“IT WAS A minor matter of insurance,” Boz explained that evening.
John grinned. Being under house arrest was proving remarkably entertaining.
The city elders were in a tizzy of indecision. Great-Aunt Beauregard may not have been the most amiable woman in Pludgett, but she had been the rightful owner of the workshop. And as much as the police were unhappy about the horror stories that John and Maria and Colonel Joe told them, they weren’t quite prepared to sanction Boz’s explosive conclusion.
Their solution, like the best work of bureaucrats, was to stuff the problem in a convenient corner while they bickered among themselves.
That left the heroes of the hour—including each and every Wayfarer—smushed tooth by jowl in Miss Doyle’s rented residence. Not that they were complaining. They kept themselves busy warming their hands by the fire and licking the cinnamon-nut frosting off Maria’s sticky buns. Maria herself was in the kitchen, preparing a second batch.
“While I trusted John would fulfill his promise of taking down the portico,” Boz continued, “I did have a modicum of hesitation about whether he would succeed in persuading his great-aunt to see reason.”
He paused to help himself to another sticky bun.
“So when I happened upon the supply of fireworks for the parade,” he mumbled through a mouthful, “I took the liberty of liberating them.” He pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to John. “As ever, my dear boy, I’m indebted to you for the temporary acquisition of your possessions.”
John looked at his jackknife. There was hardly a scratch on it.
“Weren’t you scared?” Page asked, hugging her bear.
“Not at all,” Boz said, airily waving his hand. “I merely followed the admirable instructions: ‘Light Fuse and Retire Promptly.’”
“Into the safe,” John completed.
“What safer place?” Boz smiled, leaned back, and rested his feet on an end table.
“Boz,” Miss Doyle trumpeted.
“Yes?” he answered, removing his heels and shrinking into his chair.
“I would like to say . . .” She paused, appearing to struggle with the words. “Thank. You.”
“Not at all, my estimable comrade. Merely a down payment on favors in arrears. Speaking of arrears,” said Boz, teasing a gold coin from his shoe. “I might add that the safe provided me with an admirable cushion of currency.
“And . . .” He brought forth a white tome from his shirt. “An interesting volume of light reading.”
John scowled at the stack of paper. Would he never be free? Seizing his great-aunt’s contract, he made for the fire.
“Before you contribute to our carbon footprint,” Boz said, gently restraining John’s arm, “you may wish to peruse the contents.”
“I already know what it says,” John countered. “It says I have to work with Great-Aunt Beauregard in the family business for the next twenty years.”
“I am no jurisprudent.” Boz took the contract from John’s hands. “But from what I have gleaned, it says nothing of the sort.”
“Here, let me look at that,” said Miss Doyle.
While she and the Colonel examined the contents, Boz inhaled another sticky bun and quizzed the Wayfarers on the precise details of his rescue. “So you were part of the little engine that could?” he said to Alligator Dan. “I must say I find that intensely flattering.”
Alligator Dan plucked a scale off his elbow and skimmed it over Boz’s head. “I did it for the kid, not you.”
“Next time you should try making that thing really fly,” griped Mister Missus Hank. She was massaging her bruises with a potent mixture of mint and calf’s-foot jelly.
John swiveled around from his place by the fire. “What did you say?”
“I said you should make the dragon fly,” Mister Missus Hank repeated. “I’m getting too old for battering rams.”
From her seat on the sofa, Page glanced at her brother. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh, what?” asked Tiger Lil.
“He’s got his thinking look on.”
“He’ll be needing it,” interrupted Colonel Joe, “if this contract is anything to go by.”
“What do you mean?” asked Page.
“Well”—a mischievous twitch appeared in the corner of Miss Doyle’s smile—“there’s enough hooey in here to choke a chimney, but one thing is dead certain.” She took John’s hand in hers and shook it firmly. “I’d like to be the first to offer my congratulations. You, John Peregrine Coggin, are the legal owner of Coggin Family Coffins.”
“How can that be?” John croaked. “Great-Aunt Beauregard owned it. She said she was making me the heir.”
Colonel Joe consulted the middle section of the contract.
“But the workshop didn’t legally belong to your great-aunt. It belonged to your father. When he died, he deeded it to you. The business was to be held in trust until you reached maturity on your twelfth birthday—that happen recently?”
“Just yesterday.”
Colonel Joe nodded.
“That would explain Beauregard busting a gut to get her hands on your signature. She must have been worried you’d toss her straight out on her tush.”
All that effort by his great-aunt, thought John, a whole year of chasing him around the country, simply for the chance to stay buried in her business. Dreams are funny things.
“A copy will be filed in Pludgett’s registry of deeds,” Miss Doyle said. “We can go there tomorrow with the police to prove your ownership.”
“And then what do I do?” John asked the Colonel.
Colonel Joe smiled. “With the gold from that safe? Anything you darn well please.”
“I’d say he’s p-p-passed his induction. He can stick with the Wayfarers if he doesn’t b-b-bring B-B-Boz,” Alligator Dan interjected.
“Who are you to be issuing invitations?” pipped Mabel from her perch on the windowsill.
“I’ll take care of the girl if John can—” began Tiger Lil.
“He gives Frank hives,” Porcine Pierre interjected. “And I don’t like his taste in company.”
“It’s a lot better than yours,” Mister Missus Hank snapped.
“Well, at least I’m not running a private flea motel, like some I wouldn’t care to mention.”
“Are you calling me dirty?” The patches of skin behind Mister Missus Hank’s beard were turning crimson.
“He calls it as he sees it!” Minny sniped.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Miss Doyle’s umbrella beat a rhythm section on any number of skulls. “Put a cork in it! I want to hear what the boy says.”
The Wayfarers sank back into their seats.
That’s me, thought John. They’re waiting for me to speak.
But he didn’t know what to say. Where should he start? A workshop of his own in Pludgett? A life on the open road with the Wayfarers? A new beginning with the help of the redoubtable Miss Doyle?
He had the money. He had the brains. He had the freedom. He felt like he was back behind the wheel of the mayor’s baby. The world was once again a limitless horizon. A whim might take him anywhere.
“Johnny? What should we do?”
Page’s trusting face—the same face as their mother—looked up at him from under her halo of golden hair. In the kitchen, he could hear Maria kicking at the oven door. She was humming the tune of “Ladybugs’ Picnic.”
And just like that, John knew exactly what he wanted to do.
“We’re going to live with Maria,” he told his sister. “We’re going to find a town with an old yellow house by the sky-blue sea and we’re going to build a new bakery—a real family business.” He paused. “And then I’m going to make the dragon fly.”
Page grasped his hand eagerly. “Will there be rainbows again?”
“I’m sure of it,” John replied.
“We’ll miss you,” Gentle Giant Georgie said wistfully.
“Stop b-b-blubbering, G-G-Georgie,” groused Alligator Dan. “We can stop b-b-by their new home at the end of each summer.”
“Will your famous oven be in residence?” There was a chuckle lurking in Miss Doyle’s query.
John smiled. “Yes,” he said. “And if I can come up with the right pellet mixture, a poo-powered automobile to take everyone around town.”
“Suits me fine,” Colonel Joe stated. “More than happy to lend a hand with the prototype when I stop by.”
“Will you come and see us?” John asked Miss Doyle.
“I might,” Miss Doyle said. “As long as you promise to visit me on one of my digs.”
“Do you think we can do that, Page?”
“Only if we can ride in a train with real toilets.”
John laughed and hugged her close.
“What did I miss?” Maria asked, brushing her floury hands on her apron as she came through the door.
“We’re going to build you a new bakery,” Page said, running over to grab her around the legs.
“With a chicken poo oven that works!” John shouted, joining his sister.
“With the hearts and hands of the Wayfarers,” Colonel Joe added gallantly.
“In a town by the edge of the sky-blue sea,” Miss Doyle finished.
Maria laughed loudly, but her eyes grew suspiciously red as she knelt down and drew John and Page close to her heart.
“I think I’d like that. But haven’t you forgotten someone in your grand plans? What does he think?”
John turned to Boz’s chair.
But Boz, it seemed, was no longer there.