Having rounded out his notes with a quick sketch of the spider’s web, Leo capped his pen and lay back, reaching his hands over his head and stretching his body like a cat. He really was tall for his age, Tiger thought, secretly envying him his height; he wished his own arms and legs were longer; his physical size, or its lack, had always 'been to him a disadvantage, and something told him he’d never see six feet, never be tall like Reece Hartsig. But then, as his dad always said, Napoleon had been forced to deal with the same problem, and look how far he got. You just couldn’t give up on things. “Never Say Die,” that was Tiger’s motto. He had got it from the famous Count Von Luckner, the crafty German naval officer whose ship, the Sea Devil, had wreaked havoc with Allied shipping during the war. When the Count came to Pequot Landing to lecture, Tiger had even got an autograph on a picture of the famous vesseclass="underline" “Never Say Die, Tiger Abernathy.” Tiger was determined he would not.
“I kept a diary once,” he remarked.
This revelation interested Leo. “Why did you quit?” he asked.
Tiger chuckled. “I was doing so many things every day I never could find the time to write them all down.”
Leo could see how this might be so: a fellow like Tiger Abernathy was always busy, with a dozen irons in the fire. Was there anything he wasn’t interested in? A patrol leader in the Boy Scouts, he was also active in Christian Youth Fellowship and the Junior Grange and the Civic Guard. He had, moreover, a number of time-consuming interests and hobbies – stamp-collecting, model-airplane- and boatbuilding – while the complicated layout of his electric train set was known to fill half the attic. All in all, he was a real powerhouse, with his bright, quick, lighting-up smile, and the gleeful laugh that he made such generous use of. What he lacked in physical size he made up for in character, and compared with him, all the boys Leo had known at the orphanage – even his pal Arnie Kretchmer (“Kretch the Wretch”) – seemed commonplace and lackluster.
Leo congratulated himself on his good fortune. On that first evening in camp he hadn’t been at all sure how he would fare at Tiger’s hands. Tiger had been helpful enough, but he’d said so little, seemingly weighing “the new boy” in his mind, pondering whether they would be friends or not. And now they were friends, sort of. Leo felt it was so. Sometimes when he came here to the pond, Tiger would show up – like this morning. Leo frequently asked himself why the most popular boy in camp would bother with the likes of him, an orphan from Pitt Institute. Maybe he just felt sorry for him (Tiger was the kind of guy who always stuck up for the underdog); still, to be singled out for his attention was deeply gratifying, and in the end Leo decided it was probably his music that had won Tiger over (he had laughed a lot at Leo’s rendition of “The Music Goes ’Round and Around”).
Now, grinning his crooked, saw-toothed grin, Tiger said, “So tell me. How come you were trying to fly?”
Leo’s response was simple. “It’s the thing I want most in the world – except for two other things.”
“Like what?”
“First, to own a dog.”
“Yeah? What kind?”
“Name it.”
“Didn’t you ever have one?”
“Sure. Once.” Leo blew out his cheeks; his eyelids fluttered and closed.
“What happened to him?”
“Got killed.”
“How?”
“Curiosity.”
Tiger thought that was the cat, but before he could comment Leo went on.
“Actually he got run over by a truck.”
“Gee, that’s tough. Hit and run?”
“No. It was my f-father’s truck.”
“Gee, I bet he felt bad.”
“Not so’s you’d notice. If you asked me, I’d say he enjoyed it.”
“What?”
“You had to know him. He never liked Butch. He didn’t like him in the house. Butch knew…”
“Knew what?”
“Butch knew Rudy. That was his name, Rudy. His black heart. Rudy was the only person Butch didn’t like. Rudy knew it. He was just looking for a chance to do him a bad turn.”
“So he deliberately…?”
Leo nodded somberly. “Butch was lying in the driveway. He liked the warm concrete. Rudy backed the truck out and just ran over him as nice as you please.”
“But – maybe he didn’t see him.”
“He saw him all right. Butch was asleep. Rudy gunned his motor and hit him before he could get out of the way.”
Tiger’s eyelids lowered, his lips stretched in a grim line. He remained that way, wondering why Leo had made so personal a confession on such short acquaintance. It was, he decided, one way to cement a friendship.
Leo spoke again. “That night I brushed all the dog hair off of Albert-”
Tiger’s lids lifted again. “You mean – Albert was Butch’s pillow?”
Leo nodded. “I cut the hairs up real fine and whenever I carried the plates in from the kitchen I sprinkled some of them on Rudy’s food.”
“Did it make him sick?”
“Not so’s you’d notice; but it made me feel better.”
Tiger smiled, then grew thoughtful. “How’d he die?” he asked.
“I just told you – oh, you mean Rudy. He had a bad accident. In that same truck he ran Butch over with. The funny thing was,” Leo went on, “I always thought for sure I’d die before Butch did. Then, when I was dead, he would come and lie by me on my funeral pyre. You know – like a Viking’s funeral.”
Tiger nodded; he had read Beau Geste. A Viking always took his farewell of life with a dog at his feet.
“And your mother? How’d she die?”
“She-she-” Leo gulped, and his jaws worked as he tried to articulate the words, but no sound materialized. His face flushed.
“That’s okay,” Tiger said, “let’s skip it.” Raising his wrist, he checked his Ingersoll. “Jeez, I better be getting to the store so I’m back in time for Swim.” He reflected for a moment, then framed a tactful question: “Aren’t you scheduled for ball practice with Coach this morning?” “Mmmm…” Leo nodded, closed his eyes, and lay back. The last thing he wanted to do right now was practice baseball, especially with Hap Holliday. Among the montage of images jumping about under his eyelids was a picture of the coach – “the all-American jockstrap,” as Leo had dubbed him in his journal – glove in hand, waiting for Wacko Wackeem to field a few flies. But Wacko was not Coach’s “kind of guy.” Nor, for that matter, was Coach Leo’s. That red, jolly face seemed to corrugate with consternation and dismay the moment Leo came upon the scene, and what point was there in trying to “measure up” when, where Hap was concerned, the percentages were so low?
All in all, Leo decided, he preferred staying where and as he was. Presently, he heard Tiger steal off, and through slitted lids watched him and Harpo cross the meadow and head for the Old Lake Road, a hundred or so yards away. Leo closed his eyes again, basking in the warm sun. How glorious to lie in a sweet-smelling meadow with nothing to do but make notes on a spider replenishing its pantry. He told himself he should collect the specimen and get back to camp (he was due at baseball practice before Morning Swim), but it was hard giving up such a spot as this; it was so quiet here; that’s what he noticed more than anything. At Pitt the stone hallways forever echoed with the frantic clamor of discontent, dissatisfaction, and despair, 150 boys in their leather-soles clattering up and down, the incessant racket of scores of voices, admonishing, correcting, quarreling, wheedling, whining, complaining, crying, cursing. Seventy-five double-decker wire-spring cots, each with a boy top and bottom, lined up in a brick-walled dormitory with barred windows and a coal stove at the far end, a long low-ceilinged room once used for the drying of hops for beer, a place where the nights resounded with coughing and moans, with whispers and mutterings and outcries, and dreams that flew about on dark wings, like bats.