Owen had a way of gliding across stage; he several times startled Mr. Fish, who kept losing his sense of where Owen was. When Owen pointed, it was all of a sudden, a convulsive, twitchy movement—his small, white hand flashing out of the folds of the cloak, which he flapped. He could glide slowly, like a skater running out of momentum; but he could also skitter with a bat’s repellent quickness.
At Scrooge’s grave, Mr. Fish said: “‘Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be or are they shadows of the things that May be, only?’”
As never before, this question seemed to seize the attention of every amateur among The Gravesend Players; even Mr. Fish appeared to be mortally interested in the answer. But the midget Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come was inexorable; the tiny phantom’s indifference to the question made Dan Needham shiver.
It was then that Mr. Fish approached close enough to the gravestone to read his own name thereon. “‘Ebenezer Scrooge … am I that man?’” Mr. Fish cried, falling to his knees. It was from the perspective of his knees—when Mr. Fish’s head was only slightly above Owen Meany’s—that Mr. Fish received his first full look at the averted face under the hood. Mr. Fish did not laugh; he screamed.
He was supposed to say, “‘No, Spirit! Oh, no, no! Spirit, hear me! I am not the man I was!’” And so on and so forth. But Mr. Fish simply screamed. He pulled his hands so fiercely away from Owen’s cowl that the hood was yanked off Owen’s head, revealing him to the other members of the cast—several of them screamed, too; no one laughed.
“It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, just to remember it!” Dan told us, over dinner.
“I’m not surprised,” my grandmother said.
After dinner, Mr. Fish made a somewhat subdued appearance.
“Well, at least we’ve got one good ghost,” Mr. Fish said. “It makes my job a lot easier, really,” he rationalized. “The little fellow is quite effective, quite effective. It will be interesting to see his … effect on an audience.”
“We’ve already seen it,” Dan reminded him.
“Well, yes,” Mr. Fish agreed hastily; he looked worried.
“Someone told me that Mr. Early’s daughter wet her pants,” Dan informed us.
“I’m not surprised,” my grandmother said. Germaine, clearing one teaspoon at a time, appeared ready to wet hers.
“Perhaps you might hold him back a little?” Mr. Fish suggested to Dan.
“Hold him back?” Dan asked.
“Well, get him to restrain whatever it is he does,” Mr. Fish said.
“I’m not at all sure what it is he does,” Dan said.
“I’m not either,” Mr. Fish said. “It’s just … so disturbing.”
“Perhaps, when people are sitting back a few rows—in the audience, I mean—it won’t be quite so … upsetting,” Dan said.
“Do you think so?” Mr. Fish asked.
“Not really,” Dan admitted.
“What if we saw his face—from the beginning?” Mr. Fish suggested.
“If you don’t pull his hood off, we’ll never see his face,” Dan pointed out to Mr. Fish. “I think that will be better.”
“Yes, much better,” Mr. Fish agreed.
Mr. Meany dropped Owen off at 80 Front Street—so he could spend the night. Mr. Meany knew that my grandmother resented the racket his truck made in the driveway; that was why we didn’t hear him come and go—he let Owen out of the cab on Front Street.
It was quite magical; I mean, the timing: Mr. Fish saying good night, opening the door to leave—precisely at the same time as Owen was reaching to ring the doorbell. My grandmother, at that instant, turned on the porch light; Owen blinked into the light. From under his red-and-black-checkered hunter’s cap, his small, sharp face stared up at Mr. Fish—like the face of a possum caught in a flashlight. A dull, yellowish bruise, the sheen of tarnished silver, marked Owen’s cheek—where the Brinker-Smiths’ mobile bed had struck him—giving him a cadaver’s uneven color. Mr. Fish leaped backward, into the hall.
“Speak of the Devil,” Dan said, smiling. Owen smiled back—at us all.
“I GUESS YOU HEARD—I GOT THE PART!” he said to my grandmother and me.
“I’m not surprised, Owen,” my grandmother said. “Won’t you come in?” She actually held the door open for him; she even managed a charming curtsy—inappropriately girlish, but Harriet Wheelwright was gifted with those essentially regal properties that make the inappropriate gesture work … those being facetiousness and sarcasm.
Owen Meany did not miss the irony in my grandmother’s voice; yet he beamed at her—and he returned her curtsy with a confident bow, and with a little tip of his red-and-black-checkered hunter’s cap. Owen had triumphed, and he knew it; my grandmother knew it, too. Even Harriet Wheelwright—with her Mayflower indifference toward the Meanys of this world—even my grandmother knew that there was more to The Granite Mouse than met the eye.