“Look in there,” he said.
“Is he in there—dead?” Pee-wee asked in his dramatic whisper.
“No, we’re out here dead,” said Townsend.
Pee-wee stood on tiptoe and beheld a frightful sight. There was Lizzie, apparently repaired and ready for departure. Upon the rear seat reposed a greasy bundle—bacon. Cans of beans and salmon and spaghetti lay close by. The bag of rice nestled close to the bottle of molasses, as it should have done, since they always joined forces to create the luscious rice cake. The wire sticker with which Pee-wee stabbed his rice cakes to the heart, now stuck up out of some cavern in the threadbare upholstery and pointed at Pee-wee, as if in mockery.
“Dead?” moaned Townsend. “In another hour I’ll be dead.”
“Do you see the raisins?” Pee-wee asked. “Over there in the corner? I was going to mix them up in—”
“Have a heart, Kid.”
“I can see the end of a banana too. Do you see the toaster? What are we going to do? It makes me hungrier, doesn’t it you?”
“Come away,” said Townsend; “don’t look.” But Pee-wee’s departing gaze still lingered. “I see the egg powder,” he said; “right next to the fruit crackers, do you see it?”
Townsend stopped his ears, withdrew and sat down on the grass. Famished as he was, he could not repress a laugh.