Mr. Small said. “Slaves might be hidden in these walls for a short time, until the trapdoor could be raised so they could escape through the tunnel.”
“Old Dies Drear thought of everything,” said Thomas, clearly impressed.
“Now go upstairs,” Mr. Small said. “The twins have the room across from yours, so be quiet. We’ll be up shortly.”
“Papa, you won’t be able to get locks tomorrow,” Thomas said, “because it’s going to be Sunday.”
“Maybe I can find out where a locksmith lives,” Mr. Small answered. “I did forget for a minute that it would be Sunday. You go on up. Good night.”
Thomas went up to his room, treading softly down the carpeted hallway. The hall was not well lighted, and the ceiling was very high. There were closed, varnished doors on either side. Tall and dark, they didn’t seem at all friendly.
Why do I have to be so far away from the stairs? Thomas wondered. I’ll never be able to hear a sound back here!
He stopped long enough to find out if he could hear his mother and father talking. The silence made him feel he was smothering.
“That proves it,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to hear anything coming or going. You’d just be a sitting duck!”
He thought of looking in all the rooms before going into his own bedroom. And he did march up to one door about halfway down the hall. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to turn the knob.
“Better wait until tomorrow,” he told himself and backed away from the door.
At his own door, at the end of the hall, he held on tightly to the doorknob but didn’t turn it. It was a brass knob. It felt cold. He looked across the hall, seeing the twins’ room. Their door was open, and a yellow nightlight shone through the darkness.
Gathering his courage, Thomas opened the door to his room and was at once blinded by bright light. There was a clear, glass globe suspended by a chain from the ceiling. The room was larger than he could have hoped, with a narrow fireplace to his left at the far end. There were two long windows across from him; his bed was placed between them, facing the door. There were smaller garret windows on each side of the fireplace. Directly in front of the fireplace was a large, old-fashioned captain’s chair. It was a ghostly chair, with its back to the room; it faced the bare, charred insides of the cold hearth. Thomas had the awful notion that someone he couldn’t see was sitting in it.
“Hello,” he said. “Who do you think you are?”
He hoped to startle anyone who might be there into some sudden movement. He still held onto the doorknob, half in and half out of the room. He could yell and run fast down the hall if he had to.
There was no movement from the chair. There was no sound of any kind in the room except his own breathing. He came cautiously inside, leaving the door slightly ajar. Going up to the chair at an angle, he saw that it was empty. At the same moment, he noticed that he was cold and clammy.
“Whose old chair is it anyway?” he said out loud.
The chair wasn’t one that had come from their home in North Carolina. Its cumbersome, hard seat and back were upholstered with faded leather. The flat, wood armrests were not even carved, and the base of it, made from the same hardwood, sat squarely on the floor.
“I’ve got to move it,” Thomas told himself. “I’ll never get to sleep if I don’t turn it around.”
As he struggled to move the heavy chair, he thought of fifty ways to get even with old Pluto for putting the chair with its back to the room.
He did it just to scare me. He’s just a mean old man! Thomas thought.
But he couldn’t move the chair no matter how hard he tried. He couldn’t slide it on the gray, musty carpet and he could not tilt it and swivel it the way his mother did when she had to move furniture.
Mr. Pluto had arranged the room with the same plan in mind as he must have had when he’d arranged the front parlor. Thomas began to form a plan of his own as he went about getting ready for bed. He wasn’t going to sleep in the room, that was for certain.
Not until I change everything. Not until I get that chair into some corner.
Thomas’ old bookcase stood next to his bed, blocking the view from the lower half of the windows. On the other side of his bed, a crate of his books had been placed with great care. On top of that, his father had flung the smaller carton full of his carvings. There was a note attached to it as a reminder for him to put the contents away.
He took a few of his best carvings and grouped them at one end of the fireplace. That made things a little better, he thought. The view from the bed to the mantel of the fireplace was less balanced. Then Thomas opened his suitcase at the foot of the bed and got into his pajamas. He threw his clothes over the back of the chair. That made the room look almost messy. He smiled, relaxing a little. After that he lay down on his bed and stared up into the light
The ceiling of the room was painted the dullest gray Thomas had ever seen. The color of it was worse than the carpet, which was dimmer still. The walls were papered in a pale blue flower pattern with loops of brownish leaves. Automatically, Thomas let his mind redo the walls and ceiling in bright earth colors.
Windowframes and baseboards were trimmed a dark mahogany. The floor where the carpet ended was the same mahogany.
I’ll let the floor stay dark, Thomas thought. But all the trim he allowed his mind to paint pure white.
There were two more mahogany doors in the wall across from him. Thomas leaped up from the bed and snatched one of them open.
“Only an old, empty closet,” he said. “I knew it.”
It was not a large closet; it had a few hangers spaced about two inches apart along one wood pole. Thomas hung his Sunday suit in the closet and left the closet door open.
Treading barefoot, he went to the next door and flung it open. There was a tiny room with a sink and a three-paneled mirror above it. Thom
as was pleased, and he remembered to brush his teeth. He even washed his face, eyeing himself in the three mirrors. After that he gave one last look around the room, especially at the chair, and turned out the light.
Lying with his arms over his eyes, Thomas tried not to think about anything. He didn’t want to scare himself about what he planned to do. Soon he heard a door open and close down the hall; then the voices of his mother and father. He’d wait about an hour and then he would take the sheets from the bed and carry them downstairs to the front parlor. He was going to sleep all night on the couch, where he could see anything coming up on the front porch and where he might hear something coming through the kitchen.
Thomas was tired, but he did stay awake. When he thought an hour had passed, he did as he had planned. He made a ball of his bedding and stealthily headed down the hall. Thank goodness there was a runner on the hall and stairs. His mother had helpfully left the dim hall light on.
Once downstairs, Thomas felt a lot better. He looked at himself in the ornate mirror just beyond the oak door, right next to the parlor. He couldn’t see himself well, but he was sure he must look brave. He went right into the parlor.
Without any light save what night glow came through the windows, he made his bed on the sofa. He felt almost calm as he settled down. Quickly he lapsed into semisleep, before going off altogether. Once he thought he heard water running somewhere, but that was an ordinary sound and he didn’t bother to wake himself. Vaguely, he heard the slightest movement, not far away. But he was too tired, too deeply gone. He had not even bothered to close the parlor door.
Thomas was sound asleep when suddenly the upstairs hall light went off. Awhile after that, there was again the sound of running water. Then the hall mirror near the oak door swung silently open. And through it all Thomas slept.
Soundlessly the mirror closed. Whatever stood there in front of it gave back no reflection in the totally dark house. The thing was not the same as night. It was darkness detached from the black of the entranceway. It was solid, but it could move, and it did not hesitate. It went directly to the stairs and up them, a mass of shadow-black that knew its way. At the top of the stairs, it paused as though listening. All remained silent. The thing, as it stopped before each closed door, was once more a part of the black house.
It pressed itself against each doorjamb, on the right side, but did not try to enter any room. Near the twins’ room, where the yellow light still glowed, it became more visible. Now it was massive, bold. Not vapor, not blackness, it was not ghostly at all. It was a thing become manlike.
It moved across to the twins’ room, skirting the light, where it placed something dimly metallic in the doorframe. It crossed back to Thomas’ room, doing the same. It did not move; it listened a long while. Then it crossed over to Mr. and Mrs. Small’s room, where it again placed something in the doorframe. After that it went down the hall and down the stairs.
Whatever it was did not bother looking at Thomas asleep in the parlor. Perhaps it didn’t know he was there. It vanished behind the mirror, the way it had come. All was still once more. The night passed, as dawn came creeping into the house through the parlor windows.
Chapter 9
THOMAS WAS TALKING to himself in his sleep. He could hear himself; he could feel the shape of words in his mouth. He became half conscious and recognized the sounds of birds singing in the trees outside the house. They were so many and so loud, they were noisy. But sleep overcame him again. He dreamed of trees and the danger of Mr. Pluto.
Later he awoke with a start and sat up on the couch. Clear morning sunlight filled the parlor. Whatever he’d said in his sleep, he couldn’t remember now.
Was it a dream? he wondered. I’ve forgotten something. Was it a dream I’ve forgotten?
Across the foot of the couch lay his new suit and fresh underwear. There was a note pinned to his shirt from his mother. Thomas read it and laughed. It said, “Thomas, you are to wear these clothes.”
He recalled the day was Sunday and jumped up to get dressed.
“Anyhow,” he said out loud, “I can’t remember if it was a dream or not. I’ve got to think about what it is I’ve forgotten. But not today. No, not today!”
He hurried to the kitchen, still fumbling with his tie. The table was set; there were glasses filled with juice. But there was no one about, not even his mother. The oven was on. Thomas peeked inside.
“Good!” he said. “Good hoecakes just waiting. Mama must be missing Great-grandmother. It’s Sunday for sure!”
In sunlight, the kitchen looked much like any big kitchen anywhere. There were no shadowed angles to bring out its lopsidedness.
It looks almost friendly, Thomas thought. But I know there’s the tunnel. I know about slaves hiding and running.
He went toward the staircase. There was not a sound from up above, although his mother had to be up, probably his father, too. The twins would be sleeping, or he would have heard them.
He paused at the mirror next to the front parlor and carefully surveyed himself.
My head is too big, he thought. But the suit is all right. Everybody will know it is a new suit. I will tell them I got it for my birthday.
He straightened his tie.
Maybe we’ll bring some folks home with us. They will sit in the parlor with Papa. They won’t like him at first because he’s a teacher. But they’ll come because they’ll want to know why we are here and living in this house. They’ll like him once they hear him talk.
It seemed to Thomas that his father talked best on Sunday. He always spoke of history— not only the history of black people, but American Indian history and the history of the Hebrew tribes. Once, when they had a minister back home, he would often stop by on Sunday to listen to Thomas’ father and to have a cup of coffee. Thomas felt very proud at those times. But usually, there were just ordinary people in their house on Sunday.
Some neighbors. Or his two uncles and their families, who would come one Sunday a month for talk, all the way from Tennessee.
“There’s no minister anymore,” he whispered. “I said I wasn’t going to think about home. I said I wouldn’t.”
Folks will come to visit here just like they did at home, he told himself. I’ll have friends like I never had before, you wait and see.
At the top of the stairs, Thomas couldn’t have been more startled by what he saw. His father sat in his best suit, cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the hallway. His mother kneeled beside him in her gray wool suit and her brand-new, white-and-black straw hat. They were completely silent, and Thomas’ father was examining something he held in his palm.
Thomas tiptoed up to them and knelt down. “What have you got there?” he asked his father.
Mr. Small had three metallic objects spread out on his hand. He didn’t answer Thomas; instead, he carefully placed the objects one by one on the floor.
“Triangles!” Thomas said.
“Three of them,” said Mrs. Small softly, “and they’re exactly alike.”
“Yes, three right triangles,” said Mr. Small, as though talking to himself. “Thomas, go to my room, fetch me my pen on the dresser and a sheet of paper from my briefcase. I have an idea we might be able to understand them better if we diagram them.”
Thomas went and returned almost at once.
Mr. Small laid out the paper beside the triangles. Then he drew on the paper a large triangle that looked the same as those in front of him.
“The two legs of the triangle which make the right angle are wood,” he said. “Probably a hardwood, like oak.” He drew on the paper, marking each leg of the right angle with a capital W.
“The surface of the triangle, between the legs, must be tin. In any case, it’s lightweight and coated with silver paint.”
He drew a line to mark the hypotenuse—the side opposite the right angle. He then shaded the space between the hypotenuse and the angle and marked it with a capital S to show that it was painted silver.
“T
he angle seems to be real gold, I can’t tell for sure.” Mr. Small marked it with a G for gold, and seemed to be finished. “Wait,” he said.
Next to the triangle he had drawn he wrote down each letter, and beside each letter he wrote an explanation of what the letter represented.
“Now let’s see what we have,” he said.
“You forgot something,” Thomas said. He picked up one triangle to show his father. Hardly noticeable was a circle of metal in the wood, where the legs of the triangle joined. Thomas turned the triangle on its opposite side. Protruding was a metal peg about a half an inch long.
“Ah, you’re pretty good, Thomas,” said Mr. Small. “I’ll show the peg with a black dot.” He made the dot on the paper. The completed triangle looked like part of a puzzle:
W legs of wood, forming right angle
G 90° angle of gold
S area between right angle and hypotensuse: metal coated with silver paint
• matal peg
Mr. Small began to arrange the three triangles on the floor to see if they fit together in any way. He thought of taking one and laying it over the diagram he had drawn.
Thomas picked up one of the other triangles and fitted it next to the one on the diagram, with the wood sides next to each other and the wood angles touching.
Then Mr. Small picked up the third triangle they had found. He fitted it next to the one Thomas had placed down, so that all three wood angles were touching.
“If it’s a square, there’s one missing,” Mr. Small said. “The top one.”
“Any one of them is missing,” said Thomas. “I mean, you can move them so that there is always one missing, since they are three triangles just alike.”
“It doesn’t make any kind of sense,” Mr. Small said. “Why did they leave just three triangles if they meant to make a square? Clearly, there’s a triangle missing.”
“Where did you get these three?” Thomas wanted to know.
“They were stuck in the doorframes on the outside of the three bedrooms we occupy,” Mrs. Small said.
To Thomas, his mother’s voice sounded breathless.
The House of Dies Drear Page 7