The House with a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs Read Free Book Online Page B

Uncle Jonathan’s back yard came to life. It was full of strange sights and sounds. The grass glowed a phosphorescent green, and red worms wriggled through the tall blades with a hushing sound. Strange insects dropped down out of the overhanging boughs of the willow tree and started to dance on the picnic table. They waltzed and wiggled in a shaking blue light, and the music they danced to, faint though it was, sounded to Lewis like “Rugbug,” the famous fox trot composed by Maxine Hollister. This was one of the tunes that Jonathan’s parlor organ played.
    Uncle Jonathan walked over to the tulip bed, put his ear to the ground, and listened. He motioned for the others to join him. Lewis put his ear to the damp earth, and he heard strange things. He heard the noise that earthworms make as they slowly inch along, breaking hard black clods with their blunt heads. He heard the secret inwound conversations of bulbs and roots, and the breathing of flowers. And Lewis knew strange things, without knowing how he came to know them. He knew that there was a cat named Texaco buried in the patch of ground he knelt on. Its delicate ivory skeleton was falling slowly to pieces down there, and its dank fur was shrivelled and matted and rotten. The boy who had buried the cat had buried a sand pail full of shells near it. Lewis did not know the name of the boy, or how long ago he had buried the cat and the pail, but he could see the red and blue pail clearly. Blotches of brown rustwere eating up the bright designs, and the shells were covered with green mold.
    After a long while, Lewis sat up and looked around. Tarby was kneeling near him, his ear to the ground and his eyes wide with wonder. But where was Uncle Jonathan? Where, for that matter, was Mrs. Zimmermann? At the far end of the yard, in the shadow of the four elm trees, Lewis thought he saw them moving around. He tapped Tarby on the shoulder, pointed, and the two boys silently got up and went to join the magicians.
    When they found them, Jonathan was arguing with Mrs. Zimmermann, who argued right back, though her ear was pressed flat to the ground.
    “I say it’s the old storm sewer system,” she muttered. “It was lost track of in 1868 because the charts got thrown out with the wastepaper.”
    “Well, you can think what you like, Frizzy Wig,” said Jonathan as he knelt down for another listen. “
I
say it’s an underground stream. Capharnaum County is full of them, and it would account for the fact that Sin-and-Flesh Creek is much bigger when it leaves New Zebedee than it is when it enters it.”
    “You’re full of beans, Fatso,” said Mrs. Zimmermann, whose ear was still pressed to the ground. “I think I know the sound of water rushing through a brick tunnel. It’s all vaulty and hollow.”
    “Like your head?”
    Lewis and Tarby pressed their ears to the ground, butall they could hear was a sound like the one you hear when you press your ear against an inner tube that you are floating on in a lake. Lewis felt very excited. He wanted to be all over the garden at once, touching things and smelling them and listening. The magic in the back yard lasted for over an hour. Then the phosphorescence changed to plain old ordinary moonlight, and the moon floated high overhead, free from enchantments.
    As they walked back into the house, Lewis asked his uncle if the police department didn’t get mad when he eclipsed the moon. Jonathan chuckled and put his arm around Lewis.
    “No,” he said, “strangely enough they don’t. I’ve never been quite sure why, but maybe it’s because the eclipse is only visible in this yard.”
    “You mean it’s not real?”
    “Of course, it’s real. You saw it, didn’t you? But one of the troubles with human beings is that they can only see out of their own eyes. If I could be two people, I’d station the other me across town to see if the eclipse was operating over there.”
    “Why don’t you ask Mrs. Zimmermann to go