CHAPTER TWO

 

 

The sun broke through the clouds on Friday afternoon. Johnny and his friend Sarah Channing came out of St. Michael's School at three-thirty under a clearing sky. "Hooray," said Sarah, a tall, red-haired girl who was more at home in jeans and sweatshirts than in dresses. Today, though, she wore a school outfit—a green plaid skirt, white blouse, and scuffed brown shoes. "Looks like we're not going to float away after all."

"I hope it warms up," said Johnny, shivering a little. The wind was cold. "Want to stop at Peter's Sweet Shop? Fergie might show up."

"Okay," said Sarah. They walked to the confectionery store and bought a couple of chocolate malteds. They sat in a booth toward the front, where the afternoon sun warmed them. Now and again the shadow of a cloud suddenly dimmed the light, but it would always brighten again, and by the time they had finished their malteds, the clouds had all gone by. In the daylight, Sarah's short red hair gleamed like bright copper. She slurped the last of her drink through her straw and said, "Haven't seen much of Fergie lately."

Johnny shrugged, stirring the dregs of his malted with a straw. "He's been kind of depressed or something. I don't know what's wrong with him, except the weather."

"I think the rain got everybody down. Did your cellar fill up with water?"

Johnny shook his head. "Yours?"

Sarah laughed. "Man, did it ever! I thought my mom was going to have a kitten. She thought the whole place was going to, like, wash out to sea or something. Dad borrowed an electric pump from someplace and tried to empty it out. Dixon, you would have died laughing."

Johnny grinned. Sarah's dad was a red-haired, tall, thin, bespectacled English professor who was amiable but vague. He could tell you all about Shakespeare's sonnets or Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories, but anything mechanical was beyond him. Johnny had once seen him try to open a door for ten minutes, only to discover that he was using the wrong key. "Didn't succeed, huh?"

With a grin, Sarah said, "Well, see, the pump has this long hose. Dad hooked everything up and put the hose into the kitchen sink. Then he tied a rope to the handle of the pump and lowered it into the cellar. The pump fired right up and began to shoot water out of the hose. Trouble is, Dad hadn't tied the hose down or anything, so it jumped out of the sink and glurped about fifty gallons of water onto the kitchen floor. So there was Dad standing halfway down the cellar steps, and the water he was pumping out was draining right back down through the cellar door and making a little waterfall right behind him, and he didn't notice until his shoes were full."

Johnny smiled. "But did he get it fixed finally?"

"Oh, finally. He says he's going to get some waterproofing gloop from the hardware store and fix the leaks. I'll let you know if he glues himself to the floor or anything."

"It could be worse," said Johnny. "Your dad could have asked Professor Childermass to help."

Sarah chuckled. Professor Roderick R. Childermass taught history at the same college where Sarah's dad taught English. The professor lived across Fillmore Street from Johnny and his grandparents, and he was a crabby, cranky old man whose explosive temper was a legend in Duston Heights. A short man with gold-rimmed eyeglasses, wild white muttonchop whiskers, and a red, pitted nose like a very ripe strawberry, Professor Childermass was no good with tools and repairs, even though he liked to think of himself as quite a handyman. His building projects usually resulted in his wrecking some part of his big old stucco house. After spending a few hours in his fuss closet—a specially soundproofed room where he could rant and rage and let off steam— the professor would call some real repairmen and then make their lives miserable until they had undone his damage. Oddly, even though Professor Childermass had the sociability of an angry porcupine, he was a good friend of Johnny's, and he liked Johnny's friends Sarah and Fergie too. The elderly man and the young friends got along well, even though most people in the small town would give Professor Childermass a very wide berth.

"Hey," Sarah said, straightening up in her chair. "There goes Fergie now."

She and Johnny hurried out of Peter's Sweet Shop. "Fergie!" yelled Johnny. "Wait up!"

A strange thing happened. Fergie jumped as if he had just been scared out of his wits. He looked over his shoulder at them, his face pale, and then he ducked into an alley. Sarah's expression looked just as puzzled as Johnny felt. "What's with him?" she asked.

"C'mon." Johnny and Sarah trotted to the alley, but Fergie was nowhere in sight. "He must've run off somewhere," said Johnny. "I wonder what's the matter with him."

"Who knows?" Sarah said. "Sometimes I think your friend Fergie is just a little weird, Dixon."

Soon after that, Sarah went home. Fergie's strange behavior still bothered Johnny, and he trudged to Fillmore Street sunk deep in thought. He dropped his schoolbooks off at his house, then went across the street to see Professor Childermass.

The professor was just taking some walnut brownies from his oven. He loved to bake gooey chocolate treats, and these smelled delicious. "We'll let them cool," said the professor, "until they are exactly the right temperature, not hot but wonderfully warm, and then we'll wade in and see what damage we can do. Now, John Michael, what do you have on your mind besides your hair? You look woebegone and befuddled."

Johnny pulled up a chair and sat at the professor's kitchen table. "It's Fergie," he said. "He's acting strange. Today he ran away from me for no reason at all."

"That does sound odd," agreed the professor. "Are you sure he was running away from you?"

With a shrug, Johnny explained what had happened. "He looked right at us," he finished. "He had to know it was Sarah and me. But he dived into the alley, and then he must have run away."

"Strange," said Professor Childermass. "But maybe Byron has something worrying him. You know, John, I have spells when I just have to be alone. So do you, for that matter. I suspect that Byron has some reason for behaving so peculiarly. He's your good friend, after all."

"I know. But if he's in trouble or something, I'd like to help him if I could."

The professor got up, cut the brownies, and poured two tall, foamy glasses of milk. "This is going to spoil your dinner," he warned. "So if you tell your grandmother I gave you this heavenly treat, I shall insist that you held me at gunpoint and forced it out of me." He set a saucer with a huge brownie in front of Johnny. Then he lifted his glass solemnly. "To our friend Byron. May his problems be over soon."

Johnny clinked his glass of milk against the professor's, and then he dug in. The brownie was indeed tasty, and Johnny could have eaten another, but Professor Childermass drew the line at one. "Your grandmother might eventually forgive me if you can bring yourself to eat a few bites of dinner," he pronounced. "If I let you gorge yourself so that you can only look at your peas and carrots with the expression of a sick puppy, she'll run me out of town." He took Johnny's saucer and glass and added them to a perilous stack of dirty dishes in the sink. "John, I tell you what. You go home and call Byron and ask him if he wants to see a movie tonight. I'll treat. Maybe if he goes with us, he'll break down and tell us what is going on. Anyway, it can't hurt to try."

Johnny agreed. As soon as he got home, he called Fergie, who answered in a wary voice. "Hi," said Johnny cheerfully. He had decided not to mention what had happened outside Peter's Sweet Shop. "Want to go to the movies tonight?"

"I dunno," Fergie said. "I have a lot of homework an' stuff."

Johnny laughed. "Fergie, it's Friday afternoon! You've got the whole weekend for homework." It was true. And both Fergie and Johnny always put off homework until the last possible minute.

"Well, all right," Fergie said at last.

Johnny picked up the Duston Heights newspaper that his grandfather had left on the dining room table. He leafed to the movie and comic-strip pages. "The show's at seven forty-five," he said. "So Professor Childermass and I will meet you at the theater at seven-thirty, okay?"

"Sure," Fergie said without much enthusiasm.

Johnny said good-bye and hung up. He could hear his grandmother bustling around the kitchen, preparing dinner, and he could smell a wonderful aroma of chicken, gravy, and pastry. Despite the malted he had drunk at Peter's Sweet Shop and the brownie and milk the professor had given him, Johnny's mouth watered. Gramma Dixon's chicken potpie was one of her best dishes, and she was a fabulous cook. He went into the kitchen and helped set the table. Grampa came downstairs from his nap, and they all had dinner together. A little after seven Johnny went over to the professor's house and the two of them strolled downtown.

"There he is," Johnny said in a low voice.

Fergie was leaning against the wall of the theater with his shoulders hunched and his hands in his pockets. He was wearing his motorcycle jacket, jeans, and boots, and looked like a young roughneck. As the professor and Johnny approached, Fergie looked up and gave them a sickly kind of smile.

"So, Byron," said Professor Childermass. "How is every little thing?"

"Fine," Fergie said shortly.

The professor stared at him hard through his gold- rimmed glasses. He waited, but Fergie added nothing else. Johnny bit his lip. Fergie was definitely acting strange. Usually he was a real smart aleck, the kind of kid who didn't hesitate to make a wisecrack to an adult. But the professor made no remark. He bought the tickets, and the three stocked up on popcorn and orange sodas before going into the auditorium.

The picture wasn't a very good one. It was a Western about a singing cowboy who was trying to run a gang of rustlers out of a frontier town, apparently by organizing a chorus of cowpokes to sing at the bad guys until they gave up. The professor snorted and made grumpy exclamations whenever something really dumb happened in the movie, and Johnny laughed in all the wrong places. Fergie just sat slouched in his seat, like a lump.

When the movie ended, Professor Childermass stood, stretched, and said, "Well, that was as fine a waste of three dollars as anything I have seen lately. Come along with us, Byron, and we'll finish off a plate of brownies. Then I'll drive you home."

They walked through the cool darkness. After minutes of silence, suddenly Fergie blurted out, "Professor, I gotta ask you something. Did you ever hear of a guy by the name of Jarmyn Thanatos?"

Professor Childermass stopped abruptly underneath a lamppost. The yellow light made highlights in his white hair and side-whiskers and cast deep shadows that hid his eyes. "Where in the world did you hear that name?" he demanded.

Fergie shrugged. "Aw, I read it in a book or somethin'. It's no big deal—"

"Come along." The professor strode off briskly, and both Johnny and Fergie had to trot to catch up to him. When Fergie tried to ask him about Jarmyn Thanatos again, the professor waved an impatient hand. "Later, Byron! I'll tell you everything I know about that wretched miscreant, but I will do it only in the comfort of my own little home."

When they reached the professor's house, he led them up to his cluttered second-floor study. As usual, blue-bound exam papers and essays all but hid his desktop, and more had fallen to the floor, forming little academic paper dunes. From its round stand near the desk, the professor's stuffed owl stared at them with wide eyes, its miniature Red Sox cap tilted at a jaunty angle. "Sit down," growled Professor Childermass. He settled into the chair behind his desk, and the two boys moved stacks of books from a couple of armchairs and sat facing him. "Now, first things first," said the professor. "Byron, where on earth did you come across the name Jarmyn Thanatos?"

Fergie looked uncomfortable. He twisted his feet back, hooking them around the short front legs of his armchair. "Well, I dunno. Like I started to say, it was just somethin' in a book. It's no big deal or anything."

"It is not a name you should concern yourself with," returned the professor sharply. "The late unlamented Mr. Thanatos is no business of yours."

Fergie's face got red. "Well, gee! Excuse me for breathing, Prof. I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers or anything. What's so bad about old Whosis, anyway?"

Professor Childermass drummed his fingers on the desk, then pushed up his glasses and rubbed his eyes. After he had readjusted his spectacles, he muttered, "I apologize, Byron. I was unreasonable."

Fergie mumbled something that Johnny couldn't quite hear. Johnny asked, "Is it a secret?"

With a sharp bark of a laugh, Professor Childermass said, "No secret, John. Just an embarrassing family skeleton, that's all. Now, let me see. You boys know all about such charlatans as Comte de Saint-Germain and Cagliostro, don't you?"

Johnny and Fergie exchanged a glance, and Fergie shrugged. "Yeah, I've read about 'em. They lived in France back in the eighteenth century and pretended to be wizards who had the secret of eternal life, right?"

"Close enough," answered the professor. "Well, Jarmyn Thanatos was their brother under the skin. He was active in Vermont, New Hampshire, and western Massachusetts late in the last century and made quite a name for himself—as a medicine-show quack, a con artist, and a miserable mountebank, that is. He claimed to have the secrets of the Hand of Glory, the philosopher's stone to turn lead into gold, and the universal elixir that cured every disease and disorder from athlete's foot to yaws. Anyone with half a brain could see the man was a catchpenny swindler—anyone but my dear father, that is."

The professor fell silent. Johnny licked his lips. "Professor, did Thanatos cheat your father or something?"

With a sigh, the old man said, "Give the man a cigar. Right you are, John. And not only my father—around 1885 or 1886, the scoundrel bilked thousands of dollars from a half dozen people in my hometown, all because he assured them that some harebrained scheme of his was a super-duper ironclad investment."

"What kind of scheme, Prof?" asked Fergie.

Frowning, Professor Childermass said, "Well...it was a scheme to discover the secret of eternal life. Old Jarmyn Thanatos convinced those people that if they trusted him, he would find a way to let them live forever!"

With a strangled cry, Fergie jumped up from his chair. He clapped his hands to his ears. The other two stared at him as if he had lost his mind. He had turned so pale that he looked as if he were about to faint. "Fergie?" asked Johnny. "What's the matter?"

Fergie dropped his hands and stammered, "D-didn't you h-hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked the professor in a quiet voice.

"The bell!" Fergie shouted. "That awful bell!" He looked from Johnny to the professor and back, and then he turned and ran out of the study. Johnny heard his friend's feet clattering on the stairs, and a moment later the front door slammed.

Professor Childermass cleared his throat. "Did you hear a bell, John?"

Johnny shook his head. "No."

"Nor did I. Because no bell rang."

"Professor?" said Johnny in a small voice. "What do you suppose happened to Fergie?"

Professor Childermass crossed his arms and scowled. "I don't know, John. Byron has either lost his mind— or else he's enjoying some kind of practical joke. Knowing our friend's warped sense of humor, I'd guess it was the latter."

But Johnny wasn't sure. He wasn't sure at all.