Dreaming Jewels Read Online Free PDF

boy. In the second place, this little room is just too small for two people to live in if they’re going to be stooping and cringing and hiding from each other because of something that doesn’t matter. See?”
    “I—I guess so.”
    She helped him out of his clothes, and he began his careful education on how to be a woman from the skin outward.
    “Tell me something, Horty,” she said, as she turned out a neat drawer, looking for clothes for him. “What’s in the paper bag?”
    “That’s Junky. It’s a jack-in-the-box. It was, I mean. Armand busted it—I told you. Then the man in the truck busted it more.”
    “Could I see?”
    Worrying into a pair of her socks, he nodded toward one of the bunks. “Go ahead.”
    She lifted out the tattered bits of papier-mâché. “Two of them!” she exploded. She turned and looked at Horty as if he had turned bright purple, or sprouted rabbit’s ears.
    “Two!” she said again. “I thought I saw only one, there at the diner. Are they really yours? Both of them?”
    “They’re Junky’s eyes,” he explained.
    “Where did Junky come from?”
    “I had him before I was adopted. A policeman found me when I was a baby. I was put in a Home. I got Junky there. I guess I never had any folks.”
    “And Junky stayed with you—here, let me help you into that—Junky stayed with you from then on?”
    “Yes. He had to.”
    “Why had to?”
    “How do you hook this?”
    Zena checked what seemed to be an impulse to push him into a corner and hold him still until she extracted the information from him. “About Junky,” she said patiently.
    “Oh. Well, I just had to have him near me. No, not near me. I could go a long way away as long as Junky was all right. As long as he was mine, I mean. I mean, if I didn’t even see him for a year it was all right, but if somebody moved him, I knew it, and if somebody hurt him, I hurt too. See?”
    “Indeed I do,” said Zena surprisingly. Again Horty felt that sweet shock of delight; these people seemed to understand everything so well.
    Horty said, “I used to think everybody had something like that. Something they’d be sick if they lost it, like. I never thought to ask anyone about it, even. And then Armand, he picked on me about Junky. He used to hide Junky to get me excited. Once he put him on a garbage truck. I got so sick I had to have a doctor. I kept yelling for Junky, until the doctor told Armand to get this Junky back to me or I would die. Said it was a fix something. Ation.”
    “A fixation. I know the routine,” Zena smiled.
    “Armand, he was mad, but he had to do it. So anyway he got tired of fooling with Junky, and put him in the top of the closet and forgot about him pretty much.”
    “You look like a regular dream-girl,” said Zena admiringly. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked gravely into his eyes. “Listen to me, Horty. This is very important. It’s about the Maneater. You’re going to see him in a few minutes, and I’m going to have to tell a story—a whopper of a story. And you’ve got to help me. He just has to believe it, or you won’t be able to stay with us.”
    “I can remember real good,” said Horty anxiously. “I can remember anything I want to. Just tell me.”
    “All right.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking hard. “I was an orphan,” she said presently. “I went to live with my Auntie Jo. After I found out I was going to be a midget I ran away with a carnival. I was with it for a few years before the Maneater met me and I came to work for him. Now…” She wet her lips. “Auntie Jo married again and had two children. The first one died and you were the second. When she found out you were a midget too she began to be very mean to you. So you ran away. You worked a while in summer stock. One of the stagehands—the carpenter—took a shine to you. He caught you last night and took you into the wood shop and did a terrible thing to you—so terrible that you can’t