Mr. Cooger, somewhere behind the eye slits, went blink-click with his insect-Kodak pupils. The lenses exploded like suns, then burnt chilly and serene again.
He swiveled his glance to Jim. Blink-click. He had Jim flexed, focussed, shot, developed, dried, filed away in dark. Blink-click.
Yet this was only a boy standing in a hall with two other boys and a woman....
And all the while Jim gazed steadily back, feathers unruffled, taking his own pictures of Robert.
"Have you boys had supper?" asked Miss Foley. "We're just sitting down--"
"We got to go!"
Everyone looked at Will as if amazed he didn't want to stick here forever.
"Jim--" he stammered. "Your mom's home alone--"
"Oh, sure," Jim said, reluctantly.
"I know what." The nephew paused for their attention. When their faces turned, Mr. Cooger inside the nephew went silently blink-click, blink-click, listening through the toy ears, watching through the toy-charm eyes, whetting the doll's mouth with a Pekingese tongue. "Join us later for dessert, huh?"
"Dessert?"
"I'm taking Aunt Willa to the carnival." The boy stroked Miss Foley's arm until she laughed nervously.
"Carnival?" cried Will, and lowered his voice. "Miss Foley, you said--"
"I said I was foolish and scared myself," said Miss Foley. "It's Saturday night, the best night for tent shows and showing my nephew the sights."
"Join us?" asked Robert, holding Miss Foley's hand. "Later?"
"Great!" said Jim.
"Jim," said Will. "We been out all day. Your mom's sick."
"I forgot." Jim flashed him a look filled with purest snake poison.
Flick. The nephew made an X-ray of both, showing them, no doubt, as cold bones trembling in warm flesh. He stuck out his hand.
"Tomorrow, then. Meet you by the side shows."
"Swell!" Jim grabbed the small hand.
"So long!" Will jumped out the door, then turned with a last agonized appeal to the teacher.
"Miss Foley ...?"
"Yes, Will?"
Don't go with that boy, he thought. Don't go near the shows. Stay home, oh, please! But then he said:
"Mr. Crosetti's dead."
She nodded, touched, waiting for his tears. And while she waited, he dragged Jim outside and the door swung shut on Miss Foley and the pink small face with the lenses in it going blink-click, snapshotting two incoherent boys, and them fumbling down the steps in October dark, while the merry-go-round started again in Will's head, rushing while the leaves in the trees above cracked and fried with wind. Aside, Will spluttered, "Jim, you shook hands with him! Mr. Cooger! You're not going to meet him!?"
"It's Mr. Cooger, all right. Boy, those eyes. If I met him tonight, we'd solve the whole shooting match. What's eating you, Will?"
"Eating me!" At the bottom of the steps now, they tussled in fierce and frantic whispers, glancing up at the empty windows where, now and again, a shadow passed. Will stopped. The mus
ic turned in his head. Stunned, he squinched his eyes. "Jim, the music that the calliope played when Mr. Cooger got younger--"