The Cat's Pajamas

But then she remembered: No one will call Madeline and me now. Tell the Bell Company to pull the phone. There’s no one in town we know.

Be practical, Mother had said. Leave the phone itself here, in case we ever decide to reconnect.

“Operator!”

She threw the instrument down and blinked at it as if it were some stubborn beast she had asked to do the simplest trick. She glanced at the window. Push it up, lean out, scream! Ah, but the neighbors were locked in, warm and apart and separate and lost, and the wind screaming, too, and winter all around, and night. It would be like shouting to graveyards.

“Robert, Alice, Madeline, Robert, Alice, Madeline!”

The mother, screaming, blind idiocy.

“Lock my door! Robert, Alice, Madeline!”

I hear, thought Alice. We all hear. And he’ll hear her too.

She grabbed the second phone, gave its button three sharp jabs.

“Madeline, Alice, Robert!” Her voice blew through the halls.

“Mother!” cried Alice over the phone. “Don’t scream, don’t tell him where you are, don’t tell him what he doesn’t even know!” Alice jabbed the button again.

“Robert, Alice, Madeline!”

“Pick up the phone, Mother, please, pick—”

Click.

“Hello, Operator.” Her mother’s raw shrieking voice. “Save me! The locks!”

“Mother, this is Alice! Quiet, he’ll hear you!”

“Oh, God! Alice, oh God, the door! I can’t get out of bed! Silly, awful, all the locks and no way to get to them!”

“Put out your lamp!”

“Help me, Alice!”

“I am helping. Listen! Find your gun. Blow out your light. Hide under your bed! Do that!”

“Oh, God! Alice, come lock my door!”

“Mother, listen!”

“Alice, Alice!” Madeline’s voice. “What’s happened? I’m afraid!”

Another voice. “Alice!”

“Robert!”

They shrieked and yelled.

“No,” said Alice. “Quiet, one at a time! Before it’s too late. All of us. Do you hear? Get your guns, open your doors, come out in the hall. It’s us, all of us, against him. Yes?!”

Robert sobbed.

Madeline wailed.

“Alice, Madeline, children, save your mother!”