The Skull of Truth

by Bruce Coville

  The room was packed and the hum of voices filled the air. Here and there a sharper tone broke through the hum as someone spoke loudly in disagreement.

  Charlie saw several bald heads scattered through the audience. Two or three belonged to old men; all the rest were Billiard Balls from his class. Mark Evans, his head still covered with thick black hair, sat in the first row.

  Though the meeting was supposed to start at 7:30, it was 7:45 before the mayor went to the lectern. “I want to thank you all for coming tonight,” he said. “Though the truth is, I would have preferred it if we had been able to get this project moving without all this annoying fuss.”

  He paused, looking a little startled, then fumbled with his note cards for a moment. “We face an important decision as a community, a decision that could affect our economic well-being for years, even decades, to come. Harley Evans has developed a plan I believe can do great things for us. He is going to give us a brief presentation on the project, then answer any questions you might have.”

  Charlie glanced at Karen, who was sitting two rows away. She gave him the thumbs-up sign.

  Mr. Evans rose to speak.

  “As you all know, we have a problem here in Tucker’s Grove. A lot of problems, actually, but most of them stem from the closing of the paper mill two years ago, which threw so many people out of work. Well, I believe I have come up with a solution to our unemployment problem.”

  He took the first card off the easel. Behind it was a large photograph of Tucker’s Swamp. “This land is mere—”

  He paused, looking as if he had forgotten what he was going to say. After an uncomfortable silence, he started again. “This land is not being used at the present time, except of course by the wildlife living there. However, those of us involved in this project really don’t give a damn about a few frogs and turtles.”

  “I’ll say!” shouted someone in the audience.

  Mr. Evans blinked and glanced down at his notes. “Excuse me. What I meant to say is that we feel jobs are considerably more important than frogs and turtles. Now, if you will just look at this chart—”

  He took down the picture of the swamp. Behind it was a graph with multicolored bars and lines. He spent several minutes explaining it. To Charlie’s astonishment, everything he said was very positive. The town would get more jobs. More jobs would mean more prosperity, fewer family problems, greater this, better that, and so on and so on, until even Charlie began to wonder if the project was such a bad idea after all.

  Was it possible the skull wasn’t working?

  Maybe Mr. Evans is an evil force greater than Truth, Charlie thought gloomily. He was trying to push down the even more disturbing thought that the project might actually be a good idea when he suddenly realized the real problem: It wasn’t that the good things weren’t true, it was that Mr. Evans was completely avoiding the negative stuff. He began to relax a little, confident that once people started to ask questions the whole truth would come out and the project would sink like a stone in the muddy waters of Tucker’s Swamp.

  Mr. Evans continued his presentation, showing artists’ conceptions of what his industrial park would look like. It was pretty, in a stale, tame kind of way.

  “I like the swamp the way it looks now,” Charlie whispered to Uncle Bennie.

  Bennie nodded. “I agree. Wild and strange—like me!”

  At the end of the presentation, Mr. Evans said he would take a few questions. “Just stand up at your seat,” he said. “One of the pages will bring a microphone to you.”

  Several people stood.

  Charlie could barely keep from rubbing his hands with anticipation. This, he figured, was where they would put an end to the project for good.

  The first questioner was a middle-aged man whose voice had a slightly desperate edge to it. “Mr. Evans, how many jobs can we expect this project to bring to Tucker’s Grove?”

  “Between four and five hundred.”

  A happy buzz filled the air. People applauded. Charlie scowled.

  “How soon do you plan to start actually doing the work?” asked the second questioner.

  “That depends in part on how this meeting goes,” replied Mr. Evans, smiling broadly. That earned him a few chuckles.

  Charlie began to squirm in his seat.

  “Have any businesses actually said they would move here if you build this?” asked the third.

  “We have commitments from four companies so far.”

  That was when Charlie realized what was going on. “It’s rigged!” he said, louder than he intended.

  His mother shushed him.

  “It’s rigged,” he said again, softer but even more urgently. “Mom, no one is asking any tough questions. I bet the people with the mikes were ordered to only let people Mr. Evans had already picked ask questions.”

  “Oh, I doubt that’s true,” said his mother.

  “Believe me,” said Charlie. “What I’m saying is the truth. I can’t—”

  He broke off. To his horror, Mr. Evans had said, “I think we’ll stop with that question.” He glanced at his watch. “I have another engagement I have to get to, and—”

  Charlie sprang to his feet. “I have a question!” he said loudly.

  “This is only for adults, Charlie,” said Mr. Evans smoothly. “I think you’d better sit down.”

  Charlie’s cheeks were burning, and he felt like he was about to die of embarrassment. But he couldn’t give up now. It was too important.

  “Oh, go on, Harley,” said a familiar voice. “Let the boy ask a question.”

  Charlie turned. It was Dave. He was holding a video camera, pointing it right at Charlie.

  Mr. Evans scowled, then said, “All right, what’s your question, Charlie?”

  Charlie hesitated. This would be his only chance. He had to phrase his question the right way, so Mr. Evans couldn’t wiggle out of it.

  “What’s your question?” asked Mr. Evans again, sounding impatient.

  Someone began to laugh. Charlie felt his blush grow deeper. Every eye in the auditorium was drilling into him. He wanted to sink into the floor and disappear, or turn and run.

  Trying to keep himself from fleeing, he remembered his father’s frequent admonition: Go for it, Charlie. After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen?

  That was it!

  “Mr. Evans, what’s the worst thing that could happen if you drain the swamp?”

  Mr. Evans smiled and spread his hands. “I suppose it depends on how you look at it. From a personal point of view, the downside is that I could be arrested for several violations of the federal wetlands law.” Even as Mr. Evans spoke, his eyes were getting wide. He looked from side to side in desperation, but there was no one to help him. He kept talking. “From the town’s point of view, there is a small but significant possibility that we could mess up the water table and ruin several hundred wells. Also, there are two species that could go extinct. But they’re very minor, and of no real significance.”

  An angry buzz rose in the auditorium.

  “Bingo!” cried Dave.

  Charlie’s mother looked at Charlie in astonishment as more questions were shouted from the audience.

  Mr. Evans, blushing and stammering, began to answer, speaking slowly at first, then faster and faster. The truth that came tumbling out of his mouth was such a weird mix of good and bad that Charlie couldn’t make any sense of it. Some of the answers generated applause, some cries of rage.

  A fistfight broke out in the audience.

  Suddenly Mr. Evans wrenched himself away from the lectern, cried out a truly sincere apology, and rushed from the stage.

  To Charlie’s astonishment, the startling revelations did not convince everyone that the project was a bad idea. As people were leaving he heard a man in front of him say, “Well, even if what Harley said was true, I think it’s worth the risk. We need those jobs!”

  “Oh, I don’t think it was true, anyway,” replied the woman he was talking to
. “The poor man probably had a nervous breakdown because of all the negative pressure people have been putting on him about this project. It’s a crying shame. I certainly hope this goes through anyway.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sport,” Uncle Bennie whispered to Charlie. “To quote an old lady we both know and love, ‘Some people wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and bit them on the heinie.’”

  Charlie smiled. His smile grew even broader when he spotted Karen making her way through the crowd. “We did it!” she whispered excitedly. “We did it!”

  “Did what?” asked Charlie’s mother. “What, exactly, have you two been up to?”

  “We’ve been on a quest for the truth, Mrs. Eggleston,” said Karen, her voice quiet and sincere.

  Charlie’s mother looked at them as if she had more questions to ask but couldn’t quite figure out what they should be.

  “Excuse me,” said Charlie. “I have to get something.”

  Fighting against the crowd, he made his way to the front of the auditorium.

  Mark was still in the first row, unmoved from where he had been during the presentation. His cheeks were wet with tears. “You come down here to gloat, Eggleston?” he asked when he saw Charlie.

  “Not actually.”

  “Huh. I thought you’d be happy.” He swiped at his face with his sleeve.

  “I’m happy that the swamp probably won’t be drained.”

  Mark’s face twisted in disgust. “You’re such a dweeb.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Probably.” He glanced back at his parents, wondering what it would have been like to see his own father humiliated the way Mr. Evans had just been. “Look, I’m sorry that—”

  “Shut up!” snapped Mark. “Just shut up!” He turned and bolted toward the stage. Charlie started after him, but before he had gone three steps Dave grabbed him from behind.

  “Hey, hero—I need to get a little footage with you. Stand still so I can interview you!”

  Charlie glanced behind him. Mark was already out of sight. He turned back to Dave, hoping he wouldn’t be asked anything to which a truthful answer would be too embarrassing.

  The moment Dave was finished with his questions, Charlie hurried onto the stage to retrieve Yorick. But when he stepped behind the lectern his eyes widened, and he felt a coldness clutch his heart.

  The gift-wrapped box in which they had hidden the skull was gone.

  FOURTEEN

  Midnight Appointment

  Seized by terror, Charlie hurried to the back of the stage. He began opening boxes, turning things over, searching desperately for any sign of the skull. With every spot that he checked, his panic grew deeper.

  “Yorick!” he whispered urgently. “Yorick, where are you?”

  No answer.

  After a moment Karen joined him. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look horrible.”

  “Yorick is gone!”

  “What?”

  “That box we put under the podium is missing. I have no idea what happened to him!”

  “He must have been here during the presentation,” said Karen. “Otherwise Mr. Evans wouldn’t have said all that stuff.”

  “So someone took him afterward,” said Charlie, trying to calm himself enough to think. “But who? And why?” Suddenly he remembered Mark bolting onto the stage. “Oh, jeez!”

  “What?” asked Karen.

  “I think Mark took him.”

  Karen’s eyes widened. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he realized I had something to do with the box, and took it just to bug me. No, I bet it was simpler. I bet he figured it was something for his dad—maybe a gift the community was going to give him for coming up with his great industrial park. Oh, man. How am I going to get Yorick away from him? I’m dead meat, Karen. Mr. Elives gave me strict orders not to let anything happen to that skull!”

  “Do you want me to call Mark?” asked Karen. “Maybe I can talk him into giving Yorick back.”

  “That might work,” said Charlie, suddenly hopeful.

  Karen put her hand on his arm. “I’ll try as soon as I get home. Then I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks,” said Charlie, desperately hoping it really was Mark who had taken the skull, and not whatever great force Mr. Elives and Ms. Priest had warned him was after it.

  The ride home was not easy. Though no one (except Charlie, of course) could figure out why Mr. Evans had blurted out so much truth, they all had something to say about it.

  Mr. Eggleston, who had been in favor of the swamp project, was particularly upset by the revelations. He was also upset by Charlie’s part in them. “Why didn’t you just keep your mouth shut?” he kept asking.

  When Charlie’s mom pointed out that if Charlie hadn’t asked his question, the lies would have continued, Mr. Eggleston grumbled and focused his attention on the road.

  Uncle Bennie’s clear delight about Mr. Evans’s meltdown only made Mr. Eggleston crankier. Bennie himself seemed puzzled that Charlie didn’t act happier.

  But it was hard to be happy when he was nearly out of his skin with worry. His sense of triumph about getting Mr. Evans to speak the truth had turned to cold dread. He hoped desperately that he would find a message from Karen on the answering machine when he got home, telling him she had worked everything out.

  Karen had not called. However, someone else had sent a message, as Charlie discovered when he entered his room and found Roxanne and Jerome napping in the center of the bed.

  “What are you two doing here?” he demanded, terrified they would ask where Yorick was.

  “What do you think we’re doing?” replied Jerome sharply. He stretched and yawned, displaying more teeth than Charlie really wanted to see. “We’ve got a message for you.”

  “An important one,” added Roxanne, preening her whiskers. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have waited.”

  “What is it?”

  Jerome glanced from side to side. Then he sat up, stretched toward Charlie, and whispered, “The old man says it’s time for this to end.”

  “He sent you to get Yorick?” yelped Charlie, nearly squeaking in his terror.

  “Yeah, right. Do we look like we could carry him back?”

  “Be nice, Jerome!” said Roxanne sharply. Turning to Charlie, she said, in a more gentle voice, “Mr. Elives wants you to take Yorick to the cemetery tonight.”

  “Now?”

  “Not now.” She looked around, then whispered, “Midnight!”

  Charlie glanced out the window. “The cemetery,” he muttered. “Midnight. It figures.”

  “Don’t blame us, kid,” said Jerome. “We don’t write ’em, we just deliver ’em.”

  “All right, tell Mr. Elives I’ll meet him there.”

  Roxanne looked uneasy. “We didn’t say he’d be there, Charlie.”

  “What do you mean? Why am I going, then?”

  Before the rats could answer, the phone rang.

  “Charlie!” called his mother. “It’s for you!”

  “I’ve got to take that,” said Charlie, feeling a surge of hope. “It might be Karen!”

  “Oh,” said Roxanne knowingly, “a girlfriend. Come on, Jerome. Let’s give the boy some privacy.”

  “Yeah, sure,” said Jerome. “See you around, Charlie.”

  “Wait! Don’t go yet! I need to know more about tonight, about the cemetery.”

  “We told you all we were supposed to,” said Roxanne.

  “Just make sure you’re there,” added Jerome sharply. He climbed down the side of the bed and disappeared underneath.

  “Good luck,” called Roxanne as she hurried after him.

  Nearly sick with hope and fear, Charlie raced to the phone, praying it would be Karen with good news.

  It was Mark.

  Sounding triumphant, but also a little scared, he said, “Hey, Swamp Boy—Karen says I’ve got something that belongs to you. What are you dragging a skull around for anyway? And where did you get it from? Your fathe
r’s butcher shop?”

  “I need it back,” said Charlie, ignoring the insult and fighting to keep his desperation out of his voice.

  “So I hear. What will you give me for it?”

  Charlie blinked. He hadn’t thought in terms of a trade. “What do you want?” he asked.

  To his surprise, Mark replied, “Actually, I just want to get rid of the darn thing!” Before Charlie could make a response, Mark let out a startled curse. “This thing is creepy, Eggleston! To tell you the truth, I wasn’t going to give it back at all. But it scares me.” He swore again. “I can’t believe I just said that! Where did you get this thing?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Charlie. Then, in a moment of inspiration he added, “But if you’ll bring it to our old meeting place in the cemetery, I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “After school tomorrow?”

  “No. Tonight.”

  “What’s the hurry?”

  Charlie hesitated. If he told the truth—that he had to have the skull by midnight to save his own skin—odds were good Mark would keep it until tomorrow just to spite him. Especially since he had almost certainly figured out that the skull was responsible for his father’s downfall, and that Charlie was responsible for the skull being at the meeting to begin with.

  But the truth was the only thing he could tell.

  Or was it? He suddenly wondered if it was possible that—with the skull not only out of his presence but also out of his possession—the truth curse might be broken.

  He decided to try a tiny fib.

  “Excuse me a second. I have to sneeze.”

  His eyes widened in delight. He had told a lie!

  Turning away from the phone, he faked a monster sneeze. As he turned back to the receiver he thought, Please let this work. Please, please, please. If it does, I’ll never tell another lie as long as I live, skull or no. Then, remembering what he had learned over the last few days, he amended the prayer. Well, hardly ever. But I’ll be a lot more careful about the truth. I promise!