by Henry Clark
I left Fiona watching the sheik and went outside to check on the balloons. Alf had instructed us to give them a blast of hot air every half hour. The State Fair Omaha was upright and straining at its tethers. The Dear John was listing slightly to one side. I climbed up into the basket and fired the burner the way Alf had shown me. After a couple of minutes, the toilet righted itself.
I looked around for circling helicopters and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw a pair of eyes staring hungrily at me from a nearby tree. I blasted the burner again and the flame revealed an owl, who hooted angrily and darted away. I scurried back to the ballroom.
With only five minutes remaining until the start of the auction, we had yet to find Disin. What if he hadn’t come? Or what if he was outside, waiting to pounce on whoever won the crayon? Or worse, what if he was there in the room, but he had figured out the DNA trays, and he was somehow using somebody else’s spit?
“He can’t be using somebody else’s spit!” said Fiona, nearly spitting herself.
“It happens in movies all the time,” I argued. “The bad guy needs certain fingerprints to unlock a door, so he cuts off somebody’s hand to get them.”
“What kind of movies do you watch?” muttered Fiona.
“How do you cut off somebody’s saliva?” asked Freak.
“By showing them something unappetizing,” said Alf, coming up behind us. “I assure you, he’s not using anybody else’s spit. If he’s here, the DNA trays will find him. Now, get back to work! I’m about to start the auction—you have to find him soon! We’re running out of time!”
While I had been checking the balloons, the guy from the toy museum had stepped out on the lawn and smoked a cigarette. Freak had retrieved the butt and placed it on his DNA tray. Negative.
Fiona had seen the dieting woman from the Tate put her auction program between her teeth as she used both hands to rummage through her purse. Fiona sneakily managed to snatch the saliva-laced program, replacing it with another so we could test the first. Again, negative.
The sheik was still working on his lollipop.
I saw the sheik’s driver take a small bottle of spring water from his coat pocket. The bottle was only partially full. He tilted it back and finished it, then screwed the cap on and slipped the bottle back in his coat.
River Man made it his mission to steal the bottle.
“If you could all find a seat,” said Alf, leaning forward on his auctioneer’s lectern, “we’re ready to begin.”
The sheik’s driver remained standing as everybody else settled in. I used Cicely Shillingham to block the driver’s view of me as she made her way to her seat, and I wound up standing just a few feet behind him. Cicely—Alecto—sat in the back row like a tiger ready to spring.
I was really glad to see her there. Alecto had been GORLAB’s biggest competitor during the online auction, and if Fiona and Freak and I were going to get whatever the crayon sold for, it was important to us that Edward Disin didn’t win it too cheaply.
I had thought that once Disin was arrested and there was no longer any threat of him taking over the world, it might be nice if my friends and I had a little spending cash. It might be nice to go a little crazy in Max Schimmelhorn’s junk shop, where there was a ten-speed bike that I liked; and a really cool chess set carved, Max assured me, from the wood of a Boojum tree; and a piano that could replace the one my aunt Bernie had sold when our roof had to be fixed. But then the business between Freak and his father at the woodpile had happened, and I realized bikes and games and even pianos weren’t all that important. I decided I wanted to give my portion of the money to Freak. He thought paying off some of his father’s bills might somehow make his father a better person. If there were any chance of that, I would happily let him have my third. Or most of it, anyway. I planned to talk to Fiona about doing the same.
“I would like to welcome you this evening,” declared Alf, “to an auction dedicated to all of us cerophiles. And by cerophiles, of course, I mean crayon lovers. And by crayon lovers, of course, I mean loonies.”
Everybody laughed heartily, as if Alf had made a joke, although I wasn’t so sure he had. I got up on River Man’s tiptoes and snuck closer to the sheik’s driver. The driver glanced my way and I bent down and pretended to tie my shoe. Alf finished his introduction and started the bidding.
“Auction lot number one,” announced Alf. “An important box of Victory Garden crayons, containing fifteen of the original sixteen colors. There are two rutabaga crayons and, while there is no zucchini, the box does have a leek.” Alf held up the box. Two crayons fell out of the bottom, which he deftly caught. “Do I hear one hundred?”
A crayon collector from Topeka scratched the side of his nose.
“Thank you, sir!” said Alf. “Do I hear two?”
Each bidder had his or her own way of making a bid. After a series of head nods, hand gestures, and harrumphs, plus a burp that turned out to be a real burp and not a bid, the Victory Garden box went to the Rochester Toy Museum for $700.
I took two baby steps and put River Man close enough to the driver to pick his pocket.
Alf had accumulated a number of items of interest to crayon collectors. When the bidding on a red crayon once used by the Surgeon General to draw blood reached $500, the sheik took the lollipop out of his mouth and raised it in the air. I was pleased to see the candy was almost gone.
“Six hundred from the sheik,” said Alf. “Any advance on six? Any? Going once—”
The crowd was hushed. The sheik’s driver leaned forward. I put my thumb and forefinger on the cap of the water bottle.
“Going twice—”
I eased the bottle out of the driver’s pocket. River Man, in my head, clenched his fists and said, YES!
“Sold to Sheik Geisel al-Rashid for six hundred dollars!” said Alf, and banged his auction gavel. I scooted away from the driver and made my way over to my friends. Fiona held out her DNA tray and I placed the mouth of the bottle on the tray’s surface.
The tray did not light up. The driver was not Edward Disin.
My palms started to sweat.
“We’ve tested fifty-three of the fifty-four auction guests,” said Freak, sounding as worried as I felt. “The only one we haven’t been able to test is the sheik. By process of elimination, he has to be Disin.”
“What if he’s not?” asked Fiona. “We have to be absolutely sure. The Feds won’t arrest him if there’s any doubt.”
“You’d think Alf would know his own father,” I said.
“I’m not so sure about that,” said Freak. “There are days when I hardly know mine.”
“Knowing and positively identifying are two different things,” said Fiona.
“We have to get hold of that lollipop stick!” I declared.
“He’s finished the candy,” observed Freak, “but he’s still sucking on the stick.”
“Yeah,” agreed Fiona. “My little brother does that.”
We watched the sheik. He showed no signs of throwing away his lollipop stick.
“A coloring book attributed to Johannes Gutenberg just before he invented moveable type,” said Alf, holding up a leather-bound book with some of the pages falling out. Dust billowed from the book’s cover and Alf sneezed violently enough that his nose flew off and ricocheted off the forehead of the lady from the Museum of Modern Art.
“Pardon!” said Alf, slapping a handkerchief to his face and looking panic-stricken.
I froze, wondering if this would make Alf look like a fraud and bring the auction to a crashing halt. All of our work would be down the drain. How many people had actually seen it happen?
Freak fielded the rubber nose, snatching it up from the floor at the museum lady’s feet.
“Is this performance art?” inquired the lady.
“It’s latex, I think,” muttered Freak, racing back to Alf with the nose. Alf turned his back briefly and restored it to his face. It became obvious no one other than the museum lady had real
ly noticed. I began breathing again.
The Uffizi Gallery got the Gutenberg for a quarter of a million dollars. Jackson Pollock’s coloring book went to a private collector for an equal amount.
With each lot, the excitement in the room grew. Everybody knew we were getting closer to the night’s highlight. There was a louder and louder buzz among the bidders. Fiona, Freak, and I felt more and more panicky.
I glanced over at the two federal agents. They were looking at each other like they might be getting ready to leave.
Then, after forty-five minutes and eighteen auctions, only one auction item remained.
Alf had saved the zucchini crayon for last.
CHAPTER
22
The Lord of the Crayons
Lot nineteen. An important zucchini crayon,” said Alf, sounding a little nasal. “Who will start the bidding at one thousand dollars?”
“Why is everything he sells ‘important’?” I wondered. “He keeps using that word.”
“Maybe ‘important’ is auction-talk for ‘stupid,’ ” said Freak. “Everything he’s called important so far has looked pretty stupid to me.”
“You guys”—Fiona sighed—“are so important.”
I was right. She was beginning to like us.
“Five? Do I hear five? FiveFiveFiveFiveFive—six! Any advance on six? Make your mark with a zucchini crayon!” Alf threw the comment at Avram Belize, who promptly bid six.
“Be the envy of all the other kids on your block, with your very own zucchini crayon!” brought a bid of seven from the guy from Topeka. “Hold it with your toes; stuff it up your nose—eat it with some cheese; kiss it if you please—if you’re the high bidder!”
Alf, I could see, was getting cranked up. He was sounding more and more like the fast-talking auctioneers you sometimes saw on TV. What was worse, he was talking in hip-hop rhythm. “Scribble on your legs; fry it with some eggs—make you feel complete; wouldn’t that be neat?”
“He’s a crayon rapper,” said Freak.
I realized Alf was taunting his father. His last rhyme had been a jab at his father’s CCD, and it sounded like he was just getting started.
“Use it in the dark; feed it to a shark—you will be fulfilled, when you pay the bill!”
Topeka stood up. He weighed about four hundred pounds. It was possible he was Edward Disin wearing a fat suit. We had about ninety discarded toothpicks, though, that said he wasn’t.
“Eight!” said Alf. “EightEightEightEightEight!” It sounded like he was describing what Topeka had done to most of the hors d’oeuvres.
Avram Belize jumped up and glared at Topeka from across the room.
“Nine!” said Alf. “Any advance on nine?”
Belize and Topeka faced each other like gunslingers in a showdown. Topeka loosened his tie. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Twenty. Thousand. Dollars,” said Cicely Shillingham slowly and deliberately from the back of the room.
Everybody turned and stared at her. She cocked one eyebrow and sat with her arms folded across her chest like she was ready to take on anybody there.
Belize scowled and threw himself back in his seat. “Out!” he growled. Topeka sighed and lowered himself back onto his chair. The chair creaked a little.
“I have a bid for twenty thousand dollars,” said Alf. “Increments of two thousand, please. Do I hear twenty-two?”
Sheik Geisel al-Rashid quietly raised his lollipop stick.
“All right!” said Freak, nudging me with his elbow. “Here we go!”
“Come on, Alecto!” I cheered under my breath, making Cicely Shillingham the home team.
“I have twenty-two for an important zucchini crayon. Make your bid just right—take it home tonight! Do I have twenty-four?”
I held my breath. By the terms of our agreement with Alf, Fiona and Freak and I would share equally in whatever amount the crayon finally sold for. Twenty-four thousand dollars split three ways was eight grand each. I knew of one debt Freak’s father had that eight grand would make a decent dent in. I wondered how generous I could bring myself to be with my share.
Then I remembered how Freak’s father had treated him when we were trying to catch the cat. If it would help make Freak’s life any better, I decided I could be pretty generous.
Cicely Shillingham pretended her hand was a pistol and shot it toward the ceiling.
“Twenty-four,” said Alf.
The sheik raised his lollipop stick.
“Twenty-six.”
Cicely fired another shot at the ceiling. She brought her index finger to her mouth and blew imaginary smoke away from her fingertip. We hadn’t been introduced, but I decided I liked her.
“Write a little poem, when you get it home—BUT you can’t begin it, until you win it! Do I hear twenty-eight?”
“Sure,” said Cicely, folding her arms back across her chest like playtime was over for the year. “Why not?”
Alf looked at the sheik. The sheik looked at Alf. “No rhyme?” asked the sheik.
“Stick it in your ear; make it disappear,” purred Alf.
The sheik once again raised his lollipop stick. By this time, the end of it was pretty well chewed.
“Thirty!” said Alf. “Any advance on thirty?” He looked at Cicely. The silence in the room was so deep, you could have heard a lollipop stick drop. Unfortunately, none did. I thought I saw Alf shake his head ever so slightly. Cicely stared at him and did nothing.
“Thirty thousand dollars for lot nineteen,” said Alf. “An important zucchini crayon. Going once, going twice—sold to Sheik Geisel al-Rashid for thirty thousand dollars!”
Alf banged his auction gavel. Everybody applauded.
Freak and Fiona and I let out a loud whoop! then linked arms and danced around in a circle, stopping only when we realized we had linked arms and were dancing around in a circle.
“Thank you all for attending,” said Alf, banging his gavel again. “Those wishing to settle their accounts may do so with me at the far table. Eight bidders were responsible for procuring all nineteen lots; this should not take long.”
Alf headed for a folding card table set up in front of the French doors. As the auction guests started to get up from their seats, Sheik Geisel stood, plucked the lollipop stick from his mouth, and dropped it to the floor.
“Got it!” I said, and raced in with my tray.
I almost got it. A group of four people shuffled along the aisle where the sheik had been sitting and, after they had passed, the stick was gone.
The sheik motioned to his driver, and the driver walked briskly to the accounting table. He was not quite quick enough. The representative from the House of Wax, a crayon museum in Los Angeles, got there first. She proceeded to write a check for her auction lot.
I kept my eye on the four people. Fortunately, three of them stopped at the end of the aisle and got involved in a conversation. I ran over to them and shouted, “Congratulations!”
That was my entire plan. Shouting “Congratulations!” I had no idea what came next.
They stopped talking and looked at me.
“Hello,” I said, a big smile frozen on my face. I looked desperately around the room. Freak gave me a “What the?” shrug. Fiona was oblivious, gazing down at her feet. Alf was looking desperately around the room, searching for a sign from us.
“One of you,” I said, looking at the three expectant faces, “may have… won the door prize! Could you check the bottom of your feet?”
“Check the bottom of our… feet?” said a redheaded lady.
“We’re looking for a piece of paper with the word winner on it.”
“Aren’t those things usually on the bottom of our seat?”
“Oh!” I said. “Seat! We thought he said feet. Could you check anyway?”
At the accounting table the sheik had produced three fat envelopes from within his burnoose. Alf opened the first envelope and slowly started counting one-hundred-dollar bills, all the while cast
ing nervous glances around the room. The two federal agents positioned themselves on either side of him.
The redheaded lady obligingly sat and stuck her legs out. I looked at the bottom of her shoes. “No, I’m sorry,” I said.
“Is that it?” asked one of her friends, bending her left leg back and craning her neck over her shoulder to see.
“No,” I said. “That’s toilet paper.”
None of the three had the lollipop stick. I looked around for the fourth person who had been in the sheik’s aisle. Avram Belize. He was standing at the end of the payment line. As I raced over to him, Alf was counting out the second envelope.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said breathlessly, “but you’ve just won a free shoeshine!” I snapped my waiter’s towel smartly and bent down. Belize stood solidly on both feet and refused to move.
“I’m wearing paint-spattered overalls,” he growled. “Do you think I ever get my shoes shined?”
I stood up. “You’ve won a shoeshine OR the equivalent value in cash!”
“Really? How much?”
“I’ll have to do an estimate.”
I dived down again. This time, Belize picked up his feet for me. Stuck in the tread of his right boot was the stick. I grabbed it, stood, and raced over to where Alf could see me.
I held up my DNA tray, placed the lollipop stick against it, and pushed the button.
Nothing happened.
The tray did not glow. The DNA on the stick did not match that of Edward Disin. Alf looked stricken.
He finished counting out the contents of the final envelope. He smiled weakly and handed the box containing the zucchini crayon to the sheik. The sheik bowed formally to Alf and turned to leave. The male Treasury agent—Mr. North—whispered in Alf’s ear. Alf shook his head and North frowned. The sheik headed for the door and nobody tried to stop him.
“I don’t believe this,” said Freak, coming up next to me. “How could Disin not be here?”
Fiona hopped over to us on one foot. She was holding one of her shoes in her hand.
“What’s with you?” I asked.
