by Jeff Strand
“No!”
“I’ve never seen so much fire concentrated into one place in my life! I called the firemen as soon as the roof collapsed in flames. I shouted ‘Save the dog! Save the dog!’ and they ran in, but then I remembered that you didn’t have any pets, and when they finally came out they were very unhappy to have risked their lives to save a dog that didn’t even exist, and they said that for all they cared the house could just burn right down to the ground, so for that I apologize. I hope you didn’t have anything nice inside. Oh, the north wall just went down. It’s very sad.”
Penny was given permission to return home immediately after helping the little girl find the book she wanted (The Clown Who Frowned When He Drowned). By the time she reached her home, it could no longer, technically, be called a “home,” but rather a pile of burning rubble.
“At least there was no dog inside to perish,” a fireman told her.
Mary arrived home (a term that will continue to be used despite its lack of accuracy) and fell to her knees.
The sisters had always gotten along well, but one point of contention had existed between them: Penny’s distrust of banks. Mary felt that they should keep their lifetime of savings safely in a bank, while Penny thought that the money they had worked so hard for would be much safer in a steel safe in Penny’s room.
The safe was expensive, fireproof, and came with a guarantee that if the contents were in any way damaged, they would be replaced (or their sentimental value would be paid for such things as photographs, where it would be impractical to regress the subjects to their former ages in order to recreate the pictures). The Invulnerable Safe Company, owned by Lawrence Wicket, had even provided a fancy certificate stating this. Unfortunately, Mr. Wicket had retired and was at this very moment deep in the jungle, enjoying a treasure hunting expedition he’d financed by selling unreliable safes that quickly melted in fire.
It is also not known who set the next two fires, the ones that burned down the restaurant and the library. It might have been the same person who burnt down Penny and Mary’s home, or it might have been somebody who appreciated the results.
Either way, they’d lost everything.
Officer Danbury, who was not entirely without empathy, allowed the sisters to visit Nathan in his cell on the last day of his imprisonment. They threw their arms around him and sobbed.
“Don’t cry,” he told them. “I don’t like it here, but it’s my last day and I’ve fared much worse in the past.”
They told him about the fires, and Nathan just sat there on his cold stone floor, stunned. Their home, burned to the ground? The restaurant, gone? All that food wasted?
“Didn’t they at least take out the books before they burned the library?” he asked.
“No,” said Mary. “They burned them all.”
Nathan could not even conceive such a thing. “What’s to become of us?”
“We have no home, no job, and no money,” said Penny. “Mary and I will be moving into the Poor House.”
The Poor House? It couldn’t be! The legendary Poor House was the most dreadful place imaginable, and grown-ups only lived there through the fault of their children!
“All right, you’ve told him,” said Officer Danbury, who was not entirely without empathy but had very little of it. “Off to the Poor House with you. Those rat traps won’t empty themselves.”
As Nathan sat in his cell all alone, he wished he could make himself unborn. Nobody needed him—not if having him around meant losing everything you owned. Why had he bit Will? Why hadn’t he merely broken his arm?
Would Penny and Mary let him back into their lives, or would they just leave him in jail, where he couldn’t ruin things for anybody else?
If they did come to pick him up, perhaps he’d stay here. “It’s very comfortable,” he’d say, propping his feet up against the wall. “Yes, I think I’ll grow old here.”
One hour before Nathan was due to be set free, Officer Danbury opened the door to his cell. A man stood next to him. He was a tall man, dressed in a black suit, with thick black eyebrows, a thin black mustache, and a short black beard. He wore glasses and carried a cane. The man looked at Nathan, right into his eyes, and it filled him with a strong sense of unease.
“There he is,” said Officer Danbury, gesturing to Nathan.
“Thank you for pointing him out,” said the man. “Otherwise I might never have figured out which little boy in the otherwise empty cell you’d brought me to find.”
Officer Danbury looked offended by this, but said nothing. The man stepped into the cell. He had the look of somebody who might cheerfully find his employment at the gallows. Was he here to strangle Nathan?
“You know why I’m here,” he said. “Go on, open your mouth and let me see them.”
He was a tall man, perhaps the tallest one Nathan had ever seen. Nathan saw no possible benefits and many possible repercussions if he refused, so he opened his mouth and let the man peer inside.
The man clapped his hands together with delight. “Fantastic! If that sight were to appear in front of my eyes before I shut them for the night, such nightmares would I have!” Then he stepped back, regarded Nathan, and frowned. “The rest of you is about as scary as a baby duck on a velvet pillow. That won’t do. Make a scary face for me.”
“I don’t want to be scary,” said Nathan.
“Do as you’re told!” said Officer Danbury.
The man looked back at him. “Don’t snap at the boy like an impatient simpleton! This is a performance.” He returned his attention to Nathan. “You don’t have to be scary, I merely want you to act scary. You can do that for me, right?”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course you can. All boys your age enjoy throwing a good scare into people, and you have more raw material to work with than most. Unleash your inner predator. If you scare me, I’ll give you a shiny new coin fresh out of my pocket.”
A coin merely for scaring somebody? That sounded too good to be true. Nathan scrunched up his face and bared his teeth.
“Make a frightening noise,” the man instructed. “A growling sound. Something like ‘Rrrarrr.’”
Nathan growled at him.
“Outstanding! I was almost compelled to clutch at my heart.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a coin, which he pressed into Nathan’s hand. “Spend it on whatever you like. I have more, many more, and could keep handing them to you, if you thought you could make that face and that noise on a regular basis. Doesn’t that sound like a lark?”
“It doesn’t, really.”
“Such disrespect!” shouted Officer Danbury. “Do you not realize to whom you’re speaking?”
“Enough!” The man gave the officer a dismissive wave. “Your mouth opens and closes, yet the sounds that spew forth contribute nothing worthwhile! Begone, dullard!”
Officer Danbury puffed out his chest and looked as if he were going to protest. Then he unpuffed his chest and sheepishly walked out of the area.
“It was impolite of me not to introduce myself earlier,” said the man, extending his hand. “My name is Professor Charleston Kleft.”
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” said Nathan, even though he wasn’t quite certain that he was pleased to meet him at all. He shook his hand. Kleft had a firm, almost painfully tight grip.
“Nathan, I’m going to offer you an opportunity that few boys ever receive. Do you like adventure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you like thrills?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you like to travel the globe, eating the finest foods, having your choice of the prettiest girls when you’re old enough to appreciate them?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? That’s hardly the degree of enthusiasm I’d expect from somebody whose life I’m going to change for the better. You’ll be the envy of everyone you meet. People will punch themselves in the head from the frustration of knowing that they aren’t you. You’ll hear
somebody bragging that he’s been to dozens of places in his life, and you’ll be able to laugh in his face and tell him that you’ve been to hundreds of places in yours.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Nathan.
“Simply be a thespian. An actor. Provide a paying audience with some much needed entertainment after a hard day.”
“But I don’t want to leave Penny and Mary.”
“Ah, yes, the ladies who take care of you. Am I to understand that they’ve fallen on hard times?”
“Yes, sir.”
“A pity. I’m certain it wasn’t your fault. Tell me this, Nathan, how do you feel you could best benefit these poor ladies? By continuing to sponge off them in their time of hardship, or by going off into the world? You would not only lessen the burden of the amount of food you eat and the amount of space you take up, but you’d be able to send them money every single month. Imagine the look of delight on their faces as they opened up a package filled to the bursting point with coins! That seems to me like something that might make up for the wrongdoing one might have done in the past. Do you agree?”
“Yes,” said Nathan. His mouth had gone completely dry. “I believe I do.”
“Wonderful! You have about fifty minutes left in your sentence, but I’m sure that our bumbling officer friend won’t object to letting you go a bit early. Since your possessions have all burned, there’s nothing to pack, and we’ll be on our way immediately.”
“We’ll stop to say goodbye to Penny and Mary, right?”
Kleft’s expression turned grim. “I can understand why you’d want to, but I’m afraid that isn’t a wise idea. Women of that sort often object to a sinister man in black taking away their children. They’d beg you to stay, and you might stay, and then you’d be right back to being a burden upon them.”
“But I have to at least thank them.”
“What kind of thanks should you give them? Considerate, loving thanks of the sort I’m proposing, or selfish, mean-spirited thanks? You’ve driven them to the Poor House. Do you want to drive them to the grave?”
“No. I want to be good to them. But what about my friend Jamison? He’s dying, and would want to see me before I leave and he expires.”
“A true friend would contact the sisters and tell them that I’m taking you away, and then where would we be?”
“I guess you’re right.”
Kleft grinned. “Come with me, then.”
“All right. I will.”
“You will have a grand adventure, I promise.” He took Nathan’s hand and led him out of the cell. “By the way, I hope you’re not afraid of spiders.”
THIRTEEN
As they left the police station, Professor Kleft handed Officer Danbury a small leather pouch that jingled. Nathan thought that it must be a wonderful thing to have so many coins to spare, and couldn’t wait to send lots of them to Penny and Mary. They’d be so happy!
A black coach waited outside. It had two horses to pull it, and in the driver’s seat sat a man with flesh so tight that he almost looked like a skeleton. The man gazed at Nathan, appearing as if he might snarl.
“May I pet the horses?” Nathan asked Kleft.
“You may not. This is your new life. You must learn to let go of such childish frivolities as affection. Get in.”
Nathan felt an aura of dread emanating from inside the coach, as if he might pull back the cover and have eight corpses tumble out. He hesitated.
“Go on,” said Kleft, tapping at the cover with the end of his cane. “There’s nothing to fear in there. A boy without courage is like a bat without rabies.”
Nathan pulled back the cover and was very pleased by his good fortune when not a single corpse fell out. He climbed inside the coach, which had a soft, shiny cushion upon which to sit. Kleft climbed in after him and sat across from him.
“Are you excited?” asked Kleft as the driver cracked his whip and the coach began to move.
“Yes, sir. I’ve never been this close to a horse before.”
“You know what our ancestors said about horses, don’t you?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, it was nothing good.” Kleft picked up an oversized book from the seat, rested it on his lap, then opened it to a spot about halfway through. “I write about all of my adventures in this book, which will join the thirteen similar books I have already filled. For what use are thrilling adventures if you don’t allow others to live vicariously through them? Therefore, I will ask that you remain silent as I write, for concentration is a difficult commodity to obtain in a life as busy as mine.”
He took out a pencil and began to write in his book. Nathan had a million questions he wanted to ask, but he didn’t want to pester his savior, so he settled for sitting there silently and trying not to fidget too much.
It was not a short journey. They rode all day. When the horses grew too tired to continue, Kleft joked that they should shoot them and purchase new horses. At least Nathan thought he was joking. The driver explained that he didn’t know any place in the area to purchase new horses, and Kleft looked somewhat annoyed by this, and went into an angry rant about how horses should wait on humans and not vice-versa, but still, Nathan was relatively certain that he’d been joking about shooting them.
As darkness crept over the land, they pulled off to the side of the road and the driver built a small fire, which he used to warm up some stew. It was better than the meals Nathan had eaten in jail, but not as good as what he’d enjoyed with the sisters.
“Where are we headed?” Nathan asked.
“I’ve already told you. To travel the earth.”
“But do we have stops in mind along the way?”
Kleft scooped up a particularly large spoonful of stew, shoved it into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed, dabbed at his mouth with a cloth napkin, cleared his throat, and then ate another large spoonful of stew. When he’d finished that and dabbed at his mouth again, he spoke. “It seems strange to me that a boy who was not, to the best of my knowledge, made responsible for driving the horses seems so concerned about the destination toward which those horses are supposed to be headed.”
“But I’m going with them.”
“Yes.”
“So that’s my destination as well.”
“Is it?”
Nathan had never used foul language in his life, and he’d certainly never expected to find himself using it in the presence of a grown-up, yet it spilled forth from his mouth before he realized what he was saying: “What the hell are you talking about?”
Nathan cringed, expecting Kleft’s response to involve a slap delivered with such force that half of Nathan’s face popped off on impact, but instead Kleft ate another spoonful of stew. “Sharp teeth and sharp tongue, eh? Your time as a convict has taught you to curse like a sailor. I’ll ask that you keep such filth-ridden obscenity inside your own head from now on, for it burns the ears of my driver. See how he sweats?”
There comes a time in the life of most little boys when they leave the world of childhood behind and become a grown-up. For some boys, this happens quickly, as when four-year-old Edwin Malley saw his pet monkey hang itself. For some little boys, this takes a long time, as when fifty-three year-old Duane Whipton was struck on the back of the head with a shovel by his mother to accelerate the process of his going out to get a job.
As Nathan sat there, eating stew, he realized that Kleft most likely did not have his best interests in mind, and might very well be criminally insane. He couldn’t let Kleft think that he was some weak-willed child who would let himself be taken somewhere unknown, probably to be eaten.
He looked the professor straight in the eye and said the worst word he knew, one that began with D and rhymed with “ham.”
“I hope,” said Kleft, “that you are referring to a barrier used to obstruct the flow of water.”
“I was not.” Nathan suddenly felt very nervous. Had he gone too far?
“Had I known you were
such a vulgar lad, I’d have brought along a bar of soap for you to choke upon. Listen to me carefully, young one. Your audience wishes to see flesh-crawling horror! Mind-scarring terror! Gasp-inducing shocks! But they do not want to hear a pre-pubescent boy utter expletives best suited to a dogcatcher!”
“Do dogcatchers curse a lot?”
“Even more than plumbers.”
“I want to know where we’re going,” said Nathan. “And I want to know what I’ll be doing there.”
“Shall I harm him?” asked the driver.
Kleft shook his head. “Information is power. Clearly this boy has already learned that life lesson. Very well, Nathan. We are traveling two days south of here to meet up with the other members of Professor Kleft’s Parade of the Macabre. You will show off your beautiful fangs to spectators who will pay me a half-coin each to gape in horror at your ghastly visage.”
“I don’t want to do that,” said Nathan.
“Of course you don’t. Thus the control of information. But what are you going to do now? Walk home?”
“I might.”
“If you try to leave, my driver will shoot you in the back. Then I will have to console him through his grief over murdering a child. You will ruin his life. Another selfish act on your part.”
Nathan looked at the driver, who nodded.
“I demand that you take me back home.”
“I decline your demand. Anything else?”
“I demand to know what’s in this stew.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“It has an odd texture.”
“It’s made from the standard animals. You’re just picky.”
“What’s this piece?”
“Hold it up to the light of the fire.”
Nathan held his spoon closer to the flames.
“It’s beef.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It’s not the part of the cow you would normally eat, but I promise you, it’s cow. And I recommend that you eat your fill, because your personality has fallen out of favor with me, and I may stop feeding you at any time without notice.”
