Free Tunes for Bears to Dance To by Robert Cormier

out as if to embrace Henry and Henry pulled away.
    “I smashed the village,” he said, “but it was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it.”
    “How could it be an accident?” the grocer asked.
    “I found a big mallet and was ready to use it. But couldn’t.” He saw doubt leaping in the grocer’s eyes and raised his voice. “I didn’t want to do it.” Then sighed. “A rat jumped on the bench. I dropped the mallet. It smashed the village.”
    “How bad?” the grocer asked, warily.
    “Bad enough,” Henry said. “Bad enough so that it won’t go to City Hall. Bad enough to ruin it.”
    “Congratulations,” the grocer said. “You did it, then. Whether you wanted to or not, you did it.” Astonishingly, he winked at Henry, the wink drawing them into a kind of conspiracy, and Henry backed away against the cold glass of the window.
    “I’m a man of my word, Henry. You’ll keep your job and have a raise. I’ll speak to the owner about your mother’s promotion. And the monument—I’ll order it first chance I get….”
    For the first time the enormity of Mr. Hairston’s offer stunned Henry. Why all these rewards for wrecking what the grocer regarded as a toy village?
    “Why?” he asked, the word almost lost in a boom of thunder.
    “Why what?” Frowning, surprised, the grocer looked sharply at him.
    “Why do all those things for me? Why was it so important to smash the old man’s village? Why do you hate him so much?”
    “He’s a Jew,” the grocer said. As if that explained it all.
    Truly
puzzled, Henry said, “You could have hired some wise guys to do it. Pay them a few dollars. Why me?”
    “You’re a good boy, Henry. You’re honest, you work hard. You’re good to your mother. You worry about your father. You want to buy a monument for your brother. You feel bad for an old Jew. Such a good boy.” There was mockery in his voice. “I’ll bet you say your prayers every night. So good, so innocent …”
    “But smashing the village was a bad thing,” Henry said, with dawning recognition of a truth too incredible to understand. “You wanted me to do a bad thing.”
    The grocer smiled, not his inside-out-sneer behind his customers’ backs but a ghastly smile, like the smile on a Halloween mask.
    Astonished, Henry thought:
    It was me he was after all the time. Not just the old man and his village. He didn’t want me to be good anymore.
    The grocer regarded him with affection, as if Henry were a favorite son. “You see, Henry, you are like the rest of us, after all. Not so innocent, are you? Yes, the rat surprised you. But you went to the center and found the mallet. Raised it above your head. Smashed the village. None of that would have happened if you hadn’t wanted the rewards.”
    Henry shriveled against the window, needing to move farther away from the grocer but trapped in the doorway.
    “I don’t want your rewards,” he said.
    The grocer waved away his protest. “Of course you do. You earned them. The village is wrecked. You won’t restore it by refusing.”
    “No,” Henry said. “I’m quitting the job. I don’t want it. Eddie wouldn’t want your monument either. And my mother, leave her alone….”
    “But you have to accept these things,” the grocer said. “We made a bargain.”
    “Keep your bargain,” Henry said.
    “No,
you
must keep it,” the grocer insisted. “When you smashed the village, you kept one part of it. Now you have to do the rest. Come on, Henry.”A new note in the grocer’s voice, one that Henry barely recognized. “It’s not complete unless you accept the rewards.”
    Henry shook his head. “No,” he shouted against the drumming rain.
    “Please,” the grocer said.
    Please?
    He saw suddenly that that rewards were just as important to the grocer as smashing the village.
    “No,” he said again, with deadly determination.
    “You must accept. You must let me do this. It’s very important. Otherwise, the smashing means nothing….”