Johnny pulled the shell from his head, stared at it.
“Do you want to come down to the sea, my lad, do you want to come down to the sea? Well, take me by the hand, my lad, just take me by the hand, my lad, and come along with me!”
Trembling, Johnny clamped the shell to his ear again, sat up in bed, breathing fast. His small heart leaped and hit the wall of his chest.
Waves pounded, crashing on a distant shore.
“Have you ever seen a fine conch-shell shaped and shined like a pearl corkscrew? It starts out big and it ends up small, seemingly ending with nothing at all, but aye lad, it ends where the sea-cliffs fall; where the sea-cliffs fall to the blue!”
Johnny’s fingers tightened on the circular marks of the shell. That was right. It went around and around and around until you couldn’t see it going around anymore.
Johnny’s lips tightened. What was it Mother had said? Children. The—the philosophy—what a big word! Of children! Impatience. Impatience! Yes, yes, he was impatient! Why not? His free hand clenched into a tiny hard white fist, pounding against the quilted covers.
“Johnny!”
Johnny yanked the shell from his ear, hid it quickly under the sheets. Father was coming down the hall from the stairs.
“Hi there, son.”
“Hi, Dad!”
Mother and Father were fast asleep. It was long after midnight. Very softly Johnny extracted the precious shell from under the covers and raised it to his ear.
Yes. The waves were still there. And far off, the creening of oarlocks, the snap of wind in the stomach of a mainsail, the singing chant of boatmen faintly drifting on a salt sea wind.
He held the shell closer and yet closer.
Mother’s footsteps came along the hall. She turned in at Johnny’s room. “Good morning, son! Wake yet?”
The bed was empty. There was nothing but sunlight and silence in the room. Sunlight lay abed, like a bright patient with its brilliant head on the pillow. The quilt, a red-blue circus banner, was thrown back. The bed was wrinkled like the face of a pale old man, and it was very empty.
Mother looked at it and scowled and stamped her crisp heel. “Darn that little scamp!” she cried, to nobody. “Gone out to play with those neighbor ruffians, sure as the day I was born! Wait’ll I catch him, I’ll—” She stopped and smiled. “I’ll love the little scamp to death. Children are so—impatient.”
Walking to the bedside she began brushing, adjusted the quilt into place when her knuckles rapped against a lump in the sheet. Reaching under the quilt, she brought forth a shining object into the sun.
She smiled. It was the sea shell.
She grasped it, and, just for fun, lifted it to her ear. Her eyes widened. Her jaw dropped.
The room whirled around in a bright swaying merry-go-round of bannered quilts and glassed run.
The sea shell roared in her ear.
Waves thundered on a distant shore. Waves foamed cool on a far off beach.
Then the sound of small feet crunching swiftly in the sand. A high young voice yelling:
“Hi! Come on, you guys! Last one in is a double-darned monkey!”
And the sound of a small body diving, splashing, into those waves . . .
The End
