Impossible Answers
An exclamation went up from the people taking the tour. “She’s right.
There isn’t any picture?”
“What’s that bright spot of light?” asked Judy.
She had never seen anything like it before. The picture on the
television screen seemed to be closing in on all sides. Instead of
Clarissa’s face, an eerie, wavering light danced before her eyes.
“There must be something wrong with the set,” the guide began. “Step
back a moment, and I’ll see—”
She stopped. Clarissa’s face had become waxy white. She would have
fallen if Judy hadn’t rushed to her side.
“It’s all right,” Judy said soothingly. “Some little technical thing
probably went wrong—”
“No, Judy. It wasn’t that. I am a phantom. I saw myself the way I really
am. Oh, help me!” wailed Clarissa as she slumped forward and slipped to
the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Judy gasped. “I tried to hold her.”
“It’s all right, Judy,” Pauline told her. “You did save her from a hard
fall.”
“She’s ill. We must get her to the first-aid station at once.” The
guide, obviously a little shaken herself, took charge. Two of the men
carried Clarissa to a door with a red cross and the words: FIRST AID,
lettered on it. Here she was left with an efficient, white-uniformed
nurse who assured Judy that her friend would be all right, but that she
must rest for half an hour.
“May we stay with her?” asked Flo. “I think she was frightened.”
“In that case,” replied the nurse, “it might be better for her to be
alone until she’s fully recovered from the shock. What happened? Was the
guide in any way at fault?”
“No,” Judy hastened to assure her. “In fact, she was very efficient. It
was probably something technical. I don’t understand the inside workings
of television very well.”
The nurse smiled. “Neither do I. The inside workings of the human mind
are even more mysterious. This girl should see a doctor or a
psychiatrist—”
“No-oo,” came a sob from Clarissa.
The nurse quieted her, breaking a capsule for her to inhale. She asked
the girl for her name and address, but all Clarissa said was, “I’m not
real. I’ll fade away altogether pretty soon. Please, just leave me
alone.”
“Perhaps that’s best.” Quietly the nurse escorted Judy, Pauline, and Flo
into the next room where she began to ask questions.
“You say the girl’s name is Clarissa Valentine?”
Judy nodded, and the nurse wrote it down.
“Where does she live?” was her next question.
The three girls looked at each other in bewilderment. “She said West
Virginia, didn’t she? We don’t know the name of the town.”
“It’s all right. I’ll get the rest of the information from her as soon
as she’s feeling better. Now,” said the nurse, “if you will leave your
names and tell me where I can reach you, I think it will be all right
for you to go back and finish your tour. Give our patient half an hour,
and I think I can convince her she isn’t in any danger of fading away.”
“We forgot to tell the nurse that Clarissa’s father is a minister,” Judy
said suddenly when they were halfway down the hall.
“Maybe he isn’t. I still think she’s putting on an act,” declared
Pauline. “She’s the sort that craves attention.”
“How do you know what sort she is?” Flo asked. “She’s practically a
stranger.”
“I was beginning to think of her as a friend,” objected Judy. “Everybody
craves attention in one way or another. If she’s in trouble, isn’t it up
to us to help her?”
“We have helped her,” Pauline reminded Judy. “We each gave her five
dollars, didn’t we? I should think that was help enough.”
“Maybe money isn’t what she needs.”
Flo laughed at that. “Isn’t money what everybody needs? Quit dreaming,
Judy. Why do you think all these people are rushing about like ants in
an ant hill? If it isn’t to get money, it’s to spend it.”
“It’s more than that.” Judy wanted to explain, but the right words
wouldn’t come. They had just entered the room where the closed circuit
TV set was being viewed by the tourists.
“There’s nothing wrong with it now,” observed Pauline. “The picture is
just as clear as ever. We’ll bring Clarissa back here—”
“If she’ll come.”
Flo, who had not yet seen herself on TV, stepped up before the camera.
She frowned at her image framed in the TV set against the background of
tall buildings. The picture was clear.
“If you hadn’t scowled at yourself you would have looked all right,”
Judy told her.
“But my hair looked dull—”
“That’s Clarissa’s complaint, not yours, Flo. I do believe she’s
hypnotized you into saying it,” declared Pauline.
Judy wondered if that could be possible. Afterwards she wished she had
asked the guide what went wrong with the picture when Clarissa fainted.
For when they went back to get her she did refuse to come and see
herself.
“Anyway,” Clarissa added, “the tour is over, and I’m all right now. The
nurse gave me some capsules to break and inhale if I feel faint during
Irene’s show.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go,” Pauline began.
“But you invited me—”
“Of course we did,” Judy broke in. “Irene is expecting all four of us.”
“You’re so good to me!” exclaimed Clarissa. She glanced about the small
room with its first-aid equipment as if in doubt about something. Then
she said, “The nurse went out for a minute. We don’t need to wait for
her. Shall we go?”
Judy was glad to leave. There was something oppressive in the air. The
closed-in cubicle was left for the next emergency patient. As soon as
they were outside in the wintry air, the color came back to Clarissa’s
cheeks, and she appeared to be quite herself again. Swirls of snow were
still blowing about, now hiding, now revealing the street ahead.
They stopped in a drugstore and had coffee and a quick sandwich. As they
were about to leave, Judy remembered something.
“I was going to buy a bottle of golden hair wash!” she exclaimed.
“I was, too,” Flo said. “This looks like as good a place as any.”
“Golden hair wash,” breathed Clarissa.
“Make it three bottles,” Judy heard herself saying to the druggist.
He regarded her curiously.
“You aren’t going to use that stuff on your red hair, are you?” he
inquired.
“No,” replied Judy, feeling uncomfortable under his puzzled gaze. “It’s
for a friend.”
He shook his head. “I can’t understand it. This is the thirteenth bottle
I’ve sold in the last half hour. Ordinarily the stuff doesn’t sell too
well. You have to be careful how you use it. Follow the directions, and
don’t let any of it get into your eyes or your mouth. It will gradually
change the color of your hair. Is that what you want?”
“It’s what I want. I want to change everything about me,” declared
Clarissa.
Hugging her bottle of shampoo as if it were a magic potion, she followed
the others out of the store.
“Now I’ll be beautiful,” she kept saying. “Now I’ll be a golden girl
too.”
Flo agreed with her. “I’ll have golden hair, too. It’s bound to make me
look better. Don’t you think so, Judy?”
The wind blew harder. Judy could scarcely make herself heard above the
weird whistling noise it was making.
“You won’t be Flo,” she shouted. “You’ll look so different without your
pretty, brown hair.”
“Who will I be?” Flo asked, glancing at Clarissa just as the wind caught
her scarf and sent it flapping. “Will people call me a changeling?”
“Now you’re laughing at me,” Clarissa charged. “Well, you can joke if
you want to, but I still have a feeling I’m not real. You must have felt
there was something different about me when you called me a phantom
friend.”
“We were talking about the empty chair,” Judy began.
“People say things sometimes without knowing why they say them, and they
turn out to be true,” Clarissa insisted. “Mother didn’t mean it when she
called me a changeling, either, but she made me feel like one. You
know—as if the real me is hidden somewhere under this dull, drab hair.”
“Did your mother call it dull and drab?” asked Flo. “Is that why you’ve
hypnotized the rest of us into buying this golden hair wash?”
“Me? Hypnotized you? I thought it was the other way around.” Clarissa
seemed genuinely distressed. She turned to look at Flo, and at that
moment the thirteenth bottle of golden hair wash fell and broke,
spilling all over the snow.
“Look what you made me do!” With a sound that was more of a sob than a
laugh, Clarissa added, “Now I can never be a golden girl. I can never
find the really, truly me!”