Far Far Away

by Tom McNeal

  “I do,” Ginger said. “When a predator hunts you, you either run or hide. It’s called instinct.”

  “But the truth is, we weren’t doing anything wrong.”

  Ginger set her backpack on the floor. “With McRaven, you’re always doing something wrong. If he’d found us, he would’ve cited some ordinance about going through people’s trash.” Then she held her head still and wrinkled her nose. “What’s that smell?” She sniffed at her bare arm. “Oh, my gosh! It’s me! I smell like spoiled armadillo!”

  “What does spoiled armadillo smell like?”

  She brought her arm close to his face. “Like this. And oh, by the way”—she pinched her nose for effect—“you smell like a month-old coyote carcass.” She took an exaggerated step back. “I’m putting you on a maggot watch.”

  Jeremy stared at her and said that she was just hilarious.

  Still, it had to be admitted that his scent was robust.

  Ginger looked down at her soiled, sweaty shirt and then up at Jeremy. “Maybe you could offer a girl a change of clothes and a hot shower.”

  I did not like the sound of this. No, Jeremy, I said. That would be unwise.

  “I guess so,” he said.

  Jeremy! Your father is not here. You should say no to her idea. It is not appro—

  Well! Jeremy had begun to whistle.

  And so Jeremy brought Ginger a clean shirt and pair of shorts, and gave her a clean towel in order that she might bathe while he sat in the bookstore pretending to read El Cid. Before long, she presented herself in her slightly oversized clothes, looking just scrubbed and smiling and running a comb through her long, wet hair.

  “Okay,” she said. “That felt pretty terrific. You’ll feel like a whole new you.”

  Jeremy set down his book and headed off for the shower.

  And then, while Ginger was standing at the front window, combing her hair, the telephone rang.

  For a moment, the sound froze her into statue-like stillness.

  Then she set down her comb, flattened her hands to her eyes, whispered, “Please, God, please,” and hastened across the room. She took one final deep breath, lifted the receiver, and sounding quite official, said, “Two-Book Bookstore.”

  It took only a second for her rosy freckled face to lose color. “Yes,” she said in an oddly formal voice. “He’s right here. Well, not right here. He’s in the shower. But I’ll get him.”

  She hurried to the bathroom, pounded on the door, and shouted for Jeremy, who appeared with soap in his hair and a towel wrapped around his waist.

  “They called!” she said. “They’re on the phone now! It’s Milo Castle’s assistant! He said he has Milo Castle on the line for Mr. Jeremy Johnson Johnson!”

  Jeremy tightened the towel around his waist and went out front and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he said.

  I could not hear what was being said to Jeremy, and little could be taken from his face. He offered only a series of stiff responses. “Yes, that’s me … No, I’m standing up.” He sat down and said, “Okay, now I’m sitting down … Really? … No, I’m just kind of surprised … No, I think I’m happy, I really do … No, no, I am. I just don’t show it very well over the phone and I was in the shower so I’m kind of wet … Okay … Okay … Okay … I look forward to it, too … Okay … Bye.”

  After hanging up, Jeremy sat staring at the telephone. Then he turned to Ginger with a look of uncertain wonderment. “They want me on the show,” he said.

  Really. I must confess it: at these words, I shimmered with satisfaction.

  “When?” Ginger said. Actually, she screamed. She was quite excited.

  “A week from tomorrow.” He paused. “Mr. Castle said they’ll be sending a big black car.”

  “A big black car?” Ginger whooped and laughed and paced the bookstore grinning and shaking her head. “You nailed it! You completely nailed it! And now somebody from Never Better’s going on a national quiz show, which is a definite first.” She threw her arms around Jeremy, tapped his nose with her finger, and then stood back. “And you know what else is a first?”

  “What?”

  “That’s the first time I ever hugged a boy wearing only a towel.”

  Jeremy, who seemed to have forgotten his manner of dress, began to blush, which only increased Ginger’s pleasure in the circumstance—she laughed a merry laugh. But then, at this jovial moment, a shadow passed the window.

  It was Jeremy’s father, home from his work at the café.

  “Don’t tell him about the show!” Jeremy said in a tight whisper as he made for the back door.

  “Why not?” Ginger said, but by this time Jeremy was gone and his father had swung open the bookstore’s front door. He looked weary, but upon seeing Ginger, he straightened himself and smiled.

  “Hello there,” he said, and then looked around. “Where’s Jeremy?”

  Ginger, normally unflappable, appeared almost panic-stricken. “He’s taking a shower,” she said, then added, “We had work today and got pretty sweaty.” She seemed to want to stop talking, but could not. “So I took a shower,” she said. “And now he is.”

  Jeremy’s father seemed confused. His gaze, drifting about the store, found the water on the floor near the telephone. “How come it’s all wet?”

  “Oh, that,” Ginger said, glancing at the glistening floor. “That’s not anything. He just had to come out and take a phone call.”

  Mr. Johnson’s face clouded further, and Ginger said, “It was okay, though. He was wearing a towel.” When that only added to Mr. Johnson’s confusion, she blurted, “He’s going on that show! That Uncommon Knowledge show!”

  Well! It was true that Mr. Johnson was completely distracted from his earlier questions and concerns, but solving one problem only presented another, and when he pressed the girl for details about Jeremy’s appearance on Uncommon Knowledge, she had no choice but to give them. She must have been sorry for this, for when she was done, she said, “You have to keep it a secret, though, because he asked me not to tell you.”

  But Mr. Johnson was feeling so proud of his son and so heartened by their brightened prospects, he seemed barely to hear her words.

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure.”

  The following week passed slowly, in a state of uneasy anticipation. Jeremy told no one about his upcoming participation in the show. He and I studied the tales. Ginger often dropped by to encourage him, but she never stayed so long that he (and I) could not continue our preparation.

  One thing should be mentioned. On the third or fourth day of our studying period, I witnessed a bittersweet scene involving young Frank Bailey.

  It was well before dawn, and I was drawn down from my belfry by the headlights of the Green Oven delivery truck pulling up in front of Mrs. Bailey’s tumbledown cottage.

  It was a warm, moonless night, and as Mrs. Bailey, Frank Bailey, and the baker met on the sidewalk, they talked in hushed voices.

  “Hallå, Mrs. Bailey,” the baker said, “is it not a great day to be alive?” and then, stowing the boy’s suitcase in the van, “So, Frankie, are you ready for your grand adventure?”

  The boy nodded. The plan, I learned, was for the baker to drive Frank Bailey to the airport, two hundred miles away. From there, the boy would fly west to San Francisco, where his enrollment in the fine cooking school had already been arranged, thanks to the baker’s largesse. In the boy’s attitude I could see two distinct and opposing elements at work: the immediate sadness in taking leave of his mother, and the larger unfolding excitement of setting out on a course of his own.

  “You’ll write, then,” Mrs. Bailey said, “and remember always who you are?”

  “Yes, mother,” the boy said.

  “And you willna’ forget your mother?”

  He shook his head. He could see she was waiting for a hug, but the boy instead leaned close to give his mother’s forehead a quick but slightly misguided kiss—in his awkwardness, it was more of a glancing bump.
/>   They stood back. It was time to go, and yet Mrs. Bailey seemed so apprehensive that the baker was prompted to speak. “I’d ask you to ride along, but there are only the two seats.” Then he had a thought: “But it would only take me a minute to run back to the house and put the rear seat in, and then we could all three go and there would still be room for supplies.” He seemed to warm to the idea. “We’ll make a day of it, Mrs. Bailey! We’ll see the big city and I’ll show you where I shop for provisions.”

  The baker was nodding now, as if liking the plan more and more, but Mrs. Bailey said, “No, no. A good-bye two hours before dawn or two hours after—it’s all a good-bye.”

  Frank Bailey’s face was illuminated for a moment when he got into the passenger’s seat of the cargo van, then, when the door shut, his face fell into shadow. He waved from the window, and Mrs. Bailey waved, too, and did not stop waving until the beautiful old van turned from view. Even then she did not move. She stood and stood with her head slightly cocked until finally the last strains of the delivery truck’s engine had been swallowed by the night. Only then did she turn and go back inside her little cottage.

  The day before he was to appear on the show, Jeremy sat in the bookstore with the edition of the Household Tales that we had been poring over all week long.

  “Knock, knock,” Ginger called, poking her head in the front door. She entered with a box under her arm. “So,” she said, “ready to nail your big oral exam?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so? C’mon, let’s be thinking positive here!”

  Jeremy made a wan smile. “The truth is, I have a really bad feeling about it.”

  Ginger laughed and shook her head. “The medical term for what you have is Early Onset Little-Old-Ladyism. But it’s all going to work out fabulously.”

  Jeremy stared at her for a second, blinked, and went back to his studying.

  After a while, Ginger said, “Everything I know about the Brothers Grimm I got from Disney movies—Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.”

  “I never saw those,” Jeremy said. “And by the way, Sleeping Beauty isn’t a Grimm Brothers.”

  Ginger ignored this correction. “Really and truly? You never saw the Disney movies? How’d you live to fifteen and manage that?”

  He did not answer, and after a few seconds of silence, she said, “Hey, I’ve got one for you!” She set down her cardboard box and pretended to read from a card. “Question: How many frogs do you have to kiss before you find a prince?” She turned the imaginary card over. “Answer: Way too freaking many.”

  She laughed at her own joke, then held out the cardboard box for display. “Okay, I know you have me pigeonholed as a brainy athletic teenage love goddess, but today I stand before you in my new role as your … very … own … personal … shopper!”

  Jeremy stared at her. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I’ve been out shopping on your behalf.” She opened the box and spread three new shirts across the library table, all in shades of blue.

  “Pick one,” she said, “and I’ll take the other two back.”

  “How’d you pay for them?” Jeremy asked.

  “With my grandfather’s credit card.” She grinned. “This will teach him to go to sleep and leave his wallet hidden in a secret compartment under the false bottom of his sock drawer.” She shook her head in mock chagrin. “I call that just plain careless.”

  “A hard lesson,” Jeremy said, playing along, “but one that has to be taught.”

  He had taken one of the shirts into his hands. They all looked expensive and up-to-the-minute. “Where’d you get them?”

  Ginger named a shop in a town an hour’s drive away. “Conk took me,” she said.

  Jeremy’s grip on the shirt loosened slightly. “Did he help pick them out?”

  “Are you kidding? I didn’t even let him come into the store with me. His fashion sense is worse than yours, and that’s going some.” She looked from the shirts to Jeremy. “C’mon, aren’t you going to try them on?”

  “Can I do it later?”

  She gave her head a slow shake. “You think I’m going to trust you to decide which one looks best? You’re the guy recently seen in toucan blue.”

  “I thought you called it phosphorescent blue,” he said, and she said, “Whatever.”

  Whatever? What, as a reply, can this possibly mean?

  Jeremy slipped on the first shirt, which was a restrained shade of blue.

  “Okay, that’s a ten,” Ginger declared, and eventually this was the shirt they chose, though she insisted he try on the other two, followed by a reprise of the first.

  “Yep, that’s the one,” Ginger said. “That’s the shirt that’s going to turn you into a teenage heartthrob.” She snapped her cinnamon gum and grinned. “What time’s that big black car coming?”

  “Seven a.m.”

  “Okay, then,” Ginger said. “Don’t let it leave the station without me.”

  “Just relax.”

  This was what the peppy female employee of the television company had just told Jeremy. “You have three or four minutes before you go on, so just relax.”

  Jeremy closed his eyes. He took deep breaths. He did not look relaxed.

  I, on the other hand, was less apprehensive than excited. I am embarrassed to admit it, but I was looking very much forward to answering questions about myself.

  To this point, everything had gone as planned. The television company’s long black car was waiting for Jeremy at the bookstore well before seven. With very little crowding, Jeremy, his father, Jenny Applegarth, and Ginger were able to sit comfortably in the facing seats in the back. Jeremy was wearing his new blue shirt, and I must say, he looked quite handsome. When Conk Crinklaw happened by the bookstore in his red truck, Jeremy was clearly surprised.

  “Just wanted to see you off,” he said to Jeremy, and then, even more surprising, he said, “Hope you do good.” Well, the grammar was poor, but the sentiment was kind. He offered his hand and Jeremy shook it. Then Conk had stood back, looked Jeremy over, and said, “At least they didn’t dress you up as a fairy prince or some damned thing.”

  Suddenly, the peppy employee popped her head into the room. “Okay,” she said. “It’s showtime.”

  Jeremy was led to a dimly lighted stage with the curtains drawn closed. In the middle of the stage was a small room made of glass panels, though the front panel had been temporarily lowered. This was “the climate-controlled, soundproof booth.” Inside the booth was a podium composed of clear glass. The woman positioned Jeremy behind the glass podium and instructed him to fold his hands on top of it so “you’ll look calm”—a smile—“even if you aren’t.”

  Jeremy did as he was told, and the woman gave him a nice smile. “You’re going to do great, Jeremy,” she said, “and have I mentioned that that shirt is to die for?”

  An odd, nervous laugh escaped from Jeremy.

  A moment later, overhead lights came bursting down with great intensity, and the curtains were pulled away. We saw nothing but could sense people breathing and murmuring in the darkness until, as if on cue, they fell completely silent.

  “Thirty seconds,” a voice within the booth said. “Stage lights.”

  The lights on the stage clicked abruptly off.

  Jeremy, rigid in the darkness, touched his hand to his temple.

  Everything is satisfactory, I said. We are perfectly fine.

  “We are totally screwed,” he whispered.

  At once, the voice within the booth shushed Jeremy and said, “Mike on, Jeremy! Mike on!” Then the voice said, “Five, four, three, two, one,” and suddenly our booth blazed with light and a different voice, full and mellifluent, said, “Greetings, America! Today on Uncommon Knowledge from the Common Man we present the youngest contestant ever to appear on this stage, a boy just fifteen years of age with uncommon knowledge of the lives and tales of the Brothers Grimm. But first”—and now the whole stage was lighted and the
voice climbed in register—“here is your host, Mis-ter Mi-lo Cast-le!”

  Milo Castle strode into the light as applause burst from the audience, which was also now illuminated. Hundreds of beaming faces smiled up at us from the packed auditorium, and—what was this?—in the foremost row of chairs, Conk Crinklaw and his friends sat whistling and raucously carrying on! This was a pleasant surprise, for, otherwise, there were few representatives of the town. Ginger, Mr. Johnson, and Jenny Applegarth were there, of course, beaming with pride, and a few rows behind them sat Elbow Adkins, Sten Blix, and Mayor Crinklaw. There was one other pleasant surprise. Seated together toward the rear of the audience were Maddy and Marjory, whose presence, once discovered, would bring them certain punishment from their parents, yet here they were, smiling and clapping for Jeremy.

  “Well, Jeremy Johnson Johnson,” Milo Castle said, waving an arm toward the audience, “looks like you have quite a fan base.”

  Jeremy gave a stiff nod of the head. “It’s kind of a surprise,” he said softly.

  “Speak right up, Jeremy,” Milo Castle said. “We’re all friends here.”

  “It was supposed to be a secret,” Jeremy said, a little more forcefully.

  “Tell your father that!” Mayor Crinklaw called from the audience, and clamorous laughter followed. But, if you will, a sad observation: If it was not a secret—and clearly it was not—then it was remarkable how much of the town had chosen to stay away, not that Milo Castle would want to say so.

  He had some rectangular cards in his hands, and after looking at one, he said, “So, Jeremy, I understand you own a business called the Two-Book Bookstore. Does that mean you only sell two books?”

  Jeremy nodded. “Actually, it’s kind of only one book, but it comes in two volumes. It’s my grandfather’s autobiography.”

  “And what other businesses do you have there in that little town of yours? Do you have the Two-Tire Tire Shop and the Two-Flower Flower Stand?”

  These remarks were greeted with mild laughter from the audience, and Jeremy said, “No, sir.”

  “Well, how’s business at the Two-Book Bookstore, Jeremy?”