Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

Except that she found tapes. Dozens of tapes in dusty sleeves, reprints of old movies starring John Wayne and Gary Cooper and Clark Gable and Bette Davis and Cary Grant and Deanna Durbin (who the heck was Deanna Durbin?), tapes of Spencer Tracy and Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, Barbara Stanwyck, and even Shirley Temple when she was young (that figured since he went in for little girls) and, like they used to say, a cast of thousands, people she knew and people she’d never heard of. It seemed that Uncle Willis was a cinema buff, a collector, and maybe these were valuable, if not now, later, so she took them all home. Including some blank Beta tapes for future recording. If she couldn’t buy Beta tapes, she could at least make her own. Start her own collection? Stephen King movies? Hmmm?

She set up the Beta, turned her set and the machine on, stuck a tape into its tape slit.

The usual rental tape begins with a warning about counterfeiting, and her blank tapes began with a message, too, but instead of a warning they contained taping instructions thusly:

This cassette contains an experimental tape; do not use in conjunction with regular television programming.

(Great. Not even the blank tapes were usable.)

To activate, insert cassette and press BX REC MODE.

(Bx? Yes, there was a BII and a BIII and a BX. She pushed the latter.)

Give vocal command.

(Give vocal command? What vocal command? These instructions were even more confusing than the usual VCR instructions. Didn’t any of the people who wrote these things speak basic English?)

Be sure to indicate time as well as PLACE.

Time? Place? Feeling foolish she said, “Yesterday. One P.M. Uncle Willis’s house.” Expecting nothing, she activated PLAY.

A picture came on her television screen. The camera was focused on the exterior of Uncle Willis’s house; someone was coming up the walk. The someone was she. She saw herself open the door and go in, she saw herself walk through the rooms, end up with the Beta and the TV, pick up the tapes... she pushed the STOP button, thought a moment, rewound.

She said, “Uncle Willis’s house, July 4, 1963,” a date chosen completely at random. She pressed PLAY.

It was a hot day, there were high, thin clouds way up in the yellow-white sky. There was a long-legged girl-child wearing a short dress printed all over with strawberries, she was barefooted and she carried a brown paper sack. In the sack were firecrackers called ladyfingers because they were so small and two boxes of sparklers. She went into the house through the back door, into the kitchen. The kitchen was furnished with a refrigerator with a round white dome, a lineoleum-topped wooden table with chairs, and a stove held up by white legs more shapely than the girl’s at each of its corners. On top of the stove was a big box of matches. The girl stood on tiptoe, added the box to the collection in her sack.

A voice from another room called, “Is that you, Didi?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“I’m going upstairs to clean the bathroom. After that we’ll have lunch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So don’t go away.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I won’t be long.”

“No, ma’am.”

“What?”

“I said I’ll just be out in the back yard.”

“All right. But don’t go away. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

The girl hesitated, heard footsteps on the stairs, shook her head, and went outside. When she figured she was out of earshot, she took out a pack of the ladyfinger firecrackers; they were all strung together like tiny frankfurters. She held the package in her hand, had to put it down to get a match from the box, picked it up again, and struck the match on the box side. Bobby Griffin said only sissies shot off ladyfingers one at a time. The thing to do, he said, was let the whole pack go off in your hand. That proved you were no baby, that proved you knew the score.

She touched the lighted match to the mud-colored string that held the crackers together, smelled the char, saw the flame run, heard the sound, felt the explosion, and screamed.

From an upstairs window her mother called out. “Didi! Didi! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, Mother. Nothing’s wrong.”

“Somebody’s shooting off firecrackers.”

“Yes, Mother. It’s the Fourth of July.” Her mother was a good mother. But dumb.

“You’re not shooting off firecrackers, are you, Didi?”

“No, Mother. I have sparklers.”

“Well... don’t light them yet. I’ll be down in just a little bit.”

“Yes, Mother. I’ll wait.”

When she’d left the window, the girl went into the house and slathered butter on her palm, thought she’d pay Bobby Griffin back but good when she ran into him tomorrow. Only sissies, huh? She’d show him sissies.

“That you in the kitchen, Didi?”

“Yes, Uncle Willis. I didn’t know you were here. When did you get home?”