Red Hart Magic Read Free Page B

had a birthday,” he improvised—no use going into the facts of why Dad might have given it to him—"It's a present, and I can spend it on anything I like.”
    For a moment the man looked from Chris to the crumpled bill and then back again. Chris must have sounded convincing, for at last he nodded. Then he reached for a box and carefully slid the inn into it.
    “Come up to the cash register, son.” He did not give the box to Chris; rather, he carried both it and the money as if he expected some difficulty over the sale might still arise.
    Nan had just time to dodge behind a rack of suits as Chris turned. He had bought something. But what? And he seemed different somehow, as he passed without seeing her, as if hehad found something exciting. She wanted to know what made him look like that, so different from the sullen boy who had ignored her and made his dislike so plain.
    She squeezed along behind the racks and by the counters on the other side of the store. Luckily Chris never looked in her direction, and she was able to reach the door and get out before he moved away from the cash register.
    Surely now he would return to the theater, and she did not want him to know that she had followed him. She trotted back to the lobby but did not pass the ticket-taker. If Chris did not come, she would not go in alone.
    But he did come. Only when he saw her sitting on the bench, he scowled. “What're you doing here?”
    “Waiting for you.” She hoped her voice sounded just as snappy as his. “I'm not going in by myself.”
    “All right, I won't make you.”
    He had the box under his arm, hugging it close to him. Now he marched straight past her, holding his ticket in one hand and heading toward the inner door.
    Nan got up quickly and got out her own ticket. She wanted to tell him she knew where he had gone and to demand to know what he had in the box, but better judgment suggested that she keep her mouth shut. She was sure Chris was not going to answer any questions now.
    He did not even wait for her, though she was certain he knew she was following him, but walked firmly on into the dark of the theater where the sound track was loud with rolling thunder. Nan trailed behind, her irritation growing with every step.

    Surely when Aunt Elizabeth came, she would notice the box and ask questions. But later, as they emerged blinking into the lobby, Nan did not see the box. There was, she decided after a critical survey, a bulge in the front of Chris's jacket. What did he have to hide from Aunt Elizabeth?
    Chris himself was faced with just that problem. He had wrapped the box in his scarf and left it under the seat, positive during all his efforts to disguise it that Nan was going to ask him what in the world he was doing. He had had the words, “Mind your own business,” on his lips all the time he worked to conceal his purchase. But Nan, caught in spite of herself by the story on the screen at that moment, had apparently not been aware of what he was doing.
    He could not quite understand why he felt he must keep the inn a secret. There was nothing wrong in spending the money Dad had given him for something he wanted. Aunt Elizabeth might try to make something of his leaving Nan and going into the Salvation Army place. But he had not been told not to go, and after all, he was old enough to do something like that. Yet from the first the inn had seemed a secret which he did not want to share with anyone else. Peep show, the man had called it. Chris had had no chance to peep into the windows—What was inside? He was hot with impatience to get home and see.
    Aunt Elizabeth was late, of course. Nan sat at one end of the lobby bench, and he at the other. And Chris was so filled with his need for secrecy he did not even notice she kept watching him.

    Chris had that thing, whatever it was he had bought in the store, stuck under his jacket. Nan tried to guess from the lump what it might be. There had been a million things, maybe even more,