CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Johnny, Sarah, and the professor sat at the concrete picnic table and wolfed down the tasty hamburgers. Sarah said they were the best burgers she had ever eaten, and the professor gave her a courtly bow of thanks. Then he brought out a surprise, one of his luscious Sacher tortes, an especially rich, gooey, and delicious chocolate cake. After one bite Sarah moaned, "I think I've died and gone to heaven!"

"My compliments on your discriminating palate," said the professor, beaming. "You are a true gourmet." A crow in a nearby tree cawed, and he grimaced. "Crows are unlovely birds. That one wants a handout, but he can forget it." They had made quite a bit of headway on the cake when Johnny looked to see what had happened on the baseball field. He almost choked.

Standing alone on the diamond was a tall, skinny, bald man dressed in black. His face was gaunt, and from beneath his heavy eyebrows his eyes glowered at them from deep, shadowy sockets.

It was Mattheus Mergal.

Johnny swallowed, reached for his paper cup, and washed the mouthful of cake down with lemonade. "Professor," he gasped. "Look over there!"

"Where?" The professor adjusted his spectacles and stared at the figure in black. "I see nothing more alarming than a gentleman with a dubious sense of style, John. What should I be looking at?"

"It's him," Johnny said. "It's Mr. Mergal, the one from the museum. He's spying on you."

"Indeed? Well, I shall give him something to think about!"

The professor rose, but Johnny was at his side in a second, tugging at his arm. "Oh, gosh, Professor, don't go. He's a terrible person!"

Sarah had heard nothing of Johnny's meeting with Mr. Mergal, and she looked from Johnny to the professor in bewilderment. "Who in heck are you two talking about?" she asked.

"Him," Johnny said, turning and pointing. He blinked, his mouth hanging open in surprise, his trembling finger pointing at an empty park.

Mergal was gone.

It's impossible, Johnny thought, staring at the now-deserted baseball diamond. Only a few beech and white ash trees stood scattered about. Mergal had nowhere to hide, and yet he had completely vanished. "Hmpf," the professor said. "Obviously the man is a coward. Let's forget him and finish our meal like civilized people."

The appearance of the black-clad stranger had cast a pall over the afternoon. The sun grew hazy and bleak. A dry wind began to rattle in the trees, though at ground level it was just a skittish breeze. Johnny felt a chill inside him, and he kept looking around nervously as the three finished their picnic and began to pack the hamper. "That's funny," he said.

"What?" Sarah asked, sounding annoyed.

"Well, there were lots of people here just a few minutes ago. The guys playing ball, and about a dozen families having picnics, and some people tossing a softball over there. They've all left."

Professor Childermass scowled. "Not so surprising. After all, it is getting on into the afternoon, and it's starting to look a little cloudy." His voice sounded uncertain. "Even holiday pleasures have to come to an end. Who wants to lug this basket back to the car?"

As Johnny turned to take the basket, he froze in sudden alarm. Off toward Emerson Street was a little grove of quaking aspens, and standing in the middle of it was the dark figure of Mergal. The man raised a thin stick, about five or six feet long. It was not perfectly straight, but looked as if it might be the sawed-off trunk of a sapling or perhaps a tree branch trimmed of all its twigs. He held this staff at one end, and for a moment it pointed straight up at the sky. Then Mergal swung the stick down in an arc and hit the ground. He immediately spun on his heel and strode away, disappearing behind the trees. Johnny squeaked out a frightened cry.

"Now what?" demanded the professor in a quarrelsome voice, looking up from the tablecloth he was folding. "Don't tell me you're seeing—good heavens, what a gust!"

A stiff east wind had sprung up, raising dust on the infield and snatching leaves from the trees. The paper plates and cups sailed off from the picnic table too quickly for any of them to do more than grab at them and miss. The professor's worn white linen tablecloth tore itself from his grasp and went dancing away, billowing as if an evil spirit had thrown it on as an early Halloween costume. Professor Childermass ran toward it, but the cloth puffed and twirled just beyond his reach. Johnny felt the hairs on his neck rising. The wind-dancing cloth was just like everyone's idea of a sheet-clad ghost, tricky and elusive and somehow threatening.

A wrack of grayish-purple clouds boiled up from the east and spread fantastically fast, obscuring the sun. "Gosh," Sarah said. "It's gonna storm, but the weatherman said—"

A bolt of lightning cut off her voice. It was dazzlingly bright, and it slammed to earth on the baseball field. Johnny gasped as a shock wave pounded the air from his lungs. An instant later a terribly loud thunderclap nearly shook them off their feet. Johnny and Sarah shrieked simultaneously. Fifty feet away the professor gave up his chase, and the tablecloth kited up over the treetops as it dashed into the troubled sky.

"Run, children!" Professor Childermass shouted. "Keep away from the trees and head for my car!" He came running back to snatch up the picnic hamper, and all of them dashed for cover as another blinding bolt struck not twenty yards away. Johnny clapped his hands over his ears and looked over his shoulder, only to see the concrete table where they had been eating split into fragments. Marble-sized pieces of concrete suddenly pelted to earth all around the fleeing trio, the fragments blackened and still smoking. They rushed up a grassy embankment to Emerson Street, and a hard rain began to lash them, a cold rain mixed with painful hail. The white pellets of ice thumped against their heads and backs and arms, stinging like small rocks.

The professor shielded his glasses with one hand. "This will never do. It's like being under fire from an army of Lilliputians!" They were still a block away from the maroon Pontiac. The rain slammed into them twice as hard as before, and hail the size of mothballs began to smack against the pavement. Professor Childermass seized the door handle of a beat-up blue Chevy sedan and wrenched the door open. "Pile in, both of you!"

Johnny and Sarah tumbled into the back seat, and Professor Childermass clambered into the front passenger seat. He slammed the door as the fierce hail clattered against the windshield and the top of the car. A vengeful wind rocked the car on its springs, as if the storm were trying to rip it apart to get at them. More sizzling bolts of lightning struck all around them, each so bright and so loud that the world suddenly turned white and the terrible, vibrating thunder exploded before the lightning had even faded.

Every time the lightning flashed, Johnny and Sarah screamed. "We're all right," Professor Childermass shouted. "We are in a vehicle insulated from the ground by four rubber tires. That makes us perfectly safe—"

Another bolt struck a maple ten yards away, blasting a cloud of wood splinters and leaves into the rain-streaked air. The professor did not scream. Instead, in a soft voice he rapidly recited the rulers of the Roman Empire and their reputed heirs from Julius Caesar to Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas. Then he muttered a brief prayer to St. Michael. He did that only when something really bothered him.

Their panting breath fogged the car windows. The upholstery was split and ratty, and the air in the car smelled unpleasantly of engine oil and rust, but the banged-up old sedan was a welcome haven. Fortunately the furious storm lasted for only ten minutes before it blew away as suddenly as it had come. Billowing black clouds smoked away to the west, trailing skirts of rain. The sun peeked out again. All around, trees dangled broken limbs and dripped onto the soggy ground. "I think it's over," Johnny ventured.

"Possibly," returned Professor Childermass. "Let's get to my car, and I'll take you both home."

As they were leaving the Chevrolet, a frowning man ran up. He was about six feet tall and muscular, with a heavy, bristly jaw, a crooked nose, and two straight, jet-black eyebrows over his glaring brown eyes. "Hey," he said in a rough, menacing tone, "what's the idea? That's my car you was in!"

Professor Childermass drew himself up to his full five feet seven. Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, his eyes glittered. He barked out his words: "My dear sir, stop apologizing! I refuse to listen to another word. Don't belittle your car—be proud of it!" Then, sounding kinder, he added, "Your somewhat worn sedan gave these defenseless children safety during the late meteorological disturbance. In fact, as automobiles go, it's even sort of a hero! So although your Chevrolet appears to be in a run-down, battered, and even disreputable condition, I must congratulate, not scold, you."

For a moment the man just looked puzzled. "Well—well, gosh, thanks!" he said at last with a shy grin.

The professor gave him a friendly handshake. "Think nothing of it. I know I won't. All right, troops!" he snapped. "Ahead, quick march!"

Johnny took a fearful look back. The park was a mess. Hail had beaten down the flower beds and had pummeled the baseball diamond to muddy mush. Lightning had splintered five or six trees, and the wind had ripped big branches off others. Leaves were scattered everywhere, on the grass, on the pavement, even plastered to all the cars parked nearby. The picnic table lay in shattered ruins. The rain-washed air had a scent of ozone, reminding Johnny of the way his electric-train set smelled when both engines were clattering around the track. "It was a magic storm," Johnny said quietly.

Sarah gave him a strange look. "Magic? Are you crazy?"

Johnny bit his lip. "I saw Mr. Mergal doing something with a—a wand, I guess it was. He summoned the storm somehow, I swear he did. And the lightning was chasing us."

"Not another word," Professor Childermass said in a warning tone. They climbed into his Pontiac, and as they rolled away from the devastated park, Johnny felt more frightened and worried than ever.