'Mr Crosetti!' he repeated, and added swiftly. 'He's...dead!'

'What...the barber?'

'The barber?' echoed Jim.

'See this haircut?' Will turned, trembling, his hand to his head. 'He did it. And we just walked by there and the sign was up and people told us - '

'What a shame.' Miss Foley was reaching out to fetch the strange boy forward: 'I'm so sorry. Boys, this is Robert, my nephew from Wisconsin.'

Jim stuck out his hand. Robert the Nephew examined it, curiously. 'What are you looking looking at?' he asked. at?' he asked.

'You look familiar,' said Jim.

Jim! Will yelled to himself.

'Like an uncle of mine,' said Jim, all sweet and calm.

The nephew flicked his eyes to Will, who looked only at the floor, afraid the boy would see his eyeballs whirl with the remembered carousel. Crazily, he wanted to hum the backward music.

Now, he thought, face him!

He looked up straight at the boy.

And it was wild and crazy and the floor sank away beneath for there was the pink shiny Hallowe'en mask of a small pretty boy's face, but almost as if holes were cut where the eyes of Mr Cooger shone out, old, old, eyes as bright as sharp blue stars and the light from those stars taking a million years to get here. And through the little nostrils cut in the shiny mask, Mr Cooger's breath went in steam, came out ice. And the Valentine candy tongue moved small behind those trim white candy-kernel teeth.

Mr Cooger, somewhere behind the eye-slits, went blink-click blink-click with his insect-Kodak pupils. The lenses exploded like suns, then burnt chilly and serene again. with his insect-Kodak pupils. The lenses exploded like suns, then burnt chilly and serene again.

He swivelled his glance to Jim. Blink-click Blink-click. He had Jim flexed, focused, shot, developed, dried, filed away in the dark. Blink-click. Blink-click.

Yet this was only a boy standing in a hall with two other boys and a women...

And all the while Jim gazed steadily, back, feathers unruffled, taking his own pictures of Robert.

'Have you boys had supper?', asked Miss Foley. 'We're just sitting down - '

'We got to go!'

Everyone looked at Will as if amazed he didn't want to stick here forever.

'Jim - ' he stammered. 'Your mom's home alone - '

'Oh, sure,' Jim said, reluctantly.

'I know what.' The nephew paused for their attention. When their faces turned, Mr Cooger inside the nephew went silently blink-click blink-click, blink-click blink-click, listening through the toy ears, watching through the toy-charm eyes, whetting the doll's mouth with a Pekingese tongue. 'Join us later for dessert, huh?'

'Dessert?'

'I'm taking Aunt Willa to the carnival.' The boy stroked Miss Foley's arm until she laughed nervously.

'Carnival?' cried Will, and lowered his voice. 'Miss Foley, you said - '

'I said I was foolish and scared myself,' said Miss Foley. 'It's Saturday night the best night for tent shows and showing my nephew the sights.'

'Join us?' asked Robert, holding Miss Foley's hand. 'Later?'

'Great!' said Jim.

'Jim.' said Will. 'We been out all day. Your mom's sick.'

'I forgot.' Jim, flashed him a look filled with purest snake-poison.

Flick. The nephew made an X-ray of both, showing them, no doubt, as cold bones trembling in warm flesh. He stuck out his hand.

'Tomorrow, then. Meet you by the side-shows.'

'Swell!' Jim grabbed the small hand.

'So long!' Will jumped out the door, then turned with a last agonized appeal to the teacher.

'Miss Foley...?'

'Yes, Will?'

Don't go with that boy, he thought. Don't go near the shows. Stay home, oh please! But then he said: 'Mr Crosetti's dead.'

She nodded, touched, waiting for his tears. And while she waited, he dragged Jim outside and the door swung shut on Miss Foley and the pink small face with the lenses in it going blink-click blink-click, snapshotting two incoherent boys, and them fumbling down the steps in October dark, while the merry-go-round started again in Will's head, rushing while the leaves in the trees above cracked and fried with wind. Aside, Will spluttered, 'Jim, you shook hands with him! Mr Cooger! You're not going to meet meet him!?' him!?'

'It's Mr Cooger, all right. Boy, those eyes. If I met him tonight, we'd solve the whole shooting match. What's eating you, Will?'

'Eating me me!' At the bottom of the steps now, they tussled in fierce and frantic whispers, glancing up at the empty windows where, now and again, a shadow passed. Will stopped. The music turned in his head. Stunned, he squinched his eyes. 'Jim, the music that the calliope played when Mr Cooger got younger - '

'Yeah?'

'It was the 'Funeral March'! Played backward! Played backward!'

'Which 'Funeral March'?

'Which! Jim, Chopin only wrote one tune! The 'Funeral March'!'

'But why played backward?'

'Mr Cooger was marching away from the grave, not toward it, wasn't he, getting younger, smaller, instead of older and dropping dead?'

'Willy, you're terrific!'

'Sure, but - ' Will stiffened. 'He's there, the window, again. Wave at him. So long! Now, walk and whistle something. Not Not Chopin, for gosh sakes - ' Chopin, for gosh sakes - '

Jim waved. Will waved. Both whistled, 'Oh, Susanna.'

The shadow gestured small in the high window.

The boys hurried off down the street.

20

Two suppers were waiting in two houses.

One parent yelled at Jim, two parents yelled at Will.

Both were sent hungry upstairs.

It started at seven o'clock. It was done by seven-three.

Doors slammed. Locks Clanked.

Clocks ticked.

Will stood by the door. The telephone was locked away outside. And even if he called, Miss Foley wouldn't answer. By now she'd be gone beyond town...good grief? Anyway, what could he say? Miss Foley, that nephew's no nephew? That boy's no boy? Wouldn't she laugh? She would. For the nephew was a nephew, the boy was a boy, or seemed such.

He turned to the window. Jim, across the way, stood facing the same dilemma, in his room. Both struggled. It was too early to raise the windows and stage-whisper to each other. Parents below were busy growing crystal-radio peach-fuzz in their ears, alert.

The boys threw themselves on their separate beds in their separate houses, probed mattresses for chocolate chunks put away against the lean years, and ate moodily.

Clocks ticked.

Nine. Nine-thirty. Ten.

The knob rattled, softly, as Dad unlocked the door.

Dad! thought Will. Come in! We got to talk!

But Dad chewed his breath in the hall. Only his confusion, his always puzzled, half-bewildered face could be felt beyond the door.

He won't come in, thought Will. Walk around, talk around, back off from a thing, yes. But come sit, listen? When had he, when would would he, ever? he, ever?

'Will...?

Will quickened.

'Will...' said Dad, 'be careful.'

'Careful?' cried mother, coming along the hall. 'Is that that all you're going to say?' all you're going to say?'

'What else?' Dad was going downstairs now. 'He jumps, I creep. How can you get two people together like that? He's too young, I'm too old. God, sometimes I wish we'd never...'

The door shut. Dad was walking away on the sidewalk.

Will wanted to fling up the window and call. Suddenly, Dad was so lost in the night. Not me, don't worry about me, Dad, he thought, you, Dad, stay in! It's not safe! Don't go!

But he didn't shout. And when he softly raised the window at last, the street was empty, and he knew it would be just a matter of time before that light went on in the library across town. When rivers flooded, when fire fell from the sky, what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luck, no one found you. How could they! - when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?

'...careful...'

What did Dad mean? Did he smell the panic, had he heard the music, had he prowled near the tents? No. Not Dad ever.

Will tossed a marble over at Jim's window.

Tap. Silence.

He imagined Jim seated alone in the dark, his breath like phosphorous on the air, ticking away to himself.

Tap. Silence.

This wasn't like Jim. Always before, the window slid up, Jim's head popped out, ripe with yells, secret hissings, giggles, riots and rebel charges.

'Jim, I know you're there!'

Tap.

Silence.

Dad's out in the town. Miss Foley's with you-know-who! he thought. Good gosh, Jim, we got to do something! Tonight!

He threw a last marble.

...tap...

It fell to the hushed grass below.

Jim did not come to the window.

Tonight, thought Will. He bit his knuckles. He lay back cold straight stiff on his bed.

21