Leftovers - Ted Hughes

    At the end of his working day, God usually had a few bits and pieces left over. Sometimes, just to clear up his worktable, he would stick these together and make a funny-looking mixture of a creature. Then he would breath life into it.
    The creatures he made in this way would felt very mixed up. They had a hard time knowing how to carry on. 'What am I?' asked the Okapi. 'Am I a Giraffe? Or a Bushbuck? Or a Zebra? Or what?' He his in dark forest, trying to work out what he was. But he would never work it out. He had been mixed up bu God.
    One day, God felt he ought to give his workshop a spring-clean. He set to. It was amazing what ragged bits and pieces came out from under his workbench, as he swept. Beginnings of creatures, bits that looked useful but had seemed wrong, ideas that he'd mislaid and forgotten. He stared at the pile of odds and ends. There were off-cuts and waste scraps of bad weather, which was his very latest invention, only just completed. And bits of the flowers from long, long ago. There was even a tiny lump of sun.
  He scratched his head. What could be done with all this rubbish? At that moment he smelt sausages. His mother was cooking his dinner. Suddenly he felt ravenous. It had been a hard day. So now, in a great hurry, he mixed the whole heap of sweepings together, squeezed it into shape, breathe life into it, and set it down on the edge of the plains. 'There we are,' he said. 'Run off and play.'
    As God let go of it, the creature lifted its head, and opened its mouth. What it wanted to say was: 'Give me a sausage!' Because it felt too ravenous. A little bit of God's hunger for the sausages had got in there, along with all the other scraps. But what came out of it was a long roll of thunder. God stared at his new animal in alarm. But then he laughed. He'd noticed a bushy clump of blue-black cloud among the sweepings. It must have been a piece of thunder cloud. He hoped there were no lightnings or thunderbolts in it. Still, it couldn't be helped. So he laughed and called: 'Not not bad for leftovers!' and went off to chomp his sausages.
    The creature shook himself. He felt very uncomfortable. He blinked. There was something terribly bright behind his eyes. He did not know it, but that was a chunk of the sun - just a leftover scrap. He wrinkled his face and shook his head. Then he lowered his nose and again a long roll of thunder came out of him. All the creatures of the plains lifted their heads with question marks in their eyes.
    But he was thinking: 'So I am Leftovers, am I? Made out of the scraps. Made out of the bits that couldn't be fitted into anything else.'
    And as he thought this he became more and more angry. And that little bit of God's hunger in him made it worse. Again he shook his dazzled head and let out another roll of thunder. 'God made all his other creatures with great care and with great love,' he said to himself. 'But me - he just screwed me into a shape like a ball of waste paper, and dropped me on to the earth as if he were throwing me away! Aaaaah!' And he thundered again. 'I am rubbish!' he thundered. 'I am Leftovers.' Thunder after thunder rolled out of him. And at every roll of thunder he grew more and more bitter. He was working himself up.
    'If I had God here now,' he rumbled, 'I'd swat him like a Fly! I'd splat him to a splodge! I'd swallow him alive and howling! Yes! Yes! Revenge!' he thundered. 'Revenge!'
    A Wild Cow standing nearby stared at him. 'Shame on you,' she cried. 'You scruffy-looking ruffian. Go and get yourself washed. Go and get yourself combed."
    Leftovers glared. Then, before he knew what he was doing, he rolled out a great crash of thunder, soared through the air and landed on top of the Wild Cow. 'Help!' she cried, as her legs crumpled. She thought heaven had fallen.
    All the animals watched in horrified as Leftovers killed her and ate her. This was new!
    They came trotting closer, twitching their tails and flicking their ears. The Gazelles stamped. The Wild Bull pawed up clods of dirt. He couldn't believe what had happened, but it was beginning to sink in. The Elephants lifted their trunks.
    'You can't do that,' squealed the Elephants. 'You should eat leaves and twigs.'
    'That's not done,' brayed the Zebra. 'You should eat grass.'
    'Eat flowers,' bleated the Gazelles.
    'I shall tell God,' bellowed the Wild Bull. 'You shall be punished. God will not like this. I shall have justice!'
    But Leftovers seemed not to understand them. He thought he'd just eaten a  wonderful pile of sausages. He watched them through his eye-pupils that looked like tiny keyholes. He licked his lips. Then he yawned.
    The animals became more and more excited. 'Eat flowers! Eat grass! Eat leaves! Not the Wild Cow! Not the Wild Cow! We shall tell God. Now you'll be punished.'
    But they all kept their distance. There was something in his yellow dazzled eyes they did not like. And none of them wanted to end up like the Wild Cow.
    Then, to their amazement, he laid his head on his paw and fell asleep, right there among the bloody bones of the Wild Cow. The animals were enraged. In a great mop, they turned and rushed off over the plains, to tell God.
    'He's a cannibal!' squealed the Elephants.
    'He's a gluttonous, ghastly, ghoulish ogre!' bleated the Bonteboks.
    'He's a big, bad, bloodthirsty bandit!' bleated the Blesbok.
    'He's a scruffianly, ruffianly, rag-bag hooligan!' bleated the Springboks.
    'God will punish him! bellowed the Wild Bull.
    And they milled around on the hilltop, raising a red cloud of dust, stretching their necks up, or their trunks, and crying: 'Oh God, you've made a mistake! Do you know what you've done? Leftovers is killing or wives! Help! Help! Take him back! Take him back! Leftovers is killing our wives!'
  And the Wild Bull humped his shoulders and bellowed: 'Justice! I demand justice from God!'
   God could not hear the animals, but he could see them, leaping and churning about in the dust-cloud. He thought they were dancing to celebrate their happiness and the beauty of the earth. He nodded in Heaven. And to show them that he understood, he stirred the top of the thundercloud with his light hand and let a roll of thunder rumble out across the horizons.
    When they heard that, they scatted in terror. They did not know it was God's new toy, which pleased him almost more than anything he had created so far.
    'A giant Leftovers on Heaven!' they cried. 'He'll fall out of the sky on top of us, just as Leftovers dropped on the Wild Cow. It must be his unborn brother!'
    God frowned ad stopped chewing for a moment. 'Funny!' he muttered. 'What's got into them?'
    But from that moment all the animals were afraid of Leftovers and his titanic brother in Heaven. And from that moment too the Wild Bull began to follow him, peering out from the deep thickest of thorn and watching him, waiting for the moment of revenge.
    Leftovers was uncontrollable. Every third day, the craving for sausages, that hunger of God, came over him and would not let him rest. It drove him over the rocky ridges, slouching from thorn-bush to thorn-bush. He truly was a scruffy-looking object, like an old tatty blanket draped over a dried sunflower. The animals would have laughed at him if it hadn't been for the rolls of thunder that came pouring out of his mouth, and the way he would suddenly stop, and stare through his deadly keyholes. Then they knew what to expect. Next thing, some fat happy animal would suddenly let out a honk, and collapse, as of struck by lightning. And that would be Leftovers, lying on top of it.
    And when his skin was stretched as tight as a huge sausage, he'd roll on to his back and sleep, frowning over the lump of sun behind his eyebrows. The he looked exactly like a bursting sackful of rags, till his skin began to slacken a little, and once again the hunger of God woke hum up.
    Meanwhile, every day, the Wild Bull's rage grew worse. He slammed his horns into an Ant-hill, and tossed the lumps about, to strengthen his neck. 'God cannot feel my grief,' he bellowed. 'God cannot hear us.'
    The animals tried to calm him down. 'You mustn't take justice into your own hands,' cried the Tree-Shrew. 'That's bad. Be patient. :eave Leftovers to God. God will punish him.'
    But the Wild Bull crashed his horns into the trunk of a baobab tree, to toughen his brains. 'I can't wait for God,' he bellowed. 'I shall deal with Leftovers alone.'
    The animals were horrified. If Wild Bull started fighting, where would it end? 'God must be told,' squeaked the Meerkat. 'And soon.'
    At last a Weasel managed to get to God, and gave him the whole story. God slapped his brow. He remembered Leftovers. But where had those eating habits come from? God had forgotten how his mother had been frying sausages, and how he had breathed life into Leftovers with breath full of cravings for sizzling sausages, out of a mouth watering at the very idea of sausages. But he felt it must be his fault somehow. He came hurrying down to earth, very upset. Was he really to blame for leftovers' horrible behavior?
    All the animals gathered around God, to tell him how Leftovers was killings grandmothers and grandfathers, and their wives and their children.
    'Leave it to me,' said God at last. 'Just leave it to me.'
    He found Leftovers licking his paws. 'Do you realize,' he said very sternly, 'what you're doing?'
    Leftovers gazed at God. He'd just eaten so much he could not get up. He blinked.
    'You can't carry on like this,' said God. 'This - well, it's murder, isn't it?'
    Leftovers yawned.
    'Do you hear me?' roared God, and he slapped a couple of thunderclouds. Lightning plunged into lakes and forest.
    'It's no good shouting at me,' said Leftovers mildly. 'You made me. I am what I am. And that's all there is to it.'
    'I am what I am!' screeched God. He sounded like an almighty Elephant, and shook his thunderclouds like separate fists. Lightnings spattered the sky.
    The animals crouched on the plains. 'They're at it now,' cried the Hare. 'Leftovers must have sent for his brother. Somebody'll get hurt now! Oh boy!'
    'I'm your fault,' said Leftovers quietly.
    'My fault?' gasped God. He was nearly speechless at Leftovers' insolence.
    'You shouldn't have made me of rubbish. I'm rubbish, aren't I? What do yo expect from rubbish? I can't help it. Now go away.'
    And while God stood there, Leftovers laid his head on his paw and fell asleep.
    God sat on a stone, thinking. What could he do? Leftovers was right. God shouldn't have made him so carelessly. He should have never let that little bit of thundercloud get into him, for one thing. But where had that hunger come from? Because that was the dreadful part, the hunger.
    As he sat there thinking, Man came strolling up.
    'There's a very easy answer to your problem,' said Man.
    'There's a reward, said God, 'for the right answer.'
    'Listen to this,' said Man. 'Leftovers is bitter because you made him of rubbish. Isn't that true? He's taking revenge on your Creation. Killing the animals.'
    'So it seems,' said God.
    'So all you need to do,' said Man, 'is made him King of the animals.'
    God gave a little laugh, and raised one eyebrow.
    'A king has to protect his subjects, doesn't he?' said Man. 'Instead of being rubbish, an outcast on the earth, he'll be King. He'll be your representative over the animals. He'll become good. He'll stop being bitter. He'll feel so good, he won't need to take any more revenge. It will change him.'
    'What about that hunger of his?' asked God. 'Will that change too?'
    'Oh, that!' said Man. 'Well, you could always feed him on your sausages.'
    God like this idea. He called all the animals together and explained his plan. But all they did was stare at him, saying nothing. Non of them trusted Leftovers.
    'We'll put a crown on him now, while he's asleep,' explained God. 'And when he wakes up, you all knell and say: "Greetings, O King!" And you, Hyena, will say: "And here, O Your Mighty Majesty, are God's own sausages fro your royal breakfast." I'll supply some. Then while he's eating I'll come by and talk to him.'
    The animals looked fearful.
    'What if he doesn't believe us?; bleated a Sheep.
    'If the crown's on his head. And the sausages are there sizzling, And you all act your parts. He'll believe it,' said God.
    They all thought hard how they would act. But they still weren't sure.
    Then Fox cried:
    'King Leftovers doesn't sound right. That name Leftovers will remind him. That will set his thunder rolling. That will bring the lightning out of the ends of his great paws. He needs a new name.'
    God thought. He didn't like wasting anything. 'If we knock a few letters out of his name, we could call him Love.'
    'No,' bellowed Wild Bull. 'He's a convicted murderer, remember. I do not forget the past. You're letting him get away with it. I'm having nothing to do with this.' And he plunged away into the dense thorns.
    'Very well,' said God. 'How about Leo?'
    So they all agreed. And God produced a crown from his treasury in Heavens. It was actually a small-scale model of the Zodiac. The sausages were prepared. And when Leftovers awoke, he was greeted by all the animals kneeling and touching the ground with their foreheads.
    'Greetings, O Mighty King,' they all cried. 'Greetings O Mighty King Leo!'
    And Hyena crawled forward, pushing a huge plate of hot sausages in front of him. 'O Mighty King Leo, 'he chanted. 'O representative of God among the animals, here is your royal breakfast, hot from heaven.'
    Leftovers looked around. He was puzzled. But there was no denying the sausages. And now he say them, he knew they were exactly what he had always wanted. And as he tasted the first, he closed his eyes in bliss. This was the taste he was always searching for. Heavenly sausages!
    Hyena spoke: 'Your Majesty, you have forgotten to hand your crown to me.'
    'Crown?' asked Leftovers.
    'While you eat your royal breakfast, I always polish your royal crown, given to you by God,' said Hyena.
    Then Leftovers noticed the weight on his head. He took off the crown and gazed at the shining gold and at the jewels in seven different colours. He pretended not to be surprised, as he handed it to Hyena, who began to polish it with his little tail.
    'Of course,' said Leftovers. 'It slipped my mind.'
    'Blessings on his Mighty Majesty King Leo!' yelled a Baboon.
    And all the animals, in one great voice, shouted: 'Blessings on his Mighty Majesty King Leo!' And the Elephants stood in a row and blew a majestic fanfare, as Leftovers ate his sausages.
    As he ate he thought: 'Am I me or am I Leftovers?' But he couldn't answer. He really couldn't tell. 'It seems,' he thought, 'that I dreamed I was a ragged, nasty creature roaming about in the thorns, murdering mu subjects and eating them!' He shuddered with horror, and picked up another sausage.
    And as he munched he thought: 'This is the life!'
    At that moment God came strolling by.
    'Good morning, King Leo,' God greeted him. 'How is the kingdom of the animals? Is everybody happy?'
    'Indeed,' said King Leo, speaking in a slow dignified way, 'my subjects are all happy.'
    'It must be thanks to your care,' said God. 'Everything depends on you. You are my representative here on earth, among the animals. I have complete faith in you.' Then he added: 'I am just on my way to the kingdom of the insects, where Stag-Beetle is King. Like you, he is a perfect King: brave, wise, generous, tireless and kind.'
    God raised his hand in salute, and was just about to disappear into the roots of a clump of grass when King Leo said: 'By the way, God, I had a strange dream.'
    'What was it?' asked God. 'Perhaps I can tell you what it means.'
    'I dreamed I was an outlaw, very dirty and ragged. I was murdering the animals and eating them. With a truly horrible hunger. I was called Leftovers. What does it mean?'
    God laughed. 'That is easy. Dreams are memories of a former life. That was the life in which you got everything wrong. Now, as you see, you are getting everything right. Isn't it so?'
    'It is,' said King Leo, puzzled. 'Yes, it is. I do seem to be getting everything right.'
    God raised his hand again, smiled, and vanished into the grassroots.
    Hyena handed King Leo his crown.
    'It is time now,' said Hyena, 'for your Majesty to choose. Will you be carried through your kingdom on Elephant's back, or will you sleep?'
    'Of course,' said King Leo. He felt sleepy, after the sausages. So there and then he closed his eyes and slept.
    At that moment, all the animals breathed a sigh of relief. They got up off their knees and started doing what they usually did, playing, feeding.
    All except Wild Bull. Now the Wild Bull stepped from the thorns, and the sun glistened on his blue-black body. There, at the edge of the thorns, he leveled his nose like a black stumpy cannon, ans sniffed with his great black nostrils. His tail rose in the air and twirled its tassel. He was remembering his wife. He groaned softly and his dewlap trembled.
    It seemed to him the murderer had been rewarded too well..
 He dragged his right hoof backward through the stony earth, and flung gravel up over his flank and back. Was King Leo going to be King for ever? Feasting on sausages, bowed to by all the animals, wearing a crown that looked like the starry heavens? He groaned louder, with a weird, hollow, booming sound, and flung more earth over his back. He glared at his enemy and the empty plate. The was not justice. To make a murderer King, this was not justice.
    The Wild Bull stepped forward, slowly, till he stood right over the shaggy, sleeping King. His moment had come. With a flick of his horns, he tossed the crown into a swamp, where a watersnake grabbed it and sank out of sight with it, leaving bubble.
     The he put his horns under the King and with one jerk tossed him into the top of a thorn tree - a big, strong-trunked thorn tree of ten millions thorns.
    'Leftovers!' he thundered. 'Leftovers! You have not paid for my wife. But now you shall pay.'
    Leftovers woke up falling through the thorns, which raked his body and clawed his face. But he did not hit the ground. He fell smack on to the Wild Bull's horns, who hurled him up again - back into the top of the thorn tree.
    'Leftovers!' bellowed the Wild Bull. 'I am God's Judge. And Judgement Day has come!'
    And again the torn and bleeding King fell through the dreadful tree, and again he fell on to the waiting horns, and it was as if he had fallen on to a trampoline. Up he went again, higher than ever, turning in the air, his legs outflung, as if he were no bigger than a rabbit, and the Wild Bull gazed up, his eyes flaming with joyful fury.
    But as he came down through the whipping and slashing thorns for the third time, Leftovers grabbed the trunk and hung there. Was he awake or asleep? He shook his dazzled head. Where was his crown? Where was his kingdom? And his subjects? And his sausages? Where was God?
    And there, clinging for dear life halfway up a thorn tree, above a demented Wild Bull, e knew he was Leftovers. And the rest was a dream. The crown, the sausages, the Hyena, the fanfare Elephants, God - all were a dream.
    But this was real. This real Wild Bull was the real husband of the real Wild Cow he really had killed and eaten. And these were real thorns.
    He roared an enraged clap of thunder. And down below him the Wild Bull tore up the earth with his hooves, and he too bellowed thunder. God crouched in the grass clump, peering out between the fibres of the roots. 'All my fault!' he was muttering. 'All my fault!' as he tried to think of what to do,
    But the the Wild Bull charged the tree. There came a crack, the earth jumped, and the whole tree blurred. In a shower of thorns, Leftovers drooped on to the Wild Bull's back, biting and clawing. The Wild Bull rolled over, but Leftovers sprang away, and with one bound he was gone - into the high grass where the Elephants too were hiding from the uproar, with their trunks curled into their mouths. The Wild Bull stormed and trampled in circles, hunting for Leftovers, tearing up small trees and bushes, till finally he stood panting, letting his red eyes slowly darken to a bring, burning black.
    That was the end of King Leo's reign.
    And now, Leftovers roams the land as before, hungry as before, terrible as before. But he kept out of the way of the Wild Bull, because the Wild Bull is ready for him, always sniffing for him, always alert.
    And just as before, all the animals go in fear of Leftovers' unrolling carpet of thunder and his thunderbolt leap.
    What can God do? He knows his trick would not work a second time. But it nearly had worked. If the Wild Bull had not burst out of the thorns, it might have worked. And so when Leftovers walks along the skyline at evening, when the sky flames red, Gos listens sadly. And all the animals listen too, as Leftovers' thunder rolls away across the plains and crumbles against the surrounding wall of sky,
    'King Leo!' shouts Hyena, and laughs.
    And Man, too, listens in his house. It seems to him that Leftovers' thunder is a sad sound. Peal after peal of thunder, shorter ans shorter, ending in a few grunty coughs. Man can tell that Leftovers is remembering his dream of being King, his dream of being wise, generous, kind and beloved by all. 'Was it a dream?' says the first roll of thunder. 'Or was it real?' says the second. 'Or is this a dream now?' says the third. 'Or is this real?' says the fourth. And then, very fierce, as if he could hardly bear it, 'Was that a dream and is this real?' And after a pause: 'Or was that real and this a dream?' Then shorter and shorter: 'Which is it? Which is it?' And shorter and shorter and shorter: 'Which? Which? Which?'
    Then, in the silence, Leftovers frowns over the lump of sun behind his eyes. Ad he lowers his head, and half opens his mouth to cool the hunger of God that urges him forward.

The Elevator - William Sleator

   It was an old building with an old elevator - a very small elevator, with a maximum capacity of three people. Martin, a thin twelve-year-old, felt nervous in it from the first day he and his father moved into the apartment. Of course he was always uncomfortable in elevators, afraid that they would fall, but there was something especially unpleasant about this one. Perhaps its baleful atmosphere was due to the light from the single fluorescent ceiling strip, bleak and dim on the dirty brown walls. Perhaps the problem was the door, which never stayed open quite long enough, and slammed shut with such ominous, clanging finality. Perhaps it was the way mechanism shuddered in a kind of exhaustion each time it left a floor, as though it might never reach the next one. Maybe it was simple the dimensions of the contraption that bothered him, so small that it felt uncomfortably crowded even when there was only one other person in it.
   Coming home from school the day after they moved in, Martin tried the stairs. But they were almost as bad, windowless, shadowy, with several dark landings where the light bulbs had burned out. His footsteps echoed behind him like slaps on the cement, as though there was another person climbing, getting closer. By the time he reached the seventeenth floor, which seemed to take forever, he was winded and gasping.
    His father, who worked at home, wanted to know why he was so out of breath. "But why didn't you take the elevator?" he asked, frowning at Martin when he explained about the stairs. Not only are you skinny and weak and bad at sports, his expression seemed to say, but you're also a coward. After that, Martin forced himself to take the elevator. He would have to get used to it, he told himself, just the way he got used to being bullied at school, and always picked last when they chose teams. The elevator was an undeniable fact of life.
    He didn't get used to it. He remained tense in the trembling little box, his eyes fixed on the numbers over the door that blinked on and off so haltingly, as if at any moment they might simple give up. Sometimes he forced himself to look away from them, to the Emergency Stop button, or red Alarm button. What would happen if he pushed one of them? Would a bell ring? Would the elevator stop between floors? And if it did, how would they get him out?
    That was what he hated about being alone on the thing - the fear of being trapped there for hours by himself. But it wasn't much better when there were other passengers. He felt too close to any other rider, too intimate. And he was always very conscious of the effort people made not to look at one another, staring fixedly at nothing. Being short, in this one situation, was on advantage, since his face was below eye level of adults, and after a brief glance they ignored him.
    Until the morning the elevator stopped at the fourteenth floor, and the fat lady got on. She wore a threadbare green coat that ballooned around her; her ankles bulged above dirty sneakers. As she waddled into the elevator, Martin was sure he felt it sink under her weight. She was so big that she filled the cubicle; her coat brushed against him, and he had to squeeze into the corner to make room for her - there certainly wouldn't have been room for another passenger. The door slammed quickly behind her. And then, unlike everyone else, she did not stand facing the door. She stood with her back to the door, wheezing, staring directly at Martin.
    For a moment he met her gaze. Her features seemed very small, squashed together bu the loose fleshy mounds of her cheeks. She had no chin, only a great swollen mass of neck, barely contained by the collar of her coat. Her sparse red hair was pinned back by a plastic barrette. And her blue eyes, though tiny, were sharp and penetrating, boring into Martin's face.
    Abruptly he looked away from her to the numbers over the door. She didn't turn around. Was she still looking at him? His eyes slipped back to hers, then quickly away. She was still watching him. He wanted to close his eyes; he wanted to turn around and stare at the corner, but how could he? The elevator creaked down to twelve, down to eleven. Martin looked at his watch; he looked at the numbers again. They weren't even down to nine yet. And then, against his will, his eyes slipped back to her face. She was still watching him. Her nose tilted up; there was a large space between her nostrils and her upper lip, giving her a piggish look. He looked away again, clenching his teeth, fighting the impulse to squeeze his eyes shut against her.
    She had to be crazy. Why else would she stare at him this way? What was she going to do next? She did nothing. She only watched him, breathing audibly, until the elevator reached the first floor at lat. Martin would have rushed past her to get out, but there was no room. He could only wait as she turned - reluctantly, it seemed to him - and moved so slowly out into the lobby. And then he ran. He didn't care what she thought. He ran past her, outside into the fresh air, and he ran almost all the way to school. He had never felt such relief in his life.
    He thought about her all day. Did she live in the building? He had never seen her before, and the building wasn't very big - only four apartments on each floor. It seemed likely that she didn't live there, and had only been visiting somebody.
    But if she were only visiting somebody, why was she leaving the building at seven thirty int he morning? People didn't make visits at that time of day. Did that mean she did live in the building? Of so, it was likely - it was certainty - that sometime he would be riding with her on the elevator again.
    He was apprehensive as he approached the building after school. Why should he be afraid of an old lady? If he was afraid of her, if he let it control him, then he was worse than all the names they called him at school. He pressed the button; he stepped into the empty elevator. He stared at the lights, urging the elevator on. It stopped at three.
    At least it's not fourteen, he told himself; the person she was visiting lives on fourteen. He watched the door slide open - revealing a green coat, a piggish face, blue eyes already fixed on him as though she knew he'd be there.
    It wasn't possible. It was like a nightmare. But there she was, massively real. "Going up!" he said, his voice a humiliating squeak.
    She nodded, her flesh quivering, and stepped on. The door slammed. He watched her pudgy hand move toward the buttons. She pressed, not fourteen, but eighteen, the top floor, one floor above his own. The elevator trembled and began its ascent. The fat lady watched him.
    He knew she had gotten on at fourteen this morning. So why was she on three, going up to eighteen now? The only floors he ever went to were seventeen and one. What was she doing? Had she been waiting for him? Was she riding with him on purpose?
    But that was crazy. Maybe she had lots of friends in the building. Or else she was a cleaning lady who worked in different apartments. That had to be it. He felt her eyes on him as he stared at the numbers slowly blinking on and off - slower than usual, it seemed to him. Maybe the elevator was having trouble because of how heavy she was. It was supposed to carry three adults, but it was old. What if it got stuck between floors? What if it fell?
    There were on five now, It occurred to him to press seven, get off there and walk the rest of the way. And he would have done it, if he could reached the buttons. But there was no room to get past her without squeezing against her, and he could not bear the thought of any physical contact with her. He concentrated on being in his room. He would be home soon, only another minute or so. He could stand anything for a minute, even this crazy lady watching him.
    Unless the elevator got stuck between floors. Then what would he do? He tried to push the thought away, but it kept coming back. He looked at her. She was till staring at him, no expression at all on her squashed little features.
    When the elevator stopped on his floor, she barely moved out of the way. He had to inch past her, rubbing against her horrible scratch coat, terrified the door would close before he made it through. She quickly turned and watch him as the door slammed shut. And he thought, Now she knows I live on seventeen.
    "Did you ever notice a strange fat lady on the elevator?" he asked his father that evening.
    "Can't say as I have," he said, not looking away from the television.
    He knew he was probably making a mistake, but he had to tell somebody. "Well, she was on the elevator with me twice today. And the funny thing was, she just kept staring at me, she never stopped looking at me for a minute. You think... you know of anybody who had a weird cleaning lady or anything?"
    "What are you so worked up about now?" his father said, turning impatiently away from the television.
    "I'm not worked up. It was just funny the way she kept staring at me. You know how people never look at each other in the elevator. Well, she just kept staring at me."
    "What am I going to do with you, Martin?" is father said. He sighed and shook his head. "Honestly, now you're afraid of some poor old lady."
    "I'm not afraid."
    "You're afraid," said his father, with total assurance. "When are you going to grow up and act like a man? Are you going to be timid all your life?"
    He managed not to cry until he got to his room - but his father probably knew he was crying anyway. He slept very little.
    And in the morning, the the elevator door opened, the fat lady was waiting for him.
    She was expecting him. She knew he lived on seventeen. He stood there, unable to move, and then backed away. And as he did so, her expression changed. She smiled as the door slammed.
    He ran for the stairs. Luckily, the unlit flight on which he fell was between sixteen and fifteen. He only had to drag himself up one and a half flights with the terrible pain in his leg. His father was silent on he way to the hospital, disappointed and annoyed at him for being such a coward and a fool.
    It was a simple fracture. He didn't need a wheelchair, only a cast and crutches. But he was condemned to the elevator now. Was that why the fat lady had smiled? Has she known it would happen this way?
    At least his father was with him on the elevator on the way up back from the hospital. There was no room for the fat lady to get on. And even if she did, his father would see her, he would realize how peculiar she was, and then maybe he would understand. And once they got home, he could stay in the apratment for a few days - the doctor had said he should use his leg as little as possible. A week, maybe - a whole week without going on the elevator. Riding up with his father, leaning on his crutches, he looked around the cubicle and felt a kind of triumph. He has beaten the elevator, and the fat lady, for the time being. And the end of the week was very far away.
    "Oh, I almost forgot," his father reached out his hand and pressed nine.
    "What are you doing? You're not getting off, are you?" he asked him, trying not to sound panicky.
    "I promised Terry Ullman I'd drop in on her," his father said, looking at his watch as he stepped off.
    "Let me go with you. I want to visit her, too," Martin pleaded, struggling forward on his crutches.
    But the door was already closing. "Afraid to be on the elevator alone?" his father said, with a look of total scorn. "Grow up, Martin." The door slammed shut.
    Martin hobbled to the buttons and pressed nine, but it didn't do any good. The elevator stopped at ten, where the fat lady was waiting for him. She moved in quickly; he was too slow, too unsteady on his crutches to work his way past her in time. The door sealed them in; the elevator started up.
    "Hello, Martin," she said, and laughed, and pushed the Stop button.