Dead End in Norvelt Read Free Page B

surprised to see her leaning over the gas stove with her hands inside a wide, tall pot and her face all screwed up in agony. I could tell by the leaf-size flames under the pot that it had to be scalding hot, and right away I was wondering if she was melting herself down. Mom had always said she was worth her weight in gold to our little town. But before I could start a conversation about Inca gold she said, “Sit and eat,” and nodded her stiff bush of bluish cotton-candy hair toward a chair at the kitchen table where a plate had been set with bacon, eggs, and toast.
    “I found these chocolates on the porch,” I said, and offered her the box.
    “Put them on the table!” she ordered without removing her hands from the pot.
    “There is a card too,” I pointed out.
    “You can just throw that in the trash !” she snapped.
    “Trash?” I asked. “Don’t you want to know who it’s from?”
    “It’s from the same hopeless case as always!” she said. “Now trash it !”
    I tossed the card in the trash like she said. I put the chocolates on the table and when I sat down she began to talk as if someone were sticking her with sharp pins. “Thank you for coming!” she cried out, and did a spastic tippy-toe dance. “Today,” she squeaked, “we are about to embark on a great experiment!” Then she took a deep breath, shifted her hips around, and grimaced.
    “What kind of experiment?” I asked fearfully, and stared at the pot where I was sure her hands were melting.
    “Oh, gosh,” she said in a strained voice, and jerked her head back and stamped her thick old-lady shoe heels on the kitchen linoleum. “This is really, really scalding hot but let’s still keep talking and pretend like nothing at all is wrong.”
    “Miss Volker,” I asked quietly, trying to be ridiculously calm like when doctors talk to insane people in the movies. I didn’t want her to snap and try and kill me like some psychotic lunatic. “You do realize that you are cooking your hands down in that big pot?”
    “Of … course … I … do … dear,” she sputtered, and bit down on her lip and hissed as if her words were driven by steam. “Now … please … turn … it … off.”
    I sprang out of my chair and twisted the knob on the stove and the flames doubled in size.
    “Jeez Louise!” she shouted crossly. “I said off !”
    “Whoops, sorry,” I apologized, and quickly turned the knob the other way.
    “Agrhhh!” she cried out. “I think I may have really melted them this time.”
    She lifted her hands out of the pot and they were melting. Lumps of glowing yellow flesh oozed down her forearms and spattered onto the floor.
    “Oh mercy!” I cried, and fidgeted up and down like a terrified squirrel. “Miss Volker, what have you done to yourself?”
    “Turn the cold water on over the sink!” she ordered. “I think I may have done permanent damage.”
    I nearly flew to the sink and turned the spigot handle. “Give me your hands,” I said. “Quick.”
    She stumbled toward me, then held out the sagging stumps of her melted arms. I hesitated, but there was nothing else to do except run away screaming, so I grabbed what I thought were her wrists. Oh cheeze! The warm, lifeless flesh squished between my fingers as I tugged her forward and held her ruined hands under the water.
    She stamped the floor and groaned in horsey agony as her eyes rolled back into her head.
    “You’ll be fine,” I jabbered about five jittery times in a row, and each time my mind echoed back, “You won’t be fine … you won’t ever be fine because you just melted your hands off !”
    “Ahhh,” she sighed with a relaxed shudder, and after a moment her eyes leveled out. “That feels better,” she said calmly. “Now turn off the water.”
    I did and she held her arms up. “Now peel it off,” she ordered.
    “Peel what off?” I asked.
    “The sticky stuff on my arms,” she said impatiently, and then she held a rounded stump up to her