As he ranted on, I heard a sad sound from outside. With one last thrust at tearing the shakes from the roof, the wind dropped away with a rattling moan. The blizzard was dying. It had been a fine blizzard, and I was sorry to see it pass away.

  9

  Cubs

  I LIKE TO THINK I was just as good a Cub Scout as the next guy, the next guy being Grover Finch, who was about as miserable a Cub Scout as ever tied a granny knot and called it square.

  Our den could boast of boys clearly cut out for the scouting life, but I wasn’t one of them. Neither was Grover. He dropped out of Cubs shortly after the strange incident at Camp Muskrat. I think he may have received a dishonorable discharge, but I don’t know for sure.

  It was Grover who taught us a lot of good stuff not covered in the Cub Scout manual. He showed us how to tie a hangman’s knot and also demonstrated how it worked, slipping the loop over Terry Greer’s head and pulling it tight. Terry got into the act and made a strangling noise, then flopped on his back on the floor of our den mother’s living room, his tongue sticking out six inches and his eyeballs protruding comically. It was wonderfully realistic, particularly because his tongue was all purple from a grape sour ball.

  Mrs. Slocum, our den mother, came in from the kitchen about that time carrying a tray of hot cocoa and cookies. Her eyes protruded even more than Terry’s. Then Grover, never one to leave well enough alone, said, “Caught him stealin’ cattle, ma’am, so we strung him up.” Mrs. Slocum released a screech that sent her cat halfway to the ceiling and then out of the room without ever touching the floor. Displaying an athletic prowess we never suspected, our plump, matronly den mother bounded over a wing chair and a coffee table with the agility of a startled gazelle, dropped on poor terrified Terry with all fours, ripped the noose off over his head, and pumped down on his chest so hard that the sour ball shot three feet into the air.

  As soon as we got Mrs. Slocum calmed down a bit, a couple of us pried her cat off the kitchen wall and gave it to her to pet, just to show we were trustworthy, loyal, and helpful. The only real damage was cocoa stains that never did come out of our Cub Scout shirts. Cookies had sprayed the room like shrapnel, but they were the soft kind, and didn’t hurt much. If they had been my grandmother’s sugar cookies, somebody might have been decapitated.

  Most of our Cub Scout meetings from then on were pleasant but uneventful. We practiced our other knots—the hangman’s had been banned—and worked on various projects thought up by Grover. The most interesting of these was the snowball catapult, constructed in the den mother’s backyard out of a two-by-four, a couple of bicycle-tire inner tubes, and various odds and ends. It was powerful. Mrs. Slocum thought it was some sort of teeter-totter, until it fired a ten-pound snowball across three backyards and nearly took out old Mr. Fuller, who was carrying an armload of firewood at the time. He thought he had been narrowly missed by a meteorite, which was fortunate for us. If he’d had any previous experience with ten-pound snowballs, we might have been in a lot of trouble.

  More often than not, we didn’t have time to work up an interesting project, because Mrs. Slocum came down with a “sick headache” almost every week, and we had to adjourn the meeting early. I remember how disappointed we were when one of Mrs. Slocum’s sick headaches forced us to abort Terry’s test flight, after we had worked so hard to make him a parachute, in case he experienced technical problems during reentry.

  Grover became increasingly bored, and I expected him to go AWOL at any time. Then one day in early spring, the scoutmaster of the local troop showed up at our meeting. Mr. Tiddle was a robust outdoorsman, shaped something like a barrel, but all bone and muscle. He frequently hiked his scouts into the ground and then ran up and down a mountain a couple of times just to work up a sweat, a feat about which he didn’t mind boasting. He lifted weights and did calisthenics just for the fun of it, but the strangest thing was that every New Year’s Day he would chop a big hole in the ice and plunge into the frigid water of Lake Blight. He claimed the icy plunge was wonderfully invigorating and recommended it highly to the local townsfolk. A few said they might give it a try, if their present supply of misery ran low and they had to restock.

  “Boys,” Mr. Tiddle boomed to us at our meeting, “I’ve got great news for you. A couple of the scouts from Troop Nine-oh-seven and I are going to take you Cubs on an overnight outing to Camp Muskrat this Saturday. How does that sound?”

  We broke into cheers, with Grover cheering the loudest of all.

  “You all show up at the school at eight o’clock Saturday, and we’ll issue you sleeping bags and packs,” Mr. Tiddle said. He then went on to tell us what clothes, grub, and gear to bring. “For supper, we’ll treat you to a wiener roast.”

  “Yayyyyyyyyy!”

  “It’s about time we got to see some action,” Grover said.

  The next Saturday morning, about fifteen of us Cubs assembled at the grade school. Several station wagons were parked nearby. We assumed they were there to transport us to Camp Muskrat, located on a small lake five miles from town. Then we noticed that volunteered fathers were loading the station wagons with tents and other gear and supplies. We watched as the station wagons departed one by one, until none were left for us. We exchanged uneasy glances. Surely it was not intended that our short puny legs hike all the way to Camp Muskrat.

  Mr. Tiddle and two Boy Scouts, all three in their starched tan uniforms, strode briskly over to us. “Listen up, Cubs!” Mr. Tiddle bellowed in his most enthusiastic tone. “We have a real treat for you. Scouts Lucifer and Attila have volunteered to serve as your leaders on the campout, and they have come up with a marvelous idea. Instead of riding to Camp Muskrat, you get to practice your hiking skills all the way out to the camp. Let’s have a big hand for these fine scouts.”

  Clap clap. We stared up at the towering scouts, both of whom smiled benevolently down on us. “I leave you in their care,” Mr. Tiddle said. “See you all at Camp Muskrat.” He got into his car and drove away.

  The two scouts watched his car until it disappeared around a corner. When they turned back to us, we were shocked. They had grown fangs and claws and their eyes glowed red with fiery light! We could tell from their gleefully evil expressions this was an opportunity they had waited for all their lives.

  “Hoist your packs and line up according to height, shrimps!” Attila bellowed at us in a pretty good imitation of Mr. Tiddle, only mean and threatening. “No talking! Move it! Move it!”

  Startled, we hoisted our packs and scrambled into a ragged line, ranging from four-foot Peewee Thompson at one end to five-foot Leonard Brisco at the other. The packs had been intended for actual scouts and were too big for most of us. Peewee looked like a pack with legs.

  “Hey, I just remembered,” Porky Singleton cried out. “I’m supposed to go to the dentist today! See you guys later.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Danny Murphy yelled. “Be right back.”

  “Me too,” shouted Tony Naccarado. “Be gone just a second.”

  “Shut up, shrimps!” snarled Lucifer. “Back in formation!” The would-be deserters shrank back into line.

  “Left face!” screamed Lucifer.

  “Forwarrrrd! March!” bellowed Attila. “Hut two three four, hut …”

  Attila brought up the rear, apparently for the purpose of harrying the stragglers and shooting the wounded. We marched out of town and along the highway in a line that unkind observers described as looking like dusty blue gunk oozing from an invisible tube.

  “How much farther is it?” croaked Peewee.

  “Four miles to go!” shouted Lucifer, striding along. “Now close up that line! Hut two three four …”

  The hot spots of blisters began to glow inside our tennis shoes. Pack straps gnawed at our shoulders.

  “This ain’t a hike,” Grover muttered to me. “It’s a death march!”

  “Somebody is going to pay for this,” I muttered back.

  “You said it,” Grover snarled, shooting Lucifer a wicked look. “Bring any rope?”

  “Shut up, you two!” screamed Lucifer. “Hut two three …”

  Hours later we limped into Camp Muskrat and dropped to the frozen, snow-blotched ground. Some of the packs looked as if they had finished the march on their own, but from beneath each crawled a wretched little blue-clad creature, one of whom was Peewee. “How much farther?” he gasped.

  The fathers had set up the tents and then vanished with the blinding speed common to fathers volunteered for Cub Scout outings. Mr. Tiddle and the two scouts were now left alone with fifteen exhausted but surly Cubs, who sprawled in ominous silence, sullenly watching Attila, Lucifer, and Mr. Tiddle jog about gathering wood for the evening campfire. The scouts and scoutmaster joked and laughed as if they hadn’t a care in the world. The air, however, was heavy with suspense, dark with foreboding.

  I crawled over to the remains of Grover and Peewee. “Come up with anything for Lucifer and Attila yet?” I asked Grover.

  “I’m thinking. I’m thinking,” Grover said. “Everything I come up with is either too kind or too complicated. We need something simple but mean. I suppose we could steal their clothes so they would have to run around naked in the cold and maybe catch pneumonia and suffer horribly for a long time and then die terrible agonizing deaths. But I’d like to come up with something mean.”

  “I like it,” Peewee said.

  “Me too,” I said. “But how do we get them out of their clothes?”

  “That’s the problem.”

  The sun sank behind Muskrat Mountain, and a breeze wafted in off Muskrat Lake, chilled by rafts of sludgy ice still drifting about the surface. We put on sweaters and even coats and gathered around the fire that Lucifer and Attila had built into a small inferno. This was more like it.

  “Are we camping yet?” Peewee asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  Suddenly, Mr. Tiddle erupted from his tent with a towel thrown over his shoulder. “Any of you Cubs like to join me for a dip in the lake? What, no takers? Har har! Grow hair on your chests, boys, grow hair on your chests!”

  “Grow hair all over me,” Grover muttered. The other Cubs expressed the opinion that they had all the hair they needed or wanted.

  “How about you scouts?” Mr. Tiddle boomed at Lucifer and Attila. “Like to refresh yourselves with a dip before supper? There’s a nice sandy beach down the shore a ways, and we don’t even have to chop through the ice. Just shove it out of the way.”

  Lucifer and Attila shuddered. “Why, we’d sure like to, Mr. Tiddle. Sounds wonderful. But darn it all, we didn’t bring our bathing trunks.”

  “Me neither,” bellowed Mr. Tiddle. “Ever hear of skinny-dipping? C’mon, lads. Race you out to the floating dock!”

  “Wow, okay then, Mr. Tiddle,” whined Lucifer. “Attila and I’ll be right there, as soon as we grab some towels. Hope we can find you in the dark.” The two scouts slouched off.

  We Cubs edged closer to the toasty campfire. “This is too good to be true,” Grover said to me. At first I thought he was talking about the fire, but he wasn’t. “Be back in a bit,” he said, and slipped off into the shadows.

  Scarcely had Grover vanished when the plot thickened. The headlights of a car illuminated the Camp Muskrat parking area for a moment, and soon Mrs. Slocum and another lady came picking their way down a trail to the campfire.

  “Good evening, Cubs!” cried our den mother. “You look like you’re having a wonderful time. I’m so glad! I think you all know my good friend Mrs. Teasdale. We thought we would join you for the wiener roast. Brought you a treat—marshmallows!”

  “Yayyyyyy!”

  We pulled up a log for the ladies to sit on next to the fire. “My goodness, the mosquitoes are bad, and so early in the year, too,” said Mrs. Teasdale. “Hope you all brought plenty of mosquito dope. Oh, I don’t see Mr. Tiddle.”

  “He’s out swimming,” one of the Cubs said.

  “Oh, that man!” Mrs. Teasdale giggled. “He is simply too much.”

  Just then Grover emerged from the woods, slapping his way through a cloud of mosquitoes.

  “Why, Grover, where have you been off to?” the den mother asked. “Not up to some mischief, are you?”

  “Kind of personal, ma’am,” Grover replied, trying his best to look embarrassed.

  “Oh, I see. Excuse me, dear.” The two ladies giggled in motherly fashion.

  “Snatched only one set of clothes and a towel,” Grover whispered to me. “Was all I could find in the dark. I could hear them splashing around not too far from shore and thought they might spot me. Slipped the clothes into their tent. But either Lucifer or Attila is going to be in for a big surprise!”

  We sat around the fire telling ghost stories, but nothing compared to the horror that awaited us. Sooner than expected, Lucifer came rushing into the light of the fire.

  “Wow,” he said. “You guys are smarter than you look. That water is liquid ice. Just lucky I had the good sense to test it with my toe first. Toe’s still numb. Man, if I’d jumped in that lake I’d have froze my—why, hello there, Mrs. Slocum, Mrs. Teasdale. Didn’t know you were coming for a visit.”

  “Attila’s the one,” Grover whispered to me, snickering behind his hand. “This could be good.”

  A minute later, Attila bounded into camp—fully clothed! “Wheweee, that water’s cold! Chickening out is the better part of valor, I always say. I don’t know how Mr. Tiddle can stand it.”

  Grover stared grimly at Lucifer and Attila.

  Minutes dragged by. We sang a camp song. Mrs. Slocum and Mrs. Teasdale told about when they were little girls and had picked huckleberries in the hills above Camp Muskrat. Terry started to tell another ghost story, and then …

  The monster roared out of the darkness so suddenly that several Cubs almost inhaled flaming marshmallows. For a moment I thought it was a Sasquatch, but it turned out to be Mr. Tiddle. He was stark naked, except for a little cedar bough he had twisted off a tree as a concession to modesty and our tender sensibilities. He probably could have done without the cedar bough, because he wore a layer of mosquitoes thick enough to serve as a fur coat.

  “So, the old steal-the-clothes trick!” Mr. Tiddle boomed.

  “I thought this might happen,” Grover whispered. “You can have my bike and baseball glove if you want them.”

  “Thanks, Grover,” I said. “Hey, it’s been fun knowing you.”

  Then a surprising thing happened. Mr. Tiddle grabbed Lucifer and Attila by the hair, one with each hand. “Ha! Just as I suspected—hair’s not even wet! Well, I’ll just have to see what I can do about that.”

  “Wait!” croaked Attila.

  “It wasn’t … !” blurted Lucifer

  “Oh, it wasn’t, was it?” said Mr. Tiddle. “Well, we’ll just check your tent and see if we don’t find my clothes there.”

  “Good idea!” yelped Lucifer.

  “You bet!” said Attila. “Check our tent!”

  Mr. Tiddle dragged the two scouts over to check their tent.

  “See,” Lucifer said. “Your clothes aren’t … NOOOOOO!”

  “Aha!” cried Mr. Tiddle. “You two scalawags thought you could pull a fast one on me, did you?”

  He snatched up each of the scouts by the back of the belt and charged off toward the lake, one in each meaty hand. The screams were among the best and most satisfying I’ve ever heard, starting low and quavering but then rising in pitch and volume while still conveying great feeling and intensity right up to the moment of total immersion. I thought I even heard one warbly scream from underwater, but it might have been a loon. We Cubs all agreed the performance was highly entertaining, spiritually enriching, and well worth a forced march.

  Recovering his little cedar branch, Mr. Tiddle strolled back to the fire chortling. “Please excuse my nudity for a minute, boys. I just wanted to make a point about practical jokes—oh, nice to see you, Mrs. Slocum, Mrs. Teasdale. Didn’t expect you ladies out this evening. The point I was making to the Cubs here is that people can play their little pranks, but in the end they have to pay the pipe—Ladies?” His lips froze in a grotesque smile over his big white teeth. He hunched over and tried to conceal himself behind the little bough. “Oh!”

  I thought for a moment that Mr. Tiddle had blurted out a bad word, but then I realized a scoutmaster would never use a word like that. It was probably just the cry of some wild creature passing in the night.

  Peewee said later that he thought it was all pretty funny, but that he couldn’t help but feel sorry for Mr. Tiddle.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I sure would have felt embarrassed if I’d been standing there naked except for a little cedar bough and suddenly realized two ladies were sitting not ten feet away.”

  “Yeah,” Peewee said. “Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, dumb ol’ Terry accidentally flicks his flaming marshmallow onto the cedar bough. That ol’ bough must have been dry as gunpowder, to flare up like that. Poor Mr. Tiddle.”

  “I think both Mrs. Slocum and Mrs. Teasdale handled it pretty well,” I said. “It was nice how they pretended not to notice Mr. Tiddle because of concentrating so hard on twirling their sticks over the coals, just as if roasting wieners was the most important thing in the world to them.”

  “It would have been better if they hadn’t let their wieners burn off and fall in the fire, though,” Peewee said. “They didn’t even seem to notice. Just sat there twirling them empty sticks round and round, and all the while Mr. Tiddle’s roaring and darting about like a madman.”

  “Well, I guess that’s camping,” I said.

  Grover never again showed up for a Cub Scout meeting. I guess he figured the campout at Muskrat Lake was the high point of scouting for him, and from then on it would be all downhill.

  10

  Muldoon in Love

  AFTERWARDS, I FELT BAD for a while about Miss Deets, but Mom told me to stop fretting about it. She said the problem was Miss Deets had just been too delicate to teach third grade in our part of the country.

 

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