Read Online Who Made Stevie Crye? by Michael Bishop - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Michael Bishop
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wondered, in fact, if Marella had registered her mood that morning at breakfast; the child’s present illness might be a delayed reaction to the disbelief and helplessness that Stevie no longer felt, a kind of sympathetic aftertremor.
“Oh, you poor kid. Come on in.”
Mrs. McGuire having retreated out of hearing, Marella said, “I didn’t want to come home. I could have stayed. She got scared, though.” Her frail voice encoded the hint of a forbidden nyah-nyah taunt. “ She was afraid I’d throw up on her carpets.”
“That’s a legitimate fear, daughter mine. I don’t blame her.”
Marella began to cry. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I, Mama?”
“It’s all right. Hush.”
Stevie folded down the sofa bed in the den, settled Marella in with her faithful upchuck bucket and some maze books, and went back upstairs to finish her proposal. Surprisingly, her nagging awareness of Marella’s nervous upset notwithstanding, she resumed work with some of her former enthusiasm and in only twenty minutes had completed the job. Look out, Briar Patch Press, Inc. She used a pair of scissors to separate her draft from the long strip of paper in the machine, rolled out the abbreviated piece, inserted another uncut one to receive whatever the Exceleriter might compose in the hours after midnight, and puffed some air at her bangs. She did not unplug the machine.
The remainder of the evening she spent caring for Marella, cleaning up the dinner dishes, and thumbing through a battered paperback from Ted’s little library of science-fiction novels, something called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy . Long before tucking the kids in, she began to anticipate, to build expectation upon expectation. By the time she climbed into bed, Teddy and Marella long since asleep, she understood how hard it would be to join them in slumber. Was the Exceleriter really plugged in? Did it have enough paper? Would she hear it when it began? What would it tell her?
In her flannel nightgown, she tramped to her study to check the setup a final time. She resisted the temptation to turn on the Exceleriter’s electricity; last night it had done that by itself, and if it meant to perform again, it would surely emulate the pattern it had already established. If not, not. Beyond setting the stage, she could not prescribe or direct its untypewriterly behavior.
Still, her parting instruction to the machine was, “Tell me about Ted. Let him finish his confession. I need to know.”
XIV
Awake or asleep? Awake, surely, for in the next room the resourceful Stevenson Crye, mistress of her fate, tamer of typewriters, could hear the businesslike rattle of the Exceleriter’s typing element, a concert muted a bit by the intervening plaster walls. She sat up in bed. By canny prior arrangement, her robe lay within reach, and she quickly put it on. Her powder-blue mules she found beside the bed exactly where she had left them, and after slipping into these hideous knockabouts she lurched over her carpet into the hall, not pausing to turn on a light.
Her clumsiness Stevie blamed on her excitement, her failure to illuminate either bedroom or hall as an attempt at stealth. In truth, she was afraid to catch the Exceleriter unhandedly clattering away, and her emphatic “Oh, shit!” as she stumbled into her study door sabotaged any last hope of surprising the percipient machine.
It stopped typing.
Stevie hesitated a moment. Maybe it would start again. She wanted to catch the typewriter in the act. In flagrante delicto , lawyers called it. Or maybe she wanted no such thing. A kind of prurient ambivalence plagued her—much as a curious child may be of two minds about trying to witness, even from a secure hiding place, its transmogrified parents engaged in an instance of strenuous lovemaking. But the Exceleriter did not resume its unassisted labors, and before Stevie could steel herself to enter her study, she heard a high pathetic moaning from Marella’s
“Oh, you poor kid. Come on in.”
Mrs. McGuire having retreated out of hearing, Marella said, “I didn’t want to come home. I could have stayed. She got scared, though.” Her frail voice encoded the hint of a forbidden nyah-nyah taunt. “ She was afraid I’d throw up on her carpets.”
“That’s a legitimate fear, daughter mine. I don’t blame her.”
Marella began to cry. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I, Mama?”
“It’s all right. Hush.”
Stevie folded down the sofa bed in the den, settled Marella in with her faithful upchuck bucket and some maze books, and went back upstairs to finish her proposal. Surprisingly, her nagging awareness of Marella’s nervous upset notwithstanding, she resumed work with some of her former enthusiasm and in only twenty minutes had completed the job. Look out, Briar Patch Press, Inc. She used a pair of scissors to separate her draft from the long strip of paper in the machine, rolled out the abbreviated piece, inserted another uncut one to receive whatever the Exceleriter might compose in the hours after midnight, and puffed some air at her bangs. She did not unplug the machine.
The remainder of the evening she spent caring for Marella, cleaning up the dinner dishes, and thumbing through a battered paperback from Ted’s little library of science-fiction novels, something called The Grasshopper Lies Heavy . Long before tucking the kids in, she began to anticipate, to build expectation upon expectation. By the time she climbed into bed, Teddy and Marella long since asleep, she understood how hard it would be to join them in slumber. Was the Exceleriter really plugged in? Did it have enough paper? Would she hear it when it began? What would it tell her?
In her flannel nightgown, she tramped to her study to check the setup a final time. She resisted the temptation to turn on the Exceleriter’s electricity; last night it had done that by itself, and if it meant to perform again, it would surely emulate the pattern it had already established. If not, not. Beyond setting the stage, she could not prescribe or direct its untypewriterly behavior.
Still, her parting instruction to the machine was, “Tell me about Ted. Let him finish his confession. I need to know.”
XIV
Awake or asleep? Awake, surely, for in the next room the resourceful Stevenson Crye, mistress of her fate, tamer of typewriters, could hear the businesslike rattle of the Exceleriter’s typing element, a concert muted a bit by the intervening plaster walls. She sat up in bed. By canny prior arrangement, her robe lay within reach, and she quickly put it on. Her powder-blue mules she found beside the bed exactly where she had left them, and after slipping into these hideous knockabouts she lurched over her carpet into the hall, not pausing to turn on a light.
Her clumsiness Stevie blamed on her excitement, her failure to illuminate either bedroom or hall as an attempt at stealth. In truth, she was afraid to catch the Exceleriter unhandedly clattering away, and her emphatic “Oh, shit!” as she stumbled into her study door sabotaged any last hope of surprising the percipient machine.
It stopped typing.
Stevie hesitated a moment. Maybe it would start again. She wanted to catch the typewriter in the act. In flagrante delicto , lawyers called it. Or maybe she wanted no such thing. A kind of prurient ambivalence plagued her—much as a curious child may be of two minds about trying to witness, even from a secure hiding place, its transmogrified parents engaged in an instance of strenuous lovemaking. But the Exceleriter did not resume its unassisted labors, and before Stevie could steel herself to enter her study, she heard a high pathetic moaning from Marella’s
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