Mystery of Drear House Read online

  “Ten thousand dollars!” Thomas whispered. “And then Mr. Pluto …”

  “Uh-huh, he got the same,” she said. “They sure bring a fast reward!”

  “That makes … twenty thousand dollars the foundation gave. Wow! Is your daddy happy?” Thomas asked.

  “Well, he don’t appear to be too sad,” she said. “He’s fearsome, though, about having lost the great cavern. And all his whole family looking for it. But a bird in hand—the ten thousand …”

  “Yeah,” Thomas said. “The ten thousand’s a sure thing.”

  Thomas got up, shook the snow off. “We’d better get going if we’re going over,” he said.

  “Okay,” Pesty said. She put the blanket down in the bare spot where she’d been sitting. Then they started out. “It’s a wonderland,” she added. The trees were wet and dark, etched in white snow lines.

  “Be Thanksgiving soon, too,” Thomas said.

  They reached the clearing in front of Mr. Pluto’s. There they saw the two guards who had been inside Pluto’s cave entrance since just after THE EVENT had taken place. Now, there was a semitruck, an enormous eighteen-wheeler, pulled up to the cave entrance. Men were busy hauling out the treasure of Dies Drear.

  They walked around the back of the semi to get to the front of the cave, out of the way of the movers. Thomas saw Mayhew’s car with a trailer attached.

  “What is this?” He wondered out loud.

  They came up to the guards and were recognized. “Can we get by, see Mr. Pluto?” Thomas asked. It felt funny, having to ask. But the men said yes, letting them in.

  Thomas had thought it was foolish, at first, that the foundation went to the trouble to post guards. But then his papa had said, “All that publicity, too many folks would like to just walk in, take a few souvenirs.”

  “People really would do that?” Thomas had asked.

  “It’s human nature,” his papa had said.

  Inside the cave they found Mayhew and Pluto. They were over on the side, out of the way of the treasure parade from the cavern. Thomas looked around, speechless. The portable forge was nowhere to be seen. All of Pluto’s pictures on the walls and even the yellowed calendars had been packed up. There was no table, no carpet. His comfortable brass bed, the worn armchair, his bathrobe, pots and pans had been moved out.

  Mayhew stood looking at Thomas and Pesty as they came in. Tiredly he waved at them in greeting but didn’t say anything. Mr. Pluto sat on the one straight chair. Pluto had on his best Sunday suit and his familiar black dress cape and high hat. Bent over like an old man, he held his brown throw tightly about him over the cape. His eyes clouded over as Thomas came up to him. “I can’t take my Josie,” he said forlornly, talking about his horse. It was the saddest thing Thomas had ever heard.

  “You can’t take Josie where?” Thomas said, alarmed. “Mr. Pluto, where are you going? Mayhew, what’s happening?”

  “Thomas, they’re going to be moving stuff out of here for days. Tramping through with mud, the doors wide open,” Mayhew said. “He can’t live with that.”

  “But where are you taking him?” Thomas said.

  “He’s going to move to town,” Mayhew said. “I found an apartment for him that the senior citizens’ organization provides for the elderly.”

  “Aw, pshaw!” Mr. Pluto muttered in disgust.

  “Well, what else can I do?” Mayhew said, spreading empty hands. “I’ll stay around until he’s settled. He’s going to enjoy it more than he thinks, aren’t you, Father?”

  Pesty came over, leaned her head on Pluto’s shoulder, the way she always had.

  Mr. Pluto rested his head against hers. Gently he said, “Son, don’t think I don’t appreciate all you’ve done for me. He worked hard all morning, he taken everything on his shoulders”—this last, directed to Pesty and Thomas. “Said he wanted to do it all hisself.”

  They heard somebody come in. Thomas glanced around to see. “Papa!” There were his papa and mama. “Well, I’ll be!” Thomas said. “I didn’t know you guys were coming over here.” They were dressed for the cold. His mama had high boots on.

  “Have to give the foundation some more of my inventory,” Mr. Small said, waving a clipboard and a folder stuffed with papers at Thomas.

  “Are they already down there?” Thomas asked. He walked over to see. People from the foundation were sure down there.

  “I think they probably stayed the night,” his papa said.

  “They did,” Mayhew said. “They sent out for breakfast, too.”

  “Goodness,” Mrs. Small said.

  “Morning, y’all,” Pesty said, glad to see them.

  “Hi, there, girl!” Mrs. Small said. “Hello, Mayhew! How are you feeling today, Mr. Skinner?” she said, using Pluto’s proper last name.

  “Oh well …” he said, but said no more.

  Just by looking, Martha Small could tell how he felt. “Did you-all find a place in town?”

  “Senior citizens,” Pluto murmured. “I guess I’m old now.”

  “Father, it doesn’t mean you’re old to move into the senior citizens.”

  “Yes, it does,” Pesty said.

  “Little Miss Bee knows,” Pluto said. “Senior can’t take care of hisself.”

  “All right now,” Mr. Small said. “We can’t have this. Look, Mayhew, Henry.” Walter Small knelt beside Pluto’s chair. “There really is no need for this. I don’t know why I didn’t say something before. It’s been vague in the back of my mind. And you know, we wouldn’t want to interfere. I’ve been so busy. Henry, listen to me. There’s no reason at all that you have to go into town. What about our house? I mean, what about living with us?”

  There was a moment’s silence. Mr. Pluto lifted his head. “Oh, I couldn’t do a thing like that, no, no. I won’t be a burden to anyone.”

  “Who says you’d be a burden?” Martha Small said. “Why, it’s a wonderful idea. Great-grandmother is here. And you two really do get along! And the twins, why, they adore you.”

  “Well I’ll be …” Thomas said. Things change before your very eyes! “It’s really a big place. You’ll just love it,” he said eagerly to Pluto. “It’s the best ol’ house for sleeping! You can take the twins and Great-grandmother for buggy rides.” He grinned from ear to ear.

  22

  THANKSGIVING CAME AND WENT. It had been foggy and rainy the whole day. Mr. Pluto and Mayhew were at the Smalls’ Thanksgiving, dinner, and Pesty, too. Afterward Thomas’s mama sent turkey and stuffing and pie home with Pesty. Thomas helped Pesty carry everything. It was all right that he hadn’t been asked to come into Pesty’s house. He wasn’t sure he would want to go in. He had left what he carried at the Darrow front door, he told his mama.

  There should have been snow on Thanksgiving, too, and sleigh bells in his head, as there were today. Sure glad today is all right, he thought. It snowed every day now. And this, another Sunday, was a snowy Sunday.

  Everybody’s at my house, he thought. He couldn’t quite believe it. He felt weak, having spent his energy on not acting dumb. Right and wrong were so close together in the same house, for the first time. My house!

  Smalls and Darrows, Pluto. Mayhew had left town to go back to his work after Thanksgiving, after settling Pluto in. Thomas didn’t know whose idea it had been to invite Darrows over for this Sunday dinner. Probably his mama’s. Both his mama and his papa had agreed on it.

  Love thy neighbor! Thomas thought scornfully.

  Darrows dared accept the invitation and had driven up in cars.

  Thomas could hardly believe it. I mean, River Lewis Darrow and his boys and Macky, and Pesty, of course, and Mrs. Darrow, Thomas thought. And Mama and Papa, Billy and Buster and Great-grandmother. Plus Mr. Pluto. In the kitchen. In the parlor. All fourteen of us.

  And Mr. Pluto living with us and settled in, Thomas went on. Well, it had taken awhile to convince him. But it’s something to hear him on the stairs in the morning! He and Great-grandmother Jeffers talking all the time, b
usy at things. The twins get a buggy ride each day. And I bet Pesty will just move in one day. She sleeps over some of the time already.

  Look at it snow! Thomas sat there in the parlor in a straight chair next to the fireplace, facing Darrows. He had been looking out the long windows to calm himself. He thought about the only one who was missing: Mayhew Skinner. Mayhew had refused to come back to eat with Darrows. He’d be civil to them from a distance, he’d said over the phone, but he wasn’t going out of his way. Thank you anyhow.

  Glad he hasn’t changed, Thomas thought. Maybe it’s good that somebody remembers what Darrows were once and might still be.

  “About ten da-grees above,” he heard River Lewis Darrows tell Great-grandmother Jeffers, concerning the weather. Her voice tinkled back at him.

  River Lewis Darrow’s tone was deep and bold, like formal bell rings, talking to his sons or Great-grandmother or Mattie. His was a cold sound to match his pearl gray Sunday suit. He was formal and stiff, just barely on the decent side of unfriendly the whole time he was in the house. Gruff out of habit. He couldn’t sit down but stood, a barrier to all concerned.

  Mattie Darrow had refused sitting at the table that had been set. She had become agitated when anybody else tried to sit down. “She wants that set-up table to stay like a picture right where it is,” River Lewis said. He did not apologize for Mattie. He reached out with one hand and let his fingers touch her hair. “Miz Small, Mistah Small,” he said, looking down at the floor. “Mattie, glad ta be here. All us, too.”

  Well, you sure don’t act like it, Thomas thought.

  “We are certainly glad you all could come, and welcome!” Mrs. Small said, smiling warmly. “Come on, everybody, let’s all have a good time.”

  Mattie then chose by herself where she would sit. “It doesn’t make a bit of difference where we eat,” Mrs. Small murmured.

  Who knows the reason why Mattie Darrow is the way she is? Thomas thought.

  His mama set the dinner as a buffet. Chicken and stuffing, potatoes, coleslaw, gravy. There were two baked ducks the Darrows had brought, which seemed out of place on an ordinary Sunday.

  When was the last time I tasted duck? Thomas thought.

  They all served themselves from the kitchen table. River Lewis kept his clumsy sons in line. When they filled their plates to heaping, he gave them a look, and they walked away from the table. When it was time for seconds, he stood by, staring hard at them. Wilbur, Russell, and River Ross Darrow were as meek as little lambs, pouring themselves milk or sparkling cider.

  Whenever Thomas’s papa walked into the room to offer River Lewis some extra main course or fill his glass, Darrow backed up a pace or two. Now he was straight against the wall across from the parlor fireplace. Mattie sat on a cushioned footrest next to him. And beside her sat Great-grandmother, with the two little fellows in their rocking chairs right by their knees. Great-grandmother and Mattie were feeding the twins expertly. Billy and Buster didn’t find it odd that River Lewis was guarding the wall. Or that Mattie Darrow sometimes stared fiercely around, cackling.

  All of them were in the parlor now. Thomas, Pesty, and Macky had fixed their plates right after the grownups. Pesty, Mrs. Small, and Mr. Pluto shared the parlor couch. Pesty was closest to Thomas. Mr. Small leaned against the wall next to River Lewis. Darrow’s sons moved away to make room for him. Once the sons were over being scared, they looked only halfway uncomfortable. But they ate everything in sight, Thomas noted, amused.

  Thomas had a full plate of dinner in one hand and a warm roll in a yellow linen napkin on his knees. A glass of sparkling cider was next to his feet. His polished Sunday shoes weren’t scuffed yet. He had a fork in the other hand. Thomas could eat, chew. But he probably wouldn’t enjoy eating until he could eat the leftovers out of the refrigerator, after everybody strange had gone home.

  “Macky, you bagged the ducks?” Mr. Small asked, commenting how good they were.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, sir.” River Lewis corrected him, not unkindly, it seemed to Thomas.

  “Yes … sir.” Macky looked surprised that his father had spoken to him. And he answered carefully to Mr. Small. “I brought them down as they went over— ducks like to fly from pond to pond around here.”

  “He shot ’em clean,” River Lewis said. And Macky looked as if he would go through the ceiling from happiness.

  All of us, looking nice, Thomas commented to himself. First time I’ve seen Pesty’s hair combed since the last Sunday at church, he thought. He told her it looked nice.

  “Macky combed it. Mama told him how,” she told Thomas.

  “Oh, girl!” Macky muttered.

  Thomas smiled at him, to show him he understood how his mama’s hands might not always work right.

  Macky sat on the other side of the hot fireplace from Thomas. “Looks like a department store in here,” Macky commented, talking about how dressed up they all were. That had broken the ice between him and Thomas. Made Thomas almost choke with the giggles. The two of them, big guys together. He unbuttoned his jacket and vest just the way Macky had. This was some Sunday! All dressed up together and nowhere to go.

  Mr. Small made conversation as best he could. Rumors about Darrows were all over town and the college. Not just about the ten thousand dollars River Lewis and Mr. Pluto, too, had gotten. Rumor said that River Lewis had been hired by the foundation to show them the underground, all of it that he knew and his family had known over time.

  As if on cue, River Lewis spoke. “Foundation given me a good job.” And partly unwillingly, he added, “I be thanking you for that, Mr. Small.”

  Later Thomas and his papa found themselves in the kitchen alone, preparing coffee and coffee cake. Thomas waited for the dessert to warm up in a slow oven. He and his papa talked privately. “When the contents of the great cavern and the underground rooms are removed,” his papa said, “the cavern and the rooms are to be replicated. There is to be a museum for the Drear collections.”

  “What does ‘replicated’ mean?” Thomas asked.

  “It means to re-create,” his papa said. “The foundation will reproduce the cavern and the rooms on a smaller scale. And it will put back some of the treasure and the other things in the display.”

  “Wow!” whispered Thomas.

  “Yes, and the whole lot will look like a real underground, like the originals,” his papa said. “They might even have a figure of Drear at the desk, if they want to hoke it up a little. Then the museum will open to the public.”

  “They’ll probably hire Pesty to play an orphan child,” Thomas said, half joking and half angry.

  “Thomas, that isn’t nice.”

  “Well, I don’t think it’s fair,” Thomas said. “They gave River Lewis a job. They gave him money. And even a couple of the gold triangles. That’s what everybody is saying anyway.”

  “It’s up to the foundation to decide what it wants to give River Lewis,” Mr. Small said. “Who knows the countryside better than he? But they have asked him not to farm the land until they’ve emptied the underground.”

  “Darrows have a brand-new pickup truck,” Thomas said. “And River Lewis has a new car. And his big old sons have a new jeep!”

  “Keep your voice down,” Mr. Small told him. “Thomas, how can you resent their coming up in the world when they had nothing?”

  “But it isn’t fair! What did you get?” he said.

  “Oh, I see,” his papa said. “Well, I’m still cataloging everything, Thomas. And before there can be a museum, I’ll have to record the history of those rooms down there and all about the orphan children and the heroine, the Indian maiden. The foundation will pay me for my work, too.”

  “I bet not as much as River Lewis gets,” Thomas said.

  “Thomas, Thomas!” Mr. Small sighed and put his arm around Thomas. “Son, I’m a historian. I’m happy to save a great discovery from its worst enemies—time and greed. I’ve held the ‘villain’ in check. I’ve shown him I care about his
welfare, and treat him like a friend. I’ve managed to help give him the possibility of a better lifetime. At least, to give him an even chance. Do you understand? And what River Lewis does with the rest of his days is up to him. And what you do with yours, Thomas, and Macky with his, is up to the both of you.”

  Friend. Caring. Friend or foe? he wondered about himself and Macky.

  Back in the parlor he had a piece of the cake and more cider. He felt Macky looking at him. Macky reached over and poked him in his arm. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, just slightly above the sound of the strained talking around them.

  “Okay,” Thomas said as coolly as he could.

  “Me, too?” Pesty leaned toward them, smiling at her brother.

  “Yeah,” Macky murmured, “you, too, I guess.”

  The three of them got up, hands full of plates, glasses, napkins. Macky went over to stand before River Lewis. “Daddy,” Macky said politely, “we wanting to go outside now.”

  “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Great-grandmother said, smiling. “You-all walk around in the fresh air a few minutes, you’ll feel like my pumpkin pie!” She smiled at Macky and his father. “That coffee cake was just the appetizer!”

  “Macs,” Mattie Darrow said, smacking her lips, “get more glass.” She held up her empty cider glass.

  “I’ll get it for you,” River Lewis said. He nodded at Macky. “Find Pesty’s coat for her then. She don’t never want to wear a coat.” He lifted his voice, saying that. Looking around, including everybody in what he’d said. Thomas realized River Lewis wanted them to know that he had bought Pesty a new coat. “She grows so fast,” he added as Thomas and Macky came back in with just scarves and gloves on. Pesty had on her new velvet-looking coat. It was awfully pretty, Thomas thought, with gold buttons and a velvet hat to match. She certainly had needed a new coat. She stood in front of River Lewis as Mattie raised her hands to her.