“Listen,” I told Charlotte. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m grateful you rescued me from your boss. Frankly, the thought of her frowning at me makes me a little nervous. Add to that the chance that she might actually tut her disapproval—”
“Forget about Pearl. There’s something you need to know about the Boardwalk.”
I’d been trying to figure out how to disengage from the tour guide before I ended up stuck on the barge again…but I’m such a sucker for a juicy bit of gossip. “Is it a scandal? Because I love a good scandal. They’re so scandalous.”
Charlotte narrowed her eyes and sized me up. The furrow between her brows deepened. “I hope I don’t regret this.” I gave her my winningest smile, and she relented. She cocked her head toward the parking lot and said, “I’ll tell you—but not out in the open where just anyone can overhear.”
We headed off toward a hatchback parked at the far end of the lot. Pinyin Bay gets pretty hot at the height of summer, to the point where you could toast a bagel on the seat of a closed car parked in the sun. Those hot days were still a few weeks away. Even so, the single car at the edge of the lot had collapsible foil sunscreens covering the interior of every window.
“Air conditioning on the fritz?” I asked sympathetically.
“Why do you ask? Have you been spying on my car?”
“I wouldn’t have even known it was yours.” Awkward. “Say, why are you confiding in me, anyway?”
“To open your eyes.”
Clearly, this was now the point at which I should start determining my escape route. “Okey dokey, then. Eyes open. Mission accomplished.”
“Not so fast. First of all, you need to promise me you won’t tell anyone what I’m about to reveal. As far as They’re concerned, for all we know, the Wishing Bell is just a place to make a wish and spit.”
I could practically hear the capital-T in the word They. “Who are They?” I wondered aloud.
“Shh! No specifics. Not until it’s safe to talk.” Charlotte beeped open her car, rummaged a roll of aluminum foil out of the back seat, tore off a sheet, and handed it to me. Then she pulled out a baseball cap and showed me the inside was lined with foil. “Good thing you have a hat. Otherwise the foil tends to blow away.”
“You want me to—?”
“Shh!” She put her cap on, then pointed at me.
My mom always says, don’t mess with someone who’s not playing with a full deck—but Uncle Fonzo says it’s all a matter of working the game. I glanced around to make sure no one was around—luckily, we were alone—and tried my best to look like I thought it was perfectly normal to drape a sheet of foil over my head.
Charlotte reached over and mashed my straw fedora on top of it, then nodded with satisfaction. “We can’t let Them know about the foil trick. If we do, They’ll just change the frequency of their devices.”
“Um. Wow.”
“Don’t tell me you can’t hear the voices.”
“I’d hate to jump to any rash conclusions—so many tourists around. So many voices.”
“That’s true. The South Dock Boardwalk isn’t usually so busy. When it’s less crowded, the voices are way more obvious. I can’t even tell you the number of times I’ve been standing around shilling barge tickets, had someone ask me a question—and realize I was the only one there. And it stands to reason, if I can hear them, They can hear me.”
“Ri-i-ight. Good thinking.”
“But even though it’s safest to just play along and act like we don’t know about Them, I can’t in good conscience force you to parrot their lies without letting you in on the big secret.” She whipped out a tattered edition of Pinyin Bay Journal from the mounds of stuff in her back seat. “Check out this headline: Local Referendum is In! Yellow Wins - by a Landslide.”
“The Ferris wheel?”
Charlotte leveled a knowing look. “No one likes yellow that much. Obviously, this was the work of a small handful of people.”
For all that I was itching to shuck the tinfoil and run away, I had to admit—I’d been hoping to get an inside scoop on the Boardwalk. Hopefully the scoop I was about to receive wouldn’t be too nutty.
Charlotte took back the paper and carefully tucked it among all the other stuff stashed in her car. “Everyone thinks the elected officials are in charge of Pinyin Bay, but between the parking lot and the water, it’s a different story. All the decisions here are made by a secret society: the Boardwalk Board.”
“Wow. Who’s on it?”
“They wouldn’t be a secret society if they went around announcing their members. Even they don’t know who their fellow members are. Whenever there’s an issue they need to vote on, they cast anonymous ballots at the Wishing Bell. Whoever’s on it, they’re old. Really old. Because they’ve been running this Boardwalk behind the scenes for decades.”
Given the overall state of the Boardwalk, maybe some of them should consider retiring. In fact, maybe some of them already had. “You don’t think they’ll decide to sell, do you?”
“I hope not.” Charlotte glanced skyward as if she felt the free-floating microwaves pinging against the foil lining of her hat. “But from the whispers I’ve heard, it sounds like most of them are on board with selling out. All of them but one.”
“Who’s the holdout?”
“What part of ‘secret’ don’t you understand?”
Well, how about that? A secret society. Right here in Pinyin Bay!
I could hardly wait to tell Yuri.
But before I could head off to fill him in, Charlotte grabbed me by the Scribing arm and hauled me back to the barge.