S Is for Space

“Yes, sir.”

“May we see her, sir?”

“Of course. Hey, Anna!”

Mrs. Kelly came to the door and looked out. “Yes, sir?”

“I beg your pardon,” apologized the officer. “We had a report that you were buried out in an empty lot, Mrs. Kelly. It sounded like a child made the call, but we had to be certain. Sorry to have troubled you.”

“It’s those blasted kids,” cried Mr. Kelly, angrily. “If I ever catch them, I’ll rip ’em limb from limb!”

“Cheezit!” said Dippy, and we both ran.

“What’ll we do now?” I said.

“I got to go home,” said Dippy. “Boy, we’re really in trouble. We’ll get a licking for this.”

“But what about the Screaming Woman?”

“To heck with her,” said Dippy. “We don’t dare go near that empty lot again. Old man Kelly’ll be waitin’ around with his razor strap and lambast heck out’n us. An’ I just happened to remember, Maggie. Ain’t old man Kelly sort of deaf, hard-of-hearing?”

“Oh, my gosh,” I said. “No wonder he didn’t hear the screams.”

“So long,” said Dippy. “We sure got in trouble over your darn old ventriloquist voice. I’ll be seeing you.”

I was left all alone in the world, no one to help me, no one to believe me at all. I just wanted to crawl down in that box with the Screaming Woman and die. The police were after me now, for lying to them, only I didn’t know it was a lie, and my father was probably looking for me, too, or would be once he found my bed empty. There was only one last thing to do, and I did it.

I went from house to house, all down the street, near the empty lot. And I rang every bell and when the door opened I said: “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Griswold, but is anyone missing from your house?” or “Hello, Mrs. Pikes, you’re looking fine today. Glad to see you home.” And once I saw that the lady of the house was home I just chatted a while to be polite, and went on down the street.

The hours were rolling along. It was getting late. I kept thinking, oh, there’s only so much air in that box with that woman under the earth, and if I don’t hurry, she’ll suffocate, and I got to rush! So I rang bells and knocked on doors, and it got later, and I was just about to give up and go home, when I knocked on the last door, which was the door of Mr. Charlie Nesbitt, who lives next to us. I kept knocking and knocking.

Instead of Mrs. Nesbitt, or Helen as my father calls her, coming to the door, why it was Mr. Nesbitt, Charlie, himself.

“Oh,” he said. “It’s you, Margaret.”

“Yes,” I said. “Good afternoon.”

“What can I do for you, kid?” he said.

“Well, I thought I’d like to see your wife, Mrs. Nesbitt,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.

“May I?”

“Well, she’s gone out to the store,” he said.

“I’ll wait,” I said, and slipped in past him.

“Hey,” he said.

I sat down in a chair. “My, it’s a hot day,” I said, trying to be calm, thinking about the empty lot and air going out of the box, and the screams getting weaker and weaker.

“Say, listen, kid,” said Charlie, coming over to me, “I don’t think you better wait.”

“Oh, sure,” I said. “Why not?”

“Well, my wife won’t be back,” he said.