He was tired of them all. For a change why not some attention for himself? He could hear the party continuing downstairs. Slipping from bed, he listened against the door.
In the next hour he heard all varieties of feet upon the stairs, like heartbeats in the house. The crisp, snapping moves of Grandma and her pert cane feeling the layers of altitude. The shuffle of Uncle Flinny. The even long and easy stride of Dad. The glide of Mother. The nervous, uneasy tripping of Cousin William.
And there were voices talking, some arguing, some urging, others hysterical, mixed—Dad calm, Mother criticizing, Grandma stern, Cousin William whimpering, Uncle Flinny quiet. Once or twice the attic door creaked.
No one even came near Johnny’s room. The party still existed downstairs, unaware of all this badinage. Night was coming swiftly on with an autumn chill.
Finally it was quiet again. Johnny hurried up the dark, dusty stairs into the attic, heart beating quickly. He’d show them!
The trunk was not heavy, strangely enough. One could easily tip it toward the stairs, and the stairs led down to the landing. One more push from the landing and down, down, down into the living room. Yes. They’d have to believe him now!
Johnny tipped the trunk.
* * *
People were talking. Music was playing on the radio-phonograph. Mom and Dad mingled with the bright swarm, flames about which social moths beat their sophisticated wings.
It was in the very midst of these things that Johnny’s small voice made some sort of declaration from atop the hall staircase. He yelled loudly.
“Mom! Dad!”
Everybody turned and looked, as at a reception.
The woman
came down the stairs.
Somebody had to scream. It sounded almost like Cousin William. But everybody watched, falling back, as the woman came down the stairs in her filmy cocktail dress. Well, she didn’t exactly come down. She rolled.
Over and over, arms limp, legs limp, head bobbing, hair flailing in a dark whip, around and down, softly nudging the steps, jointless, boneless, and lifeless. When she reached the bottom Johnny was right after her.
“I told you, Mother! Dad, I found her again! I found her!”
He’d always and forever remember Mother’s face in that moment and the way she said his name. “Johnny…!” And the way she struck him across the face.
Someone said, “Call the police!”
Someone else had the phone, ticking it. Dad’s face was like a wet gray calm, suddenly old and tired. Johnny fell back from Mother’s blow, holding to the banister. He thought She’s never hit me before. Never before. Always kind and good, thoughtless at times, maybe, but she never went and hit me before today.
Then it happened. Everybody began laughing. Somebody pointed at the body, their faces got red, and they laughed. Dad laughed, too, with everything but his eyes.
“I’ll be damned,” someone said. “So that’s the body the child found upstairs?”
“A mannequin!” someone declared.
“Of course. A store-window dummy. Easy to see how a child might think it a body.” Again, laughter. Lots of it.
“A mannequin.” The laughter grew and grew upon itself.
Johnny, trembling, crept and bent and touched the outflung hand, pulled away, touched it again, felt tremblingly the hard cold plastic.
“That’s not the body,” he said, looking up, bewildered. He shook his head, moving back. “That’s not the body at all,” he said. “The other body was different. Warmish and soft. It was a real woman!”
“Johnny!”
Dad had stopped smiling. Mother clenched a fist with white knuckles.
Johnny said, “Just the same, it’s not the one!” He began to cry. Tears came as on the windshield of a car in a storm, erasing the world in wet portions. “Just the same, she was dead and she wasn’t made of plaster!”