When Michael Calls by John Farris
~ The Yellow Shades County school bus dropped Peggy Connolly and two other second-graders off at the corner and Peggy walked the rest of the way atop the low stone wall separated the Connolly property from the street, taking care not to scuffle her good school shoes. A tall young man was digging in the front yard and Peggy paused for a few moments near the white gate in the wall. Peggy didn't particularly like Randle and avoided him whenever possible, but she couldn't resist a freshly dug hole, so she hopped down and walked through the scattered leaves to where he was working.
"What's it going to be?" Peggy asked.Without looking around, Harry Randle unloaded a shovelful of dirt very close to her new shoes, but Peggy was ready for that and she didn't flinch. Instead she looked up at him in her rapt and courteous way, willing as always to respond to any indication of good will.
Randle leaned his shovel against a wrought-iron signpost and wiped his perspiring forehead with the back on one hand. He smiled then, not really looking at her.
"It's for your dead cat." he said.
"I don't have a dead cat."
"I wouldn't be that sure."
"I'm sure; I don't. Do you mean Satch?"Harry Randle didn't reply. He wasn't much older than some of the high school boys, as far as Peggy could tell, but he was a lot meaner. His remarks about her cat, eve though she knew better than to believe him, worried her, so she looked here and there in the yard, hoping to find Satch in the best of health. Then she glanced toward the street, where Dr. Britton's station wagon was parked. She saw two wrapped evergreen shrubs in the back.
"That's what you're doing," Peggy said. "You're digging holes for the plants."RAndle lifted his shovel and jabbed it casually into the ground a few times, still smiling.
"Dead cat makes good plant food, makes 'em grow."
"You're a faker. You wouldn't touch Satch."
"Better make sure he doesn't come around me again," Randle said seriously. "I almost got him last time."He lashed out with his shovel, smacking the flat blade against the ground,
"Ha!"Peggy edged closer to the hole, peered inside. Satisfied that it was empty, she headed toward the house. Harry Randle was one of the doctor's regular hands on his farm, but he came over to the Connolly's once a week to do yard work and other chores Helen Connolly couldn't do herself. Peggy had long ago given up ever being friends with Randle. Apparently he just didn't like little girls, something new in her experience.
Near the porch Peggy became aware that Randle was silently following her and she turned quickly, frowning; but he wasn't up to anything.
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