The Crown of the Bandit King

by Matti Lena Harris

  There was a third knock. It ricocheted up and down the hallway, an echo searching for an ear.

  “Who is it?” Sweet Pea called out, her voice shaky.

  Deeter gave her a nudge, but it didn’t really matter. There was no answer anyway. The door had no peephole, and the front hallway had no windows, so it was impossible to see the knocker’s identity. But whoever it was seemed pretty determined.

  “We should open it,” I said.

  “What!” Deeter said. “No way.”

  “But not unarmed.” I glanced at Sweet Pea, the Swan Feather still in her hand. “One of us opens the door, while the other two stand close by out of sight, ready to strike if need be.”

  Deeter grumbled something, then shifted his gaze around the hallway. Off to the side of the door stood an antique umbrella holder. There weren’t any umbrellas in it, though. Instead, it held all kinds of Collectibles—a ruler, a kitchen ladle, a peacock feather, a candlestick. Strange stuff like that. Deeter riffled through the jumble until he selected a blue-handled golf club.

  “Always gets a hole in one, does it?” he said, swinging the club in the air a few times. “We’ll see about that.”

  Which left the door opening to me. I took up my place in front of the door while Deeter stood to the left of the door and Sweet Pea stood to the right.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Sweet Pea clutched her feather, and Deeter raised the golf club over his shoulder like a baseball bat. They both nodded. With a deep breath, I reached out my hand for the doorknob. Sweet Pea’s eyebrows furrowed like she was concentrating really hard while Deeter gritted his teeth.

  I opened the door.

  Okay. Not what I expected.

  A young guy dressed in a navy blue uniform stood waiting at the doorstep. On his head, he wore a blue cap, and his blond curly hair stuck out under it in every direction like his curls were trying to escape. He was blowing an enormous pink bubble of chewing gum, which popped the moment I opened the door.

  “Well, it’s about time,” he said. “Package delivery.”

  He showed me the package he was carrying in his right hand. Sweet Pea slowly peeked around the doorway, but the deliveryman didn’t seem to think it odd or even pay any attention. He was too busy checking the clipboard in his left hand.

  “You’re the Messenger, aren’t you?” she said. And something about the way she said it made me realize this deliveryman wasn’t just a deliveryman.

  He was an Artisan.

  “Score one for you little miss,” he said. “I’ve got this here package for….” The Messenger checked his clipboard again. “Young Scholar? Any of you answer to that?”

  “Um, it’s not my name exactly,” I said, “but I think that means me.”

  Everyone stared.

  “What?” I shrugged. “Like none of you have ever gotten a package before?”

  The Messenger’s eyes studied my face for a moment—strange, hazel eyes that were just a little too bright to be human.

  “Yeah, you’re him,” he finally said. “Whew! Boy, am I glad I found you. When I saw the address on the delivery receipt, I ’bout had a heart attack. I haven’t made a delivery to the Packrat House for a couple hundred years at least. And this place is not easy to find, I can tell you. Even for me.”

  “How did you find it?” I asked. “I thought no one could.”

  “I can’t tell you exactly how. Trade secret.” The Messenger winked. “Just let’s say I can go anywhere, even to the Packrat House, as long as there’s a package or a message that needs delivering. Course, some places are harder to get to than others. And some places….”

  His expression darkened briefly, but then he blew another pink bubble. It popped with a loud snap, and he grinned again.

  “Ah, well. There aren’t very many deliveries to those places.” He extended his clipboard. “Okay, then. Sign here.”

  I signed next to the X on his clipboard, and he handed me the package.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  The Messenger tipped his cap at me—and vanished.

  Deeter, lowering his golf club, stood beside me as Sweet Pea shut the front door and then joined him. They both stared at the package.

  “What’s in it?” Deeter asked.

  It was smaller than a shoebox and wrapped in brown paper. On the front were the following words scribbled with black ink in a thin, quick scrawl: To Young Scholar, C/O the Ragman, at the Packrat House. Nowhere and Everywhere.

  “The Packrat House?” I looked at Sweet Pea.

  “That’s the real name of this house,” she said. “Or at least that’s what the Artisans call it.”

  I tore open a corner of the brown paper, and Sweet Pea placed her hand on my arm.

  “Be careful,” she said. “If it’s magic, it might be dangerous.”

  I nodded, then ripped off the rest of the brown paper and opened the white box’s lid. My fingers started tingling.

  “Well?” Deeter asked.

  “It’s a doorknob,” I said. “A gold doorknob.”

  “A what?”

  Deeter peered into the box at the doorknob like he was looking for the door that went with it. When I touched the doorknob, it felt cold and heavy.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Deeter said.

  “Wait, there’s something else.” I reached into the box and removed a small white envelope. “There’s a letter. From the Professor.”

  Chapter 10

  The Black Umbrella

  “A message from the Professor?” Sweet Pea said. “That’s strange. What does he want?”

  I tore open the envelope and studied the letter. The handwriting clearly belonged to the Professor. It looked exactly the same as when the Professor had written all those words on the library map.

  Hello, Young Scholar. I heard you’ve had a bit of trouble with your research. As it happens, I’ve run into some problems with my own inquiries since the library fire. What do you say we combine our efforts? Here’s the Gold Doorknob. Come join me in my private study. Perhaps we can make better headway as two scholars working together. Regards, the Professor.

  Sweet Pea asked to see the Gold Doorknob, so I handed it to her. She examined it closely, turning it upside down and right side up again several times.

  “It’s definitely one of the Professor’s Collectibles.” She pointed at two tiny engravings on the underside of the doorknob—the encircled hand symbol, and the symbol of a scholar’s cap. “Here’s the Professor’s Artisan mark. This doorknob must somehow lead to the Professor’s private study like he mentions in his letter.”

  “Do either of you know how to use it?” I asked.

  Both Deeter and Sweet Pea shook their heads. I read the letter again, but I didn’t see any directions that would help.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Sweet Pea said. “I mean, you said one of the Professor’s students set fire to the library to get The Book of All Words, right? So, what if the Professor is in on the plot? This could be a trap. Maybe he wants the book.”

  “Or maybe he wants the reward,” Deeter added.

  They both had a good point. And it made a lot of sense, what Sweet Pea said. Sure, the Professor hadn’t seemed like a villain when I’d met him. But what if that was an act? Maybe he and the rogue Collector were working together. Maybe he’d sent his student to steal The Book of All Words at the library, and when his student failed, maybe he decided to get the book himself by luring me to his study.

  There were too many maybes.

  “Forget the Professor,” I said. “We’ll stick to our plan. We’ll find the Magic Eight Ball.”

  Deeter and Sweet Pea nodded. Still, I shoved the Professor’s letter and the Gold Doorknob into my backpack. Just in case. Then Deeter opened the front door.

  “After you, Rookie,” he said, motioning with a sweep of his hand.

  The barren field I’d seen before was gone. Instead, the door led to a busy street corner in the middle of a city. Cars honked at cabs, w
hile cyclists peddled past pedestrians who hurried to cross the street before the traffic light changed.

  “Where is this?” I asked.

  Deeter sniffed the air. “Smells like Florida.”

  No way to tell if he was kidding or not.

  I stepped out, followed by Deeter and then Sweet Pea, who shut the door behind her. The three of us arrived in an alleyway near the street corner, mostly out of sight so no one noticed us. A few feet away, a crow picked through some garbage, but he only flapped his wings at us and went back to his meal. Nothing unusual here. Still, this place made my stomach lurch, like the uncertain feeling that comes from a wrong turn.

  My glance landed on a building across the street—Pancake Bob’s Gourmet Pancake House.

  Sweet Pea frowned at Deeter.

  “Sorry.” Deeter shrugged. “Just at the last second, I thought of pancakes. I couldn’t help it. That’s what you get for interrupting a man’s breakfast.”

  She shoved a granola bar at him.

  Even with a pancake house detour, we weren’t far away from the Magic Eight Ball. I could feel it, like a pull deep inside me, drawing me straight ahead. Maybe I was finally getting the hang of this Finder’s instinct thing.

  “I think it’s this way,” I said.

  Sweet Pea and Deeter both stared at me.

  “I don’t feel anything,” Deeter said.

  “Good,” Sweet Pea said. “Then this time we won’t end up at some silly restaurant.”

  We started walking down the sidewalk. Deeter shuffled along, eating his granola bars and dragging his feet. Sweet Pea whistled some song until her shoulders started to sag. Finally, when Deeter had devoured ten peanut butter granola bars and the sun was in the middle of the sky, we ended up in front of a huge, rusty iron gate surrounded by old, gnarled trees. At the top of the gate, there was a sign with the words, “Hiddleburg Memorial Park.”

  This was the place, no question—so why did I feel like we’d taken another wrong turn?

  “It should be here,” I said. “I think….”

  But the Magic Eight Ball definitely wasn’t here now. How could it be here, and then not be here?

  “Ah, man. He’s messed up again,” Deeter said, leaning against the gate.

  “Quiet, Deeter. This happens to everyone.” Sweet Pea looked at me. “Don’t feel bad. This would have happened to Deeter too if he had taken the lead, and he knows it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Everyone who’s ever tried to find the Magic Eight Ball always senses it someplace, but when they get there, the Magic Eight Ball is gone.”

  A fool’s hunt. So that was what Deeter had meant. Maybe my plan to find the eight ball wasn’t such a good one after all. At this rate, we could be searching for years.

  “May as well go back to the Ragman’s house and get a real breakfast,” Deeter said.

  “But it’s late in the afternoon,” Sweet Pea said.

  “So? There’s no bad time for breakfast.”

  “Wait,” I said. “There might be some clues inside the park that could help us figure out what went wrong. The gate’s open. We should go in and take a look. Sweet Pea?”

  She nodded. “Why not? We’ve come this far.”

  But we didn’t get much farther. Not two steps past the open gate, the three of us halted, then looked around. We must’ve all been thinking the same thing.

  “Hey Sweet Pea,” I asked. “What day is this?”

  “Sunday.”

  Parks were made for Sundays. Or maybe Sundays were made for parks. Either way, there should have been children playing on the swings. There should have been pet owners walking their dogs. There should have been picnics and kites and Frisbee tournaments.

  In other words, there should have been people.

  “Let’s split up,” Sweet Pea said. “We’ll cover more ground faster.”

  And then get out of this creepy place. Something about this park was not right. No one said it, but it was pretty obvious.

  “Meet at the slide in ten,” she added.

  We each went in different directions. Me, I took the path that skirted the edge of the park, down a small grassy hill to a jungle gym. Its dull metal bars made it look almost like an empty cage.

  I walked faster.

  No birds. No squirrels. No living grass. The only sounds were my breath and the crunch of the dry leaves beneath my feet, loud in the park’s peculiar silence. Near the end of the path was a rickety wooden message board with a bunch of notices stapled to it. Flyers for yard sales and lost pets. Stuff like that.

  Finally, something worth looking at.

  Pinned to the center of the message board was an advertisement for a carnival. The hot pink flyer really stood out with shiny blue writing in big block letters that said, Come join us for the Hiddleburg Memorial Carnival! Friday and Saturday only. Rides, food and entertainment!

  We must have just missed it. They’d probably packed up and left early this morning. Hard to believe a carnival had ever been here. Hard to believe anyone had ever been here. This place was more like a cemetery than a park.

  “You seem lost, young man,” an old woman’s voice said somewhere behind me. “Perhaps I can help?”

  I turned. There, sitting on a nearby bench, was a short, plump woman wearing a long, black dress. On her head, she wore a broad-brimmed black hat that had a thick black veil draped over the rim, completely hiding her face.

  “Well, I’m looking for a…um…well….”

  I mean, really, how could I possibly complete that sentence? Tell her I’m looking for a strange magical eight ball that has mysterious powers? Or any clue to its whereabouts?

  “I guess I’m just looking,” I answered.

  “How delightful. Not many people come to the park of my dearly departed husband these days! And now that he’s dead…there is no creature loves me, and if I die no soul will pity me. I am so alone. Won’t you sit with me for a while?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “There are a couple kids expecting me to meet them soon.”

  “Ah, but I’m being selfish. Of course, you want to go play with your friends. You’re too young to know what life is like without them!”

  She gave a breathy sigh that made her black veil flutter.

  Sweet Pea and Deeter probably wouldn’t mind if I arrived a few minutes late. I walked over to the bench and sat down on the very farthest edge of the seat.

  “I knew it! I knew you were a good boy,” Mrs. Hiddleburg said.

  “Well, they’re not exactly my friends, I guess,” I said. “I mean, I only just met them.”

  “All the more reason for you to sit with me, then. Perhaps you and I can be friends. It will be so wonderful to have someone to talk with besides Stanislavski.”

  “Who?”

  She pointed at a fat black pigeon scratching and pecking the dirt near her feet.

  “Isn’t he a darling? I come here every day to feed him.”

  Then to prove her point, she reached into a brown paper bag beside her on the bench, drew out a handful of food, and tossed it to Stanislavski a single piece at a time. Right next to the bag was a paperback book. The book was upside down, though, so it took me a minute to figure out the title.

  Richard the Third.

  “I love Shakespeare,” Mrs. Hiddleburg said, watching me. “Especially Richard the Third. Such an excellent play! Do you like to read, dear boy?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “A youngster who likes to read! How wonderful! What sorts of books do you enjoy, young man?”

  “Um, I don’t know.”

  And honestly, that was the truth since I couldn’t remember any books I liked without my memories. Stanislavski gazed at me with his shiny black eyes while Mrs. Hiddleburg leaned closer.

  “Do you have any books with you now, young man?”

  Stanislavski flapped his wings, and with a quick shudder of movement, he perched on my arm. Then he made a gurgling, croaking sound in the back
of his throat. Sort of like a pigeon-coo. If the pigeon had laryngitis.

  Mrs. Hiddleburg glanced at my backpack. “We could start a reading club! Perhaps you have some books in your little bag there?”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer. The question seemed innocent enough. Still, I wished I’d let Sweet Pea keep The Book of All Words in her backpack instead of mine.

  “The stuff in my backpack is private,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, of course. I forgot how much young boys like to keep their secrets!”

  Stanislavski made a stumbling hop, heaving himself up my arm inch by inch, flapping and clinging, until he finally reached my shoulder. I felt a tug at my backpack, but as I turned to look, Stanislavski pecked my cheek.

  “Ow! Hey!” I cried.

  Another tug at my bag, harder. At the same time, Stanislavski pecked my cheek again.

  “Ow!”

  I jumped to my feet. Stanislavski landed in the dirt, a crumpled mess of black feathers. Once he was upright, he glared at me as much as a pigeon can. Something trickled down my cheek, so I lifted my hand to feel what it was.

  Blood.

  And my backpack? It was open.

  I felt the inside of my backpack, then let out a breath. The Book of All Words was still there. The zipper hadn’t been unzipped enough for the book to fall out. Mrs. Hiddleburg sat patting her hands and humming a tune like she had no idea about any of it. Was she trying to search my backpack? Why would she do that?

  Had she seen The Book of All Words?

  “Good Stanislavski!” she said.

  She tossed him another handful of treats—squishy, red chunks that the pigeon gobbled up the moment they landed. No ordinary breadcrumbs would look like that. Then I realized exactly what Mrs. Hiddleburg had in the bag.

  She was feeding the pigeon ground beef.

  “I gotta go,” I said. “I don’t want to be late.”

  “Of course,” Mrs. Hiddleburg said. “Mustn’t keep your friends waiting. I see how it has to be.”

  She chuckled like she’d cracked a joke, but I didn’t see anything funny. I left as quickly as I could, and when I finally glanced back to see if she was following me, the bench where she’d been sitting was empty.