have to settle for less.' My voice shook a little. 'There isn't one like that.' 'But I've heard it-' He was bewildered. 'Maybe you have. But was anyone playing it?' 'Why yes-no. I used to hear it from Mom. She thought it to me,' 'Where did your mom come from?' I asked impulsively. 'From terror and from panic places. From hunger and from hiding-to live midway between madness and the dream-' He looked at me, his mouth drooping a little. 'She promised me I'd understand someday, but this is someday and she's gone.' 'Yes,' I sighed, remembering how once I had dreamed that someday I'd run again. 'But there are other somedays ahead-for you.' 'Yes,' he said. 'And time hasn't stopped for you either.' .And he was gone. I looked after him. 'Doggone!' I thought. 'There I go again, talking to him as though he made sense!' I poked the end of my crutch in the damp earth three times, making interlacing circles. Then with quickened interest I poked the boulder that had rolled up out of the slight hollow before the crutch tip had landed there. 'Son-a-gun!' I cried aloud. 'Well, son-a-gun!' Next morning at five of nine the kids were waiting for me at the door to the hall, huddled against the October chill that the milky sun hadn't yet had time to disperse. Rigo had a shaky old ladder with two broken rungs and splashes of old paint gumming it liberally. 'That looks awfully rickety,' I said. 'We don't want any blood spilled on our dance floor. It's bad for the wax.' Rigo grinned. 'It'll hold me up,' he said. 'I used it last night to pick apples. You just have to be kinda careful.' 'Well, be so then,' I smiled, unlocking the door. 'Better safe than-' My words faltered and died as I gaped in at the open door. The others pushed in around me, round-eyed and momentarily silenced. My first wild impression was that the ceiling had fallen in. 'My gorsh!' Janniset gasped. 'what hit this place?' 'Just look at it!' Twyla shrilled. 'Hey! Just look at it!' We looked as we scuffled forward. Every single piece of paper was gone from the ceiling and walls. Every scrap of paper was on the floor, in tiny twisted confetti-sized pieces like a tattered faded snowfall, all over the floor. There must have been an incredible amount of paper tangled in the decorations, because we waded wonderingly almost ankle-deep through it. 'Looky here!' Rigo was staring at the front of the bandstand. Lined up neatly across the front stood all the nails that had been pulled out of the decorations, each balanced precisely on its head. Twyla frowned and bit her lip. 'It scares me,' she said. 'It doesn't feel right. It looks like somebody was mad or crazy-like they tore up the paper wishing they was killing something. And then to put all those nails so-so even and careful, like they had been put down gently-that looks madder than the paper.' She reached over and swept her finger sideways, wincing as though she expected a shock. A section of the nails toppled with faint pings on the bare boards of the stand. In a sudden flurry Twyla swept all the nails over. 'There!' she said, wiping her finger on her dress. 'Now it's all crazy.' 'Well,' I said, 'crazy or not, somebody's saved us a lot of trouble. Rigo, we won't need your ladder. Get the brooms and let's get this mess swept out.' While they were gone for the brooms I picked up two nails and clicked them together in a metrical cadence: 'Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling-' By noon we had the place scrubbed out and fairly glistening through its shabby paint. By evening we had the crisp new orange-and-black decorations up, low down and with thumbtacks, and all sighed with tired satisfaction at how good the place looked. As we locked up Twyla suddenly said in a small voice, 'What if it happens again before the dance Friday? All our work-' 'It won't,' I promised. 'It won't.' In spite of my hanging back and trying the lock a couple of times Twyla was still waiting when I turned away from the door. She was examining the end of her braid carefully as she said, 'It was him, wasn't it?'' 'Yes, I suppose so.' 'How did he do it?' 'You've known him longer than I have. How did he do it?' 'Nobody knows the Francher kid,' she said. Then softly, 'He looked at me once, really looked at me. He's funny-but not to laugh,' she hastened. 'When he looks at me it-' her hand tightened on her braid until her head tilted and she glanced up slantingly at me, 'it makes music in me. 'You know,' she said quickly into the echo of her unorthodox words, 'you're kinda like him. He makes me think things and believe things I wouldn't ever by myself. You make me say things I wouldn't ever by myself no, that's not quite fight. You let me say things I wouldn't dare to say to anyone else.' 'Thank you,' I said. 'Thank you, Twyla.' I had forgotten the trembling glamor of a teen-age dance. I had forgotten the cautious stilted gait of high heels on loafer-type feet. I had forgotten how the look of maturity could be put on with a tie and sport jacket and how-how peoplelike teen-agers could look when divorced for a while from Levi's and flannel shirts. Janniset could hardly contain himself for his own splendor and turned not a hair of his incredibly polished head when I smiled my 'Good evening, Mr. Janniset.' But in his pleased satisfaction at my formality he forgot himself as he turned away and hoisted up his sharply creased trousers as though they were his old Levi's. Rigo was stunning in his Latin handsomeness, and he and Angie so drowned in each other's dark eyes that I could see why our Mexican youngsters usually marry so young. And Angie! Well, she didn't look like any eighth grader-her strapless gown, her dangly earrings, her laughing flirtatious eyes-but taken out of the context and custom and tradition she was breath-takingly lovely. Of course it was on her 'unsuitable for her age' dress and jewelry and make-up that the long line of mothers and aunts and grandmothers fixed disapproving eyes, but I'd be willing to bet that there were plenty who wished their own children could look as lovely. In this small community the girls always dressed up to the hilt at the least provocation, and the Hallowe'en dance was usually the first event of the fall that could serve as an excuse. Crinolined skirts belled like blossoms across the floor above the glitter of high heels, but it was only a matter of a few minutes before the shoes were kicked off, to toe in together forlornly under a chair or dangle from some motherly forefinger while unprotected toes braved the brogans of the boys. Twyla was bright-checked and laughing, dance after dance, until the first intermission. She and Janniset brought me punch where I sat among the other spectators; then Janniset skidded off across the floor, balancing his paper cup precariously as he went to take another look at Marty, who at school was only a girl but here, all dressed up, was dawn of woman-wonder for him. Twyla gulped her punch hastily and then licked the corners of her mouth. 'He isn't here,' she said huskily. 'I'm sorry,' I said. 'l wanted him to have fun with the rest of you. Maybe he'll come yet.' 'Maybe.' She twisted her cup slowly, then hastily shoved it under the chair as it threatened to drip on her dress. 'That's a beautiful dress,' I said. 'I love the way your petticoat shows red against the blue when you whirl.' 'Thank you.' She smoothed the billowing of her skirt. 'I feel funny with sleeves. None of the others have them. That's why he didn't come, I bet. Not having any dress-up clothes like the others, I mean. Nothing but Levi's.' 'Oh, that's a shame. If I had known-' 'No. Mrs. McVey is supposed to buy his clothes. She gets money for them. All she does is sit around and talk about how much she sacrifices to take care of the Francher kid and she doesn't take care of him at all. It's her fault-' 'Let's not be too critical of others. There may be circumstances we know nothing of-and besides-' I nodded my head, 'he's here now.'
