Chapter 6

After Mr. Bullfinch had expressed his thanks and left, all three of the Martin children begged their mother to buy the parrot from Mr. Bullfinch. Jerry rashly promised all his allowance for May. Cathy wouldn't go as far as that but she would spare a dollar. And Andy trotted off for his piggy bank to contribute his pennies.

"I better run after Mr. Bullfinch and tell him he needn't phone in that ad for the newspaper," said Jerry.

"You'll do no such thing," said his mother. "I agreed to keep the parrot over the week end. I meant over the week end and no longer."

When their mother spoke in that tone of voice, her children had learned it was no use to argue.

"I've always wanted a parrot for a pet and here is a good chance to get one and you turn it down," grumbled Jerry.

"What's the parrot's name?" asked Mr. Martin.

Jerry didn't know. "Can you ask him what his name is in Spanish?" he asked his father.

Mr. Martin didn't think that would do much good but he could and did ask the parrot in Spanish what his name was.

There was no response from the parrot.

"Guess you'll have to give him a name," said Mr. Martin.

"Let's call him Pete," suggested Andy.

"Pete's not a Spanish name. He ought to have a Spanish name," said Cathy.

"I think Pedro's the Spanish for Pete," said Jerry, remembering a story he had read about a Spanish donkey.

They agreed on Pedro. They all addressed the parrot by name but he only glared at them with his beady eyes and kept silent.

"Maybe he's dumb," said Andy.

"Maybe he's too young to know how to talk," said Cathy.

"He's not that young," said Jerry.

They were eating dessert--pineapple upside-down cake--when the parrot beat his wings and said in a strong, hoarse voice, "_Caramba!_"

"What does that mean?" Jerry asked his father.

"It's a Spanish word that they use the same way we say 'Gosh!'"

"_Caramba!_" repeated Jerry.

"_Caramba!_" Andy tried to say, only it came out more like "_Carimba!_" The way he said it made it sound like a swear word.

"Oh, dear, I hope that bird won't teach the children any bad language," said Mrs. Martin.

"I somehow doubt if he'll teach them to swear in Spanish over the week end," said Mr. Martin, with a twinkle in his eye.

Then there began an argument about where the parrot's cage should be hung. Cathy said it should be in her room because the parrot's color would go so well with her bedspread and curtains. Jerry said that naturally the cage should be in his room. He had known the parrot longest, hadn't he?

"He likes me best. I know he does," declared Andy. "I want him to sleep with me."

"Maybe the recreation room would be more appropriate," suggested Mr. Martin.

Mrs. Martin knew where there was a big hook which could be screwed in over one of the windows. "You can spend as much time down there with him as you want to," she told the children.

"If we turn the TV on good and loud, that might teach him a little English," said Jerry. "We teach him English. He teaches us Spanish."

"Fair enough," said Mr. Martin.

Later in the afternoon Jerry was taking his time about mowing the lawn, and wishing there was stuff to put on grass to make it stop growing instead of all that fertilizer his father put on to make it grow, when his mother called and asked him to run to the store for a package of raisins. She wanted to make raisin sauce for the ham they were having for dinner that night.

Jerry never minded having to stop mowing the lawn. Now if his father had a power mower that would be different. But Jerry's father refused to buy a power mower until he decided that Jerry was old enough to run it. In Jerry's opinion, he was old enough now. He threw down the despised hand lawn mower and started for the store, walking, not taking his bike this time. His mother was in no immediate hurry for the raisins and Jerry was certainly in no hurry to finish mowing the lawn.

This probably would be his last trip to the store before the happy time of going to pay the bill on Monday, Jerry thought, making a slight detour in order to jump two low hedges in a neighbor's yard. Over without touching, he was pleased to note. May Day would mean the end of all that rigmarole of the secret charge account. And what a relief that would be! In his thoughts Jerry had shied away from applying the word deceit to his charging groceries and keeping Mr. Bartlett's money over at the Bullfinches', but he had not been able to get away from an uneasy feeling about what he had been doing. It was his nature to be open and aboveboard. The past month had been a strain.

"Now it's all over but the payoff," thought Jerry, waiting for Mr. Bartlett to make out the grocery slip. The candy in the showcase next to the cash register looked luscious. Jerry wondered how many pieces there were in a half pound and thought of asking but decided against it. Jerry was still hopeful that Mr. Bartlett would at least make it a heavy half pound when the bill was paid.

This time Jerry had to get only change for half a dollar from the grandfather clock. He stopped to visit a few minutes with Mr. Bullfinch, who had a fireplace fire burning in his den.

"Had a man here last week to give the furnace its summer hookup," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Should have had more sense. I forgot that it's possible to half roast and half freeze on the same day. This morning felt like June and this afternoon's more like March. That's Washington spring weather for you."

Jerry agreed that the weather had turned chilly. He watched the flames lick the charcoal briquets in the fireplace.

Mr. Bullfinch had a grate shaped like a cradle in his fireplace and burned charcoal or coal instead of logs. It would be a wonderful fire for a cook-out, Jerry thought. Only he guessed that if you cooked a meal over an open fire indoors, it should be called a cook-in.

Mr. Bullfinch inquired after the parrot's health, and Jerry said that as far as he could tell, it was good. Jerry said he had wheeled the television set over so the parrot could watch the ball game.

"I would have been looking at it, too, if I hadn't had to mow the lawn and then go to the store."

"I can see that you are a busy lad," sympathized Mr. Bullfinch.

"I probably won't be over here so often after Monday," said Jerry, after replacing the tobacco pouch in the grandfather clock.

"That so? We shall miss having you run in every day or so. Hope you won't be too much of a stranger."

Mr. Bullfinch did not ask why Jerry's visits would be less frequent after Monday. That was one of the nice things about Mr. Bullfinch, his showing no curiosity about Jerry's affairs. Jerry was so grateful to him for not asking embarrassing questions that he found it hard not to break down and tell him all about the charge account. But that was a temptation Jerry had already successfully resisted several times and he now did again.

"After I get the candy Monday I'll give him some and tell him all about it," Jerry vowed.

Jerry was pleased to find his father finishing mowing the lawn.

"At the rate you were going I thought you might not get it done before dark," his father greeted him.

That was the way parents were. Instead of being grateful for what you had done, they bawled you out for not finishing the last bit. "I would have done it," said Jerry.

Jerry raked up the grass clippings before he took the box of raisins in to his mother. "Where's Cathy?" he asked.

"I think she's down looking at TV."

Jerry ran down to the recreation room. The TV had been turned off. Cathy was standing close to Pedro's cage.

"Cathy. Cathy. Cathy," she repeated. "Say Cathy."

Jerry was indignant. While he had been hard at work on the lawn and then running to the store, Cathy had been trying to teach the parrot to say her name.

"You quit that," ordered Jerry.

"I'd like to know why."

Jerry did not come right out and say that he wanted Pedro to say _his_ name first.

"Seems pretty conceited for you to think your name is the most important word in the English language," he said. "Pretty conceited. Naturally Pedro should learn the most important words first."

"What _is_ the most important word in the English language?" asked Cathy.

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"If you could answer as many questions as you can ask, you'd be more than half bright."

"Jerry Martin, are you calling me a moron? You know I get better grades in school than you do."

"Who called you a moron?"

"You did."

"I did not. I didn't say how much more than half bright you'd be if you could answer as many questions as you ask."

"You're--you're impossible."

Jerry turned the television on. As a singing commercial came on, the parrot laughed a raucous laugh.

"Say, he may not know how to speak English but that parrot's got sense," said Jerry admiringly.

A door above opened. "Jerry," called his mother from upstairs, "you come right up here and get that snake off the hall table."

"It's only a little green snake I found when I was cutting the grass," grumbled Jerry. "I was going to catch flies for it. It's a perfectly harmless snake."

"Snakes--ugh!" said Cathy.

"Say, what's got into you? I've seen you let a little green garter snake wind around your wrist like a bracelet."

"I did, didn't I?" Cathy was suddenly on Jerry's level again. Then she looked up at her reflection in a mirror over the television set and smoothed her hair at the sides. "I used to do a lot of silly things when I was young," she said.

She seemed to be insinuating that she was more grownup than Jerry, even though they were twins. Jerry was furious with her. He was angry because they were no longer the companions they used to be, though he did not realize it. He missed the old Cathy, who reappeared only now and then. They were so seldom really together nowadays and it had not been long ago that they had been two against anything or anybody which threatened one of them.

"I wouldn't be a girl for a million dollars," he said. "Little pats of powder, Little daubs of paint, Make a little girly Look like what she ain't," he quoted.

"Why Jerry Martin, I wouldn't think of using rouge. Mummy wouldn't let me if I wanted to."

"Cathy," called her mother from upstairs. "Come set the table for dinner."

Cathy, with one of her movie-queen looks, sailed past Jerry and went upstairs.

"Girls are nuts," Jerry said.

"Ha, ha!" laughed Pedro.

"You _are_ a smart bird," said Jerry and tried in vain to teach the parrot to say "Jerry." Pedro said "_Caramba_" again and a few Spanish words Jerry did not understand, but that was all.

He certainly was a handsome bird. Jerry looked at him with affection. "Give you time and you'll learn to speak English," said Jerry. And, "Gosh, I wish you really belonged to me." Then, having been called twice, Jerry went up to dinner.

Jerry went to the neighborhood movie that night with his mother and Cathy, so he was later getting to bed than usual. He was dropping off to sleep when he heard what he thought was a car backfiring outside. Then, at the very edge of sleep again, Jerry smelled smoke. He rushed to the window. By moonlight he could see the Bullfinch house almost as plain as day. There was smoke coming out of the chimney. There was also smoke rising from the roof.

"Fire!" bawled Jerry. "Fire!" he shouted all the way down the stairs.

"The Bullfinch house is on fire!" he yelled at the door of the living room where his father and mother were sitting.

"What?" cried his father.

"Is this one of your ideas of a joke?" asked his mother.

Jerry did not stop. The front door slammed behind him. "Fire!" he kept shouting all the way to the Bullfinch house, as if a phonograph needle had been stuck at that word in a record.

"I've got to get that grocery money out of there. I've got to," Jerry thought, so excited and driven that he did not know he was shivering with cold.

Jerry rang the Bullfinch doorbell hard with one hand while he pounded on the door with the other.

Mr. Bullfinch came to the door. He looked only a little excited.

"Your house is on fire!" cried Jerry.

"I know. I know. I've called the fire department," said Mr. Bullfinch. "Won't you come in?" he asked politely, as if it were not strange to invite a person to come in a burning house.

Jerry was glad to get Mr. Bartlett's money safe in two pockets of his pajamas. There was too much of it for one.

"Want me to help carry out things?" he asked Mr. Bullfinch.

Mrs. Bullfinch was fluttering about, wondering what should be saved first, when sirens screeched and fire engines arrived on the scene.

By this time a small crowd had gathered to watch the fire. Jerry's mother brought out a jacket for him to put on over his pajamas. He was glad of its warmth and also because he could transfer Mr. Bartlett's money into larger pockets where bulges would not be so conspicuous.

It was not much of a fire. It was soon out. All that had burned was part of the eaves near the chimney. Jerry heard his father ask Mr. Bullfinch if he knew how the fire had started. And Mr. Bullfinch seemed slightly embarrassed as he explained what he thought must have happened.

"I have only my own carelessness to blame," said Mr. Bullfinch. "You see, I burn charcoal in the fireplace in my den. I keep a big sack of charcoal briquets out in the garage. Well, soon after I put fresh charcoal on the fire--I often read late you know--there was a sharp series of bangs and I realized what had happened."

Then all that banging hadn't been a car backfiring, thought Jerry.

"There is a shelf in the garage over the sack of charcoal," Mr. Bullfinch continued, "and there was a box of cartridges on the shelf. It must be that a few cartridges spilled into the charcoal and they went off when I put them on the fire. Lucky they fired up the chimney instead of in the room. Loosened a few bricks in the chimney and burned a bit of the eaves. No great damage, I'm thankful to say."

"That's the most unusual cause of a fire I ever heard of," said Mr. Martin.

"I don't want the fire to be out so soon," mourned Andy, who had been waked up to come to the fire.

"I'd better get that child to bed," said Mr. Martin.

Jerry would have followed his father but Mr. Bullfinch wanted to thank him for coming over to rescue them, even though they had not needed to be rescued. "But if I hadn't still been up you might have saved our lives," he told Jerry. Then he told Jerry something else that filled Jerry's heart with joy. Jerry was so grateful he could hardly speak.

Jerry kept his cause of gratitude to himself until the family were in the kitchen having a bite to eat.

"Mr. Bullfinch has given Pedro to me," he said, putting a thick layer of grape marmalade and peanut butter on a slice of bread. "A five-dollar parrot and he's worth much more than that and Mr. Bullfinch gave him to me for almost saving his life."

"Oh, no!" said Mrs. Martin.

"Fire!" bawled a loud hoarse voice from the cellar.

"It's Pedro. He's said his first English word." Jerry was beaming with pride. "He'll be as good as a watchdog. Don't miners sometimes take parrots into mines with them to warn them against poisonous fumes?"

"A canary I've heard of--not a parrot," said Mr. Martin. "And we're really in very little danger from poisonous fumes. But I guess we can't risk offending a neighbor by refusing a gift."

"Taking care of a parrot can be a lot of work," said Mrs. Martin.

"I'll help," offered Cathy. And Jerry was grateful to her.

"Fire!" the parrot kept bawling. "Fire!"

"Go down and put something over his cage or we'll not get any sleep," Jerry's mother told him. "Yes, you can keep him. I might have known when I saw that parrot come into the house that he would stay."

As Jerry galloped down the stairs to the recreation room with a scarf to put over Pedro's cage, he wondered if he would have hurried quite as fast over to the Bullfinch house if it had not been for the money in the grandfather clock. He had slipped in and put it back there before coming home. Fire was not likely to strike twice in the same house, he had thought.

Pedro was making gentle, clucking noises.

"Good night, old bird," said Jerry, after he had put the scarf over the cage. "I wonder if parrots eat candy," he thought on his way upstairs to bed. "When I get that candy from Mr. Bartlett tomorrow I'm going to try Pedro on a piece of a lime mint. They're almost the same color as the feathers near his throat."

Joy of ownership of a handsome green parrot made Jerry's steps light on the stairs. He went to bed by moonlight. There seemed to be a glow on everything.

10

May Day

"How nice that today is pleasant, so you can have your May Day exercises outdoors," Mrs. Martin said, as she bustled about getting her children's breakfast on the table.

"Did you finish hemming my dress?" asked Cathy. She was to be crowned May Queen and was so worried about looking exactly right that she could hardly eat her breakfast.

"It's all packed in a suit box," said Mrs. Martin. "I put in Andy's costume under it. Be surer of getting there if you carry it."

"Do I have to wear that silly sash?" Andy was to help wind the Maypole and was to wear yellow cambric shorts, a white blouse, and a yellow sash around his middle.

"You must dress as your teacher told you to," said his mother. "Be careful with that glass of milk, Andy."

Jerry was thankful that his only part in the May Day festival was to help seat the parents. And that all he had to wear different from usual was an armband. Jerry's mind was not on the May Day exercises. He had something far more important to think about. Today was the day he had so long looked forward to. Today he would pay the bill at Bartlett's store. The store wouldn't be open early enough so he could tend to it before school, but the minute he could get away from the May Day exercises that afternoon he would race to Mr. Bullfinch's, get the money from the grandfather clock, and go pay the bill. Thinking of the candy that would then be presented to him made Jerry grin.

"You're looking mighty pleased with yourself this morning, Jerry," said his mother, passing him the bacon.

"Who? Me? It's Cathy who's the big shot today. Hi, Queenie! You feeling squeamy?" he teased his sister. "Won't you look like something--all dressed up like a circus horse, with a tinfoil crown on your head? Yes, your majesty. No, your majesty. After this you'll expect everybody to bow down to you. Not me. I'm not forgetting this is a democracy."

"All I hope is that you won't do anything at the exercises that will disgrace the family," said Cathy.

"Call me a disgrace to the family, do you? Well, I like that."

"There isn't time for you two to squabble. You should be leaving for school in less than five minutes," said Mrs. Martin.

"I won't say a word if Cathy'll leave me alone," said Jerry.

"I leave you alone! Why it was you who started--"

"I don't care who started what. It's finished," said Mrs. Martin with firmness.

Jerry gave Cathy a mocking smile. He was really proud that she had been chosen May Queen. He would never let on to her all the votes he had rounded up for her. Not Jerry. He kept it a dark secret that he thought her the prettiest girl in their class. No need of making her more stuck on her looks than she already was.

Lessons at school were brief that day. By ten-thirty, four boys from the sixth grade were helping the custodian put up the Maypole. Then there were two chairs from the principal's office to be draped with gold-colored cambric, throne chairs for the King and Queen. As soon as lunch period was over, Jerry helped carry chairs from the cafeteria out to the yard, where they were arranged in rows facing the throne. The exercises were to begin at one, but a few parents came before all the chairs were in place.

A phonograph on a table behind a tree furnished music for winding the Maypole. Jerry, standing with his classmates behind the chairs--there were chairs only for the parents--saw that Andy looked very earnest and a little scared. He got to going the wrong way once but was quickly turned around by his kindergarten teacher. Jerry was glad for Andy's sake when the Maypole dance was over.

Now came the crowning of the King and Queen. Cathy wore a white billowy dress and her mother's pearl necklace. She was flushed and her eyes shone.

"What a little charmer she will be in a few years," Jerry heard one of the mothers say.

"Yeah! A snake charmer," Jerry thought. He knew though that that was not the kind of charmer meant. Jerry did not want Cathy to charm anybody, especially boys. It made him mad if he saw her look moony at a boy. "Mush" was what Jerry called a certain way some of the girls and boys looked at each other. It was definitely not for him.

Jerry managed to slip away before the exercises were quite over. A spring song by the combined fourth and fifth grades rang in his ears as he left the schoolyard. Everybody would be free to go home at the end of the song, but Jerry wanted to get a head start. He wanted to surprise the family with the box of candy the minute they got home.

He ran all the way to the Bullfinches'. "In an awful hurry. See you later," he said, rushing in and grabbing the tobacco pouch of money from the grandfather clock. Then he was off for the store, running as if chased.

Mr. Bartlett, for once, was alone in the store.

"I came to pay the bill," gasped Jerry, and he emptied the contents of the tobacco pouch on the counter.

"Bring the bill with you?" asked Mr. Bartlett.

What bill? Jerry did not know anything about a bill. But he had saved all the grocery slips. He had gone over to the Bullfinches' the night before and added and added. He was sure the money was the right amount.

Mr. Bartlett looked up the amount due in a ledger. He was a bit grumpy about having to count so much chicken feed, as he called it, as he counted the change. "It's all here," he said finally.

For an awful moment Jerry was afraid he was not going to get a bonus for paying the bill. It was with enormous relief that he saw Mr. Bartlett reach for a half-pound pasteboard box.

"It was a fair-sized bill and I'll give you a full half pound," said Mr. Bartlett. "Anything you prefer?"

Jerry said he would like a few pink and green mints. With pleasure he watched Mr. Bartlett arrange a row of varicolored mints and fill up the rest of the box with chocolates--so full that the cover would hardly go down.

Jerry thanked Mr. Bartlett with great heartiness. Fond though he was of candy, Jerry didn't take even as much as a taste on the way home. He would show it to his mother and Cathy and Andy but he would save it untouched until his father got home from work.

"I wanted to prove to you that having a charge account pays off," he would tell his father, offering him the open box, after Andy had had the first piece--Jerry remembered that Andy was to have the first piece. "Where else can you get something for nothing except by charging your groceries at Bartlett's store?" That was what Jerry would say to his father. Or something else that might occur to him later. His father would be sure to see the advantage of charging groceries as soon as he cast an eye on all that free candy.

Jerry whistled gaily most of the way back from the store. "Bet you can't guess what I have," he cried, as he opened the kitchen door and saw his mother and Cathy sitting at the kitchen table. Further cheerful words died in his throat when he saw that both his mother and Cathy had been crying.

"What's the matter?" Could something terrible have happened to his father? Or to Andy? What awful thing could make his mother and Cathy look so sad? There were envelopes and letters on the table. His mother had been opening her mail. The bad news must have come in a letter, then.

"Is Grandma Martin sick again?" Jerry asked.

His mother sobbed, and Jerry couldn't remember ever seeing his mother cry. "How could you, Jerry? How could you do such a dreadful thing?"