Before they rode away from the hospital, Josée had to pump up her tire again.
“I think you’ve got a slow leak,” Alan said. “You should fix that before tonight. We’ll need our bikes in case we have to make a fast getaway.”
“Vati’s got a repair kit in the garage,” Ziggy said. “We can do it when we get back. So, where are you going, Alan?”
“The gallery,” he said. “I won’t be very long. I’ll meet you guys back at Ziggy’s place in a little while.” They split up at the Main Street bridge, Ziggy and Josée heading up the hill, and Alan heading downtown. The traffic was still pretty heavy, so they didn’t bother to stop and talk, just exchanged waves.
When he’d locked up his bike outside the Kuskawa Creative Collective, he rummaged in his backpack, looking for his soapstone carving. He’d worked on it a bit more the night before, when he couldn’t sleep. It was taking shape nicely, he thought. The little curled-up figure looked quite a lot like what it was supposed to be, although it wasn’t defined very well yet.
There was a lady behind the front counter when he walked in.
“Is Spike here?” he asked her.
“Oh, yes. He’s working in the gallery today. Just through that door there on your right,” she said.
It was cool and quiet in there. The walls of the gallery were lined with paintings, all lit with little spotlights set high in the ceiling. There were glass cases displaying jewellery, and in the middle of the room, a series of pillars of different heights, with sculptures on them. He went directly to the sculptures, looking for soapstone ones.
“Hey, you’re back,” Spike said, coming out from behind a screen. He was dressed differently today, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, which covered the tattoos on his arms. He was even wearing a tie. “How’s the carving coming?”
“Well, it’s nothing like these,” Alan said. He had his own carving in his hand, but was embarrassed to show it, because the ones on the pillars were amazing. There were walruses and seals, and there was one with a little man riding what looked like a whale, carrying a tiny spear in his hand. And the one Alan like the best, a seated figure, bent over, carving. “A carving of a carver,” he said.
“Yeah, that guy’s really good,” Spike said. “He’s local, you know.”
“Really? Aren’t these like Inuit carvings?”
“Well, they’re like that for sure, and the guy may be Inuit, for all I know. Look.” Spike picked up the carving-man statue and turned it upside down. Scratched on the bottom was a date and a tiny symbol that looked like this:
There was also a little sticker attached, with the gallery logo on it. On the sticker was written: “Artist: Ookpik. Price: $50”
“He’s underselling himself,” Spike said. “We’ve sold three like these in the past two days. He’s hot, and he should be charging more.”
“But you’ve never met him?” Alan said.
“No. This is a new arrangement. He has an agent who brings his stuff in for him. The artist is really shy, she says.”
“How new? The arrangement, I mean.”
“About a week, I guess. His agent buys the soapstone for him and comes back the next day with a new carving. It’s amazing.”
“Maybe the ‘agent’ is the carver, herself,” Alan said.
“I never thought of that. I should ask her,” he said. “So let’s see how you’re coming along with yours.”
Alan showed him. “It’s not very good,” he said.
“Actually, it’s not bad at all,” Spike said. “You might want to think about carving that little bit out, to define the arm a bit more.”
“Thanks. Arms are deadly.”
“Is this curled-up guy asleep?”
“I’m not sure yet. So, how do you get it all smooth like these?”
“When you’re totally done, use a little sandpaper, then some mineral oil, and just rub it in. It’s satisfying, that last part. The finishing touch.”
“Thanks for your help. I’ll try that.” Alan put away his carving.
“No problem. And bring it in when it’s finished. I’d like to see it. Maybe you’d like to display it, or sell it, even.”
“This one’s not for sale,” Alan said. “But thanks anyway.”
Ziggy and Josée were sitting on the front porch of Vati’s house, eating cheezies and drinking lemonade. Ziggy’s mouth was orange, and so was the dressing on his forehead, which was coming unstuck again.
“You really should put a clean band-aid on that,” Alan said, climbing up the front steps to join them.
“That’s what I keep telling him,” Josée said. “It looks like a Hallowe’en decoration now—all black and orange. How did the surprise go?”
“What surprise?” Ziggy said.
“Alan was at the art supply store with me yesterday and bought something, but he didn’t say what it was, just that it was a surprise. So what was it?”
Alan reached into his backpack and brought out his case notes, a copy of the local newspaper, and his soapstone carving.
“Hey, cool,” Ziggy said. “Did you make that?”
“It’s not finished yet,” Alan said. “Now, I have a theory about the poltergeist. And if I’m right, we have a serious decision to make.”
“Isn’t the poltergeist Ellen’s friend?” Ziggy said.
“Well, yes. I think so. It can’t be a real ghost, can it? And there’s been food disappearing at the Village, and she said she’s been bringing him food and water, so it makes sense.”
“And we’re supposed to bring him food and water tonight. And the envelope,” Josée said. “And I’m still not sure why we’re doing it. We could get into so much trouble.”
“Yes, the envelope.” Alan brought it out of his pack. It was a plain white one, with “Hal” written on the outside of it. “Does this feel to you like a letter, or something else?” he said, handing it to Josée.
“Well, it would have to be a long letter,” she said. “It’s pretty thick.”
“I think, if we opened it—which I’m not saying we should do—we’d find money in it. Quite a lot of money.”
“Why would Ellen be giving this guy Hal money?” Ziggy said. “To get away from his parents who kicked him out?”
“No, I think this is to help him get back to his parents,” Alan said, opening the newspaper. “I bought this on the way here. Look—here’s that article we saw in the hospital about the escaped prisoners. This guy, Henry Ooslaq—it says the escaped prisoners told the police he would be halfway home right now. And his home is way up in Northern Quebec. Well, what if he’s not halfway home? What if he’s right here?”
“But Ellen said his name was Hal,” Josée said.
“Hal is a short-form of Henry. Remember that Shakespeare movie my mom made us watch? The king one, with all the battles and stuff? That guy was called King Henry, but his friends called him Hal.”
“So, if Ellen’s friend is the person who helped the prisoners escape, how come he wasn’t with those other guys who were arrested in North Bay?” Josée said.
“We could go back and ask her for the real story—say we know who he really is,” Ziggy said. “Or we could call the police, right now.”
“How would Ellen know this man?” Josée wondered. “I mean, how did he get from Wenonah prison to the Pioneer Village?”
“I think we should ask him,” Alan said.
“No way,” Ziggy said. “Look, it says right here in the paper that he could be dangerous. It would be crazy to go up there by ourselves.”
“And what’s all this got to do with your soapstone carving, Alain?”
“Well, all along, I’ve been finding dust, right? I know you guys didn’t think it was important, but it kept bugging me. And I had a dream about it.”
“The dust in the hallway at the inn,” Ziggy said. “Look—it’s here in the case notes. We said ‘debris found—inconclusive’.”
“And the dust at the campsite,” Alan said. “Then when we were carving up at the woodshop with Mr. Scott, we left little piles of it in front of where we were sitting. So when I saw that pile of dust in front of the sofa in the church basement, it suddenly clicked. Someone was carving something. It wasn’t wood, and it made a lot of dust.”
“Soapstone,” Josée said. “And so you bought some yesterday to see if it made dust?”
“And to try it out. It’s fun—hard work, maybe, but fun.”
Ziggy picked up Alan’s carving. “You’re pretty good, too. You could sell this. Is that what you were doing at the gallery?”
“Not really. The man who works there said he’d sold a lot of soapstone lately, and that there were carvings on display there. And some of the carvings were by someone called Ookpik. And there was a symbol scratched on them, instead of signing his name.”
Ziggy flipped to the case note page that had Mrs. Creasor’s thank you note attached. “It was that symbol, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s not an alien or a ghost—it’s an owl. The Inuit word for owl is Ookpik.”
“Maybe that’s his nickname,” Josée said.
“Or his artist name, anyway. I think he’s been doing carvings in hiding, and Ellen’s been like his agent, selling them for him and picking up more soapstone. The envelope is full of money from people buying his carvings.”
“The knife you found!” Josée said. “That’s his, I bet.”
“Which is why someone stole a knife from Mr. Scott,” Ziggy said. “Remember? He must have lost it . . .”
“. . . in the animal pen,” Alan finished. “Which is where we found the gun. Which must have been his. So the question is, do we call the police and turn him in, or do we deliver the envelope like we told Ellen we would?”
“If he was carrying a gun, he must be dangerous, like the police said,” Josée said.
“This is nuts,” Ziggy said. “Why are we even talking about this? We have to call the police. Where’s Constable Mills’s card?” He started flipping through the pages of Alan’s notebook. Alan stopped him.
“Wait,” he said. “I think we should give him a chance to escape.”
“Why? You said yourself that if he helped the prisoners break out of jail, he would be an accomplice, right? Which is wrong,” said Ziggy.
“Well, it’s just this,” Alan said. “Sometimes, people get put in prison even if they didn’t do anything wrong.” He held up the newspaper article. “It says here that Henry Ooslaq is a relative of one of the escaped prisoners—Elijah Kamik. We don’t know why Elijah Kamik was in prison in the first place, but what if this Henry guy knew he was innocent and just wanted . . . just wanted him to come home?” His voice was a little shaky. There was a pause. Ziggy and Josée looked at each other.
“You’re thinking about your dad, aren’t you?” Ziggy said. Alan looked away.
“I just think we should meet him first and ask him what happened. Then we can decide.”
“And what if we meet him and he tries to kill us? Or kidnaps us or something?” Josée said.
“He’s only seventeen,” Alan said. “I bet he’s just trying to get home.”
“He has a knife, though,” Josée said.
“For carving, that’s all.” Alan stood up. “You guys may not want to go, and that’s fine. But I’m going up there tonight. You can come if you want, but I’m going.”
He picked up his case notes, paper and carving, stuffed them into his backpack, and got on his bike. “I’m going home to get some things I need,” he said. “Tell your grandfather I’ll be back for dinner, okay?” He rode away.
Ziggy and Josée sat there for a minute, not speaking.
“Do you think we should call the police?” Ziggy said.
“I wouldn’t dare,” she said. “He’d never speak to either of us ever again.”
“That’s what I was thinking. So should we go with him tonight?”
“I think we’ll have to,” she said. “But if we get caught, or if anything happens to us, I’m never going to speak to him again, so we’re even.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh . . . have another cheezie,” she said.