The Children's Crusade by Ann Packer Read Free Book Online Page A

ba-bump. He said:
    James James
    Morrison Morrison
    Weatherby George Dupree
    Took great
    Care of his Mother,
    Though he was only three.
    James James
    Said to his Mother,
    “Mother,” he said, said he;
    “You must never go down
    to the end of the town
    if you don’t go down with me.”
    “You must never go down,” James said.
    “You must never go down,” his father said, “to the end of the town if you don’t go down with me .” On the final “me” he gave James an extra bump, and James slid off his lap and ran onto the grass, where he sped around in circles until he fell, dizzy, onto the ground.
    “To work,” Bill said, getting to his feet.
    • • •
    All afternoon the children avoided their mother: moving from room to room, or from indoors to outdoors, a step or two ahead of her. They joined together occasionally, all except Robert, but they didn’t gather again until their father returned. By then it was late afternoon; when they stood on the driveway, their shadows stretched from their feet nearly to the house. Robert’s stomach hurt most when he stood up straight, so he walked bent over at the waist, hobbling like an old man. Their father had eight bags of ice, and they each took one from the trunk of his car and carried it to the deep freeze in the garage—each except James, who ran from one sibling to another, touching the bags of ice and yipping with something that wasn’t quite shock and wasn’t quite laughter.
    “I think baths might be in order,” their father said. “Or showers, as the case may be,” he added, giving Robert a look that acknowledged his seniority.
    Normally this would have pleased Robert, but he was too worried to smile or even nod. The others dashed toward the laundry room door, conscious of an earlier dictum of their mother’s that they avoid the other entrances to the house for the rest of the afternoon, since she had “done” them already and didn’t want to have to “do” them again. Robert trudged after them.
    His watch was gone. He had been everywhere, retraced every step from his room to the piano to the spur; he had searched and searched, bent over examining every inch of the house and every inch of the ground. And now he was bent over again, not searching but shuffling in pain.
    In his room, he looked in his desk again, just in case he was wrong in remembering that he had already looked there, but to no avail. With no choice but to search outside a fourth time, he left his room and headed back to the laundry room, almost literally bumping into his father as he came in.
    “Line for the tub?” his father said.
    “What?”
    “There’s hot water to go around. I’ll bathe James and call you when we’re finished.”
    “Okay.”
    With Robert gone, Bill took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was 4:55 and the party started at 6:00. Early in the summer he’d suggested they have the party on a Saturday this year, so he could help more, but Penny had insisted that it was a weekday kind of party—that a Saturday party was a different sort of thing and would change the guests’ expectations and her ability to deliver.
    He found the children’s bathroom door closed and tapped at it. “Is that you in there, Rebeck?”
    “Dad, can you come in?”
    He opened the door and poked his head in. Rebecca was in the tub, slouched so that the ends of her braids skimmed the water. With her left forefinger she was stroking her right palm, which was a little red and raw from her work with the bench.
    “Can you pass me the good-smelling soap?” she said.
    Penny had cleaned, leaving the countertop sparkling and fresh hand towels on the rack, but there was no soap in sight.
    “I’m not sure where . . .”
    “Maybe the medicine cabinet?”
    He opened the cabinet only to have three bars of soap and a glass bottle of cough medicine come tumbling out.
    “Oh, oops, whoops,” he said, slapping at the soaps but slowing the bottle enough that it landed gently and