Venom House. Arthur W. Upfield
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“Of course. You are training to become very strong?”
“Stronger than Mary. You won’t tell Janet I told you, will you?”
“Certainly not. Haven’t I said so?”
“That’s right. Mother made me promise not to tell about the exercises. The idea is that I become much stronger than Mary, and then when Mary wants to beat me again, I am to resist.”
“Think you will be able to?” asked Bony. “Your sister is very, very strong.”
“I know. But some day I’ll be stronger than she is, and then I’ll snap her neck like a carrot.”
“You don’t like Mary, I can tell.”
“Oh, I don’t think I dislike her,” protested Morris. “It’s Janet who hates Mary. Janet doesn’t know about my exercises. You mustn’t ever tell her. If you do she will scold me and have that look on her face. Mary is very kind. She gave me the train set and the magnet to play with. But it’s fun training to be strong.”
“How old are you, Mr Answerth?”
“Mister! Oh, I say! I’m not old enough for Mister, you know. Let me think. My forgetary is bad. Janet says it is, and she’s always right. Oh yes ... I’m just fourteen. Janet says I am, and she must know. Mary says so, too. Who’s outside the door?”
“Friend of mine. Just waiting for me.”
“Oh! Then it won’t matter if he hears me doing the exercises.” Morris smiled delightedly and laughed with studied restraint. “If your friend stays quiet, I can hear if Janet or Mary comes up. They don’t know I can hear them. I’ve never told them, but I can hear them in time to stop them finding me out doing something wrong.”
“How was it you didn’t hear me, and my friend, coming up?”
“Oh! That was because I happened to be in the bathroom. Shall I do the exercises now?”
“I would certainly like to watch.”
With the conceit of a boy much younger than fourteen, Morris Answerth removed the absurd collar and the well-fitting Eton jacket, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, revealing the arms of a wrestler. When slowly he opened his arms and angled them, the biceps rose to small mountains, and the forearms became great ropes. Turning away, he performed cartwheels round the centre table. From the far end of the room, he ran to leap cleanly over the table. He placed one of the kitchen chairs on the table and cleared that. Crawling under the table, there on his knees he made his head and hands the three points of a triangle, and slowly straightened his legs till he stood with the massive table balanced on him. As slowly, he sank again to his knees, grounded the table and crawled from under, not a crane upset, the toy train still upon its rails.
Smiling proudly at his audience, he turned to the fireplace and took up the heavy poker. This he bent to a U, with no muscular strain evinced on his face. He chuckled as he straightened the poker. Replacing it, he walked on his hands to Bony and retreated to the nearer window. Standing, he proceeded to bend forward to touch the floor with finger-tips keeping his legs straight. He kept this going for five minutes, and might have continued indefinitely with the next exercise had not Bony motioned him to stop.
How many hours a day, and for how many years, had this boy-man thus whiled away in this room from which he had escaped but once? Coming to stand before Bony, he asked, hopefully:
“Well? What do you think?”
“Remarkable,” replied Bony.
“One day I shall be stronger than Mary.”
“And you will snap her neck like a carrot?”
“If Janet tells me to. She won’t, of course. She doesn’t mean me to. She was only joking. She said so.”
“Of course. Have you been here long?” asked Bony.
“Yes. I’ve always been here. Excepting once. It was glorious.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You would really like me to? Then I will. One night, Janet forgot to bolt the door, and I crept downstairs and went out. It was dark, but the stars were bright, and I could see. I went to the water, and I boarded the boat and pushed it about with an oar. Then I didn’t want to do any pushing, so I sat and watched the water and the stars lying down in it. After a long time I pushed to land, and I walked in the grass and found a little lamb. I had a little nurse of the lamb, and then I found another one and a lot of mother sheep.
“It was growing light then, and I ran about on my hands and knees and baa-ed like the little lambs, and the lambs came running to me, so I nursed them again. They liked it, too. It was good fun. Then I saw Mary coming, and she was vexed with me, and she brought me home and then she beat me until I went to sleep. When I woke up, I was very sore, and Janet was here. She was crying and she said I had been a very wicked boy, and that I must never do that again.”
“And you never did?” Bony asked, softly.
Solemnly, Morris Answerth shook his head.
“No. I never dared. And Janet didn’t leave the door unbolted. If she had done, I might have dared, you know. It was such fun playing with those little lambs.” The wistful smile vanished. The cunning returned, and the mouth was twisted into a leer. “Some day I’ll be stronger than Mary, and then I’ll go over the water again and play with the lambs. And if Mary tries to beat me, I’ll snap her neck like a carrot.”
“How do you know carrots snap?”
“Oh, Mother told me. Mother cried when Mary beat me. It was Mother who told me to do the exercises. She showed me how to. Mother told me that if I kept on with the exercises I’d grow so strong that if I wanted to go over the water and play with the little lambs Mary would not be able to stop me.”
“Does Janet know your mother told you to do the exercises?”
“Oh, no, and you mustn’t tell Janet.”
“But Janet knows you are strong and becoming stronger?”
“Yes, she knows that. She watches me take my bath twice a week. She can’t trust me to wash my neck properly.”
“Your mother, of course, comes to see you every day?”
“She used to come, and then one day Janet told her she was a bad influence over me, and after that she came only now and then, and Janet always came with her.” Morris chuckled, and the leer returned. “But Mother thought of a way to talk to me. She’d come and lie down outside the door, and I’d lie down inside and we’d talk in whispers under the door. Mother hates Mary and Janet, and they hate her. And Janet hates Mary. All of them tell me so, but I never tell what they tell me. You won’t, will you?”
“Of course, I won’t. By the way, where did you obtain the fishing-line?”
“Oh! Oh, I don’t know. It just came here with some pieces of string Janet brought when I wanted to mend something. I have great fun with it when I don’t use it for a fishing-line. I got it from the books Mary brought me to read. I can read and do sums. Mother showed me how to read and do sums, you know.”
“Good!” encouraged Bony. “Tell me about the fun you have.”
“You would really like to see?” Again the pathetic smile. “I’ll find the books and show you.”
Morris Answerth crossed to the bookcase, Bony following. There were piles of children’s adventure stories and comics, and Morris chose one pile dealing with the adventures of “Clarry, the Cowboy of Bar-O-One”.
“Clarry never misses with his lasso,” he explained, flicking open a number to find a picture of the redoubtable Clarry. “When he draws his six-gun, you know, he always shoots the villain. They won’t let me have a six-gun, but I made a lasso, and I’m as good as Clarry. Like to see me?”
“You