The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright Read Free Book Online

reflected light. The shop windows were lighted too. In one bright rectangle floated a mannequin in a dress of green spangles, exactly like a captured mermaid in an aquarium.
    â€œI go up and you go downtown,” said Mrs. Oliphant when they came to Fifth Avenue. She held out her hand. “Thank you for coming to tea.”
    â€œOh, thank you very much for inviting me,” said Randy. “Could I—would you let me come to see you someday?”
    The old lady looked pleased. “Do come, child. Come by all means, and I’ll show you the brass earrings Zenaïda made me wear. I kept them for luck. I have a lot of interesting things: Javanese puppets, and a poison ring, and a beetle carved out of an emerald, and the tooth of a czarina—”
    â€œThe tooth of a czarina!” cried Randy, stopping dead.
    â€œThat’s another story, my dear,” said the old lady exasperatingly. A big Brontosaurus of a bus clattered to a pause. “This is mine,” said Mrs. Oliphant, climbing on it and waving her hand. “Good-bye, Miranda!”
    Randy crossed the street and boarded a big Stegosaurus going the other way.
    At home she went straight to Rush’s room. He was having a peaceful half hour before dinner reading, with his feet on the radiator and the radio going full blast. A voice that made all the furniture tremble was describing the excellence of a certain kind of hair tonic.
    â€œAre you worried by the possibility of premature baldness?” inquired the voice in intimately confidential tones that could be heard a block away. “Does it trouble you to see your once luxuriant hair thinning out—”
    Randy snapped off the radio. “You don’t have to worry about that yet awhile,” she said.
    Rush looked up from his book. “Huh? Oh, hello. Have a good time?”
    â€œWonderful. Guess who I met?”
    â€œMickey Rooney,” said Rush.
    â€œNo, silly. The Elephant. Only I’m never going to call her that again.”
    â€œOh, just the Elephant.” Rush was disappointed.
    â€œNot just the Elephant. She’s swell, she’s a friend of mine now, and I’m going to see her. She was kidnaped by gypsies and lived with them for weeks.”
    â€œRecently?” inquired Rush, startled.
    â€œNo, no. Years ago when she was a little girl in France. I’ll tell you about it after dinner. And look, she sent you these. All of you I mean.”
    â€œWhat are they?” said Rush, taking a bite.
    â€œPitty foors,” said Randy. “I think it’s French. For cakes, probably.”
    â€œPitty foors,” repeated Rush mellowly, through chocolate custard. “Not bad, not bad at all. So she was kidnaped by gypsies, was she? Do you think the El—Mrs. Oliphant would care to have me come along with you when you go calling on her?”
    â€œI know she would,” said Randy. “And, Rush, let’s go soon and often.”

CHAPTER III
    Saturday Three
    â€œI can’t say I care much for opry,” said Willy Sloper after a considering silence. His voice sounded a little different than usual as he was lying flat on his back under the second-floor bathroom basin. The joint leaked. Like everything else about the house: the creaking, trembling stairs, the peeling wallpaper, and the unobliging furnace, the plumbing had lost its youthful bloom and efficiency long ago. The joints leaked, the hot-water faucets were likely to hiccup, and hot water to come out in brief scalding bursts, while the cold-water faucet in the Office bathroom could never be turned off entirely, but dripped all day and all night, like the moisture on a dungeon wall, wearing a rusty path on the enamel.
    â€œNo, I don’t care much about opry,” repeated Willy. “Hand me the wrench, Rush. No, not that one, the other one.”
    Rush, crouching by the tool kit, looked doubtfully at Willy’s faded trousers and warped old