The Anything Box

'Mrs. Klevity.' My voice scared me in the silence, but I was feeling the
same sort of upsurge that catches you sometimes when you're playing-like and
it gets so real. 'Mrs. Klevity, if you've lost something, maybe I could look
for it for you.'
'You didn't find it last night,' she said.
'Find what?'
She lumbered to her feet. 'Let's look again. Everywhere. They'd surely be
able to locate the house.'
'What are we looking for?' I asked, searching the portable oven.
'You'll know it when we see it,' she said.
And we searched the whole house. Oh, such nice things! Blankets, not
tattered and worn, and even an extra one they didn't need. And towels with
washrags that matched—and weren't rags. And uncracked dishes that matched! And
glasses that weren't jars. And books. And money. Crisp new-looking bills in
the little box in the bottom drawer—pushed back under some extra pillowcases.
And clothes—lots and lots of clothes. All too big for any of us, of course,
but my practiced eye had already visualized this, that, and the other cut down
to dress us all like rich people.
I sighed as we sat wearily looking at one another. Imagine having so much
and still looking for something else! It was bedtime and all we had for our
pains were dirty hands and tired backs.
I scooted out to the bath house before I undressed. I gingerly washed the
dirt off my hands under the cold of the shower and shook them dry on the way
back to the house. Well, we had moved everything in the place, but nothing was
what Mrs. Klevity looked for.
Back in the bedroom, I groped under the bed for my jamas and again had to
lie flat and burrow under the bed for the tattered bag. Our moving around had
wedged it back between two cardboard cartons. I squirmed under farther and
tried to ease it out after shoving the two cartons a little farther apart. The
bag tore, spilling out my jamas, so I grasped them in the bend of my elbow and
started to back out.
Then the whole world seemed to explode into brightness that pulsated and
dazzled, that splashed brilliance into my astonished eyes until I winced them
shut to rest their seeing and saw the dark inversions of the radiance behind
my eyelids.
I forced my eyes open again and looked sideways so the edge of my seeing
was all I used until I got more accustomed to the glory.
Between the two cartons was an opening like a window would be, but little,
little, into a wonderland of things I could never tell. Colors that had no
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names. Feelings that made windy moonlight a puddle of dust. I felt tears burnout of my eyes and start down my cheeks, whether from brightness or wonder, Idon't know. I blinked them away and looked again.
Someone was in the brightness, several someones. They were leaning out ofthe squareness, beckoning and calling—silver signals and silver sounds.
'Mrs. Klevity,' I thought. 'Something bright.'
I took another good look at the shining people and the tree things thatwere like music bordering a road, and grass that was the song my evening grasshummed in the wind—a last, last look, and began to back out.
I scrambled to my feet, clutching my jamas. 'Mrs. Klevity.' She was stillsitting at the table, as solid as a pile of bricks, the sketched face underthe wild hair a sad, sad one.
'Yes, child.' She hardly heard herself.
'Something bright—' I said.
Her heavy head lifted slowly, her blind face turned to me. 'What, child?'
I felt my fingers bite into my jamas and the cords in my neck getting tightand my stomach clenching itself. 'Something bright!' I thought I screamed. Shedidn't move. I grabbed her arm and dragged her off balance in her chair.'Something bright!'
'Anna.' She righted herself on the chair. 'Don't be mean.'
I grabbed the bedspread and yanked it up. The light sprayed out like asprinkler on a lawn.
Then she screamed. She put both hands up her heavy face and screamed,'Leolienn! It's here! Hurry, hurry!'
'Mr. Klevity isn't here,' I said. 'He hasn't got back.'
'I can't go without him! Leolienn!'
'Leave a note!' I cried. 'If you're there, you can make them come backagain and I can show him the right place!' The upsurge had passed make-believeand everything was realer than real.
Then, quicker than I thought she ever could move, she got paper and apencil. She was scribbling away at the table as I stood there holding thespread. So I dropped to my knees and then to my stomach and crawled under thebed again. I filled my eyes with the brightness and beauty and saw, beyond it,serenity and orderliness and—and uncluttered cleanness. The miniaturelandscape was like a stage setting for a fairy tale— so small, so small— solovely.
And then Mrs. Klevity tugged at my ankle and I slid out, reluctantly,stretching my sight of the bright square until the falling of the spread brokeit. Mrs. Klevity worked her way under the bed, her breath coming pantingly,her big, ungainly body inching along awkwardly.
She crawled and crawled and crawled until she should have come up shortagainst the wall, and I knew she must be funnelling down into the brightness,her face, head and shoulders, so small, so lovely, like her silvery voice. Butthe rest of her, still gross and ugly, like a butterfly trying to skin out ofits cocoon.
Finally only her feet were sticking out from under the bed and theythrashed and waved and didn't go anywhere, so I got down on the floor and putmy feet against hers and braced myself against the dresser and pushed. Andpushed and pushed. Suddenly there was a going, a finishing, and my feetdropped to the floor.
There, almost under the bed, lay Mrs. Klevity's shabby old-lady blackshoes, toes pointing away from each other. I picked them up in my hands,wanting, somehow, to cry. Her saggy lisle stockings were still in the shoes.
Slowly I pulled all the clothes of Mrs. Klevity out from under the bed.They were held together by a thin skin, a sloughed-off leftover of Mrs.Klevity that only showed, gray and lifeless, where her bare hands and facewould have been, and her dull gray filmed eyes.
I let it crumple to the floor and sat there, holding one of her old shoesin my hand.
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The door rattled, and it was gray, old, wrinkled Mr. Klevity.
'Hello, child,' he said. 'Where's my wife?'
'She's gone,' I said, not looking at him. 'She left you a note there on the
table.'
'Gone—?' He left the word stranded in mid-air as he read Mrs. Klevity's
note.
The paper fluttered down. He yanked a dresser drawer open and snatched out
spool-looking things, both hands full. Then he practically dived under the
bed, his elbows thudding on the floor, to hurt hard. And there was only a
wiggle or two, and his shoes slumped away from each other.