“Who are you calling a doofus, you little pink poodle!”
I rapped her, again. It was a day for insulting neighbors.
“Come on,” Robbie ordered.
Robbie and I rushed after Hank.
* * * *
We got Hank calmed down, then sidled up to the edge of a crowd watching Chief Royden and Mossy Creek Mayor Zeke Abercrombie—Miss Ida began her stretch as mayor in the next election—pry a back panel off the strangest contraption I’d ever seen in my life, even compared to Rose the elephant.
If you’ve ever seen one of those old carnival fortune-telling booths, you know what the fortune-teller looked like. She was supposed to make you think of a gypsy woman sitting inside a booth. The booth was made of painted metal. It had a curlicued top panel on the front and was decorated with a lot of gold flourishes and elaborate words in old-timey script.
YOUR FUTURE, TOLD HERE, one side of the booth said in words as tall as my hand. On the other side, the words read, ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH TO ASK THE GYPSY FOR YOUR FORTUNE? But most dramatic of all, across the curlicued top panel on the very front was written in big, scrolling letters like something on an old movie poster:
BEWARE THE TRUTH TOLD BY THE TEN CENT GYPSY.
“There’s the card mechanism,” Mayor Abercrombie said. He pushed a switch.
The whole booth whirred and clicked, and suddenly the gypsy’s left hand began to rise. I got goose bumps all over me. The gypsy’s stiff arm went up and up until the hand’s forefinger pointed right at us. A card popped out of her palm.
Chief Royden plucked it from the mannequin’s hand and read it. “Yep,” he said, because nothing rattled him. “Here’s another one that says Samson’s a goner.”
People gasped.
Mayor Abercrombie pulled a wad of cards from the booth’s innards. He and the chief and several citizens sorted through them. “All fake cards like the first one,” the mayor reported. “Somebody rigged this machine to stir up trouble.”
“Chief Royden, do you think Samson’s in danger of being stolen and, uh, turned into lamb chops?” a woman asked.
The crowd looked worried. Over behind the chief, I saw his son, Amos, who was about seventeen then and a second-stringer on the Mossy Creek Rams. Amos and some of the other football players looked as though they were ready to head down to Bigelow and start a fight.
Chief Royden knew that, I’m sure. “Everybody calm down. I’ll just lock Samson in a jail cell until game time.”
People just stared at him. We were all struck speechless. I know Robbie and Hank and me stood there with our tongues glued to our gullets in amazement.
The chief was goin’ to lock up a sheep.
That was a first, even for Mossy Creek, where people love to be strange.
* * * *
About fifty Creekites traipsed behind Chief Royden, Mayor Abercrombie, and Principal Doolittle as they walked into the parking lot behind the high school. On one end of the building was a loading ramp where the cafeteria staff carried supplies into the school. Nearby, the shop class had built a nice pen of wide boards and hog wire.
Samson, the fattest boy sheep in all of north Georgia, gazed out nervously from a bed of wood shavings inside his home-away-from-home. Two of the Pep Club girls were trying to fluff his coat with a blow dryer. Samson crawfished and let out a loud Baaaah. The girls shrieked.
Chief Royden reached over into the pen, took the blow dryer away from them, and shut it off. Biting back a smile, he looked over at a beady-eyed, big-eared, pinched-nose young man in a sweater, bow tie, and khaki pants. The man had been sitting morosely in a lawn chair until he saw Principal Doolittle. Now he smiled and marched right up to the chief, the mayor, and Principal Doolittle.
He was Dwight Truman. Uggh. Mama hated him. “Wants to change everything,” she said. “A stupid young rooster like him can ruin a good town. He’s all crow and no scratch. Unfortunately, he’s all we’ve got.”
“I’ve got everything under control here, Sir,” Dwight said to Principal Doolittle. “Samson is as happy as can be.”
“Thank you, Dwight, but I’m a little worried.”
“I’d be worried too, Sir, if I weren’t in charge. But I am, and Samson’s safe.”
Dwight Truman was running for state senate from our district, and everyone intended to vote for him. The other candidate was Ham Bigelow.
“He’s worse than Dwight,” Mama always said. “He’s a Bigelowan.”
“Dwight,” Chief Royden said with just enough spin on the name to show he thought Dwight was a piss ant, “Stand back. I’m takin’ the sheep into custody for his own safety.”
“No,” Dwight said loudly. “Principal Doolittle, I give you my word that this fine sheep will be safe in my care. I am a citizen of this community who means what he says and will do whatever it takes to promote Mossy Creek’s best interests. As our candidate for state senate—”
“Spare me the campaign speech, Dwight,” Principal Doolittle said, I really think the chief ought to put Samson under protective custody—”
“Sir, do you and Mayor Abercrombie want word to get out that Creekites can’t take care of their own trouble? That we’re a bunch of nervous Nellies? That we have to lock up our sheep?”
The principal turned a little red. “No, Dwight, but—”
“The future of our town and our children’s trust rests with me, Sir. And I promise you, I’m a match for the future.” Dwight pressed a hand to his heart. “As our candidate for state senate, I won’t let the future down.”
Principal Doolittle glanced at Mayor Abercrombie, who shrugged, and Chief Royden, who looked from Samson to Dwight as if trying to decide which was the bigger dumb wooly animal.
“All right, Dwight,” the principal said finally, with a sigh. “But keep my Samson safe from harm.”
“No one will touch so much as a curly hair on his curly head, Sir.”
Late that afternoon, Dwight and about half the Pep Club got ahold of some bad barbecue. Nobody else at the carnival got sick from that barbecue, so it looked like an inside job. Anyway, they made a major run on the portable toilets, with the upshot being that Dwight and the Pep Club left Samson alone for maybe five minutes, tops. When they came back, the pen’s gate stood open, and Samson was gone.
There wasn’t so much as a baaah of evidence, either.
Principal Doolittle went into an uproar, and we knew Dwight’s career as a suck-up teacher and future state senator was over, too.
Samson had been kidnapped.
The Bigelowans had gotten our goat.
* * * *
This was war. Creekites spent the rest of the day searching for Samson.
Robbie, Hank, and I did our part, scouring every nook and cranny until we straggled to a halt outside Mama’s salon doors around sunset. We sat down on the sidewalk, too tired to do much more than breathe. I had to get home and put on warmer clothes and pretend to eat some dinner with Mama, Grandma, and Daddy before we headed out to the game. Hank’s mama had cleared the way for Hank to eat with us. And of course Robbie was invited. But he looked angry and said he couldn’t eat a thing.
“I hate the whole world,” he announced.
“What are you talkin’ about, Robbie Walker?”
“It’s crazy and mean and makes no sense. Bad things happen for no good reason. And there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”
“We helped look for Samson. What else can we do?”
“My dad always said you’ve got to have the courage to fight back even when you know the odds are against you.”
“We don’t know who to fight.”
“Bigelowans, that’s who.”
“All of them?” We were outnumbered.
“Their attitude. Their whole way of doing things.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll start with the ones who rigged the Ten-Cent Gypsy and stole Samson. They’ve got to be guys from Bigelow High. I think the Fang and Claw Society really does still exist. I bet they
did this.”
I shivered. My granddaddy had been knocked in the head by some Fang and Claw boys back when he was a kid in the 1930s.
“I’m not afraid of the Fang and Claw jerks,” I lied.
“Whether it’s them or not, somebody has to do something to stand up for Mossy Creek.”
I clamped my mouth shut and stared at Robbie. So did Hank, making little mewling noises under his breath. We got nervous when Robbie’s ideas wandered down peculiar roads. He had so much misery in him that he just had to let it lead him somewhere he’d never been, before.
“The Bigelow Wildcats don’t have a wildcat mascot we could kidnap,” I pointed out. “Not even a kitty cat who looks wild. So what are we—”
“We’ll tie the elephant to Mrs. Goodwin’s car.”
I gasped. Mrs. Bamalynn Goodwin, principal of Bigelow High School, was a very large, blonde lady who drove a vintage white Cadillac. “We’ll be found out and killed! I hear she’s mean when anybody messes with her car!”
“We won’t get caught. We’ll tie the elephant to her car tonight and make it pull the Cadillac out of the parking lot. We’ll lead Rose and the Cadillac into downtown Mossy Creek and leave her and the car right in the middle of square. The Bigelowans kidnapped our sheep. So we’ll kidnap their principal’s car.”
Hank clutched my hand. We both looked up at Robbie in excited horror. I could have talked Robbie out of the plan. But the little devil who sat on my shoulder whispered that I’d do anything for the pride of Mossy Creek, and anything Robbie Walker asked me to do.
“Let’s get the elephant,” I said.
* * * *
The night sky was sprinkled with bright, cold stars, and the stadium at Mossy Creek High glowed with lights. Cheers went up from the Creekites or the Bigelowans every few minutes. The Mossy Creek Rams Marching Band whomped their big bass drum like a tom-tom. The football game was still in the first quarter, tied at six-six.
Mossy Creek High had fielded the best team since 1972, when Buck Looney was a star tackle who went on to play for the Green Bay Packers. For once, the Rams had a good shot at a district title, maybe even the state playoffs. Beating the Bigelow Wildcats at our own homecoming game would take us a long way toward that goal.
Robbie, Hank and I crept into the carnival area and crouched behind some laurels. We toted a heavy canvas bag stuffed with some old wigs, a dozen feet of garden twine, and a large plastic duck from Hank’s Easter basket the spring before. Principal Goodwin wore wigs and collected duck figurines. We’d decided to dress up the elephant with cheap wigs and a necklace made of twine, dangling a plastic duck.
“We’ll make her look like Miz Goodwin,” I said fiendishly, using some convoluted line of reasoning that said Mrs. Goodwin collected duck figurines so we’d make fun of that, too. I figured when the Bigelowans found Rose tied to the principal’s car in the Mossy Creek town square it would be a double insult to see how she’d been decorated.
The carnival had shut down for the night and looked like a creepy set from a horror movie. The only light came from the campers and little house trailers of the carnie workers. We snuck through the shadows down an alley of booths and concessions, then crouched on Robbie’s signal. He peered around a corner, checking out our next move. My teeth chattered with nerves.
Hank made a low sound of worry, poked me on the shoulder, then pointed. I looked up. We were hunkered down across from the Ten Cent Gypsy. A streak of light from a camper window touched her face, lighting it up in weird angles.
Lor’, I swear, that painted plastic hoochie was staring down at us like she knew what we intended. My innards turned to pudding, but I refused to act scared. I opened my paper sack, took out a squirt bottle of perm solution I’d brought in case I needed a weapon and wobbled to a stand. I edged toward the Ten-Cent Gypsy, holding the perm bottle in front of me with the business end pointed at her head. “You’re just a hollow dimestore doll,” I said aloud. “You don’t even have legs. You’re just a machine with phony Bigelowan cards up your butt. One squirt and I’ll frizz that fake hair of yours forever-and-ever-Amen.” I advanced, lifting the bottle.
The beam of a flashlight skittered over our heads. One of Chief Royden’s officers was on patrol. Hank yipped. Robbie grabbed Hank and me, pulling us down to a squat with him. “What are you doing?”
“She’s putting the evil eye on us! I’m gonna perm her to a fare-thee-well!”
“Sssh!”
He waved for us to follow him, and we crept through the carnival until we reached Rose. The elephant dozed peacefully. We glimpsed her owner through his camper window as he staggered around inside. He had a beer can in one hand.
“He’s drunk as a skunk and not paying any attention to Rose at all,” Robbie confirmed. “Let’s go.”
We tiptoed up to the elephant. She opened her big, beady, elephant eyes and looked down at us without much reaction, but when Hank stroked her trunk she curled it around his head and made a happy, snuffling sound.
“Hank, you keep petting her,” Robbie whispered. “Rainey, climb up. I’ll hand you the wigs.”
I gulped and latched a hand in Rose’s harness. Robbie gave me a foot up, but he hoisted me a little too hard. I sailed a good ways and flopped across Rose’s shoulders, grabbing for a handhold. Rose shifted a little and switched her tail.
“Pet her some more,” Robbie told Hank.
Hank did, and Rose got quiet again. I righted myself and caught my breath. “Lordawmighty, Robbie. Throw me into outer space, next time.”
“Sorry, Pink.” That was his nickname for me, and whenever he used it, I melted like fresh butter.
“No harm done. I got ahold of the harness. I’m okay.”
Robbie pulled the wigs out of the bag. They were cast-offs from a trade show Mama had attended, and she’d given them to me long ago. I’d permed and colored those wigs a hundred times. They looked appropriately ratty. Robbie, Hank, and I had bound them together with twine so they formed a patchwork wig big enough to fit an elephant.
“Here goes,” Robbie said. He tossed the armful of hair to me. Rose stood quietly while I arranged it on her knobby head.
Robbie tied lengths of twine under her neck. “Done,” he announced.
Rose peered at us from beneath bangs of long spit curls.
“Now for the plastic duck,” Robbie said.
Hank quacked when we maneuvered his Easter toy into place. We hung it on Rose from a twine necklace, so the duck bobbled just below her chin. It was good-sized duck, and on its plastic side we had scribbled a message with a fat, black poster pen: BRING SAMSON BACK OR ELSE.
We didn’t have any suggestions for what else might be, but it made a good, vague threat. After all, it was attached to an elephant, and the elephant would be attached to Bigelow Principal Bamalynn Goodwin’s Cadillac.
“Ready?” Robbie asked.
“Yep.” Hank nodded as he scratched Rose’s trunk.
Robbie helped me down. He pulled a pair of bolt cutters from the canvas bag, and we squatted by the long chain that anchored Rose’s left front foot to her owner’s camper.
Robbie clamped the cutters on a link in the chain, and began to squeeze. About that time, we heard the stadium announcer call out over his loud speakers, “Welcome to the Mossy Creek Rams’ Homecoming!”
We froze. The marching band began playing the Rams’ fight song, and people cheered. Halftime had arrived. We’d been so busy and so scared we hadn’t realized.
Robbie pulled the bolt cutters away from the chain and sat back. “Too many people’ll be moving around the parking lot during halftime. We have to wait until third quarter starts.”
I forced a shrug. “Okay. So we’ll just stay right here and keep hidden. I’m not worried.”
“How’s your pet pack-a-perm doing, Hankster?”
Hank smiled and chirped. Rose had wrapped her trunk all the way around his shoulders. It looked like she was hugging him, and he liked it.
“Okay, then,” Robbie
said. “We’ll wait.”
We sat there a few minutes listening to the muffled blare of the band. We heard the announcer call out, “And here’s the 1981 Homecoming Court, Ladies and Gentlemen! And the 1981 Mossy Creek Homecoming Queen is—”
His microphone died exactly then, and so did the stadium lights. Blam. Just like that. Pitch darkness. Then we heard the crowd yelling. Even screaming. Something terrible had happened, but we had no idea what.
“Head for the bushes,” Robbie ordered. We stumbled through the dark and dived under some laurel along the high school’s front wall.
A big fireball galloped into the carnival parking lot, headed straight our way at a dead run. Smoke and sparkles shrouded the thing, until suddenly, when it was no more than a half-dozen yards from us, it let out a sound.
“BAAAAAH!”
“Samson!” I yelled.
Sure enough, it was our lost sheep. The kidnappers had stuck sparklers all over his wooly pelt, then set every one of them afire. Sparks shot from Samson in all directions. Including ours.
Robbie gasped. “Oh, no, he’s headed for Rose!”
Rose the elephant might have been tamer than a wad of old gum under most circumstances, but with a hysterical sheep coming at her like a wooly shooting star, she panicked. She jerked her tethered leg, and we heard a metallic screech as her chain snapped. Samson ran under her, then began crawfishing and baaahing and droppin’ sparklers all over her straw bed. Little fires began to spring up in the straw.
Rose bolted under the awning at the school entrance, made a right turn, lurched up the stone steps, and butted the school’s big, fancy double doors with her head. The doors gave way, and Rose disappeared inside. Samson, still sparkling, raced blindly after her. I guess he thought he was going into a nice, safe barn.
But it was Mossy Creek High School.
Hank crawled out from under the laurel and ran into the school. Rob and I charged after him.
We halted inside the dark front hall and pressing ourselves to the wall. Rose and Samson charged up and down. Samson dropped sparklers as he ran, igniting a teepee of cornstalks from an autumn display. Rose trailed flaming paper streamers from a Pep Club banner. The plastic duck swung wildly from her neck.
Reunion at Mossy Creek Page 30
