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Thunder woke hiers shriveled in abruptly, his eyes jerked open There was an instant of blank suspension, consciousness hanging sub His eyes stared mindlessly; his face was a pale, unmarked tautness, mouth a dash embedded in beard Then he reed across his brow and around his eyes and htlessness behind fallen lids, his hands uncurled Only the faint ed the pain it was to lie in thunder

In five minutes the oil burner clicked off, and the cellar becarunt he sat up slowly on the sponge The headache was alrimaced did it flare minutely His throat still hurt, his body felt encrusted with aches and twinges, but at least the headache was gone and he felt his forehead, the fever had abated soht

He sat weaving a little, licking his dry lips Why did I sleep? he wondered What had drugged him when he’d decided to end it all?

He wore, dropped to the floor Pain shot up his legs, faded If only he could believe there had been purpose in his helpless sleep; that itbenevolence He could not More than likely it had been cowardice that had sent hie Even wanting to, he could not honour it with the title "will to live" He had no will to live It was simply that he had no will to die At first he couldn’t lift the box top, it had become so heavy That told hiht he had shrunk another fraction and was now only two sevenths of an inch tall The cardboard edge scraped across his side as he dragged himself out from beneath it It pinned his ankle so that he had to bend over and work at it with his hands Free at last, he sat on the cold ce the waves of dizziness settle His stoon of air

He didn’t measure himself; there was no point in it He walked slowly across the floor looking to neither one side nor the other On unsteady legs he headed for the hose Why had he slept?

"No reason" He framed the words with his cracked lips

It was cold Gray, cheerless light filtered through the s March fourteenth It was another day After the half-mile walk, he cla the black tunnel, listening to the echo of his scuffing sandals His feet kept coed heavily along the rubber floor

Ten ht him to the water He crouched in its shallow coldness and drank It hurt to s, but he was too grateful there ater to care As he drank, there crossed hisa hoseit to the faucet, playing a glittering stream of water across the lawn Now, in a similar hose, he crouched, less than one fifth of its width, a er than a grain of salt

The vision passed His size was too coer a pheno, he walked back out of the hose, shaking his feet to get the water off his sandals March forth, he thought, ht In a week the first day of spring would come upon the island

He would never see it

Out on the floor again, he walked back to the box top and stood beside it, one palaze ht What happened now? Did he crawl under the box top, lie down again and sleep oncesleep? His teeth raked slowly across his lower lip as he looked at the cliff that went up to the spider’s land

Avoid it

He started walking around the ce for cracker crumbs He found a dirty one, scraped off its surface, and kept walking, chewing ru to do? Go back to his bed, or He stopped and stood ht riht He had a brain He’d use it After all, wasn’t this his universe? Couldn’t he deteric of a cellar life belong to him, who lived alone in that cellar?

Very well, then He had planned suicide, but soht fear, subconscious desire to survive, action of outside intelligencehim Whatever it was, it had happened He lived still, his existence unbroken Positive function was still possible; decision was still his

"All right," heof a mist in his brain, like a rush of cool wind across a parched desert of intentions It made, absurdly, perhaps his shoulders draw back,the pain of his body And, as if in instant reward, he found a large chunk of cracker behind the cement block He cleaned it off and ate it It tasted horrible He didn’t care It was nourishment He walked back across the floor What did his decision mean? He knew, really, but he was afraid to dwell on it Rather, he let hiiant carton under the fuel tank, knohat had to be done; knowing that he would do it or perish

He stopped before the looht, he had kicked open its side hie, of frustration turned to acid fury How odd that an ancient fury wasit easier for him now; that it had, indeed, saved his life ot two thimbles from that carton, one that he’d put under the water tank, and another that he’d put under the dripping water heater? Hadn’t he got the ot there the thread that enabled hiet the crackers?

Finally, hadn’t he actually fought off the spider in there, discovering in a flash of astonishainst its horrible seven-legged blackness?

Yes, all these And all because, one day long ago, he had burned with a terrible, angry desire and kicked open the side of the carton

He hesitated for ahe should search for the needle he’d taken froht not find it and the fruitless search would waste not only tiy

He juh the opening It was difficult to get in The difficulty pointed up, disconcertingly, how hard it was going to be to get up to the cliff,to let hi could stop hihts about the spider He blanked his mind to them Only far behind the conscious barrier did they move He slid down the hill of clothes until he went over the edge and fell down into the sewing box For a ht not be able to get out of the box Then he remembered the rubber cork into which the pins and needles were inserted He could push that to the edge of the box and then be able to cli on the bottom of the box and picked it up

"God," he muttered It was like a harpoon made of lead He let it fall and it clanked loudly He stood there a moment, lines of distress around his eyes Was he to be defeated already? He couldn’t possibly carry that needle up the face of the cliff

Simple, said his mind Take a pin

He closed his eyes and sht He searched around in the shadows for a pin, but there were none loose He’d have to get one from the rubber cork First he had to knock the cork over It was four ti his teeth, he shoved at the rubber cork until it toppled Then he moved around it and jerked out a pin, hefted it in his hands That was better Still heavy, butit into his robe was no good; it would dangle, bang against surfaces, i on the pin and carry it across his back He looked around for thread No point in going after the thread he’d flung into the cat’s th of rope-heavy thread by dragging the sharp pin point across it until the fibers eakened enough to be torn apart Panting in the dark, shadowy cavern, he tied one end of the thread around the pinhead, then tied the other end near the point The second loop slid a little, but it would hold well enough With a grunt he slung the pin across his back, then flexed on his toes to test the weight Good enough

Now Was that all he needed? He stood indecisively, brow lined, but not orry He didn’t actually acknowledge it, but it gave hi positively Maybe there was so to the theory that true satisfaction was based on struggle This moment was certainly the antithesis of the hopeless, listless hours of the night before Noorking toward a goal True, it ave hi for a long tiht, then, as needed? The climb was too difficult to be attempted unaided He was simply too small; he needed apparatus Very well, then Since it was a cliff, that made him a mountaineer What did e that Alpenstocks Nor that Grappling hooks Nor yes, he could! What if he got another pin and ed somehow to bend it into a se thread, he would fling it at openings in the lawn chairs, hook it in, and climb the thread It would be perfect equipment

Excited he pulled another pin from the rubber cork, then unrolled about twenty feet, to him, of thread He threw the pins and thread out of the box, clied his prizes up the hill, throwing them out onto the floor

He slid out of the carton and dropped down He started toward the ceht, if only I could take a little food and water withat the box top Suddenly he ree! He could put them inside his robe somehow and take them with him And water? On his face there was a look of concentration bordering on exultation The sponge itself!

Why couldn’t he tear off a small piece of it, soak it ater from the hose, and carry it with him?

Certainly it would drip, it would run, but soh He didn’t let himself think about the spider He didn’t let himself think about the fact that there were only two days left to him, no matter what he did He was too absorbed, in the se triuain by crushing ulti across his back, the cracker crue in his robe, the pin hook for clih he already felt tired from the tremendous effort required to bend the pin (which he had done by shoving the point under the ce off a frag the water and the crackers and carrying everything to the foot of the cliff, he was too pleased to care He was alive, he was trying Suicide was a distant impossibility He wondered how he could ever have considered it

Excitement faded, almost died when he tilted back his head and looked up toward the soaring top of the lawn chairs as they leaned against the Everest heights of the wall Could he possibly clirily Don’t look, he ordered himself To look at the entire journey all at once was stupidity You thought of it in segment, the shelf Second, the seat of the first chair Third, the arm of the second chair Fourth He stood at the very botto else, he told hiet up there; that hat mattered

He remembered another tihts of it ran through his iant’s toy; a glowing, , incredible toy The Ferris wheel, like a vast white-and-orange gear, turned slowly against the black October sky Scarlet-lit Loop-the-Loop cages blurred across the night like shooting stars The ht, cacophonous , wild-eyed horses rising and falling, endlessly rising and falling, frozen in their galloping postures Tiny cars and trains and trolleys, likecircles, overflowing red-faced children aved and screaish currents of doll people who clustered like filings around the netism of barker stands, food concessions, and booths where balloons could be exploded with broken-feathered darts, wooden rimy baseballs, and pennies tossed upon ued clahts cast livid ribbons across the sky As they drove up, another car pulled away fro out the hand brake, and turned off the engine

"Mao-round, can I? " Beth asked excitedly

"Yes, dear" Lou spoke distractedly, her gaze , dwarfed in a shadowy corner of the back seat, the carnival glare splashed across his pale cheek, his eye like a tiny, dark berry, his ash

"You will stay in the car," she said worriedly

"What else can I do?"

"It’s for your own good," she said

It was a phrase she used all the time now; spoken with a hopeless patience, as if she could think of nothing better to say

"Sure," he said

"Mother, let’s go," Beth said with deterht" Lou pushed open the door "Push down your button," she said, and Beth punched down the knob-topped rod that locked the door on her side, then scrambled across the seat

"Maybe you’d better lock yourself in," Lou said

Scott didn’t speak His baby shoes thudded down slowly on the seat Lou ," she said, and she closed the door He stared at her shadowy figure as she twisted the key in the lock; he heard the button clicking down

Lou and Beth erly at her rounds

He sat for a while, wondering why he’d been so insistent on coo into the carnival with them The reason was obvious, but he wouldn’t admit it to himself He’d yelled at Lou to hide the shaive up her job at the lake store; the shame he felt because she had to stay hoet another sitter, because she’d had to write her parents and borrowwith them After a few minutes he stood up on the seat and walked over to theDragging a pillow over, he stepped on its yielding surface and pressed his nose against the coldHe stared at the carnival with hard, unenjoying eyes, looking for Lou and Beth; they had been ingested by the slowly , the little pivoted seats rocking back and forth, passengers holding on tight to the safety bars His gaze shifted to the Loop-the-Loop He watched it flip over, the two cage-tipped arone berserk He watched the o-round’s rhythrind-thump of its o, a boy named Scott Carey had sat on another Ferris wheel seat, transfixed with delicious terror, white knuckled hands clutched over the bar He had ridden other toy cars, twisting the steering wheel like a chauffeur He had, in a perfect agony of delight, flipped over and over in another Loop-the-Loop, feeling the frankfurters and popcorn and cotton candy and soda and ice crealittering unreality of another carnival, overjoyed with a life that built such wonders overnight on empty lots

Why should I stay in the car? The question ca satisfaction So what if people saw him? They’d think he was a lost baby And even if they kneho he hat difference did itto stay in the car, that’s all there was to it The only trouble was that he couldn’t open the door It was hard enough to push one of the front seats forward and claet the door handles up He kept jerking at theray-lined door and butted it with his shoulder

"Well, the hell" he muttered then, and ie a fewrestlessly The cold wind blew up his legs His shoes dru, I don’t care Abruptly he turned, lowered hiround Carefully he reached down one hand and caught hold of the outside door handle After a ers slipped off the sainst the side of the car Momentary fear nibbled coldly at his insides when he realized he couldn’t get back; but it passed quickly Louise would return soon enough He walked to the end of the car, jumped down the steep curb, and moved into the street

He flinched back as a car roared by It passed at least eight feet away fro Even the crisp sound of its tires on the pavement was inordinately loud in his ears When it was past he darted across the street, leaped up the knee-high curb, and raced around to a deserted area behind a tent He walked beside the dark, wind-stirred canvas wall, listening to the din of the carnival

A man came around the corner of the tent and started toward him Scott froze into i hi about people They did not look down expecting to see anything but dogs and cats

When thethrough the triangles the ropes round and the tent side

He stopped before a pale bar of light that poked out fro his path He looked at the loosened canvas, delicate exciteot on his knees, then fell forward on his chest on the cold ground, lifted the flap, and, wriggling forward a little, peered in He found hi at the hind end of a two-headed cow It was standing in a hay-strewn, rope enclosed square, staring at the people with four glossy eyes It was dead The first sht little face If he had jotted down a list of all the things in the world he ht have seen in this tent, soht conceivably have put a dead two-headed cow pointed the wrong way His gaze moved around the tent He couldn’t see as on the other side of the aisle; clustering people hid the view On his side, he saw a six-legged dog; (two of the legs atrophied stuoat with three legs and four horns, a pink horse, and a fat pig that had adopted a thin chicken He looked over the asse on his lips Monster show, he thought

And then the smile faded Because it had occurred to him how remarkable an exhibit he wouldand the dead two-headed cow Scott Carey, Hoht and stood up, brushing automatically at his corduroy rompers and jacket He should have stayed in the car; it had been stupid to leave

Yet he didn’t start back; he couldn’t ed past the end of the tent and saw people walking, heard the clatter of wooden bottles being struck by flying baseballs, the pop of rifles, and the tiny explosions of burst balloons He heard the dirge like grind of the h the back doorway of one of the booths He glanced at Scott Scott kept walking,quickly behind the next tent

"Hey, kid," he heard thefor a place to hide There was a trailer parked behind the tent He raced to it and crouched behind a thick-tired wheel, peering around the edge

Fifteen yards away he saw the man appear at the corner of the tent and, fists poked on hips, look around Then, after a few seconds, the runted and went away Scott stood up and started to leave the shadow of the trailer, then stopped Sorew taut-broith attention "If I loved you," sang the voice, "tiain I would try to say"

He moved from under the trailer and looked up at the white-curtained ing with light He could still hear the singing, faint and sweet He stared at the , feeling a strange restlessness The happy screairl in the Loop-the-Loop shook him loose from his reverie He started away from the trailer, then turned and went back He stood beside it until the song was ended Then he walked slowly around the trailer, looking up first at one , then at the other and wondering why he felt so drawn to that voice

Then he became fully conscious of the steps that led up to the ed door of the trailer, and convulsively he juht

His heart began to throb suddenly, his hand cla Breath shook in his shallow chest It couldn’t be!

He moved slowly up the steps until he stood just below the door that was only a little higher than he was There were some words painted under its , but he couldn’t read thes He couldn’t help himself; he moved up the last two steps and stood before the door

Breath stopped It was his world, his very oorld, chairs and a couch that he could sit on without being engulfed; tables he could stand beside and reach across instead of walk under; lamps he could switch on and off, not stand futilely beneath as if they were trees

She ca there

His sto blankly at the wo in his throat

The woainst her cheek, her eyes round and still with shock Time stood stricken and apart while she stared at him It’s a dream, his mind insisted It is a dream

Then the woman slowly, stiffly started for the door

He shrank away He al and jerked hiht as the wohtened whisper

He couldn’t take his eyes froile face; her doll-like nose and lips, her irises like pale-green beads, her ears like faded rose petals barely seen through hair of fine-spun gold

"Please," she said, holding the bodice of her robe together with tiny alabaster hands

"I’m Scott Carey," he said, his voice thin with shock

"Scott Carey," she said She didn’t know the name "Are you" She faltered "Are you likenow "Yes," he said "Yes"

"Oh" It was as if she breathed the word

They stared at each other

"I heard you singing," he said

"Yes, I-" A nervous smile twitched her pale lips "Please," she said, "Will you come in?" He stepped into the trailer without hesitation It was as though he’d known her all his life and had co journey He saw the words that were on the door: "Mrs Toe, black hunger

She closed the door and turned to face him

"I’m I was surprised," she said She shook her head and once ether the bodice of her yellow robe "It’s such a surprise," she said

"I know," he said He bit his lower lip "I’ her to know She didn’t speak for a long moment Then she said, "Oh," and he didn’t knohat it was he heard in her voice, whether it was disappoint

"My name is Clarice," the woo He couldn’t breathe right; air faltered in his lungs

"What are you doing here?" she asked, drawing back her hand He sed dryly "I ca at her with stark eyes that would not believe Then he saw a darkening flush creep into her cheeks and he sucked in a cal breath "I’m, I’estured helplessly-"haven’t seen anyone likemovements "I can’t tell you what it’s like"

"I know, I know," she answered quickly, looking intently at him "When-" She cleared her throat

"When I saw you at the door, I didn’t knohat to think" Her laugh was faint and tre my mind"

"You’re alone?" he asked suddenly

She stared at hi

"I mean your, your na that he had alarmed her Her face relaxed into its natural soft lines She smiled a sad smile "Oh," she said, "it’s what I’ed her small round shoulders "It’s just what they callto s the hard, dry luled like frozen fingers being thawed "I see," he said again They kept staring at each other as if they just couldn’t believe it was true

"I guess you read about me," he said

"Yes, I did," she answered "I’m sorry that"

He shook his head "It’s not iood to-" He stood entle eyes "Clarice," he ood to" His hands twitched as he repressed the desire to reach out and touch her "It was such a surprise seeing the, the rooed nervously- " vast things When I saw those steps leading up here"

"I’lad you caaze dropped froht disappear if she looked away too long

"It’s really an accident I’m here," she said "I don’t usually work the off seasons But the owner of this carnival is an old friend who’s feeling the pinch a little And well, I’lad I’m here"

They looked at each other steadily

"It’s a lonely life," he said