The Figure in the Shadows

by John Bellairs

  "Come on," Woody snarled. "Take it back!"

  "No."

  "Take it back!"

  "I said no, and—ow!—I meant—no!"

  Woody grinned his nastiest grin. "Okay then—" He gave Rose Rita's hair a short vicious yank. Her grimace got tighter, and her teeth ground together. But she still refused to scream.

  Lewis didn't know what to do. Should he run and get the principal, or go for the police? Or should he try to take on Woody all by himself? He thought about Woody's knife, and he was afraid.

  Now Woody saw Lewis. He laughed, just the way he had when he stole Lewis's hat.

  "Hey, fat guts! Arncha gonna rescue yer girl friend?" Woody gave Rose Rita's hair another yank, and she winced.

  Rose Rita opened her eyes and glanced at Lewis. "Go away, Lewis!" she hissed. "Just go away!"

  Lewis stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists. He looked toward the street, where cars were slowly rolling past. He looked toward the playground, where he could hear kids laughing and shouting and playing.

  "C'mon, lard ass! You wanna try'n take me? Let's see ya try!"

  Lewis turned and ran. Down the alley, out onto the sidewalk, across the intersection, up Green Street toward home. His feet slapped the pavement under him, and he could hear himself crying as he ran. He stopped halfway down Green Street because he couldn't run any more. His side hurt and his head ached and he wished that he were dead. When he had finally gotten his breath back, he wiped his eyes, blew his nose, and trotted the rest of the way home.

  Uncle Jonathan was raking leaves in the front yard when Lewis came stomping moodily up the sidewalk.

  "Hi, Lewis!" he called, waving cheerfully with his pipe. "Did they let school out early, or..."

  Clang went the front gate. Slam went the front door a few seconds after. Jonathan dropped his rake and went in to see what was wrong.

  He found Lewis crying with his head on the dining room table.

  "God-dam dirty rotten no-good god-dam dirty..." was all Lewis would say, over and over.

  Jonathan sat down in the chair next to him and put his arm around him. "Come on, Lewis," he said gently. "It's okay. What's wrong? Do you want to tell me what happened?"

  Lewis wiped his eyes and blew his nose several times. Then, slowly and brokenly, he told his uncle the whole story. "...and I ran away and she'll never want to have anything to do with me ever again," he sobbed. "I wish I was dead!"

  "Oh, I doubt if Rosie is going to scratch you off her social list," said Jonathan, smiling and patting him on the shoulder. "She just wanted to take care of herself, that's all. She's a real tomboy, and if she got into a fight with Woody, I guess she figured she could handle herself."

  Lewis turned and looked at Jonathan through his tears. "You mean she won't hate me on account of I'm a coward and a weakling?"

  "You're not either one of those," said Jonathan. "And anyway, if Rosie had wanted a lug for a best friend, she'd have found a lug. She's a very stubborn girl, and she does what she wants to do. And I think she likes you a lot."

  "You do?"

  "Mm-hmm. Now, I'm going to go finish raking the leaves, so we can have a bonfire in the driveway tonight. I'll write you a note Monday so you won't be in trouble with Miss Haggerty, and—well, why don't you go work on that ship model?"

  Lewis smiled gratefully at his uncle. He hiccupped a few times, as he often did after he had been crying. "Okay, Uncle Jonathan. Thanks a lot."

  Lewis went up to his room, and for the rest of the afternoon he was all wrapped up in the world of Greek and Roman triremes, and the great sea battles of Salamis and Actium. Just before dinner the phone rang. Lewis took the stairs two at a time, and almost fell on his face.

  "Hi!" he panted as he picked up the receiver. "Is that you, Rose Rita?"

  He heard a giggle at the other end. "If it hadn't of been, what would you have done?"

  Lewis felt relieved. "Are you mad at me?" he asked.

  "Unh-uh. I just called to find out what happened to you."

  Lewis felt his face getting red. "I felt kinda sick so I went home. Did Woody beat you up?"

  "Nope. A couple of the teachers came by and made us stop fighting. I would've fixed him if it hadn't've been for my darned hair. I think I'll get a crew cut."

  "How come you were fighting?"

  "Oh, I told him he was a dirty little sneak thief for stealing your hat, and he wanted me to take it back and I wouldn't."

  Lewis was silent. He felt the way he had when Rose Rita had said that she wished she had been there to keep Woody from stealing the hat. It was a confusing feeling. He was grateful to her for sticking up for him, but it felt awful not to be able to fight and win your own battles. Boys were supposed to be able to do that.

  "Are you okay?" Rose Rita asked. Lewis had been silent for a whole minute.

  "Uh... yeah, sure. I was... I was just thinking," Lewis stammered. "Woody didn't hurt you, did he?"

  Rose Rita snorted disdainfully. "Oh, he wouldn't do anything to me but pull my hair because I'm a gurr-rul. Hey, Lewis?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Let's get to work on that ship again. You want to bring it over to my house tonight?"

  "Okay."

  "See you after dinner. Bye."

  "Bye."

  Lewis was relieved to know that Rose Rita didn't hate him for running away. But he kept thinking about the fight between her and Woody, and that night he had a dream about it. In the dream, Woody had knocked Rose Rita down, and her head was bleeding. Lewis grabbed him and socked him and then Woody pulled his knife and held it up in front of Lewis's nose. Then Woody said, "I'm gonna cut your tongue out!" and Lewis awoke suddenly. He was sitting up in bed and his pajamas were drenched with sweat. It was a long time before he could get back to sleep again.

  The next morning when Lewis got up, he decided that he was going to get thin and tough like Woody. He got down on the floor and tried to do ten pushups, but he could only do three before he collapsed. Then he tried sit-ups, but when he lay down flat on his back, he couldn't struggle up to a sitting position unless he thrashed around and used his elbows. He stood up and tried to touch his toes without bending his knees, but he couldn't do it. Trying made his head ache. Finally he tried jumping jacks. They were fun because you could clap your hands over your head when you did them. But the flab on Lewis's thighs clapped too, when his legs came together, and this sound depressed him. Also, he was afraid of bringing down the plaster in the room below. So he gave up and went downstairs to have breakfast.

  It was Saturday morning, and Mrs. Zimmermann had come over to make breakfast. Although she lived next door, she usually cooked for the Barnavelts, and on Saturdays she always made something very special for breakfast. It might be doughnuts or pancakes and sausages or strawberry shortcake, or french toast with comb honey and peach preserves. This morning, Mrs. Zimmermann was making waffles. Lewis watched her as she poured some of the rich yellow batter onto the black iron grid. Then he remembered his resolution.

  "Uh... Mrs. Zimmermann?" he said.

  "Yes, Lewis?"

  "I, uh, don't think I'll have any waffles this morning. Could I just have a bowl of corn flakes?"

  Mrs. Zimmermann turned and looked at him strangely. She was about to go over and feel his forehead when she remembered what Jonathan had told her about the fight between Woody and Rose Rita. Mrs. Zimmermann was a very shrewd woman, and it didn't take her long to guess what Lewis had up his sleeve. So she shrugged her shoulders and said, "Okay. That'll just be a little more for me and your uncle."

  Lewis managed to hold to his resolve all the way through breakfast. It was pure torture to see all those nice golden waffles and that thick maple syrup being passed back and forth in front of his nose. But he swallowed hard and ate his soggy, tasteless cornflakes.

  After breakfast, Lewis went down to the junior high gym to work out. He punched the punching bag until his fists were sore. Then he rolled up his sleeve and flexed the muscle in his right arm. He co
uldn't tell if anything was happening, so he walked across the basketball court to find Mr. Hartwig. Mr. Hartwig was the gym instructor. He was a big cheerful man who was always throwing medicine balls at you and telling you to hit that line and suck in your gut and hup-two-three-four and stuff like that. When Lewis found him, Mr. Hartwig was organizing some informal boxing matches among boys who just seemed to be standing around doing nothing.

  "Hi, Mr. Hartwig!" Lewis yelled. "Hey, can I see you for a minute?"

  Mr. Hartwig smiled. "Sure thing, Lewis. What can I do for you?"

  Lewis rolled up his sleeve again and held out his arm. He flexed the muscle, or what was supposed to be the muscle. "Do you see anything, Mr. Hartwig?" asked Lewis, hopefully.

  Mr. Hartwig tried hard to keep from smiling. He knew Lewis, and he knew something about his problems. "Well, I see your arm," he said slowly. "Have you been working out today?"

  "Yeah. Kinda. Doesn't it show?" Lewis flexed his arm again. He was getting embarrassed with all those kids standing around watching. Normally he wouldn't have done anything like this in front of them, but he really had to know. Mr. Hartwig was an expert. He could tell if Lewis's muscles were getting bigger.

  Mr. Hartwig put his arm around Lewis and took him aside. "Listen, Lewis," he said quietly, "it takes more than five minutes with a punching bag to build up your muscles. You have to work at it for weeks and months and even years. So don't be discouraged if nothing happens right away. Okay? Now go back and hit that bag!" Mr. Hartwig smiled kindly and gave Lewis a light playful jab in the stomach, which was what he did when he liked you. Lewis winced. He thanked Mr. Hartwig and went back to the punching bag.

  But his heart really wasn't in it now. If it was going to take years for him to build up a manly physique, he might as well knock it off and have lunch. It was almost one o'clock, and he was getting hungry.

  Later, Lewis was sitting at the counter in Heemsoth's Drug Store. He had just had two hot dogs and two large cherry Cokes for lunch. Now he was leafing through a Captain Marvel comic book. Captain Marvel was slugging it out with the usual collection of crooks and villains. His uppercuts landed with sounds like ZOK! and POW! Lewis had tried a few uppercuts, but they had never landed on anybody's chin. The kids he had tried to use them on had just stepped away and laughed. Lewis read all the stories in the comic book and then flipped to the back. There were ads there for things like a Vacutex, an evil-looking gadget that resembled a hypodermic. It was supposed to suck out unsightly blackheads. That was more of a teenager's problem. Lewis had other things to worry about.

  He turned to the last page, and there was the Charles Atlas ad. It was always there, and it was always the same. There was a little cartoon story about a 97-pound weakling who got strong so he could get even with the guy who kicked sand in his face at the beach. And there at the bottom of the ad was Charles Atlas himself, in a white bathing suit that always made Lewis think of a baby's diaper. Mr. Atlas looked as if he were covered with grease, and he was bulging and rippling all over with muscles. He was shaking his fist at Lewis and daring him to try his Dynamic Tension Exercises. Under the picture of Mr. Atlas was the little coupon that you were supposed to cut out. Lewis had been on the point of cutting it out many times, but he had always stopped for some reason or other. Now, he ripped out the page, folded it neatly, and slipped it into his pocket. That afternoon when he got home, he put the coupon in an envelope with a quarter and mailed it off to Charles Atlas.

  Lewis kept at his diet and his pushups for three or four days, but by the end of that time it was getting pretty boring. He kept feeling his arms, but it didn't seem to him that any new muscles were arriving. And dieting meant that he felt crabby a good deal of the time. He began to realize that Mr. Hartwig was right. Getting thin and tough like Woody took work. You had to deny yourself things that you really wanted, and you had to slave away at things that were really very dull, like exercises. And even then, you couldn't be absolutely positively sure that you would get what you wanted after all your hard work.

  Lewis began to weaken, and then he gave in completely. He decided that he would take a break and go back to his plan when he felt better. Before long he was munching Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and taking second helpings of strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. He stopped doing pushups and he never went near the punching bag again. Now and then he would check the mail to see if the Charles Atlas booklet had arrived, but it was never there.

  If only there was an easy way of getting to be strong! Lewis thought about Grampa Barnavelt's lucky piece. Wouldn't it be great if it really was magic? Magic in a way that would let him mow down his enemies and protect Rose Rita from harm? That would sure be something! Then he could forget about dieting and pushups. Then...

  But every time Lewis had this daydream, he remembered that Mrs. Zimmermann had examined the coin, and she had flatly stated that it was not magic. Mrs. Zimmermann was an expert on magic. She ought to know.

  On the other hand, experts had been wrong before, like those people who claimed that men would never be able to fly. Lewis would argue with himself this way, back and forth, pro and con, until he was sick of the whole business. Then he would go up to his room and take the coin out of his drawer and press it between his thumb and index finger. Wasn't there a tingle there? No, there wasn't. Then he would get angry and shove the coin back in the drawer and slam the drawer shut. He did this over and over again, but nothing ever happened. Lewis fiddled with the coin so much, wishing over it and pressing it, that he began to think of it as his "magic coin." The phrase "magic coin" kept running through his mind like a broken record. He tried to think of other things, but the phrase kept coming back. Magic coin. Magic coin. Was it just wishful thinking, or was there something else at work?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On a bright sunny Saturday afternoon in late October, Lewis and Rose Rita were poking around in Jonathan's library. Some people put a bookcase in a room and call the room a library, but that was not Jonathan's way. His library was crammed, floor to ceiling, with books. Lewis often went to this room to browse or just to sit and think. Today he was there with Rose Rita, looking for a Latin motto to put on the sail of the Roman galley they were building. The galley had turned into quite a project. Lewis and Rose Rita had sat up late many nights with strips of balsa wood and rubber cement and model airplane glue. They had the ship about half finished, but, as often happens, they had gotten hung up on an unimportant detail. Lewis had drawn a picture of Duilius, the great Roman admiral, on the sail, and he had found a motto to go with the picture: IN HOC SIGNO VINCES. The motto came from a carton of Pall Mall cigarettes; it wasn't appropriate, but it was the only one Lewis could find. Rose Rita had informed him that she thought the motto was stupid and senseless. Now the two of them were digging through the Latin books in Jonathan's collection, looking for a reasonable, appropriate, and suitably dignified motto. In other words, they were looking for a motto that Rose Rita liked.

  "You know, Lewis, it would kind of help if your uncle would keep his books in better order," Rose Rita complained.

  "It would, huh? Okay, what's wrong with the way my uncle keeps his books?" Lewis was getting tired of Rose Rita's crabbing, and he was beginning to fight back.

  "What's wrong? Oh, not much. Just look at them! This section here is supposed to be Latin books, and there's adventure novels, and old phone books, and even a book by Mrs. Zimmermann."

  Lewis was startled. He didn't know that Mrs. Zimmermann had written a book. "Gee, that's weird. What kind of a book is it?"

  "I dunno. Let's see." Rose Rita took down from the bookshelf a dusty book in a black leather pebble-grained cover. A title was stamped on the spine in gold letters. It said:

  AMULETS

  by

  F. H. Zimmermann

  D. Mag. A.

  Rose Rita and Lewis knelt down on the floor to examine the book. The first page was the title page. It said:

  A FREE INQUIRY INTO THE PROPERTIES OF MAGIC AMULETS
>
  A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Magic Arts of the University of Goettingen, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of

  DOCTOR MAGICORUM ARTIUM

  (Doctor of Magic Arts) by

  Florence Helene Zimmermann

  June 13, 1922

  English Language Copy

  Lewis was amazed. Amazed, and fascinated. He knew that Mrs. Zimmermann had gone to college to learn how to be a witch, but he didn't know about this book.

  "I bet your uncle would be mad if he knew we were looking at this," said Rose Rita, giggling.

  Lewis glanced nervously toward the door. At one time Jonathan had kept his magic books out on the shelves with all the other books in his collection. But he had gotten concerned about Lewis's interest in magic, and so one day he had scooped up all the magic books he could find and carried them off to his bedroom closet. That was where they were now, locked up. All but this one, which Jonathan had forgotten about.

  "Yeah, I'll bet he doesn't even know it's here," said Lewis.

  "Well, serves him right for keeping such a messy library," said Rose Rita. "Come on, let's see what's in it."

  Lewis and Rose Rita sat down on the floor and began leafing through Mrs. Zimmermann's book. They found out quite a bit about magic amulets. They read about the strange parchment found on the body of Bishop Anselm of Wuerzburg, and the lost amulet of Queen Catherine de Medici of France. Finally, at the end of the book, they came to a chapter with this title:

  ON THE VARIOUS METHODS OF TESTING AMULETS

  Lewis thought about the coin in his drawer upstairs, and he began to get very interested. But what he read at first was disappointing. The book just said what Mrs. Zimmermann had said the night they found the coin: only a real wizard could test an amulet. Mrs. Zimmermann had tested the three-cent piece, using the method recommended by her own book. And the coin had turned out to be just a coin.

  Rose Rita was getting pretty bored with amulets. "Come on, Lewis," she said impatiently. "We're wasting a lot of time. Let's go see if we can find something nice to put on our ship." She closed the book and started to get up.