The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright Read Free Book Online Page B

a sword.
    â€œOkay, Brünnhilde!” said Rush over his shoulder and beat it upstairs like anything. Willy was rapidly beating it downstairs at the same time.
    After lunch Rush had to hurry. Randy came in as he was furiously combing his hair and trying to make it lie flat.
    â€œWhat have you put on it now? ” asked Randy, sniffing curiously.
    â€œOn what? My hair? Oh, some of Mona’s face cream,” grinned Rush. “I thought maybe it would make it straight. But I guess it won’t.”
    â€œMona will kill you if she finds out. You’d better go before she gets a chance to smell you.”
    â€œAll right. So long, Ran.”
    â€œSo long, Rush. Have a good time.”
    It was beginning to snow but Rush got out before Cuffy could catch him and make him wear galoshes. He had to run most of the way for fear of being late, and arrived at the opera house red in the face and out of breath. He bought a ticket in the family circle for a dollar and a half and then climbed flight after flight of stairs. They were covered with soft red carpet, but still they were stairs. Whew, I’m kind of bushed, Rush thought to himself when he had finally stepped over feet and knees to the seat that was his: number A64—way over on the side. But he didn’t care; he was lucky to have that.
    After he had folded his coat and stuffed it under the seat with his cap he had time to look around. His seat was high up near the ceiling (like Willy’s), so he had a good view of everything, and it was all just as he had hoped it would be: plenty of gold, and red plush, and chandeliers, and splendor. The vast curtain was golden too, and shining with a costly luster. Little black-clad musicians were beginning to creep into the orchestra pit far below like ants into a sugar bowl. Rush leaned out over the sea in front of him, opened Father’s field glasses to which he had helped himself, and took a good look at the musicians. The man with the kettle drums kept tapping them anxiously and bending down to listen like a doctor listening to a heart; the violinists were talking together and gesturing either with a violin or a bow or both; and Rush watched a solemn man behind a bull fiddle open a little box, take out a pill and eat it. Above the voices of all the people in the place one could hear squeaks and scrapings, soft thumps, a toot of brass, a ripple of harp strings. Rush counted thirty-nine bald heads among the downstairs’ audience. He counted twenty-six brown fur coats on ladies in the boxes.
    Suddenly the lights were dimmed, and a small man came into the orchestra pit. There was a deluge of applause, the little man turned and bowed impatiently, turned back to the musicians, raised his baton, and the music began. The world faded away and was replaced by a strange legendary land of gods and goddesses and heroic adventure. The curtains parted and revealed a huge cave where a small bearded dwarf was working at an anvil. He looked exactly right, all bent double with age, and full of sly wickedness. But Siegfried wasn’t exactly the way Rush had expected him to be. He sang wonderfully, of course, but he was very fat, and when he was forging the sword he looked just like a good-natured cook making a cake. Rush sat back and listened; his mouth dropped open and his foot went to sleep without his ever noticing.
    After the first act was over and the singers had taken their bows the lights bloomed up all over the house, and Rush, following the crowd, found himself in an open space full of tobacco smoke and gabble. He was terribly thirsty but didn’t order anything to drink at the refreshment counter as he had only a dime left. So he contented himself with five paper cups of water.
    The second act was even better than the first. The scene disclosed a deep, wild forest, and the yawning black cavern mouth where Fafner, the dragon, lived. Alberich, another wicked dwarf, and the Wanderer, a god in disguise, met