by Lavie Tidhar
Sweetcakes and I marched through the gates and to the side-gate for the gardens, which is where we encountered Gordon and Ronny, both dressed in black suits. Ronny’s was too big and his hands disappeared up the long sleeves, while Gordon’s was too tight and made him look like a choked penguin.
“What’s she doin’ here?” Gordon said.
“Yeah,” Ronny said.
“She’s with me,” I said.
“With you, snoops? Who said you could bring a guest?” Gordon said.
“Yeah,” Ronny said. He puffed up his chest importantly. Sweetcakes took a threatening step toward him and he cowered back, then pretended to look elsewhere. Sweetcakes barked a laugh.
“Get lost,” I said. I was tired of playing games and tired of little boys playing goons.
“Boss ain’t gonna like it,” Gordon said, but you could tell the fight just wasn’t in him.
“Oh, I suppose you can go in, then,” Ronny said, knowing when to give up.
So we did.
When we got past them, we followed a trail lit by long torches planted into the ground. The air was perfumed with night flowers, lit by fireflies, alive with the sound of glasses touching. Grown-ups were talking and laughing, the sound growing louder as we approached the back of the house.
At the end of the trail stood a wooden arch garlanded with flowers. The butler, Foxglove, stood to attention, his hands gloved in white, his suit impeccable, his eyes still sad.
“Miss Faulkner,” he said gravely.
“Hello, Foxglove,” I said. He almost smiled.
“And who is your friend?”
“This is Swe— Mary Ratchet,” I said.
“A pleasure, I’m sure,” Foxglove said. Sweetcakes scowled but seemed to decide he was being sincere, and subsided.
“Please,” Foxglove said. “Welcome to the party. Waffl— I mean, the young master –” Sweetcakes snorted, and I had to hide a smile – “is currently indoors but shall emerge forthwith.”
“Excuse me?”
“Shortly. I mean to say, very soon.”
“Oh.”
“Please help yourselves to the buffet,” the butler said.
“We will,” Sweetcakes said, and she marched through the arch, her boots crunching on the gravel, not waiting for me to follow her.
“Foxglove,” I said.
“Miss Faulkner?”
“You know … do you know Eddie? Eddie de Menthe? He used to come up here a lot.”
“Eddie, of course.”
“He doesn’t come here any more, does he?”
“No, I’m afraid not. He has not been seen on these premises for some time, Miss Faulkner.”
“Do you think,” I said, in a small voice, “that something bad happened to him?”
“I’m sure the young gentleman is perfectly fine,” Foxglove said. “Wherever he is. He had always seemed to me like a most capable young man.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure you’re right, Foxglove.”
“Very good, Miss Faulkner.”
He stood aside, waiting for me to pass through the arch. I took a step, then stopped and looked at him. His sad eyes regarded me out of his expressionless face.
“Do you like chocolate, Foxglove?” I said.
When he smiled it transformed his whole face. For a moment even his eyes weren’t sad any more, but bright and clear.
“Very much, Miss Faulkner,” he said, in his soft, slow voice. “Very much indeed.”
“That’s what I thought,” I said. I smiled back at him, and then I went through the arch and into the party, and left him standing there.
26
The night was lit with lanterns, scented with expensive perfumes and men’s colognes. Soft music played against the hum of conversation and, at the far end of the pool, I saw the string quartet, two women and two men, all in tuxedos, their bows gliding across the strings as their reflection rippled in the water of the pool. Posters hung everywhere, with Mr Thornton’s smiling face and the words, “Re-elect Thornton”.
A long buffet table on the other side was laden with sweet pastries, chocolate and cream, in flagrant violation of Prohibition. They must have been brought in from out of town. I was shocked to see them there, but only for a moment. I’d already known not all grown-ups played by the rules – even if they made them.
I made my way uncomfortably through a forest of taller, bigger people, all of whom ignored me.
I looked for Sweetcakes and found her by the long buffet table, stuffing her face with cream puffs.
“There you are,” she said. There was a ring of whipped cream all around her mouth. “This isn’t so bad, is it, Nelle? When I grow up proper I’m going to go to lots and lots of parties.”
No one seemed to mind that we were there. The grown-ups were clustered in groups, holding glasses of wine or champagne, talking and laughing as though their lives depended on it.
I turned at the tread of heavy footsteps, and a nasal voice said irritably, “What is she doing here, Nelle?”
“Waffles,” I said, turning to him.
“You bring, her here? To my house?” His head moved from side to side like a toy’s. “She’s crazy, Nelle! She burned down my store!”
“Did not!” Sweetcakes said, indignant.
“It’s all right, Waffles,” I said.
“It’s Mr McKenzie to you, snoops!”
I sighed. So we were back to that. I was getting tired of his attitude.
“Waffles,” I said. “Stop behaving like a spoiled brat and listen to me.”
He looked at me in mute incomprehension. I don’t think anyone had ever spoken to him that way before. He was a child used to always having his own way. I wondered how his parents had ever managed to wean him off diapers. Perhaps they never had. The thought made me smile.
“What are you smiling at?” Waffles said, rediscovering his anger. “Don’t you smile at me! No one has the right to smile at me!”
“Shut up and listen to me, Waffles,” I said. That made him open and close his mouth, but his voice dried out. “It’s time to end this war, once and for all. Sweetcakes – Mary – didn’t burn down Mr Singh’s store.”
He sneered. “Is she paying you?” he said. “Is that it?” He waved an accusing finger in my face. “Is she paying you to say that? You brought her into my house, Nelle!”
“I want you to say sorry,” I said.
“What?”
“And you too, Mary,” I said, turning to Sweetcakes, who was watching the exchange with a smile of amused contempt.
“What?” she said. She dropped the smile but kept hold of a half-eaten cream puff. “I’m not going to do that! What for? I didn’t do nothing!”
I looked at them glaring at each other. They looked so ridiculous that I almost felt sorry for them.
“Elmore,” I said, using Waffles’s first name, and Sweetcakes grinned. I glared at her and she stopped. “I want you to apologize to Mary for picking a fight with her and her gang and for accusing her of burning Mr Singh’s store.”
“I would never…!” he began, but I raised my hand, silencing him.
“Mary,” I said. “I want you to apologize to Elmore for trashing Bobbie’s place, which I know you did, because I was there, and also for trying to take over the candy racket.”
“You can’t make me!” she said. “I’ve got as much right to run candy in this town as this spoiled little rich kid!”
“Who are you calling a little kid?” Waffles said, puffing out his chest indignantly. “You think you’re tough? I can be tough! I can be real tough!”
“You’re as tough as a slice of cheesecake,” Sweetcakes said. “Melted butter’s tougher than you.”
“Take that back!”
“Make me!”
“Stop it!” I said. I must have shouted. I saw the grown-ups turn and stare at our little group before looking away, uninterested in what they thought were kids playing. “Stop it, both of you! Stop acting like children!”
Waffles stared at me, and then Sweetcakes did too. I don’t know what it was, maybe it was something in my face, but they both, first Waffles and then Sweetcakes, began to laugh.
They laughed like people who hadn’t laughed in a long time, so long they couldn’t even remember what it felt like. Waffles laughed like a hyena, in short sharp barks, and Sweetcakes laughed with a big belly laughter that seemed to boom across the night. I felt my face turn red with anger and humiliation.
“Stop it!” I shouted. “Stop it!”
“Y-you … s-stop it, snoops!” Waffles said, laughing so hard it was a miracle his teeth didn’t fall out.
“S-s-snoops!” Sweetcakes roared. Tears were streaming down her face. She clutched the side of the buffet table desperately.
“H-h-here,” she said. “Have a … have a … have a cream puff, Nelle!”
And with that she turned – and shoved one right into my face.
I stood there, shocked, cream and pastry all over my face.
“You didn’t,” I said.
“She did!” Waffles screeched. I stared at him and Sweetcakes, still roaring at the sight of me. I couldn’t help it. I felt it rise in the pit of my belly, and then it escaped.
A giggle.
And then another, and another.
I couldn’t help it.
I started to laugh.
“S-s-she has c-c-c-cream all over her face!” Waffles shrieked. I was laughing so much it was hard to stand straight.
I said, “You think – you think that’s – you think that’s funny?” and I picked up a raspberry pie and hit him smack in the face with it.
Sweetcakes was rolling on the floor, her legs kicking in the air, laughing so hard that snot was coming out of her nose. The grown-ups were staring in our direction and moving away, not wanting to get any dirt on their smart party clothes. Waffles blew a raspberry and picked up a waffle heaped with syrup and cream.
He looked at me speculatively.
“Don’t you … don’t you dare!”
But I was laughing too hard. He threw it at me and I ducked, and it fell and hit Sweetcakes in the face. Then we were all three of us throwing pies, cream puffs and chocolate profiteroles at each other, shrieking like we were mad – which the grown-ups must have thought we were. I heard a gruff male voice say, “Elmore, stop that at once!” but it seemed too far away. A woman shrieked as a strawberry tart hit her in the face. The musicians faltered but then picked up again.
I was crawling on the ground by then. “S-s-s-stop it!”
My ribs hurt from laughing.
“Elmore, I am ashamed of you!” a woman said in a stern, angry voice.
“Somebody do something!”
“Foxglove? Foxglove! Where is that butler?” a man shouted.
The laughter was leaving me in small hiccups and when I looked around I saw Waffles in his ruined tuxedo, and Sweetcakes in her army coat covered in custard, and it threatened to start all over again, but I regained control of myself.
“Foxglove! Sort this immediately! Where are you, man?”
We stood up sheepishly, still giggling.
“Say sorry,” I said.
“S-s-s-s-sorry!” They both threatened to burst out laughing again.
“Shake hands.”
“She’ll never stop, will she?” Waffles complained.
“She can be incredibly annoying,” Sweetcakes said. “Trust me.”
“Guess we better do as she says.”
“Guess we’d better.”
“You’re all right, ’cakes.”
“Guess you’re not too bad, Waf.”
They shook hands.
And suddenly, just like that, the candy-gang war was over.
27
I was getting myself cleaned up when I saw the flashing lights of the police car as it slid silently to a halt outside the McKenzie mansion. The doors opened and closed and Tidbeck and Webber strutted across the gravel. I watched out of the window from the second floor of the house. The big doors of the mansion opened and out stepped a man who went to welcome the detectives. He had a very familiar face.
I stared.
It was the mayor.
They disappeared inside. I hurriedly tried to wipe chocolate off my shirt but only managed to smear it some more. I gave up and hurried out of the bathroom and on to the landing, just in time to see them passing by, down the stairs.
I tiptoed after. The thick carpet swallowed the sound of footsteps. I saw their backs as they disappeared down a long corridor.
I followed.
Elderly McKenzies stared down at me with pursed lips and disapproving eyes, but they were only old portraits and I did my best to ignore them. I saw the mayor and the two detectives disappear into a large room with a long oak table in the middle. I crept to the door. It had been left very slightly ajar. Very carefully, I pushed it open the tiniest bit more, so I could look inside.
“Well?” the mayor said irritably. “Did you find it?”
“Sir, we’re actively looking,” Tidbeck said. “There have been some unfortunate setbacks—”
“I don’t get the whole thing with the teddy,” the mayor said. “Are you sure it is going to lead you to him? Are you sure it’s not just a red herring?”
“A fish, sir?” Webber said. “I’m pretty sure it is a teddy.”
“Not a fish, you idiot. A red herring. Something that looks important but turns out not to be all that relevant.”
“I don’t really like fish, sir.”
“Oh, for … never mind,” the mayor said acidly. He turned on Tidbeck, already dismissing Webber from his mind.
“Time is running out, detective. I need to find that man! I want that factory!”
I stared in horrified fascination as the mayor spoke.
I had suspected the connection before, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it to be true.
But it was really him.
It had been the mayor all along.
I stared at him, there in the room, giving orders.
But what I couldn’t understand was … why?
“We don’t yet know where he’s hiding, sir. He could be anywhere. For all we know he was at this party!” Tidbeck said. “However, we have to assume the teddy will draw him out. We know it is precious to him.”
“Then why did he let it go in the first place?” the mayor said.
“We think he gave it to the boy, de Menthe. His protégé.”
I knew that meant something like “an apprentice”. Is that how Eddie got the teddy? It was passed on to him from Mr Farnsworth?
No wonder the two detectives were after Eddie, then.
No wonder he’d had to disappear.
“Then where is the boy?”
“We don’t know. Yet.”
“You find it! Them! I will suffer no more excuses!” He sighed. “Setting fire to that shop was stupid.”
I held my breath when the implications of what he had just said settled in.
“You two have been skimming too much off the kids’ candy. I do not care for candy! I never have.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go out there and find them! Turn every stone. Do not let me down!”
“Yes, sir.”
I watched them through the crack. Then I realized they were heading out and I flattened myself against the wall, my heart thumping. They didn’t see me behind the door.
“We’ll go have another little chat with Bobbie,” Tidbeck said. “And then I think we need to put more pressure on that annoying little girl, Nelle. She knows more than she’s letting on. It’s time to end this.”
Webber sniggered. I waited, frozen, until they were gone.
I should have left, but curiosity got the better of me. I came round the door and saw the mayor, still inside the room, gazing out of the window, his back to me. I went in.
Standing against the wall I saw a box of clear glass, with a picture above it.
The picture showed an aerial photo of the abandoned
chocolate factory on the hill. It showed just how immense it really was.
The factory sprawled in all directions, like a miniature town all on its own. There was a series of interlinked halls built in brown brick, with immense towering chimneys rising from the flat rooftops. There were shining pathways woven between the buildings, where tiny people moved in tiny carts.
Below the photograph, encased in the glass, was a model of the same area, but the factory was gone. In its place rose a development of shining new homes, with neat manicured lawns and white picket fences, a playground to one side, even an artificial lake.
A small note beside the display said, “Proposed plans for area redevelopment”.
I stared at it in fascinated horror. Which is when the mayor turned his head and saw me.
For a moment he looked irritated. “Where did you come from?” he said.
“I was looking for Waffles,” I said. “I mean, Elmore.”
“Ah, the McKenzie boy,” he said. “Well, he’s not here.”
“You’re the mayor,” I said.
I knew his face, of course. I’d seen him on TV a few times, and at the rally I’d seen him from a distance. Now, though, he was standing right by me, so close I could reach out and touch him. He had a thick shock of black hair, a close-set mouth, a chin that jutted out just a little bit. He wore black-rimmed glasses with round frames and he smoked a pipe. He wore a shabby suit. You wouldn’t notice him if you passed him on the street or in the shop. He was just a man.
And yet he wasn’t. He was Mayor Thornton.
“I see you are admiring my project,” he said. He turned to look at the model under the glass.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.
“It’s … but … but the factory!” I said.
“Oh, that horrible old thing has to go, kid,” he said. “It has no place in the modern world.”
“But the chocolate—”
“Disgusting stuff. Trust me, kid. We’ll make this city great again. It will all be for the better.”
