Melting Clock Read Online Free Page A

clean. I’d picked it up new for eight bucks at Hy’s for Him. My underwear was passable, my socks dark, my trousers only slightly wrinkled and blue enough to hide any stains I didn’t want to investigate. It was the best I could do.
    I dragged the mattress back on the bed, sort of straightened the covers and watched Dash crawl out from under the sofa and stretch. I gave him a few seconds to figure out where he was and then picked him up and tucked him under one arm. Mrs. Plaut’s manuscript was under the other.
    I didn’t expect to avoid Mrs. Plaut. I didn’t even try. She sat peeling apples on the white-painted front porch swing, watching the neighbors when they appeared. I dropped Dash on the porch and he went down the stairs and out of sight into the bushes.
    “That was some party,” I said, putting the manuscript box next to Mrs. Plaut on the swing.
    “What do you think about kindergarten, Mr. Peelers?” she asked as I brushed orange cat hairs from my wind-breaker.
    “I don’t remember it well, Mrs. Plaut,” I said. “I do remember Evelyn Yollin, the shortest girl in class, who—”
    “No,” she interrupted when I had almost retrieved the image of little Evelyn, who might be a grandmother now. “Uncle Robert’s idea about kindergarten.”
    I hadn’t read most of Mrs. Plaut’s chapter but I’d scanned it and didn’t remember an Uncle Robert. She looked up into my bewildered face.
    “Not my Uncle Robert from Port Arthur, the radio Uncle Robert in New York who says we should get rid of the word kindergarten because it’s a German word.”
    “Ah,” I said. “I haven’t really—”
    “Nonsense,” she said, looking over the roofs across the street toward the eastern sky. “Plaut is a German name. What would they call kindergarten? What would they call Plaut?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Radio people, painters, and the emperor of Japan are crazy people,” she said, returning to her apples. “I’m going to make Apples Eisenhower. Eisenhower is a German name, too. If you do not come back before three hours it will be ready and you may have some. I cannot prevent you from giving some to the orange cat, but I would prefer that you not give him much. He’s beginning to look sassy though he no longer looks with hunger at my bird.”
    “I’ll ration his Apples Eisenhower,” I promised.
    “Speaking of rations,” she said. “Stamp number twenty-four in War Ration Book One is good for one pound of coffee until January twenty-one. Sugar stamp number ten in War Ration Book One is good for three pounds of sugar until January fifteen. Gasoline A coupon number four is good until January twenty-one. Stamp number seventeen in War Ration Book One is good for one pair of shoes until June fifteen.”
    I didn’t ask how she remembered all of this. I just said, “You can have them all, Mrs. Plaut”
    She nodded and went on, “Blue A, B, and C stamps in War Ration Book Two will be issued in February. They are worth forty-eight points worth of canned and other processed foods for the month of March.”
    “You may have them all, Mrs. Plaut”
    “War is hell, Mr. Peelers.”
    “I’ve got to go, Mrs. Plaut. Dali’s expecting me.”
    “The one from Tibet,” she said knowingly.
    I’d been through this with her before so I said, “Yes, Mrs. Plaut.”
    “Book or pests?” she asked.
    It took me a beat to understand. “No, he hasn’t written a book and he doesn’t need an exterminator.”
    “Ah,” she said with a very knowing smile. “They’re wrong about the kindergarten thing, you know.”
    “They’re wrong,” I agreed. “I’ll see you later.”
    My khaki-colored Crosley was, as all Crosleys are, almost small enough to pick up and carry under one arm. I’d bought mine used from No-Neck Arnie the mechanic for two hundred dollars. He’d got it from a guy who’d picked it up at a hardware store in 1940. It wasn’t a bad car. Maybe the reason it didn’t catch on was the brilliant