Loretta Mason Potts Read online

  “My dear, you have always underestimated me. I began steps in that direction days ago. You recall the dreary couple at the foot of our hill?”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Potts?” And here the Countess was so surprised. “How can those unattractive people ever entice Loretta back to our hill—to us?”

  He turned gracefully and lifted her hand to his lips.

  “I took care to destroy their crops in one night. And I took care to dry up their milk cows in the twinkling of an eye. I believe, my dear Countess, that we can trust their greedy little hearts to do the rest.”

  “Of course,” and the Countess clapped her white hands.

  “Oh, I am so proud of you, General.”

  And he was very proud of himself.

  12. IRENE IS GONE

  And the General could well be proud of himself. Because even as the children were having tea in the Countess’s library, Mr. and Mrs. Potts were parking their old Chevrolet at the curbing before Mother’s house.

  Mother was fitting a sweater on Loretta. She had been knitting it for her for weeks. It had white reindeer running across the chest and Loretta was standing still as Mother fitted it on. Never in her life had she stood so still.

  Mother did not need to take long with the fitting. But she had to keep busy, she told herself; busy so she would not think.

  “Are you sure, Loretta,” she asked her again, “that you do not know where the children went?”

  And Loretta always answered in a foolish way, Mother thought. She either said things like, “Whose children?” or else she said, “What makes you think I know where they went?”

  Then Mother saw Mr. and Mrs. Potts standing on the front porch with a package.

  “Run upstairs, Loretta, and I will deal with them.”

  Loretta ran upstairs but she hid at the top to listen.

  When Mr. Potts sat down he wiped at his eyes with a blue bandana handkerchief. “You never know you’ll miss a young ’un till she’s gone.”

  Mother was so astonished. “You miss Loretta?”

  “I baked her this cake,” said Mrs. Potts, and she handed Mother a chocolate cake wrapped in a newspaper. On the cake in white candy letters it said, “Loretta—gone but not forgotten.”

  Mother was touched.

  “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Potts. This is so kind of both of you.”

  Mr. Potts spoke now.

  “We didn’t miss her at first as much as we’ve missed her the last week,” he said. “The crops has all failed. The cows won’t give milk. And that showed us how much we miss her.”

  Then he leaned forward. “That hill misses her, too,” he said. “At night on the wind we hear voices calling— ‘Loretta—Loretta.”’

  Mrs. Potts hitched her chair forward. “Send the gal back to us, ma’am. She didn’t want to leave us in the first place—remember?”

  Mother was shocked. “Send her back to you! I wouldn’t think of it,” she said. “She’s getting along fine. Her schoolwork is better. She minds me.” Here Mother’s face grew sad.

  “It’s the others who have changed,” she told them. “They go away some place and when they return they look sly and secret. They speak in a strange manner and they pull away when I put my arms around them. Yes, Loretta is fine, but since she came home nothing has been the same.”

  Mr. Potts pulled at his mustache.

  “All the more reason you should send her back to us,” he said, “and let things be like they was for everybody before you took her back.”

  Mother started to say, “No, no,” again but just then she heard a noise. “Excuse me, one moment,” and she hurried upstairs.

  There they all were, Colin and Kathy and Jerry and Sharon. Their clothes were damp as though they had been in a storm. And on the faces of each was that sly, secret smile!

  “Sharon! Jerry!” Mother ran to them first. “Where have you been? How did your clothes get so damp?”

  And Sharon pulled away from her. “Don’t maul me,” she said. “You bore me.”

  Jerry turned his head from her. “I don’t like it here. I want to go back there—with Them.”

  Sharon pouted. “Why can’t we have snow in our basement?”

  Colin and Kathy grabbed them and cried out, “Shh-shh, you promised!”

  “Go to your rooms,” said Mother finally.

  Then she sat down on the top step of the stairs and thought and thought.

  Nothing had been the same since Loretta came home. Colin and Kathy had changed first, and now the little ones. The babies, too, had that sly secret smile, just like the smile Loretta had had the first day she got lost in the woods behind the Potts farm. Was it catching, like the measles? Yes, Mother decided. She used to have four good children and one naughty girl. Now she had one good girl and four naughty children.

  She jumped up. Yes, she had to do it. It would break her heart but it was better to have four good children again than keep Loretta here at home. Besides, hadn’t the Pottses admitted they had missed Loretta? And Loretta had never wanted to come home in the first place.

  “Rosalie,” Mother called, “pack Loretta’s things, please. She is going back to live with Mr. and Mrs. Potts, and she is going back now.”

  Loretta’s room was empty as Rosalie went over to the closet and took out the old brown-paper suitcase, opened the drawers of the dresser, took out the nice new underwear and nightgowns and laid them carefully in the case. She took down the hangers of little cotton dresses and the little blue serge suit and threw them across the bed.

  Kathy came in and asked right away, “What are you doing, Rosalie?”

  “I’m packing a suitcase for Loretta. She’s going away—back to the Potts farm.”

  Kathy ran out of the room, and in a minute she came back followed by Colin and Jerry and Sharon. Silently they watched Rosalie pack.

  “Loretta going away? Why?”

  Rosalie straightened up. “You’re the reason why. Your mother thinks it’s her fault cops came to the house, ermine coats got found under bushes, bad grades in school, funny highfalutin talk and damp clothes.”

  The children disappeared into their own rooms like four wooden cuckoo birds into four wooden clocks. Each one felt uneasy.

  Colin thought, “Loretta didn’t make me get into that red Jaguar.”

  Kathy thought, “Loretta didn’t make me take that ermine coat.”

  Jerry and Sharon thought, “Loretta didn’t turn on the snow.”

  All this time Loretta was hiding in the upstairs broom closet. She had heard everything Mother and Rosalie had said. Now when she heard the suitcase thumping against the steps of the stairs as Rosalie carried it down, she ran quickly down the hall. She waited outside Kathy’s room until she saw Kathy hurry downstairs.

  Just as she thought. Kathy had left the door open.

  Loretta had not seen Irene Irene Lavene for weeks now. And even though she knew she must hurry, she had to stand one minute and admire her. She was so beautiful! There she sat, her arms outstretched, her little dancer’s skirt stiff and saucy, her little red satin shoes shiny and silky, her soft little arms and knees, so dimpled and sweet.

  Instead of picking her up this time, Loretta lifted up the chair, hurried down the hall, ran into her own room and into the closet.

  Rosalie thought she heard Irene Irene Lavene singing and then decided Kathy was playing with her. It only sounded for a minute—just long enough to hear her sweet voice raised in “Don’t leave me, dearest playmate or I will surely die,” and then all was quiet—nothing.

  Mr. Potts was standing in the living room holding Loretta’s suitcase as Rosalie went all through the house and out into the yard calling her.

  “Loretta,” she called, “Loretta Mason Potts—you come in here.”

  Whitey Boggs heard her as he rode by the house on his bike.

  “Loretta—Loretta Mason Potts, you come in here,” he mocked.

  When they told Mother that Loretta was gone, she did a strange thing. She cried. “My po
or child! What has happened to her?

  Mr. Potts took it lightly. “She’ll come back; a bad penny always comes back. And when she does you call me, and me and Ma’ll come in and fetch her.”

  Colin said nothing. He knew where Loretta had gone. And then Kathy ran out of her room shrieking, “Irene is gone; Irene Irene Lavene is gone!”

  Mother stopped crying. “She really is a naughty girl. Oh, what a naughty girl!”

  Kathy suddenly stopped crying. She whispered to Colin. “I know where she’s gone, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “And she took Irene Irene over there. I will go over there and get Irene back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Colin promised. “Tonight after supper.”

  13. A KIDNAPPING

  The Countess was smiling as she stepped through the gold and white doors of her ballroom into her drawing room.

  It was a beautiful party. Now she would order the supper. She was halfway across the room before she saw the awful thing. It was part of a monster! It was a great leg and foot thrust through her front door! It was lying across the rug in the hallway!

  The leg was pink and the shoe on the foot was red, red satin with red satin straps tied across the great ankle. The tip of the red satin shoe was on a level with a small table in the hallway where the Countess kept a silver salver for calling cards.

  The Countess was so horrified, so angry, that for a moment she could not speak.

  “How dare they? How could they? How could any large creature get over the bridge?”

  Then she screamed, “Get out! Get out of my house!”

  Servants came running into the hall from the kitchen, a cook in a white cap, and three waiters. They looked and ran back in terror.

  “Cowards, cowards!” She stamped her foot. “Come back here. Throw it out. Close my door. Call the General.”

  He ran into the room. He unsheathed his sword. “Stand back,” he called, “everybody stand back. I will slay the beast.”

  He placed one hand on his hip, lunged forward, ran his sword into the great foot. He pulled out the sword and looked at the shining blade.

  “No blood!” He was amazed. “You see, my dear, absolutely not one drop of blood.”

  “Attack again!” she cried. “Again! Again!”

  Again the General lunged and attacked, this time through the calf of the leg. Again he withdrew the sword and examined it. No blood! He stepped closer to examine the wound. There was a small hole in the leg like a puncture in a tire. He bowed low.

  “Countess, if I may say something?”

  “Anything, anything,” she kept screaming. “Say anything, do anything, get it out of here.”

  “This creature is not alive.”

  “What? What did you say?” She held up the skirts of her ball gown and came closer to it. “Not alive?” Closing her eyes and turning her head away, she put forth her hand fearfully to touch it. But first she asked, “General, you’re sure it’s not alive?”

  “Positive,” he answered. “It was for knowing such things I received these,” and he flipped the medals on his chest.

  She touched the big leg, lightly at first, with one finger. She looked at the finger. “You are right, General,” she nodded slowly. “This leg is made of hard rubber or some similar material. It is definitely not alive.”

  They tiptoed to the window and looked outside. They saw a great creature in a yellow dress sitting on top of the bridge, one foot stretched across the stairs and into the door of the house, another across the stream. One arm rested on the roof and her great head with yellow hair was on a level with the chimneys.

  A giant, a blond giant, on their bridge, her clumsy limb thrust rudely into the house. Her glassy eyes looked up at the night. The coarse creature was wearing a garish yellow dancing dress.

  “Oh, the atrocious taste of her! Come on.” The Countess took the General’s arm. “There is nothing to be learned unless we climb up on her as one climbs a mountain. Keep your sword ready, just in case.”

  With the General assisting her, the Countess jumped up onto Irene Irene’s leg and walked up it. It was like walking up a large, round log. She almost lost her balance several times, but the General caught her.

  Once, as they walked through the stiff tulle of the dancing skirt, the Countess had to reach out and grab a handful to keep from falling.

  “I’m falling,” she gasped.

  “Me, too,” said the General.

  But the Countess now seized hold of the sash around Irene Irene’s waist, and the General seized hold of her and the two of them teetered for a moment while the General cried out, “Hold on, my dear, hold on tight.”

  “I’m holding on, you idiot!” she told him. “Do something, say something—sensible!”

  They looked rather odd, standing there on Irene’s dancing skirt, clinging to the yellow sash around her middle.

  “What if it rips?” the General gasped.

  “A stupid remark,” the Countess answered. “If it rips, we fall into the stream.”

  So for a moment they said nothing, but hung on.

  The General spoke first. “The creature is definitely not alive. No live female would endure this. We are tearing her dress. Let us climb up or climb down.”

  Then from the sky they heard a great voice booming through the night air. The Countess was so startled she let go of Irene’s sash.

  “Help me,” she screamed. “I’m falling! Ooh—” And she fell into the stream with a splash!

  The next splash was the General’s.

  The booming voice went on. The Countess staggered through the water to the bank.

  “Judgment Day, General. It’s the Judgment Day!”

  “My sword,” he wailed as he waded in the water. “I’ve lost my sword.”

  But he stood still and listened as the voice boomed on. The Countess climbed out of the stream and sat gasping on the bank, her clothes soaking wet, her hair damp, her eyes frightened.

  Just as suddenly as it began, the voice stopped.

  “Judgment Day!” the Countess was breathing hard and feeling her ear lobes for her diamond earrings. “It is the Judgment Day.”

  The General had found his sword. He was wearing his high, black leather boots. His feet were dry. He was taking the whole thing much better than the Countess.

  “Judgment Day?” The water splashed as he waded toward her. “Perhaps, but the words were not highly inspiring. I had thought to hear better on Judgment Day.”

  “The words?” The Countess had been so frightened she had not tried to hear the words.

  But the General, despite his fright had listened. “Military training, my dear,” he explained. “A cool head in a crisis.”

  “My head is cool, too,” snapped the Countess. “It is sopping wet and I have lost my diamond earrings, so don’t be dull. What did the voice say?”

  The General told her as he helped her to her feet. “It announced that the boy was standing on the burning deck, eating peanuts by the peck.”

  “Oh, no,” the Countess was shocked. “Not that stupid old rhyme. ‘His mother called him but he would not go because he loved his peanuts so?”’

  The General nodded. “That’s the one. Will you take my arm?”

  The Countess pushed him away. “You mean I have been humiliated like this,” she looked at her torn wet stockings, her sopping wet dress, “for a thing like that?” She stamped her foot.

  “It’s too much, oh it’s much too much. And this,” she pointed to Irene Irene, “coarse vulgar monster! Call everyone, we must get her foot out of my hallway and her arm off my roof.”

  The General was a brave soldier. But now he had something to do which he dreaded far more than he had ever feared a duel. He helped the Countess through the library window and guided her over to the fireplace.

  “Stand there,” he said. “Get warm.”

  For one second he stood in the door of the library. He listened to the music in the ballroom and the slush, slu
sh, creaking sound of many feet moving in time to the music across the dance floor.

  “Poor souls,” he thought, “let them dance a while longer.” Then he closed the door.

  He looked at the Countess. He had never seen her like this before. Her dress was ruined. She stood in her stocking feet and her hair hung like a wet mop. He poured her a glass of wine, handed it to her. She lifted it to her lips. Then she saw that the General had not touched his glass. He was watching her. What she saw in his eyes made her put down the glass at once.

  “General, that look on your face. You feel this trouble is that serious?”

  Now he had to do it. He took her hand, “My dear, we are not in trouble.”

  “No?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “We are finished. We are undone.”

  “You mean?” She was puzzled.

  “I mean that by now Loretta has learned our secret and has gone back to get them. The bridge was our only protection and now the bridge is occupied.”

  He looked around the room, at the polished wood on the walls, the beautiful rug, the tables, the books, the exquisite paintings. He waved his hand.

  “One kick from one foot of one of Them—and all of this—pouf! Smashed!”

  The Countess turned white.

  “Oh,” the General picked up his wine glass, “at first they will come out of curiosity, to see the tiny world as they would call it. And they will laugh.”

  “Laugh?” the Countess’s voice was shocked. “Laugh at us? But how dare they?”

  The General went on. “They will kneel down and peer through our windows as they would look into one of their children’s dollhouses. Then one of them will reach a great hand through and seize you by the middle; and perhaps set you up on the roof while he examines you more closely.”

  “No, no. Oh, stop, stop!” The Countess had her hands at her ears. “General, I would never allow such a thing. Never!”

  “And then,” he went on, “they will put us into their pockets and take us over there. And that, my dear Countess, you would find most humiliating of all. You and I and all of our friends would be put into cages like birds. They would invite their friends to come in and stare at us.