Revenge of the Manitou Read Free

Petra Delgada, a serious little girl who never spoke much and
always went to mass on Sundays. Mrs. Novato had placed him there because he
giggled and talked too much whenever he sat next to his best friend, the
coppery-haired Linus Hopland. Linus was in the front row now, his hair shining
in the sunshine like the Point Arena lighthouse. Toby whispered to Petra, “Are
you going up to the lake? Will your folks let you?”
    Petra shrugged,
and pursed her lips demurely. “I don’t know. I’ve been sick for the past four
days. Mommy may not let me.”
    “You’ve been
sick? You mean, you’ve puked?”
    “You mustn’t
say puke. It’s disgusting.”
    Toby colored a
little. He didn’t like Petra to think that he wasn’t grown-up and
sophisticated.
    Petra, after
all, was nearly nine, and next in line for class president. Toby said: “Well,
what do you mean? You got the measles?”
    “As a matter of
fact, I have insomnia,” said Petra. “Is that catching?”
    “Of course not,
stupid. Insomnia is when you can’t sleep. Can’t you see these rings around my
eyes? Mommy says it’s due to hypertension in prepuberty .”
    Toby frowned.
He didn’t like to admit that he didn’t have the faintest idea of what Petra was
talking about. He’d kind of heard of “puberty,” and he knew it had something to
do with growing hairs on your dooda – which is what
his grandpa always used to call it-but that was about the extent of his
knowledge. Like most children to -whom the most important things in life are
skateboards, Charlie’s Angels, and Captain Cosmic, he’d been told, but had
quickly forgotten.
    “What do you do
all night if you don’t sleep?” asked Toby. “Do you walk about, or what?”
    “Oh, I sleep
some of the time,” explained Petra. “The trouble is , I
keep having bad dreams. They wake me up, and then it takes me a long tune to go
back to sleep.”
    “Bad dreams? I had a bad dream last night.”
    “Well, I’m sure
your bad dream wasn’t as bad as my bad dreams,” said Petra. “My bad dreams are
simply awful.”
    “I dreamed
there was somebody stuck in my wardrobe,” said Toby. In the sunlit classroom,
it sounded pretty lame. The cold terror of seeing that gray face in the walnut
door had been vaporized by the warmth of the day.
    Petra tilted
her nose up. “That’s nothing. I keep dreaming about blood. I keep dreaming
about all these people covered with blood.”
    Toby was
impressed. “That’s real frightening,” he admitted. “People covered with
blood-that’s real frightening.”
    “Mommy says it’s prepuberty fears,” said
Petra, airily. “She’s says it’s a woman’s fear of her natural function brought
about by men’s lack of understanding of what a woman is.”
    Mrs. Novato
called; “Petra? Are you talking? I’m surprised at you.”
    Petra gave Toby
a sharp look, and said, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Novato. I was trying to explain
something to Toby.”
    The class of
twenty boys and girls, all between the ages of eight and ten, looked around at
them.
    Mrs. Novato
said, “If there’s something you don’t understand, Toby, you can always ask me.
    That’s what I’m
paid for. Apart from that, I’m a little better informed than Petra on most
subjects.”
    Linus Hopland
was grinning at Toby and pulling faces. Toby couldn’t help smirking, and he had
to bite his tongue to prevent himself from laughing out loud.
    Mrs. Novato
said; “Stand up, Toby. If you’ve got a question to ask, if there’s something
you don’t understand, then let’s share your problem.
That is what a class is for, to share.” Toby reluctantly stood. He kept his
eyes fixed on his desk.
    “Well?” asked
Mrs. Novato. “What was it that you wished to know?”
    Toby didn’t
answer.
    “It was so
important that you had to discuss it with Petra in the middle of nature study,
and yet you can’t tell me what it was?”
    Toby said, in a
small, husky voice, “It was Petra’s dreams, Mrs. Novato.”
    “Speak