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shoved the notes and drawings down a storm drain. The wheel-chair chassis I did not get rid of until we
were actually in the mountains, then it went down a deep arroyo, making a nice sound effect.
About three in the morning I pulled into a motor court across the mad and down a bit from the turnoff
into the Girl Scout camp, and paid too much for a cabin-Pete almost queered it by sticking his head up
and making a comment when the owner came out.
"What time," I asked him, "does the morning mail from Los Angeles get up here?"
"Helicopter comes in at seven-thirteen, right on the dot."
"Fine. Give me a call at seven, will you?"
"Mister, if you can sleep as late as seven around here you're better than I am. But I'll put you in the
book."
By eight o'clock Pete and I had eaten breakfast and I had showered and shaved. I looked Pete over
in daylight and concluded that he had come through the battle undamaged except for possibly a bruise or
two. We checked out and I drove into the private road for the camp. Uncle Sam's truck turned in just
ahead of me; I decided that it was my day.
I never saw so many little girls in my life. They skittered like kittens and they all looked alike in their
green uniforms. Those I passed wanted to look at Pete, though most of them just stared shyly and did not
approach. I went to a cabin marked "Headquarters," where I spoke to another uniformed scout who was
decidedly no longer a girl.
She was properly suspicious of me; strange men who want to be allowed to visit little girls just turning
into big girls should always be suspected.
I explained that I was the child's uncle, Daniel B. Davis by name, and that I had a message for the
child concerning her family. She countered with the statement that visitors other than parents were
permitted only when accompanied by a parent and, in any case, visiting hours were not until four o'clock.
"I don't want to visit with Frederica, but I must give her this message. It's an emergency."
"In that case you can write it out and I will give it to her as soon as she is through with rhythm
games."
I looked upset (and was) and said, "I don't want to do that. It would be much kinder to tell the child
in person."
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"Death in the family?"
"Not quite. Family trouble, yes. I'm sorry, ma'am, but I am not free to tell anyone else. It concerns
my niece's mother."
She was weakening but still undecided. Then Pete joined the discussion. I had been carrying him with
his bottom in the crook of my left arm and his chest supported with my right hand; I had not wanted to
leave him in the car and I knew Ricky would want to see him. He'll put up with being carried that way
quite a while but now he was getting bored. "Krrwarr?"
She looked at him and said, "He's a fine boy, that one. I have a tabby at home who could have come
from the same litter."
I said solemnly, "He's Frederica's cat. I had to bring him along because . . . well, it was necessary.
No one to take care of him."
"Oh, the poor little fellow!" She scratched him under the chin, doing it properly, thank goodness, and
Pete accepted it, thank goodness again, stretching his neck and closing his eyes and looking indecently
pleased. He is capable of taking a very stiff line with strangers if he does not fancy their overtures.
The guardian of youth told me to sit down at a table under the trees outside the headquarters. It was
far enough away to permit a private visit but still under her careful eye. I thanked her and waited.
I didn't see Ricky come up. I heard a shout, "Uncle Danny!" and another one as I turned, "And you
brought Pete! Oh, this is wonderful!"
Pete gave a long bubbling bleerrrt and leaped from my arms to hers. She caught him neatly,
rearranged him in the support position he likes best, and they ignored me for a few seconds while
exchanging cat protocols. Then she looked up and said soberly, "Uncle Danny, I'm awful glad you're
here."
I didn't kiss her; I did not touch her at all. I've never been one to paw children and Ricky was the
sort of little girl who only put up with it when she could not avoid it. Our original relationship, back when
she was six, had been founded on mutual decent respect for the other's individualism and personal
dignity.
But I did look at her. Knobby knees, stringy, shooting up fast, not yet filled out, she was not as pretty
as she had been as a baby girl. The shorts and T-shirt she was wearing, combined with peeling sunburn,
scratches, bruises, and an understandable amount of dirt, did not add up to feminine glamour. She was a
matchstick sketch of the woman she would become, her coltish gawkiness relieved only by her enormous
solemn eyes and the pixie beauty of her thin smudged features.
She looked adorable.
I said, "And I'm awful glad to be here, Ricky."
Trying awkwardly to manage Pete with one arm, she reached with her other hand for a bulging
pocket in her shorts. "I'm surprised too. I just this minute got a letter from you-they dragged me away
from mail call; I haven't even had a chance to open it. Does it say that you're coming today?" She got it
out, creased and mussed from being crammed into a pocket too small.
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"No, it doesn't, Ricky. It says I'm going away. But after I mailed it, I decided I just had to come say
good-by in person."
She looked bleak and dropped her eyes. "You're going away?"
"Yes. I'll explain, Ricky, but it's rather long. Let's sit down and I'll tell you about it." So we sat on
opposite sides of the picnic table under the ponderosas and I talked. Pete lay on the table between us,
making a library lion of himself with his forepaws on the creased letter, and sang a low song like bees
buzzing in deep clover, while he narrowed his eyes in contentment.
I was much relieved to find that she already knew that Miles had married Belle-I hadn't relished
having to break that to her. She glanced up, dropped her eyes at once, and said with no expression at all,
"Yes, I know. Daddy wrote me about it."
"Oh. I see."
She suddenly looked grim and not at all a child. "I'm not going back there, Danny. I won't go back
there." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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