The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun

by Paul Gallico

  Marge was plain in the sense that she was no startlingly great beauty, but she had a sweetness of expression, trusting eyes, gentleness and a downfall of fine, soft chestnut hair. She was sixteen. Bill, a year older, was loosely put together, tall, with the big hands and speed that won him his position of wide end on the San Diego High football team. The coach of the team was an old square left over from his day in the bygone thirties who preached that sex was weakening and therefore you kept yourself and your energies for the game. Elsewhere Bill was assailed by sex, sex, sex and a certain shame that at his age he had not yet participated. Also, since he and Marge both came from fairly well-to-do middle-class homes, opportunity had been a problem. The adventure upon which they were embarked was filled with excitement tempered by apprehension.

  Back on his bench Julian watched the woman with the brood of seven counting her luggage and her children for the fifth time. The baggage checked but the kids were one short, for she stopped at the sixth finger, looked wildly about and yelled, “Johnny, where are you?” She spotted him with his nose pressed to the window of the candy shop. “Johnny, you come back here at once.”

  Johnny, a grubby boy of eleven, slouched sulkily back to the fold. Julian wondered what it would be like to have that many brothers and sisters. He had none.

  A foreign-looking man, olive skinned, dark, with thick black hair passed by carrying an intriguing and extraordinarily shaped instrument case. Julian could only wonder what was inside it.

  Next his attention was attracted to the man sitting diagonally opposite him beside a fat and perspiring woman. A black flat briefcase obviously belonging to the man was between them and at this point Julian became witness to an international plot going awry. He had naturally no knowledge that the coming incident constituted a fiasco and, of course, no participation in it. The latter was only to come later.

  The name of the man with the briefcase was John Sisson, a full colonel in the United States Army Ordnance temporarily attached to Military Intelligence in liaison with the CIA. He was clad in civilian clothes of lightweight seersucker which could not conceal his soldierly bearing. Tall, his short-cut hair greying, he had the stamp of authority and command. The lines about his eyes and firm mouth did not detract from what appeared to be a pleasant personality. One could not look at him without knowing that he was “somebody”.

  The drama got underway with the loudspeaker bawling, “Attention please. Calling Colonel Sisson. Colonel John Sisson, please. Will Colonel Sisson please come to the Dispatcher’s Office. Repeat. Will Colonel Sisson please come to the Dispatchers Office.”

  The colonel waited until the repeat before he arose and hurried off in the direction where the terminal offices seemed to be. In his rush he forgot his briefcase, which remained on the bench where he had been sitting.

  And now the action speeded up. A man whose false passport proclaimed him as being one Philip Barber, born in Waukegan, Illinois, and whose other equally false papers identified him as a plywood salesman, arose from behind a newspaper from whence he had been watching the colonel. His real name was Nikolas Allon and he was a Russian spy connected with the KGB, a sleeper planted twelve years before in the United States for just this one moment. He was small, unobtrusive, nondescript with the toothbrush moustache of the travelling salesman, the type no one would look at twice, one of the faceless who pass by. He was moving not too quickly, not too slowly in a line towards the vacated bench, when the fat woman noticed the briefcase next to her and looked up at the back of the retreating colonel. She arose, picked it up and hurried after him calling “Mister, hey Mister, you forgot something.” She was already ten feet away in pursuit of the colonel when Nikolas Allon arrived where the colonel had sat. To have picked up the abandoned article saying, “Sorry, I left my briefcase here,” to have walked off with it would have been one thing. To have initiated an incident now by snatching it from the fat woman and running was unthinkable in terms of the entire operation. Nikolas Allon just kept on going.

  Julian watched the fat woman catch up with the colonel and thought, “Haw! Grownups! Oh, boy, if I forgot my school satchel like that.”

  The colonel, checked momentarily by the fat woman’s cries, hesitated, and was lost. Puffing and panting she caught him by the sleeve. “Mister, Mister, you forgot your briefcase.”

  The colonel since he came from Louisiana, turned and accepted it with Southern grace. “Why, thank you, ma’am. That’s mighty thoughtful of you.”

  The fat woman toddled off. The colonel, clutching his briefcase, turned away. Nobody saw the black look of baffled rage come over his face or heard him grate to himself, “Goddamn effing busybody bitch!”

  The episode over, Julian now reached into his pocket and pulled out a page torn from a popular science magazine, smoothed it out and examined briefly an article headlined ANYONE CAN PATENT AN INVENTION. Suddenly he became aware of a bustle and looking up at the ticket window saw that the ticket seller had arrived behind it and was arranging his gear preparatory to opening. There was a general surge in the direction of the window. Julian put away his article, got up and made for it.

  C H A P T E R

  2

  Julian had to detour, for the special policeman was on one of his rounds and heading in the direction of the news-stand on the other side of the terminal and, now that actual departure was becoming imminent, Julian was even more undesirous of attracting attention. When he reached the ticket window there was already a line, several of them people he had noted before.

  The two high school kids were at its head and then the colonel with his briefcase and the man with the toothbrush moustache, the dark foreigner with the strange instrument case and two unidentified passengers. Julian got behind them and back of him the queue lengthened, including Frank Marshall, Clyde Gresham and a dozen or so others.

  The ticket seller queried Marge and Bill, “Where to?”

  Bill gave Marge a look of sudden panic, of which she was unaware. The phony wedding ring had given her confidence, but Bill, now faced with ultimate decision, had lost his cool. He was momentarily unable to reply.

  The ticket seller said sarcastically, “Any time. We got all morning.”

  Bill looked at Marge for help but only found an expression of trust as she said, “You say.”

  Bill gulped and made his decision. “Two. El Paso. Round trip.” The ticket seller repeated the order, stamped and handed out the tickets. Bill paid.

  Colonel Sisson appeared next at the window. He said, “Washington, one way, please.”

  The ticket seller droned, “Washington, one way.”

  As the colonel put down his briefcase on the floor for a second to reach for his wallet, Allon, directly behind him, twitched, momentarily so close to giving way to his impulse, that he broke into a cold sweat. He could have bent down, whipped up the case and been away in seconds, yet in time he realized that a hue and cry was not part of his assignment. At the ticket window he had recovered sufficiently, once the colonel had departed, to say, “Washington, please. One way.”

  And then there occurred an incident which basically did not either surprise or discomfort Julian since he was used to grownups overwhelming or pushing kids about and accepted this as a fact of life. The cowpuncher in the filthy dungarees and stained jacket who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and thrust himself in front of Julian did not worry him except that the man smelled bad and Julian was used to clean things. But what happened immediately afterwards was strange and exciting.

  Frank Marshall, three passengers back, saw the action of Sam Wilks and it irritated him. He stepped out of line, strolled forward, picked up Julian by the elbows and set him down in front of Wilks.

  Confused and bewildered by what was happening, Julian looked up to see a young, tall, handsome man, with the strangest, brightest blue eyes ever, confronting the filthy, ugly-visaged cowboy. A veteran of television conditioning, Julian knew that here it was, in real life, a confrontation between a baddie and a goodie. What w
ould happen?

  The goodie had the sweetest smile upon his face, behind which Julian was unable to read the slight hint of derision and challenge, but there was no mistaking the anger and truculence on the face of the baddie, though Julian had no inkling of the man’s rising gorge or how dangerously near he was to a fatal explosion. But the bulk of the special policeman now suddenly appeared within corner-of-eye-sight and the fury went out of the baddie’s face, his lips mouthed something unheard and he became utterly impassive and accepted what had happened.

  The goodie said, “There you are, sonny. You’re next,” winked at Julian and went back to his own place in line.

  The ticket seller, without looking up, intoned automatically, “Where to?”

  Julian asked, “How much is it to W-W-Washington?”

  Julian’s stammer was another tribute to the overwhelming eminence and importance of his father, who, as sales manager of the Dale Aircraft Company, president of the Rotary, and co-owner of the San Diego Bullets, the pro football team, was always holding meetings, being interviewed and having his picture in the papers.

  The ticket seller replied, “One way, hundred and five, fifteen, and round trip, one ninety-nine, sixty. What’ll it be?”

  Julian said, “One way, please,” and handed over six brand new twenty-dollar bills.

  The ticket seller snapped the bills into his cash drawer, stamped the ticket and with the change, shoved it on to the counter and then, for the first time looking up, was startled to see no one there. Or, at least so it seemed for an instant until he observed the top of Julian’s head and half of his bespectacled eyes just showing over the counter. Ordinarily this would not have worried him since there was nothing in the table of organization of his company that forbade selling a ticket to anyone who could pay for it. But taken thus by surprise, he inquired, “Say, sonny, you all by yourself?”

  Julian felt a cold surge of panic. Was this then so soon to be the end to the grand design? Adults lived by rules and regulations and laws and things that were mostly forbidden and one of them might be for a nine and a half, almost ten-year-old boy to travel unaccompanied.

  The cowboy, the ill-smelling baddie, was standing, shifting and shuffling impatiently behind him. Julian looked about and saw the special policeman, but he was occupied talking to one of the pretty girls in the information booth and then he caught sight of the mother with the family.

  Julian shook his head in negation and replied, “No, s-s-sir. Thank you.” He took his ticket and change and beneath the eyes of the ticket seller wandered quietly over and joined the group of children.

  The curiosity of the ticket seller was satisfied, besides which Sam Wilks was at the window saying impatiently, “El Paso, one way and shake it up, will you.”

  The ticket seller reacted to Wilks, “You’ve got all the time in the world, bud. Relax. El Paso, one way. Thirty-nine, fifteen.”

  Julian wanted to talk to one of the boys and find out where they were going, but thought he had better not attract attention, at which point the mother went into her count again and when, having included Julian, she had reached the eighth finger, her countenance reflected such horror and incipient panic that Julian thought he had better go. He sauntered away, his last glimpse being of the woman at the finish of her recount and the look of relief on her face as she was able to stop at seven.

  Marge and Bill were waiting beneath the electronic bulletin board for the bus to be called when Marge queried, “Why did you say El Paso, Bill?”

  Bill replied, “I dunno. When he asked me I just couldn’t think. I had to say something. But we can get off any place that looks nice. It’ll be okay.” Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he asked, “What did you tell your mother?”

  “I said I was staying with Dottie. You?”

  Bill said, “I told ’em I was going fishing with Chuck and that we’d probably camp out.”

  All the old fears and doubts came back to Marge and she said, “What we’re doing isn’t right, is it?”

  It was what Bill needed to bolster up his own failing courage—opposition. The female eternally changing. He said, “Gosh, Marge, I thought we talked all that out, didn’t we? It’s all different today. Nobody really cares what you do. We both want to, don’t we? We both know each other. It isn’t like we just met or anything.”

  Marge again was relieved to find what seemed like strength to her and whispered, “If you say so, Bill.”

  The electric sign on the bulletin board blinked their departure time and the loudspeaker, from on high, confirmed, “Bus three nine six for Tucson, El Paso, Dallas, Memphis, Nashville, Knoxville and Washington, DC, immediate boarding Gate Nine.”

  Bill looked down upon the girl and felt stirred. He whispered, “All right, Marge?”

  “All right, Bill.”

  The portals of Gate Nine now acted like the aperture of a vacuum cleaner sucking in passengers from various parts of the waiting-room, twenty-nine assorted men, women, children, including the dramatis personae whose lives Julian was to alter.

  The special policeman wandered over and stood casually by the gate. Sam Wilks was the first one through, one hand tucked inside his leather jacket. The next few seconds would tell one way or the other. But the Special now merely glanced at him, reflecting the disfavour he had registered earlier. He was obviously a cowpoke out of a job and on the bum. Wilks passed through the gate and removed his hand from inside his coat. Then his description had not yet been broadcast. But it might be at any moment. They would probably be looking for him at the border at Tijuana, but once on the bus he could still pull it off.

  Allon had pushed to where he was right behind the colonel and the colonel knew it. Now it would be difficult for Sisson to accomplish his mission. This sort of business was not his scene and he wondered and worried how he was to go about it.

  Marge and Bill played the honeymoon couple to perfection. Bill had his arm about her waist and Marge glanced shyly down at the wedding ring.

  Frank Marshall went through with a jaunty swing of his shoulders. So long, California, hello, Washington. Here comes Marshall.

  Milo Balzare carried his instrument case hugged to his chest as though it were a baby.

  Julian hung back. The special policeman and the gateman frightened him. What would happen when he produced his ticket? And always at the back of his head had been the worry that sometimes as she did in the night, his mother might have gone into his room to see whether he was all right, found him missing and given the alarm. His fears were unrealized. The big fat cop smiled pleasantly at him, the gateman punched his ticket and as he had done already two dozen times, repeated, “Watch your step. All aboard, please.”

  The bus was clean and shiny and smelled of new car, plastic, metal and polish. Where one entered at the front door was a kind of a well with eight seats, four on each side behind the driver and looking out through the front windshield. From them there would be a wonderful view of rolling up the carpet of the road ahead, but because Julian had not pushed to the fore, these seats were already taken. Then there were three steps up into the main body of the bus where the seats, two on each side, were divided by a central aisle and, of course, all the up front ones, too, were occupied. The baddie was in one of them in the very front row and Julian wrinkled his nose as he caught the odour. A few seats behind he recognized the man who had forgotten his briefcase. Julian had to keep on down the aisle to look for an empty seat. He came upon the young man, the goodie who had performed the strange action of protecting Julian’s place in line. He was sitting on the aisle and Julian wished he might be next to him but the window seat already had a passenger. The goodie was absorbed in his paperback and didn’t even notice him. But, across from him there was an empty seat next to a man sitting by the window. The man was well dressed and looked clean.

  Julian asked politely, “Can I sit here?”

  Clyde Gresham turned to examine Julian. He said, “What? Why sure, sonny, make yourself at home. Here, how would
you like to sit by the window so that you can look out?” He got up and stepped into the aisle so that Julian could squeeze past him. “Let me take your bag.” He stowed it away as Julian settled into the window seat and Gresham occupied the other. His voice was filled with paternal oiliness as he asked, “There, how’s that?”

  Julian replied, “G-g-great. Thanks.”

  Gresham gave Julian a benevolent smile. “Not at all, not at all.” He was unaware that the young man across the way had momentarily lowered the book in which he was engaged and was looking at him and that look was not exactly pleasant. Gresham was smiling down at Julian with the warm fondness of one who seemed to like children.

  Looking towards the front of the bus, Julian saw a man in the uniform of a bus dispatcher appear to make a last-minute check of the passengers. The driver was already at his wheel. Julian suddenly thought, was he being looked for? Alarmed, he slouched down in his seat but the dispatcher’s practised eye had taken in the number of seats occupied, which tallied with the ticket count, and was satisfied. It was all over in a second and the only one who had noticed was Frank Marshall who had dropped his book again to steal another look at Clyde Gresham and had observed Julian’s action, and he wondered. And after he had thought that there was nothing all that extraordinary in these times about a kid that age travelling by himself, he also thought that nobody ever got hurt minding his own business, and, returning to his book, let Miss Christie set her hook into him more firmly.

  The dispatcher gave the driver the thumbs-up sign and left the bus, and the latter, working his lever, slid the hydraulic doors shut. He then picked up one of two microphones, the one communicating with the headquarters of the company, the other being for talking to his passengers, and speaking into it, said, “Three nine six, three nine six leaving San Diego on time. On time out of San Diego. 3.10 a.m.”

  In the huge dispatcher’s office of the bus company centred in Oklahoma City where a constant check was kept on all buses on the road, an operator heard the radio message in his earphones and spoke into his own chest microphone as he noted the time and the number on a pad, “Okay, three nine six. Take it away, Mike. Gimme a call from Yuma.”