Go Set a Watchman (To Kill a Mockingbird #2)(17)

“Hey,” said Dill. “Let’s play Tarzan today. I’m gonna be Tarzan.”

“You can’t be Tarzan,” said Jem.

“I’m Jane,” she said.

“Well, I’m not going to be the ape again,” said Dill. “I always have to be the ape.”

“You want to be Jane, then?” asked Jem. He stretched, pulled on his pants, and said, “We’ll play Tom Swift. I’m Tom.”

“I’m Ned,” said Dill and she together. “No you’re not,” she said to Dill.

Dill’s face reddened. “Scout, you always have to be second-best. I never am the second-best.”

“You want to do something about it?” she asked politely, clenching her fists.

Jem said, “You can be Mr. Damon, Dill. He’s always funny and he saves everybody in the end. You know, he always blesses everything.”

“Bless my insurance policy,” said Dill, hooking his thumbs through invisible suspenders. “Oh all right.”

“What’s it gonna be,” said Jem, “His Ocean Airport or His Flying Machine?”

“I’m tired of those,” she said. “Make us up one.”

“Okay. Scout, you’re Ned Newton. Dill, you’re Mr. Damon. Now, one day Tom’s in his laboratory working on a machine that can see through a brick wall when this man comes in and says, ‘Mr. Swift?’ I’m Tom, so I say, ‘Yessir?’—”

“Can’t anything see through a brick wall,” said Dill.

“This thing could. Anyway, this man comes in and says, ‘Mr. Swift?’”

“Jem,” she said, “if there’s gonna be this man we’ll need somebody else. Want me to run get Bennett?”

“No, this man doesn’t last long, so I’ll just tell his part. You’ve got to begin a story, Scout—”

This man’s part consisted of advising the young inventor that a valuable professor had been lost in the Belgian Congo for thirty years and it was high time somebody tried to get him out. Naturally he had come to seek the services of Tom Swift and his friends, and Tom leaped at the prospect of adventure.

The three climbed into His Flying Machine, which was composed of wide boards they had long ago nailed across the chinaberry tree’s heaviest branches.

“It’s awful hot up here,” said Dill. “Huh-huh-huh.”

“What?” said Jem.

“I say it’s awful hot up here so close to the sun. Bless my long underwear.”

“You can’t say that, Dill. The higher you go the colder it gets.”

“I reckon it gets hotter.”

“Well, it doesn’t. The higher it is the colder it is because the air gets thinner. Now Scout, you say, ‘Tom, where are we going?’”

“I thought we were going to Belgium,” said Dill.

“You’ve got to say where are we going because the man told me, he didn’t tell you, and I haven’t told you yet, see?”

They saw.

When Jem explained their mission, Dill said, “If he’s been lost for that long, how do they know he’s alive?”

Jem said, “This man said he’d got a signal from the Gold Coast that Professor Wiggins was—”

“If he’d just heard from him, how come he’s lost?” she said.

“—was among a lost tribe of headhunters,” continued Jem, ignoring her. “Ned, do you have the rifle with the X-ray Sight? Now you say yes.”

She said, “Yes, Tom.”

“Mr. Damon, have you stocked the Flying Machine with enough provisions? Mister Damon!”

Dill jerked to attention. “Bless my rolling pin, Tom. Yes-siree! Huh-huh-huh!”

They made a three-point landing on the outskirts of Capetown, and she told Jem he hadn’t given her anything to say for ten minutes and she wasn’t going to play any more if he didn’t.

“Okay. Scout, you say, ‘Tom, there’s no time to lose. Let’s head for the jungle.’”

She said it.

They marched around the back yard, slashing at foliage, occasionally pausing to pick off a stray elephant or fight a tribe of cannibals. Jem led the way. Sometimes he shouted, “Get back!” and they fell flat on their bellies in the warm sand. Once he rescued Mr. Damon from Victoria Falls while she stood around and sulked because all she had to do was hold the rope that held Jem.