She teetered slightly when she climbed onto the seat. It was, after all, an adult’s bike and she was very small. But she got the hang of it quickly and found herself riding toward the police station at a very respectable speed.
THE TWELFTH CHAPTER
In which Alex has to fill out a form and is interrogated.
Alex had concluded that a police station was no place for a kid. The room she was sitting in was pasty gray, with dull lights buzzing overhead. All the windows were covered in heavy bars, and adults, some in uniform, others in handcuffs, rushed by her without a second glance. She was sitting on a hard, gray plastic seat. Next to her sat a very large, round man covered head to toe in tattoos, some expressing his love for his mother, others his appreciation for hawks devouring small rodents. On the other side, a leathery-looking bag lady, who frequently coughed violently into a handkerchief, would gaze at Alex unblinkingly whenever she stopped. Alex sighed softly. She felt tiny and invisible and cold. And very, very much alone.
Finally, two hours after arriving at the station, after she’d had her fingerprints taken, drunk a cup of warm chocolate-flavored water, and had the young policewoman come to see her three times and apologize for the delay, Alex found herself sitting in the local police department’s interrogation room. She was being looked down at by two unpleasant men, one with a body that was virtually a perfect square, the other a hunchback with a shirt that read, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” The young policewoman sat in the corner, nervously taking notes.
The interrogation room they were in was very unpleasant because it was lit by fluorescent lighting, and this kind of lighting makes things look dull and cold. The walls were soundproofed so that “No one can hear you scream,” as the square-shaped man had explained as he sat Alex down at the large metal table in the middle of the room and lit himself a cigar. The whole setting made Alex feel uncomfortably as if she was the criminal and not the victim.
“So you are telling us,” growled the square man, “that your uncle was found lying under a pile of doorknobs?”
“Well, I’m not telling you, you told me. I’m just repeating what I heard,” replied Alex, looking nervously at the young officer.
“If you read the report, Detective, you will see that Alex didn’t discover her uncle herself but . . . ,” started the officer.
“Officer, I am in the middle of an interrogation!” shouted the Detective, turning to face her.
“Sorry, sir.”
The Detective shook his head fiercely and looked at Alex.
“Did he do this often?”
“What?”
The man exhaled a cloud of smoke and bit down hard on his cigar. “Lie under doorknobs?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I see.” The man walked slowly toward the back wall. Then he said, rather slowly and deliberately, “Were you aware that your uncle was the owner and manager of a store that exclusively sold doorknobs?”
“Yes, I lived with him.”
“Detective Thickwit,” interjected the young policewoman once more, “I believe the girl has already explained to us that she was her uncle’s ward and that . . .”
“When I want your opinion, Officer, I’ll ask for it!” yelled Detective Thickwit, turning a light shade of maroon. The officer nodded and buried her nose in her notes. He turned back to Alex.
“I only bring up the issue of your uncle’s shop because I wonder . . .” and he brought his face very close to Alex’s, “. . . what else you were expecting your uncle to be lying under? Surely not . . . ,” and he snorted, “oh, I don’t know . . . pink slippers!”
“I think, Detectives, perhaps we ought to address the issue of the robbers . . . ,” insisted the young officer.
Alex gave a quick glance over at the young officer. She really didn’t want to talk too much about the “robbers.” For some reason she just didn’t want the police to figure out who they were. It didn’t seem any of their business.
“Robbers? What are you talking about? Honestly, Officer Prudence, can you not think of any possible reason why it is you who are sitting in the corner taking notes and it is I and my colleague here who are very important detectives in this bureau?” asked Detective Thickwit, with a smirk on his face.
Officer Prudence frowned. “Because you have more experience in these matters?”
“Yes,” agreed Detective Thickwit, and Officer Prudence breathed a sigh of relief. “And also because we are smarter than you. At any rate, what we need to get to this instant, before any more time is lost, is some important documentation.” He signaled to the hunchback, who brought over a large brown box filled with papers and dropped it heavily in front of Alex on the table. “I want you to fill out these forms in full, in full, do you hear me? This is very, very important. Once she’s done, Officer Prudence, you can fetch me. I need a coffee.” And he stormed out of the room, followed closely by the hunchback.
Alex and Officer Prudence briefly exchanged a glance, and then Alex took up the top page and read, “The form you are about to fill out is legal documentation. In the event that the form is lost, stolen, or accidentally eaten, the department takes no responsibility. Any information that is not in the form is not subject to be treated as real, and any information that is not real that is in the form is treated as a subject. Subjects to be treated include information that is real, and in the form, but do not exclude subjects that are not. Question 1: Is your name Peter? If no, skip to question 3; if yes, write the word ‘avocado.’”
Alex read the paragraph four times without fully understanding what it was asking her. This was upsetting to her because Alex was quite a good problem solver and hated not understanding things. However, she did know her name wasn’t Peter, so she skipped to question 3.
“Question 3: Why not?”
Alex threw down her pencil in frustration. Officer Prudence looked up from her notes.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
Alex shook her head vigorously. She could sense her eyes welling up with tears, and a great rush of feeling came bursting out of her.
“No, I am not all right,” she said, angrily wiping away her tears. “My uncle has been killed, my best friend has been captured, and I don’t have any idea why I wasn’t named Peter. All I know is that these ‘robbers’ . . .” She stopped herself.
“Yes?” asked Officer Prudence.
“I . . .” She looked at Officer Prudence carefully. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to share it with the detectives?”
“It would be my pleasure!” replied Officer Prudence, drawing up her chair next to Alex.
“Well,” Alex lowered her voice to a whisper. The two of them looked up at the two-way mirror in the wall. It is typical in most police station interrogation rooms to have such mirrors, so that from the inside the criminals can only see themselves reflected, but from outside the room the police can watch the criminals as if they are looking through a window. However, at this particular station, they had installed the window the wrong way, so that instead of looking in, you could look out. And in this case, when Alex and Officer Prudence glanced over to the window, they found themselves watching Detective Thickwit making kissing faces at himself in the mirror on the other side.
“Go on, it’s safe,” said Officer Prudence.
“Well, I happen to know that the robbers, well, they’re pirates.”
“Oh, my!”
“And what I really should be doing is finding their ship, but . . .” Alex bit her lip.
“But?”
“But I don’t have any idea how to do that.” She looked at Officer Prudence, who smiled warmly at her. “Do you know how to get to the sea?”
Officer Prudence seemed genuinely surprised and pleased to be asked her opinion on something. “Well,” she said, thinking carefully, “I suppose the first step would be to get to the seaside city of Port Cullis.”
Alex hit the table with her hand. “Yes, what a good idea!”
/> “But that is a bit of a journey,” continued Officer Prudence. “You would have to find some kind of transportation that was quite fast. You could take the train!” she suddenly said.
“The train, of course!” said Alex. The two of them laughed. Then they both started when the telephone on the wall began to ring. Officer Prudence looked at Alex with surprise, and Alex returned the look with a shrug. Officer Prudence stood up to answer.
“Yes?” she said. “I see. I see. I see.” She glanced over at Alex. “Of course. I understand. Will do.” She hung up the phone. Quickly she darted over to Alex and picked up her knapsack.
“Get up, you have to leave now,” she whispered, helping Alex put it on her back. “I don’t know if it has anything to do with you, but there’s been a report made by some old ladies that a kid who matches your description did some bad things up in the manor house on the hill yesterday.”
“But I didn’t, I mean, it was me, but . . .”
“Shh. . . .” Officer Prudence opened the door to the interrogation room. “There’s a back exit down the hall and to the right.”
Alex turned and looked at Officer Prudence. “Will the police come after me?”
“Unlikely. Detective Thickwit is far too concerned with making forms and having people fill them out. It would be too much of a nuisance to chase after you. But if you are already here, well then that’s different. Just go.”
“But you’ll get in trouble!”
“No more than usual, and at least this time it will be for something real.”
“But . . . I did cross the red rope,” said Alex, feeling rather guilty.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Officer Prudence grabbed Alex by the shoulders and looked at her firmly in the eyes. “Look, I can tell you’re a good kid. And anyway, you have more important things to deal with right now than a bunch of old ladies and Detective Thickwit. Just go. Now!”
Alex gave Officer Prudence a quick hug. Then she ran as silently as she could down the hall and out the back door and into the beginning of a very long day.
THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER
In which Alex meets a very old man with a mop.
Leaving the police department, Alex hopped on the bicycle and made her way toward the train station, trying to keep her balance as it clacked along the cobblestone streets.
She hadn’t realized just how long she had been in the police station. The sun was already coming up, and there was a strange sense that somewhere, buried deep beneath the streets, the manic energy of a Monday morning was bubbling, about to ooze forth out of sewer grates and cracks in the pavement.
The usualness of a Monday, after things that have happened of a most extraordinary and disturbing nature the weekend before, is a really strange feeling. You might have felt it. It’s as if you’ve landed on a different planet, or a planet you know of but have never been to before. When you meet your friends at school again, they seem a bit like strangers, and the idea of doing schoolwork seems foreign and inappropriate. And somewhere deep inside and ever so small, a strange feeling—fear? or maybe dread—well, a strange feeling sits in the bottom of your stomach. It subsides by the afternoon, of course, but a Monday morning can be a very strange time.
However, what is even stranger than going back to school on a Monday morning is not going back to school on a Monday morning (especially if you are a fugitive). Instead of feeling like a stranger, you feel . . . well, you feel . . . invisible. People rush by doing their usual routines, kids are late and parents yell at them, and parents are late and their bosses yell at them. And everyone has a task and no one pays any attention to you. Then the streets suddenly empty at nine-thirty, and you are left in the company of deliverymen and nannies with very small children—in other words, the underworld of the weekday, with all the strange creatures who inhabit a place that has nothing to do with school and lessons and P.E. classes. Creatures like . . . mailmen.
But none of this really mattered right now, because it was still too early for Monday to begin, and so it seethed quietly, unobtrusively, as Alex found her way to the train station on the outskirts of town. The building was painted a faded red, and a sign marked “Train Station,” as that was what the building was, swung on rusty chains in the morning breeze. It was an eerily quiet place. Alex supposed that not too many trains came by at this time of day. She pedaled up to the front and climbed off the bike. Then, walking it through the front entrance, she approached the ticket office.
“Ticket office is closed,” said a voice from behind her.
Alex turned to see a man, very old and hunched, leaning on a mop at the other end of the waiting area. He was lit by a pale ray of light from the dusty window above him.
“Oh.” She looked at him, waiting for an explanation. When none came she asked, “How can I purchase a ticket to Port Cullis?”
The very old man stared at her for a moment and went back to mopping.
Alex turned back to the ticket office and sighed. Leaving the old man inside, she stepped out onto the platform into the morning sunlight. Stretched out in front of her was a vast field of browning grass. To her left the tracks sped out of sight around behind a gray hill and to the right disappeared into the dark of the forest. There was not a soul to be seen.
Alex walked down the platform and, resting the bicycle by the wall, sat herself down on a dark-brown bench, its paint peeling from long exposure to the sun. She swung her small legs idly, looking both up and down the track for any sign of a train. The moment’s pause gave her time to think, which she did not particularly appreciate.
It was easy to put the night’s events out of her mind when she had to focus on getting away, but now, waiting, she could only think that her uncle was dead, that Mr. Underwood had been kidnapped by Steele’s men, and that she was very, very much alone. Her stomach felt empty, and not just because she hadn’t eaten in a day, but because she was so sad.
She had really loved her uncle, and she really missed him. However, she also knew that had she been at home when the pirates had come, then there probably would have been no one to rescue Mr. Underwood. Yes, that was the one good thing. She had to focus on rescuing Mr. Underwood, and then the two of them could go after the treasure. Once they had done that, then she could feel sad, but right then, being upset wouldn’t help anything. She wiped the tears from her face, tears she hadn’t even realized she was shedding, and sat a little taller in her seat.
Suddenly she heard a slight rumble from her left. She looked and saw a plume of smoke rising up from behind the gray hill. She got up, grabbed the bicycle, and walked to the center of the platform, watching as the train snaked around from behind the hill and slowly made its approach.
“That’s not your train,” said a voice.
Alex jumped and turned to see the very old man, still clutching his mop, standing in the shadow of the doorway.
She didn’t really know what to make of that statement.
“Does it not go to Port Cullis?” she asked.
“All trains heading west go to Port Cullis,” said the very old man, squinting in the sun.
Alex shook her head and took a step closer to the edge of the platform.
“That’s not your train,” the very old man repeated.
“I don’t know what you mean by that!” said Alex in frustration, turning to him again.
By now the train was approaching the platform, slowing down and coming to a stop.
“That train, that train there,” said the very old man, putting an extra stress on the word “there” and pointing behind Alex. “That train is not your” (he pointed at Alex) “train.” He looked at her closely with sharp brown eyes.
“Yes, fine, thank you,” replied Alex slowly. “I think I’ll ask the conductor, though, just in case.” And she raised her eyebrows at the old man as she turned and walked down to where the conductor was now standing.
“Excuse me,” said Alex. “Does this train pass through Port Cullis?”
The
conductor smiled a friendly smile. “Well, yes, it does. And how did you know that?”
“I didn’t. Do you think you could take me on board?”
“Well now, I don’t see why not. That should be a lot of fun, now shouldn’t it? Yes, by all means. Hop on board!” and he extended a hand to her. Alex took it and, with a bit of help bringing up the bicycle, hopped on board.
“Don’t! That’s not your train!”
Alex looked back at the very old man who was jogging up to join them. “It goes to Port Cullis. It is my train!”
“No! That train is not your train. That train is a bad train,” he said, stopping below them.
The train began to pull slowly away from the platform.
“But why?” Alex called out. However, she was now too far away to hear his reply. She shook her head and frowned. She watched as the very old man watched her in return. Then he too shook his head and frowned. And disappeared back into the shadows of the station.
THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER
In which Alex explores the train.
Okay, so the first thing you now have to understand is that there are two kinds of conductors people can be in the world. There is a train conductor who blows a whistle and calls “All aboard,” and there is a symphony conductor who waves a little stick at a hundred or so people holding wooden or brass objects in order that they all make noise at the same time. I only mention this because seeing as Alex got on a train you may have naturally presumed that the conductor was the first kind. But he wasn’t. He was the second kind. So I apologize if I confused you. You see, I automatically assumed, since he was wearing a tuxedo and not a uniform, you would have guessed correctly. But I had forgotten to tell you he was wearing a tuxedo. Sorry.
Alex and the Ironic Gentleman Page 7
