A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle [11]
“Tell us what you’re doing here,” Charles Wallace said.
“What is this? The third degree? Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to be the moron?”
Meg flushed with rage, but Charles Wallace answered placidly, “That’s right. If you want me to call my dog off you’d better give.”
“Most peculiar moron I’ve ever met,” Calvin said. “I just came to get away from my family.”
Charles Wallace nodded. “What kind of family?”
“They all have runny noses. I’m third from the top of eleven kids. I’m a sport.”
At that Charles Wallace grinned widely. “So ’m I.”
“I don’t mean like in baseball,” Calvin said.
“Neither do I.”
“I mean like in biology,” Calvin said suspiciously.
“A change in gene,” Charles Wallace quoted, “resulting in the appearance in the offspring of a character which is not present in the parents but which is potentially transmissible to its offspring.”
“What gives around here?” Calvin asked. “I was told you couldn’t talk.”
“Thinking I’m a moron gives people something to feel smug about,” Charles Wallace said. “Why should I disillusion them? How old are you, Cal?”
“Fourteen.”
“What grade?”
“Junior. Eleventh. I’m bright. Listen, did anybody ask you to come here this afternoon?”
Charles Wallace, holding Fort by the collar, looked at Calvin suspiciously. “What do you mean, asked?”
Calvin shrugged. “You still don’t trust me, do you?”
“I don’t distrust you,” Charles Wallace said.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re here, then?”
“Fort and Meg and I decided to go for a walk. We often do in the afternoon.”
Calvin dug his hands down in his pockets. “You’re holding out on me.”
“So ’re you,” Charles Wallace said.
“Okay, old sport,” Calvin said, “I’ll tell you this much. Sometimes I get a feeling about things. You might call it a compulsion. Do you know what compulsion means?”
“Constraint. Obligation. Because one is compelled. Not a very good definition, but it’s the Concise Oxford.”
“Okay, okay,” Calvin sighed. “I must remember I’m preconditioned in my concept of your mentality.”
Meg sat down on the coarse grass at the edge of the woods. Fort gently twisted his collar out of Charles Wallace’s hands and came over to Meg, lying down beside her and putting his head in her lap.
Calvin tried now politely to direct his words toward Meg as well as Charles Wallace, “When I get this feeling, this compulsion, I always do what it tells me. I can’t explain where it comes from or how I get it, and it doesn’t happen very often. But I obey it. And this afternoon I had a feeling that I must come over to the haunted house. That’s all I know, kid. I’m not holding anything back. Maybe it’s because I’m supposed to meet you. You tell me.”
Charles Wallace looked at Calvin probingly for a moment; then an almost glazed look came into his eyes, and he seemed to be thinking at him. Calvin stood very still, and waited.
At last Charles Wallace said. “Okay. I believe you. But I can’t tell you. I think I’d like to trust you. Maybe you’d better come home with us and have dinner.”
“Well, sure, but—what would your mother say to that?” Calvin asked.
“She’d be delighted. Mother’s all right. She’s not one of us. But she’s all right.”
“What about Meg?”
“Meg has it tough,” Charles Wallace said. “She’s not really one thing or the other.”
“What do you mean, one of us?” Meg demanded. “What do you mean I’m not one thing or the other?”
“Not now, Meg,” Charles Wallace said. “Slowly. I’ll tell you about it later.” He looked at Calvin, then seemed to make a quick decision. “Okay, let’s take him to meet Mrs Whatsit. If he’s not okay she’ll know.” He started off on his short legs toward the dilapidated old house.
The haunted house was half in the shadows of the clump of elms in which it stood. The elms were almost bare, now, and the ground around the house was yellow with damp leaves. The late afternoon light had a greenish cast which the blank windows reflected in a sinister way. An unhinged shutter thumped. Something else creaked.