Chapter 37: The Three Fates.
We were on a stretch of country road------no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.
The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks we'd ever seen.
I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.
All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandanas, boney arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.
The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at Percy.
Percy looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.
"Grover?" We said. "Hey, man----"
"Tell me they're not looking at Percy. They are, aren't they?"
"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit him?"
"Not funny, James. Not funny at all."
The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-----gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. We heard Grover catch his breath.
"We're getting back on the bus," he told us. "Come on."
"What?" We said. It's a thousand degrees in there."
"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but we stayed back.
Across the road, the old ladies were still watching Percy. The middle one cut the yarn, and we swear we could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving both of us wondering who they could possibly be for-----Sasquatch or Godzilla.
At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.
The passengers cheered.
"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"
Once we got going, My brother started feeling feverish, as if he'd caught the flu.
Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.
Chapter 38: Snipping the Cord.
"Grover?"
"Yeah?"
"What are you not telling us?"
He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "James, Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"
"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man?
They're not like . . . Mrs. Dodds, are they?"
His expression was hard to read, but we both got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you both saw."
"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."
He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-----older.
He said, you saw her snip the cord."
"Yeah. so?" But even as we said it, we knew it was a big deal.
"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."
"What last time?"
"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."
"Grover," We said, because he was really starting to scare us. "What are you talking about?"
"Let me walk you both home from the bus station. Promise me."
This seemed like a strange request to us, but we promised he could.
"Is this like a superstition or something?" We asked.
No answer.
"Grover-----that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"
He looked at my little brother Percy mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers he'd like best on his coffin.