“The quarantine sign’s off the door,” I said. “There’s a new one. It says “Wet paint.’”
“Well, you will scribble all over their nice clean door.”
I put the cretonne back, turned off the light switch, and took Jackie’s hand. We stood waiting. After a time something went bump-bump-bump, and then there was a singing, like a teakettle. I heard a tiny clatter.
Next morning there were twenty-six bottles of yellow milk-bright yellow-on the tiny porch, and the Lilliputian headline announced: EXTRA-TUR SLIDES TOWARD FOTZPA!
There was mail in the box, too, but the telegram was gone.
That night things continued much as before. When I pulled the cloth off there was a sudden, furious silence. We felt that we were being watched around the corners of the miniature shades. We finally went to bed, but in the middle of the night I got up and took another look at our mysterious tenants. Not that I saw them, of course. But they must have been throwing a party, for bizarre, small music and wild thumps and pops died into silence as I peeked.
In the morning there was a red bottle and a newspaper on the little porch. The headline said: EXTRA-FOTZPA GOES UP!
“My work’s going to the dogs,” I said. “I can’t concentrate for thinking about this business-and wondering…”
“Me, too. We’ve got to find out somehow.”
I peeked. A shade came down so sharply that it almost tore free from its roller.
“Do you think they’re mad?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jackie said, “I do. We must be bothering the very devil out of ’em. Look-I’ll bet they’re sitting inside by the windows, boiling mad, waiting for us to go away. Maybe we’d better go. It’s time for the bus anyway.”
I looked at the house, and the house, I felt, looked at me with an air of irritated and resentful fury.
Oh, well. We went to work.
We were tired and hungry when we got back that night, but even before removing our coats we went into Mr. Henchard’s room. Silence. I switched on the light while Jackie pulled off the cretonne cover from the cage.
I heard her gasp. Instantly I jumped forward, expecting to see a little green guy on that absurd porch-or anything, for that matter. I saw nothing unusual. There was no smoke coming from the chimney.
But Jackie was pointing to the front door. There was a neat, painted sign tacked to the panel. It said, very sedately, simply, and finally: TO LET.
“Oh, oh, oh!” Jackie said.
I gulped. All the shades were up in the tiny windows and the chintz curtains were gone. We could see into the house for the first time. It was completely and awfully empty.
No furniture, anywhere. Nothing at all but a few scrapes and scratches on the polished hardwood floor. The wallpaper was scrupulously clean; the patterns, in the various rooms, were subdued and in good taste. The tenants had left their house in order.
“They moved,” I said.
“Yes,” Jackie murmured. “They moved out.”
All of a sudden I felt lousy. The house-not the tiny one in the cage, but our own-was awfully empty.
You know how it iwhen you’ve been on a visit, and come home into a place that’s full of nothing and nobody?
I grabbed Jackie and held her tight. She felt pretty bad, too. You wouldn’t think that a tiny TO LET
sign could make so much difference.
“What’ll Mr. Henchard say?” Jackie asked, watching me with big eyes.
Mr. Henchard came home two nights later. We were sitting by the fire when he walked in, his Gladstone swinging, the black cigarette holder jutting from below his beak. “Mph,” he greeted us.
“Hello,” I said weakly. “Glad you’re back.”
“Claptrap!” said Mr. Henchard firmly as he headed for his room. Jackie and I looked at one another.
Mr. Henchard squalled in sheer fury. His twisted face appeared around the door.
“Busybodies!” he snarled. “I told you—”
“Wait a minute,” I said.
“I’m moving Out!” Mr. Henchard barked. “Now!” His head popped back out of sight; the door slammed and locked. Jackie and I waited, half expecting to be spanked.
Mr. Henchard bounced out of his room, Gladstone suspended from one hand. He whirled past us toward the door.
I tried to stop him. “Mr. Henchard—”
“Claptrap!”
Jackie pulled at one arm, I got a grip on the other. Between us, we managed to bring him to a stop.
“Wait,” I said. “You’ve forgotten your-uh-bird cage.”
“That’s what you think,” he snarled at me. “You can have it. Meddlers! It took me months to build that little house just right, and months more to coax ’em to live in it. Now you’ve spoiled it. They won’t be back.”
“Who?” Jackie gulped.
His beady eyes were fixed malignantly on us. “My tenants. I’ll have to build a new house now-ha!
But this time I won’t leave it within reach of meddlers.”
“Wait,” I said. “Are-are you a m-magician?”
Mr. Henchard snorted. “I’m a good craftsman. That’s all it takes. You treat them right, and they’ll treat you right. Still—” And he gleamed a bit with pride. “-it isn’t everybody who knows how to build the right sort of house for them!”
He seemed to be softening, but my next question roused him again.
“That were they?” he snapped. “The Little Folk, of course. Call ’em what you like. Nixie, pixie, leprechaun, brownie-they’ve had lots of names. But they want a quiet, respectable neighborhood to live in, not a lot of peeping and prying. Gives the property a bad name. No wonder they moved out! And-mph!-they paid their rent on time, too. Still, the Little Folk always do,” he added.
“Rent?” Jackie said faintly.
“Luck,” Mr. Henchard said. “Good luck. What did you expect they’d pay in-money? Now I’ll have to build another house to get my special luck back.”
He gave us one parting glare, jerked open the door, and stamped out. We stood looking after him.
The bus was pulling into the gas station down the slope, and Mr. Henchard broke into a run.
He caught the bus, all right, but only after he’d fallen flat on his face.
I put my arm around Jackie.
“Oh, gosh,” she said. “His bad luck’s working already.”
“Not bad,” I pointed out. “Just normal. When you rent a little house to pixies, you get a lot of extra good luck.”
We sat in silence, watching each other. Finally without saying a word, we went into Mr. Henchard’s vacated room. The bird cage was still there. So was the house. So was the TO LET sign.
“Let’s go to Terry’s,” I said.
We stayed later than usual. Anybody would have thought we didn’t want to go home because we lived in a haunted house. Except that in our case the exact opposite was true. Our house wasn’t haunted any more. It was horribly, desolately, coldly vacant.
I didn’t say anything till we’d crossed the highway, climbed the slope, and unlocked our front door.
We went, I don’t know why, for a final look at the empty house. The cover was back on the cage, where I’d replaced it, but-thump, rustle, pop! The house was tenanted again!
We backed out and closed the door before we breathed.
“No,” Jackie said. “We mustn’t look. We mustn’t ever, ever, look under that cover.”
“Never,” I said. “Who do you suppose…”
We caught a very faint murmur of what seemed to be boisterous singing. That was fine. The happier they were, the longer they’d stay. When we went to bed, I dreamed that I was drinking beer with Rip Van Winkle and the dwarfs. I drank ’em all under the table.
It was unimportant that the next morning was rainy. We were convinced that bright yellow sunlight was blazing in through the windows. I sang under the shower. Jackie burbled inarticulately and joyously. We didn’t open Mr. Henchard’s door.