by Tom McNeal
“Conk Crinklaw?” Jeremy said in a surprised tone. “In Brazil?”
Ginger chuckled. “Yeah, I know. A concept and a half. But he’s been listening to Spanish tapes and everything.”
I told Jeremy something that he passed on to Ginger: “I think they actually speak Portuguese in Brazil.”
Ginger laughed a quick snorting laugh. “There it is—Conk in a nutshell—studying Spanish to go live in a country where they don’t speak Spanish.”
The words were disparaging, and yet she seemed amused. “Know how all the Crinklaws have those weird names, like Intrepid and Dauntless? Well, I found out that Conk has one, too. His real name is Stalwart. But as a baby, he kept crawling headfirst into things all the time, so they started calling him Conk.”
Jeremy laughed softly. “Conk’s not a bad name, I guess. Better than Stalwart, anyway.” Then, staring off into the darkness, he asked, “So if you actually jumped a freight train, who would you go with? Conk or me?”
His seriousness appeared to surprise her. “Why would you ask that?”
“I don’t know. Because I was thinking it, I guess.”
Ginger seemed to be considering the matter. “And it has to be either-or, right?—I can’t ride the rails with both of you?”
Jeremy gave her a decisive shake of his head.
“Okay, then. I guess if I was having to deal with thugs and stuff—like I was in a hobo jungle or something—I’d choose Conk, because, well, he’s Conk. But if I were just riding along in a freight car, I’d want to be with you.” She looked at him. “That help?”
“I guess,” he said, but I could detect the disappointment in his voice. “Also, just so you know, I don’t think they have hobo jungles anymore.”
“Well, there you go, then. If there are no hobo jungles, I don’t need Conk at all.”
She stretched out on the table, put her head in his lap, and stared up at the sky. “Why don’t you tell me a story—one of those fairy tales, one with a happy ending.”
“Which one?” he said.
“I don’t care. You pick.”
Perhaps “The Fisherman and His Wife,” I said, because, truthfully, I thought the shameful influence of the greedy wife might cloud the romantic climate that I felt was developing, but Jeremy would not listen.
“Okay, I’ve got one,” he said, and a strange ease came into his voice as he began: “Long ago and far, far away, there was an old king who, as he lay dying, called for his faithful servant …”
It was the tale of Faithful John, a wide-ranging story of enchanted love and of amorous abduction and, most of all, of the servant who gave his life to save his master’s. When the king’s son enters the one room he has been forbidden to enter, his eyes fall upon a portrait of the Princess of the Golden Dwelling, and he is, as Jeremy recited, “possessed by a love so great that if all the leaves on all the trees were tongues, they could not declare it.”
An appreciative murmur escaped Ginger. “Zounds …,” she said softly. “That’s a whole lot of love.”
Jeremy gave a small laugh and continued. At Faithful John’s direction, he said, the prince’s artisans were soon crafting beautiful objects of gold, to be used to lure the Princess of the Golden Dwelling. “And so,” Jeremy related, “the ship laden with golden objects set sail for the land of the Golden Dwelling when—”
His voice broke abruptly off.
A dazzling light had split the darkness and now held Ginger and Jeremy in a tableau of startled surprise. Ginger shielded her eyes and pushed herself upright.
“Curfew,” said a hard, gruff voice. It was Deputy McRaven.
Ginger squinted into the searing brightness. “Curfew?”
“That’s right. I should write you up.”
“For what? Sitting in the park telling stories?”
The deputy kept his bright light shining into their eyes. “For breaking curfew, littering, and loitering. And I’d probably have to mention that the subject female was lying prone on the picnic table.”
At this, Ginger abruptly jumped down from the table. “C’mon, Jeremy,” she said, and strode past Deputy McRaven. Jeremy followed behind. “We’re leaving,” she said, “but if you still need to write us up on your cute little curfew charge, you should also note that the subject female referred to the subject deputy as a giant horse’s ass.”
The bright beam of light followed them as they retreated through the trees. Behind the light, the deputy’s large face looked both resentful and strangely miserable.
“Your time will come!” he called after them. These were his exact words, and he soon repeated them. “Don’t be fooling yourselves! Your time will come!”
Three days quietly passed, and Jeremy neither saw nor heard from Deputy McRaven. Nor did he hear a word from the game show. Two more letters came from the bank, letters that Jeremy signed for but did not open.
There was another development: On the morning of the fourth day, Jenny Applegarth stopped by to pick up Jeremy’s father, to what end no one would say, but his father had showered and combed out his unruly hair for the occasion. In his old loose-fitting athletic apparel, he looked like a prisoner being led out into the light, which, by a certain line of reasoning, was exactly what he was. He blinked and gaped and allowed Jenny Applegarth’s hand to guide him along the street. And so, for the first time since I had come to the village, Mr. Harold Johnson crossed the threshold into public life.
I was hovering there, watching him and Jenny walking side by side down Main Street, when Ginger turned the corner and bore down on the bookstore. She strode past me, pushed open the door, and didn’t waste time saying hello.
“So?” she demanded. “Did he call?”
By he, she of course meant Mr. Milo Castle, from Uncommon Knowledge.
“Nope,” Jeremy said. He held a broom in his hand. When I had requested that he resume his reading of El Cid, he said that he needed to sweep the floor. That will tell you how much he liked El Cid.
Ginger checked the telephone to be sure it was working, then set it back down. “What’s up with those people, anyhow? I mean, they all but said you’d be on the show.”
Jeremy shrugged and kept sweeping. I had observed that he was not nearly as anxious for Mr. Milo Castle’s call as she was.
Ginger flopped down in the stuffed armchair. “So am I losing my mind or was that your dad and Jenny Applegarth I just saw walking down the street?”
Jeremy nodded. “It was them, all right.”
“That’s big news, right? I mean, when was the last time he left his room?”
“I can’t even remember.” He stilled his broom. “It’s good but also a little weird. I guess I’d started to think he wouldn’t come out of that room until he’d—you know—cashed it all in.”
Ginger pressed several strands of hair between her lips. “Really, when you think of it, it’s so once-upon-a-time.”
Jeremy’s face twisted into a dubious look.
“Sure,” she went on. “As in ‘Once upon a time, there was a lonely old king who would never leave his castle, but one day a beautiful woman warrior presented herself at the gates.’ ” Ginger produced one of her saucy grins. “Not bad, huh?”
Jeremy said, “Let me get this straight. Mrs. Applegarth is a woman warrior and this”—he gestured around the room—“is a castle, and my father’s a king?”
“Yep.” She beamed. “Which means … you’re now a prince!”
“Yeah?” He looked about the room. “Where’s all my treasure and stuff?”
“We’re working on that.” She stretched and yawned. “So where were they going? Your dad wasn’t exactly wearing the royal duds.”
Jeremy issued a small laugh. “Yeah, I don’t know where he got that old sweat suit, but at least he could get into it. As for where they’re going, they wouldn’t say.”
Ginger pulled a newspaper clipping from her pocket and extended it toward Jeremy. “Not to change the subject,” she said, “but read this.”
The article concerned the boy in the adjoining county who had disappeared, the one whom Sten Blix had mentioned a few days before. It was just as the baker predicted. The authorities had given up the search. “We think he’ll show up in San Francisco or Miami, someplace like that,” the sheriff was quoted as saying.
“Maybe they’re right,” Jeremy said. “Maybe he will show up there.”
“Maybe.” Ginger slipped the clipping back into her pocket. “But it’s kind of weird how kids keep going missing.”
A small smile appeared on Jeremy’s face. “Hey, maybe their mothers sent them out to seek their fortunes. Or maybe they’ve been called away to slay a dragon somewhere. Like when Beowulf goes after Grendel.”
I was, of course, pleased by this allusion to his summer reading, but Ginger gave him a deadpan look and said, “I was wrong. You’re no mere mayor of Nerdsville. You are the emperor of Greater Nerdistan.”
Jeremy grinned and drew down a board game from a nearby bookshelf. “And now the emperor of Greater Nerdistan will annihilate the cheeky delegate from rural Never Better in a friendly game of Monopoly.”
Ginger seemed aroused by the challenge. “You’d better hold on to your valuables, your highness, and no, I don’t mean those valuables.”
This made Jeremy laugh out loud, and truly, happiness had been in such short supply that it was a relief to see it. And so the two of them passed the time playing their game, with dice rattled and thrown, followed by cajoling comments and the passing of mock money either to the bank for the purchase of properties or to the other player for rent on those already purchased. Really, it was quite intricate, and a shameless waste of an afternoon, but it also offered a quiet retreat from larger complications.
But as the afternoon lengthened, Ginger pressed strands of hair in her lips and, instead of studying the playing board, seemed more and more to be studying Jeremy.
She was plotting something, I was sure of it.
Jeremy, I said calmly, matter-of-factly, trying to mask my growing alarm. We need to read and to study. Please suspend your game and ask her to return another day.
But I was too late.
“To be continued,” Ginger said, and pushed away from the library table.
“Just when it’s getting good?” Jeremy said, but his voice trailed off. He was watching her as she stretched lazily and began to wander about the bookstore.
“That your grandfather’s pipe wrench?” she asked, drawing close to a large open-jawed tool hanging from a bookcase stile.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said, drifting over. “It was the first one he bought when he became a pipe fitter. Even after he retired, he still took it down and used it sometimes. He said the nice thing about a pipe wrench is that it doesn’t lose much in its dotage.”
Ginger made a murmuring laugh, and they stood quietly, side to side.
Jeremy, I said. Our reading.
In a soft voice, she said, “You know what I was thinking about?”
“What?”
“That goofy legend about falling for whoever you look at when you have a first bite of Prince Cake.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Because … I don’t know … sometimes it doesn’t feel so goofy. I mean, sometimes I feel like something I don’t understand keeps—you know—pulling at me.”
Jeremy went looking for the literal meaning in this. “You mean like something magnetic or invisible or—”
But Ginger touched a finger to his lips to keep him from speaking further. She leaned nearer. Very softly she whispered, “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
With a finger, she gently touched one of his eyelids. “Close your eyes.”
He did. He closed his eyes, and as she stood regarding him in the empty store, the only sound to be heard was the tickentock of the clock and—did I not hear it? was this not what I had feared?—the beating of two hearts.
Ginger now closed her own eyes, but just as she drew her lips feather-close to his, there came a robust thump! thump! thump! from the front door.
Jeremy’s and Ginger’s eyes flew open and there, peering through the glass of the door, was the square-jawed face of the town mayor.
As he stepped into the bookstore, the mayor removed his cowboy hat and flashed a broad smile at Ginger. “Hope I didn’t come at an inopportune time,” he said, and turned at once to Jeremy. “It’s just that I’ve been doing my due diligence, and, well, let’s just say that time is of the essence.”
Dauntless Crinklaw was like a stretched-long version of his son—where Conk was blocky, his father was tall and lean—but they both shared the same white teeth, square jaw, and dark eyes, which he now directed again at Ginger. “The thing is,” he said, “I need to talk a little business with Mr. Johnson here.”
“No problem,” Ginger said, ignoring the mayor’s hint and draping herself comfortably across the arm of the stuffed chair.
“Personal business,” the mayor said.
Ginger turned to Jeremy, who shrugged.
“Okay,” she said, heading for the door. “I don’t stay where I’m not wanted.”
The mayor’s laughter was so sharp it seemed to crackle. “Well, that’s good sense,” he said. “I wouldn’t make it my personal motto or anything, but, still, it’s good sense.” Then, after watching her slip through the door, he turned back to Jeremy. “Fine girl. Smart as a whip. Conk’s nuts about her, but I don’t encourage it. He’d bore that girl in a year, if not sooner.” He shrugged. “Probably anybody would.” A grin spread across his broad jaw. “What do you think?”
“I don’t really know,” Jeremy said.
“No, a’course you don’t!” the mayor said in his booming voice. “Nobody does! It’s all by guess and by golly, though we hate like heck to admit it. Right?”
Jeremy said he guessed so, sure.
The mayor looked around the store for a few seconds, as if frankly assessing things. Then his eyes fixed on Jeremy. “You know why I’m here, right?”
“Not really.”
“Well, okay, then, I’ll tell you. I’m here to save your bacon.”
Jeremy stared at him.
“That’s right,” the mayor said. “I’m your white knight.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“Well, let’s see. As I understand it, come Friday at one p.m., you and your father are out on the street, right?”
“What?”
“Sure. Conk mentioned it, so I looked into it. The bank sent you final notice. Certified mail. You got that, right?”
Jeremy’s eyes dropped. “Maybe. I don’t open them all.”
“Don’t open them? Holy Harry, boy! I heard you was smart!”
Jeremy said nothing.
“Well, okay, look here. What that last letter says is that if you don’t pay off your note in full by one p.m. Friday, they’re going to ask you to vacate. And if you don’t go quiet, the sheriff will forcibly remove you and your possessions and lock you right out.” He gave a sympathetic murmur. “As scenarios go, son, it isn’t pretty.”
Jeremy went to the desk, found the most recent envelope, tore it open, and read the letter, as did I, over his shoulder. Everything the mayor had said was true. “Oh my gosh,” Jeremy said in a small voice. “Friday. That’s … the day after tomorrow.”
“Well, yeah, but listen here. This is where your white knight rides in.” He grinned. “I’m going to loan you that money.”
“You will?” Jeremy said. And then: “Why?”
The mayor scaled back his wide smile. “Okay. I’m not going to lie to you, son. I wouldn’t mind owning this building myself, and I’d just as soon not go through the bank to get it. I know those jaspers. They’re difficult.” He turned the rim of his hat in his hands. “Now, Conk tells me you might go on some quiz-show deal and answer questions about fairies and such, and that’s just fine. And if you make a pot of money, you can pay me back without a single penny’s interest and keep your store and live happily ever after.�
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“And if I can’t pay you back?” Jeremy asked.
“Well, then, you don’t owe me a dime, but I get the building.”
Jeremy still seemed puzzled. “But why do you want it?”
The mayor laughed. “Hellfire, son, that’s just what I do. I acquire things.” He nodded at the game Jeremy and Ginger had been playing. “It’s just like Monopoly. You try to buy stuff up. So right now I own all the other buildings on the block, and if I was to buy this one, I’d have me a nice little monopoly. ¿Comprendo?”
Jeremy thought about this. “And if you get it, will you keep it a bookstore?”
Dauntless Crinklaw sighed. “I’ll tell you what, son. Thirty years ago you might have kept it as a bookstore and made a few dollars, but not today. And just because that don’t make you or me happy don’t mean it’s not true.”
Again the only sound in the bookstore was the tickentock of the old clock.
“What will you do with it, then?”
Dauntless Crinklaw released one of his crackly laughs. “Maybe nothing. But maybe something. My granddaddy had this crazy idea of taking all the buildings together and using those old hot springs out back to run a fancy spa to cater to high muckety-mucks, or at least their aging brides.” He was again grinning. “I said crazy, but sometimes it don’t seem so crazy, if you know what I mean.” He paused. “But what I do with it isn’t the issue at hand. The issue at hand is my lending you the money so you can keep the place long enough to give yourself a shot at paying it off.”
The mayor unfolded a document and laid a pen on the library table. At the top it said PROMISSORY NOTE. “This is absolutely no-interest, you understand. You buy some time, but you don’t pay a penny.”
Jeremy was staring at the document. “How much time?”
“Six weeks,” the mayor said.
Jeremy touched a finger to his temple.
It is not good, I said, but the alternative is worse. This gives you a small reprieve. If you go on the show, we can win the money.
“We can win the money,” Jeremy repeated in a small voice.
“We?” the mayor said. “Who’s we?”
Jeremy did not answer. He stared out the window for a long time. Then he turned, picked up the pen, and signed his name to the promissory note.
