This Side of Jordan by Monte Schulz Page A

depending on how hard the boy works. You be careful, now. Wouldn’t surprise me at all to find it’s been working on them boards below your bed, trying to loosen ’em up, so’s it can sneak in one night and snatch you while you’re sleeping!
    â€œHello, hello, hello!” the voice called out to him. “You’re not afraid of the dark, are you?”
    â€œâ€™Course not.”
    â€œWell then, come on in!”
    A pair of hands and arms became visible in the gloom, small and frail, like a child’s, followed by a large head wearing a smiling face that was not a child’s at all, but in fact a dwarf’s.
    â€œDon’t be a dilly-dog,” the dwarf urged as pleasantly as possible. “Come on in. It’s nice and cool.”
    Alvin stared at the dwarf, utterly unprepared for this encounter. The only such creature he had ever seen away from a circus was at the sanitarium, a diminutive juggler in clown paint who turned somersaults and chased the nurses about with a wooden paddle. He was shocked. It never occurred to him their sort lived in houses like regular folks.
    The dwarf smiled up at him. “I won’t bite you. I swear.”
    Alvin hesitated, preferring to remain out in the sunlight where it was safe.
    â€œOh please,” the dwarf begged. “It’s not half as dark as it seems. Why, I’m blind as a tick and I don’t have any trouble at all getting about down here. What do you say?”
    Alvin looked back across the yard to the street. Except for a pair of birds chirping somewhere up in the magnolia branches, the yard was dead quiet in the early afternoon.
    â€œHow about it?” Squinting in the sunlight, the dwarf thrust his head out of the coralberry. His hair was thin as cobwebs and nearly as white. “We’d have an awful lot of fun.”
    â€œI ain’t sure I’d fit.”
    â€œOh, sure you will. If you don’t mind me saying, you’re awfully skinny. You’re not sick, are you?”
    â€œHell, no.”
    â€œPlease?”
    Alvin shrugged. “All right.”
    What did he have to be scared about? This little fellow was only half his size. If need be, he could probably throw him down in a second.
    â€œWonderful!”
    The dwarf backed out of the opening, pushing the tiny grate aside as he went. Leaving Chester’s hat behind in the grass, Alvin got down on his knees and pointed himself toward the dark square in the side of the house. Shoving the bushy coralberry apart with his hands, he crawled forward into the shadows.
    It was a tight fit. His trousers threatened to catch on the latticework frame as he slithered by, while his knees scraped the foundation and his back struck the upper edge of the grate. Once in, though, he was able to sit up without much trouble. A crawlspace roughly four feet high separated the dirt foundation from the floor of the house above him. Plenty of room.
    â€œName’s Rascal,” said the dwarf, scrambling over beside him. “What’s yours?”
    â€œAlvin.”
    â€œGlad to know you, Alvin.” Rascal sat down in the dirt and crossed his legs. He was dressed in a small boy’s blue one-piece romper with black button shoes. Alvin had never seen anyone like him before in his life, but tried not to stare.
    Ducking a spider web, the farm boy asked, “How long you been under here?”
    â€œSince I lost my marbles last Saturday,” said Rascal, drawing closer. “It’s black as sin, isn’t it? No trouble at all cracking your head open. Don’t worry, you get used to it. Actually, I think it suits me. I find myself perspiring less down here.”
    â€œWhat’s that smell?” asked Alvin, noticing for the first time a distinctly unpleasant odor, sort of fruity and damp, rotting. He thought he might gag from the stink.
    Rascal sniffed the air. “Hmm. My guess would be honeydew melon. Sorry, I’ve been burying the