"Is there anything you want to make disappear?" Clarence Willoughby asked his mother. "A sink full of dishes is all I can think of. How will you do it?"
"I just built a disappearer. All you do is cut the other end out of a beer can. Then you take two pieces of red cardboard with peepholes in the middle and fit them in the ends. You look through the peepholes and blink. Whatever you look at will disappear."
"Oh."
"But I don't know if I can make them come back. We'd better try it on something else. Dishes cost money."
As always, Myra Willoughby had to admire the wisdom of her nine-year-old son. She would not have had such foresight herself. He always did.
"You can try it on Blanche Manners' cat outside there. Nobody will care if it disappears except Blanche Manners."
"All right."
He put the disappearer to his eye and blinked. The cat disappeared from the sidewalk outside.
His mother was interested. "I wonder how it works. Do you know how it works?"
"Yes. You take a beer can with both ends cut out and put in two pieces of cardboard. Then you blink."
"Never mind. Take it outside and play with it. You hadn't better make anything disappear in here till I think about this."
But when he had gone his mother was oddly disturbed.
"I wonder if I have a precocious child. Why, there's lots of grown people who wouldn't know how to make a disappearer that would work. I wonder if Blanche Manners will miss her cat very much?"
Clarence went down to the Plugged Nickel, a pot house on the corner.
"Do you have anything you want to make disappear, Nokomis?"
"Only my paunch."
"If I make it disappear it'll leave a hole in you and you'll bleed to death."
"That's right, I would. Why don't you try it on the fire plug outside?"
This in a way was one of the happiest afternoons ever in the neighborhood. The children came from blocks around to play in the flooded streets and gutters, and if some of them drowned (and we don't say that they did drown) in the flood (and brother! it was a flood), why, you have to expect things like that. The fire engines (whoever heard of calling fire engines to put out a flood?) were apparatus-deep in the water. The policemen and ambulance men wandered around wet and bewildered.
"Resuscitator, resuscitator, anybody wanna resuscitator," chanted Clarissa Willoughby.
"Oh, shut up," said the ambulance attendants.
Nokomis, the bar man in the Plugged Nickel, called Clarence aside.
"I don't believe, just for the moment, I'd tell anyone what happened to that fire plug," he said.
"I won't tell if you won't tell," said Clarence.
Officer Comstock was suspicious. "There's only seven possible explanations. One of the seven Willoughby kids did it. I dunno how. It'd take a bulldozer to do it, and then there'd be something left of the plug. But however they did it, one of them did it."
Officer Comstock had a talent for getting near the truth of dark matters. This is why he was walking a beat out here in the boondocks instead of sitting in a chair downtown.
"Clarissa!" said Officer Comstock in a voice like thunder.
"Resuscitator, resuscitator, anybody wanna resuscitator?" chanted Clarissa.
"Do you know what happened to that fire plug?" asked officer C.
"I have an uncanny suspicion. As yet it is no more than that. When I am better informed I will advise you."
Clarissa was eight years old and much given to uncanny suspicions.
"Clementine, Harold, Corinne, Jimmy, Cyril," he asked the five younger Willoughby children. "Do you know what happened to that fire plug?"
"There was a man around yesterday. I bet he took it," said Clementine.
"I don't even remember a fire plug there. I think you're making a lot of fuss about nothing," said Harold.
"City hall's going to hear about this," said Corinne.
"Pretty dommed sure," said Jimmy, "but I wont tell."
"Cyril!" cried Officer Comstock in a terrible voice. Not a terrifying voice, a terrible voice. He felt terrible now.
"Great green bananas," said Cyril, "I'm only three years old. I don't see how it's even my responsibility."
"Clarence," said Officer Comstock.
Clarence gulped.
"Do you know where that fire plug went?"
Clarence brightened. "No, sir. I don't know where it went."
A bunch of smart alecs from the water department came out and shut off the water for a few blocks around and put some kind of cap on in place of the fire plug. "This sure is going to be a funny-sounding report," said one of them.
Officer Comstock walked away discouraged. "Don't bother me, Miss Manners," he said. "I don't know where to look for your cat. I don't even know where to look for a fire plug."
"I have an idea," said Clarissa, "that when you find the cat you will find the fire plug the same place. As yet it is only an idea."
Ozzie Murphy wore a little hat on top of his head. Clarence pointed his weapon and winked. The hat was no longer there, but a little trickle of blood was running down the pate.
"I don't believe I'd play with that any more," said Nokomis.
"Who's playing?" said Clarence. "This is for real."
This was the beginning of the seven-day terror in the heretofore obscure neighborhood. Trees disappeared from the parkings; lamp posts were as though they had never been; Wally Waldorf drove home, got out, slammed the door of his car, and there was no car. As George Mullendorf came up the walk to his house his dog Pete ran to meet him and took a flying leap to his arms. The dog left the sidewalk but something happened; the dog was gone and only a bark lingered for a moment in the puzzled air.
But the worst were the fire plugs. The second plug was installed the morning after the disappearance of the first. In eight minutes it was gone and the flood waters returned. Another one was in by twelve o'clock. Within three minutes it had vanished. The next morning fire plug number four was installed.
The water commissioner was there, the city engineer was there, the chief of police was there with a riot squad, the president of the parent-teachers association was there, the president of the University was there, the mayor was there, three gentlemen of the F.B.I., a newsreel photographer, eminent scientists and a crowd of honest citizens.
"Let's see it disappear now," said the city engineer.
"Let's see it disappear now," said the police chief.
"Let's see it disa—it did, didn't it?" said one of the eminent scientists.
And it was gone and everyb............