I turned around but the expression on Joan’s face made me forget what I was going to say. She was staring in horror at the floor, her mouth open.
Something small and brown was moving, sliding toward the couch. It went under the couch and disappeared. I had seen only a glimpse of it, a momentary flash of motion, but I knew what it was.
“My God,” Labyrinth said. “Here, take the five dollars.” He pushed the bill into my hands. “I really want it back, now!”
“Take it easy,” I said. “Give me a hand. We have to catch the damn thing before it gets outdoors.”
Labyrinth went over and shut the door to the living room. “It went under the couch.” He squatted down and peered under. “I think I see it. Do you have a stick or something?”
“Let me out of here,” Joan said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with this.”
“You can’t leave,” I said. I yanked down a curtain rod from the window and pulled the curtain from it. “We can use this.” I joined Labyrinth on the floor. “I’ll get it out, but you’ll have to help me catch it. If we don’t work fast we’ll never see it again.”
I nudged the shoe with the end of the rod. The shoe retreated, squeezing itself back toward the wall. I could see it, a small mound of brown, huddled and silent, like some wild animal at bay, escaped from its cage. It gave me an odd feeling.
“I wonder what we can do with it?” I murmured. “Where the hell are we going to keep it?”
“Could we put it in the desk drawer?” Joan said, looking around. “I’ll take the stationery out.”
“There it goes!” Labyrinth scrambled to his feet. The shoe had come out, fast. It went across the room, heading for the big chair. Before it could get underneath, Labyrinth caught hold of one of its laces. The shoe pulled and tugged, struggling to get free, but the old Doc had a firm hold of it.
Together we got the shoe into the desk and closed the drawer. We breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s that,” Labyrinth said. He grinned foolishly at us. “Do you see what this means? We’ve done it, we’ve really done it! The Animator worked. But I wonder why it didn’t work with the button.”
“The button was brass,” I said. “And the shoe was hide and animal glue. A natural. And it was wet.”
We looked toward the drawer. “In that desk,” Labyrinth said, “is the most momentous thing in modern science.”
“The world will shake and shudder,” I finished. “I know. Well, you can consider it yours.” I took hold of Joan’s hand. “I give you the shoe along with your Animator.”
“Fine.” Labyrinth nodded. “Keep watch here, don’t let it get away.” He went to the front door. “I must get the proper people, men who will –”
“Can’t you take it with you?” Joan said nervously.
Labyrinth paused at the door. “You must watch over it. It is proof, proof the Animator works. The Principle of Sufficient Irritation.” He hurried down the walk.
“Well?” Joan said. “What now? Are you really going to stay here and watch over it?”
I looked at my watch. “I have to get to work.”
“Well, I’m not going to watch it. If you leave, I’m leaving with you. I won’t stay here.”
“It should be all right in the drawer,” I said. “I guess we could leave it for a while.”
“I’ll visit my family. I’ll meet you downtown this evening and we can come back home together.”
“Are you really that afraid of it?”
“I don’t like it. There’s something about it.”
“It’s only an old shoe.”
Joan smiled thinly. “Don’t kid me,” she said. “There never was another shoe like this.”
I met her downtown, after work that evening, and we had dinner. We drove home, and I parked the car in the driveway. We walked slowly up the walk.
On the porch Joan paused. “Do we really have to go inside? Can’t we go to a movie or something?”
“We have to go in. I’m anxious to see how it is. I wonder what we’ll have to feed it.” I unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Something rushed past me, flying down the walk. It disappeared into the bushes.
“What was that?” Joan whispered, stricken.
“I can guess.” I hurried to the desk. Sure enough, the drawer was standing open. The shoe had kicked its way out. “Well, that’s that,” I said. “I wonder what we’re going to tell Doc?”
“Maybe you could catch it again,” Joan said. She closed the front door after us. “Or animate another. Try working on the other shoe, the one that’s left.”
I shook my head. “It didn’t respond. Creation is funny. Some things don’t react. Or maybe we could –”
The telephone rang. We looked at each other. There was something in the ring. “It’s him,” I said. I picked up the receiver.
“This is Labyrinth,” the familiar voice said. “I’ll be over early tomorrow. They’re coming with me. We’ll get photographs and a good write-up. Jenkins from the lab –”
“Look, Doc,” I began.
“I’ll talk later. I have a thousand things to do. We’ll see you tomorrow morning.” He clicked off.
“Was it the Doctor?” Joan said.
I looked at the empty desk drawer, hanging open. “It was. It was him, all right.” I went to the hall closet, taking my coat off. Suddenly I had an eerie feeling. I stopped, turning around. Something was watching me. But what? I saw nothing. It gave me the creeps.
“What the hell,” I said. I shrugged it off and hung my coat up. As I started back toward the living room I thought I saw something move, out of the corner of my eye.
“Damn,” I said.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all.” I looked all around me, but I could not pin anything down. There was the bookcase, the rugs, the pictures on the walls, everything as it always was. But something had moved.
I entered the living room. The Animator was sitting on the table. As I passed it I felt a surge of warmth. The Animator was still on, and the door was open! I snapped the switch off, and the dial light died. Had we left it on all day? I tried to remember, but I couldn’t be sure.
“We’ve got to find the shoe before nightfall,” I said.
We looked, but we found nothing. The two of us went over every inch of the yard, examining each bush, looking under the hedge, even under the house, but without any luck.
When it got too dark to see we turned on the porch light and worked for a time by it. At last I gave up. I went over and sat down on the porch steps. “It’s no use,” I said. “Even in the hedge there are a million places. And while we’re beating one end, it could slip out the other. We’re licked. We might as well face it.”
“Maybe it’s just as well,” Joan said.
I stood up. “We’ll leave the front door open tonight. There’s a chance it might come back in.”
We left it open, but the next morning when we came downstairs the house was silent and empty. I knew at once the shoe was not there. I poked around, examining things. In the kitchen eggshells were strewn around the garbage pail. The shoe had come in during the night, but after helping itself it had left again.
I closed the front door and we stood silently, looking at each other. “He’ll be here any time,” I said. “I guess I better call the office and tell them I’ll be late.”
Joan touched the Animator. “So this is what did it. I wonder if it’ll ever happen again.”
We went outside and looked around hopefully for a time. Nothing stirred the bushes, nothing at all. “That’s that,” I said. I looked up. “Here comes a car, now.”
A dark Plymouth coasted up in front of the house. Two elderly men got out and came up the path toward us, studying us curiously.
“Where is Rupert?” one of them asked.
“Who? You mean Doc Labyrinth? I suppose he’ll be along any time.”
“Is it inside?” the man said. “I’m Porter, from the University. May I take a peek at it?”
“You’d better wait,” I said unhappily. “Wait until the Doc is here.”
Two more cars pulled up. More old men got out and started up the walk, murmuring and talking together. “Where’s the Animator?” one asked me, a codger with bushy whiskers. “Young man, direct us to the exhibit.”
“The exhibit is inside,” I said. “If you want to see the Animator, go on in.”
They crowded inside. Joan and I followed them. They were standing around the table, studying the square box, the Dutch oven, talking excitedly.