Revenge of the Manitou

FIVE

At school that day, Mrs. Novato noticed that her class was curiously quiet and diffident. They went through their morning’s lessons without any fidgeting or misbehaving, and filed out for their lunch break in an orderly way. She sat at her desk, watching them through the window, wondering what it was about them that disturbed her so much.

It was only when she saw them gathered at the far end of the school yard, talking solemnly among themselves, that she realized what it was. None of them had laughed all day. None of them had smiled.

She got up from her seat and walked to the window, eating an apple. She hoped they weren’t catching anything. It was the class outing to Lake Berryessa on Monday, and she didn’t want to have it spoiled by colds or flu.

She was curious to see what the children were doing. Normally, they ran around the yard, playing tag or ball. But today they were standing in a circle, all by themselves, and they had linked arms. They were circling around and around, their feet shuffling as if they were dancing. She had never seen children do anything like that before, and she found it strangely upsetting.

A gray cloud crossed the sun, and the school yard went dull. But’ the children continued to shuffle and sway, and she was sure she could hear them singing.

At that moment, Mr. Saperstein, the visiting music teacher, came in through the school porch and waved a hand to Mrs. Novato in greeting. He was wearing his frayed Panama hat and his frayed linen suit, and he had a camera slung over one shoulder and a flute case over the other.

“Hello, Mrs. Novato. How are you getting along? Doesn’t the weather get worse every year? It’s the Russians and their magnetic fields. We should tell them to stop or pay the price.”

Mrs. Novato was frowning as she stared at the children, and she didn’t answer. Out in the hall, Mr. Saperstein paused, and then came into her classroom and said,

“What’s so fascinating? I could have walked in naked.”

Mrs. Novato looked at him quickly and smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just fascinated by what my class is doing.”

Mr. Saperstein raised his spectacles and squinted out into the dull sunlight.

“They’re dancing, aren’t they?” he said. “What’s so strange about that?”

“It might not have been strange in the days of square dances and folk festivals,” said Mrs. Novato, “but these children have never danced like that before in their whole lives. They don’t know how.”

Mr. Saperstein shrugged. “They obviously do, or they wouldn’t be doing it. It’s interesting, though. It looks like a Greek folk dance. The way they’re all holding on to each other’s shoulders and jogging around like that.”

He took his camera off his shoulder, made some fussy adjustments for the distance and the light, and then took three pictures of the children as they hopped and danced around.

“I have some reference books on folk dancing at home,” he said. “When I have these developed, I’ll see if that dance looks anything like one of the old-time Greek or Mexican dances. Maybe the children inherited some kind of folk memory. You never know.”

Mrs. Novato nodded absentmindedly. “Thank you, Mr. Saperstein. Td be interested to find out”

The dance broke up almost as quickly as it had begun, and for a while, the children wandered around the school yard, talking quietly or playing games. Today, they kept apart from children from other classes, and if a teacher appeared in the yard, they seemed to turn away and shun her.

Over by the wall of the kindergarten annex, under the shade of a maple, Toby was talking to his best friend, Linus Hopland, while Andy Beaver and Ben Nichelini were squatting beside them drawing patterns in the dust with pointed sticks.

“My daddy almost burned the house down last night,” said Toby. “He was trying to break up this old wardrobe in my room, and he burned it right on the rug. You should have seen my room.”

“Is your old man crazy?” asked Linus, scratching his bright red hair.

“My pa says he is,” put in Andy. “My pa says your pa’s gone bananas. He says your pa was up at police headquarters yesterday, trying to talk George Murray into chasing after ghosts.”

“I don’t think my daddy’s crazy,” said Toby, simply. He spoke with unusual seriousness, and his eyes seemed glazed, as if he were thinking about something else altogether. “I think he’s land of nosy, that’s all. He should learn to keep out of things that don’t concern him.”

“All parents are like that,” said Debbie Spurr, coming across the yard with her yo-yo.

“My mom said that if I had any more dreams, she was going to take me to see a psychiatrist. So all I do now is tell her I don’t dream anymore. Parents are real dumb when you think about it.”

“I think the dreams are good,” said Ben Nichelini. “I had a dream about this man cutting up these women, cutting them into pieces. He cut them right open, tummies and everything, and they were still alive.”

Debbie sat down beside Toby and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was pale today, and distracted, and she looked waiflike in her thin blue gingham dress. “The dreams are important,” she said. “If we didn’t have the dreams, we wouldn’t know how important we are. We’re important.”

“It’s the blood I like,” said Andy. “Sometimes there’s nothing but blood, and you know it’s their blood, and not yours, and you can practically feel it, it’s all sticky and warm.

We were strong on the day that happened. We felt how strong we were. We knew we could kill them if we tried. I can’t wait for it to happen again.”

Toby said, “We mustn’t speak of it. The time is close. We must join ourselves by the spell of the tree demons before we can act together. Where are the lizards?”

“Daniel and John are bringing them,” said Andy.

“They were out last night collecting them, too. They’ve got a whole boxful.”

Toby looked up at the school clock. “They must hurry. We don’t have much time. I had the dream last night of the final days. I had a dream of revenge against all those who hurt me. This is long, long overdue.”

Linus said, “I dreamed we fell out of the trees on their backs, and we pulled them down so that they were trampled by their horses. I dreamed we dragged a man across seven miles of bush and forest and stony ground, until his body was raw meat and he was screaming to die. The elder ones can do better, though.”

Andy put in, “What did you think of Mrs. Novato this morning? he looked pretty upset to me.”

“She sure did,” agreed Debbie. “Anybody would have thought we weren’t behaving ourselves or something. And she’s been staring out of that window for the whole recess.”

“She’s okay,” said Ben. “At least she told Toby’s dad where to get off.”

“She didn’t so,” argued Toby. “She said we were okay, that’s all. She said the dreams didn’t mean anything.”

Through the stirred-up dust of playtime, Daniel Soscol and John Coretta came across the yard, carefully carrying a large brown cardboard box. They looked from right to left to make sure they weren’t being watched by the teacher in charge, and then they came up to the annex and laid the box down beside the trunk of the maple.

“How many did you get?” asked Toby. His voice was serious again. His childishness seemed to ebb and flow, like someone trying to shout a message across a windy strait. He stood up and watched Daniel take the lid off the box. Inside, clawing and climbing all over each other, were lizards from the roadside and the rocks.

“I got the ten, like you wanted,” said Daniel.

Toby poked the lizards with his finger. “Good. You’d better get everybody together.”

Daniel and John walked off, and went around the playground assembling all the children from Mrs. Novato’s class. They gradually gathered in the corner by the annex, out of sight of the main schoolhouse, and Toby stood up on a root of the maple tree so that he could talk to them.

The children stood quite silent, as if they were dazed. They ignored the stares of children from other classes, and the noise of cops and robbers and tag.

Toby said, “This is the ritual of joining ourselves by the spirits of the tree demons, as it was ordained by the gods of the desert lands and the plains. It joins together the brothers from the hills and the forests and the brothers from the waste places. It binds them so that they can work their wonders together, so that their powers are one. We have little time, so let us begin it now.”

The children stood in two parallel lines, eleven children on each line. Daniel Soscol brought the cardboard box, and Toby took out the first lizard. He held it up by its tail, writhing and jerking, while the first four children drew closer together.

Toby whispered, “Ossadagowah, son of Sadogowah, we bow ourselves before you.

We call upon your powers, feared of elder times, in the days before the white man touched the sacred lands, and we call upon you Nashuna, and you Pa-la-kai, and upon the demons of the lakes and the forests and the crawling beasts upon the earth. We call upon those from beyond the darkest stars, those who have no human shape, and we beg their aid.”

Each of the first four children, Toby and Daniel and Debbie and Petra, took a wriggling leg of the lizard between their lips. Then, at a slight nod from Toby, they each bit into their leg, and the lizard’s limbless body dropped to the dust.

Then Debbie and Petra turned around to the next two children, Andy and John. Toby brought another lizard out of the box and held it dangling between them while he spoke the words of the incantation again. Again, the four children brought their faces together and took one of the reptile’s legs in their mouths. Again, they bit, with a slight crunching sound, and the lizard’s body dropped to the yard.

Andy and John, in their turn, faced the two children behind them, and Toby produced yet another lizard. The ritual was repeated ten times, all the way down the line, until the school yard was littered with the writhing bloody bodies of ten lizards. Daniel Soscol, his face serious, collected them, and put them back in the cardboard box.

Toby continued, “We are joined by the strength of the demons of the trees, and nothing can set us apart. The day is almost here. Let us be heard by the gods of elder times, from beyond the rings which guard the entrances of time and distance.

Let us seek their power in taking our revenge.”

From the classroom window, Mrs. Novato could see the children gathered around Toby, listening to what he was saying with intent faces. She watched them for a while, and then she went across the porch into the next classroom, where Miss Martinez was chalking up the names of trees in preparation for her next lesson.

Mrs. Novato said, “Joan-look out of the window for a moment. Over there, by the annex.”

Miss Martinez put down her chalk and walked to the window. She said, “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“My children. Look at them. What do you think they could be doing?”

“I don’t know,” shrugged Miss Martinez. “Playing, perhaps?”

“Yes, but playing what? They all look so serious. And you never find the whole class playing together like that, not usually.”

Miss Martinez looked for a few moments more, and then went back to her blackboard. “Don’t ask me,” she told Mrs. Novato. “Children are always plotting something or other.”