by Edward Eager
Everyone looked.
In the dust on the floor of the hall was a footprint. It pointed away from them. Beyond it was another and another. The trail led straight across the hall and into a room on the right.
"D'you suppose we're meant to follow?" said Laura, dropping her voice to a whisper.
"What if whatever it is is still in there, waiting for us?" said Kip.
"It isn't," said Lydia. "It came out again. Look." Sure enough, another trail of footprints led back out of the room and across the hall to the front door.
After that they felt better. "Come on," said James. "Maybe these prints don't mean a thing. Maybe they've been there for untold ages."
"They haven't," said Lydia, always the sharpest-eyed, "or there'd be dust in them. There isn't any at all, hardly."
"It still could be last month," said James, "or last year. A year's dust would be nothing to the dust of centuries."
With bated breath the five children tiptoed across the hall and peered into the right-hand room. It was empty of people (or ghosts) and almost empty of furniture. But across the room a little old desk stood against the wall and the footsteps led straight up to it. Loud with relief, the five children raced across the room and James tried the lid. But the desk was locked. There was a keyhole but no key.
"This is maddening," said Laura. "We're meant to get inside. I know we are!"
But though they searched that room and the next one and then, growing braver, ventured upstairs and ransacked the whole house, it was a fruitless quest. Several old rusty keys turned up, but none that would fit the mysterious keyhole.
Gordy, growing ever more impossible again as he grew braver, was all for breaking in the lid, but the others stopped him.
"You can't" said Lydia. "It's old. It's beautiful."
"Yeah, if you like that kind of thing," said Gordy. "We've got a whole room full of 'em at home. My mom's crazy about all that stuff."
Laura was studying the desk. There were initials on the lid, in ornamental brasswork. "M.A.," she read.
"A.M., I'd say," said Lydia.
"They're sort of twined together so you can't tell which," said Kip.
There were some books and papers piled on top of the desk, and James started rooting among these to see whether the key were lying dormant beneath them. He picked up the top bunch of papers to move it away. Then he stood staring at what he held in his hands.
What he held in his hands was a newspaper, a New York Times. And it wasn't yellowed with age or musty with time, either. Its pages were crisp and white and its ink was fresh and black. It was folded to handy carrying size, as though someone had just laid it down. James looked at the date. Then he looked again.
"August 8, 1957," he said.
"That's today," said Laura, who always knew what date it was.
"Yes," said James. "It is."
He dropped the paper. There was a silence, as the eeriness of this sank in.
"Those footprints," said Kip.
"Somebody was just here," said Lydia.
There was another silence.
Gordy was the first to give utterance this time. What he uttered was a howl that was only half in fun.
"Wow," he said. "Lemme outa here!"
Panic, even when it's partly put on, is catching. Pretty soon it isn't put on at all anymore; it's the real thing. Now prickles of fear stirred each scalp. The next instant there was a rush for the door. Pushing and jostling and tumbling into each other, the five children raced out of the house. In the open air, relief found expression in yells. They went on running across the clearing and up the woodsy slope. It was Gordy who tripped over a root and fell down.
He got up again and took a step. Then he looked surprised and his face turned white and he grabbed hold of a maple sapling. The others stopped and came back.
"It's my ankle," said Gordy. "I think I must have done something to it."
"You've cut your knee, too," said Kip, pointing to where blood welled.
"Sorry," said Gordy.
"That's all right," said James.
"You couldn't help it," said Lydia.
The cut, when examined, proved painful but not too deep. Laura bound it up with her handkerchief. A tourniquet was voted unnecessary. And now all agreed that the thing to do was get back to the main road as quickly as possible and try to hitch a ride. The trouble was that the quickest way back led past the house. But as no menacing form, ghostly or otherwise, had issued from its door and come in pursuit, there didn't seem to be anything against this.
"Silly of me to get scared," said Gordy. "Prob'ly just a tramp."
"Tramps always read the latest New York Times, of course," said James sarcastically.
"Maybe it was a bird-watcher," said Lydia, "on a nature ramble. If we could find the house and start exploring it, somebody else perfectly respectable could, too, couldn't he? Prob'ly he's miles away by now."
But all the same, when James and Kip had made a seat of their hands and Gordy had hoisted himself onto it, the five children gave the house a wide berth and passed it in a slow procession at the farthest edge of the clearing. And everyone breathed easier when it was left behind.
Gordy, it was later agreed by all, behaved surprisingly well through the whole ordeal. Though it was plain that his knee and ankle were hurting him all the time, he tried not to wince when James and Kip jounced and jostled him. And he kept on making jokes the whole way. The jokes he made were no better than his conversation generally was; still, it was sporting of him to try.
As they went along, Laura and Lydia held a conference about the mysterious house and the locked desk.
"It must mean something," said Laura. "Otherwise, the magic wouldn't have led us there. Only what could it have to do with the new school? That's the wish we're on!"
"I don't know," said Lydia. "You never can tell with magic. Maybe it's just laughing at us."
"Do you mean," said Laura, "that it fixed things so we had to bring Gordy along and then made him fall down on purpose?"
"I wouldn't put it past it," said Lydia.
"Anyway," Laura consoled herself, "the way Gordy looks now, we won't have any trouble hitching a ride."
"Every time we take somebody along with us," agreed Lydia, "we seem to bring him back sort of damaged."
And in truth, Gordy at this moment did indeed resemble a refugee from a deadly invasion at least, with one knee in an incarnadined bandage and the other black with leaf mold. Falling down hadn't helped his dirty face either, except that under and between the dirt he was now whiter than ever with pain.
His companions looked only slightly more distinguished. Perspiration spangled Kip's brow, and James's shirttail was coming out. Lydia had torn her dress on a broken cedar branch and Laura had walked into a tangle of wild raspberry and had definitely brier-patch legs.
Altogether it was a grisly sight that confronted the general public ten minutes later when the five children burst through a final thicket of black alder and out onto the main Wilton road.
A hundred feet down the road a stately limousine was advancing toward them, headed in the direction of home. Without hesitating, Lydia stepped forward and barred the way, holding up one hand commandingly. James wished she had waited for some thing more modest, a Volkswagen or at most a Rambler.
The limousine swerved to avoid Lydia and at first seemed to be going to pass them by. But then a voice cried out from within.
"Can that be Gordy?" were its horrified words.
"Surely not!" said a second voice.
"It is! Craddock, stop the car!" cried the first voice. The chauffeur stepped on the brake, pushed the reverse button, and the car glided backwards, coming to a halt directly in front of the five children.
From its luxurious depths glared a face on which the hot flush of rage struggled with the ashen cheek of fear.
James took one look at the face. "Help!" he said. He meant it in more ways than one.
"Gordy, Gordy!" cried the owner of the face. "
What have they done to you?"
Gordy smiled toothily (and a bit shakily). "Hi, Mom," he said.
A confused period followed.
There were cries of accusation and abuse from Mrs. Witherspoon and her friend (for of course it was they), interspersed with expostulations from Gordy, as the chauffeur helped him into the car. When James and Kip tried to help, too, Mrs. Witherspoon rose to new heights of fury.
"Don't you touch him!" she cried. "Bullies! Haven't you tortured the poor boy enough?"
"Aw gee, Mom, no!" said Gordy. "It wasn't like that!"
His mother brushed this aside. "Then they've led you into mischief," she said, "and that's just as bad!" She turned to her friend. "It's just as I was saying, Adele. Juvenile delinquents. Bad influences. Hooliganism."
"You're right, Florence," said her friend.
"Gee, Mom, no, you've got it wrong!" said Gordy. "They've been swell. Whaddaya say we give them a lift, too? Whaddaya say?"
"Certainly not," was what Mrs. Witherspoon said. She leaned from the car to address James and Kip and Laura and Lydia. "You are the worst children I have ever seen," she told them. "If ever I find you molesting my family or trespassing on my property again, it will mean Juvenile Court! Drive on, Craddock."
And the stately limousine glided away. The last the four children heard of it was the voice of Gordy wailing down the wind that gee, Mom, now everything was spoiled, and, "Whaddaya say we go back and apologize? Whaddaya say?"
James and Laura and Lydia and Kip were left at the side of the road, staring at each other in utter anticlimax. And they didn't even have the spirit to hail the next passing motorist but started plodding homeward in silence and on foot.
"Who'd think," said Lydia after a bit, "that she'd be right there in the first car that came along? It'd take the magic to manage a thing like that!"
"It certainly would," agreed James bitterly. "If you ask me, that magic's black!"
"Or else something's gone wrong with it and it's unworking," said Kip.
"Unless it's just doing it to make it harder," said ever-hopeful Laura. "So we can push on nothing daunted and prove how really noble we can be."
"What's the use?" said Lydia. "She'll be more against the school than ever now, even." And this, while not too clearly put, was all too plain to all.
"Still," said Kip, after another quarter-mile, "I don't think we ought to give up. I think we ought to do what we said before. I think we ought to talk to everybody."
"And there's still that house," said Laura. "And those footprints. I don't think the magic just put them in. I think they're supposed to lead us somewhere, only it's too much for our mortal minds to grasp!"
"At least we can try, I suppose," said James. But he did not sound very hopeful.
Still, for the next few days try was what they did.
That very evening they went to call on the father of the long-lost heir. He listened with interest to their problem and seemed particularly attentive when they told about finding the house in the woods. But he made no comment till the end of the story.
Then he said, "All right. If you ask me, you kids deserve a good school. You can count on me. I'll be there at town meeting with bells on."
The lovely movie-starish lady had come into the room in time to hear the last of the discussion.
"Oh, Gregory," she said, "are you sure you want to get mixed up in all this? We came to the country to get away from it all!"
The man looked at her. "Yes," he said. "Yes, Brenda, we did. But you can't get away from everything, you know. You have to get away to something, or where are you?"
"I think that's very true," said James approvingly.
The next day they called on Miss Isabella King.
They found her entertaining Mr. Hiram Bundy with tea and cookies. The cookies were homemade shortbread and were enjoyed by all. As Kip said, they made Lorna Doones look sick.
Miss King was indignant when she heard Laura's story.
"For shame!" she said. "I never heard of such a thing. Who is this Mrs. Gordon T. Witherspoon? I don't believe we've met. Some newcomer from the suburbs, I presume?"
"She's president of the Garden Club," said Kip.
Miss King sniffed. "In my day we felt no need of garden clubs. Our gardens grew. Without regimentation, to use one of your modern terms. Dear me. I have not been to town meeting in more years than I like to think. However, under the circumstances, I shall certainly attend. You have my vote. And Mr. Bundy's," she added, with a strong look at her visitor.
Mr. Bundy looked uncomfortable. "Come now, Isabella," he said. "I am to be chairman of that meeting. I must remain impartial."
"You can't," said Miss King. "On a subject like this, no one could. Surely you can say something in your speech that will help to influence people. You could wink."
"I could not," said Mr. Bundy.
"You could do something," said Miss King.
Mr. Bundy hemmed and hawed, but when last seen (by the four children), he seemed to be giving in.
Later that day they tackled Lydia's grandmother. She seemed surprised that they should have thought of her.
"Are you sure you want me on your side?" she said. "No town meeting's ever agreed with me yet!"
"But you're a famous woman of America!" said Laura.
"Humph!" said old Mrs. Green. "So much the worse, if so! Just 'cause I'm an artist, they think I'm queer! I am, too! A plague on the pack of 'em, I say!"
Lydia was looking at her grandmother as if she were just beginning to understand her. "But you'll be there, won't you?" she said.
"If you want me," said her grandmother, "I suppose I'll have to."
After that there didn't seem to be any more important people to ask. But every day, right up to the day of the meeting, the four children spoke to any strangers they met. Some of these seemed interested, but others (probably followers of Mrs. Witherspoon) were curt and huffy.
And every night Kip's mother and father held indignation meetings with the families of other children in the school. James and Laura's parents attended these and made a lot of new friends in the town, but otherwise they didn't seem very hopeful. Mrs. Witherspoon, everyone agreed, would prevail.
"You watch," said Lydia. "She'll lead the whole mob, just the same as always."
And at last the fateful night fell.
One thing Mr. Hiram Bundy had insisted on. Since the fate of the school concerned the town's children most of all, it seemed only right that for this one town meeting the children should be there. And the authorities (after some opposition from Mrs. Witherspoon's friends) agreed.
James and Laura and Lydia and Kip and their friends and relations arrived at Town Hall early and took a place well forward on the left side of the aisle. Lydia's grandmother had accepted a ride with Laura's family, much to everyone's surprise. She did not say much, but there was a gleam in her eye.
The four children were too excited to sit still, particularly James and Laura, who had never been to a town meeting before. They kept screwing around in their seats and staring back up the aisle, watching the citizens file into the hall.
Mr. Hiram Bundy was already on the platform. He appeared nervous, particularly after Miss Isabella King made a superb entrance in an old-fashioned black lace dinner gown and swept forward to an aisle seat in the front row, where she could keep an eye on him.
The hall was beginning to fill up now, and it was interesting to see how the two factions tended to separate and sit on opposite sides. You could tell Mrs. Witherspoon's followers by their purse-proud, self-righteous expressions.
A certain stir was caused by the appearance of the long-lost heir's father and mother and a group of their friends, all looking much more worldly and sophisticated than anyone else in the room. You could tell that they had just driven up in sports cars on their way home from cocktail parties. They were laughing as they entered the hall, but the father of the heir shushed them in disciplinary fashion. He waved at the four children and grinned,
before shepherding his flock into seats on the left.
And still Mrs. Gordon T. Witherspoon was not in evidence. People were beginning to stir and mutter restlessly, and on the platform Mr. Hiram Bundy was consulting his watch for the third time.
"If that isn't just like her!" Kip's mother was heard to say. "She knows nobody'd dare to begin without her!"
From her front aisle seat Miss King gave Mr. Bundy an encouraging nod. He half rose from his chair and hesitated. Miss King nodded again, more commandingly. Mr. Bundy gave a little cough and held up his hand for silence.
And then, in a rustle of printed chiffon, Mrs. Witherspoon hurried down the aisle. Gordy followed. He was limping slightly, but appeared cheerful.
"Whaddaya say we go for a soda afterwards? Whaddaya say?" he called to the four children, just as though the whole town weren't sitting there hanging on his every word.
James didn't know what to say. He hated to ally himself with this feckless boob in front of all these people. Still, he hated to hurt Gordy's feelings, too. It wasn't his fault he came from a bad environment. "Maybe," he answered, not meeting Gordy's eyes. Mrs. Witherspoon's friends had saved her front-row seats, across the aisle from Miss King, and were now greeting her with nods and becks and wreathed smiles. But Mrs. Witherspoon went right past them. Her face was pink and she seemed flustered. She went straight to the edge of the platform where Mr. Hiram Bundy was standing. Mr. Bundy leaned down and they conferred together.
"Dear me," those in the front rows heard Mr. Bundy say. "It would be rather irregular."
"Be firm, Hiram!" called Miss King.
Lydia's grandmother did not agree. "Let her speak," she boomed out in her deep voice. "Have to listen to her sooner or later, anyway. Might as well get it over with!"
Mr. Bundy held up his hand for silence again. Mrs. Witherspoon turned and faced the assembly. She seemed embarrassed and reluctant, yet determined.