The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald Page B

colors, instead of numbers, on them.
    “Any reds?” Henry asked, and Vera realized that it was the second time he had said it.
    “Do you feel all right?” she asked him.
    He said: “I feel okay. Do you have any reds?”
    Vera shook her head. “Go fish,” she said.
    Henry reached down to the pile of fish fanned out on his bedspread, but when he did so, Vera could see that his hand was shaking.
    She put her hand on his forehead, which was smooth and hot as a rock in the sun.
    Vera put her cards down and stood up, and at the exact same moment, Hazel started to cry downstairs.
    “Damn,” Vera said.
    “Damn,” Henry said.
    “You didn’t hear me say that,” she told Henry.
    “Say ‘Damn’?”
    “Right.”
    “Damn.”
    “I don’t suppose you know where your thermometer is?”
    Henry shrugged. “Do you have any reds?” he asked.
    He coughed then—one deep, long, alarming bronchial bray. When he was finished, his eyes had filled with tears. Meanwhile, Hazel’s protests from downstairs had turned into a full-throated yell.
    “I have to go see to her,” Vera said. “Are you going to be okay?” she asked.
    He nodded and was about to speak, but then he started to cough again.
    “No. You’d better come back downstairs with me,” Vera said.
    “I can make Hazy laugh,” Henry said, on the stairs, when he’d stopped coughing.
    “No, you can’t be with Hazy,” Vera said, and she was startled to find Henry’s warm, dry hand reaching out for hers. “But I bet you can make most people laugh,” she said.
    “Yes,” Henry said. “It’s not so hard.”
    THE AFTERNOON LENGTHENED, along with its shadows. Winter blew in under the doors and windows, cold as the bare trees that bowed outside.
    Just beyond the door of the nursery, Henry sat in the rocking chair, uncomfortable with the spindles of the chair back behind his head. In one hand, he still held the Go Fish cards he had been dealt upstairs, and his fingers closed tightly around the narrow parts of the fish tails while he watched Vera bouncing Hazel around the room.
    “Where in heaven and earth is Mrs. Gaines?” Vera asked.
    “Probably earth,” Henry said, curling his feet up beneath him and scrunching over so that the side of his face lay against the cool arm of the chair.
    Vera laughed. “Let’s hope so,” she said. But now her face wasn’t smiling. “What time is it?” she asked.
    “I don’t know how to tell time,” Henry said.
    “I know you don’t know how to tell time,” Vera said.
    She carried Hazy past him to the kitchen, and Henry could hear her open the back door, and he could feel a blast of even colder air. Then Vera closed the door and said “Damn” again.
    “Do you have any idea where she went?” Vera asked Henry.
    “She went to get me Silly Putty,” he said.
    “Silly what?”
    “Silly Putty,” Henry said. “You can bend it and bounce it and you can use it to copy pictures.”
    “This is a toy or something?” Vera said.
    Henry nodded, a little confused by Vera’s confusion. Everyone he knew understood what Silly Putty was. Leo had some. The older brother of one of the babies at the nursery school had some.
    “Do you really think she went to get you Silly Putty?” Vera asked.
    Henry coughed again and nodded. “Do you want to play with it when I get it?” he asked.
    Polio, Vera knew from her health class, could sometimes start with what seemed to be a simple cold or grippe. She’d learned, but now for the life of her couldn’t remember, how to tell what the differences were.
    Vera dialed the doctor’s number, but his nurse said that he was out on house calls. He would certainly call in at some point, but she didn’t know when. With rising panic, Vera put Hazel in the crib and, breaking one of Mrs. Gaines’s cardinal rules, did not correct the baby when she put her thumb in her mouth.
    This time Henry followed Vera into the kitchen, where she looked out the back door again, then picked up the telephone and