Clarissa was eight years old and much given to uncanny suspicions.
“Clementine, Harold, Corinne, Jimmy, Cyril,” he asked the five younger Willoughby children. “Do you know what happened to that fire plug?”
“There was a man around yesterday. I bet he took it,” said Clementine.
“I don’t even remember a fire plug there. I think you’re making a lot of fuss about nothing,” said Harold.
“City hall’s going to hear about this,” said Corinne.
“Pretty dommed sure,” said Jimmy, “but I wont tell.”
“Cyril!” cried Officer Comstock in a terrible voice. Not a terrifying voice, a terrible voice. He felt terrible now.
“Great green bananas,” said Cyril, “I’m only three years old. I don’t see how it’s even my responsibility.”
“Clarence,” said Officer Comstock.
Clarence gulped.
“Do you know where that fire plug went?”
Clarence brightened. “No, sir. I don’t know where it went.”
A bunch of smart alecs from the water department came out and shut off the water for a few blocks around and put some kind of cap on in place of the fire plug. “This sure is going to be a funny-sounding report,” said one of them.
Officer Comstock walked away discouraged. “Don’t bother me, Miss Manners,” he said. “I don’t know where to look for your cat. I don’t even know where to look for a fire plug.”
“I have an idea,” said Clarissa, “that when you find the cat you will find the fire plug the same place. As yet it is only an idea.”
Ozzie Murphy wore a little hat on top of his head. Clarence pointed his weapon and winked. The hat was no longer there, but a little trickle of blood was running down the pate.
“I don’t believe I’d play with that any more,” said Nokomis.
“Who’s playing?” said Clarence. “This is for real.”
This was the beginning of the seven-day terror in the heretofore obscure neighborhood. Trees disappeared from the parkings; lamp posts were as though they had never been; Wally Waldorf drove home, got out, slammed the door of his car, and there was no car. As George Mullendorf came up the walk to his house his dog Pete ran to meet him and took a flying leap to his arms. The dog left the sidewalk but something happened; the dog was gone and only a bark lingered for a moment in the puzzled air.
But the worst were the fire plugs. The second plug was installed the morning after the disappearance of the first. In eight minutes it was gone and the flood waters returned. Another one was in by twelve o’clock. Within three minutes it had vanished. The next morning fire plug number four was installed.
The water commissioner was there, the city engineer was there, the chief of police was there with a riot squad, the president of the parent-teachers association was there, the president of the University was there, the mayor was there, three gentlemen of the F.B.I., a newsreel photographer, eminent scientists and a crowd of honest citizens.
“Let’s see it disappear now,” said the city engineer.
“Let’s see it disappear now,” said the police chief.
“Let’s see it disa—it did, didn’t it?” said one of the eminent scientists.
And it was gone and everybody was very wet.
“At least I have the picture sequence of the year,” said the photographer. But his camera and apparatus disappeared from the midst of them.
“Shut off the water and cap it,” said the commissioner. “And don’t put in another plug yet. That was the last plug in the warehouse.”
“This is too big for me,” said the mayor. “I wonder that Tass doesn’t have it yet.”
“Tass has it,” said a little round man. “I am Tass.”
“If all of you gentlemen will come into the Plugged Nickel,” said Nokomis, “and try one of our new Fire Hydrant Highballs you will all be happier. These are made of good corn whisky, brown sugar and hydrant water from this very gutter. You can be the first to drink them.”
Business was phenomenal at the Plugged Nickel, for it was in front of its very doors that the fire plugs disappeared in floods of gushing water.
“I know a way we can get rich,” said Clarissa several days later to her father, Tom Willoughby. “Everybody says they’re going to sell their houses for nothing and move out of the neighborhood. Go get a lot of money and buy them all. Then you can sell them again and get rich.”
“I wouldn’t buy them for a dollar each. Three of them have disappeared already, and all the families but us have their furniture moved out in their front yards. There might be nothing but vacant lots in the morning.”
“Good, then buy the vacant lots. And you can be ready when the houses come back.”
“Come back? Are the houses going to come back? Do you know anything about this, young lady?”
“I have a suspicion verging on a certainty. As of now I can say no more.”
Three eminent scientists were gathered in an untidy suite that looked as though it belonged to a drunken sultan.
“This transcends the metaphysical. It impinges on the quantum continuum. In some ways it obsoletes Boff,” said Dr. Velikof Vonk.
“The contingence on the intransigence is the most mystifying aspect,” said Arpad Arkabaranan.
“Yes,” said Willy McGilly. “Who would have thought that you could do it with a beer can and two pieces of cardboard? When I was a boy I used an oatmeal box and red crayola.”
“I do not always follow you,” said Dr. Vonk. “I wish you would speak plainer.”
So far no human had been injured or disappeared—except for a little blood on the pate of Ozzie Murphy, on the lobes of Conchita when her gaudy earrings disappeared from her very ears, a clipped finger or so when a house vanished as the front door knob was touched, a lost toe when a neighborhood boy kicked at a can and the can was not; probably not more than a pint of blood and three or four ounces of flesh all together.
Now, however, Mr. Buckle the grocery man
