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nj-u^j^u-in THIS BOOK

BELONGS TO

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sSS BETTY BROCK was born in North Carolina and grew up in Washington, D.C. She has attended George Washington University and the University of North Carolina. Mrs. Brock and her husband now live in Alexandria, Virginia. She is also the author of NO FLYING IN THE HOUSE.

The Shades

Betty Brock Illustrated by Victoria de Larrea

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AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 959 Eighth Avenue New York, New York 10019

Copyright 1971 by Betty Brock. Pictures copyright 1971 by Victoria de Larrea. Published by arrangement with Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-148421.

All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022.

First Camelot Printing, March, 1973.

CAMELOT TRADEMARK IS REG. IN THE U . S . PAT. OFF . AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U.S.A.

Printed in the U.S.A.

For my mother and father

The Shades

'/SS:

1 "ARE WE ALMOST THERE?" asked Hollis, sitting on the edge of his seat beside the taxi driver and looking out at the small seaside town.

"Every time I put on the brakes you ask me that," said the man. "Miss Emily lives out a-ways from town. I'll tell you when we get there."

Coming up to Connecticut on the plane, Hollis had decided he wouldn't like Emily Peters. He had made up his mind that she was a witch. Now, thinking about her, he couldn't sit still. He rolled the window up and down and fidgeted with the radio until the driver asked him, please, to choose one station and leave it alone.

3

"Are you spending the summer at The Shad-ows?" asked the driver, a tall thin man who spoke in an easy, friendly way, even though he never smiled.

Hollis nodded. "Miss Peters is taking care of me while my parents go to Europe. She and my mother were roommates in college." He had never met Miss Peters, but he knew she had red hair and lived in a big house near the beach. What was he going to do if she turned out to be a witch?

On the outskirts of town, where large houses with front porches and towers in their roofs sprawled beyond spacious lawns, Hollis looked at the driver.

The driver nodded. "We're almost there," he said. "Miss Emily was right upset when she called me to meet you. 'Frank,' she said, 'my car won't start and that boy is only eight.' "

"I 'm growing on nine," said Hollis quickly. "My birthday is next month." Leaning forward, he watched as the taxi turned down a quiet street lined with high walls and hedges and pulled in between stone pillars, marking the entrance to a gravel drive. From a bronze plate on one of the pillars, Hollis read, The Shadows.

"Why does Miss Peters call her house The Shadows?" asked Hollis, peering ahead as they started down the drive.

"Because that's what her great-grandfather

4

called it," said Frank over the noise of the tires, swishing through the gravel. "It used to be one of the finest estates around, but most of the land was sold off a long time ago."

Suddenly Hollis saw a large vine-covered house at the end of the drive. Towering trees cast a veil of flickering shadows over the house and across the lawn. There were so many gables and chim-neys sprouting from the roof that the house re-sembled a heavily carved altar in a dimly lit cathedral.

"Looks bleak, don't it?" said Frank. "It's hard to figure why Miss Emily likes to live in this big old place all alone. Them beech trees are grand though."

Even when Hollis realized that the icicles fring-ing the pointed gables and windows were part of a lacy wooden trim, he thought it odd that Miss Peters' home looked so bleak and wintery in the middle of June. At that moment he wouldn't have been surprised to see a ghost peeking through the windows.

Frank pulled up at the front door behind a small yellow sports car.

"My glory, Miss Emily!" exclaimed Frank, get-ting out and opening the door for Hollis. "Is that you down there, underneath that car?"

Walking around the taxi with Frank, Hollis saw two bare feet protruding from beneath the

5

car. Then an arm reached out, and a young red-haired woman in slacks rolled out into the drive. Her blouse was streaked with grease and a wide black smear spotted her forehead. At least she didn't look like a witch.

"Frank, I think I've fixed it!" she exclaimed, getting to her feet and wiping her hands on an oily cloth. "Is this Hollis? Golly, you're taller than I expected. Hello, Hollis. I'm Emily."

With a friendly grin she stuck out her hand and Hollis shook it. Her handshake was as firm as his father's, but her face was as pretty as his mother's, and he liked the twinkle in her brown eyes. Nobody that pretty, Hollis decided, could be a witch.

"What a time for my car to act up," said Emily. "I hope Frank found you without any trouble."

"No trouble," said Frank. "I just yelled 'Hollis' at the first blue-eyed brown-haired boy to get off the plane." He grinned down at Hollis for the first time since they had met. "She didn't tell me you were a mite skinny though. Miss Emily's good cooking will fix that. Wait till you taste her apple pie!"

"I made one this afternoon," said Emily. "Can you come in for a piece?"

"Thanks," said Frank, "but I've got to hurry to meet a six o'clock plane. I'll set Hollis's bag in the hall while you try that engine."

6

Hollis waited by the car for Emily to start it. The engine purred.

"Perfect!" said Emily, getting out. "After sup-per, if you like, we'll drive down to the beach. Can you swim?"

Hollis nodded. "How far is the beach?" "Not far," said Emily. "Between here and

town." Frank returned and solemnly shook Hollis's

hand. "Have a good summer," he said. "I'll be seeing you around."

Standing beside Emily, watching Frank drive away, Hollis suddenly felt like an abandoned pup. Even though his parents had promised to bring him a cuckoo clock from Europe, and maybe a guitar, Hollis wished they hadn't left him to stay in such a gloomy place. T o hide his feelings he pretended to study the vines covering the walls of the house and crisscrossing the dark windows.

"Cheer up," said Emily, taking his hand and smiling as though she had read his thoughts. "I know it looks haunted, but in the last hundred years no one has seen a ghost."

With an uneasy laugh, Hollis walked with her to the open front door. The iron knocker was large enough for a giant. When they stepped into the cool, lofty hall, Hollis shivered.

Thin shafts of late afternoon sunlight seeped through the great vine-covered window over the

7

stair landing. In the dim light Hollis saw an empty fireplace crouched under a huge carved-stone mantel and archways opening into a draw-ing room and library, as shadowy as caverns. Across the hall, at the foot of the stairs, a grand-father's clock snored steadily.

"This part is gloomy," said Emily, following, barefooted, with his suitcase. "Come on upstairs."

Halfway up the broad carpeted stairs Hollis slipped his hand into Emily's, wondering if he could ever get used to the shadowy rooms and the floors that creaked with every step. All along the dim upstairs hall he looked back at the closed doors, half expecting to be followed.

"This is your room," said Emily, at the end of the hall, opening a door into a room so flooded with light from the setting sun that Hollis blinked. "It's a small room, but I think it is cozier than the others, and it's next to mine. The rug is new. I got a red one to brighten up the place."

Looking down at the fuzzy red rug and at the sunlight streaming through the diamond-paned windows, Hollis was so thankful that his room was free of gloom, he wanted tc hug Emily. When she opened the door between their connecting rooms, he saw another sunlit room with a high canopied bed and a fireplace.

"You can leave this door between our rooms open if you like," she said. "We'll share my bath-

8

room. After I've showered and changed, we'll have some dinner."

While Emily took her shower, Hollis dumped the contents of his suitcase into the bureau draw-ers. Looking through the open door between their rooms, he was glad to see Emily's bathroom door ajar. Remembering the shadowy hall, he felt more comfortable listening to the water beating in her shower.

Even though it was small, Hollis liked his room. Its ceiling sloped like the sides of a tent and below the bank of windows stretched a wide cushioned seat. Circus lions marched across the bedspread and the fuzzy red rug felt wonderful underfoot.

Escaping steam from Emily's shower drifted into his room, masking the windows. Hollis went to open one. Kneeling on the window seat, his hand on the latch, he heard something outside. It sounded like a twig scraping against the steamed glass pane, but he remembered there weren't any vines growing over these windows. With one finger he polished a circle as small as the window in a candy Easter egg. Looking through the tiny porthole, he saw a pink sky above the tops of giant beech trees and a large quiet garden below. Then he pushed open the window.

For one single moment a shadow passed before him, as quickly as the shadow of a bird in flight.

10

Hollis stumbled backward. He knew it wasn't a bird's shadow. It was too large.

Behind him the roar of Emily's shower was comfortably reassuring. Hollis crept back to the window. This time he leaned out, looking around. Outside the window an old wisteria vine hugged a sagging trellis. On a nearby ivy-covered chimney, sparrows chattered like ladies at a party. Far below, too far to reach without a ladder, a porch roof extended across the back of the house. The garden, stretching away like a park as far as he could see, was deserted.

When Emily emerged from the shower, rosy and fragrant, Hollis was waiting. "I saw a boy's shadow!" he insisted. "It was bigger than I am!"

Emily laughed. "Why do you think this old house is called The Shadows?" she asked. "The roof with all those gables and chimneys casts some strange ones, especially at twilight." She took his hand. "You'll get used to them. Every-body does."

11

2 WHEN HE WOKE the next morning, Hollis heard Emily singing. Her voice was muffled, as though she were singing in a closet. Dressing quickly, he tiptoed into her room. Her bed was empty, but across the room Hollis noticed a door standing ajar.

"Emily?" he called. Opening the door, he saw a narrow staircase spiraling up to a floor above.

"Up here, Hollis!" Scrambling up the stairs, Hollis entered a bright

tower room cluttered with canvases stacked against the walls. Jars of brushes, tubes, and cans

12

of paint sprouted like flowers from the tables. Near the window Emily stood before an easel, painting.

"Good morning," she said without turning her head. "I'll be through in a moment. When I wake up early I like to paint awhile before breakfast."

Hollis walked over to watch. "Someday will you paint my picture?" he asked.

"If you like." "Will I have to sit still?" "For a little while. Unless you want your ears

where your eyes belong and your nose growing out of your mouth."

"I 'd like that!" Hollis laughed. He looked out the tower windows at the big garden below. Then, rummaging through the clutter of paint tubes, he squeezed a different color onto each fingernail, wondering if Emily would say, "Don't." Instead, when she finished, she handed him a rag covered with turpentine to wipe his hands the way she did.

Descending the broad hall stairs with Emily to breakfast, Hollis peered over the banisters into the shadowy depths below.

"Mrs. Hall will be here today," said Emily. "She comes on Wednesdays and Fridays to help me keep this house together. I should have sold the place when my father died. It's much too big for one person, but I love it."

13

Hollis couldn't understand why she loved it. Except for their rooms and the studio, it was the gloomiest house he had ever seen. The large downstairs rooms were so dark, lights were needed in the daytime. The massive furniture cast strange shadows that seemed to reach out for him from the walls and corners. Even with the sun-light leaking through the vine-covered windows, he felt almost as uncomfortable as he had last evening when they returned from their after-dinner swim at the beach. All the way to the kitchen he stayed close to Emily.

T o his relief the big kitchen was as bright as it had been last night with the lights on. In a wing of the house, it opened on one side to a service court near the front drive and on the other to the long back porch. The morning sun, streaming in through vine-free windows, flashed on the polished copper pans hanging over the stove.

"What would you like for breakfast?" asked Emily, opening the refrigerator.

"Pie," said Hollis, remembering the apple pie left over from their dinner.

Emily looked up, an amused twinkle in her eyes, as though she knew that at home he had eggs and cereal. "Is pie good for breakfast?" she asked.

H

"I don't know," Hollis admitted. "Let's find out," said Emily. "If you'll carry

the pie, I'll bring the milk, and we can eat break-fast in the garden."

Delighted, Hollis followed Emily out onto the back porch, overlooking the still, damp garden. The soft morning air trembled with a bird choir's canticles. Stretching away as far as he could see beneath giant beeches and tall rhododendron hedges, the dew-wet lawn sparkled in the warm sunlight. It was such a large garden Hollis won-dered where it ended.

Carrying a tray, Emily led the way along a gravel path pocked with dandelions, past a dilap-idated rose arbor sagging under its load of un-pruned climbers and around an ivy-covered sundial. The neglected flower beds were minia-ture jungles.

"I haven't time for them," said Emily, "and it is all Mr. Valentine can do to keep the grass cut. He's a nice old man. You'll meet him later."

Deep in the garden, where a bench and a low table of twisted iron branches seemed to be grow-ing out of the thick green lawn, Emily put down the tray.

"When I was a little girl, there was a summer-house nearby," she said, making room on the table for the pie. "I used to play there every day.

J5

Last year it was so badly rotted we had to take it down. It broke my heart."

Hollis looked startled. Emily laughed. "Not really! But it made me

sad to lose my old playhouse." She poured the milk. "Will you please serve the pie?"

Hollis had never cut a pie. Very carefully he sliced the leftover pie into two pieces. When he saw that he had made one slice larger than the other, he hesitated, frowning unhappily.

"Thank you, Hollis," said Emily, holding out two plates. "I prefer the smaller piece."

Hollis liked Emily. He squeezed onto the small bench beside her, glad that she had chosen a sunny place to eat, where the birds called back and forth in the trees and the air smelled freshly washed. Swinging his short legs, eating his pie, he felt like a king, in a golden palace filled with golden singing birds, drinking from a ruby-studded goblet handed him by a beautiful red-haired princess.

"What's that?" he asked suddenly, hearing a dribbling sound like a leaky faucet.

Emily listened. "It's the fountain," she said, nodding toward a shadowy place in the trees be-hind them. "Over there."

Turning, Hollis saw a large stone shell filled with water, riding the crest of a mossy stone wave. A marble fish, holding its tail high above the

16

water, stared down from its pedestal behind the shell. Water dripped slowly from the fish's mouth into the shell below.

"The dolphin used to bubble merrily," said Emily, "but like everything else it needs atten-tion. My great-grandfather, who built The Shad-ows, bought the fountain in Italy. He was told it came out of an old Roman villa and was a fountain of youth." She giggled.

"Isn't it?" asked Hollis. "According to my father, Great-grandfather

drank from the fountain every day, hoping to live forever, even though he knew the water was piped from the house and was the same water he drank at meals. After he died no one paid attention to the fountain anymore. It's just a place to get a cool drink on a hot day."

While Emily finished her pie and milk, Hollis walked over to look at the fountain. The mossy wave lifted the shell basin as high as his chest. Standing on his toes, he could see to the bottom of the still water, a mirror backed by a layer of dead leaves. A blue-green patina coated the weathered dolphin's pedestal and open mouth from which the water dripped so slowly that the reflection in the basin of Hollis's tan, round face stared up unwrinkled. Lowering his arm up to the elbow, he watched the ripples widen toward the shell's edge. They sloshed over into a grass-

17

filled saucer on the ground, wetting his jersey down the front. With both hands he scrambled the water into a typhoon and ran, dripping, back to Emily.

"Would you like to stay in the garden and play?" she asked, standing tall and stretching toward the cloudless summer sky. "I have to see to Mrs. Hall and get on with my painting. If you want me, I'll be in the tower."

Hollis wasn't sure he wanted to stay in the garden alone, but he preferred it to the gloomy house. He helped Emily pile the empty plates and glasses on the tray.

"Don't look so forlorn," said Emily, smiling. "You'll find lots of things to do in the garden. You might start off by searching for my mother's brooch. When I was twelve I wore it into the garden and lost it."

"How big it it?" asked Hollis. "About the size of an egg, but it's flat," said

Emily. "I hated to lose it. It had been in the family for generations."

"I'll look for it," said Hollis. "And don't worry about getting lost yourself,"

she said. "There is a high brick wall all around the garden. When you want to come back to the house, just follow the wall."

For a moment, watching her disappear down the path, Hollis thought of running after her,

18

but two squirrels playing tag dashed out of the trees, pausing to blink at him. Pretending he was a hunter, he picked up a stick gun and chased after them.

Very soon Hollis lost interest in searching for the brooch. The garden was much larger than he had imagined. Shady paths wound past cool alcoves where lichen-frosted benches waited to be discovered. Groves of trees, spattered with birds, hung over his head like giant wind chimes tinkling out a hundred different tunes. He ran down flights of stairs between large stone urns into sunny clearings, where robins searched the lawn as busily as red-vested detectives.

While stalking a family of grazing rabbits, Hollis was startled to see a lady clothed in drap-eries smiling down at him. Then he laughed. She was only a statue, poised gracefully on an ivy-covered pedestal. Walking around her, swatting the tall weeds about her pedestal with his stick, he saw a small green snake flash through the weeds. It slithered into a hole under the pedestal.

Hollis ran off across the lawn. Crawling through a hole in a rhododendron hedge, he found himself on a path leading to a greenhouse. Just beyond the greenhouse the high brick wall marked the garden's back boundary.

Cautiously Hollis peeked through the open greenhouse door. On the dirt floor broken panes

19

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from the glass roof glinted in the sunlight. Ex-cept for some upended flower pots and an old wooden ladder, the greenhouse was deserted. It looked as if no one had grown flowers there for a long time.

Lifting one end of the heavy ladder, Hollis dragged it out of the greenhouse. He dragged it down the path and across the lawn to a grove of beeches. Nearby, the lady statue glistened in the sun. Hollis leaned the ladder against the tallest tree, inching it up until the top rung was within reach of the lowest branch. Scrambling up, he was soon climbing high into the leafy bird world. Now he could see the house and Emily's tower studio. He could see over the back wall into a street lined with small houses and into the neigh-boring gardens on either side of The Shadows.

Climbing down was not as easy as climbing up. He had to back down like a kitten and swing from a branch until his sneakers touched the ladder's top rung. Hollis was starting down the ladder when one of the rungs broke. Falling, he clutched at a branch, lost his grip, and went flying through the air. He hit the ground with a thud. For a moment his head whirled, his face turned cold. Looking up he saw the lady statue. She stood smiling down at what appeared to be shadows of children holding hands in a circle around her pedestal. But there were no children there.

21

3 WHEN HOLLIS CAME TO, he was looking up at the tanned, leathery face of an old man offering him a tin dipper of water. The man's sagging jacket and battered straw hat looked as though he had snagged them in a lawn mower.

"I've been meaning to chop up that old ladder for kindling," the man said. "Never thought any-body would try to use it. You must be young Hollis, visiting Miss Emily."

Hollis nodded, drinking from the dipper. "I 'm the gardener, Jeremy Valentine," said the

man. "I 'm sorry about the ladder. Are you feel-ing better?"

22

Putting his hand to his head, Hollis squinted toward the lady statue. She stood in the bright sunlight smiling down as before, but now the only shadow he could see was her own. "I 'm okay I guess," he said.

Mr. Valentine helped him to his feet. "I'll walk you back to the house if you're feeling shaky."

"Thanks," said Hollis. "I can manage." Turn-ing away it occurred to him that if Mr. Valentine worked in the garden, he might have seen the shadows, too. Hollis came back. "Have you worked here a long time?"

"Off and on most of my life," said the man. "In the old days there were six of us to keep the garden trim. I'm the only one left."

"Do children ever play here?" The man smiled. "They used to. Miss Emily

was the last. Now, unless she has a young visitor like yourself, no one plays here anymore." He looked closer at Hollis. "Is something troubling you, boy?"

Hollis shook his head. "I guess it was the fall. Before I passed out, I thought I saw a lot of shad-ows around the statuechildren's shadows."

Again the old man smiled. "This garden is so full of shadows you can be fooled into seeing some strange ones. You'll get used to the shadows. Everybody does."

Walking back to the house, Hollis remembered

23

that last night Emily had said the same thing. The noon sun was high overhead. He looked down at his own short shadow and tried to step on it. Then he laughed, continuing down the path.

At the dolphin fountain Hollis paused for a drink. Cupping his hands, he splashed water into his mouth. It tasted deliciously cool. Then he stuck his head in the water.

Looking around to make sure he was alone, Hollis kicked off his sneakers and climbed into the fountain. It was like sitting in a big teacup. With his clothes soaked, sitting up to his waist in water, Hollis began to giggle. He laughed and splashed, lying on his back kicking. He rolled over and blew bubbles in the cool water. Turning his face toward the slow drip from the dolphin's mouth, he let the water dribble onto his forehead and run down over his closed eyes into his mouth.

Suddenly, hearing footsteps, Hollis opened his eyes. He rubbed the water from his lashes. Under the trees near the fountain stood a boy.

Hollis sat in the fountain staring, wondering if the boy had climbed into the garden over the wall. He was taller than Hollis and older, about eleven, with black hair and large brown eyes.

"Hello," said Hollis finally. "Hello," said the boy. He was dressed strangely,

in pants that buckled under his knees and a starched white shirt.

24

"What's your name?" asked Hollis. "Carl Shade," said the boy. "Do you live around here?" The boy nodded. "You're Hollis. You're visit-

ing Miss Emily." Hollis climbed out of the fountain. Everyone

seemed to know he was visiting Emily. "How did you get here?" he asked. "Did you climb over the wall?"

The boy frowned. "That's forbidden," he said. "Never climb over the wall!" He said it as if he were quoting the Ten Commandments.

"If you didn't climb over the wall, how did you get into the garden?" asked Hollis. "Are you visit-ing Emily, too?"

"I live over there," said Carl, pointing into the trees. He came closer. "Do you happen to have a safety pin?"

Hollis shook his head. "Or a needle? My mother needs a safety pin

and a needle. We're always losing them. I've been looking for them all morning."

"In the garden?" asked Hollis. "They're here somewhere," said the boy, glanc-

ing about at the grass. "Would you like to help me look for them?"

Hollis picked up his sneakers. Looking for Emily's brooch had convinced him that finding anything as small as a needle in this garden would

26

I

be an impossible task. "It's lunchtime," he said. "Maybe Emily has some extras I could bring out after lunch."

"Bully!" said Carl. "One of each would do nicely. My mother would be much obliged."

"I won't be long," said Hollis. "When I come back, we can play."

"Don't forget!" called the boy just before he ran off into the trees.

Carrying his sneakers, Hollis started toward the house, following the dancing flight of a butterfly down the path. From far away a rich golden melody threaded its way through the garden, touching his ears like a caress. It was a woman's voice, deeper and stronger than Emily's, singing foreign words he couldn't understand. He won-dered if she were Carl's mother.

Emily was in the kitchen with a tall, erect woman whose hair was pinned back tightly into a thin knot on her long neck. Dressed in black, wearing sturdy black shoes and a big apron that partly covered her long skinny legs, the woman reminded Hollis of an ostrich.

"This is Mrs. Hall," Emily told Hollis. "We were wondering if you'd fallen asleep under a tree. Aren't you hungry?"

Frowning, Mrs. Hall looked down her long straight nose and pointed a long straight finger

27

at Hollis. "He looks like a wet rat!" she ex-claimed.

Emily winked at Hollis. "He looks as if he fell in the fountain," she said.

Hollis was glad Emily understood about his swim, even if Mrs. Hall didn't. He told Emily about climbing the tree and falling. "Mr. Valen-tine found me. On the way home I met a boy named Carl Shade."

Emily and Mrs. Hall stared at him. "Carl who?"

"Carl Shade," said Hollis. "He lives over there." He pointed in the direction of the garden.

Mrs. Hall shook her head. "Must be one of those new families on the back street," she said. "Their kids have been pestering everyone in the neighborhood. They broke all the flower pots on the Richards' patio. You'd better leave that trash alone, Sonny."

Hollis didn't like being called Sonny. He didn't want to talk to Mrs. Hall about Carl Shade. "I'm going up and change," he said.

Out in the shadowy hall he wished he had asked Emily to come with him. The dozing clock comforted him with its gentle tick, but all the way up the stairs he was afraid to look over the banisters. At the top of the stairs, he ran as hard as he could, past all the closed doors, to his room at the end of the hall.

28

The fuzzy red rug welcomed him like a mother. He rolled over and over on it, taking off his wet clothes. When he was dressed again, he tiptoed into Emily's room. From a velvet pincushion on her dresser, he chose a large safety pin and a needle. He wrapped them in a tissue and put them in his pocket. Then he ran downstairs to lunch.

After lunch Emily took Hollis up to the attic. He wanted to go back to the garden to find Carl Shade, but Emily said there were toys in the attic.

"Old ones, of course," she said, leading the way up the narrow attic stairs. "Some were mine, some were my father's, and some have been here since the house was new. You can bring down what-ever you like."

The attic was cluttered with boxes and trunks and broken furniture. Lacy cobwebs clung to the sloping rafters like ghostly curtains. Hollis helped Emily move aside dusty mirrors and picture frames to reach a box labeled "Games."

"We'll make a pile of the things you want to take downstairs," said Emily, lifting the lid.

Inside the box were jigsaw puzzles, glass mar-bles as large as golf balls, dominoes made of ivory, and a small wooden top that had to be wound up with string.

Hollis peeked into another box. "There are toy soldiers in this one," he said, holding up a lead

29

figure with part of its bright red paint worn off. "And card games and Parcheesi."

He found an electric train that had belonged to Emily's father, a baseball, a drum, and a collec-tion of toy cars. He added so many things to his pile that when they were ready to leave, it took several trips to carry everything.

"Could I bring this?" asked Hollis, holding up a dusty sketchbook half filled with drawings. "While you paint, I can draw.-"

Emily smiled. "That was my grandfather's. Bring it along. I'll carry these books. If we've forgotten anything, we can come back later."

Everything but the train fitted into Hollis's room. The red rug was so fuzzy, the train kept falling off the tracks.

"We can put the train in the room across the hall," said Emily, but Hollis shook his head. Finally, even though it meant stepping over the tracks every time she got out of bed, Emily helped Hollis set up the train in her room.

While Emily worked at her desk, Hollis played with the train. It was late afternoon before he re-membered Carl Shade.

"I 'm going into the garden for awhile," he told Emily, feeling in his pocket for the tissue-wrapped needle and safety pin.

"I'll come out later," she said, "as soon as I finish this letter."

3

Hollis headed straight for the fountain. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the lawn around the dolphin fountain.

"Carl?" called Hollis. A breeze rustled in the beech trees. A squirrel

chattered to his mate. Nearby, the water dripped quietly from the dolphin's mouth.

"Carl!" called Hollis, heading off through a carpet of ivy under the trees in the direction he had seen the boy take. A blue jay's feather drifted across his path, but when he reached for it, it turned into a butterfly. Soon he came out of the trees at a grassy clearing by the brick wall, where peonies drooped their heavy heads like tired bal-loons.

There was no place for the boy to live in this direction. As far as Hollis could see, there was no place to live in the garden. Except for the deserted greenhouse where he had found the ladder, there was no house in the garden. Hollis decided the boy must have been fooling him. He must have come over the wall.

31

4 THE NEXT MORNING Hollis and Emily took a pic-nic to the beach, and when they returned in the afternoon, two of Emily's friends came to call. Emily and her friends sat in the gloomy drawing room talking, talking, talking.

Hollis slipped off to his room. Opening his top dresser drawer, he reached behind a dead dragon-fly, a blue jay's feather, and a pile of shells, for the safety pin and needle. They were still wrapped in the tissue, just as he had put them away the night before. He slipped them into his pocket. Then, borrowing a pencil from Emily's desk, he carried it and the half-filled sketchbook

32

he had brought down from the attic out into the garden.

Under a tree, he sat down and opened the sketchbook to a clean page. Carefully he drew a squirrel that was digging in a flower bed. Decid-ing the squirrel looked more like a dog, he drew a bird. He filled a whole page with birds.

Hollis began looking at the sketches Emily's grandfather had drawn in the front of the book. They were well done, much better than he could do. In one drawing he recognized Emily's house, though there were no vines on the walls and many of the trees were saplings. There was the green-house with flowers inside and a very good likeness of the dolphin fountain. Hollis turned the page. The next drawing was of the lady statue near the tree he had climbed.

Suddenly he bent very close to the sketchbook. All around the lady statue were shadows, just like those he had seen before he passed out, shadows of children! Holding his breath, Hollis turned the page. But there was only a drawing of the rose arbor on one side and a summerhouse on the other.

"The one that broke Emily's heart," he said aloud, wondering why losing the small round building with open sides would make anyone sad.

Licking his finger, Hollis turned the page. A boy's face smiled up at him. It was a very good

33

drawing of a face that looked strangely familiar. Where had he seen it before? Then Hollis re-membered. He sucked in his breath. It was a sketch of Carl Shade!

For a long time Hollis stared at the page in the sketchbook, wondering how Carl Shade's picture came to be there. Suddenly, in the bottom corner he saw some spidery printing. Holding the page up to catch the light he made out the faintly pen-ciled words. "James J. Peters, self-portrait," he read aloud.

Clutching the sketchbook, Hollis hurried into the house, interrupting Emily's conversation with her friends.

"What does that mean?" he asked excitedly, pointing to the words. "What does self-portrait mean?"

Emily smiled at the sketch. "It means that my grandfather, James J. Peters, drew his own pic-ture. He probably did it by looking at himself in a mirror."

The two ladies with Emily were enchanted by the sketchbook. Hollis had a terrible time getting it away from them. He carried it back to the gar-den.

Starting over again, he studied each sketch carefully, looking for more of the faintly penciled lettering at the bottom of the pages. He studied the page with the children's shadows holding

34

hands around the statue especially hard, but James J. Peters hadn't labeled anything else. After his self-portrait, the sketchbook was blank.

Thoughtfully, Hollis took the tissue out of his pocket and unwrapped the needle and safety pin. They glittered in the sunlight. Tossing the paper aside, he carried them into the house, back up to Emily's room, and stuck them into her pincush-ion.

Late in the afternoon, Emily found Hollis in the garden watching an ant hill. She was very good at games. She did a splendid cartwheel, but Hollis was better at somersaults. Racing to the greenhouse, Emily's laughter rang through the garden like a silver bell. They played leapfrog all the way back to the fountain.

"I simply must go in," she laughed, panting. "Tomorrow Mrs. Hall is bringing her grand-daughter to play with you. Kathy is ten, but you can have a good time together."

"I 'd rather play with you," said Hollis. Even though he hadn't met Mrs. Hall's granddaughter, Hollis was sure he wouldn't like her if she was anything like Mrs. Hall. He wished Emily knew Carl Shade.

As soon as she left him, Hollis took off his sneakers and climbed into the fountain. Over-head, in a beech tree, a blue jay sat fussing at him.

35

Laughing, Hollis threw water at it. He sat up and leaned his back against the dolphin's pede-stal, letting the water from its mouth drip over his head. The water ran down over his eyes, wet-ting his lashes, tickling his nose.

Suddenly, right in front of Hollis, Carl Shade stepped out from behind a tree. He was wearing the same strange trousers that buckled under his knees, but instead of the starched white shirt, he wore a red jersey exactly like the one Hollis had worn yesterday.

"My mother appreciated the needle and safety pin," said Carl. "You were very kind to bring them."

Staring at the boy, Hollis sat in the fountain with the water dripping over his head. "I couldn't find you," he said at last, shaking his head like a wet dog. "I looked everywhere." He climbed out. "I took the safety pin and needle back, but if you promise to wait, I'll go get them again."

"Don't bother," said Carl. "The ones you brought the first time will do nicely."

Hollis frowned. "How can they?" he asked. "I didn't give them to you!"

The boy smiled. "Yes, you did. Come. I'll show you." He started away through the trees.

Leaving his sneakers, Hollis followed, crossing the garden in exactly the same direction he had searched yesterday. They emerged from the trees

36

in the clearing Hollis remembered, near the high brick wall. But now there was a swing hanging from a large tree, and beside the overgrown border of peonies, where there had been only grass be-fore, Hollis saw a round opensided summerhouse, built of lattice with a shingled roof.

At once he recognized the summerhouse. "It's the one that broke Emily's heart!" he said, star-ing. "The one in the sketchbook!"

"Come meet my mother," said Carl, leading the way to the steps of the summerhouse.

Inside, a fair-haired woman sat rocking in a white wicker chair, sewing a button on a shirt. She wore a long, old-fashioned, pink-chiffon dress with a high neck that buttoned all the way up to her chin. When the boys entered the summer-house, she looked up from her sewing and smiled, holding out her hand to Carl who leaned over and kissed her.

"This is Hollis," said Carl, perching on the arm of her chair.

"How nice to meet you, Hollis," she said, tak-ing his hand. "Come sit here in the chair beside mine."

Her smile was the loveliest Hollis had ever seen, lighting her face with a comforting warmth that made him feel immediately at ease. Pulling his chair close to her, he wondered if he were dreaming, even though he could smell her per-

37

fume, a scent as fresh as a newly opened rose. "I want to thank you for the safety pin and this

needle," she said, bending her head toward him gracefully. "Mr. Shade was getting extremely im-patient, fastening his favorite shirt with a paper clip."

Puzzled, Hollis looked around. "I don't under-stand," he said. "This summerhouse wasn't here yesterday. I took the safety pin and the needle into the house."

Mrs. Shade leaned back, smiling. "You didn't take their shadows into the house," she said. "Everything that comes into the garden gets a new shadow. When people go back into the house they leave the shadows behind. We keep them here in the garden and use them over and over again. You see, we are shadows ourselves."

Hollis blinked. "You look real to me." "That's because you washed your eyes in the

water from the dolphin's mouth," said Mrs. Shade. "Very few children have discovered the secret of the dolphin."

Carl laughed. "Old Mr. Peters and his children used to drink from the fountain every day. It never occurred to them to bathe in it. For the magic to work, the water must touch your eyes as it drops from the dolphin's mouth."

Hollis felt his still-damp lashes wonderingly. "Are there other shadow people in the garden?"

39

Carl nodded. "They'll all want to meet you. It's bully having a real person to talk to again."

Remembering the picture of James J. Peters in the sketchbook, Hollis asked, "Are you ghosts of people who used to live here?"

Mrs. Shade shuddered. "My goodness, no!" she said. "We're only their shadows. We have noth-ing at all to do with people except to follow them about the garden. If they go into the house, we're free to do as we please until they come out again. So many go into the house and never return."

"Do they die?" asked Hollis, thinking of Emily's grandfather.

Mrs. Shade shook her head. "We don't know what happens to them."

"Why don't you follow them into the house and find out?" asked Hollis.

"Your curiosity must be as great as Carl's," said Mrs. Shade, her eyes twinkling. "We are garden shadows. We never go into the house, and the shadows of the world outside the garden never enter here."

"My shadow comes into the garden with me," said Hollis, confidently.

Carl hooted. "That 's what you think!" His mother wagged her finger at him. "Don't

make fun! How could the boy know?" Then she explained. "Yesterday morning when you came out on the porch, your shadow remained in the

40

house. The moment you stepped off the porch into the sun, a new shadow was created just for you by the spirit we know as the dolphin."

Hollis wasn't sure he liked the idea of having a strange shadow, even if it was made just for him. "Why can't my old shadow come into the gar-den?"

"This garden is the dolphin's realm," said Mrs. Shade. "The shadows of the world may not enter here. Only the shadows created by the dolphin may dwell in his realm. We are his creations and he is our ruler and protector."

Hollis thought for a moment. "Is my new shadow a person like you?"

Before they could answer, Hollis ran out of the summerhouse into the sun. He looked behind him. His shadow was only a shadow. When he came back, Carl and Mrs. Shade were laughing.

"You can't see your own shadow person!" said Carl. "The dolphin's magic doesn't open your eyes to the shadows of things present. You can see only the shadows of things past."

"But we can see him," said Mrs. Shade. "He looks just like you." She smiled. "You can see Carl and me because we are shadows of people who visited the garden in the past."

It all sounded like a riddle to Hollis. "When I go into the house, do I get my old shadow back again?"

41

"Of course," said Mrs. Shade. "When you leave the garden, your new shadow goes only as far as the porch with you. Then it returns to us in the garden."

"When I leave for good, will my new shadow stay in the garden with you?"

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Shade. "We are delighted to have a new boy in the family."

"Will he act like me?" "Probably not," said Mrs. Shade. "Unless we

are following people, we lead our own lives in our own way."

Hollis was glad his shadow person would stay in Emily's garden. "Do I get a new shadow every time I come into the garden or does the first one always follow me?"

"In this garden," said Mrs. Shade, "you have just one that grows up with you, unless you go away from the garden for a long time and come back much larger. The boy whom Carl followed went awayto school I thinkand when he came back, Carl was too thin to follow him any-more."

Hollis stared at Carl, marveling that this boy could have lived in the garden so many years unchanged. "The one he followed was Emily's grandfather, James J. Peters."

Carl shrugged. "We don't bother with names. We choose our own. I was glad when I couldn't

42

follow him any more. Almost every day he played marbles. I got so tired of playing marbles that when he wasn't looking, I hid his marbles in the grass."

Hollis gasped. "Can you do that? Move differ-ently than the person?"

"We're not supposed to, but if we're quick we can. It's important never to be caught."

"What about the first night I came?" asked Hollis. "There was a boy's shadow at the window, but there was no boy."

Mrs. Shade frowned at Carl. "You've been climbing that trellis again!" She turned to Hollis. "Carl is forever climbing up to look in the up-stairs windows. He isn't content to look in the lower ones with the rest of the children. If he isn't careful, his daredevil ways will lead to his destruction!"

"You scared me," Hollis told Carl. "Emily said I'd get used to the shadows. Does she know the secret?"

"We wish she did," said Carl. "We like Emily. But the dolphin fountain is a fountain of youth. Now she is too old for the magic to work."

"When she used to play dolls in the summer-house," said Mrs. Shade, "I think she sensed our presence in the garden. I believe she does still. Last year when the summerhouse was torn down, she seemed very sad."

43

"And this one is just a shadow of the old one?" asked Hollis. "If Emily came here, wouldn't she see the shadow?"

"She would see only you," said the woman. "As long as we stay in the shade we are invisible to those who don't know the dolphin's secret. But if we walk in the sun, we can be seen as shadows by anyone."

Looking around, Hollis realized that the sum-merhouse was under the trees where it cast no shadow. "Yesterday when I fell off the ladder, I saw the shadows of children."

"The little ones have trouble staying in the shade," said Carl. "We all do. Sometimes we accidentally frighten people."

"And what about Emily's house?" asked Hollis. "Are all those shadows in that gloomy house just shadows?"

A strange look passed between Carl and his mother, as though they knew a secret they didn't wish to share. "The dolphin's power does ' extend beyond the garden," Mrs. Shade am

a round gold watch, pinned to her shoulder like a brooch.

"I want to swing," said Hollis, afraid that if he left the summerhouse, he might never find it again.

"If you come back after supper, we'll play and you can swing," said Carl. "Come on. Let's race to the fountain!"

Off he went, with Hollis running as hard as he could at his heels. At the fountain Hollis caught up, and the two boys fell to the grass, rolling like puppies. Carl pinned Hollis down easily and sat astride him laughing.

Softly, like a bell tolling in a far-off valley, a woman's singing penetrated the garden. As Hollis lay still, listening, the singing died away.

"Who's that?" he asked. "Is it your mother?" Carl jumped up. Before he could answer, Emily

called again. "You'd better go," he said. Hollis crawled over to the fountain for his

sneakers. He looked up at the marble dolphin with new respect and saw on the stone face a regal expression, proud and noble and wise, that he had not noticed before.

"Do you think the dolphin can hear us?" asked Hollis.

Carl nodded. "He is a spirit who sees all, hears all, and knows all. He is our friend."

"I 'm glad," said Hollis, even though it was

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very hard for him to understand how a stone fish could be a king and a magician and a friend. He stood up to leave. "Carl, I wish you could come with me."

"I can't," said Carl. "It's forbidden. Never go into the house!" He said it as though he were quoting a rule.

Hollis remembered their first meeting when, in the same serious voice, Carl had said, "Never go over the wall!"

"What happens if you go in the house or over the wall?" he asked.

Carl drew away. "We can never come back to the garden," he said. Then, in a whisper, he added, "Never!"

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5 HOLLIS DECIDED TO keep his discovery of the Shades a secret. If Emily was too old for the magic to work, she might think he had been playing with the children Mrs. Hall didn't like. During dinner it began to rain. Disappointed that he couldn't go back to the garden to play with Carl on the swing, he helped Emily close the windows and followed her reluctantly into the big gloomy drawing room. Sitting close to her on the couch while she read aloud, he watched the shadows in the corners of the high-ceilinged room. Through the open porch doors he listened to the steady rain.

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"How many people do you suppose have ever been in the garden?" he asked when she finished the story.

"Since the house was built?" she asked, closing the book. "How could I possibly know? It's over a hundred years old!"

"Take a guess," said Hollis. "Is this a game?" "Kind of," said Hollis. "Go ahead." Emily cocked her head thoughtfully. "Four

hundred and fifty-seven." "That 's a lot," said Hollis, thinking of all the

shadow people there must be in the garden. "My mother and my grandmother used to tell

me about the wonderful garden parties when they danced and sang on the porch and hung gay paper lanterns in the trees and the summerhouse. Long ago ladies with parasols and big hats and pretty dresses came to afternoon tea in the garden. I used to have my birthday parties near the foun-tain. I guess everyone always did."

"Then there might have been a thousand peo-ple?" asked Hollis, looking through the open porch door to the dark garden, wondering how many shadows might be watching.

Emily shrugged. "That's a good guess, prob-ably closer than mine."

What a lot of shadows, thought Hollis. He 48

could hardly wait for tomorrow to go back to the garden to find them.

But the next morning he slept late. When he came down for breakfast, Mrs. Hall was in the kitchen with her granddaughter.

"This is Kathy," said Mrs. Hall, pushing a plump girl with black pigtails toward Hollis.

Kathy was eating doughnuts from a paper bag she had brought with her, clutching the bag as though she were afraid Hollis might ask for a doughnut.

"Where's Emily?" asked Hollis. "Miss Emily went into town," said Mrs. Hall.

"You're not to play rough with Kathy, even though she's older. Don't you go hitting her or pushing her in the fountain!"

Chewing her doughnut Kathy watched Hollis eat his cereal, making faces at him behind Mrs. Hall's back, as though she didn't like coming to play with him any more than he liked having her. When he went out on the porch, leading the way into the morning sunlight, Kathy followed, carry-ing her bag.

"After lunch I'm going to a birthday party," she said, her mouth full. "There'l l be a magician and chocolate cake with white icing an inch thick and ice cream and candy and a treasure hunt."

"Who cares?" said Hollis, glad she wasn't stay-

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ing. His eyes darted about the garden looking for shadow people. There were none to be seen. Quickly he looked around for his own shadow and Kathy's. Instead of a shadow person, a plain black shadow like his own followed her.

"What are you doing?" asked Kathy, watching him circle her, examining her shadow. "If it's a game, I want to play, too."

"I'll be right back," Hollis told her. "I have to wash my face."

Quickly he ran to the fountain. Climbing on the rim of the shell he leaned over to let the water from the dolphin's mouth dribble across his eyes. Then, jumping down, he ran back to Kathy.

He found her sitting on the porch steps in the sun, eating out of her bag. Beside her, also eating out of a bag, sat another plump girl. But instead of black hair like Kathy's, the other girl had blonde pigtails and freckles.

"Who are you?" asked Hollis, staring at the other girl.

Kathy stood up. "What's the matter with you?" The other girl stood up. "I 'm Clarissa Shade,"

she said, "Carl's sister." Unable to hear or see Clarissa, Kathy Hall

pouted. "You're teasing me!" Hollis ignored Kathy. "How come you're fol-

lowing Kathy?" he asked Clarissa. "Carl said my shadow looks like me."

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Kathy turned around looking for the person Hollis was addressing. "Who's Carl? Who're you talking to?"

Clarissa turned around, too. "Kathy and I are the same shape. Long ago the girl I look like stopped coming to the garden, and I had to follow anyone who was my shape. The dolphin makes new shadows only if one of us isn't a proper shape to follow the person. I don't have to look like Kathy to be her shadow."

"What about me?" asked Hollis. "I got a new one!"

"We didn't have a shadow your size left in the garden," said Clarissa, "so when you came a new one was made. The new ones always look like the first person they follow."

Hollis thought of the many people who had left shadows in the garden. Now he realized that some of them had been followed by old shadows whose look-alike people had stopped coming to the garden. But surely, out of all the shadows that had been created in the garden, one of them must have had his shape. "How many shadow people live here?" he asked.

Kathy Hall put her hands on her hips. "You talk like a nut! You must be crazy!"

At the same time, Clarissa put her hands on her hips. "There are only a few of us left," she said. "Long ago when there were stables, some went

5 1

out the stable gate by the greenhouse. After the stables were torn down and the gate was bricked up to keep out vandals, the shadows went over the wall or through the house."

"But that's forbidden!" exclaimed Hollis. Kathy was exasperated. "I 'm going to tell my

grandmother if you don't cut this out!" she shouted.

"You'd better play with her," said Clarissa. "First tell me why they left," said Hollis. With an eye on Kathy, Clarissa explained.

"Some, especially the older ones, became very bored in the garden. Long ago when there were lots of guests and parties, the shadows were busy following people about, but as time passed there was less work. The Peterses had smaller families and fewer parties, and the shadows began leaving the garden, one by one." She sighed. "My best friend went over the wall last year. Of course she can never return."

"But going over the wall is forbidden!" insisted Hollis.

"Rules can be broken," said Clarissa sadly, "even by shadows. Our family is the only one left now. Your shadow is the first new one we've seen in years."

While Kathy stared at him, Hollis asked, "If Emily gave a big party in the garden, would lots of new shadows be created?"

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I

"Well, there are certainly not enough Shades to go around!" said Clarissa. "But even if lots of new shadows came to live in the garden, after a time they would probably leave like the others. Boredom is a problem. My parents are awfully worried about Carl. He keeps climbing up the trellis and trying to see over the wall." She sighed. "Someday he may follow the rest."

"I hope he doesn't," said Hollis. "I like Carl." Kathy glared at Hollis. "That does it!" she

shouted. "I 'm going in this minute and tell my grandmother you're teasing me!" Clutching her bag, she stomped up the porch steps and into the house.

Clarissa stomped with her into the shade of the porch. Tiptoeing over to the kitchen window, she peeked in. "She's gone," she reported. "Mrs. Hall must be upstairs. There's a big baked chicken on the table. It smells delicious. Would you mind bringing it out?"

Hollis gasped. "A whole chicken?" "You can take it back again once it has cast a

shadow. I get awfully tired of party food. All those little cakes and sandwiches. My ambition is to taste hot roast beef."

Hollis hadn't thought of what the Shades ate. "Do you ever run out of food?"

"We never run out of anything," said Clarissa,

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"once it becomes a shadow. Hurry. Mrs. Hall will be coming back."

Slipping into the kitchen, Hollis picked up the platter and brought the chicken out into the sun. Holding it carefully, he turned around and around, looking for Clarissa. She had vanished.

Voices sounded from the house. Like an angry broomstick, Mrs. Hall swept onto the porch, fol-lowed by Kathy.

"You bring that chicken right back into the house, Sonny!" she shouted.

"Wait till Miss Emily hears about this!" shrieked Kathy from the steps. Her shadow, black and ordinary, bounced up and down with her.

"Going into the house breaks the magic," said Hollis, carrying the chicken back up the porch steps.

Mrs. Hall snatched the platter. "Cut out that silly talk!" she ordered. "If you were mine, I'd break something over the seat of your pants. Now, get up to your room until Miss Emily comes!"

Making a face at Kathy, Hollis obeyed. In his room he sat looking out the window, wishing he could see the Shades eating the chicken. He chuckled. Wouldn't Mrs. Hall croak if she knew!

When Emily brought him down to apologize

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to Mrs. Hall, Kathy had left. Emily didn't ask why he was carrying a baked chicken out into the garden. She just asked him never to do it again.

"One day, do you think we might eat dinner in the garden?" Hollis asked. "We could have roast beef. Hot roast beef!"

"Aren't you getting enough to eat, Hollis?" she asked with a tiny frown. "We just finished a roast beef yesterday. You hardly touched it."

"It would taste better in the garden," Hollis said. "We could have potatoes and gravy and lots of hot vegetables!"

Bewildered, Emily sighed. "It sounds like a lovely idea," she said. "Maybe next week."

Hollis could hardly wait to get to the fountain. Knowing that the dolphin was ruler of the garden and creator of the Shades, Hollis made a little bow to show his respect before climbing up to wash his eyes. Leaning over, he slipped on the rim of the basin, soaking one sneaker. It oozed and squished as he ran through the trees toward the summerhouse.

Suddenly, from far off, he heard the woman singing her golden melody. He stopped and was turning around when the pounding of horse's hooves drowned out the woman's song. Stepping aside, he barely missed being run down by a gal-loping horse, ridden by a man in a floppy straw hat swinging a lasso over his head. The rope

56

snagged a tree branch. The horse reared. The man, dragged backward out of the saddle, clung to the rope. The riderless horse trotted on, dis-appearing into the trees.

"Oh, drat!" said the man, dropping almost in front of Hollis. He tugged at the rope until it broke loose. "I'd have had you tied like a calf for branding if those dang-blasted branches hadn't gotten in the way! You must be the new boy."

Hollis nodded. "I 'm Hollis." "Howdy," said the man. "I 'm Christopher

Shade, Carl's father." He gave Hollis's hand a mighty shake and began coiling his rope. "I 'd be a danged sight better at roping if I had a proper saddle. You don't happen to have a western saddle in the house, do you?"

Hollis shook his head. "I haven't seen a saddle since I've been here," he said, his eyes wide. It was hard to believe he wasn't dreaming.

"I figured as much," said Mr. Shade. "We have English saddles and sidesaddles and every kind of gol-darned saddle except one with a pommel. Have you ever tried to rope a pony from a side-saddle?"

"I've never seen a horse or a pony here," said Hollis. "How did they get into the garden?"

"Through the stable gate," said Mr. Shade, "before it was bricked up, of course. Once there was a carriage drive through the garden to the

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6 WHEN HOLLIS AND Mr. Shade came out of the trees, Hollis heard music and voices singing an opera. The sounds were coming from a big horn attached to an old-fashioned phonograph in the summerhouse. On the lawn, Carl and Clarissa were playing croquet with three strangely dressed little children who were introduced as Lucy, three, Hattie, four, and Albert, five.

Hollis wondered if they had dressed themselves, for Albert wore short velvet pants, a man's tweed vest in place of a shirt, and sneakers. Hattie's crisp organdy dress was tied with a blue-satin sash, but on one foot she wore a patent leather

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shoe and on the other a white sandal. Lucy, draped in a fringed Spanish shawl, padded about in feather-trimmed bedroom slippers.

"You're mighty dressed up!" exclaimed Mr. Shade, swinging Lucy up into his arms. "Is the king having another garden party?"

"We've been to the opera!" announced Hattie, throwing her arms around her father's knees.

"But we left," said Albert, "because Aunt Clara said we couldn't eat popcorn at the opera."

"How dull!" said Mr. Shade. "Can you imag-ine, Hollis? No popcorn!"

Hollis smiled. Perhaps these three were the shadows he had seen around the lady statue's pedestal.

"Come meet my Aunt Clara," said Carl, lead-ing Hollis to the summerhouse where Mrs. Shade sat talking to a sad-faced woman wearing a long dress encrusted with pearls.

Stopping the phonograph, Mrs. Shade greeted them. "Hollis is here for the summer," she ex-plained to Aunt Clara, introducing him.

Hollis stared at Aunt Clara's glittering dia-mond necklace. It almost covered her chest, and a diamond clip held a white plume in her care-fully arranged brown curls. She looked as if she were going to a ball.

Lifting a long-handled lorgnette to her eyes, Aunt Clara examined Hollis. "How like George

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brought out of the kitchen for Clarissa. "Your mother said the chicken was delicious," he ex-claimed, "but it hasn't been touched!"

"Yes, it has," said Carl. "We can eat and eat without ever changing the shadow food. Let me show you." Picking up a knife, he sliced a piece from a chocolate cake and handed it to Hollis. Immediately the cake closed up again, looking as if it had never been touched.

"It tastes delicious," said Hollis. "We need only one of each dish, but people

keep bringing more into the garden." "What about that pie that Emily and I had for

breakfast?" asked Hollis, pointing. "We didn't leave a crumb!"

"It's the first shadow that counts," said Carl. "Once it is cast, whether people eat the real food or take it back into the house makes no difference to us."

Hollis watched Carl stretch toward a crystal pitcher full of lemonade hanging high in the branches, stretching and stretching until he was as tall as a ladder. Holding the pitcher carefully, Carl shrank back to his normal size, placing the pitcher on a tray with glasses.

"Do that again!" said Hollis. "It's easy," laughed Carl, stretching and shrink-

ing back until he was no higher than Hollis's 64

knee. "Let's go." He popped up to his usual height. "Bring along some cookies."

"If you can stretch and shrink, why did I get a new shadow when I came into the garden?" asked Hollis. "Why couldn't you be my shadow?"

"I could follow you for a little while," said Carl, "but staying your size would become very uncomfortable."

Suddenly, from far off, Hollis heard the mys-terious woman singing the same strange song.

"Who is that?" asked Hollis, choosing a plate of chocolate cookies and following Carl outside. "I keep hearing it, the same tune, over and over."

Carl looked uneasily in the direction of the singing. "It'll stop soon," he said, holding aside the branches of another tree room. "This is the wardrobe. Aunt Clara is in charge of clothes. She throws a fit if we don't put everything back as we found it. There's everything here but a ten-gallon hat for Papa."

Hollis saw stacks of clothes in rainbow colors, trimmed with ribbons and lace, like old-fashioned clothes in a museum. On the walls, hats and baby bonnets hung between fans, wedding bouquets, and parasols with carved ivory handles.

"Can you wear anything you like?" asked Hol-lis as Carl let the branches fall back over the en-trance.

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"Unless we're following a person," said Carl. "Then we have to be careful about our shape. But you should see us when we dress up for plays or masquerades! Aunt Clara likes the jewelry, especially the diamonds. The way she hides the jewelry you'd think it all belonged to her!"

"What's in the other storerooms?" asked Hollis, walking back with Carl toward the summerhouse.

"We keep bikes and baby carriages in the toy room," said Carl. "Uncle Hubert is in charge of the library and Mama looks after the linen closet. All those lace tablecloths and napkins! Clarissa takes care of the music room and I help Papa with the corral. It's at the far end of the garden. Later on I'll show you the horses."

Lifting his head, Hollis listened. "That lady is still singing. When I first came, I thought she was your mother. It's a beautiful song."

"We're used to it," said Carl, quickening his steps. "Come on. They're waiting for the lemon-ade."

All the children crowded into the summer-house around Mrs. Shade, watching her pour the lemonade.

"I want a cookie!" cried Lucy from Clarissa's lap.

"Don't push!" Albert told Hattie who was try-ing to climb into their mother's chair.

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"Stand back!" ordered Mr. Shade, handing around the glasses and passing the cookies. "Pigs are never invited back to parties!"

Hollis watched the glasses fill, but every time he looked at the pitcher, it was always full, and no matter how many times the cookies were passed, the same number remained on the plate. T o his amazement, even though the real lemon-ade and cookies may have been brought into the garden many years ago, he found the lemonade ice cold and the cookies crisp and delicious.

Suddenly, Hollis saw Emily coming toward them through the trees. She was wearing slacks and carrying a sketchbook.

"At last!" said Mrs. Shade, looking up. "Here comes May."

"May, darling," called Aunt Clara, "over here! We're having lemonade."

Hollis stared when May was introduced. The red hair, the twinkle in her brown eyes, even the firm handshake were exactly like Emily's. He nudged Carl.

"If I can't see my own shadow person, why can I see Emily's?" he asked.

"May followed Emily's mother," Carl ex-plained. "There's a remarkable resemblance."

Hollis passed May the cookies. "Are you an artist, too?" he asked.

May laughed. "I can't draw a straight line! 67

While Emily sketches, I doodle and play tick-tack-toe with myself. She's nice to follow. Her clothes are so comfortable."

"Not at all proper for young ladies," sniffed Aunt Clara, smoothing her pearl-encrusted ball gown. "No one May's age should go about doing cartwheels and playing leapfrog!"

"If you follow Emily," said Hollis, "who fol-lows the gardener, Mr. Valentine?"

"Uncle Hubert," said May, "Aunt Clara's hus-band."

"Poor Hubert!" sighed Aunt Clara. "He works so hard, pulling weeds and mowing grass all day! Every year we hope Mr. Valentine will retire, but he keeps going on and on!"

"And Mrs. Hall?" asked Hollis. "What about Mrs. Hall?"

Mr. Shade leaned forward to have his glass re-filled. "Fortunately," he said, "that ole gal seldom steps off the porch. When she does, believe it or not, in an apron I can sashay around very nicely behind Mrs. Hall!"

Picturing Mr. Shade in an apron, following Mrs. Hall, Hollis laughed so hard everybody smiled. "Wouldn't she have a fit if she knew!"

"It isn't so funny when she decides to scrub that dang-blasted garden furniture," said Mr. Shade. "Last week she kept me out in the hot

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sun all morning, scrubbing until I thought my arms would break."

"It's degrading," said Aunt Clara. "No gentle-man should have to scrub!"

"The alternative," Mr. Shade reminded her, "is bringing a critter that looks like Mrs. Hall into the family. No, thank you!"

Everyone laughed, everyone but May. She had disappeared.

"Is she coming back?" asked Hollis, looking about for her.

"Emily is in the garden again," said Mrs. Shade. "May went on duty."

"How do you know Emily is in the garden?" asked Hollis.

Mrs. Shade cocked her head, frowning as if she were trying to think of an explanation he could understand. "We just know," she said at last.

Mr. Shade nodded. "We always know." He held out his arms to Lucy who was beginning to squirm on Clarissa's lap. "Come, my darling!" he said. "Let's ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross."

"I want to come, too!" said Hattie, watching her father swing Lucy astride his foot.

"Climb aboard!" cried Mr. Shade, helping Hattie into his lap. "Come on, Albert. You can ride guard for the stage to Banbury Cross. All aboard! Which way to Banbury, Hollis?"

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k

Hollis grinned. "Just down the road apiece!" he shouted, watching Mr. Shade bounce up and down with the three children clinging to him.

Then Mr. Shade grabbed Lucy under one arm and Hattie under the other, and with Albert hanging on his back, he pranced out of the sum-merhouse, setting off through the trees.

Aunt Clara shook her head. "Sometimes I won-der if he doesn't enjoy that game as much as the children."

"He's a wonderful papa," said Clarissa, her eyes shining. "Carl, remember when we were lit-tle, how he let us ride on his back? He would take my pigtails in his mouth for reins."

Remembering, Carl smiled. "It's too bad he can't be a real cowboy."

"If he were a real cowboy," said Aunt Clara, "he couldn't sleep late. Christopher doesn't be-lieve any civilized person gets up before ten o'clock in the morning!"

"If he were a real cowboy," said Clarissa, "he wouldn't mind getting up early."

Carl turned to his mother. "Couldn't we man-age without him, Mama?" he asked. "If Papa went west now, Clarissa and I could help you with the little ones."

"What a thing to say!" exclaimed Aunt Clara. "How can you even suggest that your father go

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over the wall! We couldn't survive without him!"

"Now, Clara," said Mrs. Shade, "you know we'd manage. And Carl is right. He and Clarissa are a great help." Smiling, she held out her hand to draw Carl to her side. "My dearest son, no one would rather see your father's dream come true more than I. But it is not up to us to decide what he must do. That is his decision to make, and he made it a long time ago. Because he loves us all so much he prefers to stay here with us."

Hollis leaned forward. "Why can't you all go west together?" he asked.

"Oh, my goodness!" cried Aunt Clara, waving her handkerchief under her nose. "I don't think I could bear the open range. All that dust and those Indians threatening to scalp us and those outlaws trying to make off with my diamonds!"

Hollis laughed. "It isn't like that anymore," he told her. "You'd be quite safe."

"Even so," said Carl, "we can't go together." "No," said Mrs. Shade. "Once the shadows

leave the garden we know they become separated from one another. We aren't sure how it happens, but we know that if we left together, in a very short time we would have to part:"

"And we might never see each other again," said Clarissa.

"I feel quite weak just thinking about it," said 72

Aunt Clara. "Another glass of lemonade, Clarissa, if you please."

Suddenly Hollis heard Emily calling to him. "She's coming!" he whispered.

Scrambling to his feet, he ran out of the sum-merhouse into the sun. When Emily stepped out of the trees, May, like an identical twin, was with her. In the summerhouse, the Shades were going on with their conversation, sipping their lemon-ade as before, invisible to Emily.

Walking back to the house with his hand in Emily's, Hollis looked over his shoulder, occa-sionally, in the sunny places to grin at May who held his own shadow's hand. He wished he could see his shadow person. He wished he could intro-duce May to Emily. Knowing Emily's shadow was a wonderful secret, so wonderful he laughed aloud.

"You're very happy this afternoon," said Emily.

"I like it here," said Hollis. Then he asked, "When you were a little girl, did you ever see shadows in the garden of things that weren't there?"

Emily smiled. "Sometimes. Would you like to know a secret I've never told anyone before?"

Hollis nodded. "When I played dolls in the summerhouse, it

seemed to me there were more shadows than there

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should have been, and I had the feeling they moved by themselves. I actually believed the shadows were playing dolls with me!"

"Maybe they were," said Hollis. "When did you stop seeing them?"

"When I was twelve, my mother died and I was sent to boarding school. After that I was too old for dolls, and I realized that the shadows in the summerhouse were probably only the shadows of tree branches moving in the breeze."

"When you came back to the garden from school, were you grown up?" asked Hollis.

"For a long time I spent my vacations with my aunt," she told him. "Then when I finally came home to live, I was grown up."

Hollis nodded. That explained why Emily's mother's shadow followed her instead of her own.

"There are lots of stories about moving shad-ows in the garden," said Emily. "I 'm not the only one who has seen them. Last summer I had an old gentleman to tea out here. He almost upset the table when he jumped up, insisting he had seen the shadow of a man riding a galloping horse across the lawn! Can you imagine anything so silly? Of course, the old gentleman had poor eyes. But he left almost immediately. I really believe he's afraid to come back!"

Looking over his shoulder, Hollis winked at May and she winked back.

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7 THE NEXT MORNING Hollis woke to the sound of rain drumming against the windows. All morning while Emily painted, he played in her tower studio, and in the afternoon when the rain stopped, he went out into the wet garden to find the Shades.

Running from the fountain to the summer-house, he heard the strange woman's rich, caress-ing voice singing louder and clearer than ever before. While he searched the summerhouse and the dripping storerooms where the shadow provi-sions remained unchanged by the weather, he

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listened to her singing. She had never sung so long before. At last, near the greenhouse, he came upon the entire Shade family, chattering like ex-cited birds, standing by the wall. Aunt Clara and Mrs. Shade were crying. Lucy was sucking her thumb.

"It's Carl," Clarissa told Hollis. "He's gone over the wall!"

"He's across the street," said Mr. Shade who had stretched enough to see over the wall. "The boy Carl followed has gone into a white house. Carl is standing there in the shadow of a tree by the porch."

Little Albert, trying to imitate his father, suc-ceeded in stretching halfway up the wall. "I want to see, too!" he said.

Mrs. Shade wiped her eyes. "When we found the ball, I knew something terrible was going to happen. Call to him, Christopher. Tell him to stay there as long as he can until we can decide what to do."

"I've called and called," said Mr. Shade, "but he is at the far end of the block. I don't think he can hear me."

"It's just like the time George left," Aunt Clara told Hollis, "except this time, when the sky was still dark after the rain, it was a boy who climbed into the garden hunting his ball."

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"Just as the boy was leaving, the sun came out," said May. She was holding Lucy in her arms. "Of course, Carl had to follow."

"If you found the ball," said Hollis, "why didn't you throw it back before the boy climbed over the wall? He wouldn't have known who threw it."

Mrs. Shade's head drooped. "We're only shad-ows. We can't move real things. Nothing heavier than a marble."

"But when Carl and I play, he pushes me," said Hollis.

"You couldn't play with Carl without the dol-phin's magic," she said. "If only you had been here, Hollis! You could have thrown the ball out of the garden for us, and this would never have happened!"

Mr. Shade put his arm around his wife. "Per-haps one of us should go over the wall and try to stay with Carl as long as possible."

Aunt Clara shrieked. "What a dreadful thought! We can't afford to lose anyone!"

"In this family," Mr. Shade told her, "we stand ready to help each other, especially when there is trouble. Think how Carl must feel, setting forth into the world alone!"

"Poor darling," said Mrs. Shade. "We must send someone. But who shall it be?"

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Overhead, fast-moving clouds slipped across the sun. The sky growled, turning blacker and blacker.

"Why can't Carl come back while the sun is behind the clouds?" asked Hollis. "In the garden you can go anywhere in the shadows."

Mr. Shade shook his head. "I believe Carl would return if he could."

Aunt Clara moaned. "If George could have returned that dreadful night, I know he would have. Something strange must happen outside the wall."

Hollis had an idea. "Why can't I go over the wall while the sky is dark and bring Carl back? I can wait with him under the tree until the sun comes out. Then if he shrinks a little, he can fol-low me home!"

Aunt Clara put her jeweled hands over her eyes. "No one has ever returned," she moaned.

"No one has ever been fetched," reasoned Clarissa. "Fetched by a person."

Mr. Shade bowed his head in thought. "It might work," he said at last. "Carl is as thin as you are, Hollis, and by shrinking a bit he might manage to follow you."

"Oh, do you think it's possible?" cried Mrs. Shade.

"It's worth a try," said Hollis. "How will you know when you have found

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Carl?" asked Clarissa. "Once you cross the wall, the magic will disappear. You won't be able to see him."

"The ladder in the greenhouse!" said Mr. Shade. "Hollis, you can climb up on the ladder, and before you go over the wall, I'll show you where Carl is waiting. After that we'll just have to hope your plan will work."

Hollis hesitated. "The ladder is too heavy for me to pull up over the wall. The day I fell off of it, it was all I could do to pull it out of the green-house. I'll have to have a rope to climb down the other side of the wall and back again. Your lasso, Mr. Shade, would be perfect."

Mr. Shade shook his head. "It's only a shadow. Once you pass the wall, my rope would be useless, but the real rope must be about someplace."

"There isn't time to hunt it," said Mrs. Shade, looking up at the black clouds. "If Hollis doesn't hurry, Carl will be lost to us forever."

"A garden hose?" suggested Hollis. "If I tie one end to the ladder, it will hang over far enough for me to climb down and back again."

A search of the greenhouse uncovered an old hose. Unable to help, the Shades watched Hollis drag the ladder to the wall and tie the hose to a rung. Thunder rumbled distantly.

"I hope the ladder holds," said Hollis, climb-ing up for Mr. Shade to point out Carl, who was

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down the block, standing in the yard of a small white house under a tree. Once he crossed the wall the magic would disappear, and he would no longer see Carl.

"Now remember," said Mr. Shade when all was ready, "the only way you can bring Carl back into the garden is over the wall while the sun is out."

Looking up at the black clouds, Hollis nodded. "I'd better go now or I'll take my own shadow with me."

"Good luck!" called the Shades, watching him scramble up the ladder to the top of the wall.

Suddenly Hollis heard the strange woman's song so clearly he wondered if she lived on the back street. "I'll hurry!" he called, but when he looked back at the Shades from the top of the wall, they had disappeared, and the singing had stopped.

Hollis slid down the garden hose to the deserted sidewalk. Crossing the quiet tree-lined street, he walked past a row of small houses to the one where he had seen Carl waiting. He slipped into the yard and approached a large tree near the porch.

"Carl?" he whispered, hoping the woman taking in her wash from behind the house next door didn't notice him. When she went inside, he explained the rescue plan aloud. Was Carl there?

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Hollis wished he could see him. "When the sun comes out, we'll go."

Overhead the rising wind whipped the tree limbs into writhing dancers. Sitting under the tree, Hollis listened to the leaves applauding. A rumble in his stomach reminded him that it would soon be time for supper. Emily would be calling.

Suddenly a black cloud cracked open. Big rain-drops smacked the porch roof like hail, falling faster and faster until the tree was encircled by a swaying crystal curtain. Hollis shrank against the tree to keep dry.

The rain poured down and the wind blew, but, at last, like a giant on a rampage, the storm passed by.

"It won't be long now," said Hollis listening to the gushing porch gutters quiet to a trickle. Someone inside the house opened a window.

"Get ready!" he whispered, watching the scud-ding clouds tease the hidden sun.

The sky brightened. Then the sun broke through.

"Let's go!" cried Hollis. Stepping into the sunlight, he examined his

shadow. It looked all right. "I hope you're Carl," he told it.

Hurrying back down the wet street, Hollis 82

came to the place where he had left the hose hang-ing over the wall. He looked up and down the sidewalk. He ran along the wall. What could have happened to the hose? It was gone! In his absence someone had removed the hose from the wall!

Frantically Hollis turned to his shadow. "Carl," he cried, "we're stranded!"

Leaning against the wall, Hollis tried to think of a way to climb back into the garden. He wished his shadow, leaning against the wall with him, could help. Without a rope or something to stand on, he couldn't possibly get over the wall.

A car squished past, stopping down the block. A man carrying a lunch box got out and went inside one of the houses. Hollis knew that if he asked the man for help, he would have to explain why he wanted a boost over the wall, when the simple way into Emily's garden was through her house.

Suddenly, from the opposite direction, he saw two boys approaching. They were big tough-looking boys, and Hollis wondered if they were the ones Mrs. Hall didn't like. Tossing a base-ball between them, they laughed and called back and forth to each other as though they owned the world.

Desperate, Hollis stepped to the middle of the

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sidewalk. "Hello," he said, blocking their way. The boys glared down at him. Hollis felt his

hands begin to tremble. "Beat it!" snarled the taller boy. "Go home

and ask your mother to wipe your nose!" Hollis didn't move. The other boy jeered. "He can't find the kiddie

park! Are you lost, sweetheart? Poor kiddie, he's lost."

Hiding his trembling hands behind him, Hollis tried to grin. "Let me play," he said. "I'm a good catcher."

"He wants to play!" said the taller boy. "Ain't he got the nerve though?"

The other boy tossed the baseball from one hand to the other. "You want to play, sweetheart? You catch real good, do you? Let's see what you can do with this!"

Before Hollis could get his hands out, the boy threw the baseball. It hit Hollis hard in the mid-dle of the stomach, almost knocking the breath out of him, but before it dropped, he caught it with his arms.

"Pretty good," said the tall boy, clapping his hands for Hollis to throw the ball back. "Let's see what kind of pitcher you are."

Hollis threw the ball. "Hey! What do you think you're doing, Stupid!

You threw it over the wall!" 84

"I'm sorry," said Hollis, trying to smile. "I'll go get it."

"You bet your sweet life you'll go get it!" said the tall boy, giving Hollis a shove that almost knocked him down. "That was a new ball!"

"Hold me up and I'll go over the wall and get it," said Hollis.

"If you ain't no better climber than you are pitcher," said the tall boy, "I'd better go get it myself."

"He lost it," said the other. "Make him go get it."

The tall boy grabbed Hollis about the neck and shook him. "You know what'll happen to you if you get over there and don't throw the ball back?"

Gulping, eyes wide, Hollis nodded. "I'll throw it back. I promise."

"Then come over here," said the boy, shoving him toward the wall.

Happily, Hollis climbed on his back. Standing on the boy's shoulders, he was able to reach the top of the wall. He felt a shove from below, and in a moment he was on top of the wall, his shadow stretching before him into the garden.

"I see it," Hollis called to the boys. There was no sign of the ladder. He hung by his hands and dropped into the garden. In a moment he had found the ball and tossed it back over the

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wall to the waiting boys. He heard them laugh as they ran off, thinking that they were leaving him to figure his own way out of the garden.

Hurrying along the wet path beneath dripping trees, Hollis went straight to the dolphin fountain to wash his eyes. The Shades were waiting for him. Carl, his arms around his mother, stood in their midst. Hattie, Lucy, and Albert were run-ning in circles around them. Even Uncle Hubert was there, wearing Mr. Valentine's baggy jacket and tattered straw hat.

"When Mr. Valentine took down the ladder and put away the hose," said Uncle Hubert, "I thought all was lost. Carl is lucky to have a friend like Hollis!"

"You should have seen Hollis stand up to those big boys!" said Carl. "I wanted to help him. Pow! Bamm! I would have fixed them if I could. As it was, I could only drop a beetle down the tall boy's back. I hope it bit him!"

"A beetle!" Hollis exclaimed. "Carl, that's wonderful!"

"What about you, Carl?" asked Clarissa. "Weren't you frightened to be all alone in the world?"

"It was a strange feeling," Carl told them, "like being in a dream. After the boy I followed took the ball into the house, I didn't know which way to turn."

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"Poor George," moaned Aunt Clara. "He must have felt the same way!"

"We called and called," said Mrs. Shade. "We were so worried."

"I couldn't hear you calling," said Carl, "but I could hear the lady singing. My head buzzed with her singing, even when I tried not to listen. Then Hollis came along and saved me."

"You did a mighty fine job, Hollis," said Mr. Shade. "We sure are grateful."

Thanking him over and over, the Shades led Hollis to the summerhouse where they held a celebration feast. Even though it was suppertime, Hollis had three clairs, a dish of ice cream, and half a chocolate pie. He knew that if he could tell Emily about Carl, she would understand.

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8 THE NEXT MORNING when Hollis arrived at the summerhouse, the Shades were sitting around a table finishing breakfast, all except Uncle Hubert who had gone earlier to the greenhouse with Mr. Valentine.

"Let's ride the horses today!" whispered Hollis, squeezing into the chair beside Carl.

"First my parents have something to say to you," said Carl. He nodded toward his mother who was smiling at Hollis.

Mrs. Shade rose and cleared her throat as if she were going to make a speech.

"Quiet, everyone," said Mr. Shade. 88

Mrs. Shade turned to Hollis. "You have done a great service in bringing Carl back to us, Hollis," she said, "and in appreciation for your kindness we have thought of something we can do for you." "You thought of something," interrupted Aunt

Clara, shaking out the feather trim on her blue negligee. "Frankly, I'm against it. Whoever heard of giving someone a present they can't keep!" Her diamonds flashed as she reached for the mar-malade.

"Shame on you, Aunt Clara!" scolded May. "You know it's all settled."

"Just the same," said Aunt Clara, buttering a piece of toast, "a present isn't a present if you can't keep it!"

Clarissa sided with her mother. "Even if Hol