“Chariot. I call it my chariot.”
“It sure is a nice chariot,” Corey said.
“Now, where do you live?” she asked.
Corey recited his address and sat back in the soft leather seat. “This feels good on my sore back.”
“I must have worked on you for an hour doing artificial respiration. I probably broke a few of your ribs,” Mrs. Chudzik said as her chariot glided down the hilly streets. “My back is hurting too. Bending over you for an hour isn’t something I should be doing at my age.”
They passed by a clock that said 10:25, and he began to think about his mom and dad. Mom would be crying, and Dad would be checking with all the neighbors and pacing the streets looking for him. He hadn’t told Mom about going skating, as she had gone shopping. He should have left a note.
“My mom will be upset—she had no idea I was going skating,” he confided to Mrs. Chudzik. “And my dad will be worried and probably mad at me.”
“I imagine so,” Mrs. Chudzik agreed, nodding. “I never had children, but when my husband was alive and working as a doctor, I could easily see how many parents have their hearts broken by thoughtless children—or sick children who die—not that they could help it. I’m glad I didn’t have any children. They only bring heartbreak.”
Corey didn’t want to bring heartbreak to his mom and dad. He tried hard to hold back tears, but they slipped silently down his cheeks anyway. “Can you speed up a little?”
Mrs. Chudzik was already traveling at a brisk twenty miles per hour. “No. I didn’t spend an hour doing artificial respiration only to have you die in an accident.”
Corey sighed and blinked his eyes. The lights in the town blurred as tears kept coming.
They turned onto Corey’s street, which was part of a patch village owned by the Mountain Crest Mine Company, where his dad was a miner. The houses lined the road and most looked alike, with rickety wooden porches on the front.
In the backyards were gardens where the families grew vegetables. The village looked something like a patchwork quilt with the squares of grassy lawns in the front of the house and the little blocks of gardens in the back.
“My house is the one with the nice stone porch on the front.”
“Where? They all look alike. What number is your house?”
“Forty-five.”
“Still hard to see the number. Why does anyone put up tiny numbers and then hide them somewhere?” Mrs. Chudzik muttered, slowing down.
“There it is.” Home had never looked as good to Corey as it did right then. The tightness in his chest loosened at the sight of the lighted windows in his house. The porch was alight too, with lanterns, and the front door was open. Lots of people were inside, and Corey could see a police wagon—a Black Maria—parked out front.
“They’re all looking for you,” Mrs. Chudzik said. “As much as I hate meeting people, I suppose I’ll have to get out and explain what happened.” She pulled in behind the Black Maria.
“Oh yes, please,” Corey said, nodding vigorously. “I can’t explain this all by myself.” He had the door of the car open before she turned off the engine.
Someone looked out the front door and yelled, “It’s Mrs. Chudzik’s car . . . and, oh my Lord—it’s Corey. He’s here!”
He could hear his brothers, Jack and Sammy, calling out, “Corey’s back, Corey’s back!”
Hovi jumped out and waited for Corey, and then as Corey headed toward the house, the dog trotted close to his side.
The light in the doorway dimmed as several people clustered together, looking out. “Corey?” “Is that you, Corey?” “What happened?” A dozen questions.
“Mom! Dad!” He raced onto the walk and bolted up the front steps two by two with the big dog at his heels.
Mom was on the porch, her hair undone, and her face swollen from crying. “Corey!” she wailed, clutching him. “Where have you been?” She burst into tears as she kissed his cheeks, and hair, and eyes. “Oh, Corey, we were so frightened.”
Dad pulled him away from his mother and shook him by the shoulders. “Where have you been? What happened? Didn’t you even think how upset your mother would be?”
Hovi growled. He did not like Dad shaking Corey. Dad let go and looked down at the dog. “Who is this?”
“It’s Hovi. He saved me.” Corey tried to say more, but everyone was talking and questioning him, and then, in the midst of it all, Mrs. Chudzik came up onto the porch.
“He very nearly drowned,” she said in her deep voice. “He was skating on the pond down by my home, when the ice gave way.”
Silence reigned as everyone crowded the small porch to listen to Mrs. Chudzik, who stood there like a foreign dignitary—tall, aloof, head high—among the coal miners and their needy families.
Corey nodded. “I was drowned. I felt my feet touch the bottom, under the ice, and I couldn’t find my way out. The ice was hard, like a roof above me.”
“So how did you get out?” Dad asked.
“Hovi, my dog, was tied up down by the pond. He began barking madly. He actually pulled free of his chain and came rushing up to the house, howling like a wild animal.” Mrs. Chudzik smiled slightly. “He was insistent that I follow him down to the pond.” She patted Hovi’s head. “In fact, he has adopted Corey, I think.”
“Mrs. Chudzik, I shudder to think what could have happened if it weren’t for your wonderful dog—our little boy would be dead,” Aunt Millie gushed, and wrung her hands.
“Yes, indeed he would,” Mrs. Chudzik agreed. “However, as Hovi continued racing back and forth, trying to tell me, I saw the hole in the ice, and I figured out what had happened. I grabbed a rake and raced down to the pond. I was able to chop away the ice around the hole, until I could see him on the bottom. I then reached down with the rake and tugged at his coat until I could grab hold, bring him up, and pull him out.”
Everyone on the porch—and on the neighbors’ porches two houses down on either side—strained to hear the story. When she paused, the chattering and questions started again. However, some of the neighbors didn’t speak at all but cowered nearby, nudging one another at Mrs. Chudzik’s terrifying narrative.
“She’s enough to scare any kid to death,” someone murmured. “Did you see her eyes? They stare right through you.”
“Hush!” Mrs. Chudzik ordered in her mannish voice. “Let me finish!” She turned her head and sent a scathing look at her audience. Immediately, everyone was silent. Then she removed her goggles, took a deep breath, and continued.
“The boy wasn’t breathing, of course. I didn’t know how long he’d been in the pond, so I started artificial respiration on him at once—right there on the ice.”
“I don’t remember anything about being rescued,” Corey added.
“You could have died!” Mom cried.
“He might have been dead,” Mrs. Chudzik said. “I didn’t hear a heartbeat.”
“Oh . . . no heartbeat,” someone said. “He was dead.”
“She has strange powers,” another neighbor said in awe.
“Supernatural powers,” Mrs. Sullivan stated with a nod.
Then Dad’s booming voice carried over the neighborhood. “Corey, you should have told someone where you were.”
Mrs. Chudzik waited until it was quiet again. “I bent over him and worked on him for at least . . . oh, I don’t know. It is hard to pay attention to time when you’re trying to resuscitate someone. It must have been a half hour before he started breathing again and upchucked that pond water. It was dark and cold by the time I brought him up to the house in the wheelbarrow.” Several folks chuckled.
“Lucky it was there,” she said with a scowl at those who laughed. “I have been working on the drainage from my house to the pond, and I happened to have the wheelbarrow nearby in the bushes. I couldn’t have carried him up the hill without it.” After a respectful silence from her chastised audience, Mrs. Chudzik continued, “I put him to bed with hot water bottles. I had no id
ea who he was, so even if I’d had a telephone, I wouldn’t have known whom to call. Besides, I had to rest in the parlor myself until he came in and woke me.”
“She was lying in a . . . ,” he started to say, but stopped when he saw the look Mrs. Chudzik gave him.
“He seems to be fine now,” she said after a moment. “Keep him warm and in bed for a few days.” She headed toward the porch steps. “You need to watch his cough. It could develop into pneumonia.”
Gasps came from the audience. Pneumonia was often a death sentence.
“Mrs. Chudzik, how can we thank you?” Mom touched the woman’s shoulder. “Please stay and have some hot chicken soup . . . or something . . . tea?”
“Another time,” Mrs. Chudzik said. “And, Corey, you come see me when you are over this close call with death. I’ll be interested in knowing how you are.”
“I will, Mrs. Chudzik, I will.” Corey went over to her and put his arms around her. “Thank you.” He could feel her stiffen as he hugged her.
“Enough of that.” She shoved him away, whistled loudly for Hovi, and then the two of them climbed into her beautiful chariot. Hovi looked sadly at Corey but climbed dutifully into the front seat.
Mrs. Chudzik put her goggles on, then raised her hand and gave a short wave.
“Thank you,” came the calls.
The chattering and exclamations started again. “Well, Corey is lucky to be alive. We might never have known what happened if he’d drowned.”
“Lucky for him, that dog warned Mrs. Chudzik,” said Aunt Millie.
“Humph! It’s a wonder the dog didn’t tear him apart. Imagine, being alone in a house with that Polish woman and her vicious dog. Corey is lucky, all right,” Mrs. O’Brian said with a sniff.
“She’s a mean woman . . . and ugly as a witch. Did you hear her tell us to be quiet? Who does she think she is, anyway—just because she lives up there in that big house . . . ?”
“She probably is a witch. She sure enough looks like one. . . .”
“And who knows what kind of curse she might have put on Corey.” Mrs. McDooley shook her head sadly. “Only time will tell the outcome of this on that boy.”
“Poor Corey, up there in that house with that awful Polish woman and that coffin they say is in her parlor. And that fiend of a dog . . .”
“The family will need to keep a close watch on Corey, all right,” Mrs. O’Brian agreed with a wise nod. “No tellin’ what spell she may have cast on him.”
Corey put his hands over his ears. He didn’t want to hear anything more. “I want to go to bed now,” he whispered to his mother.
So Mom brought him up to bed, got him into warm pajamas, and fed him hot chicken soup that Corey found out later had been made by Mrs. Balaski from next door.
“We mining folks stand together in bad times and good times,” he heard someone say.
5
The Dreams
Boys!” Mom called to Corey’s brothers. “You’ll need to sleep in the parlor tonight—on the floor, or on the couch. Corey needs the bed to himself for now.”
Jack, who was a few years younger than Corey, complained loudly and threw his nightshirt across the room. “We never get any sleep when we have the couch. We’ll be awake all night and we’ll fall asleep at school tomorrow.”
Sammy, two years younger than Jack, chimed in. “It’s not our fault Corey went skating on thin ice.” He stuck his tongue out at his brother.
“Quiet!” Dad’s loud voice boomed for silence. “Corey’s constant coughing will keep you awake. We don’t want the three of you up all night; then no one will get any rest. No more complaining about sleeping in the parlor. Understand?”
The boys’ bedroom was on the third floor—an unfinished room with one iron bed. The three boys always slept together, sideways on the bed. Tonight, though, Corey had the entire bed to himself. This was a good deal, and it might work even longer. Hadn’t Mrs. Chudzik said he needed to rest for a few days? A few days! Not bad.
Corey coughed several times and his mother rushed over to him carrying a jar. “Mrs. Sullivan told me to use this on your chest.” She read the label. “Vick’s. It’s something new for croup and pneumonia.” She unbuttoned his shirt and rubbed the gooey salve all over his chest.
“It smells strong,” Corey said, inhaling the fumes.
“It’s full of good things like . . .” She looked again at the label. “Menthol—which is mint, actually. You like mint, don’t you? And euca . . . lyptus, and camphor. Inhale it, Corey. It’ll help you breathe.” She then buttoned him up, pulled an itchy woolen afghan over him, and tucked him into the blankets.
The next morning, Dad informed the school that Corey was done—finished. He would be working in the mine soon, and there was no need to go back to school. Corey felt a huge sense of relief when he knew he didn’t have to face his teacher, Miss O’Shea, anymore. She didn’t like or encourage children of miners. She often referred to them as “foreigners” and “ignorant.”
Corey couldn’t restrain himself one day when he heard her use those words. So he raised his hand, stood up, and suggested that unless someone in the room was a Native American, then everyone, including Miss O’Shea, was a foreigner.
Corey stretched out that night on the bed all by himself and fell asleep within minutes. His dreams were the shadowy rooms in Mrs. Chudzik’s house; the beautiful 1911 touring car; Hovi, the dog who’d rescued him; and the coffin.
Then his dream turned to the shining ice, sparkling in the sunlight—smooth as a mirror. He skated amazingly well on the surface—better than he had ever skated. But now the ice became dark. He could feel himself sinking into the blackness of the pond—down, down into the murky water. Again he was struggling to find the hole where the ice had given way—where he could find air . . . he must find air . . . he needed to breathe. He felt his feet—with his skates still on—hit the bottom of the pond. The ice was now a roof over his head as he struggled to find his way out. He gasped and could feel the water coming into his mouth and throat . . . and he was deep in the black water . . . drowning again.
Corey screamed and woke up thrashing, coughing and gasping for air.
“Corey, it’s all right. You’re safe.” It was his mother’s voice, and he found himself in her arms.
The next morning, when Corey came down for breakfast, his brothers were already at the table. They looked up from their bowls of cereal but were silent as Corey joined them. They’d probably heard his cries during the night and pestered Mom into revealing his nightmare. She must have insisted they say nothing.
The winter vacation had ended, and his brothers would be going back to school, so Corey wouldn’t have to answer their questions today, or see them whispering behind their hands about his shrieks in the night. However, he was sure they’d be telling his school friends what had happened. He hoped everything would be forgotten soon.
As for Corey, he couldn’t forget. That night, he had the dream again. Instead of screaming, Corey jolted awake, in a cold sweat and vomiting. After Mom had cleaned him up, it was a long time before he stopped shaking. He was afraid to sleep—even when he was drowsy and the pillow felt cool and soft.
How long would he relive, over and over again, those horrific, real moments when he was drowning?
Because of the awful dreams, Corey was allowed to have the room to himself for a while longer. His brothers were not happy with this arrangement.
“It’s not fair,” Sammy whined.
“He’s just pretending to have those dreams so he can sleep alone,” Jack insisted.
“Be kind and patient with your brother,” Mom whispered. “He had a terrible ordeal. Mrs. Chudzik says he really drowned that day at the pond.”
Consequently, Corey was alone in the bed, alone in the room, and for another week he lay there at night, trying not to sleep, trying to think of happy things, trying to do the times tables in his head, and then, utterly exhausted, he would fall into a deep sleep or end up back in th
e dark pond again.
Finally, he said to his mother, “Mom, I don’t want to sleep alone anymore. Perhaps having the boys in bed with me will help me to sleep.” And it did for a while.
6
The Company Store
In a few weeks, Corey was feeling well enough to take a walk up to meet his friends coming home from school. He wanted to talk with Anthony, his best friend, who would also be leaving school to work in the mine soon. A month or two ago, before Corey drowned, Dad took Corey and Anthony down into the mine to see how the nippers work—a job that sometimes came up for boys. Corey wondered if Anthony had decided to work as a nipper. He didn’t want to tell Anthony about his dreams. How could he expect Anthony to understand, when he didn’t understand himself?
Corey walked quickly up the unpaved roads until he reached the company store. Then he stopped, out of breath. He’d wait here until Anthony came. He was tired and sleepy and wondered how long it would be that he’d have those awful drowning nightmares. Besides, it was embarrassing for a boy of twelve to be afraid of dreams.
All the kids going home from school had to pass by the store. Some stopped and bought candy and things. Others just hung around and waited for friends. Corey figured Anthony would probably show up in a few minutes.
Meanwhile, Corey decided to take a look inside the store. A bell rang as Corey went inside and looked at the candies for sale. The name HERSHEY stood out in large letters. One whole section of the display was for Hershey’s chocolates. Hershey was fast becoming a famous name in chocolate around the country, and it was manufactured right there in Pennsylvania. The chocolate candy bars were a nickel. Corey felt in his pockets and came up with four pennies.
“Do you want something?” asked the man behind the counter.
“Yes, I want a Hershey’s bar, but I only have four cents.”
“Well, get some penny candy,” the salesclerk suggested. “There’s plenty of that.”
“But I really wanted a Hershey’s bar.”
“Why aren’t you in school?”
Breaker Boy Page 2