Read Online Tunes for Bears to Dance To by Robert Cormier - Free Book Online Page A

their benches as usual.
    The old man was not in sight but George Graham greeted him, turning away from the woman with blue hair who was molding another child’s face from clay. She plucked delicately at the eyes.
    The old man’s village was not covered with the sheet. The figures and the buildings globed brilliantly beneath the shaded light. “Mr. Levine polished everything with a secret mixture,” the giant said. “He didn’t come today, resting up, waiting for his big day.” He gestured with his hand. “We’re sprucing up the place. Big doings, Henry, big doings …”
    He rushed off in answer to a workman calling for assistance and Henry began to search the place with his eyes. Searching for what? A hammer, just in case. He was convinced that he would not find a hammer suitable for the job, and thus would haveno chance to do what Mr. Hairston wanted him to do. He avoided looking at the old man’s village.
    Everyone was too busy to pay any attention to him and he wandered through the center unnoticed, invisible. He spotted a wooden mallet leaning against the wall near the door to the storeroom. like a croquet mallet but bigger and heavier, as big as a sledgehammer but made of wood. Henry glanced away, not wanting to acknowledge its presence.
    “Watch out,” a workman called, carrying a ladder with which to reach a burned-out bulb on the ceiling.
    Henry ducked out of the way and found himself in front of the storeroom door. The storeroom was a place he seldom entered, windowless, cluttered with the paraphernalia of the center. Glancing around, he was glad to see that he was still being ignored. He opened the door and slipped inside. He turned on the light, saw a haphazard collection of old boxes, discarded tools, paint cans, rubbish barrels.
    A perfect place to hide.
    The mallet out there and this place to hide in. He wondered if he was destined to carry out his mission after all. Was it such a bad mission? A few smashed figures that the old man could make again balanced against all the good things that might happen. His mother a hostess instead of a waitress …
    He snapped off the light and stood still, his eyes becoming accustomed to the darkness. When hecould make out shapes and forms, he walked slowly, gingerly, to a spot where cardboard boxes were plied up. Kicked something, and heard it thud against the wall. Paused, not moving, then slipped into a corner. He piled some boxes on top of one another, then crept behind them and sat down, certain that he could not be seen if someone entered.
    He calculated that he had two hours to wait.
    Through the closed door he could hear the sounds of activity in the center, muffled voices, footsteps, chairs scraping the floor.
    Drawing up his knees, he embraced them with his arms, rested his forehead on them. Pictured his mother in a white lace apron leading customers to their tables, handing them menus, earning a salary, no longer depending on tips. And pictured, too, the monument on Eddie’s grave, the ball and bat signifying his prowess at the plate so that anyone visiting the cemetery would be reminded of how great a ballplayer he had been.
    He did not realize he had fallen asleep until he awoke, like being shot out of a cannon. Into nothingness, blankness, grayness, and then the workroom, the boxes piled in front of him. Blinking, he listened. Something had awakened him—what? Listened again, tilting his head. Then heard it: a soft scratching nearby, then the rustle of small feet, scurrying. He shivered, realizing there was a rat in the storeroom. He remembered now the stories George Graham had told of rats coming out at night, gnawingat the brushes and the canvases.
I’ve got to get out of here.
    Walking blindly, stumbling once, he made his way to the door. He opened it cautiously, peered out, saw the deserted center, a small bulb dimly glowing near the front door. Sheets covered easels and benches, turning them into ghosts of all shapes and sizes. His gaze fell