The Anything Box

make last minute arrangements, but Mr. Warren's mother is very ill again and
we just have to go over to her house. We wouldn't trust Dubby with anyone but
you. He's got that nasty bronchitis again, so we can't take him with us. I'll
get home as soon as I can, even if Orin has to stay. He's home from work right
now, waiting for me. So please come, June!"
"Well," June melted to the tears in Mrs. Warren's voice. She could let her
hair and nails and album go and she could get her geometry done at the
Warrens' place. "Well, okay. I'll be right over."
"Oh, bless you, child," cried Mrs. Warren. Her voice faded away from the
phone. "Orin, she's coming—" and the receiver clicked.
"June!" He must have called several times before June began to swim back up
through the gloomy haze of the new theorem.
"Joo-un!" Dubby's plaintive voice reached down to her and she sighed in
exasperation. She had nearly figured out how to work the problem.
"Yes, Dubby." The exaggerated patience in her voice signaled her
displeasure to him.
"Well," he faltered, "I don't want to play-like anymore. I've used up all
my thinkings. Can I make something now? Something for true?"
"Without getting off the couch?" asked June cautiously, wise from past
experience.
"Yes," grinned Dubby.
"Without my to-ing and fro-ing to bring you stuff?" she questioned, still
wary.
"Uh-huh," giggled Dubby.
"What can you make for true without anything to make it with?" June asked
skeptically.
Dubby laughed. "I just thought it up." Then all in one breath, unable to
restrain his delight: "It's-really-kinda-like-play-like, but-I'm
going-to-make-something-that-isn't-like-anything-real-so it'll-be-for-true,
cause-it-won't-be-play-like-anything-that's-real!"
"Huh? Say that again," June challenged. "I bet you can't do it."
Dubby was squirming with excitement. He coughed tentatively, found it
wasn't a prelude to a full production and said: "I can't say it again, but I
can do it, I betcha. Last time I was sick, I made up some new magic words.
They're real good. I betcha they'll work real good like anything."
"Okay, go ahead and make something," said June. "Just so it's quiet."
"Oh, it's real quiet," said Dubby in a hushed voice. "Exter quiet. I'm
going to make a Noise-eater."
"A Noise-eater?"
"Uh-huh!" Dubby's eyes were shining. "It'll eat up all the noises. I can
make lotsa racket then, 'cause it'll eat it all up and make it real quiet for
ABC Amber Palm Converter,http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
you so's you can do your jommety.""Now that's right thunkful of you, podner," drawled June. "Make it a goodone, because little boys make a lot of noise.""Okay." And Dubby finally calmed down and settled back against his pillows.
The heating system hummed. The old refrigerator in the kitchen cleared its
throat and added its chirking throb to the voice of the house. The mantel
clock locked firmly to itself in the front room. June was absorbed in her
homework when a flutter of movement at her elbow jerked her head up.
"Dubby!" she began indignantly.
"Shh!" Dubby pantomimed, finger to lips, his eyes wide with excitement. He
leaned against June, his fever radiating like a small stove through his
pajamas and robe. His breath was heavy with the odor of illness as he put his
mouth close to her ear and barely whispered.
"I made it. The Noise-eater. He's asleep now. Don't make a noise or he'll
get you."
"I'll get you, too," said June. "Play-like is play-like, but you get right
back on that couch!"
"I'm too scared," breathed Dubby. "What if I cough?"
"You will cough if you—" June started in a normal tone, but Dubby threw
himself into her lap and muffled her mouth with his small hot hand. He was
trembling.
"Don't! Don't!" he begged frantically. "I'm scared. How do you
un-play-like? I didn't know it'd work so good!"
There was a choonk and a slither in the front room. June strained her ears,
alarm stirring in her chest.
"Don't be silly," she whispered. "Play-like isn't for true. There's nothing
in there to hurt you."
A sudden succession of musical pings startled June and threw Dubby back
into her arms until she recognized Mrs. Warren's bedroom clock striking seven
o'clock—early as usual. There was a soft, drawn-out slither in the front room
and then silence.
"Go on, Dubby. Get back on the couch like a nice child. We've played long
enough."
"You take me."
June herded him ahead of her, her knees bumping his reluctant back at every
step until he got a good look at the whole front room. Then he sighed and
relaxed.
"He's gone," he said normally.
"Sure he is," replied June. "Play-like stuff always goes away." She tucked
him under his covers. Then, as if hoping to brush his fears—and hers—away, by
calmly discussing it, "What did he look like?"
"Well, he had a body like Mother's vacuum cleaner —the one that lies down
on the floor—and his legs were like my sled, so he could slide on the floor,
and had a nose like the hose on the cleaner only he was able to make it long
or short when he wanted to."
Dubby, overstrained, leaned back against his pillows.
The mantel clock began to boom the hour deliberately.
"And he had little eyes like the light inside the refrigerator—"
June heard a choonk at the hall door and glanced up. Then with
fear-stiffened lips, she continued for him, "And ears like TV antennae because
he needs good ears to find the noises." And watched, stunned, as the round
metallic body glided across the floor on shiny runners and paused in front of
the clock that was deliberating on the sixth stroke.
The long, wrinkly trunk-like nose on the front of the thing flashed upward.
The end of it shimmered, then melted into the case of the clock. And the
seventh stroke never began. There was a soft sucking sound and the nose
dropped free. On the mantel, the hands of the clock dropped soundlessly to the
bottom of the dial.
ABC Amber Palm Converter,http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
In the tight circle of June's arms, Dubby whimpered. June clapped her handover his mouth. But his shoulders began to shake and he rolled franticimploring eyes at her as another coughing spell began. He couldn't control it.
June tried to muffle the sound with her shoulder, but over the deep,hawking convulsions, she heard the choonk and slither of the creature andscreamed as she felt it nudge her knee. Then the long snout nuzzled againsther shoulder and she heard a soft hiss as it touched the straining throat ofthe coughing child. She grabbed the horribly vibrating thing and tried to pullit away, but Dubby's cough cut off in mid-spasm.
In the sudden quiet that followed she heard a gurgle like a straw in thebottom of a soda glass and Dubby folded into himself like an empty laundrybag. June tried to straighten him against the pillows, but he slid laxly down.
June stood up slowly. Her dazed eyes wandered trance-like to the clock,then to the couch, then to the horrible thing that lay beside it. Its glowingeyes were blinking and its ears shifting planes—probably to locate sound.