THERE MAY BE more beautiful things than a spring afternoon by the side of the Chimchi River, but they are few and far between. The birches were breezing, the waters were gossiping, and an unseen bird was singing the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
If John hadn’t been pursuing his misguided sister up the switchbacks of a trail, the vista would have been splendid.
Then, unexpectedly, disaster struck. Attempting to vault over a root, Miss Doyle fumbled her landing. Her foot twisted sideways, and her body cartwheeled over the edge of the path. Both she and her torqued umbrella came to rest in a puddle of mud.
“Miss Doyle!”
“I’m okay.” Miss Doyle’s attempt to stand was punished with what appeared to be a poker of red-hot pain. “I’m not okay. I’ve twisted my ankle.”
“We can come down—” began John.
“You don’t have time!” Miss Doyle rejoined, using her hands to push herself onto her knobbly knees. “Get to your sister—I’ll follow as soon as I can.”
John hesitated. What if he didn’t make it back? He had visions of lions and tigers and unspeakable things done to injured prey.
“I’m fine!” Miss Doyle yelled, reading his thoughts. “Look!” She gingerly put her weight on her feet. “Not broken, just twisted. I’ll use a stick and limp. And if you don’t get after your sister,” she said, starting to struggle up the bank, “I’ll get after the pair of you!”
On John ran, with Boz hard on his heels. In an uncertain world, you had to respect the oaths of a woman of uncommon talents.
It was funny, but as he ran, John could feel his blood shifting from his head to his heart. For months he had lived with the fear of his old world reclaiming Page. Now that the moment had arrived, he found, to his surprise, that he wasn’t afraid. He was mad.
Finally, just as John was thinking his body might burst into flecks of rubbery flesh, Boz jerked his arm.
“Over there!” he whispered. “The station is through those trees!”
John slowed to a stealthy shuffle. As he crept closer and closer, wading through a carpet of pine needles, his adrenaline began to surge. Whoever was waiting for him at the station, be it Great-Aunt Beauregard or the entire subwestern police force, he was ready.
At the edge of the pines, he paused to assess the situation. There were a couple of antiquated geezers sitting outside the front, drinking beer and playing dice on an upturned barrel. There was a freight train hissing and sighing on a sidetrack. There was a plump chestnut of a woman making her way out of the building. It all looked ridiculously normal.
“Now what?” John murmured to himself.
“One might suggest a two-pronged assault with a feint to the starboard . . .”
“Boz, let me think.”
“Mum’s the word. From henceforth, I’ll be as garrulous as a stone, as talkative as a tomb, as loquacious as a mock turtle . . .”
“Boz, shut up!”
Boz shut up.
John examined the front door once more and came to a decision.
“I’ll go ahead,” he said, “and see who’s in there. You check the freight train. If I don’t come back out, fetch Miss Doyle as quick as you can.”
Boz nodded.
“Boz, whatever you do, find Page. If something should happen to me, your job is to make sure she’s safe. Got it?”
Boz nodded. “Be of cautious action, my dear boy.”
John didn’t need to be told twice. Shadowing the shadows, he hugged the far corner of the building and peeked through a window. Nothing. No Great-Aunt Beauregard. No Page. No police. Only a trimly manufactured stationmaster, checking his watch.
Clenching his fists, John boldly walked toward the door, braced for flight if the men with the dice should happen to morph into his great-aunt’s henchmen. They ignored him.
“Afternoon, son. If you’re ’specting to meet someone, the next train to Pludgett arrives at quarter past.” The stationmaster placed his watch back in his waistcoat.
“Excuse me,” said John, taking a deep breath, “but have you seen a large lady wearing a hat with dead birds?”
The stationmaster regarded John with a stare of considerable skepticism.
“No.”
A fillip of hope propelled John into the waiting room. Could it be that Maria had written the notice after all? Could it be that Page was right?
“How about a woman named Maria Persimmons? She put up a sign that she said she would be here at three p.m.”
“Oh, that,” the stationmaster said. “Private room—over there.”
He pointed to an innocuous door under a sign that read “No Spitting or Gratuitous Swearing.”
John paused. As much as he wanted to believe in the possibility of redemption, he knew too well what lengths his great-aunt would go to. This could still be an ambush.
Clenching his fists again, John strode over to the private room, turned the knob, opened the door, and—
“If I was going to arrest you, Hornblower, I would have done it a lot sooner.”
Leslie crossed his pimpled ankles on the edge of the desk and crammed a cream puff into his mouth.
What was the Pig doing here? Keeping himself planted in the doorway, John inspected the room. There was only one other door—presumably leading to the platform—and an odor of oily dust. Bar the desk, two chairs, and Leslie’s pink and perspiring presence, it was empty.
“Where’s Maria?”
“Coming. She sent me on ahead to make sure we didn’t miss you.” Leslie licked his fingers one by one. A gobbet of cream clung to the wiry strands of his mustache.
“You hate me,” John spat out. “Why would Maria send you?”
Leslie burped.
“Paperwork. I can’t get ahold of what’s left of the property without Maria’s sign-off. And she wouldn’t sign off until I promised to help her find you.”
“So you’re the one who posted the notice?”
Leslie nodded.
“Don’t mistake me,” he said, helping himself to another cream puff. “I’d much rather have you thrown in jail, but apparently baking accidents aren’t an arrestable offense.”
John’s ribs expanded a hairbreadth.
“Where’s Page?”
“Bathroom. She said something about putting flowers in her hair before Maria arrived.” Leslie sniffed. “And cleaning her fingernails.”
John’s ribs expanded another inch. Leslie’s rudeness was reassuringly familiar.
“So when is Maria coming?”
“Next train from Littlemere. She’s taking the pair of you back today.”
John would have leaped on the desk for joy if he hadn’t been afraid of squishing the box of assorted plain and chocolate cream puffs. For a boy who had been surviving for six weeks on a diet of canned beans, they looked mighty appealing.
“Did she make those for us?”
Leslie licked his lips. “She might have.”
Quick as a skink, John darted forward, seized a chocolate-covered puff, and returned to the open door. Leslie merely snorted. Tentatively, oh so tentatively, John took one tiny bite.
It was heaven. It was pleasure and peace and memory encased in a delicate, delectable shell. John leaned against the frame and devoured the rest.
Leslie brushed his hands. “There now, that ought to do it.”
“Ought to do what?” John asked dreamily.
“Take you off to la la land,” replied the desk.
Except desks couldn’t talk, John knew that. But the world was feeling so awfully funny.
“Bring him in and shut the door,” instructed the desk.
John wanted to protest, lash out at Leslie with his newly acquired arts of self-defense, but the bones in his arms appeared to have liquefied. He could only smile sheepishly as Leslie hauled him into the room.
“He’ll be out in a couple of minutes,” said the desk. “I told you he’d go for the chocolate.”
The warning bell that John had heard near the river now struck a solemn dong.
“Great-Aunt Beauregard,” he slurred as his vision grew blurry.
A rain-slicked rock face came into view. “Thought you’d have more sense, John Peregrine Coggin. But what can you expect of the father’s son?”
John twisted his tongue—a tongue that felt like it had been packed in ice cubes—into a few precious words. “What did you do to me?”
Leslie’s laugh came from far, far away. “Not so dumb after all, eh, John? Who was it that got Maria out of the way? Who was it that thought of writing the notice? Who was it that packed the chocolate puffs with sleeping pills for little boys to eat?”
Great-Aunt Beauregard harrumphed.
“With a little direction,” Leslie added.
A cold scurry of air fanned John into temporary consciousness. The outer door must have been opened.
“Where’s Page?” A sickly odor of cologne told him that Leslie was the one dragging him toward the platform. “Boz, help me!”
“You shouldn’t put your faith in friends,” echoed his great-aunt. “They’ll always let you down.”
“But I don’t want to go back to Pludgett!” John managed to croak.
The train whistle sounded a long, snickering shrill.
“Oh, you’re not going back to Pludgett.”