Holding Wonder Part 3

"Pick us up! I'm going with you!" cried Mrs. Kroginold. "Jake Kroginold! If you think you're going to do me out of something as wild and wonderful as this-"

"Let her go with us, Dad," begged Vincent.

"With us?" Mr. Kroginold raked his fingers back through his hair. "You, too?"

"Of course!" Vincent's eyes were wide with astonishment. "It's my man!"

"Well, adonday veeah in cards and spades!" said Mr. Kroginold. He grinned over at me. "Family!" he said.

I studiously didn't meet his eyes. I felt a deep wave of color move up my face as I kept my mouth clamped shut. I wouldn't say anything! I couldn't ask! I had no right to expect- " And Teacher, too!" cried Vincent, "Teacher, too!"

Mr. Kroginold considered me for a long moment. My wanting must have been a flaring thing because he finally shrugged an eyebrow and echoed, "And Teacher, too."

Then I nearly died! It was so wild and wonderful and impossible and I'm scared to death of heights! We scurried about getting me a jacket. Getting Kipper's forgotten jacket out of the cloak room for Vincent who had come off without his. Taking one of my blankets, just in case. I paused a moment in the mad scramble, hand poised over my Russian-English, English-Russian pocket dictionary. Then left it. The man might not be Russian at all. And even if was, people like Vincent's seemed to have little need such aids to communication.

A door opened in the craft. I looked at it, thinking blankly, Ohmy! Ohmy! We had started across the yard toward the craft when I gasped, "The-the door! I have to lock the door!"

I dashed back to the schoolhouse and into the darkness of the teacherage. And foolishly, childishly, there in the dark, I got awfully hungry! I yanked a cupboard door open and scrabbled briefly. Peanut b.u.t.ter-slippery, gla.s.sy cylinder-crackers-square cornered, waxy carton. I slammed the cupboard shut, s.n.a.t.c.hed up my purse as though I were on the way to the MONSTER MERCANTILE, staggered out of the door, and juggled my burdens until I could manipulate the key. Then I hesitated on the porch, one foot lifting, all ready to go to the craft, and silently gasped my travel prayer. "Dear G.o.d, go with me to my destination. Don't let me imperil anyone or be imperiled by anyone. Amen." Istarted down the steps, paused, and cried softly, "To my destination and back!

Oh, please! And back!"

Have you, oh, have you ever watched s.p.a.ce reach down to surround you as your hands would reach down to surround a minnow? Have you ever seen Earth, a separate thing, apart from you, and see-almost-all-able? Have you ever watched color deepen and run until it blared into blaze and blackness? Have you ever stepped out of the context in which your ident.i.ty is established and floated un-anyone beyond the steady pulse of night and day and accustomed being? Have you ever, for even a fleeting second, shared G.o.d's eyes? I have! I have!

And Mrs. Kroginold and Vincent were with me in all the awesome wonder of our going. You couldn't have seen us go even if you had known where to look. We were wrapped, in unlight again, and the craft was flowed again to make it a nothing to any detection device.

"I wish I could s.p.a.ce walk!" said Vincent, finally, turning his shoulders but not his eyes away from the window. "Daddy-"

"No." Mr. Kroginold's tone left no loophole for further argument.

"Well, it would be fun," Vincent sighed. Then he said in very small voice.

"Mother, I'm hungry."

"So sorry!" Mrs. Kroginold hugged him to her briefly. Nearest hamburger joint's a far piece down the road!"

"Here-" I found, after two abortive attempts, that I still had a voice. I slithered cautiously to my knees on the bare floor-no luxury liner, this-and sat back. "Peanut b.u.t.ter." The jar clicked down. "And crackers." The carton thumped -and my elbow creaked almost audibly as I straightened it out from its spasmed clutch.

"Gollee! Real deal!" Vincent plumped down beside me and began working on the lid of the jar. "What'll we spread it with?"

"Oh!" I blankly considered the problem. "Oh, I have a nail file here in my purse." I was fis.h.i.+ng for it amid the usual clutter when I caught Mrs.

Kroginold's surprised look. I grinned sheepishly. "I thought I was hungry. But I guess that wasn't what was wrong with my stomach."

Shortly after the jar was opened and the roasty smell of peanuts spread, Mr.

Kroginold and another fellow drifted casually over to us. I preferred to ignore the fact that they actually drifted-no steps on the floor. The other fellow was introduced as Jemmy. The Old One? Not so old, it seemed me. But then "old" might mean "wise" to these people. And on that score he could qualify. He had none of the loose ends that I can often sense in people. He was-whole..

"Ron is lifting," said Mr. Kroginold through a mouthful of peanut b.u.t.ter and crackers. He nodded at the center of the room where another fellow sat looking intently at a square, boxy-looking thing.

"That's the amplifier," Jemmy said, as though that explained anything. "It makes it possible for one man to manage the craft."

Something buzzed on a panel across the room. "There!" Mr. Kroginold was at the window, staring intently. "There it is! Good work, Ron!"

At that moment Vincent cried out, his arms going up in their protestingposture. Mrs. Kroginold pushed him over to his father who drew him in the curve of his shoulder to the window, coaxing down the tense arms.

"See? There's the craft! It looks odd. Something's not right about it."

"Can--can we take off the unlight now?" asked Vincent, jerkily. "So he can see us? Then maybe he won't feel so bad- "Jemmy?" Mr. Kroginold called across the craft. "What do you think? Would the shock of our appearance be too much?"

"It could hardly be worse than the h.e.l.l he's in now," said Jemmy, "So-"

"Oh!" cried Vincent. "He thinks he just now died. He thinks we're the Golden Gates!"

"Rather a loose translation." Jemmy flung a smiling glance at us. "But he is wondering if we are the entrance to the afterworld. Ron, can we dock?"

Moments later, there was a faint metallic click and a slight vibration through our craft. Then we three extras stood pressed to the window and watched Mr.

Kroginold and Jemmy leave our craft. They were surrounded, it's true, by their s.h.i.+elds that caught light and slid it rapidly around, but they did look so unguarded-no, they didn't! They looked right at home and intent on their rescue mission. They disappeared from the sight of our windows. We waited and waited, not saying anything-not aloud, anyway. I could feel a clanking through the floor under me. And a sc.r.a.ping. Then a long nothing again.

Finally they came back in sight, the light from our window glinting across a mutual protective bubble that enclosed the two of them and a third inert figure between them.

"He still thinks he's dead," said Vincent soberly. "He's wondering if he ought to try to pray. He wasn't expecting people after he died. But mostly he's trying not to think."

They brought him in and laid him on the floor. They eased him out of his suit and wrapped him in my blanket. We three gathered around him, looking at his quiet, tight face. So young! I thought. So young! Unexpectedly his eyes opened, and he took us in, one by one. At the sight of Vincent, his mouth dropped open and his eyes fled shut again.

"What'd he do that for?" asked Vincent, a trifle hurt.

"Angels," said his mother firmly, "are not supposed have peanut b.u.t.ter around the mouth!"

The three men consulted briefly. Then Mr. Kroginold prepared to leave our craft again. This time he took a blanket from the Rescue Pack they had brought in the craft.

"He can manage the body alone," said Jemmy, being our intercom. A little later- "He has the body out, but he's gone back-' His forehead creased, then cleared. "Oh, the tapes and instrument packets," he explained to our questioning glances. "He thinks maybe they can study them and prevent this happening again."

He turned to Mrs. Kroginold. "Well, Lizbeth, back when all of you were in school together in the canyon, I wouldn't have given a sandwiched quarter for the chances of any Kroginold ever turning out well. I sprinkle repentant asheson my bowed head. Some good can come from Kroginolds!"

And Vincent screamed!

Before we could look his way, there was a blinding flash that exploded through every window as though we had suddenly been stabbed through and through. Then we were all tumbled in blinded confusion from one wall of our craft to another until, almost as suddenly, we floated in a soundless blackness. "Jake! Oh, Jake!" I heard Mrs. Kroginold's whispering gasp. Then she cried out, "Jemmy!

Jemmy! What happened? Where's Jake?"

Light came back. From where, I never did know. I hadn't known its source even before.

"The retro-rockets-" I felt more of his answer than I heard. "Maybe they finally fired. Or maybe the whole capsule just blew up. Ron?"

"Might have holed us." A voice I hadn't heard before answered. "Didn't.

Capsule's gone."

"But-but-" The enormity of what had happened slowed our thoughts. "Jake!" Mrs.

Kroginold screamed. "Jemmy! Ron! Jake's out there!"

And, as suddenly as the outcry came, it was cut off. In terror I crouched on the floor, my arms up defensively, not to my ears as Vincent's had gone-there was nothing to hear-but against the soundless, aimless tumbling of bodies above me. Jemmy and Vincent and Mrs. Kroginold were like corpses afloat in some invisible sea. And Vincent, burrowed into a corner, was a small, silent, humped-up bundle.

I think I would have gone mad in the incomprehensible silence if a hand hadn't clutched mine. Startled, I s.n.a.t.c.hed it away, but gave it back, with a sob, to our s.h.i.+pwrecked stranger. He accepted it with both of his. We huddled together, taking comfort in having someone to cling to. Then I shook with hysterical laughter as I suddenly realized. " 'A sort of telepathy'!" I giggled. "They are not dead but speak. Words are slow, you know." I caught the young man's puzzled eyes. "And of very little use in a situation like this."

I called to Ron where he crouched near the amplifier box. "They are all right, aren't they?"

"They?" His head jerked upward. "Of course. Communicating."

"Where's Mr. Kroginold?" I asked. "How can we ever hope to find him out there?"

"Trying to reach him," said Ron, his chin flipping upward again. "Don't feel him dead. Probably knocked out.. Can't find him unconscious."

"Oh."

The stranger's fingers tightened on mine. I looked at him. He was struggling to get up. I let go of him and shakily, on hands and knees we crawled to the window, his knees catching on the blanket. For a long moment, the two of us stared out into the darkness. I watched the lights wheel slowly past, until I reoriented, and we were the ones wheeling. But as soon as I relaxed, again it was the lights wheeling slowly past. I didn't know what we were looking for.

I couldn't get any kind of perspective on anything outside our craft. Any given point of light could have been a dozen light-years away-or could have been a glint inside the gla.s.s-or was it gla.s.s?-against which I had my nosepressed.

But the stranger seemed to know what he was looking for. Suddenly I cried out and twisted my crushed fingers to free them. He let go and gestured toward the darkness, saying something tentative and hopeful.

"Ron!" I called, trying to see what the man was seeing. "Maybe-maybe he sees something:" There was a stir above me and Jemmy slid down to the floor beside me.

"A visual sighting?" he whispered tensely.

"I don't know," I whispered back. "Maybe he-''

Jemmy laid his hand on the man's wrist, and then concentrated on whatever it was out in the void that had caught the stranger's attention.

"Ron-" Jemmy gestured out the window and-well, guess Ron gestured with our craft-because things outside swam different way until I caught a flick or a gleam or a movement.

"There, there, there," crooned Jemmy, almost as though soothing an anxious child. "There, there, there, Lizbeth!"

And all of us except Ron were crowded against the window, watching a bundle of some sort tumbling toward us.

"s.h.i.+eld intact," whispered Jenny. "Praise the Power!"

"Oh, Daddy, Daddy!" choked Vincent against his whitened knuckles. Mrs.

Kroginold clung to him wordlessly.

Then Jemmy was gone, streaking through our craft, away outside from us. I saw the glint of his s.h.i.+eld as he rounded our craft. I saw him gather the tumbling bundle up and disappear with it. Then he was back in the craft again, kneeling-unglinted-beside Mr. Kroginold as he lay on the floor. Mrs. Kroginold and Vincent launched themselves toward them.

Our stranger tugged at his half-shed blanket. I shuffled my knees off it and he s.h.i.+vered himself back into it.

They had to peel Mr. Kroginold's arms from around the instrument packet before they could work on him-in their odd, undoing way of working. And the stranger and I exchanged wavery smiles of congratulations when Mr. Kroginold finally opened his eyes.

So that was it. After it was all over, I got the deep, breath-drawing feeling I get when I have finished a most engrossing book, and a sort of last-page-flipping-feeling, wistfully wis.h.i.+ng there were more-just a little more!

Oh, the loose ends? I guess there were a few. They tied themselves quite casually and briskly in the next few days.

It was only a matter of moments after Mr. Kroginold had sat up and smiled a craggy smile of satisfaction at the packet he had brought back with him that Ron said, "Convenient." And we spiraled down-or so it felt to me to the Earth beneath while Jemmy, fingers to our stranger's wrist, communicated to him in such a way that the stranger's eyes got very large and astonished and he looked at me-at me! -questioningly. I nodded. Well, what else could I do? Hewas asking something, and, so far, every question around these People seemed to have a positive answer! So it was that we delivered him, not to the FBI in Was.h.i.+ngton, but to his own doorstep at a launching base somewhere deep in his own country. We waited, hovering under our unlight and well flowed, until the door swung open and gulped him in, instrument packet, my blanket, and all.

Imagination boggles at the reception there must have been for him! They surely knew the capsule had been destroyed in orbit. And to have him walk in-!

And Mr. Kroginold struggled for a couple of days with "Virus X" without benefit of the company doctor, then went back to work.

A couple of weeks later they moved away to another lab, half across the country, where Mr. Kroginold could go on pursuing whatever it is he is pursuing.

And a couple of days before they left, I quite unexpectedly gave Vincent a going-away gift.

That morning Vincent firmed his lips, his cheeks coloring, and shook his head.

"I can't read it," he said, and began to close the book.

"That I don't believe," I said firmly, my flare of exasperation igniting into sudden inspiration. Vincent looked at me, startled. He was so used to my acceptance of his reading block that he was shaken as I .

"But I can't," he said patiently.

"Why not?" I asked bluntly.

"I have a block," he said as flatly.

"What triggers it?" I probed.

"Why-why Mother says anything that suggests unhappy compulsion-"

"How do you know this story has any such thing in it?" asked. "All it says in the t.i.tle is a name-Stickeen."

"But I know," he said miserably, his head bent as he flicked the pages of the story with his thumb.

"I'll tell you how you know," I said. "You know because you've read the story already."

"But I haven't!" Vincent's face puckered. "You only brought this book today!"

"That's true," I said. "And you turned the pages to see how long the story was. Only then did you decide yon wouldn't read it-again!"

"I don't understand-" Wonder was stirring in his eyes.

"Vincent," I said, "you read this whole story in the time it took you to turn the pages. You gulped it page by page and that's how you know there's unhappy compulsion in it. So, you refuse to read it-again."

"Do-do you really think so?" asked Vincent in a hopeful half whisper. "Oh, Teacher, can I really read after all? I've been so ashamed! One of the People, and not able to read!" "Let's check," I said, excited, too. "Give me the book. I'll ask you questions-" And I did. And he answered every single one of them!

"I can read!" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the book from me and hugged it to him with both arms. "Hey! Gene! I can read!"

"Big deal!" said Gene, glancing up from his labor on the butcher paper spread on the floor. He was executing a fanciful rendition, in tempera, of the Indians greeting Columbus in a chartreuse, magenta and shriek-pink jungle. "I learned to read in the first grade. Which way do a crocodile's knees bend?"