The Anything Box

real any more. All at once the faint ghost of the smell of eggs was
frightening. All at once I whimpered, "My lunch money!"
I scrambled to my feet, tumbling Mrs. Klevity's clothes into a disconnected
pile. I gathered up my jamas and leaned across the table to get my sweater. I
saw my name on a piece of paper. I picked it up and read it.
Everything that is ours in this house now belongs to Anna-across-the-court,the little girl that's been staying with me at night.Ahvlaree Klevity
I looked from the paper around the room. All for me? All for us? All this
richness and wonder of good things? All this and the box in the bottom drawer,
too? And a paper that said so, so that nobody could take them away from us.
A fluttering wonder filled my chest and I walked stiffly around the three
rooms, visualizing everything without opening a drawer or door. I stood by the
stove and looked at the frying pan hanging above it. I opened the cupboard
door. The paper bag of eggs was on the shelf. I reached for it, looking back
over my shoulder almost guiltily.
The wonder drained out of me with a gulp. I ran back over to the bed and
yanked up the spread. I knelt and hammered on the edge of the bed with my
clenched fists. Then I leaned my forehead on my tight hands and felt my
knuckles bruise me. My hands went limply to my lap, my head drooping.
I got up slowly and took the paper from the table, bundled my jamas under
my arm and got the eggs from the cupboard. I turned the lights out and left.
I felt tears wash down from my eyes as I stumbled across the familiar yard
in the dark. I don't know why I was crying—unless it was because I was
homesick for something bright that I knew I would never have, and because I
knew I could never tell Mom what really had happened.
Then the pale trail of light from our door caught me and I swept in on an
astonished Mom, calling softly, because of the sleeping kids, "Mom! Mom! Guess
what!"
Yes, I remember Mrs. Klevity because she had eggs for breakfast! Every day!That's one of the reasons I remember her.
Hush!
June sighed and brushed her hair back from her eyes automatically as she
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marked her place in her geometry book with one finger and looked through the
dining-room door at Dubby lying on the front-room couch.
"Dubby, please," she pleaded. "You promised your mother that you'd be quiet
tonight. How can you get over your cold if you bounce around making so much
noise?"
Dubby's fever-bright eyes peered from behind his tented knees where he was
holding a tin truck which he hammered with a toy guitar.
"I am quiet, June. It's the truck that made the noise. See?" And he banged
on it again. The guitar splintered explosively and Dubby blinked in surprise.
He was wavering between tears at the destruction and pleased laughter for the
awful noise it made. Before he could decide, he began to cough, a deep-chested
pounding cough that shook his small body unmercifully.
"That's just about enough out of you, Dubby," said June firmly, clearing
the couch of toys and twitching the covers straight with a practiced hand.
"You have to go to your room in just fifteen minutes anyway—or right now if
you don't settle down. Your mother will be calling at seven to see if you're
okay. I don't want to have to tell her you're worse because you wouldn't be
good. Now read your book and keep quiet. I've got work to do."
There was a brief silence broken by Dubby's sniffling and June's scurrying
pencil. Then Dubby began to chant:
"Shrimp boatses running a dancer tonight
Shrimp boatses running a dancer tonight
Shrimp boatses running a dancer tonight
SHRIMP BOATses RUNning a DANcer to-NIGHT—"
"Dub-by!" called June, frowning over her paper at him.
"That's not noise," protested Dubby. "It's singing. Shrimp boatses—" The
cough caught him in mid-phrase and June busied herself providing Kleenexes and
comfort until the spasm spent itself.
"See?" she said. "Your cough thinks it's noise."
"Well, what can I do then?" fretted Dubby, bored by four days in bed and
worn out by the racking cough that still shook him. "I can't sing and I can't
play. I want something to do."
"Well," June searched the fertile pigeonholes of her baby sitter's
repertoire and came up with an idea that Dubby had once originated himself and
dearly loved.
"Why not play-like? Play-like a zoo. I think a green giraffe with a mop for
a tail and roller skates for feet would be nice, don't you?"
Dubby considered the suggestion solemnly. "If he had egg beaters for ears,"
he said, overly conscious as always of ears, because of the trouble be so
often had with his own.
"Of course he does," said June. "Now you play-like one."
"Mine's a lion," said Dubby, after mock consideration. "Only he has a flag
for a tail—a pirate flag—and he wears yellow pajamas and airplane wings
sticking out of his back and his ears turn like propellers."
"That's a good one," applauded June. "Now mine is an eagle with rainbow
wings and roses growing around his neck. And the only thing he ever eats is
the song of birds, but the birds are scared of him and so he's hungry nearly
all the time—pore ol’ iggle!"
Dubby giggled. "Play-like some more," he said, settling back against the
pillows.
"No, it's your turn. Why don't you play-like by yourself now? I've just got
to get my geometry done."
Dubby's face shadowed and then he grinned. "Okay."
June went back to the table, thankful that Dubby was a nice kid and not
like some of the brats she had met in her time. She twined both legs around
the legs of her chair, running both hands up through her hair. She paused
before tackling the next problem to glance in at Dubby. A worry tugged at her
heart as she saw how pale and fine-drawn his features were. It seemed, every
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time she came over, he was more nearly transparent
She shivered a little as she remembered her mother saying, "Poor child.
He'll never have to worry about old age, Have you noticed his eyes, June? He
has wisdom in them now that no child should have. He has looked too often into
the Valley."
June sighed and turned to her work.
The heating system hummed softly and the out-of-joint day settled into a
comfortable accustomed evening.
Mrs. Warren rarely ever left Dubby because he was ill so much of the time,
and she practically never left him until he was settled for the night. But
today when June got home from school, her mother had told her to call Mrs.
Warren.
"Oh, June," Mrs. Warren had appealed over the phone, "could you possibly
come over right now?"
"Now?" asked June, dismayed, thinking of her hair and nails she'd planned
to do, and the tentative date with Larryanne to hear her new album.
"I hate to ask it," said Mrs. Warren. "I have no patience with people who