Spiderweb for Two - A Melendy Maze by Elizabeth Enright

pail,
    Â Â Â Â  A crown upon a tree,
    Find the garden of a nymph,
    Â Â Â Â  And there find me.’”
    Oliver was disgusted. “They forget I’m only nine years old,” he said. “I don’t know what a prelate is. What is a prelate, anyway?”
    â€œA religious person, a dignitary of the church, I think. We’ll look it up when we get home.”
    â€œAnd where in heck are there any nymps around Carthage? Or Braxton either? I’d like to know.”
    â€œIt’s a figure of speech,” said Randy. “At least I guess so. Now, goodness, we’ll have to look up all the nymphs there ever were. Just after going through all those emperors, too.”
    â€œMaybe we won’t have to. This one does seem to give pretty good directions at least. ‘Up the wooded hillside’ and ‘faces turned west,’ and all that.”
    â€œSounds like a good long trek, too,” said Randy. “We’ll have to wait till Saturday again. Gee whiz. It’s tantalizing. I wish I could write to Rush and ask his advice about all this, but we have to keep it secret, and anyway I bet Rush planted the things himself. Who else in the world would have thought of Mr. Titus’s alarm clock?”
    It was growing dark. A cold breath rose from the fields and ditches. The crows sounded lonesome flying home.
    â€œIt’s an awful long way off to summer,” Oliver said.
    â€œBut it’s only thirty-three days to Thanksgiving, and they’ll all be home! And after that it’s only thirty-one to Christmas, and they’ll be here a long time then.”
    â€œAll my children are going to be taught at home,” said Oliver, and Randy agreed that she had decided on this course for her family, too. “But you’re still here at least, thank goodness,” she said. “Imagine if there was only one of us!”
    Oliver had occasion to remember this remark when the next Saturday arrived.

CHAPTER V
    A Pocketful of Gold
    Sing a song of sixpence,
    Â Â Â Â  A pocketful of gold,
    A treasure trove in springtime,
    Â Â Â Â  Worthless in the cold.
    Start from your doorstep
    Â Â Â Â  Faces turned west,
    Up the wooded hillside,
    Â Â Â Â  Over its crest.
    Down among the giant stems,
    Â Â Â Â  Down across the glen,
    To where the cattle feed and browse,
    Â Â Â Â  And uphill again.
    Find a prelate in a pail,
    Â Â Â Â  A crown upon a tree,
    Find the garden of a nymph,
    Â Â Â Â  And there find me.
    The next Saturday Randy woke up without any voice. She did not know it at first. She got out of bed, went into the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and turned on the water for her bath. Vigorously running bath water always caused Randy, as it does nearly everyone, to wish to sing. But now when she opened her mouth preparatory to a vigorous rendering of “Oh, what a beautiful morning,” no voice came forth. It was disconcerting. She turned off the bath water just to be sure, tried again, gave it everything she had, and succeeded in producing only a sort of whispery squawk.
    â€œLaryngitis,” whispered Randy disgustedly. She had had it once before, long ago. “Wouldn’t you just know I’d get it on a Saturday!” She peered anxiously into the mirror; but one thing about laryngitis is that it doesn’t show. She looked remarkably healthy. Saturday, she thought: the search for the clue, and now if Cuffy finds out, she’ll keep me in all day and maybe in bed! Cuffy mustn’t find out, that’s all, I’ll just have to be terribly careful.
    She took her bath, dressed, and went downstairs feeling nervous and slightly guilty.
    â€œHi,” said Oliver looking up from a king-sized bowl of cereal. “You sure slept long enough. I’ve been up since six.”
    Randy yawned as though still drugged with slumber and not interested in conversation.
    â€œShe needs her sleep.