by Richard Peck
There was a breeze that whisked the leaves around a little. I was staring at the shiny place, and then, right away, I was looking at a grin. A big, yawning grin right down on ground level and a black eye socket. A leaf was over the other one. And some hair on the clean, white bone of a skull’s forehead. I looked at it with both eyes, and Flip looked with one. It was a dead man, but I didn’t know it at first.
The parts seemed all disconnected. Some of it just looked like rags on the ground, except for the grin. I kept looking at it, and my mouth was open like the dead man’s. Then I saw one of the teeth in his jaw was gold. I knew then what I was looking at. I heeled around in slow motion and took off running back the way we’d come.
And when I came to the last concrete block we’d found, I flopped over flat on it and threw up in the creek.
DUNTHORPE MORNING CALL
March 22
LOCAL YOUTHS FIND VAGRANT’S BODY
Two local boys playing in the wooded, marshy area west of the Marquette Park duck pond discovered a badly decomposed corpse late Tuesday afternoon.
Alerted by the boys’ parents, the Police Department made investigation and have cordoned off the area to discourage curiosity seekers. Black Hawk County Coroner V. H. Horvath estimates the middle-aged male may have been dead for as long as three months. Police Chief Ross H. Heidenreich speculates that the man was a vagrant of the type who still follow the disused right of way of the St. Louis, Effingham & Terre Haute Railroad, running along the northern border of Marquette Park. Coroner Horvath has called an autopsy “well-nigh impossible” and has declared the death to be of “presumed natural causes.”
The youngsters, Philip Townsend, 12, son of Commander and Mrs. Wilmer Townsend, 134 Oakthorpe Avenue, and Brian Bishop, 12, son of Mr. and Mrs. Murray Bishop, 243 Oakthorpe Avenue, are students at the Coolidge Middle School.
Though Chief Heidenreich holds out scant hope for a positive identification, he calls for the cooperation of any persons who may have pertinent information.
DUNTHORPE MORNING CALL
March 24
LETTERS FROM OUR READERS
Sirs:
I feel confident that I speak as the voice of the total Dunthorpe community when I point the finger of scornful accusation at the municipal agencies clearly and wantonly derelict in the duties for which they are more than amply paid.
The Park Department receives our most ringing condemnation for allowing a deceased individual to lie unburied so that innocent children at their play are compelled to look upon the Awful Face of Death. Any such traumatic experience may well lead to the most damaging future consequences in unformed minds. Furthermore, the Police Department deserves official reprimand for turning a Blind Eye to the hordes of tramps and hobos allowed to roam at large within our city limits to trespass, steal, and insult womanhood.
I consider it the civic duty of this newspaper to print my letter in its entirety as a call to action in a community whose public services are a Notorious Outrage and whose children face a clear and present danger.
(signed)
(Miss) Bernadette Dunthorpe
Number 1 Dunthorpe Boulevard
Dunthorpe
Dear Editor:
This letter is about your article in the Wednesday Call that tells how Brian Bishop and myself found the dead man.
We were not “playing” in the woods west of the duck pond like you said. We were doing historic research into the roller coaster that used to be there when the duck pond was called by its right name, Dreamland Lake. If you knew Estella Winkler Bateses book on this subject, you’d know this was Dunthorpe’s own Coney Island in the old times.
I’m not twelve years old. I was thirteen Monday and Brian Bishop will be thirteen in one week.
Yours truly,
Philip Townsend
134 Oakthorpe Avenue
Dunthorpe
P. S. Also, Brian Bishop’s mom called the police when he got home. My mom didn’t. I did.
P. T.
If you can’t guess who the Celebrities of the Week were at Coolidge Middle School, you’re no judge of human nature. Even eighth-graders were asking who we were. Flip got most of the glory, though, because my mom made me stay home from school the next day. She said I’d have to get back on my feed and have a better color before I could go out and face my public.
But unburied cadavers aren’t what you’d call a dime a dozen in Dunthorpe, so the school was still in a mild uproar by the time I got back.
On Friday, Arlene DeSappio passed me a note in Language Arts that said, “What’s it like to look at the Awful Face of Death?” I drew crossbones and a skull with one big tooth on the back of her note and passed it over to her, and she said, “Oh, wow!” and gave out with a little scream and a giggle.
Which was unfortunate, considering it was Language Arts. The teacher for this was one Miss Mabel Klimer. She believed strongly in Written Expression but she hated note-passing. A point spaced-out Arlene never could grasp. Also, Miss Klimer never had liked Flip from the first day, and I don’t know why.
She didn’t have much of an opinion of me, one way or the other. But on Dead Man Week with everybody making a big deal out of Flip and me, she more or less associated us with the cause of the excitement. And she hated any kind of an interruption. What she thought of Arlene DeSappio is another matter. But Arlene’s scream and giggle was Miss Klimer’s last straw. She stalked over to the board and started to erase the Quotation for the Day. It was:
To Braggarts and Gossipers
This proverb does appeal:
The steam that blows the whistle
Will never turn the wheel!
But then, she took another look at this, decided it still applied, and left it. And right next to it, she wrote in large printing:
DEATH BE NOT PROUD, THOUGH SOME HAVE CALLED THEE
MIGHTY AND DREADFUL, FOR, THOU ART NOT SO, . . .
She turned around to the class as if she’d just made a major point and stared right at Flip, who hadn’t been doing anything. Then, she let her look drift over in my direction. The idea was pretty much lost on everybody anyway, since no one ever connected Miss Klimer’s Daily Quotations with real life.
So, generally speaking, we were a big deal with everybody but the teachers that week. Even the coach gave a little locker-room speech in P. E. about how goof-offs who cut basketball practice even at the end of the season are liable to get into big trouble, develop dirty habits, and grow up ignorant about team spirit.
But it wasn’t how the public reacted that counted with me at the time. Like Miss Klimer always said, FAME IS FLEETING. What mattered was that in a funny way it really made friends out of me and Flip. It wasn’t a friendship that lasted long. And it had a bad ending. But it came on strong then. Always before, we’d just been two kids who hung around together as much as possible. Showing off for each other’s benefit and pretending to be as grown-up as we could. And that’s all there was to it.
The showing off and pretending didn’t let up much, but finding the dead man changed things. Even before we took a notion to turn the whole thing into a big, faked-up mystery fantasy, things began to change. It was a pretty sickening experience, especially for me. But something came out of it. Before I’d finished heaving up in the creek, Flip took charge. He walked me home. I was scared and embarrassed, and probably a little mad that Flip hadn’t started throwing up too.
But he never said anything. He took hold of me by the arm with one hand and walked my bike with the other. We had to circle Dreamland Lake and go up a hill past the tennis courts and down a long sloping part of the park to where Oakthorpe Avenue dead-ends. He left me at my back door and put my bike away in the garage.
I was still staggering around and maybe crying a little, but he just said, “Go on in the house and tell your mom. I’ll see you later.”
Then the next day, back at school, he never told anybody about me being sick. He had a good chance to, since I wasn’t there. And not only that.
He could have gone around telling how he discovered the body first, which he had. But no, he always said that we found it. It was a little thing, but it made a big difference to me at the time.
The next week we took over Wally Myers’ paper route officially. Wally figured he’d outgrown it since he was about ready for high school. He’d been subcontracting the Sunday delivery and weekly collections to us all year anyway; so, we were groomed for the job and ready to take it on as a partnership by ourselves. Besides, carrying a paper route spelled the end of basketball practice.
With all this going on, it took me a few days to remember another point. I asked Flip about it when we were delivering papers one day. “How’d you get your bike home that day?”
He knew right away what I was talking about. “After I walked you home, I went back and got it,” Flip said, sending a paper straight up onto Mrs. Riordan’s porch roof and then sending another one up in the general area of her front door.
“You went back there?” We’d left our bikes outside the woods, but still I thought it took guts to walk back that close to the dead man—with nobody around and evening coming on.
“Sure,” Flip said, kind of cocky, like he was talking to one of our temporary fans. “Why not? I didn’t want it swiped.” Then, as though he just remembered it was me he was talking to, he said, “I grabbed it and tore-ass out of there without looking back. I was home before you got your back door open.”
Then he gave out with a kind of a snort and a grin. And for the first time, we could relax about the whole thing.
Three
At that age, you’re glad for any excitement that comes your way. Before Flip and I had our adventure, I always liked trying to fit myself into any TV plot that showed a little action. I remember this show I saw once that left a big impression on me.
Two sadistic big kids kidnapped this younger one and hid him in a cave. It was just for kind of a sick joke—not for ransom or anything like that. Anyway, this young kid was being held underground, chained to a stake, with nothing but a little pan of water and a dish of cat food—something grotesque like that. And the big sadists were just planning to leave him there a few days.
But typical of TV, there was a mining company nearby that started doing some dynamite blasting for a highway. So, the kidnapped kid was either going to be blown up or buried permanently. Or both. Anyway, he was saved by the highway patrol, or the Texas Rangers, or some Long Arm of the Law who dug him out at the last minute.
Shows like that always knocked me out. Like how I’d feel if I was in this kid’s situation. Now Flip, watching the same show, would either call it crap or think up some foolproof method of escape for the buried kid. Even though my mind never worked that way, I was always right in there anyway, putting myself in the middle of the drama.
But the dead man was about more than I could handle. There’s nothing like reality to ruin your taste for TV. By Friday night, I was starting to dream about him. Bordering on thirteen is a bad age for nightmares. Too old to yell for your parents and too young to get up and have a cigarette for your nerves.
Besides, if I’d had a cigarette, its smell would have brought my mom out of a deep sleep and straight into my room. Then we’d have had a real-life nightmare on our hands.
The dream started out clear as anything with Flip and me walking around the edge of Dreamland Lake. Just like it happened, except the path into the woods was all lit up with weird green lights, flashing and throbbing. We’d get nearer and nearer to the tunnel of branches. And I’d be in two places. Walking along with Flip, but standing way back at the same time, watching both of us—trying to yell out, DON’T GO IN THE WOODS. DON’T LOOK.
But then the scene would shift, and I’d be in bed in my room alone, knowing I’d been having a nightmare but thinking it was over. And I’d realize that something was wrong. The room was too dark.
There was something at the window, cutting down on the moonlight. And without looking at the window—without chancing it—I’d know somebody was outside hanging onto the side of the house staring in. I didn’t have to look to see the moon shining on the top of the smooth skull or catch a glimmer from off the gold tooth. I knew HE was there, staring in. Then he’d put his hand against the window.
Except, it wasn’t a hand. It was just a bunch of bones. And they’d start pushing against the window pane. Except, it wasn’t glass. It was like plastic—like one of those dry-cleaning bags. And the dead man’s hand was pushing against the window, which was beginning to give. And I realized he could break the window and nobody would hear because it wasn’t glass so it wouldn’t shatter. And I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move because I was pretending to be asleep; except, I wasn’t. I was dead or as good as dead.
Then somebody is standing right next to my bed, and I figure THIS IS IT. Except, the dead man is still outside the window, taking his time about getting in. And this somebody standing next to my bed is whispering something into my ear. And I’m trying to hear because maybe this is somebody who can save me. So I strain my ears trying to hear. And this terrifying whisper comes back: “I am Estella Winkler Bates. And I could help you, if I wanted to.”
Then I’d really wake up. But I was in the same room as the nightmare so I couldn’t be sure it was over. I’d lie there sweating and wanting to go to the bathroom, but not going because bed seemed a little safer. Then I’d calm down and drift off to sleep. And there’d be a rerun of the same dream again. I must have gone over it two or three times in one night—like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve.
So on Saturday morning, I was so tired that even getting out of bed was a big deal. But I did. And first thing, I went over and touched the window to see if it was real glass—just in case SOMEBODY had switched it on me and put in a pane of silent plastic.
Waiting for Saturday night was almost worse than The Dream itself. I better explain the deal Flip and I worked out about Sunday morning delivery. On Saturday, the Dunthorpe Evening Commercial was always thin—down to twelve pages. But on Sundays, the Commercial combines with the Morning Call in a big, fat supplement—with a four-color comic paper, and a Society Section, and the Family Weekly magazine. And it had to go out before dawn.
Since you had to be at the drop-off by four on Sunday morning, Flip and I made a deal about alternating Sundays. That way, we didn’t both have to get up and deliver the Sunday edition every week. It was typical of my luck that the Sunday after the dead man was my turn.
Usually, I’d turn in early and set the alarm for three-thirty. But that Saturday night, I knew the minute I’d turn off the lights and slip into bed, it’d be OLD BONES AT THE WINDOW all over again. So I horsed around the room while my mom yelled up every once in awhile to stop prowling and get some sleep. The third time, she yelled, “Your father is starting up the stairs.”
I doubted it, since he’s not the family disciplinarian. I flipped off the light anyway and made a dive for the bed. But I definitely decided not to sleep. It’d be more restful just to lie there and think than to have old Estella Winkler Bates hissing in my ear. And that must have done the trick because the next sound I heard was the alarm going off.
I was dressed and nearly down to the corner before I realized I was out alone before daylight. It never had bothered me before, even though I wasn’t ever in love with carrying forty pounds’ worth of Sunday paper around in the clammy cold. But that morning, I was looking behind every bush and tree. At first, it felt creepy when I thought I was the only person awake in Dunthorpe. Then I was hoping I really was the only person awake in Dunthorpe. The street lights were still on, and the trees made jerky dancing shadows on the sidewalk. And I started jogging—partly to keep warm.
They’d already dropped off the bundle in front of Walgreen’s Drugstore. I was just ready to drag it back into the doorway to roll the papers when I realized I’d forgotten to bring my wire cutters. So I lost ten minutes, fiddling with the wire that binds the pile so tight it usually cuts the top paper in half. And trying to get
the wire untwisted with hands I couldn’t keep steady, I drew blood a couple of times and wiped it off on my windbreaker because I didn’t give a damn.
The Sunday delivery’s a grind—not even counting that you have to get up in the middle of the night. The bike’s useless because the load’s too heavy. And there’s an unbreakable rule against throwing the paper up on the porches because it might disturb the subscribers’ sleep. So you had to carry the papers around in a canvas bag, and you had to walk up every set of porch stairs, and you had to lay the paper right down in front of the door.
One of the customers, Old Man Sanderson, was always up already, waiting for the paper. He stood right inside the front door and watched you every step of the way, to make sure you brought it up to the door and didn’t throw it, which wouldn’t have mattered anyway since he was already awake. But if you did throw it, he turned right around and called the paper, and they issued you a “complaint referral.” So you might as well walk up and lay it at the old devil’s feet because that’s what he wanted, and he didn’t get his kicks any other way.
I was starting off on the route, and the sky was getting a little gray in the east, which somehow just made everything spookier. There’d be these sudden gusts of wind like little cyclones of leftover leaves, making me think of the dead man. Everything did.
The route starts with Union Avenue, which has a lot of old, gray, frame houses leaning toward each other right next to the sidewalk. My dad used to say they’d been a string of sporting houses until my mom said she didn’t see any reason why sporting houses needed to be mentioned. Now, they’re divided up into apartments so I could unload three or four papers on each porch and get the load down to where I could handle it better.
Then you crossed a sort of invisible frontier and made a sharp angle onto Prairie Avenue. This is sort of old-time, classy Dunthorpe. Not as classy as Dunthorpe Boulevard, which wasn’t on our route, but classy enough. Big houses here, strung out with long lawns divided by hedges that made me a little nervous. The porches were dark. At the old Smythe place, the wind was making the porch swing squeak back and forth—like something invisible was sitting out there, catching a breath of early morning air. I skimmed the paper across the porch floor there without coming all the way up the steps.