A Perfect Friend Read online

  At first Hilda would say things like Can we go outside and lie where the sun’s warm? Later she would ask Ben to tell his mother to feed her more than she normally got. Later still as Ben started school, Hilda began to tell him true things about his life—how he’d like other children but somehow feel more lonely around them than when he was alone. But those words slowly stopped with the years; and by the time Ben visited Hilda the morning after his dream and the realistic elephant drawing, it had been maybe four years since Hilda spoke a word to Ben. All through his mother’s sickness and her funeral, Hilda never said a thing, though Ben could tell she understood everything in the house or the hospital. And she’d been as sad as Ben was. In fact the old dog had seemed so forlorn that Ben couldn’t even ask her to help him with her silent messages or her warm companionship, stretched on the floor.

  This morning, though—as winter was starting to fade—Hilda waited till Ben had mixed her food. He knelt beside her to set her bowl down. Then her eyes met his.

  In the next five seconds, Ben heard her say I’ll be leaving soon but you’ll be fine. Don’t worry; you’ll be happy.

  Ben whispered back to her. “You don’t have to go. This is your free home as long as you want it.”

  Her voice had sounded thin and stranger than ever, and she paused to let Ben calm back down.

  Then he said “And don’t you worry about me, Hilda. I’m a lot smarter than I was last year.” He hadn’t really understood Hilda’s words.

  So she managed silently to say another sentence that Ben could hear clearly far down in his mind. She said This thing that’s coming will help your whole life.

  Keeping his voice silent too, Ben asked her exactly what thing she meant.

  But Hilda was finished for that day at least. She wouldn’t meet his eyes again. She just ate her breakfast and crouched back down to sleep through another day of her tired old age.

  Ben knelt once more, though, and stroked Hilda’s broad head. Just the feel of her warmth and the strength of her skull told him what she’d meant. He said it to himself. “She means the circus will somehow save me.” It felt like good news, like something he’d waited a long time to hear. So he stood up smiling. But all the way back toward the house, he asked himself “Save me from what? Dad and I both are a whole lot stronger than we were right after Mother died. Why do I need a dumb little one-ring circus?” He could think of no answer, and he wondered again why any sane person should believe a talking dog, but the thrill he’d felt at the sight of that one word pachyderms on a sign at the fairground rose in him again.

  By the time Ben was back in the house, his father was seated at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, a plate of toast, and the day’s newspaper. He mumbled a few words of greeting while Ben washed his hands and got his own cereal. As Ben took his place across from his father, he still felt as good as he had with Hilda. He was almost afraid to speak to his father now and run the danger of harming that feeling.

  The silence was easy enough to hold on to for the first few minutes. Mr. Barks kept on reading the paper; but then as Ben stood to wash his bowl, his father said “Son, there’s a one-ring circus coming to town. Will you pay for my ticket? It’ll sure be expensive. But remember I took you when you were a child—and to Ringling Brothers, the biggest of all.” Mr. Barks was teasing about the free ticket. Almost as much as Ben, though, he wanted to go. He’d had a hard time too through all these months, and he’d kept as quiet with his sadness as Ben.

  Ben said “Sure, I’ll take you every night—it’s four nights, right? Are tickets on sale yet?”

  Mr. Barks checked the paper. “At the music store, it says right here in the ad. You know where the music store is?”

  Somehow Ben didn’t care about music. He thought he would learn to want music in high school, but he knew where the record store was on Hickory Street.

  That afternoon Ben hiked into town. School hadn’t been out for more than twenty minutes, yet the music store was already full of teenagers ganged up in the little listening booths. In each one anywhere from two to six boys and girls were smoking and playing new songs and halfway dancing or hugging each other and pretending true love. Ben didn’t know them, so he told himself he wouldn’t have to worry about the stuff they were doing.

  Maybe he and his few friends would act the same way eventually. For a whole year now, Ben had understood that no human being can foretell the future. And the smartest child can’t predict his luck for the next two minutes. In gym class you might sink a stunning shot, then do it again five minutes later. But then you might get home late from school and find that your house had just burned to the ground.

  At the back of the music store, there was one old lady at the ticket window; but she was reading a magazine so ancient it was falling apart. She had a narrow face and a long pointed nose that made her look more like an anteater than a normal woman, but Ben didn’t mind that at all. When the lady looked up from the magazine and saw Ben standing there, she cried out “Whoa!” His silence and nearness had scared her.

  He said “I’m sorry. I do that a lot—scare people, I mean. I guess I’m too quiet.”

  The lady said “Son, don’t apologize. I wish every child alive in the world was as quiet as you.” She pointed toward the front of the store and the music that was blaring even louder from the teenagers’ booths. Once she’d stuffed a finger in each of her ears and shaken her head, she smiled and quickly came back to normal. “Can I sell you some fun?” There were posters behind her for wrestling matches and a show that promised to feature live fleas in a chariot race and authentic mountain dancing.

  What she’d said about fun confused Ben for a moment. Then he also smiled. “Is a circus really coming to town?”

  “Best circus in the world. Or so they claim. Don’t they all claim that?”

  Ben said “You guarantee they’ve got live elephants?”

  “What makes you think they do?” She looked genuinely serious.

  Ben said “I saw their poster at the fairgrounds a few days ago.”

  “And it claimed they had elephants?”

  Ben said “Oh yes.”

  The lady said “Then it’s bound to be true. People go to prison all the time for lying to the public. I feel fairly certain that circus folks wouldn’t lie about their show.” But then she faced Ben and winked an eye to admit she was fooling. “Son, if you buy a ticket and they don’t have elephants—one elephant at least, in good working order—then you come back here, and I’ll refund your money. I’m Firefly McCoy; just ask for me.” When she saw Ben’s smile, she said “Are you laughing at Firefly? Go right ahead. My name was Mother’s first idea when she was still all drugged from having me. So I’ve had to live with people’s dumb reactions all my life.”

  Ben said “Nothing sad about your name to me—at least she didn’t name you Lightning Bug.”

  The old lady laughed. “You’ve got a point there; but if you come back for that refund, just don’t tell my boss. He’ll gouge my gizzard out and fry it for supper.”

  By then Ben had what was left of his Christmas money in his hand. And he knew he should be smiling, but his face clouded over. He didn’t want to risk being badly disappointed in this mysterious show, so he put the money in his pocket again.

  The lady said “Look, are you an elephant boy?”

  Ben recalled, right away, that Elephant Boy was the name of an excellent movie he’d seen a few years ago. It was set in India where elephants are plentiful, and the boy in the story could talk to elephants as truly as Ben could talk to his dog. Still he told the lady “Yes, elephants are my favorite thing—in the whole world, I mean.”

  The lady was clearly more than surprised. “You love elephants more than human beings?”

  Ben thought about that. He knew it sounded strange, but it probably was true. So he said “See, there’s really no question at all that elephants are better than people. They always take good care of their young, they never kill anything unless they really
have to, and they talk to each other over miles of distance in voices so deep we can’t even hear them.”

  The look of surprise that had been on the lady’s narrow face made it get even longer, and her eyes squinted shut. Then she shook all over like a cold wet dog. When she looked up again, she said “Aren’t you the Barks child?”

  Ben’s father was the last grown member of the Barks family still left in town; so Ben said “I must be, yes.”

  “Aren’t you sure?” the lady said.

  “My dad is Billy Barks. Is that who you mean?”

  The lady paused to turn that slowly over in her mind. Finally she said “I’m talking about the man whose wife just died—him and his young son.”

  Ben said “My mother died a whole year ago—even longer now. It only feels like yesterday.”

  “Then that makes you the boy I thought you were.” The lady smiled but not in the pitiful way Ben dreaded from most of the people who’d known how much his mother suffered in her last days.

  Ben said “All right. Now you know” and tried to smile again, but his own face clouded over too. He felt as if he’d admitted to a crime—something that awful for which he’d have to be punished every day through the rest of his life. He couldn’t think of anything else to tell the lady, so he said “Is there something you want me to do?”

  She said “Oh no, I’ve never met your family. I just read about your mother’s death in the local paper and meant to send you a sympathy card that very same day, but then I forgot it. See, both my parents died when I was your age; and I wanted to tell you that I know it’s a shock but you’ll survive. You’ll grow up stronger than any child in town.”

  Ben thanked her and felt a little dazed for a moment, the way he’d felt when Hilda suddenly spoke that morning. Then he burst out laughing and said “The trouble is I live in the country, not the town.”

  The lady laughed too but said “Personally, I think you’ll be the strongest child anywhere.”

  Any serious praise always embarrassed Ben, and this time he started to turn and leave.

  But the lady said “Wasn’t I selling you tickets—two circus tickets?”

  Ben said “Three tickets, please—me and my dad and my cousin Robin Drake.” Until that minute Ben hadn’t planned to take Robin. He thought she might say something crazy that would ruin his concentration on the elephants. He’d already thought the same thing about Dunk; Dunk would act like more of a clown than anything the circus could offer. But at the last minute, Ben couldn’t neglect Robin. She’d been good to him when his life was a lot harder than it was now; she deserved all the fun he could give her.

  The lady said “Which night? They’re here for four nights, though I can’t imagine where they’ll get that many willing spectators.”

  Ben asked if she had any tickets left for Thursday night. He’d thought he should wait till Thursday and give the circus a night to practice. So he fought his eagerness down and asked the lady if she had any tickets left for Thursday, the second night.

  “Thursday?”—she looked at her drawer. When she faced Ben she said “Gosh, it looks like I only have a few hundred left! How many dozen will you be needing?” Again she seemed serious.

  Ben said “Just three, please—one, two, three.” He showed three fingers so she understood he didn’t mean dozens.

  When she held the tickets out to Ben, she finally grinned.

  So he took them from her bird-sized hand and paid her with the last of his Christmas money—six whole dollars.

  As the lady folded the money and Ben turned to leave, she suddenly called him back. “Hey, listen.”

  When Ben looked back she whispered again. “You remember now—if the whole thing’s awful, bring your ticket stubs back; and I’ll give you your money.”

  Ben said “Are you saying it’s not worth seeing?”

  Her whisper went even deeper and softer. “Not exactly, no. But it does sound tiny—compared to Ringling Brothers, you know. And I don’t want to cheat you, scarce as money is.”

  Ben thanked her one last time and left, expecting to feel depressed by her words; but the sun was bright, and that clear fact plus the thought of the old lady’s name—Firefly McCoy—kept his spirits up. His hope survived for the whole trip home and on into the night.

  That night, though the circus had still not arrived, Ben went to sleep with no anxious feelings. That was because he’d learned not to lean on thoughts of the future, even when the future seemed sure to be good. In the dark of his room, he slept on deeply till three in the morning. Then something woke him—a sound in the room or just outside. It didn’t scare him but he sat upright in his sheets and looked at once toward the window. At first he saw nothing but a very dim glow from the thin young moon. Still, he kept on waiting there till something began to fly past slowly, time and again, and brush the open window. What large bird would be flying at night? It might be a barn owl, hunting mice, or a confused hawk or eagle that had been waked up as quickly as he by some strange noise. But that didn’t seem likely.

  Then very gradually in the midst of the window, the faint outline of a human head began to be visible, stroke by stroke as if Ben were painting it himself with a brush and dark brown ink. The head had short hair and was faced away, looking past Ben’s room and into the night. Ben could somehow tell that, in spite of the short hair, this might be his mother—his mother the way she’d looked as a girl, long before he was born or before she’d known his father.

  The air was chilly but Ben knelt on in the midst of his bed and stayed as still as he could, hardly breathing. He was almost sure he didn’t believe in ghosts and demons. Yet eventually he thought that this person, high up and just outside, might be the spirit of his mother. Like most people he dreaded the thought of dead things returning—if there were such things. But ever since his mother died, Ben had missed her enough to welcome her back in any way she might choose to come. So he whispered three words toward the window. “Please. Yes, please.”

  Then whatever it was, and however it might have looked in the daylight, the head at the window started making a peculiar music. And Ben started hearing a high kind of singing. At first the song was like the feelings of a lost sad child; and Ben even put out a hand toward the window to let the spirit know he was friendly, though he didn’t stand up or walk any closer.

  Right then Ben heard his father’s footsteps move past the open door. The boy held his breath. As much as he liked his father, Ben wanted this minute alone for himself.

  But his father didn’t pause or speak, just went slowly into the bathroom and shut the door.

  Maybe because Ben had reached out toward the face at the window and the curious song it sang, the music quieted down from then on and gradually faded away in the dark. When the air outside and the air in Ben’s room—and Ben himself—were calm again, the head at the window turned very slowly and faced straight inward.

  It was his mother, yes—his mother returned for just these moments. And yes, she looked like pictures Ben had seen from long ago when she was near his present age. Her eyes met Ben’s and they felt so kind that he was reminded of what he’d nearly forgot since she left—how she’d almost never said a mean word to him in his whole life with her. And now he realized how she’d been the finest human being be’d known or might ever know in the long years to come (Ben had always thought he’d live a hundred years).

  He was so happy in the sight of her face that he felt no need to speak or move. He did wish she’d sing again, one of the songs he’d loved as a young boy, late on the nights when he’d have trouble sleeping. But no song came and no real words. In the next long minute, though, he felt an understanding spread deep down inside him, an understanding that he’d only felt with animals before—with poor old Hilda and the hawks he’d seen in tall bare trees and that buck deer, long ago in the woods, that spoke Ben’s name and told him the world was a fine place to live, hard but fine.

  Still kneeling in his bed now, Ben’s mind shared his mother’s
mind completely; and while she still didn’t say real words, he understood she was watching him gladly. He also knew she was doing all she could to help him grow and be happy as often as possible, the way he used to be before she left. By the time he understood that much, her face had gradually begun to disappear. Over the next five minutes maybe, she faded till there were no signs at all of her visit or her gladness. And once she was gone, Ben felt a little of his sadness return. But he was still tired, so he lay back flat on his bed and slept before he could lose this fresh good memory. He didn’t even hear his father walk past, back toward his own room, and pause to check that Ben was safe.

  In his way Mr. Barks missed his wife at least as much as Ben did. But once she’d died she never came to his window looking like a girl again and sang or spoke to him in silent words. So he thought the smile on Ben’s sleeping face must come from some enjoyable dream. He bent to smooth the boy’s tangled hair and found it was hot. Then he touched Ben’s forehead to check for fever. Finally he decided that Ben wasn’t sick, but it didn’t occur to Mr. Barks to think that the boy was already warm with hopes for something as small as a one-ring circus and a few old clowns and worn-out acrobats, and maybe some elephants.

  Alone again, deep in sleep, Ben was resting every part of his body and aiming his hopes toward the first full day of spring, which was close.

  When that day came it was warm and dry, and the sun was as clear as a washed new window. School had been hard and slow for Ben since he knew that tonight was Wednesday, the first circus night—or was meant to be, if the circus had turned up and got itself ready. In such a small town, it would have been normal for half of Ben’s school friends to talk all day about the excitement of going tonight or later in the week.

  Ben even waited for some boy to say he’d waked up early and gone to the railroad stop near the fairgrounds to watch the elephants unload the tents and the lion and tiger cages. But nobody said the word circus one time, and Ben began to wonder if he’d just imagined the whole thing. He didn’t ask any questions, though. He didn’t want to hear even one boy or girl laugh and say he was dreaming again. Even worse, somebody might say he’d already seen the tents and the cages and that the whole thing was a pitiful mess—just a small-town show.